Fluid Corpus, Multiple Subjectivities: The Vacanas of Akka Mahadevi

Akka Mahadevi, a women saint and a major figure among the cadre of vachana-composers of the twelfth-century, has received much attention for her bold lyrical poems, which express intense devotion to and personal love for Shiva. This paper seeks to complicate the popularly-held representation of Mahadevi as a woman in love with the god by paying attention to poems that remain outside the general public’s focus and scholarly considerations. These “neglected” poems feature textual and literary elements that are not usually associated with Mahadevi. They include quotations of Sanskrit scripture and exhibit a catechistic worldview; their authorial voice is concerned with prescribed religious life. In the presentation, I shall contrast between the multiple subjectivities in Mahadevi’s poetry, suggest ways of understanding these contrasts by considering the historical contexts in which they were generated, and ask how we could accommodate multiple subjectivities of a “branded” woman saint.