The Tirumalai is the longer of Toṇṭaraṭippoṭiyāḻvār's two works — the other being the ten-verse Tiruppalliyeḷucci. Where that poem wakes the Lord at dawn with sensory delight, this poem descends into the poet's own interior: forty-five pāsurams of critique, confession, and finally total surrender before Raṅganātha of Śrīraṅgam.

It opens with an attack on learned scholars who perform without devotion, and it ends with the dust of the devotees' feet. In between, the poet strips himself bare: my mind is like a dog; I walked wrong paths; I have committed sins without number; searching for one good quality in myself, I find none. This is the most unflinching self-examination in the Divya Prabandham.

Yet woven through the self-abasement is a recurring image of inexhaustible grace: the sand-well that oozes more the more you touch it. The Lord of Araṅkam is this well — the more you approach him in your need, the more he gives.