Mate Mahadevi

Maate Mahadevi B.Sc., M.A. (born 13 March 1946) is a scholar, mystic, and writer, and the first female Jagadguru, or spiritual head of a South Indian Lingayat community.[1][2]

Following initiation in 1965 by Lingananda Swami, Maate Mahadevi began writing vachanas, a form of didactic poetry. In 1966 she received her Jangama initiation as an ascetic in the Lingayat order of wandering mendicants. In 1970 she was installed as a jagadguru in the Lingayat community, the first time a woman had been placed in that position. She holds the 12th century woman poet Akka Mahadevi, who also wrote vachanas, as her role model.[3][4]

By 1983 she had published twenty books and started an educational and religious institution called Jaganmata Akka Mahadevi Ashrama in Dharwad, Karnataka, whose focus is education and spiritual upliftment of girls and women. Among her many books is Basava Tatva Darshana, on the life and teachings of Basava, a 12th-century social reformer and philosopher who fought against the caste system.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Werner, Karel (1989). The Yogi and the mystic: studies in Indian and comparative mysticism. Surrey: Curzon. ISBN 0-7007-0272-5.
  2. ↑ Tahira Basharat (July–December 2009). "The Contemporary Hindu Women of India: An Overview" (PDF). South Asian Studies: A Research Journal of South Asian Studies. 24 (2): 242–249.
  3. 1 2 Sharma, Arvind; Young, Katherine K. (1999). Feminism and World Religions. New York: SUNY Press. pp. 45–46. ISBN 0-7914-4024-9.
  4. ↑ Lingayathism website Archived 2010-08-09 at the Wayback Machine.
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