Singing God from the Margins: Kumāran Āśān’s Strotṛakṛitikal and Bhakti in Malayāl̥am

This paper explores devotional expressions in Stōtṛakṛitikal, a collection of devotional hymns composed by Mahākavi Kumāran Āśān (1873-1924), a member of a low caste in Kerala. These poems demonstrate *bhakti* imagined and expressed from a subaltern perspective. His *bhakti* implied union with the deity and “completeness.” The imagination of “completeness” for individuals concerned Āśān because he understood the “incompleteness” that lower caste people experienced through the practice of unapproachability and untouchability in Kerala during his time. This paper discusses the dynamics of devotion in some of Āśān’s devotional poems and argues how these poems embody love and surrendering to the deity and a sense of becoming “complete.” Though Āśān’s Stōtṛakṛitikal embodies the same motifs as those composed by upper-caste *bhakti* poets, it contributes to *bhakti* discourse, attesting that *bhakti* includes the voices of those on the margins of society, making the divine palpable, in Kerala.