Andal (Kodhai Nachiyar)

Andal is the only woman among the twelve Alvars. The guru-parampara tells that Vishnuchitta, the temple gardener of Srivilliputhur whom we know as Periyalvar, found a baby girl under the tulasi plants and raised her as his daughter. He named her Kodhai.

Kodhai grew up on her father's stories of Krishna and resolved to marry no one but the Lord. Each day her father strung a garland for the deity, and each day, before it went to the temple, she put it on and looked at herself in a well. One day he found a hair in it, scolded her and made a fresh one. That night the Lord came to him in a dream and said he wanted only the garland she had worn. So she is called Chudikkodutta Nachiyar, the lady who gave the garland she had worn, and to this day the garland Andal has worn at Srivilliputhur is taken to Tirumala for the Lord's Garuda Seva in the Brahmotsavam.

She sang two works. In the thirty pasurams of the Tiruppavai the girls of Ayarpadi rise before dawn in Margazhi, wake one another and go to Krishna's door to ask for the parai drum, and in the end for nothing but to serve him in every birth. The Nachiyar Tirumozhi, 143 verses, is her longing and her dream of the wedding. The tradition says the Lord of Srirangam called for her, and she entered the sanctum as a bride and merged into him. In every Sri Vaishnava home and temple, Margazhi mornings begin with the Tiruppavai.