Akka mahadevi caves: Lingayat memory & poetic space

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to map the tourist-pilgrim's journey and experience of the Akka Mahadevi caves in a manner where the material experience of the entire yatra (journey) subtly combines with the travel-narratives and spiritual persona of the 12th century Lingayat Virashaiva woman-saint-poet, in such a way as to create a complete and deeply enriching experience for the 21st century traveller. The journey to Akka Mahadevi Caves on the banks of River Krishna takes less than five hours of road-travel from Hyderabad, and the highway weaves through miles of farmland and forest area. Akka Mahadevi it is said was initiated to Shiva bhakti by a travelling sadhu when she was merely ten years of age; following a life ridden with challenges she fled from her marital home and was accepted into the Lingayat fold headed by Allama Prabhu and Bassavana. In the last phase of her ascetic life she left Kalyana city and moved to a forest where she devoted herself solely to the worship of Lord Shiva (Cenna Mallikarjuna) in a cave in the Srisailam-Nallamal forest on the banks of River Krishna across the temple town of Srisailam, Kurnool district. The essay weaves with actual travel, Akka's poetry (her vacanas) and lifeline and concludes with an analysis of the complex, radical challenges that fashioned the life and struggles of women ascetics like Mahadevi in an era that was primal and patriarchal. A reflection of the same is apparent in the semiotics of Mahadevi Akka's poetry. Such active-travel that fuses present with past, has the potential to yoke the travelling subject to a higher collective experience and memory.