Twilight of the Sultanate c18.s4.1

c18.s4.1

Kabīr and Nānak had preached the path of Bhakti for self-realisation. They conceived God as Nirguna (attributeless) and Nirākār (formless). Love for Him took a mystic, Sūfī form. Their influence was greatest in the eastern Uttar Pradesh and the Punjab, but in the fifteenth century the whole of northern India was experiencing a religious ferment. In Bengal and western Uttar Pradesh also Chaitanya and Vallabhacharya helped give rise to a similar religious stir. But their love took the shape of an emotional, even erotic form. Though the two great sects of Chaitanya and Vallabhacharya have different geographical spheres, both adore Krishna as a child or young man. It is not the Nirguna Deity that is worshipped but a Saguna (anthropomorphic). Their almost simultaneous appearance in Bengal and Central India represents an unusually strong current of similar ideas and sentiments⁴⁴ throughout the country.