The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c26.s7: The Bhakti Movement
The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c26.s7
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The Bhakti Movement
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According to ancient Hindu thought salvation or freedom from the bondage of birth and death, which is the ultimate end of human life, can be attained by three means, namely, *gyana* (knowledge), *karma* (action) and *bhakti* (devotion). During the period of the Sultanate of Delhi a series of Hindu religious thinkers and reformers set on foot a movement for religious reform which emphasised the last, namely devotion, which became known as the Bhakti movement. It will, thus, be seen that the movement was not altogether new and it did not owe its origin to Islam as has been erroneously supposed by some modern writers. What really happened was that this movement received impetus from the presence of iconoclastic Muslim preachers who vehemently criticised the Hindu religion and thought. The history of the movement goes back to the time of the great reformer, Shankaracharya, who successfully combated Buddhism and gave Hinduism a common solid philosophical background. He established a logical monistic system and laid emphasis on the first of the three methods of attaining salvation, namely, knowledge. But this failed to evoke a hearty response from the common people. Anxious to attract the popular mind towards Hinduism and make it a living and active force in the life of the common people, our religious thinkers of the medieval age laid stress on the third means, namely, *bhakti* (devotion). As a vast majority of the Hindus could not pursue careers of material, political and cultural advancement under the alien rule, a dominant feature of the *bhakti* movement was 'escapism'. The people as well as the leaders of the movement sought solace in other-worldliness.
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The earliest exponent of this school of religious thought was a great *Vaishnava* teacher, Ramanuja, who flourished in the early years of the twelfth century. He did his best to popularise the cult of devotion to a personal God and preached that salvation can be had by this means alone. The next reformer was Ramananda, a follower of the Ramanuja school, who was born in a Kanyakubja family of Allahabad. A worshipper of Rama, he preached the doctrine of *bhakti* to people of all castes and to both the sexes. He had twelve principal disciples, one of whom was a barber (Saindasa), another a cobbler (Raidasa) and the third a Muhammadan weaver (Kabir). The third teacher of the school was Vallabhacharya who was a worshipper of Krishna and, therefore, an exponent of the Krishna cult. He was born near Banaras in 1479 and his parents were Telugu Brahmans who had come to northern India for pilgrimage and settled here. He was a man of remarkable literary talent even in his early life. After completing his education at Kashi, he went to the court of Krishnadeva Raya of Vijayanagar where he won a victory over some scholarly followers of *Shaivism*. He preached monism of the pure type, known, technically, as *shuddhadwaita* or pure non-duality. He became very popular with the common people; but, later on, abuses appeared among his followers who were mostly well-to-do people and, eventually, it became ‘the Epicureanism of the East’.
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The greatest saint of the bhakti movement was Chaitanya who was born in a learned Brahman family of Nadia in Bangal in 1485. From his early life he showed literary ability of a high order. At the age of twenty-four he renounced the world, became a *sadhu* and spent the rest of his life in preaching his message of love and devotion. He travelled over most parts of the country, both in the north and in the south, and spent a considerable time at Vrindaban. The essence of his teaching has been summed up thus: “If a creature adores Krishna and serves his *guru*, he is released from the meshes of illusion and attains to Krishna’s feet...” This leads him to rise above the fetters of this world. “He believed that through love and devotion, song and dance, a state of ecstasy could be produced in which the personal presence of God would be realised.” Chaitanya was opposed to the domination of the priests and to outward forms and ceremonies of religion. He preached to all irrespective of caste and creed. His influence was so profound and lasting that he is considered by his followers as an incarnation of Vishnu. He died in 1533.
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Another preacher of the bhakti movement was Namadeva. He was a Maharashtrian and his followers belonged to all castes and classes, including a few Muslim converts to Hinduism. He belonged to the caste of tailors and flourished in the first half of the fifteenth century. Like other reformers of the age, he had faith in the unity of God and was against image-worship and priestly ritualism. He believed that one could attain salvation only through love of God.
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Of the notable exponents of the bhakti cult, two, namely, Kabir and Nanak, stood definitely for a compromise between Hinduism and Islam. Kabir’s early life is shrouded in mystery. He is said to have been born of a Brahman widow of Banaras who left him near a tank from where he was picked up by a Muhammadan weaver. Scholars differ about his date of birth. It seems almost certain that he flourished towards the close of the fifteenth century. From his early life he was a boy of meditative turn of mind and thoroughly religious, though in an unconventional sense. He is said to have become a disciple of Ramananda. Kabir might have been only nominally a Muslim, for his poems are, beyond the shadow of doubt, saturated with the Hindu religious and philosophical thought of a high order. He was also influenced by the *sufi* thought and practices. Kabir led the life of a householder and performed the daily duties of his life, and yet he was a *bhakta* of eminence. He preached the religion of love to all people irrespective of caste and creed and made it the main concern of his life to promote unity between Hinduism and Islam. Like other reformers of the bhakti cult, he was against caste and ritual and the external formalities of religion. He was a firm believer in the theory that salvation could be attained only through love and devotion to God. So he believed in *bhajana* and condemned all kinds of sham, insincerity and hypocrisy. The following poem of Kabir admirably sums up his teachings:
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*If God be within the mosque, then to whom does this world belong?*
*If Rama be within the image, then who is there to know what happens without?*
*Hari is in the east; Allah is in the west. Look within your own heart, for there you will find both Karim and Rama.*
*All the men and women of the world are His living forms.*
*Kabir is the child of Allah and Rama; He is my guru; He is my pir.*
*Vain, too, are the distinctions of caste.*
*All shades of colour are but broken arcs of light.*
*All varieties in human nature are but fragments of humanity.*
*The right to approach God is not the monopoly of Brahmans, but belong to all who are sincere of heart.*
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Guru Nanak, like Kabir, preached harmony between Hinduism and Islam. He was born of Khatri parents in 1469 at the village of Talwandi (modern Nankana), thirty-five miles to the south-west of Lahore and situated in the Shaikbupura district of the West Panjab. His father was a *patwari*. Nanak was given formal education and employed as an assistant to his brother-in-law, Jai Rama of Sultanpur Lodi, who was a grain merchant in the service of Daulat Khan Lodi. But his accounts fell into disorder, and he left service. At Sultanpur Lodi began his religious career and his first notable saying to attract attention was: “There is no Hindu and no Musalman.” He spent the rest of his life in preaching and wandering over the country and even beyond as far as Mecca and Madina. He died in 1538 at Kartarpur in the Jalandhar Doab. Nanak had married, lived the life of a householder and had two sons. He believed that married life was not a bar to spiritual progress. He preached the gospel of universal toleration and was against external formalities of Hinduism and against caste and religious fanaticism. His message was one of unity of God and personal love for him. He had both Hindu and Muslim disciples. He nominated Angada, one of his disciples, as his successor who gave unity and organisation to his followers. Gradually they became known as the Sikhs.
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The bhakti cult was a widespread movement and embraced the whole of the country. It was a movement of the people and aroused intense interest among them. Perhaps, after the decline of Buddhism, there had never been a more widespread and popular movement in our country than the bhakti movement. It had two main objects in view. One was to reform the Hindu religion so as to enable it to withstand the onslaught of Islamic propaganda and proselytism. Its second object was to bring about reconciliation between Hinduism and Islam and to foster friendly relations between the two communities. It succeeded in realising the first object by bringing about the simplification of worship and liberalisation of the traditional caste rules. The high and the low among the Hindu public forgot many of their prejudices and believed in the message of the reformers that all people were equal in the eyes of God and that birth was no bar to religious salvation. The movement failed in achieving its second object, namely, Hindu-Muslim unity. Neither the Turko-Afghan rulers nor the Muslim public accepted the Rama-Sita creed. They refused to believe that Rama and Rahim, Ishwara and Allah were the names of the same God. The movement, however, incidentally became responsible for another solid achievement, namely, the evolution and enrichment of our vernacular literatures. The reformers preached to the masses through their mother-tongue and, therefore, gradually enriched our modern languages, such as, Hindi, Bangali, Marathi, Maithil, etc. The period of bhakti movement, therefore, proved to be a golden period in the history of the growth of our vernacular literatures.