This book presents the earliest example of a gender-liberated woman writer who wrote a passionately lyrical, but mature and remarkably self-explorative poetry. Akka Mahadevi is the female face of the phenomenally radical, egalitarian Sharana movement that began in the northern part of Karnataka in the 12th century. She questions everything: her parents, elders, the traditional husband-wife relationship; she questions Basavanna and Allama when they speak in an "accepted" patriarchal manner and she bravely questions her personal deity whom she loves and adores; the questioning spirit is part of her being. And this makes her unique among the sharanas. Apart from providing a credible "history" of the life and times of Akka, this book offers a translation of her most profound and memorable vachanas in modern English that crosses "the gulf of language and the gulf of time".