Kannagi – the heroine and central character of the epic; she is the simple, quiet, patient and faithful housewife fully dedicated to her unfaithful husband in book 1; who transforms into a passionate, heroic, rage-driven revenge seeker of injustice in book 2; then becomes a goddess that inspires Chera people to build her temple, invade, fight wars to get a stone from the Himalaya, make a statue of Kannaki and begin the worship of goddess Pattini.[43] Lines 1.27–29 of the epic introduces her with allusions to the Vedic mythology of Samudra Manthan, as, "She is Lakshmi herself, goddess of peerless beauty that rose from the lotus, and chaste as the immaculate Arundhati".[44] Kovalan - husband of Kannaki, son of a wealthy charitable kind merchant in the seaport capital city of early Chola kingdom at Poomphuhar; Kovalan inherits his wealth, is handsome, and the women of the city want him. The epic introduces him in lines 1.38–41 with "Seasoned by music, with faces luminous as the moon, women confided among themselves: "He [Kovalan] is the god of love himself, the incomparable Murukan". His parents and Kannaki's parents meet and arrange their marriage, and the two are married in Canto 1 of the epic around the ceremonial fire with a priest completing the holy wedding rites.[45] For a few years, Kannaki and he live a blissful householder's life together.