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Vol. XVIII, 92-93 the constellation, Rohiņī, is in the ascendent. They only want to be worshipped; they join couplet to couplet, full of empty words.":19 Akho protests against his being called a poet. He styles himself a knower, Jñānī. He says, “Do not consider a Jñāni a poet. How will you be able to describe the rays of the sun?"20
Like Narasimha Mahetā, Akho hates social discrimination. He has no regard for the Society which makes the Brahmins and Vaisyas the masters of the untouchables. He comments : "To Narāyana none is high and none is low. The world is made up of five elements but a fool takes pride in his caste. In order to maintain their caste some are called the head, some the arms, some the waist and some the feet. But really the Brāhmanas, the Kshatriyas, the Vaisyas and the Sūdras all make up the body of Hari. Who, then is Sudra ?"21 Akho criticizes the general idea of the people who helieve in touch-me-notism. Pollution, he says, is daughter to the low-caste man and is wedded to the foolish husbands the brahmins and the vaisnavas - who enjoy it through out their life. Says Akho, it can be got rid of by only knowing Hari, otherwise it will take hold of body and mind.22 Akho is vehement in his criticism of the vaisnava followers who in their outward appearance keep themselves clean and move like a dandy. By taking rich food they look like a bull, but he warns that the Māyā in subtle form has made its home in their fat bodies, and ultimately would consume them.23
Akho is also aitical of superstitious belief about the planetary influence on human life. According to him, these very planets - sun, moon, Rahu, Ketu, Sani, etc., are themselves helpless. They are dependent on Hari who lives in our heart. 24
After all, Akho was the product of his times. The social and religious anomalies which he pointed out with his pithy epigrams and terse phrases were unequalled by any other poet of Gujarat. However, it may be noted that some of his predecessors like Narasimha Maheta and Mandan had also touched upon some of the aspects of his themes. And Akho did take a few of the phrases used in his poems from them, parlicularly for Mandan.25 Neverthelers, it is certain that Akho had an originality of his own. He could see in a flash the unheadly attitude of some people towards life. Being a goldsmith by caste his mind was unfettered by any. hereditary predilections for the tradition of the Brahmins or the moral weaknesses of a calculating business culture. It also may be noted that Akho was product of an urban social environment. At existential level he reacted sharply against that material prosperity and artificial urban mannerism which had corrupted the mind and blunted the sensitivity of the sociely. He, therefore, only wrote about what was true to his own experience. That is why, there is not a tinge of artificiality in his language.
In the 19th century a few intellectual elites like Narmada were attracted towards Akho for his role as a reformer, as Akho had carried his tirade against the Vallabha seet. However, Narmada found in Akho a 'dry' poet who had no likings for nice things in life, though he appeciated Akho's deep knowledge of Vedānta.26 Narmada's comments on Akho were made before the former became completely a changed person. In the
