01The gift of the nellikkani
Some fifty-nine poems in the Sangam anthologies bear the name Avvaiyar. Several are about Adhiyaman Neduman Anji, chieftain of Thagadur, near present-day Dharmapuri. He found on a hill a rare nellikkani, an amla said to give long life, and instead of eating it himself gave it to Avvaiyar, so that her poetry would live on. Her poem of thanks (Purananuru 91) prays that he may live as long as Shiva, the blue-throated one. She went as his envoy to the court of Thondaiman to turn him from war.
02‘Aram seyya virumbu’
The Aathichoodi is a line of advice for each letter of the Tamil alphabet, in alphabetical order, each line only two or three words. It begins ‘aram seyya virumbu’, desire to do dharma, and goes on: anger is to be left, do not stop giving, speak no ill. With the Kondrai Vendhan, Moothurai and Nalvazhi, it has been the first schoolbook of Tamil homes for centuries. Tamil devotion holds that this Avvaiyar was a lifelong devotee of Shri Vinayaka and Bhagwan Murugan; her Vinayagar Agaval is still recited, and the katha of Murugan, disguised as a cowherd boy, asking her whether she wants a hot fruit or a cool one is told to every child.