With the spread of Bhakti movement in India wandering saints retold puranic stories in vernacular languages with many regional variations. The stories were rendered into poems and songs that reflected a personal relationship between a cosmic deity and an ardent devotee.


Listen, sister, listen.
I had a dream

I saw rice, betel, palmleaf
and coconut.
I saw an ascetic
come to beg,
white teeth and small matted curls.

I followed on his heels
and held his hand,
he who goes breaking
all bounds and beyond.

I saw the lord, white as jasmine
and woke wide open.

- By Akka Mahadevi in Speaking of Shiva, translated by AK Ramanujam

Illustrated by Swetha Prakash