The Work of Periyāzhvār
Periyāzhvār ("the great Āzhvār" — also called Viṣṇucitta), the ninth of the twelve Āzhvārs, was a Brahmin devotee of Śrīvilliputtūr who served the Lord there as a temple gardener. His work, the Periyāzhvār Tirumozhi, contains 473 verses in five sections.
Tiruppallāṇḍu
Tiruppallāṇḍu ("auspicious many years") is a separate twelve-pāsuram prabandham of Periyāzhvār, placed before Periyāzhvār Tirumozhi and opening the received Nālāyira Divya Prabandham:
«pallāṇḍu pallāṇḍu pallāyiratāṇḍu / pala koṭi nūṟāyiram / mallāṇḍa tiṇ toḷ maṇivaNṇa! un / śevvaḍi śevvi tirukkāppu»
"Many years! Many years! Many hundreds of thousands of years! / Many billions of years! O jewel-hued lord of mighty wrestler-shoulders! / May your red feet be protected many auspicious years!"
This prayer FOR the Lord's protection — a parent blessing a child, a devotee wishing the eternal Lord many years — is the quintessential maṅgalāśāsanam.
The Kṛṣṇa Bhakti
The bulk of the Periyāzhvār Tirumozhi celebrates Kṛṣṇa's childhood (bālakṛṣṇa) — Yaśodā's love, the butter-stealing, the divine child's every endearing act. Periyāzhvār adopts the vātsalya bhāva (parental love) — singing as Yaśodā-mother who wants to protect the Lord-child from harm and the evil eye.
His daughter Āṇḍāḷ imbibed this devotion and composed the Tiruppāvai and Nācciyār Tirumozhi inspired by his example.