Book conversations: Sky-clad (including interview with author, Mukunda Rao)

Mukunda Rao, author of Between the Serpent and the Rope, presents the extraordinary life-story and message of one of India's most charismatic female saint-poets, Akka Mahadevi.  

Apart from Akka, Sky-clad provides the accounts of illustrious female saint-poets of India: Meera, Andal, Lalleshwari, etc.  It also provides a historical glimpse of the foundation of Virashaivism by Basaveshwara and the movement's probable guiding force, Allama Prabhu.

This unique form of bhakti movement incorporated the worship of Shiva in an impersonal and/or Linga form, whilst striving against varna/jati restrictions.  While Basavanna's personal god was Kudala Sangamadeva, Allama Prabhu's was Guheshwara, and Akka's Chennamallikarjuna - all different manifestations of Lord Shiva.  The ultimate goal of these and other sharanas was the same: aikya, anubhaava, sunyata, moksa, nirvana, enlightenment or the natural state.  

Rao writes about Akka's early life, her struggle with the unnecessary marital bond that she is forced to accept due to the machinations of a smitten Jain king, Akka's flight from the bondage when her husband is unable to observe her conditions of marriage, her trial at Kalyana by Allama, her spiritual quest, and her attainment of aikya at the Srishaila caves.  Sky-clad ends with a collection of Akka's vachanas.

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A major part of the book is dedicated to the agony of separation and yearning for ultimate dissolution with the god-principle that is inherent in bhakti philosophy.  Even though Akka's nakedness when she exits the marital bond and wanders in search of her istadevata is looked down upon by some of her contemporaneous saint-poets, we find through Rao's writing, that the transcendence of gender limitations and social strictures is a common theme in the writings of even male saint-poets of the time, including Basavanna.

Sex, gender and sexuality are assumed to be fixed.  This notion of fixity may pertain to the physical sex, but gender roles and sexual orientation are very fluid and characterized by wide variations in their expression.

Other writers (referenced below) have pointed out that regardless of the physical sex of the vachanakara, in madhurya bhava form of bhakti, the androgynous nature of these saint-poets is evident in their vachanas.  Consider these examples from  male vachanakaras (ibid.):

When I saw him,

I forgot the eight directions, O mother,

O mother, mother

When I got him to speak to me

My entire body broke into sweat

What next O mother?

Today when Mahalinga Gajeshwara

Is embracing 

I have forgotten

To embrace him...

What next, O mother?

And:

In my great rapture

Of making love with my darling

I can't tell myself from the world.

While making love with my darling

I can't tell myself from my darling

After making love with Urilingadeva

The god of the burning member

I can't tell whether it is me, him

Or something else.

Further, this fusion, confusion and inversion of gender roles is also dramatized in Jayadeva's Gitagovinda in which Radha is shown dominating Krishna (ibid.):

Driven by love's fever

Radha rode her lover

Trying to dominate him...

This theme is also reflected in female vachanakaras' works: Remavve, the spinner saint-poet is quoted as saying, 'Other husbands are above; Mine, below.'  And Akka herself wrote (ibid.):

I will capture 

The Foe of Kama

O Basava

Thanks to your grace

I will capture 

The Moon-wearer

O Basava

Thanks to your grace

I will create obstacles

For the extremely licentious lord

Channamallikarjuna

And mate with him

As if we are not two.

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I asked the author about these and other topics of interest covered in Sky-clad.  Here are excerpts from the email interview with Mukunda Rao:

1. To begin with, I was a bit unsure of some of the dates mentioned in the book.  Firstly, in the introductory pages, the date of Bhagavad Gita is given as 100 CE.  Is this the date the Gita was first documented?  Because the date of the Mahabharata war has been variously given as 950-3102 BC, and if the Gita is part of Mahabharata, it would be much older than mentioned.  Secondly, in page 35, the Aihole temple is credited as the first Jain temple, pre-dating Hindu temples.  I am assuming this is only in Karnataka?  Because elsewhere in India there have been much older temples dedicated to Hindu deities.  Even within the Aihole temple complex, which has Hindu, Buddhist and Jain temples, the date of the Jain Meguti temple is given as 634 CE, whereas the Ravanaphadi cave temple dedicated to Lord Shiva is said to be constructed in 55o CE.

MR: Dates or 'origins' are always controversial.  However, the truth of the matter doesn't necessarily get enhanced because it's older.  I am not a scholar, nevertheless I do necessary research and try to be careful in what I say.  The Mahabharata was in oral form for centuries before it was written down.  The time frame traditionalists offer is suspect; Mahabharata, I think happened after the Buddha period, also its composition.  Statues, figures and paintings of the Buddha and Mahavira seemed to have appeared centuries before the Hindu temple culture grew and spread widely.  Perhaps 'Linga' was much older, not Lord Shiva with a crescent moon in his hair.  Anyway, I don't want to hold on to these dates; tomorrow there may be new findings and we stand open to corrections.

2. Regarding Meera's bhakti there is mention of viraha - the pangs of separation, which is expressed in her numerous songs.  You have written that in this type of bhakti, the bridge of separation between the devotee and deity is never crossed.  However, according to the recorded biography of Meera, she is said to have merged into the image of Lord Krishna in the temple at Dwaraka.  Meera's sari is said to have appeared on the Lord's idol, indicating the final union.  Can this then be taken as proof of the ultimate dissolution?

MR: It is said even Andal merged with the deity.  This only indicates the intensity of their bhakti.  Bhakti is relational, thought it has within it the great urge to transcend the duality.  Only a few lucky ones cross the bridge.  This is not to privilege some bhaktas over others, but only to point out the nature of bhakti and its spiritual consequences.  I have tried to follow more their poems rather than legends.

3. In the sections on bhakti, and body and gender, you mention about gender issues and feminine beauty as impediments to spiritual progress.  While the Freudian theory of penis-envy has been rejected by later day female psychotherapists, I was wondering if there could be an opposing theory at play in male sharanas who identify their gender as feminine when it comes to expressing bhakti towards the male God.  Could the male spiritual aspirants be envious of women's Janani status, and therefore yearn for fulfilment from a higher male power?  It is also interesting to note (from the book referenced below) that Maya, the evil that separates the devotee from the deity is mostly construed as female by almost every seeker, but Akka Mahadevi has described it in the masculine gender in one of her verses (ibid.).

MR: You have a point and an interesting one.  Sexuality and its experience seem to play a significant role in shaping the language of bhakti.  Male bhakta could be envious of female bhakta.  Vagina is a receiver, so male bhakta may want to be that receiver receiving love, grace and jnana!

4. We tend to have a hypocritical attitude towards matters of sex, in that we act as though it does not exist, and brush all matters related to sex under the carpet, even though our growing population suggests otherwise.  Sex is certainly considered to be an impediment to spiritual progress by almost all religions.  In this context, it is very interesting to note the explicitly sexual connotations that are present in Akka Mahadevi and her fellow sharanas/sharanes' poems.  Akka talks about going "cuckold my husband with Hara" and "fornicating with Shiva" (ibid.).  Are these sexual connotations to be taken literally?  Did the bhaktas really aspire to have actual physical contact with their chosen deity?  Are the erotic carvings on some of our temple walls giving us a message of some sort, perhaps relating to the importance of sex in spirituality, something that we have failed to realise?

MR: How is actual physical union possible?  Only the yearning for union, which is the yearning to transcend duality, is expressed in sexual terms.  As I say in the book: 

The strong sexual imagery in the last vachana is actually indicative of the deep yearning for mystical union - the expression of this ultimate union, or the great urge to self-transcendence, is in physical terms.  The physical becomes the heart and soul of the metaphysical.  In the way of bhakti, the poet joins the bodily experience with the transcendental so that the spirit speaks through the flesh.  For, the body, as Akka would say, is not only the 'house of passion' but also the 'home' of the Divine.  So the physical continues to be the base, even when, at some point during this journey, her Lord Chennamallikarjuna, with 'white teeth' and 'matted curls,' metamorphoses into nirguna, or the aniconic one, who has no attributes; and finally, into the nirakara, one with no name or form.

5. In page 75, you talk about Allama Prabhu, Jiddu Krishnamurti and U G Krishnamurti's pathless path, wherein they reject the notion of accumulation of knowledge and performing sadhana to attain enlightenment.  Is there no meaning in seeking guidance from a guru, which is considered to be an essential prerequisite to progress on the spiritual path?  How does on conduct oneself in life if one is a spiritual aspirant desirous of attaining enlightenment?  Is luck the only factor that results in one progressing from anubhava to anubhaava?

MR: The need for gurus, sadhana and jnana is quite necessary, or at least the necessity is there in every quester's life.  We need all these tools when we start the journey, but somewhere along the line, they drop off one by one and one is on one's own.  A genuine quester cannot be dependent on a guru forever, and a genuine guru would certainly want to release such people from the circle of his influence.  In other words, what we know is that that state of being cannot be brought about by an act of will, or engineered, or replicated, through any method or sadhana whatsoever.  At best, sadhana can prepare the ground and yet there is no guarantee.  The search cannot bring it on, only the end of search, if at all.  But then of course, there has to be a search for it to be abandoned, the search which ceases with the realization that the very search is the barrier.  It is the realization of the mind that it cannot solve the problem it has itself created in the first place. 

Intense anubhava takes you thus far but no further; for anubhaava to happen we let go all anubhavas!  Rest is luck or grace or whatever that is, we have no clue.  I called it the 'second missing link,' that which catapults one into the natural state of being.

 

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To me, the overarching message of Akka's life is this: one has to transcend norms and remain resilient until the goal is achieved.  Akka transcended physical inhibitions and social strictures as she set out on the spiritual path, and demonstrated amazing resilience in standing up to societal barbs and naysayers until she achieved her ultimate goal of aikya.  This is something each of us can learn from, whatever the nature of our individual goal.  

Rao's account of Akka Mahadevi's life and message is highly recommended reading for spiritual aspirants in general, and for those seeking to know more about one of the most fascinating female saint-poets of India.





Reference:

Androgyny and Female Impersonation in India: Nari Bhav, T. Mukherjee & N.R. Chatterjee, Niyogi Books, First Edition, 2016.  Chapter title: The Soul In-Between: Gender, Androgyny and Beyond in Bhakti Poetry, The Example of the Karnataka Veerashaiva Tradition, H.S. Shivaprasad, pp. 71-82.


Image source: 

https://www.amazon.in/Sky-clad-Extraordinary-Life-Times-Mahadevi/dp/9386850850