INDEX

1. Origin

2. Early Bhakti Traditions

3. Growth of Bhakti Cult

4. Differences and Conflicts

5. Alvar and Nayarna Saints

6. Poets,Writers and Musicians

7. Women Devotee’s

8. Saints

9. Conclusion
 ORIGIN

The Bhakti movement originated as a

reaction against caste division,
untouchability and ritualism in India.
Devotion was the pivotal point in the Bhakti
cult in uniting human soul with god. The
basic concepts of the Bhakti cult though
present in the Vedas, the Gita and
Vishnupuran were not practiced by the
masses until the appearances of Vaishnava
Alwar and Shaiva, Nayanar saints of South
India in the seventh and twelfth centuries.
The Bhakti saints and followers did not
adhere to any religion, their customs or
shastric orders. They believed in the worship
of one God through devotion for salvation. A
true guru is needed to realize God, to attain
salvation. Rama and Krishna both were
regarded as an incarnation on earth.
 EARLY BHAKTI TRADITIONS

In the course of the evolution of these forms

of worships in many instances poet saints
emerged as leaders around whom there
developed a community of devotees .
Further while Brahmans remained important
intermediaries between god and devotee in
several forms of bhakti these traditions also
accommodates and acknowledge women
and also lower caste categories ineligible for
liberalization within Brahminaical
framework.
 GROWTH OF BHAKTI CULT

Bhakti as a concept is very ancient in Indian

religion. The Bhagvat Gita also mentions that
one should give up all religious path and
practice yoga and take refugee in god.
The word Bhakti is derived from root braj
meaning “to adore”. The word Bhakti
occurred in Upnishad. It has been repeatedly
told in the epics that to achieve liberation
one must transcend all the opposites
including god and evil.
During the ancient period, Vedic mantras
and rituals played an important in the mode
of devotion.
 People desirous of health, wealth and
prosperity were to the power of nature by
performing holy rites and sacrifices and to
the devoted worshippers and deities granted
boons.
If a person had to get something he or she
had to appease the gods.
The importance of this spirit of Shraddha
Bhakti or respectful dependence upon god
 which is undoubtedly the first step in a
scheme of Bhakti cult or doctrine of Bhakti
was not lose upon.

DIFFRENCE AND CONFLICTS

Often associated with the goddess were

forms of worships that were classified as
Tantric. Tantric practices were widespread in
several parts of the subcontinent. They were
open to women and men practitioners often
ignored differences of caste and class within
the ritual context. Many of these ideas
influenced Shaivism as well as Buddhism.
 The divergence is perhaps most stark if we
compare Vedic and Puranic traditions. The
principal deities of the Vedic pantheon, Agni,
Indra and Soma become marginal figures
rarely visible in textual or visual
representation.

Not surprisingly there were sometimes

conflicts as well those who valued the Vedic
condemned practices that went beyond the
closely regulated contact with the divine
through the performance of sacrifices or
precisely chanted mantras.

On the other hand those who engaged in

tantric practices frequently ignored the
authority of the Vedas. Also devotees often
tended to project their chosen deity either
 Vishnu or Shiva. Relations with other
traditions such as Buddhism or Jainism were
also often fraught with tension if not open
conflict. The traditions of devotion or bhakti
need to be located within context.
Devotional worship had a long history of
almost thousand years before the period we
are considering. During this time expression
of devotion ranged from the routine worship
of deities within temples to ecstatic
adoration where devotees attained a trance
like state. The singing and chanting of
devotional composition was often a part of
such modes of worship.

ALVAR SAINTS

The alvars, also spelt

as alwars or azhwars (‘those immersed in
god’) were Tamil poet-saints of South
India who espoused bhakti (devotion) to
 the Hindu god Vishnu or
his avatar Krishna in their songs of longing,
ecstasy and service. They are venerated
especially in Vaishnavism, which regards
Vishnu or Krishna as the Supreme Being.
Alvars are saints devoted to Vishnu.

There were 12 Alvars,who came from equally

divergent background, the best known being
Periyalar, his daughter Andal,
TondaradippodiAlvar And Nammalvar.

NAYANARS SAINTS
The Nayanars were a group of 63 saints (also
saint poets) in the 6th to 8th century who
were devoted to the Hindu
god Shiva in Tamil Nadu. They, along with
the Alwars, their contemporaries who were
devoted to Vishnu, influenced the Bhakti
movement in Tamil. The names of the
Nayanars were first compiled by Sundarar.
The list was expanded
by NambiyandarNambi during his
compilation of material by the poets for
the Tirumurai collection, and would include
Sundarar himself and Sundarar's
parents.Nayanars were devoted to Shiva.

There were 63 Nayanars, who belonged to

different caste backgrounds such as potters,
"untouchable" workers, peasants, hunters,
soldiers, Brahmans and chiefs.
 POETS, WRITTERS AND MUSICIANS

The Bhakti movement witnessed a surge in

Hindu literature in regional languages,
particularly in the form of devotional poems
and music. This literature includes the
writings of the Alvars and Nayanars, poems
of Andal, Basava, BhagatPipa, AllamaPrabhu,
AkkaMahadevi, Kabir, Nanak (founder
of Sikhism), Tulsidas, Gusainji,
Ghananand, Ramananda
(founder of RamanandiSampradaya),
Sripadaraja, Vyasatirtha, Purandara
Dasa, Kanakadasa, VijayaDasa, Six goswamis
of Vrindavan
,Raskhan, Ravidas, JayadevaGoswami, Namd
ev, Eknath, Tukaram, Mirabai, RamprasadSen
,Sankardev, Vallabha Acharya, Narsinh
Mehta, Gangasatiand the teachings of saints
like Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
 The earliest writers from the 7th to 10th
century CE known to have influenced the
poet-saints driven movements include,
Sambandar, Tirunavukkarasar, Sundarar,
Nammalvar, Adishankara, Manikkavacakar
and Nathamuni .
Several 11th and 12th century writers
developed different philosophies within the
Vedanta school of Hinduism, which were
influential to the Bhakti tradition in
medieval India.
These
include Ramanuja, Madhva, Vallabha and Ni-
mbarka. These writers championed a
spectrum of philosophical positions ranging
 from theistic dualism,
qualified nondualism and absolute monism.

Women Devotees

Indian society has been patriarchal for most

part of recorded history of disabilities
against men increasing.
Though it has often been stated that the
position of women was much better in the
Vedic period and things started
deteriorating with the coming of Muslims,
and the often quoted examples are given of
Gargi and Maitreyi who participated in the
Sabha and Samitis it cannot be denied that
ancient societies were patriarchal on the
simple count that this predominant
structure and values of society were oriented
to giving men a super ordinate status a fact
that was reinforced by sacred literature.

We can posit the argument that this trend

continued in medieval times as we get no
evidence of any sharp structural disjuncture
that halted patriarchy.
In fact one can see continuity in modern
times freedom fighters took up this issue as
one of the unfinished business of Indian
social reform.

Many of the women saints sought to escape

patriarchy and the demands of domesticity
by creating an autonomous space and also
not being termed as wayward loose ,by
going on long pilgrimages to different holy
places.
This demonstrate the creative use of
traditions as both an element of protest and
also crave put some personal space from
them.

AkkaMahadevi

AkkaMahadevi was a contemporary of a rich

merchant in the village of Udutal. She was a
great devotee of Siva and initiated into
worship at a very early age by an unknown
Guru.
She grew up into a beautiful young women
and the chieftain of the land named Kausika
fell in love with her.
Kausika was an unbeliever and
MahadeviAkka was forced to marry him if he
touched her thrice against her wishes and
when he does so she leaves him.
When she leaves him she breaks all the
martial relations as well as the taboos and
walks around naked and finally finds solace
in the company of saints.
It was these saints who ultimately helped her
consummate her love for Siva by arranging a
real marriage to him. This was a marriage of
her choice.
She died in her early 20s becoming one with
Siva at Srisalla. Akka is one of the best
known poets of Karnataka. The number of
her vachanas which can be culled from
various sources is approximately 350.
Besides these vachanas some songs and two
works titled, “The vachanas of creation” and
Yogantri are in her names.

Mirabai
Mira bai lived during the ending of 15th and
beginning of 16th century. She belonged to
the Rajput aristocracy of Rajasthan.
She was a daughter of Ratan Singh and his
wife . VirKunwari of Medtiya of Rathor clan.
Mira’s paternal grandfather Jodhaji was the
founder of Jodhpur. Her paternal
grandfather . Dudaji had conquered Medata
city and 360 villages around it. He gave
Mira’s father Ratan Singh 12 villages of
which the central village was Kudki.
Mira was born in this fort. Miras paternal
family were Vaishnavas and henc Mira
inherited Vaisnava Bhakti as a part of her
family legacy.
Traditions has it that as a young girl Mira
pestered her mother to tell her who was
bridegroom when see saw a marriage
procession.
 To avoid her persistent questioning Mira’s
mother pointed at a statue of Krishna and
told her that this was her bridegroom. Mira
hence considered herself wedded to Krishna.
When she grew up she was married into a
royal family of Sisodia Rajputs of Mewar.
The identity of Maharaj Kumbh and others
with Bhoraj the son of the famous Rana
Sanga. Most probably the marriage was a
part of the political alliance between Rators
of Jodhpur ith the Ranas of Mewar.
Here elsewhere in Rajasthan, the structure of
the Bhaiyad was closely linked to the system
of political power and sovereignty. The kul
included all those related to a common
ancestor by ties of male blood.
Mira even refused to consummate her
marriage regarding her self already wedded
to Krishna. This was an open defiance and
her in-laws could not tolerate this . There
were various attempts at her life and finally
she left the palace compound, there too she
did not find solace because of the
disapproval of Bhakt.

She then started wandering around in the

company of other saints and visited many
temples and places associated with Krishna.
She went to Dakur then Vrindawan and
finally Dwarka.

Traditions has it that when was staying at

Ranchhorji temple on the sea coast of
Dwarka, her natal and marital families sent a
group of priests as emissaries to persuade
her to return.
 When she refused the Brahmin priests
started a fast unto death outside the temple.
Mira as now in a dilemma and did not want
to have Brahmin blood on her hand.

She then composed Hari tum harojankepir and

entered the temple and is said to have
absorbed in as emerging from the western
door of the temple which faces the sea and
having leapt into it.
Mira’s Bhakti becomes an escape from the
hatred and domination which underlay the
Rajput system of marriage.
It enunciated the principal of love in an age
and a society which was marked by war ,
Vendatta and the rising power of state.

Saints
 Kabir

Among the disciples of Ramananda the most

famous was Kabir.
He was born near Banaras to a brahmin
widow. But he was brought up by a Muslim
couple who were weavers by profession. He
possessed an inquiring mind and while in
Banareshe learnt much about Hinduism.

He became familiar with Islamic teachings

also and Ramananda initiated him into the
higher knowledge of Hindu and Muslim
religious and philosophical ideas.
 Kabir’s object was to reconcile Hindus and
Muslims and establish harmony between the
two sects.

He denounces idolatry and rituals and laid

great emphasis on the equality of man
before god. He emphasized the essential
oneness of all religions by describing Hindus
and Muslims
‘as pots of the same clay’.
To him Rama and Allah, temple and mosque
were the same.
He regarded devotion to god as an effective
means of salvation and urged that to achieve
 this one must have a pure heart, free from
cruelty, dishonesty, hypocrisy and
insincerity.

He is regarded as the greatest of the mystic

saints and his followers are called
Kabirpanthis.

Gurunanak

Another well-known saint-preacher of the

medieval period was Guru Nanak, founder of
the Sikh religion and a disciple of Kabir. He
was born in Talwandi near Lahore. He
denounced caste distinctions and rituals like
bathing in holy rivers.
His conception of religion was highly
practical and sternly ethical. He exhorted
people to give up selfish-ness, falsehood and
hypocrisy and to lead a life of truth, honesty
and kindness. ‘Abide pure amidst the
impurities of the world’ was one of his
famous sayings.
His life was dedicated to establishing
harmony between Hindus and Muslims. His
followers were known as Sikhs.

Chaitanya
Chaitanya was another well-known saint and
reformer of Bengal who popularized the
Krishna cult. He renounced the world,
became an ascetic and wandered all over the
country preaching his ideas.
He proclaimed the universal brotherhood of
man and condemned all distinction based on
religion and caste.
He emphasized love and peace and showed
great sympathy to the sufferings of other
people, especially that of the poor and the
weak. He believed that through love and
devotion, song and dance, a devotee can feel
the presence of God.
He accepted disciples from all classes and
castes and his teachings are widely followed
in Bengal even today.

Gnanadeva
 Gnanadeva was the founder of the Bhakti
Movement in Maharashtra in the thirteenth
century. It was called Maharashtra dharma.
He wrote a commentary of Bhagavat Gita
called Gnaneswari. Namadeva preached the
gospel of love. He opposed idol worship and
priestly domination.
He also opposed the caste system. In the
sixteenth century, Ekanatha opposed caste
distinctions and sympathetic towards the
lower castes. He composed many lyrics and
his bhajans and kirtans were famous.
Another Bhakti saintsof Maharashtra was
Tukaram, a contemporary of Sivaji.
He was responsible for creating a
background for Maratha nationalism .He
opposed all social distinctions.
 Tulsi Das

Tulsidas also known as

GoswamiTulsidas(1532–1623) was a Hindu
Vaishnava saint and poet, often called
reformer and philosopher from
RamanandiSampradaya, in the lineage of
JagadguruRamanandacharya renowned for
his devotion to the Lord Shri Rama.
Tulsidas wrote several popular works in
Sanskrit and Awadhi; he is best known as the
author of the epic Ramcharitmanas, a
retelling of the Sanskrit Ramayana based on
Rama's life in the vernacular Awadhi dialect
of Hindi. The BhavishyaPurana also predicts
the incarnation of Shri Valmiki as
GoswamiTulsidas in the Kaliyuga, in its verse
and also explained in detail by H.G Shriman
Chandra Govind Das of the Iskcon Temple.
Tulsidas spent most of his life in the city of
Varanasi. The TulsiGhat on the Ganges River
in Varanasi is named after him.He founded
the Sankatmochan Temple dedicated to
Hanuman ji in Varanasi, believed to stand at
the place where he had the sight of
Hanuman ji.
Tulsidas started the Ramlila plays, a folk-
theatre adaption of the Ramayana.He has
been acclaimed as one of the greatest poets
in India.
The impact of Tulsidas and his works on the
art, culture and society in India is widespread
and is seen to date in vernacular language,
 Ramlila plays, Hindustani classical music,
popular music, and television series.

Tukaram

Tukaram (1598-1649) His parents died early

and he had to shoulder the burden of
maintaining a huge family. He tried to carry
out his hereditary profession of petty trader
cum money lander but he suffered heavy
losses due to his over generous nature.
His first wife Rakuma and son Santu died
due to starvation. Tukaram went to
Bhambanatha and other places and gave
himself to spiritual readings.
His second wife was more practical and kept
nagging him for his ways. All this made him
turn to God in order to seek internal peace.
In one of the abhangs few admirers
approach Tukaram to enlighten them about
his own spiritual life and how he devolped
into a saint , he first scorns at the idea but
then tells us something about life .

He was born in family of Sudras and

worshipped his family deity.
He lost all prestige and money in famine.
Tukaram spend his time in singing
devotional songs to his god Vitthal.
 Tukaramsabhang tell us about his spiritual
journey the difficulties in his path of Bhakti
,his heart rending experiences in his path to
Bhakti and as he realized God the gleam of
light and began to shine to him.

Bahina Bal

The next important saints from Maharashtra

was Bahina Bai(1628-1700 AD) and she was a
disciple of Tukaram.
 She lived during the 17th century and is the
only woman saint who has written an
autobiography.
She was born in a poor Brahmin family of
Deigoan.

When she was 3 years old she was married to

Ratnakar Pathak who was 30 years old and
was a priest an astrologer. For him this was a
second marriage.
 At the age of seven Bahina Bai came to
Kolhapur to live with heer husband and his
parents.
There too she had to suffer a lot due to her
Bhakti and she is the only woman saint who
remains married throughout her life.
Her life eases only when her husband gets
converted to her way of thinking.
She also wrote her abhangs in the popular
Marahtiovi meter ,which is used in songs
when women go about their daily work like
doing the household chores grinding the
corn or husking the grain.

Sri Chaitanya
Vaishnavism began to get popular due to the
effort of Sri Chantanya earlier known as
Visvanbar Misra, he was born in Nudia
district of Bengal in A.D 1484.
Chaitanya adopted an ascetic life in AD 150
and begun to practice the passionate bhakti
of the BhagavataPurana by IsvaraPuri an
ascetic Madhava sect.
He was given the name Gauranya on the
occasion of his sacred thread ceremony and
later came to be known as Sri Krishna
Chaitanya at the time of his sanyas.
He came under the influence of the
Nimbarkars and Vishnuswamis and sang
delightly the songs of Jayadeva, Chandidas
and Vidyatti. Chaitanya gave Radha , the
imaginary consort of Kirsna a prominent
place in his worship and made the Radha-
Krishna myth the basis of his teaching and
worship.
 Sankardeva

It was Srimantha Sankaradeva who spread

the Vaishnava bhakti and it ideology in the
north eastern part of India.
He was born in AD 1449 at Aliipukri which is
around 15kms away from Nawgong. His
father name was Kusumavara the chief of
the Sirmomani Bara Bhuyana.
His mother was Satyassandha , died three
days after the birth of Sankra deva. He was
brought up by his grandmother Buri Gosain
Khersuti.
From his childhood Sankra was very
different from the other.
Deeply religious by nature Sankaradeva
desired to lead a life of devoted service
towards bettering the society but he had
lead to a married life due to the pressure of
his grandmother.

It can be said that Sankaradeva Neo-

Vaishnavaite movement was the first
organized attempt in Assam in breaking
down old restrictions of caste ,superstitions
,ignorance and poverty that pervaded the
society.
Since the social background of the northeast
was characterized by the existence of
numerous tribes and outcastes, this gave an
opportunity of them being uplifted.
 Narasinh Mehta

Narasinh Mehta was a Nagar Brahmin born

in AD 1412 and was a native of Talaja near
Palitana in Bhavnagar district. He gave new
impetus to Bhakti in Gujrat. The main
contributions of this saint poet constitute
the valuable resources of Gujarati literature.
They are Haramala , Sudamacarti, caturi,
Sodasi, samaldas, danalia, Govindagaman
about 2000 padas on devotion and erotic’s
and Suratasangrama.
 However his works are divided into love
poems and bhakti. But both are said to have
merged together ultimately in his
descriptions.

ConclusioN

Through out the course of Indian history

there have been a large number of religious
reform movements which have brought in
many new issues to the forefront and
questioned the existing hierarchy.
Bhakti Movement was one such movement
that brought the creative wisdom of a wide
variety of marginalized men and women as
 an attempt to create alternative space ,It
would be an understatement to overlook the
impact of this movement on the religious
doctrines , rituals and values popular belief
and culture of the people in medieval times.
It is a truism that great upheavals and
diversities in addition to the intellectual
fervor that they create like the bhakti
movement are relevant even today.
This movement is very good example of the
unity in diversity in Indian religion in the
sense that we see so much of borrowing and
adaptation from different regions fusion of
Sanskriric and folk religion and many
streams of thought.
It was only in the 19th century that a
monolith definition of Hinduism was put
forward. In the confrontation between the
Colonizer and the colonized it was the
western standards and Christianity which
became the basis to evaluate Hinduism.
 There was an inability to view Hinduism on
its own terms and conditions. Attempts were
made to find notions of monotheism,
salvation and notions of after life of
Christianity in Hinduism to Colonial
administration became an imagined religion
of a vast majority of the population.
This was something which never existed in
the consciousness of the Indian people
themselves. We also see here that a literal
reading reduced many movement.
Similarly in the case of bhakti, it would be
puerile to debate whether bhakti was just a
social movement as there philosophical
redefinitions of all relations and beyond.
Thus to reduce bhakti either as a purely
socio-religious movement or to study it
under the domain of history of ideas would
be a reductionist exercise out of which we
have to come out.
 The transition from the Company’s
commercial activities to direct rule in the late
18th century also marked a society. It was in
this long process that it made various
political and ideological adjustments to
justify its rescue of India.
Many of the texts of this period represented
India as a site of eastern decadence and
despotism breeding corruption. It was also
during this time that the first generation of
British Civil servants of India like Sir William
Jones, and H.T. Colebrooke discovered an
Indian classical past as Hindu golden age or
a pristine Aryan society which had fallen into
decline and decadence.
The goals of both these visions of India were
to lead the way to the 19th century civilizing
mission as the corner stone of British Empire.
The first narratives built up certain
generalizations and subsequent
generalization followed in this direction and
are only now beginning to be deconstructed.
To sum up we may say that the process of
analizing Bhakti starts from the premise of
deconstructing categories imposed on Indian
historiography by the European Orientalists.
Proceeding from the above to use
contemporary texts and read them in their
context we see the large scale socio-
economic changes released many forces
leading to as social churning.
 Since religion was one of the dominant
features of life in medival India all these
tensions were articulated through the voice
of religious by the saint and in this process
created many alternative spaces.
Proceeding from the Tamil country in the 7th
century AD throughout the length and
breadth of the subcontinent the singular aim
of Bhakti in its religional incarnations was
the quest for union with the almighty that
was denied to large section of the
population on the basis of
caste,gender,status.
We end by saying that there can be multiple
readings including gendered reading that
reveals in contrast to the textual version of
an imagined freedom at one level there were
invisible forces that set the clock back. After
some centuries changed conditions in
different historical context saw in Bhakti
movement slowly moving into various
directions in different regions either by
being co-opted, accommodated while some
movements still thronged to return to the
original message to revive the momentum.