About the Book
A BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN LIFE OF AKKA MAHADEVI, THE TWELFTH-CENTURY POET AND FEMINIST ICON
Akka Mahadevi is one of the foremost feminist and spiritual icons of Indian history. Her powerful vachanas, written in twelfth-century Karnataka, trace a radical journey. Unlike other women bhaktas, Mahadevi worked within the female body, not around it—eventually walking naked, ‘breast to breast with the cosmos’, and moving beyond all binaries, including male–female and devotee–God. Steered by her own inner experiences, Mahadevi cut loose from religious initiations. Her bhakti was the path, her inner voice the guru. Sky-clad is a radical new reading of Akka Mahadevi’s story, one where the body is seen not as the prison of the mind or soul, but as the ground of intelligence, creativity and enlightenment.
About the Author
Mukunda Rao is the author of six books of fiction, two plays—Mahatma: Khuda ka Hijra (1988 and 2009) and Baba Saheb Ambedkar (2008 and 2014)—and six insightful philosophical works, among which The Biology of Enlightenment is a much-read classic.
