Devotional Paths To The Divine

Here is the class notes from Class NCERT History- Chapter 8: “Devotional Paths To The Divine”

The Idea of Supreme God

As people were brought together through the growth of towns, trade and empires, new ideas began to develop.
The idea that all living things pass through countless cycles of birth and rebirth performing good deeds and bad came to be widely accepted.
The idea that all human beings are not equal even at birth gained ground during this period.
Many people were uneasy with such ideas and turned to the teachings of the Buddha or the Jainas according to which it was possible to overcome social differences and break the cycle of rebirth through personal effort.
The idea of Bhakti, advocated in the Bhagavadgita, grew in popularity in the early centuries of the Common Era.
Shiva, Vishnu and Durga as supreme deities came to be worshipped through elaborate rituals.
In the process, local myths and legends became a part of the Puranic stories, and methods of worship recommended in the Puranas were introduced into the local cults.
The idea of bhakti became so popular that even Buddhists and Jainas adopted these beliefs.

A New Kind of Bhakti in South India- Nayanars and Alvars

The seventh to ninth centuries saw the emergence of new religious movements, led by the Nayanars (saints devoted to Shiva) and Alvars (saints devoted to Vishnu).
They were sharply critical of the Buddhists and Jainas and preached ardent love of Shiva or Vishnu as the path to salvation.
The Nayanars and Alvars went from place to place composing exquisite poems in praise of the deities enshrined in the villages they visited, and set them to music.
- Nayanars have two sets of compilations- Tevaram and Tiruvacakam
- Alvars songs were compiled in Divya Prabandham
Hagiographies or religious biographies of the Alvars and Nayanars were composed.

Hagiography: writing of saints’ lives

Philosophy and Bhakti

Shankara

Shankara, one of the most influential philosophers of India, was born in Kerala in the eighth century.
He was an advocate of Advaita or the doctrine of the oneness of the individual soul and the Supreme God which is the Ultimate Reality.
He taught that Brahman, the only or Ultimate Reality, was formless and without any attributes.
He considered the world around us to be an illusion or maya, and preached renunciation of the world and adoption of the path of knowledge to understand the true nature of Brahman and attain salvation.

Ramanuja

Ramanuja, born in Tamil Nadu in the eleventh century, was deeply influenced by the Alvars.
According to him the best means of attaining salvation was through intense devotion to Vishnu.
Vishnu in His grace helps the devotee to attain the bliss of union with Him.
He propounded the doctrine of Vishishtadvaita or qualified oneness in that the soul even when united with the Supreme God remained distinct.

Basavanna’s Virashaivism

Virashaiva movement initiated by Basavanna and his companions like Allama Prabhu and Akkamahadevi.
This movement began in Karnataka in the mid-twelfth century.
The Virashaivas argued strongly for the equality of all human beings and against Brahmanical ideas about caste and the treatment of women.
They were also against all forms of ritual and idol worship.

The Saints of Maharashtra

From the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries Maharashtra saw a great number of saint-poets, whose songs in simple Marathi continue to inspire people.
The most important among them were Dnyaneshwar (Gyaneshwar), Namdev, Eknath and Tukaram as well as women like Sakhubai and the family of Chokhamela, who belonged to the “untouchable” Mahar caste.
This regional tradition of bhakti focused on the Vitthala (a form of Vishnu) temple in Pandharpur, as well as on the notion of a personal god residing in the hearts of all people.
These saint-poets rejected all forms of ritualism, outward display of piety and social differences based on birth.
They even rejected the idea of renunciation and preferred to live with their families, earning their livelihood like any other person, while humbly serving fellow human beings in need.
Famous Gujarati saint Narsi Mehta said, “They are Vaishnavas who understand the pain of others.”

Nathpanthis, Siddhas and Yogis

A number of religious groups that emerged during this period criticised the ritual and other aspects of conventional religion and the social order, using simple, logical arguments.
Among them were the Nathpanthis, Siddhacharas and Yogis.
They advocated renunciation of the world. To them the path to salvation lay in meditation on the formless Ultimate Reality and the realisation of oneness with it.
To achieve this they advocated intense training of the mind and body through practices like yogasanas, breathing exercises and meditation.
These groups became particularly popular among “low” castes.
Their criticism of conventional religion created the ground for devotional religion to become a popular force in northern India.

Islam and Sufism

Sufis were Muslim mystics. They rejected outward religiosity and emphasised love and devotion to God and compassion towards all fellow human beings.
slam propagated strict monotheism or submission to one God. In the eighth and ninth centuries religious scholars developed different aspects of the Holy Law (Shariat) and theology of Islam.
While the religion of Islam gradually became more complex, Sufis provided it with an additional dimension that favoured a more personal devotion to God.
The Sufis often rejected the elaborate rituals and codes of behaviour demanded by Muslim religious scholars.
Like the saint-poets, the Sufis too composed poems expressing their feelings, and a rich literature in prose, including anecdotes and fables, developed around them.
They developed elaborate methods of training using zikr (chanting of a name or sacred formula), contemplation, sama (singing), raqs (dancing), discussion of parables, breath control, etc. under the guidance of a master or pir.
Thus emerged the silsilas, a spiritual genealogy of Sufi teachers, each following a slightly different method (tariqa) of instruction and ritual practice

Sufi in India

A large number of Sufis from Central Asia settled in Hindustan from the eleventh century onwards. This process was strengthened with the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate (Chapter 3), when several major Sufi centres developed all over the subcontinent. The Chishti silsila was among the most influential orders. It had a long line of teachers like Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti of Ajmer, Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki of Delhi, Baba Farid of Punjab, Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi and Bandanawaz Gisudaraz of Gulbarga.
The Sufi masters held their assemblies in their khanqahs or hospices. Devotees of all descriptions including members of the royalty and nobility, and ordinary people flocked to these khanqahs. They discussed spiritual matters, sought the blessings of the saints in solving their worldly problems, or simply attended the music and dance sessions.
Often people attributed Sufi masters with miraculous powers that could relieve others of their illnesses and troubles.
The tomb or dargah of a Sufi saint became a place of pilgrimage to which thousands of people of all faiths thronged.

New Religious Developments in North India

The period after the thirteenth century saw a new wave of the bhakti movement in north India.
This was an age when Islam, Brahmanical Hinduism, Sufism, various strands of bhakti, and the Nathpanths, Siddhas and Yogis influenced one another.
Some of them like Kabir and Baba Guru Nanak rejected all orthodox religions.
Others like Tulsidas and Surdas accepted existing beliefs and practices but wanted to make these accessible to all.

Tulsidas

Tulsidas conceived of God in the form of Rama.
Tulsidas’s composition, the Ramcharitmanas, written in Awadhi.

Surdas

Surdas was an ardent devotee of Krishna.
His compositions, compiled in the Sursagara, Surasaravali and Sahitya Lahari, express his devotion.

Shankaradeva

Shankaradeva of Assam (late fifteenth century) who emphasised devotion to Vishnu, and composed poems and plays in Assamese.
He began the practice of setting up namghars or houses of recitation and prayer, a practice that continues to date.

Mirabai

Mirabai was a Rajput princess married into the royal family of Mewar in the sixteenth century.
Mirabai became a disciple of Ravidas, a saint from a caste considered “untouchable”.
She was devoted to Krishna and composed innumerable bhajans expressing her intense devotion.
Her songs also openly challenged the norms of the “upper” castes and became popular with the masses in Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Chaitanyadeva,

A sixteenth-century bhakti saint from Bengal, preached selfless devotion to Krishna-Radha.

A Closer Look: Kabir

Kabir, who probably lived in the fifteenth-sixteenth centuries, was one of the most influential saints.
He was brought up in a family of Muslim julahas or weavers settled in or near the city of Benares (Varanasi).
A vast collection of verses called sakhis and pads said to have been composed by him and sung by wandering bhajan singers.
Some of these were later collected and preserved in the Guru Granth Sahib, Panch Vani and Bijak.

Kabir teaching

Kabir’s teachings were based on a complete, indeed vehement, rejection of the major religious traditions.
His teachings openly ridiculed all forms of external worship of both Brahmanical Hinduism and Islam, the pre-eminence of the priestly classes and the caste system.
The language of his poetry was a form of spoken Hindi widely understood by ordinary people.
He also sometimes used cryptic language, which is difficult to follow.
Kabir believed in a formless Supreme God and preached that the only path to salvation was through bhakti or devotion.
Kabir drew his followers from among both Hindus and Muslims

A Closer Look: Baba Guru Nanak

Baba Guru Nanak (1469- 1539) was born at Talwandi (Nankana Sahib in Pakistan), he travelled widely before establishing a centre at Kartarpur (Dera Baba Nanak on the river Ravi).
Irrespective of their former creed, caste or gender, his followers ate together in the common kitchen (langar).
The sacred space thus created by Baba Guru Nanak was known as dharmsal. It is now known as Gurdwara.
Before his death in 1539, Baba Guru Nanak appointed one of his followers as his successor.
His name was Lehna but he came to be known as Guru Angad, signifying that he was a part of Baba Guru Nanak himself.
Guru Angad compiled the compositions of Baba Guru Nanak, to which he added his own in a new script known as Gurmukhi.
The three successors of Guru Angad also wrote under the name of “Nanak” and all of their compositions were compiled by Guru Arjan in 1604.
To this compilation were added the writings of other figures like Shaikh Farid, Sant Kabir, Bhagat Namdev and Guru Tegh Bahadur.
In 1706 this compilation was authenticated by Guru Tegh Bahadur’s son and successor, Guru Gobind Singh. It is now known as Guru Granth Sahib, the holy scripture of the Sikhs.
The number of Baba Guru Nanak’s followers increased through the sixteenth century under his successors.
By the beginning of the seventeenth century the town of Ramdaspur (Amritsar) had developed around the central Gurdwara called Harmandar Sahib (Golden Temple).
It was virtually self-governing state.
The Mughal emperor Jahangir looked upon them as a potential threat and he ordered the execution of Guru Arjan in 1606.
The Sikh movement began to get politicised in the seventeenth century, a development which culminated in the institution of the Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699. The community of the Sikhs, called the Khalsa Panth, became a political entity.

Baba Guru Nanak Teaching

Baba Guru Nanak had a huge impact on this development from the very beginning.
He emphasised the importance of the worship of one God.
He insisted that caste, creed or gender was irrelevant for attaining liberation.
His idea of liberation was not that of a state of inert bliss but rather the pursuit of active life with a strong sense of social commitment.
He himself used the terms nam, dan and isnan for the essence of his teaching, which actually meant right worship, welfare of others and purity of conduct.
His teachings are now remembered as nam-japna, kirt-karna and vand chhakna, which also underline the importance of right belief and worship, honest living, and helping others.