A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c20.16

c20.16

The only woman among them, Āṇḍaḷ or Kōdai (Skt. Godā), was the real or adopted daughter of Periyāḷvār. In her intense devotion to Vishnu she dreamt of her marriage with that god, and described her experience in her hymns. This mystical union was the only one she knew, and in many ways the ardour of her devotion resembles that of Māṇikka-vāśagar, and her hymns are replete with allusions to Krishna stories. To about the same period belonged Tiruppāṇ, a minstrel of low caste, who was not permitted to enter the temple of Śrīrangam and was thus the Vaishnava counterpart of Nandan; and Toṇḍar-aḍip-poḍi (‘The dust of the feet of the devotees’), a Brahmin from Tanjore district whose real name was Vipranārāyaṇa and whose intolerance of Buddhism and Jainism was nearly as great as that of Tirumaṅgai.