Beyond Theological Differences

Abstract

For almost a century now, scholars of medieval Indian bhakti devotionalism have relied upon the nirgun-sagun model to understand the theological and ideological differences between the sants and vaishnavas. More recently, some scholars have begun to question the idea of the existence of an impermeable divide between the two groups of bhakti devotees, while others have reinterpreted and enlarged the nirgun-sagun dichotomy by including in its scope the caste-based social divisions between the nirgun sants and sagun vaishnavas. This article seeks to argue that while the religious, social and political perceptions of early santism cannot be understood without taking recourse to the nirgun-sagun divide, such an approach is less useful in explaining the complex process of conflict and negotiation between later santism and vaishnavism. The sant-vanis and bhakti hagiographies of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries point to a situation in which a wide range of new bhakti-based cultural strategies were invented by the later sants, vaishnavas, and their followers to reinforce and strengthen their respective claims to spiritual supremacy. Moreover, by defying the nirgun-sagun distinctions, the two-way interaction between the later sants and vaishnavas produced loosely structured but extremely subversive and mixed sant–vaishnava communities.