Karaikkal Ammaiyar (Kāraikkāl Ammaiyār, ca. 550 CE) is a Tamil South Indian devotional poet whose works express her love for and commitment to the Hindu god Śiva (Shiva). By the twelfth century, she was considered to be among a group of 63 people who were designated leaders, commonly referred to as saints today, of the Tamil language devotional path to Śiva, or Tamil Śiva- bhakti. Most of the people in this grouping are not authors, and of the three female saints, she alone is an author. By tradition, four poetic works are attributed to her, and they are included in the Tamil Śiva- bhakti canon compiled in the twelfth century. The twelfth and final volume of that canon preserves authoritative biographical stories of all of the saints, composed by a male court minister. That the canon preserves both the poetry and the biography enables the opportunity to compare what is said by her and what is said about her. Intriguingly, the biographical story of Karaikkal Ammaiyar is much more widely known today than her poetry, yet while it resonates with elements from her poetry, it expresses very different concerns.