Andal or Goda was a 9th-century Tamil poet and mystic, today worshipped as a goddess across southern India. Her vibrant, sensuous poetry, the Tiruppavai and Nacciyar Tirumoli, sings of her love for Vishnu. Her birthplace is Srivilliputtur, a small town 75 kilometers south of Madurai. Her temple in Srivilliputtur shares space with the Vishnu temple complex, one of the most important of the Tamil Vaishnava temple sites. These two temples share much in common both architecturally and ritually with two major Madurai temples: the Shaiva Minakshi-Sundareshvara temple and the Vaishnava Kudal Alakar temple. Relating the temples in Srivilliputtur to those in Madurai develops an understanding of the nature of temple ritual, myth and patronage under the Pandyans and the later Nayakas.
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