Bhakti Devotion Research Articles

Split in bhakti, United in bhakti

Jaimini’s Book of the Horse Sacrifice (Jaiminīya Āśvamēdhikaparvan) is a late mediaeval Vaiṣṇava text that is unusual for several reasons. In this article we examine the interplay of violence, devotion and ritual in the Sanskrit vorlage and its Kannada transfiguration—the Jaiminibhārata of Lakṣmīśa (ca. 1500 CE). Violent emotions or extreme feelings are deeply imbricated in South Asia religious discourse. Extreme feeling is entangled with the history of texts that emerged as a result of interreligious and intra- religious debate. Our article puts forth the idea of violence as a mode of bhakti devotion, and we historicize the emergence of violence-as-bhakti in the Vaiṣṇava context, using the tale of Mayūradhvaja from Jaimini’s Book.

The Heart of a Gopi: Raihana Tyabji's Bhakti Devotionalism as Self-Representation

Raihana Tyabji is best known in history, not for her writing or even her singing, but as a devotee of Gandhi. Yet in 1924 this at least nominally Muslim woman composed a small book of bhakti devotionalism that has continued to garner popular interest right into the twenty-first century. She gave it the evocative title,The Heart of a Gopi, on the basis that what had been revealed to her was the very ‘soul’, the inner self, of the gopi and, through that, an understanding of Lord Krishna himself. This paper considers the question of how far this piece of bhakti devotionalism may be read as a kind of personal narrative, an evocation of the self. Does the referencing of an established narrative tradition give the author's feelings and experiences, especially as a Muslim woman devoted to Krishna at a time of increasing religious rigidity and growing communal strife, a kind of validity not achievable otherwise? And, if so, how do we separate out the author's ‘self’ from the literary conventions—in this case, the gopi tradition—that structure the story? In the tradition of Islamic life-writing, can the gap between the miraculous and the mundane be breached in order to understand the mystical experience charted here as a kind of autobiography? Even from the rationalist's perspective, should not the life of the imagination still be considered part of the life?

Beyond Theological Differences

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.

Candanbala's Tears: Recovering the Emotional Life of Jainism

AbstractIn the oft-told narrative of the Jain sati Candanbala, we see her standing at the door in chains, making an offering of lentils to Mahavir with tears in her eyes. Candanbala's tears, which arise after Mahavir passes by without taking alms, resonate with the Jain experience of worshipping an unresponsive Jina. Jain theology has been presented as anti-emotion and yet, within the most normative strata of the tradition, we find emotions and bhakti devotionalism as key first causes of moral actions of ideal persons. This essay examines the representations of Candanbala's tears in Shvetambar narrative and hymn literature alongside contemporary performances of the Candanbala Fast, the end of which is marked by a reenactment of this narrative. Analysis (informed by field research) of textual materials illuminates the potential for beneficial emotions within the Jain tradition alongside the argument that Candanbala's popularity arises from an identification with her moment of despair.

Fiji Indians and “commoditization of labor”

Fiji “Gujaratis,” free emigrant shopkeepers, refuse to commoditize their own labor, unlike the Fiji “Indians,” descendants of indentured laborers. The difference can be explained in relation to two different syntheses of bhakti devotionalism and capitalism, but only after the capitalism in Fiji's colonial history, the capitalism in India's precolonial history, and the relation of capitalism to Europe have been reconsidered. This article seeks to demonstrate the utility of a cultural approach to capitalism. [capitalism, commoditization, labor, Fiji Indians, bhakti]

The Sacred Geography of the Tamil Shaivite Hymns

Revitalization movements, past and present, have become subjects of special interest to both historians and social scientists. Nativistic, millennarian, messianic, and other kind of revitalization movements have provided scholars with useful data for the study of political, social and religious change, as well as what might be called cultural crises 1). Hinduism has experienced many such revitalization movements, in response to the internal development of Indian society or to the external challenges of invading peoples and alien faiths. We need only remind ourselves of the many syncretic Hindu cults which have developed as a result of challenges posed to the Hindu social order by Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, in order to recognize the remarkable capacity of Hinduism for self-renewal. Among the most interesting revitalization movements to have developed within Hinduism are the various cults of bhakti devotionalism, with their simple but impassioned messages and their implied egalitarian bias. In particular, Tamil devotionalism has long been a subject of interest to students of Indian religious history. But the recent development of scholarly interest in modern Indian regionalism and its historic roots has added new urgency to the task of studying those movements which, like Tamil devotionalism, have important implications for the cultivation and dissemination of religious and literary symbols, values, and themes which are shared by the inhabitants of a particular linguistic region. One conclusion which emerges from a series