Bhūtattāzhvār is the second of the Mudal Āzhvārs — the three primordial Āzhvārs who, by divine providence, arrived at the same small shelter in Tirukovillur on the same night: Poigai Āzhvār, Bhūtattāzhvār, and Pēyāzhvār. In that divinely arranged darkness, crowded together, the three saints together experienced a blazing vision of the Lord — Poigai Āzhvār lit the world as a lamp, Bhūtattāzhvār offered love as ghee, and Pēyāzhvār held the flame of knowledge. Their three compositions — the Mudalāyiram — opened the Divya Prabandham.
Bhūtattāzhvār's contribution is the Iraṇḍām Tiruvandādi (the Second Antādi), a garland of one hundred verses in the antādi form where the last word of each verse becomes the first of the next, creating an unbroken chain of devotional thought. His pāsurams are celebrated for their intensity of longing (viraha) and the vivid imagery with which he describes the unbearable pain of separation from the Lord. His verse 'aṇiviḷakku' — 'I made anpu [love] itself the lamp, I poured the ghee of desire' — is among the most quoted lines in the Tamil Vaiṣṇava canon.
Bhūtattāzhvār is considered an amśa (manifestation) of the Pāñcajanya, Bhagavān's divine conch. Like the conch that proclaims the Lord's presence, Bhūtattāzhvār's voice rang out across the Tamil land to announce the eternal truth of Nārāyaṇa's supremacy and the path of wholehearted surrender.