Beyond Gender: Akka Mahadevi’s Devotion as a Feminine Way of Being

This paper critically looks at the representation of femininity in the poetry of Akka Mahadevi, a twelfth-century Indian saint-poet, through a hermeneutic textual analysis of her select poems. In sharp contrast to the discussion of the feminine within the framework of gender politics in contemporary literary theory, this study argues that Akka Mahadevi’s poetry redefines femininity as a spiritual force, not as a site of subjugation – a means of divine communion rather than just a mode of resistance against patriarchal structures. The study also seeks to pitch her radical conception of femininity rooted in devotion, intuition, and transcendence against the transactional logic of modernity. Through a contextual interpretation of themes such as renunciation, devotion, and feminine spirituality within the broader framework of the Bhakti tradition and mystical hermeneutics, this study highlights the dialectics of devotion and gender identity in her poetry.