Akka Mahadevi
Twelfth-century Kannada poet-saint of the Lingayat (Veerashaiva) tradition, one of the most radical female voices in medieval Indian devotional literature. Born in Karnataka around 1130, she was, by tradition, married against her will to a king but renounced her marriage and her clothing alike, walking through the world covered only by her hair, addressing all her vachanas (free-verse devotional poems) to her chosen lord, the formless Shiva called Chenna Mallikarjuna ("the beautiful jasmine-white lord"). Her work — direct, unornamented, defiant — has become a touchstone for both modern Kannada literature and contemporary feminist spiritual writing.
105
quotes in library
Quotes by Akka Mahadevi
105 quotes“My Lord is closer to me than the breath in my body.”
intimacyVachanas
“Whoever loves the form-bound has chosen the perishing. Whoever loves the formless has chosen the eternal.”
formlessVachanas
“Lord, white as jasmine, I do not know any other.”
exclusivityVachanas
“In the courtyard of my body, the Lord dances.”
danceVachanas
“What does it mean to be naked? It means to be without the lie of clothing.”
nakednessVachanas
“My hair is my robe. The wind is my perfume. The Lord is my husband.”
freedomVachanas
“In the cremation ground, I do not weep. The body burns. The Lord remains.”
deathVachanas
“To the lovers of the Lord, every dust is sacred dust.”
sacredVachanas
“Whoever asks me where I am going, I say: to the Lord. Where else is there?”
destinationVachanas
“I cannot be tamed. I cannot be married. I cannot be owned. I am the Lord's.”
freedomVachanas
“In the night of separation, my tears are the only river.”
longingVachanas
“Sister, do not pity me for my poverty. I have the Lord. What more is wealth?”
wealthVachanas
“The breath of the Lord moves my body. Without him, I am a corpse.”
breathVachanas
“What I see in the world, I see through the eye of the Lord.”
visionVachanas
“Why do you not believe me when I say I have a husband? My husband is older than the world.”
husbandVachanas
“Lord, take everything. Leave me only your name.”
essentialVachanas
“In the long marriage of love, the lover and the Beloved become one body.”
marriageVachanas
“My garland is woven of my beloved's name.”
garlandVachanas
“Like a silkworm weaving her house with love from her marrow, and dying in her body's threads winding tight, round and round, I burn desiring what the heart desires.”
desireSpeaking of Siva
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