Āṇṭāḷ in Three Ideas
the essentialsThe garland
She secretly wore the garland woven for Viṣṇu — and the god preferred it so.
Tiruppāvai
Thirty verses in which a girl wakes her friends in the month of Mārkaḻi to go and worship Kṛṣṇa.
Bride of God
The Nācciyār Tirumoḻi — erotic, defiant poems of a woman who will marry only God.
Āṇṭāḷ (“she who rules”), also called Godā, was a Tamil poet-saint of probably the ninth century, the only woman among the twelve Āḻvārs whose hymns to Viṣṇu form the foundation of South Indian Vaiṣṇavism (see The Bhakti Movement and Viśiṣṭādvaita). Her two works — the Tiruppāvai (thirty verses) and the Nācciyār Tirumoḻi (143 verses) — are among the most beloved poems in Tamil.
Tradition says she was found as a baby under a tulasī plant in the temple garden of Śrīvilliputtūr by the Āḻvār Periyāḻvār (Viṣṇucitta), who raised her. Every day he wove a garland for the temple’s image of Viṣṇu; and every day, secretly, the girl put it on herself and looked in a mirror to see whether she was worthy to be God’s bride. When her father discovered this, he was horrified and made a new garland — but that night Viṣṇu appeared to him in a dream and said that he preferred the garland Godā had worn. She refused to marry any mortal, insisting that she would marry only Raṅganātha, the form of Viṣṇu at Śrīraṅgam. Legend says that when she was brought in bridal finery to the temple at Śrīraṅgam, she merged into the image of the god.
The Tiruppāvai takes the form of a ritual: during the month of Mārkaḻi, a girl goes from house to house before dawn, waking her friends to bathe in the river and go to the house of Kṛṣṇa to ask for his grace. The Nācciyār Tirumoḻi is more personal and erotic: Āṇṭāḷ dreams of her wedding to Viṣṇu, begs the god of love to make her worthy, sends the clouds and the cuckoo as messengers, and pines in separation. These poems, among the boldest religious love poetry by any woman, are still recited daily in South Indian temples.
Curiosities
did you know?- Her Tiruppāvai is sung at dawn in Vaiṣṇava temples and homes throughout Tamil Nadu during the month of Mārkaḻi (December–January) — and in Thailand at the royal Triyampavai ceremony.
- The tower of the Śrīvilliputtūr temple appears on the emblem of the Government of Tamil Nadu.
Questions to Argue About
debate club →- What does it mean to love God as a lover?
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