Bhakti movement
[2] Originating in Tamilakam during 6th century CE,[3][4][5][6] it gained prominence through the poems and teachings of the Vaishnava Alvars and Shaiva Nayanars in early medieval South India, before spreading northwards.
[11][12] The movement has traditionally been considered an influential social reformation in Hinduism, as it provided an individual-focused alternative path to spirituality, regardless of one's birth or gender.
[19] The Bhakti movement in Hinduism refers to ideas and engagement that emerged in the medieval era on love and devotion to religious concepts built around one or more gods and goddesses.
[23] Doris Srinivasan[30] states that the Upanishad is a treatise on theism, but it creatively embeds a variety of divine images, an inclusive language that allows "three Vedic definitions for a personal deity".
[32] Hiriyanna interprets the text to be introducing "personal theism" in the form of Shiva Bhakti, with a shift to monotheism but in the henotheistic context where the individual is encouraged to discover his own definition and sense of God.
In the second millennium, a second wave of bhakti spread northwards through Karnataka (c. 12th century) and gained wide acceptance in fifteenth-century Assam,[40] Bengal and northern India.
[1][41] According to Brockington, the initial Tamil bhakti movement was characterized by "a personal relationship between the deity and the devotee", and "fervent emotional experience in response to divine grace".
For example, in Kannada-speaking regions (roughly modern Karnataka), the Bhakti movement arrived in the 12th century, with the emergence of Basava and his Shaivite Lingayatism, which were known for their total rejection of caste distinctions and the authority of the Vedas, their promotion of the religious equality of women, and their focus on worshipping a small lingam, which they always carried around their necks, as opposed to images in temples run by elite priesthoods.
[54] Another important development was the rise of the Sant Mat movement, which drew from Islam, Nath tradition and Vaishnavism from which the famous 15th-century Kabir arose.
[10][60][61] That view is contested by some scholars,[61] with Rekha Pande stating that singing ecstatic Bhakti hymns in local language had been a tradition in South India before Muhammad was born.
[63] According to Wendy Doniger, the nature of the Bhakti movement may have been affected by the daily practices to "surrender to God" of Islam when it arrived in India.
[10] In turn, that influenced devotional practices in Islam such as Sufism,[64] and other religions in India from the 15th century onwards, such as Sikhism, Christianity,[65] and Jainism.
Supreme Wisdom, which can be taken as basically non-theistic and as an independent wisdom tradition (not dependent on the Vedas), appears fused with the highest level of bhakti and with the highest level of God-realization"é[67] The Bhakti movement witnessed a surge in Hindu literature in regional languages, particularly in the form of devotional poems and music.
[69][70][71] This literature includes the writings of the Alvars and Nayanars, poems of Andal,[72] Basava,[73] Bhagat Pipa,[74] Allama Prabhu, Akka Mahadevi, Kabir, Guru Nanak (founder of Sikhism),[73] Tulsidas, Nabha Dass,[75] Gusainji, Ghananand,[72] Ramananda (founder of Ramanandi Sampradaya), Ravidass, Sripadaraja, Vyasatirtha, Purandara Dasa, Kanakadasa, Vijaya Dasa, Six Goswamis of Vrindavan,[76] Raskhan,[77] Ravidas,[73] Jayadeva Goswami,[72] Namdev,[73] Eknath, Tukaram, Mirabai,[68] Ramprasad Sen,[78] Sankardev,[79] Vallabha Acharya,[73] Narsinh Mehta,[80] Gangasati[81] and the teachings of saints like Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
[90][89] The earliest writers from the 7th to 10th centuries who are known to have influenced the poet-saints driven movements include Sambandar, Tirunavukkarasar, Sundarar, Nammalvar, Adi Shankara, Manikkavacakar and Nathamuni.
[91] Several 11th- and 12th-century writers developed different philosophies within the Vedanta school of Hinduism that were influential to the Bhakti tradition in medieval India, and they include Ramanuja, Madhva, Vallabha and Nimbarka.
Saundarya Lahari was written in Sanskrit by Adi Shankara and was translated into Tamil in the 12th century by Virai Kaviraja Pandithar, who titled the book Abhirami Paadal.
[99] According to David Lorenzen, the idea of bhakti for a Nirguna Brahman has been a baffling one to scholars since it offers "heart-felt devotion to a God without attributes, without even any definable personality".
According to J. L. Brockington, the Sri Vaishnavas had split into two subsects in the 14th century:the dispute was over the question of human effort versus divine grace in achieving salvation, a controversy often and not unreasonably compared to the Arminian and Calvinist standpoints within Protestantism.
[102] The Bhakti movement led to devotional transformation of medieval Hindu society, and Vedic rituals or alternatively ascetic monklike lifestyle for moksha gave way to individualistic loving relationship with a personally-defined god.
[7] Most scholars state that Bhakti movement provided women and members of the Shudra and untouchable communities an inclusive path to spiritual salvation.
[11] Kabir, a poet-saint, for example, wrote in Upanishadic style, the state of knowing truth:[106] There's no creation or creator there, no gross or fine, no wind or fire, no sun, moon, earth, or water, no radiant form, no time there, no word, no flesh, no faith, no cause and effect, nor any thought of the Veda, no Hari or Brahma, no Shiva or Shakti, no pilgrimage and no rituals, no mother, father, or guru there...
The Bhakti movement also led to the prominence of the concept of female devotion, poet-saints such as Andal coming to occupy the popular imagination of the common people along with her male counterparts.
[111] Practices emerged bringing new forms of spiritual leadership and social cohesion among the medieval Hindus such as community singing, the chanting together of deity names; festivals; pilgrimages; and rituals relating to Saivism, Vaishnavism and Shaktism.
[116] Bhakti has been a prevalent practice in various Jaina sects in which learned Tirthankara (Jina) and human gurus are considered superior beings and venerated with offerings, songs and Arti prayers.
[117] John Cort suggests that the bhakti movement in later Hinduism and Jainism may share roots in vandal and puja concepts of the Jaina tradition.
[144][145] Arti and devotional prayer ceremonies are also found in Ravidassia sect[146][147] Contemporary scholars question whether the 19th- and early 20th-century theories about the Bhakti movement in India, its origin, nature and history are accurate.
The orientalist images of bhakti were formulated in a context of discovery: a time of organized cultural contact, in which many agencies, including administrative, scholarly, and missionary – sometimes embodied in a single person – sought knowledge of India.
[21][149] John Stratton Hawley describes recent scholarship that questions the old theory of the Bhakti movement's origin and story of irt coming from the south and moveing north".
[154] Scholars increasingly drop, according to Karen Pechilis, the old premises and the language of "radical otherness, monotheism and reform of orthodoxy" for the Bhakti movement.
