Sundaravalli Ammal was a simple homemaker who was not formally trained in music or literature. Because of divine blessings, she composed songs on the deities she visited and wrote them in a notebook. Sundaravalli was born in 1906 in Kuzhumani village in Tiruchirapalli district. After her marriage to school teacher K. Rajam Iyengar, at the age of fourteen, the couple lived in many places like Srivilliputtur, Vellore, Srirangam, Nellore, Madurai and Coimbatore. Besides her household chores and managing her family of six children, she found time and inspiration to pen her outpourings which came to her spontaneously only because of her divinity and simplicity. She breathed her last in 1980. Her grandchildren later located her notebook of songs and decided to publish and popularise them.