BHAKTI MOVEMENT

The term Bhakti is derived from the Sanskrit root “Bhaj” means to serve. Dharma means the natural
internal characteristics of a thing. The meaning of “movement” is the practice that influences a large
section of a society. In the early beginning, the word Bhakti is first mentioned in Rig-Veda as worship
to Indra and Surya Devata. It is also noted in the famous discourse on Bhakti by Narad in Narad
Bhakti Sutra. Similarly it also appears in Vishnu-sookta.

The term bhakti is defined as “devotion” or passionate love for the Divine. Moksha or liberation from
rebirth was not in the following of rules, regulations or societal ordering, but it was through simple
devotion to the Divine. Within the movement at large, useful distinctions have been made by
contemporary scholars between those poet saints who composed verses extolling God with
attributes or form, namely, “saguna” bhaktas, and, Those extolling God without and beyond all
attributes or form, “nirguna.”

Bhakti movement originated in South India between the 7th and the 12th centuries A.D. The
Nayanmars, who worshipped Siva, and the Alwars, who worshipped Vishnu, preached the idea of
Bhakti. They carried their message of love and devotion to various parts of South India through the
medium of the local language. They preached among common people. It made some of the
followers of the Vedic faith to revive the old Vedic religion. Saints like Sankara, Ramanuja and
Madhwa gave their concepts of God and the individual soul.

Kabir
About the dates of Kabir’s birth and demise there is a good deal of controversy among the scholars.
But it seems to be most probable that “he lived towards the close of the fourteenth and the
beginning of the fifteenth centuries.” Perhaps Kabir was born in a Brahmin family at Varanasi. Since
his mother was a widow he was abandoned on the street from where he was picked up by a Muslim
couple: Niru and Nima, who were weavers. Kabir adopted the profession of his new parents and
continued to earn his bread from weaving. He also had a wife and led a family life. Kabir was a
sensitive person, and, therefore, he found it difficult to accept the social conditions prevailing
around him. At this juncture he came into contact with Ramanand and became his disciple. But soon
he made a distinct place for himself by giving shape to his ideas which were rich in social content.
Kabir’s ideas gave a new dimension to the bhakti movement, which became more social than
religious in his hand. By providing a new social orientation to the Bhakti movement Kabir made it
popular amongst the toiling people.

According to Kabir, there is only one Supreme Being although he is called by different names like
Ram, Rahim, Allah, Hari, Khuda and Govind. Although God, according to Kabir, was without shape or
form, he was the supreme object of love. He declared that God and soul were identical and there
was no distinction between the absolute and the devotee. The devotee, therefore, needed no
temple or mosque or pilgrimage to reach him. Idols, avtars, pandits and ulama were superfluous; for
the devotees love for God was enough. Union with God could be realised through intense devotion
(Bhakti) and guidance of a Guru who could guide the devotees to the correct path. For union with
Him there was no need to renounce the world or to seek retirement in solitude. The Kabir preached
a simple religion which had a special appeal for the masses. To both Hindus and Muslims Kabir
taught respect for the living creatures, abstention from violence and bloodshed, renunciation of
pride and egoism. “If you say that I am a Hindu,” he declared, “then it is not true, nor I am a
Musalman...... Mecca has verily become Kashi, and Ram has become Rahim.” However, Kabir was
not a follower of either Hinduism or Islam. He kept himself above Hinduism and Islam. In fact he
rejected the Vedas as well as the Quran. Kabir said : “Vedas and Koran are traps laid, for poor souls
to tumble in.” Kabir wanted to remove all distinctions based on caste and creed. Kabir thought that
blind faith and ignorance were responsible for rifts and strifes, and, therefore, he vehemently
attacked blind faith, ignorance, and superstitious beliefs of both the Hindus and the Muslims. There
is a large number of sayings of Kabir in which he castigates leaders of both these religious
communities for their ignorance and fanaticism.

He also criticized blind faith in the scriptures, idol worship, pilgrimages, ritualism, polytheism and
the like. Kabir makes a scathing criticism of the practices of Hinduism in the following words: “There
is nothing but water at the holy bathing places and know that they are useless, for 1 have bathed in
them. The images are all lifeless, they cannot speak, I know, for I have cried about to them. The
Puranas and the Karma are mere words, lifting the curtain I have seen. Kabir gives utterances to the
words of experience, and he knows very well that all other things are untrue”. Again Kabir blasts
Islamic practices and attacks Qazis (judges) in the following words: “The five prayers which the
Musalman offers are all useless, because their prayers are a mere outward show and sham while
they have some other thoughts all the time in their mind. By making a show of religious deeds, the
Qazi deceives the poor people and does them harm instead of good.”

While the above-mentioned criticism by Kabir of the practices of Hinduism and Islam is self-
explanatory but it speaks highly about the man who could dare to come out so boldly in a society
which did not have a high level of social consciousness. He did not care for the consequences while
asserting his views on social evils and hegemony of the pundits and ulama. 219 Kabir was really a
supreme figure of the Bhakti movement whose radical ideas not only exerted considerable influence
on the people of his time but continue to inspire us our times also.

Nanak
Nanak (1469-1539) was born (According to popular belief, he was born in Katik, October-November,
but historians do not accept it) on 15 April 1469, at the village of Talwandi in Sheikhpur district (now
in Pakistan). He acquired some knowledge of Punjabi, Hindi and Persian, but had no deep desire for
traditional learning. He longed to know the Truth. With a view to enriching his experience of human
life he toured extensively. It is claimed that he even visited Ceylon and Mecca. In these tours he was
accompanied by Mardana, a Muslim by birth; it is said.

Kabir’s teachings had a profound impact on Nanak’s thinking. However, his meeting with Kabir is
doubted by Prof. Harbans Singh. Still it can not be denied that there is much common in them. Both
tried to carve out a distinct path free from caste system, rituals and priesthood. On several social
issues they evolved a rational attitude. Nanak died on 7 September in 1539 at the ripe age of
seventy. The Muslims erected a tomb and the Hindus a shrine in his memory. Both these have since
been swept away by the waters of the river Ravi. Nanak’s Janamsakhis say that the first words
uttered by Guru after his revelation were, “There is no Hindu, there is no Musalman.” These words
also spell out his mission. It was Nanak’s determination to keep himself above the religious
differences of the Hindus and the Muslims. He did not look at religion as a weapon to divide people.
Rather he presented religion in a humane framework, He said: “When he has established his
goodwill for all, O Nanak, will he be called a Musalman.” Again Nanak said : Religion lies not in empty
words. He who regards all men as equal is religious. He stood for “the essential integrity of
humanity,”

Guru Nanak laid emphasis on the oneness or unity of God and he conceived him as Nirguna
(attributeless) and Nirankar (formless). This Absolute Supreme could be understood, there could be
no difference between his creatures—Hindus and Muslims. It could also help in eradicating
superstitious beliefs, polytheism and idol-worship. Nanak used the name of Hari, Ram, Gobind, Allah
and Khuda for his Diety.

To the Muslims his advice was: Make kindness the mosque, sincerity thy prayer-carpet, and what is
just and lawful thy Quran”. The teachings of Guru Nanak were direct and simple, he strongly
condemned the superstitions of both the Hindus and the Muslims, he attacked the caste-system of
the Hindus. Caste system was regarded by him as being against the will of God. He explicitey
preached that “class and caste distinctions are just so much nonsense, that all men are born equal.”
Again Nanak expressed his noble ideas in the following words: “I am lowliest among the lowly.

Nanak is with the lowly and has nothing to do with rich.” Nanak further says: “God’s eye of mercy
falls on those who take care of the lowly; Nonsense is caste, and nonsense the titled fame. What
power has caste? Nobody is without some worth” With the passing of time Sikhism became a full-
fledged religion with its own Prophet, i.e., Guru Nanak, a Book i.e. the Adi Granth, latter on popularly
known as the Guru Granth Sahib and a Church (Gurudwara). Nanak’s pure and serene life, his
humility and forbearance won for him many Hindus and Muslims as his sincere disciples. Although in
the course of the next two centuries Sikhism saw many changes, yet in its essentials it continued to
bear the indelible impress of Guru Nanak’s teachings. Finally we end our discussion on Nanak by
quoting Dr. Gopal Singh. “For him, there were no final truths except those that answered the
questioning of manevery man- through the ages. He never considered himself either the final
messenger of God, or an exclusive one. And therein lies his eternal glory.”

MEERA BAI
Meera Bai is a household name in India. There are very few who have not heard Meera Bai’s
bhajans, depicting her love for Lord Krishna, her ecstasy in reaching her lord’s (Krishna) feet and her
final merger with the Lord. She was one among the great saint poets of the Bhakti movement, born
in 1498 and who gave up her earthly life when she merged with her Lord in 1546 at an early age of
48. She was born as Princess of Mewar but she had a lifelong engagement with Lord Krishna, whom
she addresses as Giridhar Gopal and whom she regarded as her husband. In fact, her parents had
initiated her into Krishna worship through a simple marriage ceremony with a Krishna statue when
she was a child. As she grew up and composed songs in praise of Lord Krishna, in song after song,
she described herself as Krishna’s ‘daasi’, (‘devotee’, though the literal translation is ‘maid’ or
‘servant’). Her marriage to a prince at a very early age, his death due to wounds sustained in a battle,
her refusal to be a part of the royal household and her moving out of the royal palace, first to
Brindavan and later to Dwaraka, where at the end she miraculously disappeared (seen as her merger
with the Lord) sum up her life story. She composed a large number of songs dedicated to Lord
Krishna, though scholars are divided as to how many were her own compositions. The significant fact
is that her songs were the spontaneous outpourings of her devotion - ‘bhakti’. Some bhajans of
Meerabai have been rendered into English by Robert Bly and Jane Hirshfield as Meerabai: Ecstatic
Poems. Meerabai is truly an embodiment of divine love. From her early years she had renounced all
the luxuries of the royal palace and dedicated herself to the worship of Krishna. She was constantly
in dialogue with Krishna. She hailed Krishna as her Beloved. Her songs were from her heart and were
a spontaneous expressions of her ecstatic experiences in her contemplation of Krishna. She ate and
drank, she slept and woke up with Krishna on her lips. She was indeed one of the foremost
embodiments of Premabhakti (divine love) and an inspired poetess that ever walked on earth. One
of her celebrated songs is “Paayoji maine Ram Ratan dhan paayo” (today I got the most precious
wealth of Lord Rama’s name. The poem is a testament to Meerabai’s devotion to the Lord and her
renunciation of all earthly material wealth.

Women and shudras, both at the bottom of the traditional hierarchy ordering society, became the
examples of true humility and devotion. Female poet-saints also played a significant role in the
bhakti movement at large. While it is tempting to see women’s participation within the bhakti
movement as a revolt against the patriarchal norms of the time, there is little evidence to support
this perspective. Injustices and the patriarchal order itself were not a major focus of these poet-
saints. Women bhaktas were simply individuals attempting to lead lives of devotion. Staying largely
within the patriarchal ideology that upheld the chaste and dutiful wife as ideal, these women
transferred the object of their devotion and their duties as the “lovers” or “wives” to their Divine
Lover or Husband. Nonetheless, that their poetry became an integral aspect of the bhakti movement
at large is highly significant and inspirational for many who look to these extraordinary women as
ideal examples of lives intoxicated by love for the Divine. Further, it would appear that with the
movement’s northward advancement (15th through 17th centuries), its radical edge as it pertained
to women’s inclusion, was tempered. Greater numbers of women took part in the movement’s
earlier development

CONCLUSION

The social significance of Bhakti Movement was remarkable. It also attempted to do away with all
the distinctions of caste and creed. It is well known fact that in Maharashtra saints like Jnanesvara,
Eknath, Tukaram and others tried to overcome the evils which were meted out to women and lower
caste people. Bhakti Movement brought about a kind of “reformation” in India with reference to the
attitude of people belonging to variety of religions. It also led to respecting other religions. Following
a religion and achieving salvation was made more simple for all down trodden people. The divisive
and destructive forces from various religions were also checked. This led to the change in the mind
sets of Indian people. To certain extent it contributed towards strengthening of spirituality of people
belonging to various religions.