Pēy Āzhvār, the third of the three Mudal Āzhvārs, is said to have emerged from a red lily in the sacred tank at the Ādi Keśava kṣetra in Mylapore (present-day Chennai) in the Tamil month of Aippasi, under the star Sadayam. Like his two companions, he had no human father or mother — he appeared through Bhagavān's divine will.
His work is the Mūṉṟām Tiruvandādi of 100 pāsurams. Its opening vision is characterized by the joy of directly beholding Śrīman Nārāyaṇa with Pirāṭṭi, and the prabandham pours forth from that divine experience.
At Tirukkōvilūr, the three Āzhvārs were pressed together in the narrow idai-kazhi. Poigai Āzhvār composed vaiyam tagaḷiyā, making the world a lamp; Bhūtat Āzhvār composed anbē tagaḷiyā, making love the lamp. Through the knowledge and devotion expressed by those two lamp-verses, Pēy Āzhvār was blessed with the nectarean vision of Bhagavān with Pirāṭṭi and began tirukkaṇḍēn poṉ mēni kaṇḍēn — 'I beheld Śrī; I beheld His golden form.' He did not compose a third lamp because two lamps had failed to remove physical darkness; his pāsuram expresses the resulting sākṣātkāra.