SOLUTION: Oakton Community College Bhakti Movement Essay
SOLUTION: Oakton Community College Bhakti Movement Essay.
Loving and Serving God: Bhakti,
Murtis, and Puja
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Bhakti, Devotion
The primary mode of worshipping god or the goddess in contemporary Hindu traditions is through practices of bhakti (devotion). The
word bhakti is derived from the Sanskrit verbal root bhaj, literally, to
share; and it has come to mean sharing in the divine presence, entering
a relationship with a loving, compassionate deity. Historically, bhakti
traditions developed in what is called the medieval period (circa the
seventh to seventeenth centuries ce), in response, in part, to Vedic
brahminic, ritual religion conducted in Sanskrit from which women
and low castes were excluded, in favor of the possibilities of unmediated access to the deity. However, it is important to point out that
Hindu traditions tend to be aggregative; that is, while new traditions
and modes of expression may be added, older ones are rarely totally
dropped, so that Vedic rituals are still part of Hindu practices even
after the development of bhakti traditions.
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Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
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One of the primary ways in which bhakti was articulated and promulgated was through songs composed in regional languages by
“poet‐saints” (Hindi, sants; Alvars in Tamil Srivaishnava tradition;
Nayanmars in Tamil Shaiva tradition). Songs of the poet‐saints
continue to be sung today in both domestic and temple contexts; and
many of these poet‐saints have themselves been deified and their
images appear in some temples.1 Their poetry describes the beauty and
physical characteristics of deities who have such qualities (saguna) or
the nature of the deity without physical qualities (nirguna), the deities’
stories, and/or the emotional quality of the poet’s relationship with the
deity. Almost any emotion has the potential for creating intimacy with
the deity: the pain of separation from the god (when he is imagined as
a lover), the love a mother feels for her child, the sheer joy of gazing
at the beauty of the deity, and arguments with or teasing the deity. A
few examples of the kinds of relationships with the deity expressed
by bhakti poets and the emotional quality of their songs follow.
The Tamil poet Appar (circa 570–670 ce) describes the beauty of
Shiva in his manifestation as Nataraja, King of Dance:
If you could see
the arch of his brow
the budding smile
on lips red as the kovvai fruit
cool matted hair,
the milk‐white ash on coral skin,
and the sweet golden foot raised up in dance,
then even human birth on this wide earth would be a thing worth
having.
(Peterson 1989, 118)
Fifteenth‐century Telugu poet Annamayya sings of the mutually
dependent relationship between god and human, teasing the god
by asking “imagine that I wasn’t here?”
1
For example, the Alvar female saint Andal (whose murti is distinguishable by the
side hair bun she wears) appears in many Srivaishnava temples, including the
Hindu Temple of Atlanta, where she is one of Sri Venkateshvara’s two wives and is
also considered to be an incarnation of Bhu Devi (goddess of earth).
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Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
Imagine that I wasn’t here. What would you do with your kindness?
You get a good name because of me.
I’m number one among idiots. A huge mountain of ego.
Rich in weakness, in giving in to my senses.
You’re lucky you found me. Try not to lose me.
Imagine that I wasn’t here.
I’m the Emperor of Confusion, of life and death.
Listed in the book of bad karma.
I wallow in births, womb after womb.
Even if you try, could you find another like me?
Imagine that I wasn’t here.
Think it over. By saving someone so low,
you win praise all over the world.
You get merit from me, and I get life
out of you. We’re right for each other,
god on the hill.
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Imagine that I wasn’t here.
(Narayana Rao and Shulman 2005, 27)
In a very different voice, North Indian sixteenth‐century poet
Surdas relies on Krishna mythology in the poem in which he sings
in the voice of Krishna’s mother, Yashoda. She urges her toddler
Krishna (here called Gopal) to drink some milk, promising him that
if he does, his hair will grow and he will be strong like the other
boys in the village. Her voice is filled with maternal love and joy in
her child; and one form of love between god and devotee can be this
maternal love (vatsalya bhakti).
“If you drink the milk of the black cow, Gopal,
you’ll see your black braid grow.
Little son, listen, among all the little boys
you’ll be the finest, most splendid one.
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Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
Look at the other lads in Braj and see:
it’s milk that brought them their strength.
So drink: the fires daily burn in the bellies
of your foes – Kans and Kesi and the crane.”
He takes a little bit and tugs his hair a little bit
to see if his mother’s telling lies.
Sur says, Yashoda looks at his face and laughs
when he tries to coax his curls beyond his ear.
(Hawley and Juergensmeyer 1988, 105)
In contemporary Hinduism, bhakti practices are the dominant
mode of worship. The goals of bhakti rituals are to establish an intimate relationship with the deity; or, through serving the deity, to
gain her/his favor so she/he may then intervene in a positive way
in the human lives of devotees. Devotional acts create good karma
and the deities to which they are offered can crosscut and reverse
the karmic cycle of action and its consequences (see Chapter 6 for
vrats [ritual vows] as a mode of bhakti that produces tangible results).
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Singing to God and the Goddess
One way to establish a relationship with the deity, love and worship
him/her, and evoke his/her blessings is to sing to him/her in genres
called bhajans or kirtans (sometimes these words are conflated and
other times distinguished by content or performance context; I will
use the term bhajan hereafter). Many bhajans are the sung poetry of
the poet‐saints mentioned above; others repeat over and over the
names of a particular god. While bhajans may be sung alone by individuals, their performance is most often a communal activity that
helps to create a devotional community; they may be performed in
front of images (murtis) of a deity in domestic or temple contexts, or
without the murti. In communal contexts, bhajans are performed in a
call‐and‐response style in which a lead singer sings out a line that is
then repeated by the group. Individual lines may be repeated over
and over, with the aim of intensifying the emotional (often ecstatic)
quality of the relationship with the deity, rather than to communicate
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Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
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“content.”2 The use of instruments (such as drums – tabla, pakhawaj,
or mridangam – cymbals, and harmonium) augments the emotional
intensity of bhajan ritual performances.
Bhajans can adapt longer narrative and poetic traditions, such as
Tulsidas’s Ramcaritmanas or Hanuman Chalisa (praise poem to
Hanuman), to this devotional call‐and‐response style. For example,
many women’s Ramayana mandalis (singing groups) in Chhattisgarh
sing through the entire Tulsidas text over the period of many months,
with its verses interspersed with lines of bhajans. The Ramcaritmanas
verses relating the episode of Rama asking a boatman to take him
across a river, for example, are interspersed with the Chhattisgarhi
bhajan lines: “On the banks of the Yamuna River, Rama called to the
boatman, ‘Brother, bring the boat to the bank.’” Other episodes are
interspersed with simple praise lines such as “Praise to Lord
Ganapati,” “Praise to Lord Hanuman,” “Praise to Santoshi Mata”
(the latter is an interesting inclusion given that this goddess does not
appear in the Ramayana narrative) (Flueckiger 1991). After every
three or four verses, a Hindi commentary that is included in printed
texts of the Ramcaritmanas is read; or, if the mandali leader is qualified,
she gives an extemperaneous Chhattisgarhi or Hindi commentary.
Worshipping Deities in Material Form
The primary mode of bhakti worship is through rituals offered to
physical forms (murtis) that embody (or are the body of) a deity. The
two most common Indian‐language terms for the image of a deity,
murti and vigraham, give us ways to begin to understand Hindu
views of the physical mage.3 A murti is, literally, anything that has a
definite shape or form. When used to identify the image of a deity,
the implication is that the murti is the shape, embodiment, or
manifestation of a specific god or goddess. The term vigraham comes
In Indian Muslim traditions, a similar genre is qavvali.
The term vigraham is rarely used in everyday speech in the North, while it is more
commonly used in the South. However, murti is also commonly used in the South in reference to festival images (utsava murtis) and the primary image of a temple (mula murti).
2
3
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Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
from the Sanskrit verbal root grh, which means “to grasp, catch
hold of.” Thus, the material vigraham can be understood to be a form
that enables the worshipper to “grasp hold of,” know, and enter a
relationship with the deity.
There are two primary Hindu interpretations of the nature of the
physical image: the deity is there in physical form, or the form is a
representation of the deity and a means through which human worshippers can imagine and concentrate upon god or the goddess but
is not actually the deity. An example of the latter interpretation can
be found in the ritual text of the Vishnu Samhita:
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Without a form (vigraham), how can God be meditated upon? If (He
is) without any form, where will the mind fix itself? When there is
nothing for the mind to attach itself to, it will slip away from
meditation or will glide into a state of slumber. Therefore the wise
will meditate on some form, remembering, however, that the form is
a superimposition and not a reality (cited in Eck 1998, 45)
Worshippers at The Hindu Temple of Atlanta often explain to
non‐Hindu visitors (including many university students), if the
topic comes up, that the image is only something to concentrate
on through which one can show reverence to the god, and that the
worshippers are not actually worshipping the physical image.
These kinds of statements are made, in an American context in
which Christian and Jewish views of image worship are dominant, to help non‐Hindus “make sense” of what they are seeing
(note that in India itself, few Hindus, Muslims, or Christians
would ask a Hindu what the image means since images are around
them all the time and they have their own assumptions). But
when one observes these same Hindus feed their murtis at home
or temple priests massage the limbs of a temple murti with oil, the
rituals seem to imply that the murti is more than a symbol or point
of concentration.
The more common interpretation of the murti is that it is a literal
embodiment of the deity. The deity is willing, through his/her
grace, to take this manifest form, a form which is dependent upon
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Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
the worship of the devotee, in order to make him/herself accessible
to the devotee. For example, in the Vaishnava text Paramasamhita,
the god Brahma asks Vishnu:
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You have told me that the Highest God Vishnu is the ultimate
cause of creation. … Then how should humans worship him and
meditate on him? For he is not ever limited by any conditions, and
his form cannot be ascertained through direction, place, time, or
shape. So how should one who hopes to be successful worship
Him?
[Vishnu answers] He can be worshiped in embodied form only.
There is no worship of one without manifest form. … Thanks to
my benevolence toward all beings, there are manifest forms of
Vishnu, intended for the purpose of ritual action. Therefore
humans should construct the Imperishable One in human form
and worship him with utmost devotion, in order to gain success
(cited in Davis 1999, 30).
In Srivaishnava traditions, the temple image is called the arca
avatara, literally, the “incarnation in a worshipable form.”
Speakers of Indian English usually translate murti or vigraham as
“idol,” and this term is commonly used in American temple
brochures and on their websites. When Hindus use the term, they
are thinking murti or vigraham; but when non‐Hindu English
speakers hear the term, they are likely to think “idolatry,” a pejorative term. It is possible that Hindus born and brought up in
American and other English‐speaking diasporic communities and
whose first language is English may, over time, internalize this negative view of image worship and their experience may come to be
that they are not actually worshipping the image, but that it is a
symbol, focal point for concentration and meditation. Because no
English word fully connotes this interpretation of the physical
image as a living form, I prefer to use the indigenous term murti
even when speaking English, rather than English translations such
as image, statue, idol – none of which connote a living entity
(perhaps the closest translation would be icon, as the term is used
by Eastern Orthodox Christians).
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Narratives of God in the Murti
Numerous oral traditions narrate the complexities and multivalency
of the relationship between the murti and deity, implying that she/
he is both in and beyond her/his physical image. For example, one
common narrative motif is of a wounded god whose physical murti
bears the scars of that wound. The murti of the god Simhadri
Appanana (the local name for the man‐lion [Narasimha] incarnation
of Vishnu) in Simhacalam, Andhra Pradesh, carries such a wound. A
local story tells of the god in his boar avatara (Varaha) rooting in a
forest when he was struck by a hunter’s arrow. When the hunter
realized, too late, that the boar was god, he applied a balm to the
wound, but it never fully healed. And today, the temple murti carries
that wound, which is covered with soothing sandal paste throughout
the year, except for one day when the paste is totally removed and
the wound is visible (Handelman, Krishnayya, and Shulman 2013,
141). Another common narrative motif identifies the murti with the
god when a devotee asks a deity, as present in a murti, to indicate
his/her answer to a particular question – often asking the deity for
permission to do something – by dropping a flower from his/her
murti form.
A Rajasthani narrative performed during a female vrat (vow)
ritual similarly performs some of these complex dynamics between
god and image (Gold 1994, 166–167).4 A summary follows:
There was a Brahmin girl who used to worship the murti of the
deity Ganesha every day; but instead of using traditional
“pure” devotional offerings, she used fire from the cremation
ground and butter from Ganesha’s own navel (both items
considered to be polluting). Ganesha was pleased, however,
with her devotion; and responding with a joke, he put his
Gold tells the story as an illustration of the power of women’s devotion and the
use of purdah (lit., curtain) to create a space for women to act (167–168).
4
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Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
finger on his nose (trunk). Now when a murti moves and
changes his/her iconography, it is considered very inauspicious, and the worried villagers went to report this to the local
king. He, in turn, called on Brahmin priests from Varanasi to
perform powerful sacrifices to remedy the situation. However,
none of their rituals were efficacious; Ganesha’s finger stayed
on his nose. The Brahmin girl asked her mother‐in‐law to go to
the king and ask what he would give to her if she could cause
Ganesha to move his finger. The king promised many villages
and to make the girl “great.”
The Brahmin girl asked that a curtain be placed in front of
the murti. The girl first made her (polluting) offerings to the
god, reminded him of her devotion, and then threatened
him: “Now take your finger down; if you don’t, then I will
take this stick and break your icon into little pieces” (166).
Ganesha laughed and acknowledged her devotion; he took
down his finger and auspicious flowers rained down from
above. The king fulfilled his promise and gifted the girl five
villages.
The storyteller ends her performance saying, “O Lord, Great
Ganeshji, as you satisfied that Brahmin girl, so satisfy me, and
satisfy the world, O Lord” (167).
This narrative provides an indigenous commentary on the nature of
the murti: it is alive, it can move, it has agency; god is there, but he
is not only there – to destroy the murti may be disrespectful (although
in this story, Ganesha is amused by the threat of his murti’s
destruction), but its destruction would not destroy god.
Another narrative (with many oral and written variants) that
confirms the presence of the deity in the image is the well‐known
story of the (circa ninth‐century) South Indian female saint Andal
(the only female among the 12 Alvar Srivaishnava poet‐saints).
Andal was raised in the family of a priest who served Vishnu at a
local temple and whose responsibilities included making and
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Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
offering flower garlands daily to the god. Andal grew up imagining
herself to be Vishnu’s bride, and, unbeknownst to her father, used to
try on Vishnu’s garlands before they were offered to the god. One
day her father noticed a long black hair in the garland he was about
to put on the god. This hair would have been considered polluting
and Andal’s father scolded her for trying on the garland, begged the
god’s pardon, threw the polluted garland away, and made a new
one for that day. However, the god refused the new garland and
asked for the “polluted” one, whose scent he preferred and that had
been worn by Andal in such devotion. Then Andal’s father realized
the intensity of his daughter’s devotion.
Andal’s hagiography concludes with the Andal merging with the
image of the god whom she considered her husband; the murti is the
god, with the ability to take in (absorb) his human devotee. Similarly,
the (circa sixteenth‐century) North Indian poet‐saint Mira Bai –
who, like Andal, considered the god to be her husband – is said to
have merged with the murti of Krishna in front of whom she was
worshipping.
Finally, the oral tradition about the (circa eleventh‐century)
Telugu poet Bhimakavi provides another narrative commentary
about the relationship between god and his image, in this case Shiva
and his stone linga. Bhimakavi’s mother was a widow who, seeing
other pilgrims praying to the god Bhimeshvara‐Shiva for certain
boons, prayed for a son. The god complied and she gave birth to a
son. However, because his mother was known to have no husband,
the son was teased for being a bastard. He ran to his mother and
threatened to hit her with a rock if she didn’t tell him who his father
was. She replied, “That rock in the temple is your father; go ask
him.” The boy then threatened the god in the temple, to hit him with
a rock, if he didn’t tell him who he was. The god appeared in his
“true form” and acknowledged he was, indeed, the boy’s father.
The boy made the god promise that if this was true, then whatever
he (the boy) said would come to pass. And so it came to be: whatever Bhimakavi pronounced came to be, but he was also able to take
back those results with a simple verbal command (Narayana Rao
and Shulman 1998, 11–13).
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The Deity without Form
Critiques of image worship within Hindu traditions come primarily
from two directions: philosophical schools such as Advaita Vedanta
and nirguna bhakti poets who worship god without tangible qualities
(nirguna, as opposed to saguna, with qualities), both of which continue
to shape some contemporary Hindu views of the murti. These views
range from the view that image worship is acceptable as a step on the
path to full knowledge that does not require or depend on images, to
objection to image worship as empty ritual (Davis 1999, 47).
Advaita Vedanta, Shankara: The leading proponent of Advaita
Vedanta, the (circa eighth‐ or ninth‐century) philosopher Shankara,
argued (based on Upanishadic thought) for the singularity of all
reality (without duality, advaita), including the created world and
ultimate reality identified as brahman, which has no qualities.
However, Shankara accepted that brahman could take on qualities in
order to be accessible to humans for worship, that deities could take
on bodies (vigraham) if they so choose. The goal of “a true aspirant
to nondualist knowledge should [be to] turn progressively inward,
toward ever more ‘subtle’ forms of practice, and finally to modes of
mental practice that dispense altogether with the dualities of self
and other, worshiper and worshipped, knower and known” (Davis
1999, 47–48). That is, Shankara argued, while image worship may be
needed “on the way,” ultimately it should not be necessary or even
desired. This Vedantic view has been particularly influential in
some North American diasporic families and communities.
Bhakti voices against empty ritual: The twelfth‐century South Indian
poet and social reformer Basavanna, who gave impetus to the
development of what became the Virashaiva sect, objected to the
idea that god could be fixed in one place through a temple murti. He
affirmed Shiva as the supreme being, whose linga was the form
through which to worship the deity; but the linga, like god himself,
is not stable. Thus, Basavanna advocated that rather than keeping it
in a temple, the linga (in miniature form) should be worn around the
necks of devotees – that is, where it would be a moving form. One
of Basavanna’s poems mocks the wide range of everyday physical
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Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
objects that were being worshipped as god, asserting at the end that
there is only one god, Shiva, here called Lord of the Meeting Rivers.
The pot is a god. The winnowing
fan is a god. The stone in the
street is a god. The comb is a
god. The bowstring is also a god. The bushel is a god and the
spouted cup is a god.
Gods, gods, there are so many
there’s no place left for a foot.
There is only
one god. He is our Lord
of the Meeting Rivers.
(Ramanujan 1973, 28)
Another strong bhakti voice against image worship, as one among
many empty ritualistic practices, can be found in the poetry of the
fifteenth‐century North Indian poet Kabir.
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Saints, I see the world is mad.
If I tell the truth they rush to beat me,
If I lie they trust me.
I’ve seen the pious Hindus, rule‐followers,
Early morning bath‐takers –
Killing souls, they worship rocks.
They know nothing.
…
And posturing yogis, hypocrites,
Hearts crammed with pride,
Praying to brass, to stones, reeling
With pride in their pilgrimage,
Fixing their caps and their prayer‐beads,
Painting their brow‐marks and arm‐marks
Braying their hymns and their couplets,
Reeling. They never heard of soul.
…
Kabir says, listen saints:
They’re all deluded!
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Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
Whatever I say, nobody gets it.
It’s too simple.
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(Hess and Singh 2002, 42–43)
Ironically, even as they were vociferous in their objections against
institutional religion, the followers of Kabir and Basavanna have
formed sects, known as Kabir Panth and Lingayyats (Virashaivas),
respectively, and their ritual practices have become institutionalized.
Reform movements: In the nineteenth century, in response, in part,
to British colonial critiques of Hindu practices, some Hindus made
an effort to “reform” or transform Hindu traditions, to return to
what they considered the more pure and ancient Vedic religion.
They argued that later “accretions” to Vedic religion – such as
puranic deities and narratives, image worship, festivals, and pilgrimage – were only “superstition” and that social customs such as
child marriage and sati (immolation of widows on the funeral
pyres of their husbands) were not true Hindu practices. The religion these reformers articulated was more in line with colonial,
Christian worldviews and practices, even as they explicitly rejected
Christianity. One major proponent of these reforms was the Bengali
intellectual Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833), who founded the Brahmo
Samaj (Society). Dayananda Sarasvati (1824–1883), influenced by
Roy, founded the Arya Samaj (particularly successful in its early
years in Punjab, Northwest India), which made an effort to convert
back to Hinduism low‐caste converts to Christianity and Islam and
had a wider geographic and social spread than did the Brahmo
Samaj. Today, adherents of both Samaj groups do not worship murtis; however, the majority of Hindu communities were not immediately impacted by these reform movements, and worship of murtis
is one of the dominant ways of worshipping and loving the deity.
Modes of Worshipping the Murti
We return now to dominant modes of worship of the deity as
embodied in physical form, the murti, in homes and temples.
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Enlivening a murti: Not every image of a deity is considered to be
an embodiment of a deity; some are just that, images, such as sculptures in museums or the many Ganesha images, whose collection is
so popular among middle‐class Hindus, which hang on living room
walls outside the puja shrine of these families. These images are
treated respectfully, but are considered to be representations, rather
than full embodiments, of the god or goddess; for example, I’ve
observed Hindus at American museums respectfully fold their
hands in namaste in front of the sculpture of a deity or touch their
hands to his/her feet. Most of these museum sculptures were either
at one time actively worshipped in temples or graced the outsides of
temples, but now, without regular worship, the deity is not believed
to be there – it is just an image, not god.
In brahminic traditions, before a murti is worshipped, a ritual
called pranapratishta (lit., to establish the life‐breath) is performed to
call the god or goddess into the form. In temples, this is a one‐time
ritual for any given murti; in domestic brahminic rituals, the deity is
called each time puja is performed. For temporary clay or plaster‐of‐
paris festival images (such as those established for the festivals of
Durga Puja or Ganesha Chaturthi), too, the deity is invoked by
asking him/her to come take up residence in the image (avahana);
and at the end of the ritual or festival, deities are “dismissed” or
given permission to leave the form before the images are immersed
in a body of water (visarjana). Further, it is assumed that the deity
leaves even permanent images and lithographs that are damaged or
fall into disuse; as a matter of respect, these are often taken to a
temple, lining up against its walls, but are no longer actively
worshipped.
However, the situation is less clear in non‐brahminic traditions.
These worshippers do not perform a specific ritual like pranapratishta
to call the deity to the murti or lithograph being worshipped. Rather,
the worshipper minimally garlands the image, offers it water, and/
or lights incense and/or an oil lamp in front of it: these rituals themselves may be interpreted as calling the deity, or they may assume
the deity is already present at the moment of worship.
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Worshipping the deity through adornment: Adornment of a murti is a
form of devotion – a mode of loving god – and enables devotees to
“see” and experience the nature of the deity. In domestic shrines,
adornment may be simply with flowers or vermilion or turmeric
powders; but some domestic murtis lend themselves to adornment
through clothing and jewelry, such as Bala Krishna (the crawling
baby murti). In small shops selling ritual accoutrements, for example,
one can find sets of sequined clothing for baby Krishna, in different
colors, with different styles of crowns and a tiny flute included in
each packet; a worshipper may also purchase a swing or small
throne for him to sit on. Temple‐murti adornment is generally much
more elaborate than that of domestic murtis. A particularly powerful
moment in worshipping the deity in a temple is when, after the
ritual of abhishekam (anointing with a series of liquids; see Chapter 4)
of the murti, it is adorned by a priest behind a closed door or curtain,
and after waiting expectantly, the curtain is drawn back and the
worshippers see the fully adorned image (i.e., they “take darshan”).
Figure 3.1 An adorned domestic puja‐shelf, brass Bala Krishna (two
inches high).
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Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
In Indian languages, the closest equivalent to the English word
“ornament” is alamkara. The term is made of two Sanskrit verbal
forms, alam/adequate and the verbal root kr/to make; so alamkara
becomes “that which makes a thing adequate.” Without alamkara, a
murti, building (adorned through architectural features), or person
is, by implication, inadequate or incomplete. Alamkara is not just an
embellishment; it is integral to whatever it adorns. Adornment may
create identities – such as when it, quite literally, “makes a bride”
(see Chapter 7) – or its loss may entail loss of identity – such as when
a widow breaks her bangles and takes off her ornaments. Similarly,
alamkara of a deity both reflects and “makes” who she/he is or how
she/he is known.
Certain deities are known to like certain kinds of adornment: At
his home temple in Tirupati, Sri Venkateshvara is said to be adorned
with up to 120 different jeweled and gold ornaments every day; on
special days, the ornaments are all pearls, or diamonds, or rubies.
Srinathji (Krishna) at Nathdvara, Rajasthan, is famous for his wide
array of adornments and sets of clothing, and calendars often portray him in different alamkara every month. Gramadevata goddesses
are often adorned (covered) with turmeric powder. Flower sellers at
Gangamma’s Tatayyagunta temple in Tirupati compared the turmeric application on the murti of the goddess to “make‐up” (using
the English word), explaining that it both beautifies the goddess
and accentuates her features, enabling worshippers to more clearly
“see” her. One female temple employee elaborated:
Pasupu (turmeric) gives beauty and radiance to the face. Look at
this stone. If you leave it just like this, it won’t look good. Only
when we do alamkara does she look like an auspicious woman
(muttaiduva). Married women, too, wear pasupu‐kumkum (Flueckiger
2013, 59).
The turmeric masking covers the fangs of Gangamma’s stone‐head
images, and thus ameliorates her excessive and potentially
destructive nature (ugram); it is said to make her shantam (peaceful,
content). The comment above suggests that the application of
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turmeric not only beautifies, but has the potential to change the
nature of the goddess, who is, in fact, not married and not traditionally identified as a muttaiduva.
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The Services of Puja
The ritual of puja (sometimes called seva, or service, to the deity) –
modeled after traditional hospitality shown to a guest or honored
person (or, one could also say guests are treated as gods) – is
offered to domestic deities every morning and/or evening and in
temples throughout the day. The series of rituals performed to a
deity vary from the textually prescribed elaborate 16 upacharas
(services) performed in puranic‐deity temples by temple priests, to
a simple offering of water, flowers, and incense performed at
domestic shrines. Domestic pujas may be very brief, lighting an oil
lamp and incense, or elders of a family may spend an hour or two
in front of their deities, offering puja and reciting ritual texts and
the names of god. In temples, deities may be fed fruits and sweets,
garlanded with flowers, offered arati (a flame offering), bathed
and offered fresh clothes, offered a bed for rest, awakened with or
served through song – and in some temples, on special occasions,
served with performances of dance.5 In all contexts, puja is accompanied by a worshipper’s bodily gesture of humility (varying from
a simple gesture of hands together in namaste, a deep knee bend
Dancing in temples fell out of practice with legislation (particularly the Madras
Devadasi Act of 1947) outlawing the practice of dedicating women (devadasis, lit.,
servants of god; dancers, courtesans) to temples. Not all devadasis performed in temples; many performed in private salons and at public events such as weddings (Soneji
2012). While Indian legislation in the mid‐twentieth century effectively curtailed
devadasi performance, both within and outside puranic temples, the practice of dancing
in the temple has recently been reintroduced in both Indian and American contexts. At
numerous Indian puranic temples today, classical Indian dancers may perform in
pavilions on the temple grounds. In some temples in United States, such as the Hindu
Temple of Atlanta, on special festival days, dance has been reintroduced inside the
temple itself as one of the upacaras offered to the deities.
5
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Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
holding ones ears [a sign of humility], bending one’s head to the
ground, to a full prostration). Many Hindus speaking English
equate puja with the English term “prayer,” a term with which
non‐Hindus will be more familiar. However, while one may pray
while performing puja, the ritual is unique and implies making
tangible offerings to the image of a deity.
An array of offerings: Hindu deities have individual desires, even
demands, when it comes to ritual offerings they receive. The lanes
and gullies leading up to large temples are filled with small stalls
selling the appropriate offerings to that temple’s main deity. For
example, if it is a goddess temple – such as that of Padmavati (wife
of Sri Venkateshvara) on the outskirts of Tirupati – worshippers
may purchase baskets filled with flowers, a piece of cloth representing a sari or with which to make a sari blouse, or spangled,
netted red scarves, and turmeric and vermilion powders (pasupu‐
kumkum). More recently, these goddess offerings – “women’s
things” – have been packaged in small plastic bags and often
include two red glass bangles, a comb, mirror, a packet of bindis
(forehead mark stickers), kohl, kumkum‐pasupu, perfume, and (in
South India) a tali (wedding pendant) turmeric‐colored thread.
Wealthier worshippers may offer the goddess a full‐size sari on a
festival day or on the occasion of a particular ritual that their
family is sponsoring; after the goddess has worn the sari, it is,
along with others, sold (often at auction) and the proceeds used
for the upkeep of the temple. Shiva prefers milk offerings, bilva
(wood apple tree) leaves, and ash. Some goddesses (including
Kali and gramadevatas) require non‐vegetarian offerings (animal
sacrifice, bali).
Arati (harati): Puja is concluded with the clockwise circling of an
oil lamp or camphor flame in front of the murti, a ritual called arati
or harati. (Sometimes the entire ritual of puja is also simply called
arati.) The flame is presented by the ritual officiant (temple priest
or, in domestic pujas, the householder) to others present for the
puja, who hold their hands over the flame and bring their hands
to their eyes, as a mode of bringing the blessings of the deity to
themselves.
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Figure 3.2
Arati being offered to temple worshipper, Tirupati.
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In North India, arati is often accompanied by the singing of a very
popular Hindi bhajan, titled by its first line: “Jai Jagdish Hare.” The
first of several verses, with transliteration of the Hindi, is:
jai jagdish hare
swami jai jagdish hare
bhakt janon ke sankat
das janon ke sankat
kshan me dur kare
om jai jagdish hare
Victory to the lord of the universe,
Victory to the lord of the universe.
The difficulties of all devotees,
The difficulties of all followers [lit., servants],
In a mere second, distance them.
Om, victory to the lord of the universe.
Prasad: The water, food, flowers, gift packets described above,
pasupu‐kumkum, and other offerings given to a deity in puja are
returned to worshippers as prasad, which is believed to have absorbed
the blessings of the deity who has partaken of the offerings.6 Prasad
If someone receives prasad but chooses not to partake of it for one reason or
another, it should not be simply thrown away with the trash; rather, because it is
sacred, it should be disposed of by placing it under a tree or in a body of water.
6
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Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
may be shared with family members and/or friends who have not
actually participated in the puja, but who, nonetheless, share its
benefits through prasad. Worshippers at pilgrimage temples often
take some of the prasad they have received to share with family
members and neighbors back home. For example, the renowned
prasad from the Venkateshvara temple in Tirupati‐Tirumala, unusually large laddus (ball‐shaped sweets),7 is often carefully wrapped to
take home to family members and friends.
Forehead markings: After having performed puja at home or participating in temple rituals, most worshippers apply vermilion powder
or ash (in Shiva temples) to their foreheads before they leave the
temple or the puja shrine. The forehead marking (tilaka in Sanskrit,
bindi in Hindi, bottu in Telugu) is particularly important to most
Hindu women, who these days often apply a “sticker” forehead
marking, available in all sizes, shapes, and colors; many women feel
not fully dressed or incomplete without a forehead marking. After
worship in a temple, however, women would also apply vermilion
powder or ash to their foreheads. If a non‐Hindu asks a Hindu woman
what her forehead marking or sticker means, she will often answer
that it is a form of adornment that is not necessarily “religious.”
Sometimes, the bindi is just cosmetic; and as such may also be worn by
non‐Hindu Indians. But the preceding comment may also reflect an
assumed definition of religion and the saying “Hinduism is not a religion; it’s a way of life” (see Introduction for an expanded definition of
“religion”). For most women who apply bindis in India, it is an
embodied practice about which they do not often think explicitly; in
the diaspora, however, they may be more reflective about their practice, since they are often asked by non‐Indians about the meaning of
their forehead markings. Male devotees may apply a tilaka after
7
In 2009, this particular form of sweet, both in its size and ingredients, received an
international patent, as the Times of India reported September 16, 2009: “Here’s some
sweet news. The famed Tirupati laddu – the most sought‐after prasadam for lakhs
of pilgrims who throng Tirumala – too joins the ranks of Darjeeling tea, Madhubani
paintings and Goa feni after it was granted the Geographical Indication (GI) patent
rights. This bars others from naming or marketing the sweetmeat preparation under
the same name” (accessed online July 28, 2014).
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worship, but fewer of them leave these tilakas on all day; those who
are particularly ardent devotees may apply markings that cover their
entire forehead – a white ‘U’ with a slender red mark in the middle for
Vaishnavas and three horizontal lines marked by ash for Shaivas.
A grammar of devotion: What does the performance of puja imply
about the deity to whom it is offered? Does the deity need the food, or
is making offerings of food, clothes, flowers, and so on primarily a
human mode through which to express honor and devotion? Does the
deity actually partake of the food and water offered him or her?
Hindus may answer these questions in a variety of ways. Some Hindus
will answer that the deity has put him/herself in a position to be accessible to human devotees and does rely on human service. For example,
one Hindu friend always travels with her little brass image of child
Krishna (Bala Krishna), along with various ritual ingredients with
which to serve him, explaining that there would be no one at home to
feed him were he to be left alone, and the god would be hungry. Others
may answer that the deity does not actually need the food and services,
but that puja is a way to show devotion. Puja follows a grammar of
devotion through which humans make a connection with the deity –
showing him/her devotion and love – in the ways that they know
best, through modes of hospitality and care‐taking (Eck 1998, 48).
Online, Cyber Puja
The relatively new phenomenon of online or cyber puja implies
that puja can be efficacious without the direct mediation of the
human body,8 but it raises questions about the nature of the body
of the god or goddess and what it is that devotees are seeing when
they take darshan of the deity on screen (either live through recordings from temples themselves or pixelated images of the deity)
and the power of that darshan. Online “live darshans” are available
A related phenomenon is for a worshipper to pay temple employees to perform
puja on his/her behalf. This suggests that the ritual itself is efficacious whether or
not its sponsor is present.
8
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Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
for large Indian temples such as Somnath (Gujarat), Shirdi Sai
Baba Samadhi Mandir (Maharashtra), Kashi Vishvanath Mandir
(Varanasi), and Shree Mahakaleshwar temple in Ujjain (Madhya
Pradesh), among many others. (I encourage readers to look up
some of these sites to see the kinds of rituals that are available
online.) Other sites give the option for on‐demand webcasts of
particular rituals and processions (such as the Sri Jagannath
Temple in Puri offering a webcast of the annual Ratha Jatra chariot
festival); still others (such as the Shirdi Sai Baba Samadhi Mandir)
give the option of the viewer offering arati and other services to
the on‐screen image of the deity.
Devotees who access these sites have different views of the
power and legitimacy of these cyber darshans. Some articulate the
view that since god is everywhere, he is also here, on screen; or
that since murtis can be made of multiple forms (including that
in the mind), this cyber form is just one more; or that it is devotion
that creates a murti, and that if one views online images with
devotion, they are, then, murtis. Others argue that because the
murti online is unstable – the internet can go down and the image
suddenly disappear – or because the online image is not three‐
dimensional and has not undergone the ritual of pranapratishta, it
is not a “real” murti. Nicole Karapanagiotis argues for “a new
category for the study of Hindu forms of God (cyber‐forms in
particular): namely, that of the ‘worshipable form.’ … although – in
the theoretical sense – virtual Visnu is Visnu and cyber Siva is Siva,
these cyber‐forms need to evoke adequate sentiment in devotees
in order for devotees to see them as God and to worship them as God”
(2013, 74; italics in original). She identifies three criteria that create
a “worshipable form”: “framing, aesthetics, and image histories/
associations of devotional power” (74). What is missing, however,
from these darshans and devotional experience is the power of the
geographic place itself associated with many temples (see
Chapter 4); and most Hindus who participate in cyber darshan
(mostly those living in Hindu diasporic communities) would
prefer to visit the temple itself if they were able.
*****
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Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
Hindus show their love and devotion to god or the goddess
through a wide variety of rituals, including ornamentation of the
murti, puja, bhajan, and recitation of the stories of the deities and
litanies of their many names. These rituals may be attenuated (performed quickly before one goes to work) or may be more elaborate
and more time‐consuming (on festival days, or
performed by
elders who have more time). We turn in the next chapter to similar
rituals performed in temples where, in puranic‐deity temples that
are served by fulltime Brahmin priests, the rituals are performed
throughout the day, with or without the presence of other (lay)
worshippers.
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References
Davis, Richard. 1999. Lives of Indian Images. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Eck, Diana. 1998. Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Flueckiger, Joyce Burkhalter. 1991. Literacy and the Changing Concept of
Text: Women’s Ramayana Mandali in Central India. In Boundaries of
the Text: Performing the Epics in South and Southeast Asia, eds. Joyce
Flueckiger and Laurie Sears, 44–60. Ann Arbor: South and Southeast
Asian Center Publications, University of Michigan.
Flueckiger, Joyce Burkhalter. 2013. When the World Becomes Female: Guises of
a South Indian Goddess. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Gold, Ann Grodzins. 1994. Purdah Is As Purdah’s Kept: A Storyteller’s
Story. In Listen to the Heron’s Words: Reimagining Gender and Kinship in
North India, Gloria Goodwin Raheja and Ann Grodzins Gold, 164–181.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Handelman, Don, M. V. Krishnayya, and David Shulman. 2013. Growing a
Kingdom: The Goddess of Depth in Vizianagaram. In One God, Two
Goddesses, Three Studies of South Indian Cosmology, Don Handelman,
115–143. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishing.
Hawley, John Stratton, and Mark Juergensmeyer. 1988. Songs of the Saints of
India. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hess, Linda, and Shukdeo Singh. 2002. The Bijak of Kabir. New York: Oxford
University Press.
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Created from gcsu on 2020-03-26 16:03:30.
Loving and Serving God: Bhakti, Murtis, and Puja
Karapanagiotis, Nicole. 2013. Cyber Forms, Worshipable Forms: Hindu
Devotional Viewpoints on the Ontology of Cyber‐Gods and Goddesses.
International Journal of Hindu Studies 17, 1: 57–82.
Narayana Rao, Velcheru, and David Shulman. 1998. A Poem at the Right
Moment: Remembered Verses from Premodern South India. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Narayana Rao, Velcheru, and David Shulman. 2005. God on the Hill: Temple
Poems from Tirupati. New York: Oxford University Press.
Peterson, Indira Viswanathan. 1989. Poems to Siva: The Hymns of the Tamil
Saints. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Ramanujan, A. K. 1973. Speaking of Siva. New York: Penguin Books.
Soneji, Davesh. 2012. Unfinished Gestures: Devadasis, Memory, and Modernity
in South India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Copyright © 2015. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. All rights reserved.
Recommended Readings
DeNapoli, Antoinette. 2014. Real Sadhus Sing to God: Gender, Asceticism, and
Vernacular Religion in Rajasthan. New York: Oxford University Press.
Packert, Cynthia. 2010. The Art of Loving Krishna: Ornamentation and
Devotion. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.
Pinkney, Andrea M. 2013. Prasada, the Gracious Gift, in Contemporary and
Classical South Asia. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 81, 3:
734–756.
Ramanujan, A. K. 2005. Nammalvar: Hymns for the Drowning. New York:
Penguin Books.
Shacham, Ilanit Loewy. 2014. Divine and Human Agency in Kṛṣṇadevarāya’s
Retelling of the Story of Āṇt ạ̄ l.̣ Journal of Vaishnava Studies 22, 2:
103–124.
Shulman, David. 1980. Tamil Temple Myths: Sacrifice and Divine Marriage in
the South Indian Saiva Tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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Sahitya Akademi
Bhakti Poetry: Its Relevance and Significance
Author(s): Manager Pandey and Alka Tyagi
Source: Indian Literature, Vol. 45, No. 6 (206) (November-December, 2001), pp. 129-138
Published by: Sahitya Akademi
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23345761
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Bhakti Poetry:
Its Relevance and Significance
Manager Pandey
With the
Bhakti
Movement,
Indian
society,
literature and
culture,
enter
a new phase
of growth
andits
evolution.
The Bhakti Movement is a pervasive cultural movement which
appeared in various forms of cultural expression including religion,
philosophy, language, art and literature.
In fact this is a pan-Indian uprising of a people’s culture against
feudalism. This movement had its roots in some very significant
processes of change in the 11th and 12th centuries, when various
castes came into being and regional languages and their literatures
evolved.
As a result of the Bhakti Movement, the process of building
up of various regional languages quickened and the foundation was
laid for the growth of modern Indian languages.
Free from Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit and Apabhransha, literatures
in regional languages entered into a new phase of growth and
development. Consequently, Indian literature and culture broke the
shackles of feudalism and seem to have headed towards a more
creative, people’s culture. Bhakti poetry, liberated from the formalism
of ancient poetics, feudalist culture and from the courtly atmosphere,
is an expression of people’s culture—their emotions in their own
languages. Cultural awareness, ideologies and sensibilities expressed
in the Bhakti Movement and its literature are more closely related
to culture and society of its own times than to ancient traditions
of Indian culture and literature.
The Bhakti Movement recognises the absurdities of social systems.
It not only portrays the anti-human ideologies of feudalist society
in their various aspects and forms, but also expresses a feeling of
rebellion against them. This spirit of rebellion against feudalism and
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the resultant creative potential of mass culture had not been expressed
in any other form of Indian poetry before the Bhakti period.
Because of a new kind of cultural awareness during the Bhakti
Movement, the content, perspective and expressive patterns of Bhakti
poetry evolved in a way which was quite free from Sanskrit poetry
and poetics. The people-oriented literature of the Bhakti period is
different not only in form and contents. It is quite novel and free
from classicist literatures of Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit and Apabhransha.
The essence of the Bhakti poetry stems from experiences of common
people and their culture. Poetic forms of Bhakti period are different
from those of Sanskrit. They are more developed forms of folk
literature and folk-culture. Bhakti lyricism is what we find in the
inherited oral tradition of village songs. Its metrical forms are closer
to Hindi and are very different from those of Sanskrit. However the
most significant fact is that for the first time in the history of Indian
literature the spoken language began to move closer to poetic language
in Bhakti poetry. For the first time, the artificial gap between the
so called literariness of conventional poetic language and sheer
spontaneity of day-to-day language was bridged.
Since this kind of novelty of form and content in Bhakti poetry
is quite free from the poetic conventions of Sanskrit poetry to base
the evaluation of Bhakti poetry on the conventional parameters of
Sanskrit poetics would only lead to a re-assertion of tradition at the
cost of neglecting a new kind of creative potential and the historical
context of the origin and evolution of Bhakti poetry. While evaluating
Bhakti-poetry, the more sensitive part of some critic’s mind does get
astounded by the unique and unprecedented originality of Bhakti
poety but, at the same time, the more conventional part of their mind
gets contented with establishing Bhakti-poetry as merely a new form
of the old poetic traditions of Sanskrit, Pali and Apabhransha. The
uniqueness of the form and content of Bhakti poetry cannot be
explained in the conventional critical framework. A critical perspective
which is free from conventional parameters and poetic traditions is
essential for the interpretation and evaluation of the people-oriented
Bhakti-poetry.
In their analysis of the Bhakti Movement and literature, some
critics search only for the main sources of Bhakti philosophy and
neglect the historical context of the Bhakti Movement. Such critics
trace Bhakti history back to the Vedas but do not see the contemporary
socio-cultural basis and creative nature of the Bhakti Movement.
Here the question of pattern is worth looking into the context
of ideas and the history of a cultural movement. It is more important
to analyse the historical context in which the cultural or ideological
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movement has evolved and spread than to search for the original
source of its central idea. It has often been seen in the history of
cultures and idea that a certain idea remains in the historical process
as an abstract concept and when it finds a conducive social context,
it takes the form of comprehensive movement. The concept of Bhakti
might have been very old as an idea and an emotion but it evolved
as a widespread cultural movement only in the period between 12th
and 17th centuries. If we keep our attention limited to the ancient
form of Bhakti as an idea and an emotion and keep on neglecting
its all pervasive contemporaneous socio-cultural base, then it would
be very difficult to find answers to many important questions related
to the Bhakti Movement and its literature. Scholars of the Bhakti
Movement and literature are repeatedly confronted with certain
questions. Why did this explosion of creativity take place during the
Bhakti Movement amongst Dalits and lower classes who had lived
under oppression for centuries in feudal system and why did it
become an expression of rebellion against the system. Why did anti
feudalist people’s culture arise only during the Bhakti Movement?
Why did the process of evolution of other regional languages quickened
during the Bhakti Movement. Why did anti-feudal and humanist
voices develop in Bhakti poetry? What was the social basis of this
new form and content of Bhakti poetry. In order to find answers
to all such questions it becomes necessary to place the Bhakti Movement
and literature in its historical context and its socio-cultural milieu.
The lovers of Bhakti Movement and literature are of many types.
Some of them read Bhakti literature only to ensure a place for
themselves in heaven. Others use Bhakti literature to progress in this
world as well as in the other. Some of them see Bhakti literature
as a traditional form of worship and yet others, with a desire to
give the present a semblance of the past, summon Bhakti literature
as a golden-age in the cultural history. Slightly different from these
people are the ones who, in the name of seriously searching for the
cultural and social norms of that era in Bhakti literature, feel contented
with preparing the lists of names of foods, dresses and jewellery
popular during the period.
Another perspective of Bhakti Literature is the one held by those
who want to preserve the pastness of the past in the name of
historicism. Such naive historicists do not consider its contemporary
significance. On the other hand, are the modernists who completely
neglect the objectivity and historical context of Bhakti poetry and
talk only about its present relevance. Then there are some eager
revolutionaries who are different from the above-mentioned kind and
who, being overly concerned about the future, think of the sense
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of pastness as a burden and try to get free from it.
One can take up a historical view of the artistic-modes, ideo
logical forms and socio-cultural basis of Bhakti Movement and its
literature. Except for this, it is also necessary to analyse the artistic
and aesthetic relevance of Bhakti poetry and the rise of an extensive
pan-Indian movement of people’s culture in the present context.
About the criticism of literature of the past, the famous critic Walter
Benjamin observed that it is not sufficient to evaluate it as an
experience of the past and that it is necessary to examine its sig
nificance for the present.
Even today Bhakti poetry is most popular with the Indian
masses. It still fulfills the cultural aspirations and needs of the people
to a certain extent. Therefore, those who care for the socio-cultural
progress of the masses cannot neglect Bhakti poetry. This is not just
a question of the attitude of the pro-people thinkers towards tradition
but also that of their responsibility in the context of emergence of
a new people’s culture.
In the history of Hindi literature, the history of the evaluation
of the Bhakti Movement and its poetry is a history of the evolution
of literary perspectives, poetic sensibilities, critical vision and of the
relation between literature and society. Though Bhakti poetry was
neglected by the aristocracy in the age of formalist court poetry and
feudalist poetic interests, even at that time it was the main source
of fulfilling the cultural aspirations of the common masses. It became
possible to recognize the significance of the democratic aspect of the
Bhakti Movement and literature when an awareness of nationalism
and democratic culture came into being with the rise of Renaissance
and the freedom movement in the modern period.
When, in Bharatendu’s time, Balkrishna Bhatt called literature
‘the evolution of people’s sensibilities,’ he made clear not only the
greatness of the literature of his own age, but also pointed at a
fundamental characteristic of Bhakti literature. Bharatendu and other
writers of his age, who were concerned with the collective aspect
of language and literature, could recognize the value and significance
of Bhakti literature. Later on, protesting against various kinds of
formalism and conservatism, Mahavirprasad Dwivedi forged an
approach for a proper evaluation of Bhakti poetry. By the investigation
of Bhakti poetry itself, Acharya Ramchandra Shukla evolved a kind
of literary judgement with which he could stoutly oppose anti-people
and formalist literatures. Bhakti poetry shaped Acharya Shukla’s
literary judgement and his objectivist critical vision made the evalu
ation of Bhakti poetry possible. Works of the great romantic poets
Jai Shankar Prasad and Nirala have revealed a close relation with
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Bhakti poetry time and again. In Indian social history, after the Bhakti
Movement it was the Progressive movement which served as the
second extensive cultural movement leading to the growth of people’s
culture.
During the Progressive Movement, a new perspective, on the
relation between literature and society and the role and significance
of literature in the progress of society, evolved which created the
possibility of a new kind of evolution of Bhakti literature.
In the same period, Hazari Prasad Dwivedi evaluated the place
of Bhakti poetry in the evolving tradition of Indian literature. During
the progressive period itself, struggling against some progressivist
critics narrow outlook against the Bhakti period, Ram Vilas Sharma
analysed and critiqued the historical context of the Bhakti Movement
and poetry. Ram Vilas Sharma has outlined the humanist tone
and anti-feudalist aspect of the Bhakti Movement and poetry by
explaining its socio-cultural foundation. In the history of Hindi
literature, these fluctuations in the evaluation of Bhakti poetry have
proved that the significance of Bhakti poetry has increased whenever
there was a rise in the influence of collective and democratic elements
in literature and criticism and that Bhakti-poetry has been neglected
whenever the individualist and anti-people tendencies became
dominant.
Many scholars who have studied the history of Indian culture,
literature and society believe that the process of building up of
nationalites started in 11th and 12th centuries in India. Emergence
of nationalites meant the beginning of the dissolution of feudalism,
growth of mercantile capitalism and of regional languages and lit
eratures. Changes in the economic base of a society brings about
changes in the balance and relationship between various social classes.
During the early stages of the formation of nationalism the power
of the farmer, craftsman and the trading class increases. Change in
the society’s economic base and relations of production transform
the ideological forms and new possibilities appear for the evolution
of art, culture and literature. The classes which are affected by this
new change in economic growth and relations of production play
a very important role in literature, art and culture.
There is a very close relation between the Bhakti Movement
and literature on the one hand and the socio-economic changes taking
place in the beginning of 12th century on the other. The process of
formation of nationalites began with the simultaneous process of
disintegration of feudalism which lead to the growth of a pervasive
movement comprising of the rise of people’s culture. It was because
of the ongoing process of disintegration of feudal-system and gradual
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dominance of farmers and craftsmen that a feeling of rebellion took
shape among Dalit castes which found expression in the saint
literature. These castes who were deprived of education got an
opportunity to express their creative potential consequent on the
growth of regional languages also. Otherwise only Aristocratic classes
had the right to enjoy the creative literature in the age of Sanskrit,
Pali, Prakrit and Apabhransha. So, the growth of regional languages
symbolised the beginning of a new literary and socio-cultural era
in India.
Saint poets and Bhakti-poets were inspired by and devoted to
a feeling of common good. Their experiences and their poetic practice
were rooted in common life. Their poetry grew out of the popular
culture and this culture then became the preserver of Bhakti poetry.
It is inevitable that the poets and poetry, representing the rise of
popular mass culture against the culture of feudalism and its court
based poetry, became dependent on the people. Expressing defiance
against king’s rule and feudal system, they declared, ‘what has saints
to do with Sikri, [Santan ko kahan sikri* se kam].
This refutation and rebellion against the priests, religious hy
pocrisy, casteism and against the social discrimination between the
high and the low classes which is found in Saint poetry is an expression
of rebellion against the feudal society and its. ideologies. This feeling
of rebellion against the feudal ideologies has a revolutionary sig
nificance in its own historical context. It not only reflects the social
changes of the era but has the power to inspire new social change.
Even the mysticism of saint poets has expressed an idea of an
egalitarian social order as an alternative to the tyrannical feudal
system. This imagined country of saint-poets is not an exclusive other
world, different from the real world. Some people think that saint
poetry is merely a poetry of dissent and rebellion. This notion is
a result of half-knowledge about saint-poetry.
Saint poetry besides expressing the rebellion against a feudalist
social order and its ideologies, also expresses realities of common
life, the beauty of folk culture and a desire for an egalitarian social
order. Sufi-saints based their poetic creations on the popular love
stories and using the age old structures of tales, their poems have
expressed various forms of contemporary people’s culture. Jayasi’s
Padmavat is remembered for the pervading emotional experience of
Nagmati’s separation from her husband. But because of the use of
the popular poetic form ‘Barahmasa’. But there is a very poignant
portrayal of public life and culture in this description of the mood
* Síkrí was the centre of political power.
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of separation which is no less significant. Pervasiveness of Nagmati’s
emotional experience of separation is expressed by taking public life
and culture as the base. Another testimony to Jayasi’s anti-feudalist
consciousness is that he has seen and portrayed Sultan Alauddin
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