Comprising 1102 verses, it was composed in the ninth century CE by the Hindu poet-saint Nammalvar, who is regarded as the foremost of the Alvar saints of South India.

Nammalvar is said to have stated that these "thousand songs are to be spread abroad by people of the Tamil land, musicians and devotees".

Sanskrit myths are known to Nammalvar, and he alludes to them frequently, but it is Vishnu who is cast in the role of a king and a lover, reminiscent of the heroes of the war and love poems of the ancient Tamil.

According to Sri Vaishnava tradition, the message of both these Vedas were considered to be the same, and later theologians went to elaborate lengths to show how their ideas parallel each other.

[6] A hymn from the Tiruvaymoli imagines the author pining for Krishna, referred to as Kannan:[7] Dark as the blue seas, Kannan,the black diamond of the heavenly hosts,He is my dear life,the Light that sleeps on the many-hooded serpent—to destroy the army of the Hundred who came to kill,once upon a time he sided with the Five,and in that terrible war that dayhe drove a chariot—when will these eyes glimpsethe sounding anklets on his feet, Oh when?