శ్రీ తిరుప్పావై (30 Pasurams of Andal)

Andal's thirty songs for the month of Margazhi, in Tamil and set out here in Devanagari, prefaced by Parashara Bhattar's Sanskrit verse on her and by a taniyan that names her as the one who wore the flower garland first and gave it after. The frame is a vow taken by the cowherd girls of Ayarpadi: rise before dawn through the whole month, bathe, and go together to wake the son of Nandagopa and ask him for the parai drum. The second song sets the rules — no ghee, no milk, no kohl, no flowers in the hair, no ill speech, and alms given as far as the hand can reach. A long central run wakes the other girls one by one, then the gatekeeper, then the household, then Krishna. The twenty-ninth gives up the drum and asks for what it wanted all along: for seven times seven births let us be yours and serve you alone, and take our other desires away.