Tirumālai Āṇḍān — Āḷavandār's Disciple and Rāmānuja's Teacher
Tirumālai Āṇḍān, also remembered as Mālādharar and Śrī Guṇapūrṇar, was a principal disciple of Āḷavandār, not a disciple of Rāmānuja. He belongs to the senior generation of Āchāryas through whom Āḷavandār's teaching reached Rāmānuja.
At the direction of Tirukkōṣṭiyūr Nambi, Rāmānuja studied Nammāzhvār's Tiruvāimoḻi and its inner meanings under Tirumālai Āṇḍān. Rāmānuja is therefore described as his grantha-kālakṣepa śiṣya. Guru-paramparā accounts preserve discussions in which Rāmānuja offered meanings that Tirumālai Āṇḍān recognized, after clarification by Tirukkōṣṭiyūr Nambi, as consonant with Āḷavandār's heart.
Tirumālai Āṇḍān is thus revered as one of Rāmānuja's Āchāryas and as an important transmitter of the Tiruvāimoḻi tradition. Calling him a member of Rāmānuja's circle of direct disciples reverses this historical and paramparā relationship.