Muddupalani was the granddaughter of an exceptionally gifted courtesan called Tanjanayaki, who was not only a talented musician but was also adept at the nava rasas. At her soirees, where music and conversation flowed, she entertained learned scholars and aristocrats. But ... she longed to have children. She adopted a boy and a girl, children of Ayyavaya, a man she considered her brother. She raised the young boy, whom she named Muthyalu, to adulthood, and got him married to another talented and beautiful courtesan called Rama Vadhuti. A staunch devotee of Lord Subramanya Swami, Muthyalu named his first-born daughter after the temple town of Palani where stands a famour temple dedicated to the beautiful warrior son of Lord Shiva. Keeping the surname Muddu before the name, a general practise in the south, Muddupalani was thus born into an extremely talented, artistic and devout household.〔Muddupalani. (2011). ''Radhika Santwanam—The Appeasement of Radhika''. Trans. Sandhya Mulchandani. New Delhi: Penguin, pp. xi-xii.〕

Unlike a family woman in her time, as a courtesan Muddupalani would have had access to learning and the leisure to write and practise the arts. She would have owned property and expected and enjoyed functional equality with men. Obviously, the esteem in which Muddupalani was held and the acclaim her work received can be attributed as much to the contexts, literary and social, she drew upon as to her own talent.〔''Women Writing in India: 600 B. C. to the Present'', ed. by Susie Tharu and K. Lalita, 2 vols (London: Pandora, 1991), I 6.〕

apparently, her grandmother Tanjanayaki too had been a consort of the king, displaced by Muddupalani. After a few years, when the king renewed his attentions towards the older woman, the young and petulant Muddupalani is said to have become progressively jealous and taciturn, leaving the kind no option but to appease her.〔Muddupalani. (2011). ''Radhika Santwanam—The Appeasement of Radhika''. Trans. Sandhya Mulchandani. New Delhi: Penguin, pp. xii-xiii.〕