Tamil meaning of "kOdai"

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I was browsing the archives and came upon an

article written last year by Sri T.S. Sundararajan:

 

'kOdai' and 'gOdA'

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'kOdai' was the first name periyAzhvAr gave to ANDAL.

This Tamil word stands for 'a string of flowers'. In

the golden quadrangle of tirukkuRunkuDi, vAnamAmalai,

AzhvAr-tirunagari and SrIvilliputtUr, girl-children

were commonly named 'mAlA-nAcchiyAr'. When the Tamil

name was Sanskritised as 'gOdA', it yielded a rainbow

of meanings. In Sanskrit, the root 'gAuh' means,

inter alia, the 'vEdam'; hence, 'gOdA' signifies one

who gives of the 'vEdam'.

 

The full text of the article is:

 

http://thondar.busi.utc.edu/bhakti/archives/aug97/0002.html

 

aDiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan

Mani