Fri Mar 14 14:28:20 UTC 2025: ## Award-Winning Poet Unveils Anthology of Women Mystics
**Puducherry, March 14, 2025** – Acclaimed poet Arundhathi Subramaniam launched her new anthology, “Wild Women: Seekers, Protagonists and Goddesses in Sacred Indian Poetry,” at an event in Puducherry. The book, five years in the making, is a collection of sacred verse by women across the Indian subcontinent, spanning centuries and diverse religious traditions.
Subramaniam, a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award, explained that the anthology addresses a gap in existing literature, highlighting the voices of female mystics often overlooked in favor of their male counterparts. The collection features 56 poets, from early Buddhist nuns to Bhakti and Sufi mystics, showcasing a range of experiences and perspectives. These women, she emphasized, are not idealized saints but complex individuals navigating spiritual journeys within their earthly lives.
The anthology includes both well-known figures like Andal, Akka Mahadevi, and Meera Bai, alongside lesser-known women-saints and poets. Subramaniam’s research involved extensive reading, correspondence with scholars, and serendipitous discoveries, such as stumbling upon a book about the 18th-century mystic Dayabai.
The selection criteria focused on poems’ readability in English and the diversity of the poets’ backgrounds, encompassing chronological periods, languages, regions, religions, and temperaments. Subramaniam highlights the inspiring humanness of these poets, their ability to embrace both spiritual devotion and the realities of daily life, a quality evident in poets such as Janabai, Sule Sankavva, and Tarigonda Venkamamba.
The event, hosted by The Brown Critique and People for Pondicherry’s Heritage, saw Subramaniam discuss her work with poet Gayatri Majumdar. Subramaniam expressed her hope that the anthology will introduce many readers to these previously unfamiliar voices, filling a significant gap in the narrative of Indian spiritual history.
First Piper 