Akka Mahadevi

Works

• c. 1150Vachanas

  Some 400 free-verse sayings addressed to Shiva, the “lord white as jasmine”: a devotion that leaves clothes, husband and caste behind.

Position

Her vachanas – some 430 short compositions in Kannada prose-poetry – address Shiva as Chennamallikarjuna, “lord white as jasmine”. They speak from the position of a woman who refuses every worldly tie: husband, family, shame, ornament and caste are discarded for a love that treats God as the only true husband. Philosophically they belong to the Virashaiva rejection of ritual, temple worship, caste hierarchy and the subordination of women; the body itself, she says, is the temple. The divine is found in direct experience, not in Vedic learning. She is honoured in Kannada tradition as “Akka”, elder sister, and remains one of the most read women poets of medieval India.

Life & context

Akka Mahadevi lived in the 12th century in what is now Karnataka in southern India, a member of the Virashaiva (Lingayat) movement around Basava. The traditions about her say she was married to a local ruler, left him, wandered clothed only in her hair and joined the assembly of saints at Kalyana before going to the hill of Srisailam, where she died young. Her dates are only approximately known.