Andal

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.