It was Like a Stream - Akkamahadevi's Poem Summary and Analysis

The love of Siva is like a stream that is running to a dry land. A dry land will be waiting for water to come to it so that the moment it comes the land absorbs it. This is like Akkamahadevi waiting for her lord to enter her heart. And she also says that it is like rain pouring on plants giving them nurture and freshness and the parched sticks, their enlivened life. As we go along the coming lines we see she is comparing her love for God to this world’s pleasure and to the other world’s pleasure. Love for God, if it is so supreme, will not make any difference between this world’s pleasure and the other world’s pleasure. At this stage she goes beyond the stage of dichotomy and reaches a state of perfect oneness with her God. She then describes her lord’s feet ‘white as jasmine’. And as a conclusion, she describes her life, ‘was made worthwhile’.

Akkamahadevi is associated with Vira Saiva movement of the 12^th century Karnataka. She was a great lover of Siva. Through her writings she tried to celebrate her love for Siva. In her poems she describes Siva as Chennamallikarjuna which literally means ‘Lord White as Jasmine’. Her works are called ‘vachanas’. It is believed that some 430 vachanas were written by her. The vachanas are a kind of didactic poems. There are two types of didactic poetry: the deliberate and not deliberate. Her’s were non deliberate didactic poems which she wrote mostly for her own satisfaction and as ways to express her love for Siva. Madhura Bhava is a form of devotion which we see very much reflected in her poems. Akkamahadevi is also considered as the founder of Lingayata movement which was an important spiritual movement of the time. In most of her poems we find carnal expressions. However she used them in such a way that she can easily express her love toward Siva..