Class 12 NCERT Notes of Chapter 6- BHAKTI-SUFI TRADITIONS

CLASS 12

 Bhakti and sufi traditions(C. 8th- 18th Century)

Sources:

1. Textual sources ( Puranas):

•  New textual sources available for this period include compositions attributed to poet-saints, most of whom expressed themselves orally in regional languages. 
• These compositions, which were often set to music, were compiled by disciples or devotees, after the death of the poet-saint.

2.  Hagiography:

•  Historians also draw on hagiographies or biographies of saints written by their followers or devotees. 
• These may not beliterally accurate, but allow a glimpse into the ways in which devotees perceived the lives of these path breaking women and men.

A Mosaic of Religious Beliefs and Practices:

• The most striking feature of this phase is the increasing visibility of a wide range of gods and goddesses.
• In sculpture as well as in texts.
• It also indicate the worship of major dieties- Vishnu, Shiva and goddess.
• As ther were visualised in a variety of forms.

1.The integration of various cults:

• There were two processes at work to integrate different cults.
•  One was a process of disseminating Brahmanical ideas. 
• Which is exemplified by the composition, compilation and preservation of Puranic texts in simple Sanskrit verse, which meant to be accessible to women and Shudras.

Second process at work –

• Brahmanas accepting and reworking the beliefs and practices.
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• Many of these were shaped through a continuous dialogue between
• -Great tradition
• -Little tradition.
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• One of the most striking examples of this processis evident at Puri, Orissa, where the principal deity was identified as Jagannatha- a form of Vishnu.
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• Such instances of integration are evident amongst goddess cults as well. Worship of the
• goddess, often simply in the form of a stone coloured with red and yellow mud. 
• They were identified as wives of the principal male deities – sometimes they were equated with Lakshmi, the wife of Vishnu, in other instances, with Parvati, the wife of Shiva and Saraswati, wife of Brahma.

 Difference and conflict:

Tantric practices:

• Goddess were forms of worship.
• All were allowed to worship such as men, women and ignored differences in  caste and class.
• Ignored the authority of vedas.

Puranic traditions:

• Shiva and vishnu worship as main dieties.
• Vaishnavism, followers of Vishnu.
• Shaivism, followers of Shiva.

Vedic Traditions:

• Agni, Indra and Soma worship as main dieties.
• Condemned sacrifices or chanting mantras.

Poems of prayer:

• Vedic practices were for only men and Brahmans, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas.
• They practiced Vedic tradition by chanting long Vedic hymns and elaborate sacrifices.

Early Traditions of Bhakti:

•  Historians of religion often classify bhakti traditions into two broad categories: 
• -Saguna
• -Nirguna.

Saguna Bhakti: 

• It included traditions that focused on the worship of specific deities such as Shiva, Vishnu and his avatars (incarnations) and forms of the goddess or Devi, in anthropomorphic (early human) forms. 

Nirgunabhakti:

•  on the other hand it include worship of an shapeless god.

The Alvars and Nayanars of Tamil Nadu:

 The Alvars: 

• Some of the earliest bhakti movements were led by the Alvars, literally, those who are “immersed” in devotion to Vishnu. 
• Nayanars: 
• who were devotees of Shiva.
• They travelled from place to place singing hymns in Tamil in praise of their gods.
• During their travels the Alvars and Nayanars identified certain shrines as abodes of their chosen deities and large temples were built at these sacred places. 
• These developed as centers of pilgrimage.

Attitudes towards caste:

•  Some historians suggest that the Alvars and Nayanars initiated a movement of protest against the caste system and dominance of Brahmanas. 
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• Bhaktas joined from diverse social backgrounds from Brahmanas to cultivators and even from castes considered untouchable.
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•  Alvars and Nayanars claimed that their compositions were as important as the Vedas. 
• The composition of the Alvars, the NalayiraDivyaprabandham, was frequently described as the Tamil Veda and the composition of Nayanars is Tevaram.
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•  One of the most striking features of these traditions was the presence of women.
•  For instance, the compositions of Andal, a woman Alvar, were widely sung and continue to be sung to date.
•  Andal saw herself as the beloved of Vishnu; her verses express her love for the deity.
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• Another woman, Karaikkal Ammaiyar, a devotee of Shiva, adopted the path of extreme asceticism in order to attainher goal. 
• Her compositions were preserved with in the Nayanar tradition.

Relations with the state:

• Cholas, Pallavas and Pandyas ruled south India.
•  Buddhism and Jainism had been prevalent in this region for several centuries. 
• Alvars and Nayanars opposed Buddhism and Jainism through their hymns.
• This hostility was due to competition between religious traditions for royal patronage.
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•  Chola rulers supported Brahmanical and bhakti traditions, making land grants and constructing temples for Vishnu and Shiva.
• In fact, some of the most magnificent Shiva temples, including those at Chidambaram, Thanjavur were constructed under the patronage of Chola rulers and representations of Shiva in bronze sculpture were produced.
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• Rulers tried to win the support of Alvars and Nayanars. 
• The Chola kings often attempted to claim divine supportand proclaim their own power and status by building temples that were adorned with stone and metal sculpture to create the visions of these popular saints who sang in the language of the people.
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• These kings also introduced the singing of Tamil Shaiva hymns in the temples under royal patronage, taking the initiative to collect and organise them into a text (Tevaram).
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• Chola ruler Parantaka I had consecrated metal images of Bhakti Saints- Appar, Sambandar and Sundarar in a Shiva temple.
• These were carried in processions during the festivals of these saints.
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The Virashaiva Tradition in Karnataka:

•  A new tradition in Karnataka, led by a Brahmana named Basavanna who was initially a Jaina and a minister in the court of a Chalukya king. 
• His followers were known as -Virashaivas(heroes of Shiva) or -Lingayats (wearers of the linga).
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• They worship Shiva in his manifestation as a linga, and men usually wear a small linga in a silver case on a loop strung over theleft shoulder. 
• Those who are revered include the jangama or wandering monks.
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• Lingayats believe that on death the devotee will be united with Shiva and will not return to this world. 
• Therefore they do not practice cremation instead, they ceremonially bury their dead.
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• The Lingayats challenged the idea of caste and the “pollution” attributed to certain groups by Brahmanas. 
• They also questioned the theory of rebirth. 
• These won them followers amongst those who were neglected by the Brahmanas.
• The Lingayats also encouraged certain practices such as post-puberty marriage and the remarriage of widows. 
• Our understanding of the Virashaiva tradition is derived from vachanas, composed in Kannada by women and men who joined the movement.

 Religious Ferment in North India:

• During this period, in north India deities such as Vishnu and Shiva were worshipped in temples, often built with the support of rulers. However, historians have not found evidence of anything resembling the compositions of the Alvars, Nayanars and Lingayats.
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• This was the period when several Rajput states emerged in North India. In most of these states Brahmanas occupied positions of importance, performing a range of secular and ritual functions.
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• There seems little attempt to challenge Brahmanical position directly.
•  These included the Naths, Jogis and Siddhas. 
• Many of them came from artisanal groups, including weavers, who had long-distance trade with Central Asia and West Asia.
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•  Many of these new religious leaders questioned the authority of the Vedas, and expressed themselves in languages spoken by ordinary people, which developed over centuries into the ones used today. 
• However, these religious leaders were not in a position to win the support of the rulers.
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• A new element in this situation was the coming of the Turks and establishment of the Delhi Sultanate.
•  This undermined the power of many of the Rajput states and the Brahmanas who were associated with these kingdoms.

 New Strands in the Fabric Islamic Traditions:

Faith of rulers and subject:

•  Arab merchants frequented ports along the western coast in the first millennium CE, they settled in the Malabar Coast.
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•  In 711, an Arab general named Muhammad Qasim conquered Sind, which became part of the Caliph’s domain.
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• Later the Turks and Afghans established the Delhi Sultanate.
• This continued with the establishment of the Mughal Empire in the sixteenth century.
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• The oretically, Muslim rulers were to be guided by the ulamas. 
• Ulemas are the ologians who are well versed in Islamic laws. 
• Rulers ruled according to the sharia.
• The sharia is the law governing the Muslim community.
•  It is based on the Quran and the hadiths.
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• Muslims ruled and protected people of all the religions but collected Jizya tax from the Non- Muslims. 
• Several rulers gave land endowments and granted tax exemptions to Hindu, Jain, Zoroastrian, Christian and Jewish religious institutions and also expressed respect to the Saints.

 The popular practices of Islam:

•  The developments that followed the coming of Islam permeated far and wide, through the subcontinent, amongst different social strata – peasants, artisans,warriors, merchants, to name a few. 
• All those who adopted Islam accepted, in principle, the five “pillars”of the faith.
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• There is one God, Allah, and Prophet Muhammad is his messenger;
• - offering prayers five times a day; 
• -giving alms; 
• -fasting during the month of Ramzan;
• -and performing the pilgrimage to Mecca.
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• However, these universal features were often overlaid with diversities in practice derived from local customary practices of converts from different social milieus. 
• For example, the Khojahs, a branch of the Shi‘a sect composed devotional poems in Punjabi, Multani, Sindhi, Kachchi, Hindi and Gujarati, sing them in special ragas during daily prayer meetings.
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• Arab Muslim traders who settled along the Malabar Coast (Kerala) adopted the local language, Malayalam. 
• They also adopted local customs such as matriliny and matrilocal residence.
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•  Some architectural features of mosques are universal – such as their orientation towards Mecca, evident in the placement of the mihrab(prayer niche) and the minbar(pulpit).
• However a mosque in Kerala is built with Shikara, a mosque is built in Kashmir with wood and a mosque is built in Bangladesh with bricks.
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Different Names for Muslim community:

• Historians pointed out that the term Musalman or Muslim was virtually never used in India upto 14th century. Instead they were occasionally identified in terms of the region from which they came.
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• -Turkish rulers were designated as Turushka.
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• -Tajika were people from Tajikistan.
• - Parashika were people from Persia.
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•  Sometimes, terms used for other peoples were applied to the new migrants.
•  For instance, theTurks and Afghans were referred to as Shakas and Yavanas.
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•  A more general term for these migrant communities was mlechchha, indicating that they did not observe the norms of caste society and spoke languages that were not derived from Sanskrit.

The Growth of Sufism:

•  In the early centuries of Islam a group of religious minded people called Sufis turned to asceticism and mysticism in protest against the growing materialism of the Caliphate.
• They were critical of the dogmatic definitions and scholastic methods of interpreting the Quran and sunnah by the Ulemas. 
• They emphasized on seeking salvation through intense devotion and love for God by following the commands of Ph. Muhammad. 

Khanqahs:

• Institutionally, the Sufis began to organize communities around the hospice or khanqah on trolled by a teaching master known as sheikh. 
• He enrolled disciples and appointed a successor.
•  He established rules for spiritual conduct and interaction between in mates as well as between lay persons and the master.

 Silsilas:

• The word silsila literally means Spiritual chain, signifying a continuou slink between master and disciple, stretching as an unbroken spiritual genealogy from Allah....the Prophet Muhammad... Sufis...devotees. 
• It was through this channel that spiritual power and blessings were transmitted to devotees.

Ziyarat:

• When the sheikh died, he was buried in a tomb shrine and his tomb-shrine is called dargah.
•  It became the center of devotion for his followers. 
• This encouraged the practice of pilgrimage or ziyarat to his grave, particularly on his birth, death and marriage anniversaries.
•  This was because people believed that in death saints were united with God.

Be-sharia and Ba-sharia Sufis:

Be-Sharia:

• Sufis, Who left the khanqahand took to mendicancy and observed celibacy and extremeforms of asceticism were called Be-Sharia

Ba- Sharia:

• The Sufis who lived in Khanqas by following normal Sharia practices were called Ba-Sharia Sufis.
• They were known by different names – Qalandars, Madaris, Malangs, Haidaris,etc.

• They did not have other names.
• The Chishtis in the Subcontinent:
• The Chishtis, one of the groups of Sufis who migrated to India in the late twelfth century.
• They were the most influential because they adapted successfully to the local environment and adopted several features of Indian devotional traditions.

Life in the Chishti khanqah:

•  The khanqah was the centre of social life.
•  It comprised several small rooms and a big hall, where the in mates and visitors lived and prayed.
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• The in mates included family members of the Shaikh, his attendants and disciples.
• The Shaikh lived in a small room on the roof of the hall where he met visitors in the morning and evening.
•  Sufi or Walior friend of the God, who claimed proximity to Allah, acquiring God’s Grace to perform miracles.
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• There was an open kitchen (langar), run on unasked charity. 
• From morning till late night people from all walks of life – soldiers, slaves,singers, merchants, poets, travellers, rich andpoor, Hindu jogis and qalandars– came seeking discipleship, amulets for healing.
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• Practices that were adopted, including bowing before the Shaikh, offering water to visitors, shaving the heads of initiates, and yogic exercises, represented attempts to assimilate local traditions.
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• Shaikh Nizamuddin appointed several spiritual successors and deputed them to set up hospices invarious parts of the subcontinent. 
• As a result, the teachings, practices and organisation of the Chishtisas well as the fame of the Shaikh were spread rapidly.

 Ziyarat:

•  Pilgrimage, called ziyarat, to tombs of sufi saints is prevalent all over the Muslim world. 
• This practiceis an occasion for seeking the sufi’s spiritual grace.
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•  For more than seven centuries people of various creeds, classes and social backgrounds have expressed their devotion at the dargahs of the five great Chishti saints.
• Amongst these, the most revered shrine is that of Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti, popularly known as “Gharib Nawaz”(comforter of the poor).
•  But the earliest construction to house the tomb was funded in the late fifteenth century by Sultan Ghiyasuddin Khalji of Malwa.
•  Since the shrine was located on the traderoute linking Delhi and Gujarat, it attracted a lot of travellers.
• The earliest textual references to Khwaja Muinuddin’s dargah date to the fourteenth century.
• It was evidently popular because of the austerity and piety of its Shaikh, the greatness of his spiritual successors, and the patronage of royal visitors.
• Muhammad bin Tughlaq (ruled, 1324-51) was the first Sultan to visit the shrine.
• Akbar visited the tomb fourteen times, sometimes two or three times a year, to seek blessings for new conquests, fulfilment of vows, and the birth of sons. He offered a huge cauldron to facilitate cooking for pilgrims.
• He also had a mosque constructed within the compound of the dargah.

 Qawwali:

• Also part of ziyarat is the use of music and dance including mystical chants performed by specially trained musicians or qawwals to evoke divine ecstasy.
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• The sufis remember God either by reciting the Divine Names or evoking His Presence through sama‘(“audition”) or performance of mystical music called Qawwali.
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• Amir Khusrau the great poet, musician and disciple of Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya, gave a unique form to the Chishtisama by introducing the qaul, a hymn sung at the opening or closing of qawwali.
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• This was followed by sufi poetry in Persian, Hindavi or Urdu, and sometimes using words from all of these languages.
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•  Qawwals (those who sing these songs) at the shrine of Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya always start their recital with the qaul. 
• Today qawwali is performed in shrines all over the subcontinent.

 Languages and communication:

•  In Delhi, those associated with the Chishti silsila conversed in Hindavi, the language of the people.
•  Other sufis such as Baba Farid composed verses in the local language.
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• Yet others composed long poems or masnavis to express ideas of divine love using human love as an allegory (Symbol). 
• For example, the prem-akhyan(love story) Padmavat composed by Malik Muhammad Jayasi revolved around the romance of Padmini and Ratansen, the king of Chittor.
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• A different genre of sufi poetry was composed in and around the town of Bijapur, Karnataka. 
• These were short poems in Urduat tributed to Chishti sufis who lived in this region during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
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• These poems were probably sung by women while performing household chores like grinding grain and spinning. Other compositions were in the form of lurinama or lullabies and shadinama or wedding songs.
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•  It is likely that the Sufis of this region were inspired by the pre-existing bhakti tradition of the Kannada vachanasof the Lingayats and the Marathiabhangs of the santscof Pandharpur.
•  It is through this medium that Islam gradually gained a place incthe villages of the Deccan.

Sufis and the state:

•  The sufis accepted unsolicited grants and donations from the political elites. The Sultans in turn set up charitable trusts as endowments for hospices and granted tax-free.
• The Chishtis accepted donations in cash and kind.
• Rather than accumulate donations, they preferredcto use these fully on immediate requirements such as food, clothes, living quarters and ritual necessities.
• All this enhanced the moral authority of the shaikhs, which in turn attracted people from all walks of life. 
• Further, their piety and scholarship, and people’s belief in their miraculous powers made Sufis popular among them asses, whose support kings wished to secure.
•  Kings did not simply need to demonstrate their association with Sufis; they also required legitimation from them.
•  When the Turks set up the Delhi Sultanate, they anticipated opposition from Ulemas for not imposing Sharia as the state law. 
• The Sultansthen sought out the Sufis – who derived their authority directly from God – and did not depend on jurists to interpret the shari‘a.
• Besides, it was believed that the auliya could intercede with God in order to improve the material and spiritual conditions of ordinary human beings.
•  That is why kings often wanted their tombs tobe in the vicinity of Sufi shrines and hospices.
•  However, there were instances of conflict between the Sultans and the Sufis. To assert their authority, both expected that certain rituals be performed such as prostration and kissing of the feet. Occasionally the Sufi shaikhwas addressed with high-sounding titles like sultan-ul-mashaikh.

New devotional Paths Dialogue and Dissent in Northern India:

Wearing a divine fabric: Kabir-

•  Kabir was born in a Hindu family but was raised by a poor Muslim family belonging to the community of weavers orjulahas, who were relatively recent converts to Islam.
•  They also suggested that he was initiated into bhakti by a guru, perhaps Ramananda.
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• Kabir was one of the most outstanding examples of a poet-saint who emerged in North India.
• Verses ascribed to Kabir have been compiled in three distinct but overlapping traditions. 
• The Kabir Bijakis preserved by the Kabirpanth in Varanasi and in UttarPradesh;
•  the Kabir Granthavali is associated with the Dadupanth in Rajasthan, and many of his compositions are found in the AdiGranth Sahib.
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• Kabir’s poems have survived in several languages and dialects; and some are composed in the special language of nirguna poets, the santbhasha. others, known as ulatbansi (upside-down sayings), are written in a form in which everyday meanings are inverted.
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•  Kabir’s mystical experiences are many to describe the Ultimate Reality. 
• These include Islam: he described the Ultimate Reality as Allah, Khuda, Hazrat and Pir.
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•  He also used terms drawn from Vedantic traditions, alakh(the unseen), nirakar(formless), Brahman, Atman, etc.
•  Other terms with mystical connotations such as shabda(sound) orshunya(emptiness) were drawn from yogic traditions.
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• Diverse and sometimes conflicting ideas are expressed in these poems. Some poems draw on Islamic ideas and use monotheism and iconoclasmto attack Hindu polytheism and idol worship; others use the Sufi concept of love to expressthe Hindu practice of Nam-simaran(remembranceof God’s name).
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• Scholars have tried to analyze the language, style and content to establish which verses could be Kabir’s.
•  What this rich corpus of verses also signifies is that Kabir was and is to the present a source of inspiration for those who questioned entrenched religious and social institutions, ideas and practices in their search for the Divine.
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• However, the verses attributed to Kabir use the words guru and satguru, but do not mention the name of any specific preceptor.
•  Historians have pointed out that it is very difficult to establish that Ramananda and Kabir were contemporaries, without assigning improbably long lives to either or both.

Baba Guru Nanak and the sacred world:

• Baba Guru Nanak was born in a Hinducmerchant family in a village called Nankana Sahib near the river Ravi in the predominantly Muslim Punjab (now in Pakistan).
•  He trained to be an accountant and studied Persian.
• He was married at a young age but he spent most of his time among sufis and bhaktas.
•  He also travelled widely.
• The message of Baba Guru Nanak is spelt out in his hymns and teachings.
• Headvocated a form of nirgunabhakti. He firmly repudiated the external practices of the religions he saw around him. 
• He rejected sacrifices, ritual baths, image worship, austerities and the scriptures of both Hindus and Muslims.
• For Baba Guru Nanak, the Absolute or “rab” had no gender or form. Heproposed a simple way to connect to the Divine by remembering and repeating the Divine Name, expressing his ideas through hymns called “shabad”in Punjabi. 
• Baba Guru Nanak would sing these compositions in various ragas while his attendant Mardana played the rabab.
• Baba Guru Nanak organised his followers into acommunity. 
• He set up rules for congregational worship (sangat) involving collective recitation. 
• He appointed one of his disciples, Angad, to succeed him as the preceptor (guru), and this practice was followed for nearly 200 years.
•  It appears that Baba Guru Nanak did not wish to establish a new religion, but after his death his followers consolidated their own practices and distinguished themselves from both Hindusand Muslims.
• The fifth preceptor, Guru Arjan, compiled Baba Guru Nanak’s hymns along with those of his four successors and other religious poets like Baba Farid, Ravidasand Kabir in the AdiGranth Sahib. 
• These hymns, called “gurbani”, are composed in various languages.
• In the late seventeenth century the tenthpreceptor, Guru Gobind Singh, included the compositions of the ninth guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, and this scripture was called the Guru Granth Sahib.
• Guru Gobind Singh also laid the foundation of the Khalsa Panth (army of the pure) and defined its fivesymbols:
•  uncut hair, 
• -a dagger,
• -a pair of shorts, 
• -a comband 
• -a steel bangle.
• Under him the community got consolidated as a socio-religious and military force.

Mirabai, the devotee princess:

•  Mirabai is perhaps the best-known woman poet within the bhakti tradition. Biographies have been reconstructed primarily from the bhajans attributed to her, which were transmitted orally for centuries.
• According to the traditions, she was a Rajput princess from Marwar who was married against her wishes to a prince of Mewar, in Rajasthan.
• She defied her husband and did not submit to the traditional role of wife and mother, instead recognising Krishna, the avatar of Vishnu, as her lover.
• Her in-laws tried to poison her, but she escaped from the palace to live as a wandering singer composing songs that are characterised by intense expressions of emotion.
• According to some traditions, her preceptor(student) was Raidas, a leather worker. 
• This would indicate her defiance of the norms of caste society.
• After rejecting the comforts of her husband’s palace, she is supposed to have donned the white robes of a widow or the saffron robe of the renouncer.
•  Although Mirabai did not attract a sect or group of followers, she has been recognised as a source of inspiration for centuries.
•  Her songs continue to be sung by women and men, especially those who are poor and considered “low caste” in Gujarat and Rajasthan.

Varieties of sources used to reconstruct the history of sufi traditions:

• A wide range of texts were produced in and around sufi khanqahs.
•  These included Treatises or manuals dealing with sufi thought and practices.
• Malfuzat or conversations of sufi saints They were compiled over several centuries.
•  Maktub or written” collections of letters. These letters written by sufi masters, addressed to their disciples
• Tazkiras or biographical accounts of saints.