To study Akka Mahadevi’s vacanas, it is imperative to understand the tenets of Lingayatism since she was born in a Lingayat family. Her vacanas suggest that her formative years were deeply rooted in its ideologies.
The core doctrine of Lingayatism is delineated in its Shatsthala philosophy. It propounds that a soul’s spiritual journey is like the steps on a ladder. Each step is a step forward towards inner purification and the attainment of the supreme goal of life – God-realisation. These stages of a soul’s spiritual evolution are commonly termed as ‘sthala’. The Lingayats identify six (sat) such sthalas that the soul must climb to attain realisation.
The word sthala also has a broader and deeper connotation. In Sanskrit, the word means ‘place’ or ‘ground’, which is associated with foundation. In this sense sthala refers to Brahman, the source of all.
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