The Bhakti and Sufi movements

1200 to 1700 CE

Between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries two separate traditions did similar work in the same society: Bhakti and Sufism put love above law, a living teacher above an institution, the spoken language above Sanskrit and Persian, and music at the centre of practice. They borrowed each other's idiom and shared each other's shrines without merging their theologies, and they gave India most of its modern languages' first literature.

Phase:

Bhakti centres, About 1130 to 1680 CE: Basavanna's Kalyana, the Varkari towns of Alandi, Dehu and Pandharpur, Kabir's Banaras and Maghar, Nanak's Kartarpur, and Chaitanya's Nabadwip and Puri with the Vrindavan of the Six Goswamis.

Capital
Sacred site
Where the saints were born, taught, died or are remembered
UNESCO World Heritage Site

Literary sources

Bhakti scripture and poetry
- Bijak: the Kabirpanthi collection of Kabir's verse, in sakhi, shabad and ramainee, in the mixed speech called sadhukkadi.
- Guru Granth Sahib (Guru Arjan Dev, 1604): the Gurus' hymns with the verses of Kabir, Ravidas, Namdev, Farid and Jaidev.
- Jnaneshwari (Jnaneshwar, 1275 to 1296): a Marathi commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, Vedanta in the vernacular.
- Ramcharitmanas (Tulsidas, from 1574): the Ramayana in Awadhi, the most influential book in north India.
- Sursagar (Surdas): Krishna's childhood and the gopis' separation from him, in Braj.
- Dasbodh (Ramdas, 1608 to 1681): a more activist and martial devotion, in Marathi.
- Gita Govinda (Jayadeva, 12th century): the Radha Krishna poem that came before Chaitanya's Bengal.
Sufi writings
- Fawaid ul Fuad (Amir Hasan Sijzi): Nizamuddin Auliya's conversations, the model malfuzat and a source for social life in Sultanate Delhi.
- Maktubat (Sharfuddin Yahya Maneri, d. 1381): letters of spiritual instruction, among the finest Sufi prose written in India.
- Nuh Sipihr (Amir Khusrau): a Persian poem with a famous defence of India, its languages and its learning.
The Bhagavata Mahatmya gives Bhakti's journey from Dravida to Gujarat, a later tradition's own account rather than history.

Archaeology and monuments

The dargahs of Ajmer, Nizamuddin, Pakpattan and Gulbarga remain the main sites of shared Hindu and Muslim practice.
Chokhamela's samadhi stands at the threshold of the Pandharpur temple he could not enter.
Salim Chishti's marble tomb is the finest building at Fatehpur Sikri.

Bhakti words

Bhakti means devotion or loving attachment, from the root bhaj, to share or participate in.
Saguna worship is of God with attributes, in a name and a form, and Nirguna worship of a formless absolute.
Kirtan is devotional singing, and sankirtan congregational singing in procession.
A sampradaya is a sect with a line of teachers, and a panth the following of one saint, such as the Kabirpanth.
Sant is the name used for the Nirguna poet saints of the north, such as Kabir, Ravidas and Nanak.
The verse forms are the Marathi abhang, the pada or lyric, the doha or couplet, the sakhi or maxim, and the Kannada vachana.

Sufi words

Tasawwuf is Sufism itself, a name drawn from suf, wool, from safa, purity, or from the people of the bench by the Prophet Muhammad's mosque.
The 4 rising stages are shariat, tariqat, haqiqat and marifat: the law, the path, the reality and direct knowledge.
Fana is the self annihilated in God and baqa the life in God after it, the Sufi counterpart of Bhakti's union.
A pir or murshid is the master and a murid the disciple, and a khalifa is a disciple authorised to initiate others.
A silsila is the chain of spiritual descent from the Prophet Muhammad through successive masters, which makes an order an order.
Zikr is remembrance of the divine name, and sama is listening to music as a spiritual exercise.

Sufi places and occasions

A khanqah was the hospice where a living master taught, and a dargah the tomb shrine that grew round him after death.
The urs is a saint's death anniversary, kept as a wedding with God.
A chilla is a 40 day retreat, and futuh is unsolicited charity, which the Chishtis accepted while refusing endowments.

The two vocabularies side by side

Bhakti	Meaning	Sufi	Meaning
Bhakti	Devotion or loving attachment, from bhaj, to share or participate in	Tasawwuf	Sufism itself, from suf (wool), safa (purity) or the people of the bench
Saguna	With attributes: God in a name and a form, as Rama or Krishna	Shariat, tariqat, haqiqat, marifat	The 4 rising stages: law, path, reality, gnosis; the first is never discarded
Nirguna	Without attributes: a formless absolute, without image or incarnation	Fana and baqa	Annihilation of the self in God, and subsistence in God thereafter
Guru and shishya	Teacher and disciple	Pir or murshid, and murid	Master and disciple; a khalifa may initiate others
Kirtan and sankirtan	Devotional singing, and congregational singing in procession	Sama	Listening to music as a spiritual exercise; the sharpest internal dispute
Sampradaya and panth	A sect with a line of teachers, and the following of one saint	Silsila	The chain of spiritual descent from the Prophet Muhammad
Sant	The Nirguna poet saints of the north: Kabir, Ravidas, Nanak	Khanqah and dargah	The living master's hospice, and the tomb shrine after his death
Prapatti	Complete self surrender, the Srivaishnava path to liberation	Zikr	Remembrance of the divine name: jahri aloud, khafi silent
Abhang, pada, doha, sakhi, vachana	Marathi verse, lyric, couplet, maxim, and the free Kannada form	Urs, chilla, futuh	Death anniversary as a wedding with God; a 40 day retreat; unsolicited charity

Nearly every Bhakti word has a Sufi counterpart, which is why the two are read together.Source: Bhakti and Sufi handout

The Tamil beginning

Bhakti began in the Tamil country between the 6th and 9th centuries, some 600 years before it reached the north.
The Nayanmars sang of Shiva and the Alvars of Vishnu, and for both devotion needed neither Sanskrit, nor Brahmin, nor costly ritual.
Their inclusiveness was real, but it rarely challenged the social order outside the devotional context.
The Nayanmars, the Alvars and their hymns are taken in full on another page. (Bhakti in the south and beyond)

The road north

A later text, the Bhagavata Mahatmya, says bhakti was born in Dravida, grew in Karnataka, aged in Maharashtra and was renewed in Gujarat.
This is the tradition's own account of its geography, not a historical statement, though it serves as a map.

The acharyas

Each devotional stream rests on a Vedanta position on how the soul, the world and God are related.
Shankara's Advaita held that knowledge, not devotion, liberates, so Bhakti had to argue against him.
Ramanuja made the soul and the world real, so the devotee's love was real, and gave Bhakti its first philosophical defence.

The acharya sequence

Acharya	Dates	School	The position
Shankaracharya	c. 788 to 820	Advaita, non dualism	Brahman alone is real and the world's diversity is Maya; knowledge, not devotion, liberates
Ramanuja	Traditionally 1017 to 1137	Vishishtadvaita, qualified non dualism	Souls and the world are real, the body of which Vishnu is the soul; the first philosophical defence of Bhakti
Madhvacharya	1238 to 1317	Dvaita, dualism	God, souls and matter eternally distinct; the sharpest rejection of Shankara
Nimbarka	13th century	Dvaitadvaita, dualistic non dualism	Difference and non difference equally real; devotion to Radha and Krishna
Vallabhacharya	1479 to 1531	Shuddhadvaita, pure non dualism	The world is Brahman itself; liberation by grace, pushti, in joyful service to the child Krishna
Chaitanya	1486 to 1533 or 1534	Achintya bheda abheda	The soul at once one with and different from God, beyond reason; ecstatic congregational chanting

Each devotional stream rests on a Vedanta position about the soul, the world and God.Source: Bhakti and Sufi handout

Nirguna

Nirguna devotion is to a formless absolute, called Rama, Hari or simply the Name, never identified with an incarnation or image.
It rejected image worship, scripture and priesthood, often with contempt.
It rejected caste outright, and several leading saints came from the lowest strata.
Its form is the terse doha and sakhi, deliberately plain and often deliberately harsh.
Its saints are Kabir, Guru Nanak, Ravidas, Dadu Dayal and, in part, Namdev.

Saguna

Saguna devotion is to a God with name, form and mythology: Rama, Krishna or the Devi.
Image, temple and pilgrimage are central, and scripture is accepted, though reinterpreted in the vernacular.
Devotion is open to all in principle, but the social order is left largely intact.
Its form is the lyric pada and the long narrative poem, rich in imagery.
Its saints are Tulsidas, Surdas, Mirabai, Chaitanya and Narsinh Mehta.

A caution

The two are ideal types, not sealed boxes, and Namdev has verses on both sides of the line.
The Guru Granth Sahib collects Nirguna and Saguna poets together, so a rigid classification misreads the sources.

Nirguna and Saguna

	Nirguna	Saguna
Object of devotion	A formless absolute, called Rama, Hari or the Name, never an incarnation or image	A God with name, form and mythology: Rama, Krishna or the Devi
Image worship	Rejected outright, often with contempt	Central, with temple, image and pilgrimage
Scripture and priesthood	Both rejected; Kabir dismisses the Vedas and the Quran together	Accepted, though retold in the vernacular
Caste	Radical rejection, with leading saints from the lowest strata	Open to all in principle, the social order left largely intact
Saints	Kabir, Guru Nanak, Ravidas, Dadu Dayal, Namdev in part	Tulsidas, Surdas, Mirabai, Chaitanya, Narsinh Mehta
Form	The terse doha and sakhi, plain and often harsh	The lyric pada and the long narrative poem

Ideal types, not sealed boxes: Namdev wrote on both sides, and the Guru Granth Sahib holds both.Source: Bhakti and Sufi handout

Ramananda at Banaras

Tradition makes Ramananda, placed in the 15th century, a disciple of the Ramanuja line who settled at Banaras.
He is said to have taught in the vernacular and taken disciples from every caste, among them Kabir, Ravidas, Pipa, Sena and Dhanna.
His dates and disciples are traditional and contested, but a vernacular, caste indifferent Rama devotion at Banaras was attached to his name.

Kabir, c. 1440 to 1518

Kabir was a weaver, a julaha, of Banaras, raised in tradition by the Muslim weaver couple Niru and Nima.
He taught one formless God, addressed as Rama but not Dasharatha's son, reached through the Name alone.
He scorned alike the Brahmin's thread and the mullah's call, the temple and the mosque, pilgrimage, fasting and ritual bathing.
His Bijak is the Kabirpanthi collection of his sakhi, shabad and ramainee, in the mixed speech called sadhukkadi.
He died at Maghar by choice, to break the belief that only death at Banaras brings liberation.
Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs all claimed him after his death, and the story of his body turning to flowers for both his followers is a legend.

Guru Nanak, 1469 to 1539

Guru Nanak was born at Talwandi, now Nankana Sahib, and after his revelation at Sultanpur he travelled widely.
He taught one formless God, Ik Onkar, reached through nam simran, and said there is neither Hindu nor Musalman.
His 3 pillars set him apart from the other sants:
- Nam japna, remembrance of the divine name.
- Kirat karni, earning by honest labour, for he rejected renunciation and the ascetic life.
- Vand chakna, sharing with others.
He founded the sangat, the congregation, and the pangat, sitting in a single row without regard to caste.
The langar, the free communal kitchen, enacted the rejection of caste rather than merely asserting it.
He settled at Kartarpur on the Ravi to farm and teach, and named Guru Angad, who developed the Gurmukhi script, his successor.

Ravidas

Guru Ravidas, of the 15th to 16th century, was a leather worker of Banaras, from the community then called chamar.
His verses are in the Guru Granth Sahib.
His Begumpura, the city without sorrow where none is taxed, none owns property and all move freely, is medieval India's finest utopian text.

Dadu Dayal, 1544 to 1603

Dadu Dayal was a cotton carder born at Ahmedabad who settled in Rajasthan and founded the Dadupanth.
He was Nirguna, against caste and ritual, and is remembered for the Brahma Sampradaya that sought the common ground of all faiths.

The Guru Granth Sahib, 1604

Guru Arjan Dev compiled the Guru Granth Sahib at Amritsar in 1604.
It holds the Gurus' hymns with the verses of Kabir, Ravidas, Namdev, Farid, Jaidev and others.
A scripture that canonises a Sufi and a chamar beside its own founders is itself a statement of doctrine.
Kabir left verses but Nanak left a community, which is why one produced a religion and the other a panth.

Narsinh Mehta, c. 1414 to 1481

Narsinh Mehta was the first great poet of Gujarati, a Nagar Brahmin outcasted for eating with untouchables.
His Vaishnava jana to defines the true Vaishnava as one who feels the pain of others, and it was Gandhi's favourite bhajan.

Vallabhacharya, 1479 to 1531

Vallabhacharya founded the Pushtimarg, the path of grace, centred on Shrinathji at Govardhan.
He rejected renunciation, teaching that the householder's life of service to the deity is itself the path.
His son Vitthalnath organised the Ashtachhap, the poets of the Pushtimarg.

Surdas, c. 1478 to 1583

Surdas, blind by tradition, was a disciple of Vallabhacharya and one of the Ashtachhap, the eight seals.
His Sursagar sings of Krishna's childhood and of the gopis' separation from him.
He made Braj Bhasha a major literary language.

Chaitanya, 1486 to 1533 or 1534

Chaitanya was born at Nabadwip as Vishvambhara Mishra, took sannyasa in 1510 and settled at Puri.
He founded Gaudiya Vaishnavism, whose method is sankirtana, ecstatic congregational chanting taken through the streets.
He taught achintya bheda abheda: the soul is at once one with God and different, in a relation beyond reason.
He wrote almost nothing, and the theology came from the Six Goswamis of Vrindavan.
Two of them, Rupa and Sanatana, had been ministers of Alauddin Hussain Shah of Bengal.

Mirabai, c. 1498 to 1546

Mirabai, a Rajput princess of Merta married into the ruling house of Mewar, left her rank and her marriage for Krishna as Giridhar.
Her padas survive in Rajasthani, Braj and Gujarati.
She is the most important woman in northern Bhakti, the clearest case of devotion used to refuse a prescribed role.

Tulsidas, 1532 to 1623

Tulsidas wrote the Ramcharitmanas at Ayodhya from 1574, in Awadhi rather than Sanskrit.
It put the Ramayana in the hands of people who could not read Sanskrit, and became north India's most influential book.
He also wrote the Vinaya Patrika, the Kavitavali and the Hanuman Chalisa.
Tulsidas was socially conservative, the counterexample to any claim that Bhakti was uniformly egalitarian.

The Saguna saints

Saint	Dates	Region and deity	What matters
Narsinh Mehta	c. 1414 to 1481	Gujarat, Krishna	First great Gujarati poet; Vaishnava jana to
Vallabhacharya	1479 to 1531	Braj, Krishna	The Pushtimarg, centred on Shrinathji at Govardhan
Surdas	c. 1478 to 1583, traditional	Braj, Krishna	The Sursagar; made Braj Bhasha a literary language
Chaitanya	1486 to 1533 or 1534	Bengal and Odisha, Krishna and Radha	Gaudiya Vaishnavism and sankirtana; theology by the Six Goswamis
Mirabai	c. 1498 to 1546, traditional	Rajasthan, Krishna as Giridhar	Padas in Rajasthani, Braj and Gujarati; refused a prescribed role
Tulsidas	1532 to 1623	Awadh and Banaras, Rama	The Ramcharitmanas in Awadhi; socially conservative

The Saguna poets made Gujarati, Braj and Awadhi literary languages while leaving the social order largely intact.Source: Bhakti and Sufi handout

The Varkari tradition

Maharashtra's devotion to Vitthal or Vithoba, a form of Krishna, at Pandharpur is India's most continuous Bhakti tradition.
Its varkaris make the wari, the walk to Pandharpur for Ashadhi Ekadashi, and several hundred thousand still walk it each year.
They walk in dindis behind the palkhi carrying the saints' sandals.
It is a lay tradition, with no priesthood and no renunciation.
It produced a continuous line of saints across 4 centuries and from every caste.
Chokhamela, a mahar and its most important untouchable saint, has his samadhi at the threshold of the Pandharpur temple he could not enter.

Jnaneshwar, 1275 to 1296

Jnaneshwar was a Brahmin whose family had been outcasted.
His Jnaneshwari, a Marathi commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, first made Vedantic philosophy available in the vernacular in western India.
He also wrote the Amrutanubhav, and took samadhi at Alandi at the age of 21.
His sister Muktabai is one of the tradition's women saints.

Namdev, c. 1270 to 1350

Namdev, a tailor, composed abhangs in Marathi.
He travelled to the Punjab and lived at Ghuman, which is why his verses are in the Guru Granth Sahib.
He is the bridge between the Marathi and the northern sant traditions.
Janabai, his maidservant, is one of the tradition's women saints.

Eknath, 1533 to 1599

Eknath, a Brahmin of Paithan, wrote the Eknathi Bhagavata.
He used the bharud, a form of dramatic allegorical song.
He publicly ate with untouchables and defended the vernacular against Sanskritist objection.

Tukaram, c. 1608 to 1650

Tukaram was a kunbi grain trader of Dehu.
He is the greatest of the abhang poets, his verses plain, personal and often anguished.
Tradition holds that Brahmin opponents threw his manuscripts into the Indrayani river, and they floated back after 13 days.

Ramdas, 1608 to 1681

Ramdas, a Brahmin, wrote the Dasbodh, a more activist and martial devotion than the rest of the tradition.
His supposed role as Shivaji's guru is later tradition, not established fact.

The Varkari saints

Saint	Dates	Caste	Work
Jnaneshwar	1275 to 1296	Brahmin, family outcasted	The Jnaneshwari, the Amrutanubhav; samadhi at Alandi at 21
Namdev	c. 1270 to 1350	Tailor	Marathi abhangs; lived at Ghuman in the Punjab
Eknath	1533 to 1599	Brahmin of Paithan	The Eknathi Bhagavata and the bharud
Tukaram	c. 1608 to 1650	Kunbi grain trader of Dehu	The greatest of the abhang poets
Ramdas	1608 to 1681	Brahmin	The Dasbodh; a more activist, martial devotion

One continuous line of saints across four centuries, from Brahmin to tailor to kunbi.Source: Bhakti and Sufi handout

Karnataka: the Virashaivas

Basavanna, c. 1131 to 1167, led the Virashaiva or Lingayat movement, with Allama Prabhu and Akka Mahadevi.
It had the most radical social programme of any Bhakti movement, rejecting caste, Brahmin authority, temple image worship and ritual purity.
Its Anubhava Mantapa was a hall of open debate that admitted women and the low born, and its form was the Kannada vachana.
Basavanna and the Lingayats are taken in full on another page. (Bhakti in the south and beyond)

Bengal and Odisha

In Bengal, Jayadeva's Gita Govinda of the 12th century came before Chaitanya and the Gaudiya Vaishnavas.
Bengal gave sankirtana as a public street practice, and a Radha Krishna theology that reshaped devotional poetry across north India.
In Odisha the Panchasakha, the five friends, best known among them Jagannatha Das and Balarama Das, gave the Odia Bhagavata.
Their devotion centred on Jagannath at Puri and deliberately used Odia against Sanskrit.

Kashmir: Lal Ded and Nund Rishi

Lal Ded, c. 1320 to 1392, left vakhs that are among the earliest Kashmiri literature.
She was Shaiva in doctrine but revered by Hindus and Muslims alike.
Nund Rishi, c. 1377 to 1438, founded the Rishi order, a Sufi silsila fused with pre Islamic Kashmiri asceticism.
Kashmir is where the two traditions came closest to actually merging.

Sankaradeva in Assam

Srimanta Sankaradeva, traditionally 1449 to 1568, taught Ekasarana Nama Dharma, shelter in one.
He created Borgeet, Ankia Naat, Bhaona and Sattriya.
His Sattra and Namghar carried both worship and village self government into modern Assam.

Karnataka: the Haridasas

Purandaradasa, c. 1484 to 1564, of the Haridasa movement, is called the Karnataka Sangita Pitamaha.
He codified the exercises still used to teach Carnatic music.
Kanakadasa, of the same movement, came from a shepherd community.

The regional streams

Region	Tradition and figures	Distinctive contribution
Karnataka	The Virashaivas of Basavanna, c. 1131 to 1167, with Allama Prabhu and Akka Mahadevi	The most radical social programme; the vachana and the Anubhava Mantapa
Bengal	Jayadeva's Gita Govinda, 12th century; Chaitanya and the Gaudiya Vaishnavas	Sankirtana in the street, and the Radha Krishna theology
Kashmir	Lal Ded, c. 1320 to 1392, and Nund Rishi, c. 1377 to 1438	The vakhs, and the Rishi order; where the two traditions come closest to merging
Assam	Srimanta Sankaradeva, traditionally 1449 to 1568	Ekasarana Nama Dharma; Borgeet, Ankia Naat, Bhaona, Sattriya; the Sattra and Namghar
Karnataka	The Haridasas: Purandaradasa, c. 1484 to 1564, and Kanakadasa	The exercises still used to teach Carnatic music
Odisha	The Panchasakha: Jagannatha Das and Balarama Das	The Odia Bhagavata, and devotion to Jagannath at Puri in Odia

Each region gave Bhakti its own language, institution or art.Source: Bhakti and Sufi handout

The women saints

They include Andal, Akka Mahadevi, Lal Ded, Mirabai, Janabai, Muktabai, Bahinabai and the earliest, Karaikkal Ammaiyar.
Devotion to a divine husband gave a woman the one ground on which she could refuse marriage, or a wife's role, without being cast out.
Mirabai's marriage to Krishna and Akka Mahadevi's, who walked clothed only in her hair, to Chennamallikarjuna were such refusals.
Almost none founded an order, and their compositions were preserved by male disciples and later collectors.
The opening was real but individual, and it did not become structural.

What Sufism is

Sufism is the mystical dimension of Islam, the pursuit of direct knowledge of God rather than through law and doctrine alone.
It is not a sect and not a departure from Islam, and Sufis have generally insisted on that.
Its 4 stages are shariat, the law, which is never discarded, then tariqat, haqiqat and marifat.
Its goal is fana, the self annihilated in God, followed by baqa, subsistence in God.
The ba shara Sufis, the major orders, observed the Shariat, and the be shara did not.
The Qalandars, Madaris and Haidaris were be shara wanderers outside respectable society, often mistaken for the whole tradition.

The practices

Zikr is the repeated remembrance of the divine name, jahri aloud and khafi silent.
Muraqaba is meditation, and the chilla a 40 day retreat.
Sama, listening to music to induce wajd or ecstasy, was permitted by the Chishtis and rejected by the Suhrawardis and Naqshbandis.
Tawakkul is absolute trust in God, which the Chishtis carried to refusing to store food for the next day.

The khanqah and the dargah

The khanqah, a living master's hospice, held a hall for teaching, cells for disciples, a free kitchen and open doors.
The Chishti khanqah admitted anyone of any faith or caste and fed them, in many towns the only such institution.
The dargah grew round a saint's tomb, with a hereditary custodian, the sajjada nashin, and an annual urs.
Dargahs at Ajmer, Nizamuddin, Pakpattan and Gulbarga remain the main sites of shared Hindu and Muslim practice.
Tomb veneration is exactly what the Naqshbandis and later reformers attacked.

The Chishtis

Moinuddin Chishti, d. 1236, brought the Chishti order to India, the most influential and most Indian of the orders.
The Chishtis held poverty as principle, refusing state grants and land, accepting only futuh and keeping nothing overnight.
They permitted sama, which gave India the qawwali.
They kept a deliberate distance from rulers and taught and wrote in the local language.

The Suhrawardis

Bahauddin Zakariya, 1182 to 1262, founded the Suhrawardi order in India at Multan.
It spread to Sindh, and to Bengal under Jalaluddin Tabrizi.
The Suhrawardis accepted state patronage, land grants and office, and held considerable wealth.
They argued that wealth rightly used served religion better than poverty, and were tied to the Sultanate's legitimacy.

The Firdausis, Rishis, Shattaris and Qadiris

The Firdausis of Bihar, a Suhrawardi branch, had Sharfuddin Yahya Maneri, d. 1381, whose Maktubat letters are among India's finest Sufi prose.
Nund Rishi's order in Kashmir, the one silsila of purely Indian origin, was vegetarian and non violent and composed in Kashmiri.
The Shattaris of Gwalior and Mandu claimed a rapid path to union and absorbed much yogic technique.
Muhammad Ghaus of Gwalior, d. 1562, the Shattari master, was associated with Tansen.
The Qadiris came from Abdul Qadir Jilani of Baghdad, and Miyan Mir of Lahore, d. 1635, by tradition laid the Harmandir Sahib's foundation stone.
Miyan Mir's successor Mulla Shah Badakhshi initiated Dara Shukoh, whose work sought Hindu and Muslim philosophical reconciliation.

The Naqshbandis and Sirhindi

Khwaja Baqi Billah, d. 1603, led the Naqshbandis, with silent zikr, no sama, no veneration of tombs and close adherence to the Shariat.
Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, 1564 to 1624, titled Mujaddid i alf i sani, the renewer of the second millennium, opposed Akbar's religious policy.
Sirhindi was imprisoned by Jahangir.
The order stayed close to the state and is the one most associated with the reassertion of orthodoxy.
Shah Waliullah, 1703 to 1762, is its greatest later figure.

The silsilas

Silsila	Founder in India	Centres	Character
Chishti	Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, d. 1236	Ajmer, Delhi, Ajodhan, Gulbarga	Poverty, sama, open khanqahs, distance from rulers, the local language
Suhrawardi	Shaikh Bahauddin Zakariya, 1182 to 1262	Multan, Sindh; Bengal under Jalaluddin Tabrizi	State patronage, land and office; sama largely rejected
Firdausi	Shaikh Sharfuddin Yahya Maneri, d. 1381	Bihar	A Suhrawardi branch; the Maktubat
Rishi	Nund Rishi, c. 1377 to 1438	Kashmir	The one order of purely Indian origin; vegetarian, non violent, in Kashmiri
Shattari	Shah Abdullah Shattari, 15th century; Muhammad Ghaus, d. 1562	Gwalior, Mandu	A rapid path to union; yogic technique absorbed
Qadiri	From Abdul Qadir Jilani of Baghdad; in India from the 15th century	Punjab, Sindh, the Deccan	Miyan Mir of Lahore; Dara Shukoh initiated by his successor
Naqshbandi	Khwaja Baqi Billah, d. 1603	Delhi, Sirhind	Strict orthodoxy, silent zikr, no sama; close to the state

Seven orders, from the Chishtis who refused rulers to the Naqshbandis who sought to steer them.Source: Bhakti and Sufi handout

Moinuddin Chishti

Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, d. 1236, brought the order to India and was titled Gharib Nawaz, benefactor of the poor.
His dargah at Ajmer is the most visited shrine in India and draws Hindus and Muslims alike.
Akbar made repeated pilgrimages to Ajmer, several of them on foot.

Bakhtiyar Kaki and Baba Farid

Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki, d. 1235, was Iltutmish's contemporary, and Mehrauli and the Qutb Minar area grew around his presence.
Baba Farid Ganj i Shakar, 1173 to 1265, carried the order into the Punjab from Ajodhan, now Pakpattan.
Farid composed in Punjabi, of which he is the first major poet, and his verses entered the Guru Granth Sahib.

Nizamuddin Auliya, 1238 to 1325

Nizamuddin Auliya, titled Mahbub i Ilahi, the beloved of God, was the greatest of the Indian Chishtis.
He lived through 7 Sultans and refused to attend any of their courts.
Amir Hasan Sijzi recorded his conversations in the Fawaid ul Fuad, the model malfuzat and a source for social life in Sultanate Delhi.
His quarrel with Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq produced the saying Dilli door ast, Delhi is far away.

Amir Khusrau, 1253 to 1325

Amir Khusrau, Nizamuddin's disciple and the Sultanate's most consequential cultural figure, was called Tuti i Hind, the parrot of India.
He wrote in Persian and in Hindavi, the ancestor of Hindi and Urdu, and is the first major poet of the Delhi region's vernacular.
The qawwali is soundly credited to him, but the khayal, the sitar and the tabla only by tradition.
Khusrau the court poet is taken on another page. (The Delhi Sultanate: five dynasties, 1206 to 1526)

The later Chishtis

Nasiruddin Chiragh i Delhi, d. 1356, the Lamp of Delhi, was the last of the great Delhi Chishtis.
After him the order dispersed to the provinces, which is how it reached the Deccan, Bengal and Gujarat.
Gesudaraz, d. 1422, carried it to the Deccan under the Bahmanis at Gulbarga and wrote in Dakhni, an early figure of Urdu.
Salim Chishti, d. 1572, was honoured by Akbar with a new capital at Fatehpur Sikri after the birth of the future Jahangir.

The Chishti chain

d. 1236
Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer
d. 1235
Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki at Delhi
1173 to 1265
Baba Farid at Ajodhan, now Pakpattan
1238 to 1325
Nizamuddin Auliya at Delhi
d. 1356
Nasiruddin Chiragh i Delhi, the last great Delhi Chishti
d. 1422
Gesudaraz at Gulbarga
d. 1572
Salim Chishti at Fatehpur Sikri

From Ajmer to Delhi and the Punjab, then out to the provinces after 1356.Source: Bhakti and Sufi handout

Sufism and the state

The Chishtis refused power, their moral authority resting on visible independence, a deliberate strategy rather than mere piety.
The Suhrawardis engaged, and Bahauddin Zakariya's support was politically useful to Iltutmish, who rewarded him accordingly.
The Naqshbandis intervened, as Sirhindi wrote to nobles at court urging the reversal of Akbar's policy.
Akbar drew legitimacy from Ajmer and from Salim Chishti's hospice at Fatehpur Sikri, though the Chishti tradition was one of refusing rulers.
The older view that Sufis converted many by example has been revised by Richard Eaton, who links mass conversion in Bengal to agrarian expansion.
In Eaton's account the shrines became centres of new agrarian communities, and the two views are best given together.

Wahdat ul wujud and wahdat ul shuhud

Wahdat ul wujud, unity of being, from Ibn Arabi, d. 1240, holds that only one Being exists and the world is its manifestation.
The Chishtis and most of the popular tradition held it, and it was hospitable to Hindu thought, to sulh i kul and to Dara Shukoh's work.
Wahdat ul shuhud, unity of witness, holds that the unity is in the mystic's perception, and creator and creation remain distinct.
Sirhindi and the Naqshbandis advanced it explicitly against the first, and against Akbar's policy.
Shah Waliullah, 1703 to 1762, argued that the two describe the same experience at different levels.

Wahdat ul wujud and wahdat ul shuhud

	Wahdat ul wujud	Wahdat ul shuhud
Meaning	Unity of being	Unity of witness, or of appearance
Associated with	Ibn Arabi, d. 1240; in India the Chishtis and most of the popular tradition	Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, 1564 to 1624, and the Naqshbandis
The claim	Only one Being exists; the world is its manifestation	The unity is in the mystic's perception; creator and creation stay distinct
Why it mattered	Hospitable to Hindu thought and to sulh i kul; Dara Shukoh's work rests on it	Reasserts the boundary between faiths; used against Akbar's policy

Shah Waliullah later argued that the two describe one experience at different levels.Source: Bhakti and Sufi handout

What Sufism gave Indian culture

Sufism gave the qawwali and, through the Sufi courts, a large part of the Hindustani classical tradition.
Dakhni and then Urdu grew in Sufi milieux, and Baba Farid in Punjabi and Gesudaraz in Dakhni founded two literatures.
It gave a genre of prose, the malfuzat, a shaikh's recorded conversations, and the maktubat, letters.

The case for synthesis

Tara Chand, Yusuf Husain and the composite culture school argue for synthesis.
The beloved, the wine, the moth and the flame run through both Sufi and Bhakti poetry.
Dargahs drew and still draw Hindus in large numbers, and Sufis attended Bhakti gatherings.
Kabir belongs to both, Baba Farid's verses are in the Sikh scripture, and the Rishi order is a genuine fusion.
The langar and the Chishti kitchen, the guru and the pir, the sampradaya and the silsila converged as institutions.
Both faced the hostility of their own orthodoxies, the ulama and the Brahmin establishment.

The case against

Aziz Ahmad, Simon Digby, Carl Ernst and Richard Eaton argue against it.
Syncretism flattens real theology, for no major Sufi abandoned the Prophet Muhammad or the Shariat, and no major Bhakti saint accepted them.
Shared shrine attendance, people seeking the same practical benefit at one tomb, is not shared doctrine.
Sufis were often engaged in legitimating Muslim rule, and the Naqshbandis are the plain counterexample to the synthesis story.
The composite culture reading was shaped by 20th century nationalist needs and reads back a harmony the sources do not support.

Convergence, not merger

What took place was a convergence of practice, idiom and social form beside a persistent, consciously kept doctrinal difference.
The most creative figures, Kabir, Dara Shukoh and Nund Rishi, tried to merge them and were resisted by both sides.

What the two left behind

Both gave the modern Indian languages their first literatures, by deliberately abandoning a prestige language.
Both left great musical traditions, the qawwali and the bhajan and kirtan family, and much of the Hindustani and Carnatic inheritance.
Sikhism grew out of the sant tradition, with a scripture that canonises Hindu and Muslim voices alike.
Later reformers, Gandhi among them, reached for Bhakti's saints, which is why Narsinh Mehta's Vaishnava was sung at his prayer meetings.
Shared sacred space is the most fragile legacy, and the one whose meaning is most contested.

Ramananda
saint
Placed in the 15th century; tradition makes him a disciple of the Ramanuja line who settled at Banaras and took disciples of every caste, Kabir and Ravidas among them.
Kabir
saint
c. 1440 to 1518; a julaha of Banaras who taught one formless God, scorned temple and mosque alike, left the Bijak and died at Maghar.
Guru Nanak
saint
1469 to 1539; born at Talwandi, settled at Kartarpur; Ik Onkar, the 3 pillars, the sangat and the langar, and a named successor.
Guru Angad
saint
Guru Nanak's named successor, who developed the Gurmukhi script.
Guru Arjan Dev
saint
Compiled the Guru Granth Sahib at Amritsar in 1604, with the verses of Kabir, Ravidas, Namdev and Baba Farid.
Ravidas
saint; also Guru Ravidas, Raidas
15th to 16th century; a leather worker of Banaras whose Begumpura is a city without sorrow, where none is taxed; his verses are in the Guru Granth Sahib.
Dadu Dayal
saint; also Dadu
1544 to 1603; a cotton carder born at Ahmedabad who founded the Dadupanth in Rajasthan.
Narsinh Mehta
poet
c. 1414 to 1481; the first great poet of Gujarati, whose Vaishnava jana to was Gandhi's favourite bhajan.
Vallabhacharya
saint
1479 to 1531; Shuddhadvaita and the Pushtimarg, centred on Shrinathji at Govardhan.
Surdas
poet
c. 1478 to 1583, traditional; blind by tradition, one of the Ashtachhap; the Sursagar made Braj Bhasha a literary language.
Chaitanya
saint; also Chaitanya Mahaprabhu
1486 to 1533 or 1534; born at Nabadwip, settled at Puri; founder of Gaudiya Vaishnavism and its sankirtana, who wrote almost nothing.
Mirabai
poet
c. 1498 to 1546, traditional; a Rajput princess of Merta married into Mewar, who left rank and marriage for Krishna as Giridhar.
Tulsidas
poet
1532 to 1623; wrote the Ramcharitmanas in Awadhi at Ayodhya from 1574; socially conservative.
Jnaneshwar
saint
1275 to 1296; the Jnaneshwari, a Marathi commentary on the Bhagavad Gita; took samadhi at Alandi at 21.
Namdev
saint
c. 1270 to 1350; a tailor whose Marathi abhangs reached the Punjab and the Guru Granth Sahib.
Eknath
saint
1533 to 1599; a Brahmin of Paithan; the Eknathi Bhagavata and the bharud; ate publicly with untouchables.
Tukaram
saint
c. 1608 to 1650; a kunbi grain trader of Dehu, the greatest of the abhang poets.
Ramdas
saint
1608 to 1681; the Dasbodh; his role as Shivaji's guru is later tradition.
Chokhamela
saint
A mahar, the Varkari tradition's most important untouchable saint, whose samadhi stands at the threshold of the Pandharpur temple.
Sankaradeva
saint; also Srimanta Sankaradeva
Traditionally 1449 to 1568; Ekasarana Nama Dharma in Assam; Borgeet, Ankia Naat, Bhaona and Sattriya; the Sattra and the Namghar.
Lal Ded
saint
c. 1320 to 1392; Shaiva, whose vakhs are among the earliest Kashmiri literature; revered by Hindus and Muslims alike.
Nund Rishi
saint
c. 1377 to 1438; founder of the Rishi order of Kashmir, the one silsila of purely Indian origin.
Purandaradasa
saint
c. 1484 to 1564; the Haridasa called Karnataka Sangita Pitamaha, who codified the exercises used to teach Carnatic music.
Moinuddin Chishti
saint
d. 1236; brought the Chishti order to India; Gharib Nawaz, whose dargah at Ajmer is the most visited shrine in India.
Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki
saint; also Bakhtiyar Kaki
d. 1235; the Chishti of Delhi in Iltutmish's time, around whose presence Mehrauli grew.
Fariduddin Ganjshakar
saint; also Baba Farid, Baba Farid Ganj i Shakar
1173 to 1265; the Chishti of Ajodhan, now Pakpattan, and the first major poet of Punjabi, in the Guru Granth Sahib.
Nizamuddin Auliya
saint
1238 to 1325; Mahbub i Ilahi, who lived through 7 Sultans and attended none of their courts; Dilli door ast.
Amir Khusrau
poet
1253 to 1325; Nizamuddin's disciple, Tuti i Hind, who wrote in Hindavi and is soundly credited with the qawwali.
Nasiruddin Chiragh i Delhi
saint
d. 1356; the Lamp of Delhi, last of the great Delhi Chishtis, after whom the order dispersed.
Gesudaraz
saint
d. 1422; carried the Chishti order to the Deccan under the Bahmanis at Gulbarga and wrote in Dakhni.
Salim Chishti
saint
d. 1572; Akbar built Fatehpur Sikri in his honour after the birth of the future Jahangir.
Bahauddin Zakariya
saint
1182 to 1262; founded the Suhrawardi order in India at Multan; politically useful to Iltutmish.
Sharfuddin Yahya Maneri
saint
d. 1381; the Firdausi of Bihar, whose Maktubat are among the finest Sufi prose written in India.
Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi
saint; also Sirhindi
1564 to 1624; the Naqshbandi Mujaddid i alf i sani, who advanced wahdat ul shuhud, opposed Akbar's policy and was imprisoned by Jahangir.
Richard Eaton
historian
Historian whose work on Bengal links mass conversion to agrarian expansion and the settlement of new land, not preaching.

Varkaris on the wari
A dindi of varkaris with saffron flags, walking the wari to Pandharpur for Ashadhi Ekadashi.
Ashu905, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Jnaneshwar's temple at Alandi
The temple over the samadhi Jnaneshwar took at Alandi at the age of 21.
Ganesh Dhamodkar, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Tukaram's house at Dehu
The house at Dehu of Tukaram, the kunbi grain trader and greatest of the abhang poets.
Suresh Khole, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Kabir's samadhi at Maghar
Kabir's samadhi at Maghar, where he chose to die to break the belief that only death at Banaras brings liberation.
सत्यम् मिश्र, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Kartarpur
The gurdwara at Kartarpur on the Ravi, where Guru Nanak settled, farmed and taught in his last years.
Shahzaib Damn Cruze, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A Guru Granth Sahib manuscript
An illuminated manuscript of the Guru Granth Sahib, the scripture Guru Arjan Dev compiled in 1604.
Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
A Ravidas temple at Banaras
A temple to Guru Ravidas at Banaras, where the leather worker saint lived.
Sandpacks, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Ajmer dargah
Pilgrims at the dargah of Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer, the most visited shrine in India.
Alinawazchishty, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Nizamuddin's dargah
The dargah of Nizamuddin Auliya at Delhi, one of the main sites of shared Hindu and Muslim practice.
Nehasinha18, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Baba Farid's shrine at Pakpattan
The shrine of Baba Farid at Pakpattan, the old Ajodhan, from which he carried the Chishti order into the Punjab.
Sunni Person, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Gesudaraz's dargah at Gulbarga
The dargah of Gesudaraz at Gulbarga, who carried the Chishti order to the Deccan under the Bahmanis.
H Shraddha, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Salim Chishti's tomb
The marble tomb of Salim Chishti, the finest building at Fatehpur Sikri, the capital Akbar built in his honour.
Marcin Białek, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Charar i Sharief
The shrine of Nund Rishi at Charar i Sharief, of the Rishi order of Kashmir.
Biswajit Majumdar, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A Namghar
A Namghar in Assam, the institution of Sankaradeva's movement that carried worship and village self government.
Indranil Gayan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Saguna: Worship of God with attributes, in a name and a form such as Rama or Krishna.
Nirguna: Worship of a formless absolute, without image or incarnation; it does not mean atheist.
Sant: The name used for the Nirguna poet saints of the north, such as Kabir, Ravidas and Nanak.
Sampradaya and panth: A sect with a line of teachers, and the following of one saint, such as the Kabirpanth or the Dadupanth.
Kirtan and sankirtan: Devotional singing, and congregational singing in procession, which Chaitanya took through the streets.
Abhang: The Marathi devotional verse of the Varkari saints, from Namdev to Tukaram.
Sadhukkadi: The mixed speech of wandering ascetics, in which Kabir composed.
Pushtimarg: Vallabhacharya's path of grace, pushti: joyful service to the child Krishna, with the householder's life as the path.
Ashtachhap: The eight seals, the eight poets of the Pushtimarg organised by Vitthalnath, Surdas among them.
Varkari and wari: A member of the Vitthal tradition of Pandharpur, and the pilgrimage on foot there for Ashadhi Ekadashi.
Langar: The free communal kitchen of the Sikh Gurus, which enacts the rejection of caste.
Sangat and pangat: The congregation, and sitting in a single row without regard to caste.
Nam japna, kirat karni, vand chakna: Guru Nanak's 3 pillars: remembrance of the divine name, earning by honest labour, and sharing with others.
Begumpura: Ravidas's city without sorrow, where none is taxed, none owns property and all move freely.
Ekasarana Nama Dharma: Sankaradeva's teaching in Assam: shelter in one.
Sattra and Namghar: The two institutions of Sankaradeva's movement, which carried both worship and village self government into modern Assam.
Tasawwuf: Sufism itself, a name drawn from suf, wool, from safa, purity, or from the people of the bench by the Prophet Muhammad's mosque.
Shariat, tariqat, haqiqat, marifat: The 4 rising stages of the Sufi path: the law, the path, the reality and gnosis; the first is never discarded.
Fana and baqa: Annihilation of the self in God, and subsistence in God thereafter.
Pir and murid: Master and disciple; a khalifa is a disciple authorised to initiate others.
Silsila: The chain of spiritual descent from the Prophet Muhammad through successive masters, which makes an order an order.
Sama: Listening to music as a spiritual exercise, to induce wajd or ecstasy: permitted by the Chishtis, rejected by the Suhrawardis and Naqshbandis.
Khanqah: The hospice of a living Sufi master: a hall for teaching, cells for disciples, a free kitchen and open doors.
Dargah and urs: The tomb shrine that grows round a saint after death, and his death anniversary kept as a wedding with God.
Zikr: Remembrance, the repeated invocation of the divine name: jahri aloud, khafi silent.
Futuh: Unsolicited charity, which the Chishtis accepted while refusing endowments.
Ba shara and be shara: Sufis who observed the Shariat, the major orders, and those who did not, such as the Qalandars.
Malfuzat: The recorded conversations of a Sufi shaikh, such as the Fawaid ul Fuad of Nizamuddin Auliya.
Wahdat ul wujud: Unity of being: only one Being exists and the world is its manifestation; Ibn Arabi, the Chishtis and the popular tradition.
Wahdat ul shuhud: Unity of witness: the unity is in the mystic's perception, and creator and creation remain distinct; Sirhindi and the Naqshbandis.

Was there one Bhakti movement?

One movement

Across regions Bhakti shares a pattern: devotion over ritual, the vernacular over Sanskrit, and saints from every caste.
The tradition told its own single story, the Bhagavata Mahatmya's journey from Dravida to Gujarat.
Namdev carried the Marathi tradition to the Punjab, and the Guru Granth Sahib gathered saints of many regions.

Many regional traditions

Krishna Sharma and J. S. Hawley see loosely connected regional traditions.
The unified narrative was assembled by scholars and nationalists in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
The Bhagavata Mahatmya's journey is a later tradition's own account, not a historical statement.

Use the term Bhakti movement, but know that it is a category with a history.

Did the Sufis convert India?

The older view

Sufis converted large populations by their example.
The Chishti khanqah admitted anyone of any faith or caste and fed them, in many towns the only such institution.
Dargahs drew Hindus in large numbers, and still do.

Eaton's revision

Richard Eaton's work on Bengal finds that mass conversion followed agrarian expansion and the settlement of new land, not preaching.
Shrines became the centres of new agrarian communities.
Shared shrine attendance for a practical benefit is not evidence of shared doctrine.

The older account has been substantially revised, and an answer sets it out together with Eaton's work.

Synthesis, or convergence?

Synthesis

Tara Chand, Yusuf Husain and the composite culture school point to the shared imagery of the beloved, the wine, the moth and the flame.
Dargahs drew Hindus, Sufis attended Bhakti gatherings, and both faced their own orthodoxies.
Kabir, Baba Farid's verses in the Sikh scripture, and the Rishi order stand between the two.

Real difference

Aziz Ahmad, Simon Digby, Carl Ernst and Richard Eaton hold that syncretism flattens real theological difference.
Sufis often legitimated Muslim rule, and the Naqshbandis are the plain counterexample.
The composite culture reading was shaped by 20th century nationalist needs.

A convergence of practice, idiom and social form beside a persistent, consciously kept doctrinal difference.

Prelims

Try each before opening the answer; every question is also on the Prelims PYQs pages.

2019 · Q13

Consider the following statements:

1.Saint Nimbarka was a contemporary of Akbar.
2.Saint Kabir was greatly influenced by Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a)1 only
(b)2 only
(c)Both 1 and 2
(d)Neither 1 nor 2UPSC key

Show answer and explanation

Statement 1 is incorrect. Nimbarka, the Vaishnava acharya who founded the Dvaitadvaita or dualistic non dualism school and the Nimbarka sampradaya centred on Radha and Krishna, belongs to the thirteenth century and possibly earlier, several centuries before Akbar, who ruled from 1556 to 1605.
Statement 2 is incorrect on straightforward chronology. Kabir belongs to the fifteenth century and died around 1518, whereas Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, the Naqshbandi divine known as Mujaddid Alf i Sani, lived from 1564 to 1624 and was a contemporary of Akbar and Jahangir. A figure born some forty six years after Kabir's death cannot have influenced him. Since both statements fail, the official answer (d) follows. The governing principle is that chronology alone settles this item. Sirhindi is firmly fixed by his opposition to Akbar's religious policy and his correspondence in Jahangir's reign, so placing him after Kabir requires no knowledge of doctrine, and the four acharyas of the Vaishnava sampradayas, namely Ramanuja, Madhva, Nimbarka and Vallabha, all belong to the early medieval and medieval centuries rather than to the Mughal era.

Moderate · Static · Art and Culture · Religion, Philosophy and Devotional Traditions

2014 · Q83

With reference to the famous Sattriya dance, consider the following statements:

1.Sattriya is a combination of music, dance and drama.
2.It is a centuries-old living tradition of Vaishnavites of Assam.
3.It is based on classical Ragas and Talas of devotional songs composed by Tulsidas, Kabir and Mirabai.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a)1 only
(b)1 and 2 onlyUPSC key
(c)2 and 3 only
(d)1, 2 and 3

Show answer and explanation

Statements 1 and 2 are correct and statement 3 is incorrect, so the official answer is (b).
Statement 1 is correct: Sattriya grew out of the ankiya nat, the one-act devotional play, and combines music, dance and dramatic narration, so it is a total theatre form rather than dance alone.
Statement 2 is correct: it was created in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by Srimanta Sankaradeva as a medium of the Ekasarana Nama-dharma form of Vaishnavism, and has been preserved as a living tradition in the sattras, the Vaishnava monasteries of Assam, where it was performed by celibate monks, the bhokots; it was recognised as a classical dance form by the Sangeet Natak Akademi in 2000, the eighth to be so recognised.
Statement 3 is incorrect and is the pivot. The musical basis of Sattriya is the borgeet, the devotional songs composed by Sankaradeva and his disciple Madhavadeva in Brajavali, set to their own ragas and to the talas played on the khol and cymbals. Tulsidas, Kabir and Mirabai belong to the northern Bhakti tradition and have no connection with the Assamese Vaishnava repertoire. The governing point is that Sattriya is the creation of one identifiable regional Bhakti movement with its own literature and music, which the statement replaces with unrelated northern saint-poets.

Moderate · Static · Art and Culture · Performing Arts and Intangible Heritage

Not covered in the theme; see the answer.

2014 · Q90

Consider the following statements:

1.'Bijak' is a composition of the teachings of Saint Dadu Dayal.
2.The Philosophy of Pushti Marg was propounded by Madhvacharya.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a)1 only
(b)2 only
(c)Both 1 and 2
(d)Neither 1 nor 2UPSC key

Show answer and explanation

Both statements are incorrect, so the official answer is (d).

Statement 1 is incorrect: the Bijak is the principal compilation of the verses of Kabir, made by the Kabirpanth and organised into the ramainis, the sabdas and the sakhis, and the word means a seed or an inventory, in the sense of a document pointing to hidden treasure. The compositions of Dadu Dayal, the sixteenth-century saint of Rajasthan who founded the Dadupanth, are collected as the Dadu Bani or Dadu Anubhav Vani.
Statement 2 is incorrect: Pushti Marg, the path of grace, was propounded by Vallabhacharya in the early sixteenth century on the metaphysics of Shuddhadvaita, pure non-dualism, and centres on the devotion to Krishna as Shrinathji, the Nathdwara temple being its principal seat. Madhvacharya, of the thirteenth century, propounded Dvaita, thoroughgoing dualism, and the Brahma Sampradaya of Udupi. The item is a straightforward test of whether the candidate attaches texts and doctrines to the right teachers, and both statements are constructed by the same method, attaching a real text or doctrine to the wrong figure, so a candidate who catches the method after the first statement will treat the second with suspicion.

Moderate · Static · Art and Culture · Religion, Philosophy and Devotional Traditions

2013 · Q52

Consider the following Bhakti Saints:

1.Dadu Dayal
2.Guru Nanak
3.Tyagaraja.

Who among the above was/were preaching when the Lodi dynasty fell and Babur took over?

(a)1 and 3
(b)2 onlyUPSC key
(c)2 and 3
(d)1 and 2

Show answer and explanation

The event fixes the date: the first battle of Panipat was fought on 21 April 1526, Ibrahim Lodi was killed and Babur took Delhi and Agra, so the question asks which of the three was active in and around 1526. Guru Nanak lived from 1469 to 1539 and was at the height of his ministry in 1526; his own composition on the Babarvani, the verses on Babur's invasion and the sack of Saidpur, is a contemporary witness to precisely this event and is the strongest possible evidence that item 2 qualifies. Dadu Dayal lived from about 1544 to 1603, a Gujarati born saint of the nirguna tradition who founded the Dadupanth and was active in Rajasthan during Akbar's reign, so he was born roughly eighteen years after the Lodi dynasty fell and item 1 does not qualify. Tyagaraja lived from 1767 to 1847, a composer of the Carnatic tradition at Tiruvaiyaru in the Thanjavur country and one of the musical trinity, more than two centuries later, so item 3 does not qualify. The official answer (b), two only, follows. The elimination route runs through Tyagaraja, who belongs to a wholly different period and region and whose exclusion removes options (a) and (c) at once, after which the question reduces to whether Dadu Dayal is a contemporary of Babur or of Akbar.

Moderate · Static · Art and Culture · Religion, Philosophy and Devotional Traditions

Not covered in the theme; see the answer.

Mains

General Studies Paper 1; every question is also on the Mains PYQs pages.

2023 · Q6 (a)10 marks150 words
What were the major teachings of Guru Nanak? Explain their relevance in the contemporary world.
2021 · Q110 marks150 words
Evaluate the nature of the Bhakti literature and its contribution to Indian culture.
2018 · Q1115 marks250 words
The Bhakti movement received a remarkable re-orientation with the advent of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Discuss.

Literary sources

Archaeology and monuments

Two traditions, one task

What they shared

What they did not share

Bhakti words

Sufi words

Sufi places and occasions

The Tamil beginning

The road north

The acharyas

Nirguna

Saguna

A caution

Ramananda at Banaras

Kabir, c. 1440 to 1518

Guru Nanak, 1469 to 1539

Ravidas

Dadu Dayal, 1544 to 1603

The Guru Granth Sahib, 1604

Narsinh Mehta, c. 1414 to 1481

Vallabhacharya, 1479 to 1531

Surdas, c. 1478 to 1583

Chaitanya, 1486 to 1533 or 1534

Mirabai, c. 1498 to 1546

Tulsidas, 1532 to 1623

The Varkari tradition

Jnaneshwar, 1275 to 1296

Namdev, c. 1270 to 1350

Eknath, 1533 to 1599

Tukaram, c. 1608 to 1650

Ramdas, 1608 to 1681

Karnataka: the Virashaivas

Bengal and Odisha

Kashmir: Lal Ded and Nund Rishi

Sankaradeva in Assam

Karnataka: the Haridasas

The women saints

What it changed

What it did not change

One movement, or many

What Sufism is

The practices

The khanqah and the dargah

The Chishtis

The Suhrawardis

The Firdausis, Rishis, Shattaris and Qadiris

The Naqshbandis and Sirhindi

Moinuddin Chishti

Bakhtiyar Kaki and Baba Farid

Nizamuddin Auliya, 1238 to 1325

Amir Khusrau, 1253 to 1325

The later Chishtis

Sufism and the state

Wahdat ul wujud and wahdat ul shuhud

What Sufism gave Indian culture

The case for synthesis

The case against

Convergence, not merger

What the two left behind

Was there one Bhakti movement?

Did the Sufis convert India?

Synthesis, or convergence?

Prelims

Mains