Karaikkal Ammaiyar
Topic: Bhakti and Sufi Traditions · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 2 "Bhakti-Sufi Traditions"
Meaning
Karaikkal Ammaiyar was a woman devotee of Shiva from the Tamil region, c. 6th century. She is one of the three women among the 63 Nayanars, the Tamil saints of Shiva. She chose extreme asceticism, a very harsh life of self-denial. She gave up her duties as a wife, but she did not join any religious order or become a nun. Her life and poems challenged the rules a male-dominated society set for women.
Example
In her poems, Karaikkal Ammaiyar calls herself a pey, a demoness, with a wasted, frightening body who dances in the cremation ground with Shiva. By doing this she turned upside down the usual idea that a woman must be beautiful. Her songs were kept alive in the Nayanar tradition.
Don't confuse with
- Andal: also a Tamil woman saint, but she was an Alvar, a devotee of Vishnu. She saw herself as Vishnu's beloved, not as an ascetic demoness.
Related concepts
- Alvars
- Nayanars
- Nalayira Divya Prabandham
- Tevaram
- Appar
- Sambandar
- Sundarar
- Manikkavachakar
- Nammalvar
- Tondaradippodi