Bhakti
Bhakti is a concept common in Indian religions which means attachment, fondness for, devotion to, trust, homage, worship, piety, faith, or love. In Indian religions, it may refer to loving devotion for a personal God, a formless ultimate reality or an enlightened being. Bhakti is often a deeply emotional devotion based on a relationship between a devotee and the object of devotion. A devotee is a bhakta or bhakt.
One of the earliest appearances of the concept is found in the early Buddhist Theragatha through the term bhatti. Early texts such as the Shvetashvatara Upanishad and the Bhagavad Gita, describe bhakti as contemplating God as a form of yoga.
Bhakti ideas have inspired many popular texts and saint-poets in India. The Bhagavata Purana, for example, is a Krishna-related text associated with the Bhakti movement in Hinduism. Bhakti is also found in other religions practiced in India, and it has influenced interactions between Christianity and Hinduism in the modern era. Nirguni bhakti is found in Sikhism, as well as Hinduism. Outside India, emotional devotion is found in some Southeast Asian and East Asian Buddhist traditions.
The bhakti movement, pioneered by the Tamil Alvars and Nayanars, that developed around the gods Vishnu, Shiva and Devi in the second half of the 1st millennium CE.
Terminology
The Sanskrit word bhakti is derived from the verb root bhaj-, which means "to worship, have recourse to, betake onself to" or bhañj-, which means "to break." The word also means "attachment, devotion to, fondness for, homage, faith or love, worship, piety to something as a spiritual, religious principle or means of salvation".The meaning of the term bhakti is analogous to but different from kama. Kama connotes emotional connection, sometimes with sensual devotion and erotic love. Bhakti, in contrast, is spiritual: a love and devotion to religious concepts or principles, that engages both emotion and intellection. Karen Pechelis states that the word bhakti should not be understood as uncritical emotion, but as committed engagement. She adds that, in the concept of bhakti in Hinduism, the engagement involves a simultaneous tension between emotion and intellection, "emotion to reaffirm the social context and temporal freedom, intellection to ground the experience in a thoughtful, conscious approach". One who practices bhakti is called a bhakta.
The term bhakti, in Vedic Sanskrit literature, has a general meaning of "mutual attachment, devotion, fondness for, devotion to" such as in human relationships, most often between beloved-lover, friend-friend, king-subject, parent-child. It may refer to devotion towards a spiritual teacher as guru-bhakti, or to a personal God, or for spirituality without form.
According to the Sri Lankan Buddhist scholar Sanath Nanayakkara, there is no single term in English that adequately translates or represents the concept of bhakti in Indian religions. Terms such as "devotion, faith, devotional faith" represent certain aspects of bhakti, but it means much more. The concept includes a sense of deep affection, attachment, but not wish because "wish is selfish, affection is unselfish". Some scholars, states Nanayakkara, associate it with saddha which means "faith, trust or confidence". However, bhakti can connote an end in itself, or a path to spiritual wisdom.
The term bhakti refers to one of several alternate spiritual paths to moksha in Hinduism, and it is referred to as bhakti marga or bhakti yoga. The other paths are Jnana marga, Karma marga, Rāja marga.
The term bhakti has been usually translated as "devotion" in Orientalist literature. The colonial era authors variously described bhakti as a form of mysticism or "primitive" religious devotion of lay people with monotheistic parallels. However, modern scholars state "devotion" is a misleading and incomplete translation of bhakti.
Many contemporary scholars have questioned this terminology, and most now trace the term bhakti as one of the several spiritual perspectives that emerged from reflections on the Vedic context and Hindu way of life. Bhakti in Indian religions is not a ritualistic devotion to a God or to religion, but participation in a path that includes behavior, ethics, mores and spirituality. It involves, among other things, refining one's state of mind, knowing God, participating in God, and internalizing God. Increasingly, instead of "devotion", the term "participation" is appearing in scholarly literature as a gloss for the term bhakti.
Bhakti is an important term in Sikhism and Hinduism. They both share numerous concepts and core spiritual ideas, but bhakti of nirguni is particularly significant in Sikhism. In Hinduism, diverse ideas continue, where both saguni and nirguni ''bhakti'' or alternate paths to spirituality are among the options left to the choice of a Hindu.
History of Hindu bhakti
The Upanishads
The last of three epilogue verses of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad, dated to be from 1st millennium BCE, uses the word Bhakti as follows:This verse is one of the earliest use of the word Bhakti in ancient Indian literature, and has been translated as "the love of God". Scholars have debated whether this phrase is authentic or later insertion into the Upanishad, and whether the terms "Bhakti" and "Deva" meant the same in this ancient text as they do in the modern era. Max Muller states that the word Bhakti appears only once in this Upanishad, that too in one last verse of the epilogue, could have been a later addition and may not be theistic as the word was later used in much later Sandilya Sutras. Grierson as well as Carus note that the first epilogue verse 6.21 of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad is also notable for its use of the word Deva Prasada, but add that Deva in the epilogue of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad refers to "pantheistic Brahman" and the closing credit to sage Shvetashvatara in verse 6.21 can mean "gift or grace of his Soul".
Post-Vedic movement
Scholarly consensus sees bhakti as a post-Vedic movement that developed primarily during the Hindu Epics and Puranas era of Indian history.The Bhagavad Gita is the first text to explicitly use the word "bhakti" to designate a religious path, using it as a term for one of three possible religious approaches or yogas.
The Bhagavata Purana develops the idea more elaborately, while the Shvetashvatara Upanishad presents evidence of guru-bhakti.
Bhakti movement
The Bhakti Movement was a rapid growth of bhakti, first starting in the later part of 1st millennium CE, from Tamil Nadu in southern India with the Shaiva Nayanars and the Vaishnava Alvars. Their ideas and practices inspired bhakti poetry and devotion throughout India over the 12th-18th century CE. The Alvars were Vaishnava poet-saints who wandered from temple to temple, singing the praises of Vishnu. They hailed the divine abodes of Vishnu and converted many people to Vaishnavism.File:Meerabai.jpg|thumb|Meera was one of the most significant poet-saints in the Vaishnava bhakti movement.
Like the Alvars, the Shaiva Nayanar poets were influential. The Tirumurai, a compilation of hymns by sixty-three Nayanar poets, is still of great importance in South India. Hymns by three of the most prominent poets, Appar, Campantar and Sundarar, were compiled into the Tevaram, the first volumes of the Tirumurai. The poets' itinerant lifestyle helped create temple and pilgrimage sites and spread devotion to Shiva. Early Tamil-Shiva bhakti poets quoted the Krishna Yajurveda. The Alvars and Nayanars were instrumental in propagating the Bhakti tradition. The Bhagavata Purana's references to the South Indian Alvar saints, along with its emphasis on bhakti, have led many scholars to give it South Indian origins, though some scholars question whether this evidence excludes the possibility that bhakti movement had parallel developments in other parts of India.
Scholars state that the bhakti movement focused on Vishnu, Shiva, Shakti and other deities, that developed and spread in India, was in response to the arrival of Islam in India about 8th century CE, and subsequent religious violence. This view is contested by other scholars.
The Bhakti movement swept over east and north India from the fifteenth-century onwards, reaching its zenith between the 15th and 17th century CE. According to Patton Burchett, the four key features of this early modern bhakti movement in north India were:
First and foremost, these communities were united by a distinctive focus on personal devotion to the Divine, as opposed to other traditional pillars of Indic religiosity such as knowledge, ritual, or the practice of yoga or asceticism. This devotion took place in the context of an intimate, loving relationship with the Divine in which caste, class, or gender typically were said to have no place. This was a bhakti that found its most characteristic expression in the context of spiritual fellowship with other devotees, the medium of song, the idiom of passionate love or painful separation, and the remembrance—in meditation, recitation, chant, and song—of the name of God. Second, these new devotional communities of Mughal India were alike in their production and performance of devotional works, composed in vernacular languages, remembering the deeds of God and exemplary bhaktas. Third, important in all these communities was the performance and collection of songs attributed to renowned bhakti poet-saints like Kabīr, Raidās, and Sūrdās. Finally, despite their many differences, the vast majority of bhakti authors and sectarian communities in early modern North India came together in articulating a devotional sensibility distinct from—and often explicitly positioned in opposition to—certain tantric paradigms of religiosity.Bhakti poetry and ideas influenced many aspects of Hindu culture, religious and secular, and became an integral part of Indian society. It extended its influence to Sufism, Christianity, and Jainism. Sikhism was founded by Guru Nanak in the 15th century, during the bhakti movement period, and scholars have identified it as drawing from many Bhakti traditions and ideas.
Saints such as Mirabai, Soordas, Narsinh Mehta composed several bhajans that were a path towards Bhakti for many, that are universally sung even today. A modern age saint, Shri Devendra Ghia has composed about 10,000 hymns. These hymns are related to bhakti, knowledge, devotion, faith, introspection and honesty.
The movement has traditionally been considered as an influential social reformation in Hinduism, and provided an individual-focused alternative path to spirituality regardless of one's birth caste or gender. Postmodern scholars question this traditional view and whether the Bhakti movement were ever a social reform or rebellion of any kind. They suggest Bhakti movement was a revival, reworking and recontextualization of ancient Vedic traditions.