Bhakti

The word bhakti means passionate devotion for God and implies a sense of intimate relationship with other people. Etymologically, it is derived from a Sanskrit root bhaj, meaning to “share,” and it refers to emotional “participation” with one's deity and human beings as a core value. Indeed, bhakti is a mode of religious faith, and its expression is characterized by affective service of, participation in, or bonding with the transcendent (or God), understood as personal and as personally related to oneself. In Indian literature, we encounter a bipolar character of bhakti: On the one hand, it refers to an “emotionally restrained elite bhakti,” expressed in Sanskrit literature such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Svetasvatara Upanishad, and on the other, it points to an “emotionally expressive bhakti,” as articulated in vernacular literature. At the popular level, however, a fervent outpouring of bhakti arose as an outcome of a set of religious ideas and structures first seen in South India in the 7th century and slowly sweeping up to North India by the 15th century. The protagonists of this movement employed vernaculars as literary languages, in contrast to the classical Sanskrit of the ancient Hindu tradition. They opened the doors of spiritual liberation to all persons, including women and members of most nonprivileged classes (varanas), such as Shudras and outcastes. Thus, they offered a challenge to the earlier classical Hindu tradition based on the Vedas and Dharmashastras that had become the exclusive province of a small Brahman elite who had “unilaterally barred the rest of the population from any direct eligibility for salvation, or even from hearing Vedic texts on which the Brahman's religious authority depended” (Lorenzen, 1995, p. 15).

To some extent, it is misleading to speak of a single organic or monolithic bhakti movement throughout India. Different groups employed the various regional languages in their poetry; directed their devotion to different deities such as Rama, Krishna, Shiva, or the goddess Kali; and assumed distinct theological positions in their discourses. In particular, some devotees (bhaktas) were inward-looking solitary spiritual seekers, while others adopted a more outward, socially critical orientation to the world around them. Metaphorically, bhakti has been personified in literature as a beautiful woman, born in South India, who grew to maturity in the Deccan. In the Tamil Nadu region, for instance, we encounter the popular devotional [Page 138]movements of (a) Vaishnava Alvar saint-poets (Nammalvar, Andal) and the more elite Sri Vaishnava tradition of Ramanuja, (b) Shaiva Nayannar saint-poets (Manikavacchakar, Lady of Karaikal), and (c) the more elite Shaiva Sadhanta tradition (Meykanta, Arulnanti) and Tantric Siddhas. The saint-poets of Vishnu and Shiva began traveling from temple to temple, singing the praises of their chosen deity in their own mother tongue. In particular, these Tamil devotees considered the Alvars’ poems the equivalent of the Sanskrit Vedas and recited them daily, in temples and at home. In 12th-century Karnataka, a group of devotees called Vira Shaivas coalesced around the Kalachari minister Basavanna, showing their adoration to a stylized manifestation of Shiva in the shape of a small linga (“phallus”), which was carried by every devotee. From the late 13th through the 17th century, the Maharashtrian pilgrimage center Pandharpur became the focus of Marathi devotionalism toward the god Vithoba, a form of Krishna, motivating the Vaishnava Warkari saint-poets (Jnanadev, Namdev, Chokhamela, Eknath, Tukaram, and Ramdas). According to the same literary metaphor, the woman finally reached her finest flourishing in the north, stimulating bhakti movements in the Hindi region (Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, etc.) from the 14th century onward. Interestingly, these movements encountered the Islamic presence in the north, where a Muslim sultanate was already established since the early 1200s. A synergistic relationship between Hindus and Muslims in North India led to the construction of new themes and emphases in vernacular poetry, reflecting the Sufi influence on bhakti traditions.

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