The tongue-in-cheek world of India's early poets

Among the earliest records of women’s voices in India is the Pali Therigatha from well over 2,000 years ago.

- MANU S PILLAI

Akka Mahadevi, a poet-saint from Karnataka; and a statue of Telugu composer Annamacharya in Anakapalle, Andhra Pradesh.

(PHOTOGRAPHS FROM WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)

It is an anthology of poetry by Buddhist nuns, covering a variety of topics. There is, for instance, some predictable content around destroying desire. There is writing on death and grief, as well as lessons of the type one gets in moral science lectures. One poet, thus, speaks of her sin of adultery in a previous life, resulting in rebirths as a monkey, goat (castrated), and calf (also castrated). Elsewhere an aspiring lover woos Subha by declaring how much her fawn-like eyes turn him on. She is not impressed. As she replies (in Charles Hallisey’s translation): “Eyes are just little balls...and milky mucus comes out of it.” Yet another nun, on hearing that dipping in water washes away sins, cheekily asks if this means frogs, turtles, and crocodiles are all destined for heaven. But my favourite is Mutta, who is “freed”. Specifically, she declares herself liberated from “three crooked things”: "Mortar, pestle, and husband with his own crooked thing.”