Introduction

Bhakti, from the Sanskrit root bhaj, meaning “to share,” “to partake,” or
“to love” is more than a devotional sentiment—it is a profound and often
embodied form of emotional and spiritual attachment to a personal deity.
Bhakti, as both feeling and expression, is not only internal but highly
performative. It shapes relationships between devotee and divine through
language, gesture, ritual, and community. A.K. Ramanujan captures this
eloquently, describing Bhakti as "not just an inner feeling; it is a language,
a gesture, a text," one that is deeply embedded in cultural practice and
poetic performance (Ramanujan, 1981).
The early Bhakti tradition, which emerged in Tamil-speaking South India
between the sixth and ninth centuries CE, represents the first organized
wave of devotional expression in the subcontinent. This movement was
led by the Alvars (Vaishnavite saints) and Nayanars (Shaivite saints), who
composed hundreds of devotional hymns in Tamil—poetry that was
intensely personal, emotional, and at times radically egalitarian. These
hymns, later compiled into sacred canons like the Divya Prabandham and
Tirumurai, were performative acts of surrender (prapatti), spiritual
longing, and embodied love. The poets traversed rigid caste and class
boundaries, challenging ritual orthodoxy and asserting a form of religiosity
based on love rather than lineage or learning (Peterson, 1989).
Yet this devotional efflorescence did not appear in isolation. It was deeply
rooted in the cultural and literary heritage of the Tamil country,
particularly in the Sangam corpus (c. 300 BCE–300 CE). Sangam literature,
largely secular in nature, is known for its nuanced treatment of human
emotion, especially love (akam) and valor (puram), often framed within
intricate ecological and social landscapes. While Sangam poetry focused
on the mortal, the sensual, and the heroic, early Bhakti reoriented these
themes toward the divine. Andal’s Tiruppavai, for example, draws heavily
on Sangam conventions of female desire, but transforms the beloved into
Vishnu, and the longing into a spiritual quest. Similarly, the poetic
landscapes (tinai) common to Sangam are preserved in Bhakti, but now
serve theological rather than secular purposes (Venkatesan, 2010). This
transformation marks a significant shift from the aesthetic to the sacred,
from the worldly to the otherworldly, but the emotional vocabulary
remains strikingly similar.
This study also distinguishes early Bhakti from the later, pan-Indian Bhakti
movements that began around the thirteenth century and gained
prominence in North, Central, and Western India. While both periods
emphasized direct, personal devotion over ritualism and caste, their socio-
political contexts and expressive forms diverged. Early Bhakti was temple-
centered, closely tied to royal patronage, and expressed largely through
Sanskritized Tamil poetry within structured liturgical traditions. In
contrast, later Bhakti movements—embodied by figures like Kabir,
Mirabai, Tukaram, and Nanak—emerged in a period of increased social
flux, including Islamic political expansion, and were more radical in tone.
These phases often rejected both Brahmanical and Islamic authority,
embraced vernacular languages more broadly, and became platforms for
marginalized voices, including women, Shudras, and Dalits (Chakravarti,
1998).
Jayant Lele points out that while early Bhakti had emotionally and
symbolically liberating dimensions, it largely operated within prevailing
ideological structures. Temple rituals, kingship, and caste-based social
orders were rarely subverted outright. In contrast, later Bhakti
increasingly functioned as a counter-cultural discourse, confronting
orthodoxies more explicitly (Lele, 1981). Yet, even in early Bhakti, we find
moments of profound subversion, particularly when gender becomes the
lens of analysis.
This brings us to the central theme of this study: Bhakti as a gendered
discourse. Scholars such as A.K. Ramanujan and Jayant Lele have
observed how male Bhakti poets often adopt feminine voices, imagining
themselves as women in love with a male deity. This feminization of the
male voice is not merely a poetic device; it reflects deeper theological and
emotional structures. In Vaishnava theology, the soul is often cast as the
bride of God, and surrender becomes a form of spiritual eroticism. Saints
like Nammalvar and Tirumankai Alvar perform this gendered surrender,
expressing union and separation, desire and fulfillment, through an
unmistakably feminine lens. Ramanujan calls this the “innerizing of the
female voice”—a moment where male poets embody and perform a self
that is emotionally and spiritually feminized (Ramanujan, 1981).
However, the presence of actual female saints like Andal and Karaikkal
Ammaiyar further complicates this picture. Andal, the only female Alvar,
composed the Tiruppavai and Nachiyar Tirumoli, poems that blend
spiritual devotion with passionate, erotic imagery. She positions herself
not merely as a devotee but as the divine bride, speaking with agency and
urgency. In contrast, Karaikkal Ammaiyar rejects the erotic and the
beautiful, choosing instead to become a disembodied ascetic who haunts
cremation grounds in devotion to Shiva. Her grotesque and ghostly form
stands in radical defiance of normative femininity (Craddock, 2010).
Uma Chakravarti’s essay "The World of the Bhaktin in South Indian
Traditions" offers a foundational feminist reading of this dynamic. She
argues that Bhakti created new spaces for women’s expression but within
highly gendered and often symbolic frameworks. The figure of the bhaktin
(female devotee) was allowed to speak, but her speech was often
legitimated through religious exceptionality, not through broader social
empowerment. In other words, Bhakti gave voice to women and feminine
expression, but often on terms set by patriarchal structures (Chakravarti,
1998).
This paper explores the early Bhakti tradition in South India (c. 700–1200
CE) through the lens of gender, bringing together literary analysis,
theological insight, and socio-historical critique. It examines how male
saints adopt feminine metaphors to express spiritual longing, how female
saints claim or reject conventional femininity in their devotional lives, and
how temple rituals and poetic forms served as sites for both the
reinforcement and reimagination of gender roles. Through a study of
primary texts such as Andal’s Tiruppavai and Nachiyar Tirumoli, select
Alvar and Nayanar hymns, and material evidence from Chola and Pallava
temples, as well as the insights of scholars like Ramanujan, Chakravarti,
and Lele, this work argues that gender was not peripheral but central to
the formation of Bhakti subjectivity.
Bhakti, as this study will show, was a space of negotiation—between body
and spirit, male and female, form and formlessness. In revealing the
gendered textures of early South Indian Bhakti, this paper seeks not only
to deepen our understanding of the tradition but also to offer new
frameworks for reading devotion as a historical, embodied, and gendered
practice.
Femininity in the Male Voice — Alvars, Surrender, and Cross-
Gender Metaphors
The Alvars were Tamil poet-saints devoted to Vishnu who flourished between the sixth and
ninth centuries CE. Traditionally twelve in number, these saints composed deeply emotional
and often mystically ecstatic hymns that expressed total surrender (prapatti) to the divine.
Their poems are collected in the Nalayira Divya Prabandham, a revered canon of 4,000
Tamil verses. These saints hailed from a variety of social backgrounds—ranging from
Brahmins to Shudras to those considered untouchable—yet their devotion eclipsed all caste
and ritualistic distinctions. Central to their theology was the experience of the soul as a
bride yearning for union with the divine groom, Vishnu.
Among the twelve Alvars, two stand out for their particularly striking use of the feminine
voice: Nammalvar and Tirumankai Alvar. Their compositions are not only devotional but also
poetic enactments of spiritual longing, usually adopting the persona of a woman desiring
her divine beloved. This feminization of the male voice forms the focus of this chapter.
Nammalvar (c. 9th century CE) is often considered one of the most important Alvar, revered
for the philosophical depth and lyrical beauty of his work. His compositions, especially the
Tiruvaymoli, are imbued with intense emotional resonance. In many verses, Nammalvar
adopts the voice of a woman—sometimes a beloved, sometimes a mother or friend—
longing for union with Vishnu. In Tiruvaymoli 1.1.1, the poet exclaims:
" He entered my heart like a lover,
Made it his own and filled me entirely.
Now I speak only of him, think only of him,
 I live only through him—
Like a bride who waits, consumed by longing.
This opening verse of Nammalvar magnum opus in the Nalayira Divya Prabandham. This
verse sets the tone for the entire Tiruvaymoḻi, declaring how the divine has completely
overtaken the speaker's mind, body, and speech—reflecting the bhakti ideal of total
surrender. The bride metaphor and the surrendering of one’s interiority to the divine
beloved (Viṣhṇu) is central to this theology.
In another poignant verse (Tiruvaymoli 5.1.1):
"He came into me and entered my being,
breaking down all barriers—
my pride, my purity, my sense of self.
He stirred my heart,
took over my thoughts,
and left me longing, burning.
I cannot think of anything else—
my very soul is his possession.
This verse is one of the most powerful expressions of viraha bhakti (devotion in separation).
The speaker, adopting the voice of a woman, describes how the god Vishnu has entered her
being and stripped away her sense of autonomy. What remains is pure yearning, illustrating
the total surrender (prapatti) that characterizes Alvar Bhakti. This feminized voice
dramatizes the intense emotional intimacy with the divine, presenting it as both ecstatic and
devastating.
This enactment of feminine desire is not merely stylistic—it reflects a metaphysical truth in
Vaishnavite theology. Ramanujan (1981) refers to this as the "innerizing of the female
voice," where the male poet uses a feminine self to access an emotionally intimate
relationship with the divine. This strategy connects Bhakti with the Tamil akam tradition of
love poetry, where the interior emotions of separation, longing, and reunion dominate.
Tirumankai Alvar (c. 8th century CE), a former warrior and thief turned saint, also exhibits
emotional vulnerability and feminized devotion. In his Periya Tirumozhi, he frequently
speaks in the voice of a nayika (heroine), often expressing sorrow over separation from the
divine. One verse reveals:
Abandoned in a strange land, I wait with tear-filled eyes.
The bangles fall loose from my hands,
The fire of absence burns through my chest,
Even the cuckoo’s song mocks my sorrow."
In this verse, Tirumankai Alvar personifies the devotee as a woman who has been
abandoned by her divine lover, Vishnu. The nayika expresses her sorrow at the separation,
using vivid imagery of the cuckoo’s song mocking her pain and the physical disarray of the
bangles slipping off her wrists, a traditional symbol of feminine beauty and ritual life. The
fire of absence burning through her chest conveys the intense emotional and spiritual
anguish of separation from the divine, a theme central to ‘viraha’ bhakti.
And another (Periya Tirumozhi 4.5.4):
My limbs grow weak,
My heart flutters with pain.
He said he would return,
But the skies know not his shadow.
I live only to suffer his absence."
In this verse, Tirumankai Alvar’s nayika laments her physical and emotional exhaustion from
waiting for the divine lover (Vishnu). Her limbs grow weak, indicating the toll that longing
and separation have on her body. The promise of his return remains unfulfilled, leaving her
heart in pain. The mention that "the skies know not his shadow" underscores the deep
isolation and helplessness of waiting. This sorrow is so profound that it defines her very
existence.
Not all the male alvar poets use one of these archetypal female voices, and a female voice
does not always have to speak about romantic love. Some poets such as the late eighth-to-
ninth century Kulasekhara Alvar adopt the persona of the doting mother of the Hindu Gods
Krishna or Rama, who is also considered an avatara of Vishnu. In these guises, they sing
lullabies to him, adorn him and imagine, like mothers do, a magnificent future for their
child. These poems are not composed from the vantage of separation; rather, they are
poems of intimacy and joy, celebrating maternal love.
There is, however, one exception to these joyful maternal poems. In a wrenching set of 10
verses in his poem, Perumal Tiruvantadi, Kulashekara Alvar speaks in the voice of Devaki,
Krishna’s birth mother, who is forced to give him up to protect his life. In these 10 verses,
the poet as Devaki laments the misfortune that prevented her from raising her son,
juxtaposing her inconsolable grief with the immeasurable joy of Krishna’s foster mother,
Yashoda.
"Devaki, whose heart was full of love,
Could not bear to hold Krishna in her arms
For long, she gave him up to the world
And found peace in the divine decree."
Lele has noted that this feminization is both a theological necessity and a literary device.
Vaishnavite theology conceives the soul (jivatma) as fundamentally feminine in its relation
to the masculine divine (paramatma), and thus male poets could embody female longing
without breaking devotional norms (Lele, 1981). Ramanujan also emphasized that such
gender reversals are not superficial but allow access to profound emotional registers
(Ramanujan, 1981).
Bharati Jagannathan, in her chapter on gender and transgression in South Indian Bhakti,
suggests that these performances can be seen as transgendered in nature, where Bhakti
becomes a space of fluid identities. Saints move beyond gender binaries to embody roles
that allow spiritual expression beyond normative constraints (Jagannathan, 2012).
Male poets like Nammalvar employed female voices and metaphors to inhabit the
archetype of the forsaken heroine and a doting mother. In doing so, they aligned their work
with akam traditions of love and loss, giving their devotional longing a culturally resonant
voice. These emotional performances transform private longing and affection into a shared
spiritual idiom, allowing both poet and listener to access divine intimacy through the
familiar idiom of love poetry. Thus, in Alvar Bhakti, the feminine persona is not simply a
metaphor—it is a theological and emotional vehicle that enables deep surrender and
transformative love.
Thus, in the poems of the alvar, love, directed toward Vishnu, takes many forms: humble
service; unconditional, protective maternal adoration; and the intense intimacy of lovers.
Composed from the vantage of separation and rendered in the female voices of women –
mothers and abandoned lovers – these poems offer a unique understanding of the
mysterious bond that exists between God and his dearest devotees.

Embodied Devotion — Andal and Karaikkal

Ammaiyar
This chapter explores the contrasting embodiments of devotion as expressed by two iconic
female Bhakti saints from Tamil Nadu: Andal and Karaikkal Ammaiyar. Though separated by
time and theological inclination—Andal being a Vaishnava and Karaikkal Ammaiyar a Shaiva
—their devotional expressions reveal rich intersections of gender, embodiment, and divine
longing. Both figures challenge normative gender roles through their poetic voices and life
choices, becoming central to the Bhakti tradition’s negotiation of femininity, divinity, and
the body.

Andal: Erotic Devotion and Sacred Femininity

Andal (c. 8th century CE), the only female Alvar, is believed to have been found as a baby
under a tulsi plant in the temple garden of Srivilliputhur. She grew up immersed in devotion
to Vishnu, and composed two major works—Tiruppavai and Nachiyar Tirumoli. Her verses
are marked by intense personal longing, expressed through the metaphors of bridal
mysticism and sacred eroticism. In her poems, Andal positions herself as the divine bride of
Vishnu, yearning for union and lamenting his absence. Archana Venkatesan's The Secret
Garland offers a contemporary translation and commentary that emphasizes Andal’s
powerful use of feminine voice and bodily imagery.
From Nachiyar Tirumoli:
"I have fastened garlands,
Bathed in the sacred Yamuna,
And anointed myself with sandal paste.
But still, he does not come.
What use is this beauty
If Govinda will not see me?"
This verse illustrates the tension between ritual preparation and divine silence, a recurring
motif in Andal’s poetry. Her desire is not passive; it is active, embodied, and confrontational.
Her refusal to marry a mortal and her claim to be Vishnu’s bride become radical assertions
of autonomy.
Uma Chakravarti points out that Andal’s rejection of human marriage norms and her
appropriation of sacred space through poetry mark her as a transgressive figure. Chakravarti
argues that Andal carves out a spiritual agency by using the culturally permissible role of the
devotee-bride to express desires that go beyond social prescriptions for women.
Another verse translated by Venkatesan reads:
"The pangs I suffer are worse than the fiercest fire.
I weep, lie awake in the dead of night.
Even the moon mocks my pain.
He said he would come.
But he did not."
This verse demonstrates Andal’s emotional vulnerability and the feminine voice of lament.
The moon, typically a symbol of beauty and romance, becomes a cruel spectator of her
suffering. The promise of the beloved is broken, and the wait becomes an act of protest and
devotional surrender. In expressing her agony, Andal reshapes love into a sacred ordeal.
Such lines powerfully blend emotional intensity with theological yearning.
From another verse:
"He entered my heart like a lover,
And made it his own home.
Now, everything I speak, think, or do
Is only of him—
I am the bride who waits in restless longing."
In this verse, Andal describes a profound inward transformation—Vishnu has entered her
not just as a deity to be worshipped from afar, but as a lover who dwells within her. Her self
dissolves into devotion; all thought and action revolve around him. The imagery of the bride
waiting is rich in Tamil love poetry tradition and adapted here into a devotional idiom where
the divine is both absent and deeply present.
One of the most powerful verses in the text comes from Verse 6.8 (also called as “Vaaranam
aayiram), where Andal's devotion takes on an intensely physical form. In this verse, Andal
conveys the deepest expression of her yearning for union with Lord Vishnu, symbolizing
both surrender and desire.
"I pine and languish,
But he does not care whether I live or die...
If I see that thief of Govardhana,
That looting robber, that plunderer,
I shall pluck out by their roots
These breasts that have known no gain.
I shall take them
And fling them at his chest,
Putting out the hellfire
Which burns within me."
In this verse, Andal challenges traditional notions of modesty and the roles women were
expected to play within society, boldly expressing a spiritual devotion that transcends any
earthly concept of love or physical attraction. Her willingness to tear apart herself to create
a space for the divine speaks to her utter devotion and unbridled desire for divine intimacy.
Andal's poetry, especially in the Nachiyar Tirumoli, often showcases an erotic element,
where she uses the language of love and bodily imagery to express her yearning for union
with the Lord. This intense passion is symbolic, illustrating the transformative power of
devotional longing.

Karaikkal Ammaiyar: Grotesque Asceticism and Devotional Renunciation

Karaikkal Ammaiyar (c. 6th century CE) is one of the earliest female saints of the Tamil
Shaiva tradition and is revered as one of the sixty-three Nayanars. Her story is of a
merchant's wife who renounced her worldly life and prayed to Shiva to strip her of her
beauty so she could serve him unimpeded. Shiva granted her wish, and she transformed
into a skeletal ascetic who wandered cremation grounds.
Her verses, preserved in the Tiruvantathi and Arputatiruvantathi, celebrate the burning
ghats and the horrific imagery associated with Shaiva asceticism. One verse goes:
"I do not want this soft body,
I do not want sweet-scented garlands,
I want only to see the dancing Lord
In the blazing cremation ground."
Here, Ammaiyar rejects not only the comforts of earthly life—symbolized by the "soft body"
and "sweet-scented garlands"—but also the sensual pleasures associated with them. Her
intense devotion leads her to seek an intimate connection with Shiva that defies
conventional beauty and gender norms. The "dancing Lord" refers to Shiva’s tandava
(cosmic dance), and the "blazing cremation ground" (smashana) is a place traditionally
associated with death and decay, where ascetics and renunciants like Karaikkal Ammaiyar
seek liberation. Her rejection of bodily beauty and worldly life is part of her radical devotion
to a form of Shiva that transcends the mundane.
Uma Chakravarti highlights how Karaikkal Ammaiyar’s self-deformation stands in contrast to
the celebrated beauty of male saints and even Andal. The grotesque becomes sacred in her
case. According to Chakravarti, Ammaiyar refuses to let the body become a site of male
control or divine consumption. Instead, she reclaims it by destroying its appeal, making
herself unpalatable to both men and gods—except Shiva, who accepts her in her ascetic
form (Chakravarty, .
Another of her verses reads:
"Let me witness the Lord’s dance,
Where skulls clatter beneath his feet,
And the ash from funeral pyres
Adorns his sacred body.
This is the beauty I long for."
Ammaiyar’s devotion is not sensuous but stark, filled with images of decay and detachment.
Yet, through this stark imagery, she claims spiritual proximity to Shiva that transcends
conventional notions of gender and beauty. Ammaiyar's desire to witness Shiva’s dance in
the cremation ground speaks to her acceptance of death—not as an end, but as a
transformation that aligns with spiritual liberation.
Unlike Andal, whose longing is intensely romantic and embodied, Ammaiyar’s devotion is
disembodied and skeletal. Yet both women claim intimacy with the divine by defying
traditional norms—Andal by erotic excess and Ammaiyar by ascetic extremity. Their lives
and verses are theological interventions into how women could relate to divinity in pre-
modern Tamil society.
Together, Andal and Karaikkal Ammaiyar form two poles of feminine devotional expression
—sensuous and severe, desiring and detached—each unsettling the boundaries of gender
and devotion.
Discussion:
Works Cited
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Jagannathan, B. (2012). Gender and Transgression in South Indian Bhakti Traditions. In A.
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Venkatesan, A. (2024, February 9). Love Songs in Hindu Devotion – The Tamil Poets Who Took on the
Female Voice to Express Their Intense Longing for the Divine. Religion News Service.
https://religionnews.com/2024/02/09/love-songs-in-hindu-devotion-the-tamil-poets-who-took-on-
the-female-voice-to-express-their-intense-longing-for-the-divine/
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