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Andal

Andal

750 CE · Śrīvilliputtūr, Tamil Nadu

c. 8th century CE (traditional; dates uncertain).

Āṇḍāḷ, also known as Kōtai, is the only woman among the twelve Āḻvārs, the Tamil poet-saints of Viṣṇu whose hymns form the Divya Prabandham, the canonical devotional corpus of Śrī Vaiṣṇavism. According to tradition she was the foster-daughter of the Āḻvār Periyāḻvār of Śrīvilliputtūr. She composed two works: the Tiruppāvai, a sequence of thirty verses recited especially during the month of Mārkaḻi, and the Nācciyār Tirumoḻi, songs expressing intense devotional love for Viṣṇu. In later Śrī Vaiṣṇava devotion she is venerated as a manifestation of the goddess and as a model of total self-surrender. Her precise dates are uncertain; the 8th century is the conventional placement, and her biography is preserved mainly through tradition.

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Śrīvilliputtūr, Tamil Nadu

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About Śrīvilliputtūr, Tamil Nadu

Śrīvilliputtūr is a temple town in the Virudhunagar district of Tamil Nadu, south India, site of the Vāṭapatraśāyi temple. It is the home of Āṇṭāḷ, the only woman among the twelve Āḷvār poet-saints, composer of the Tamil Tiruppāvai.

See other sages who lived in Śrīvilliputtūr, Tamil Nadu

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Andal’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

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