Mate Mahadevi
Dr Poojya Maate Mahadevi MA, B.Sc.(13 March 1946 – 14 March 2019) was an Indian Spiritual leader,  scholar, mystic, writer and first female Jagadguru,  spiritual head of the Indian Lingayat community.

 Early life 
Following initiation in 1965 by Lingananda Swami, Maate Mahadevi began writing vachanas, a form of didactic poetry. In 1966 she received her Jangama initiation as an ascetic in the Lingayat order of wandering mendicants. In 1970 she was installed as a jagadguru in the Lingayat community, the first time a woman had been placed in that position. She held the 12th century woman poet Akka Mahadevi, who also wrote vachanas, as her role model.Lingayathism website 

By 1983 she had published twenty books and started an educational and religious institution called Jaganmata Akka Mahadevi Ashrama in Dharwad, Karnataka, whose focus is education and spiritual upliftment of girls and women. Among her many books is Basava Tatva Darshana, on the life and teachings of Basava, a 12th-century social reformer and philosopher who fought against the caste system.

References

Category:Lingayatism
Category:1946 births
Category:2019 deaths
Category:20th-century Hindu religious leaders
Category:21st-century Hindu religious leaders
Category:20th-century Hindu philosophers and theologians
Category:21st-century Hindu philosophers and theologians
Category:20th-century Indian women writers
Category:20th-century Indian poets
Category:Indian women religious leaders
Category:Indian religious writers
Category:Indian theologians
Category:Writers from Karnataka
Category:People from Dharwad
Category:Poets from Karnataka
Category:Women writers from Karnataka
Category:Scholars from Karnataka
Category:Women educators from Karnataka
Category:Educators from Karnataka


when did the first female jagadguru die