Nacciyar Tirumoli

One of two collections of poetry composed by the poet-saint Andal (9th c.),
the other being the Tirruppavai. Andal
was the only woman among the Alvars,
a group of twelve poet-saints who lived
in southern India between the seventh
and tenth centuries. All the Alvars were
devotees (bhakta) of the god Vishnu.
Their emphasis on passionate devotion
(bhakti) to a personal god, conveyed
through hymns sung in the Tamil language, transformed and revitalized
Hindu religious life. Andal’s chosen
deity was Ranganatha, the form of
Vishnu presiding at the temple of
Shrirangam. Yet both collections of her
poetry are dedicated to Krishna, a different form of Vishnu. This seeming
divergence may reflect her conviction
that all manifestations of Vishnu are
ultimately the same or indicate the difference between personal devotion and
literary expression.
The thirty poems in the Nacciyar
Tirumoli are told by a group of unmarried girls, who have taken a vow to bathe
in the river at dawn during the coldest
month of the year. This vow has a long
history in southern India, where young
girls would take the oath to gain a good
husband and a happy married life. In the
poem, the girls have taken the vow to
gain Krishna as their husband. The
poems in the cycle describe various features of the natural world at dawn, the
girls’ hopes in performing the vow, and
their return to Krishna’s house to awaken
him and beg for his grace. The final
poem in the series describes the benefits
gained by one who chants the text.