Andal (ISO 15919: Āṇḍāḷ), also known as Kodhai, Nachiyar, and Godha Devi, is the only female Alvar among the twelve Hindu Vaishnava poet-saints of South India.

[2] Active in the 8th-century CE,[3][4][5][note 1] Andal is credited with two great Tamil works, Tiruppavai and Nachiyar Tirumoli, which are still recited by devotees during the winter festival season of Margali.

The girl Kothai was thus named Andal and was referred to as "Chudikodutha Sudarkodi", meaning the lady who wore and gave her garland to Vishnu.

As time passed, her resolve strengthened and she thought constantly about marrying Ranganatha (the reclining form of Vishnu on Shesha) of Srirangam in Tiruchirapalli.

Andal is credited with two great Tamil works, Tiruppavai and Nachiyar Tirumoli, which are still recited by devotees during the winter festival season of Margali.

In the Tiruppavai, Andal, as a Gopi in Ayarpadi (Vrindavana),[9] emphasizes that the ultimate goal of life is to seek surrender and refuge at Vishnu's feet.

Her first work is the Tiruppavai, a collection of 30 verses in which Andal imagines herself to be a gopi, one of the cowherd girls known for their unconditional devotion to Vishnu's incarnation as Krishna.

You all know Vishnu's incarnation as Krishna, who was born in Mathura and who plays in the large waters of the river Yamuna, who shines like a pure lamp among the cowherd folk, the Damodara who brought name and fame to His foster-mother Yashoda!

Utilising classical Tamil poetic conventions and interspersing stories from the Vedas and Puranas, Andal creates imagery that is possibly unparalleled in the whole gamut of Indian religious literature.

[23] Pious tradition holds her to be the incarnation of Bhumi Devi (Lakshmi as Mother Earth) to show humanity the way to Vishnu's lotus feet.

Adopted by her caretaker, Periyalvar, Andal avoided earthly marriage, the normal and expected path for women of her culture, to marry Vishnu, both spiritually and physically.

After early morning special pujas, the presiding deities, Sri Rengamannar and Goddess Andal are taken in decorated palanquins to the car.

The festival marks the adoption of presiding deity, Andal, by Periyalvar after he found her near a Tulsi plant in the garden of Rangamannar Temple at Srivilliputhur on the eighth day of the Tamil month of Aadi.

[30] In poetry, 8th-century Andal became a well-known Bhakti movement poet, states Pintchman, and historical records suggest that by 12th century CE she was a major inspiration to Hindu women in south India and elsewhere.

[35] Feminist interpretations look at some of Andal's verses as her open acknowledgement of her love for Vishnu, written with bold sensuality and startlingly savage longing, hunger, inquiry as widely found in Tamil Sangam literature that express women's longings and their separation from their men which ends in their union; even today, her most desirous poems are rarely rendered publicly.

[36] In one such verse Andal dispenses with metaphor and imagines herself lying in the arms of Vishnu, making love to him:[37] My life will be spared, Only if he will come, To stay for me for one night, If he will enter me, So as to leave, The imprint of his saffron paste, Upon my breasts, Mixing, churning, maddening me inside, Gathering my swollen ripeness, Spilling nectar, As my body and blood, Bursts into flower!

[39] Virginity is viewed as giving women the option to avoid childbearing, male domination and live a new life of devotion to deities.

Further, the poem describes Andal's glory in 30 verses written in the keśādi-pādam style, starting from her hair, going down her body till her feet.