Andal’s Nachiyar Tirumozhi is an intense poem of 143 verses soaked in love and devotion to the Lord. Nammazhwar and Tirumangai Azhwar adopt the stance of a maiden madly in love with the Archa form of the Lord in their hymns to express the ‘viraha tapa’ or mood of separation from the Lord. But Andal’s frank expression of her yearning for union with the Lord springs from her natural status as His consort, and this lends a matchless quality of freshness to her love poetry, pointed out Tiruvahindrapuram Sri Kannanswami in a discourse.
Such is her agony of separation from the Lord that her poetic fancy makes her feel jealous of the Lord’s conch that is always close to Him. What greater fortune than to have easy access to His ear by virtue of having a permanent seat in His left palm? What unique luck to savour the nectar of the very Lord’s lips?
She wonders if the conch would be able to tell her whether the unique fragrance of camphor could compare with that of His mouth and lips; or whether it would be closer to the fragrance of the lotus.
Periazhwar is concerned that Andal is determined to wed the Lord. It is then that the Lord appears in his dream and says He will accept her in the temple at Srirangam. The preparations for her wedding are made and the father brings his bedecked daughter as a bride. It is held that Andal becomes one with the Lord in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple even as her father and others witness this unique event. While her wishful longing to wed the Lord thus becomes a symbolic union, Nachiyar Tirumozhi, which contains Andal’s vision of her formal wedding ceremonies that never took place, is a permanent gift to posterity.
