At the outset, I have absolutely no personal interest in this so called 'controversy'....I don't give a rat's ass. But from a purely academic point of view, this age-related rationale is a very interesting argument. Expanding it, since kRshNa was only 11 when he left vRndAvan for mathurA, and all of the rAs-related antics with the gOpis occurred in vRndAvan before he would have entered puberty, were they because he had some "professional grounding" in the erotic arts as well (a gigolo, perhaps)???Ranganayaki wrote: ↑17 Jan 2018, 00:08 I don't know this Gnani either, have never heard of him. He mentions the eroticism of the Naachiyar Tirumozhi and says that since Andal is supposed to have only lived to the age of 14 or so, he cannot imagine that a child of such a tender age could possibly have written such erotica. So he says that either she was, as Rajaji says, a character created by Periazhvar and the works attributed to Andal were actually the works of Periazhvar, or Andal was probably older, about 20-25 years old. That is all he says about it.
He does not say that she must have been a devadasi for that age-related reason.
PS: A lot of the controversies being debated currently bring to mind jobless barbers and poor cats....