The Bhakti Movement in Indian History:
- Love and devotion to one personal God is the basic concept of Bhakti.
- The Alvars or Vaishanava saints and Nayanars or Saivite, saints became the promoters of Bhakti movement in South India.
- Ramanuja, a Vaishana saint of 12th century AD, was born at Sriperumbathur and founded philosophy of Vishistadvaita or qualified monism.
- The leader of Bhakti movement or Hindu revivalism was Sankaracharya. His philosophy was Advaita or pure monism. He wrote Commentary on Brahmasutra and Upanishad. He founded four matts- Sringeri, Dwaraka, Puri and Badrinath.
- Vallabhacharya promoted the philosophy of Pushtimarga. He was the founder of Sudhadvaita.
- The North India the Bakti movement was promoted by two sects of thought – the Saguna and Nirguna schools.
- Ramanand, born at Prayag preached Vaishnavaism. He was a followers of Ramanuja.
- Kabir (1398 -1458) a nirguna was born near Benaras. His followers started the ‘Kabirpanthis’.
- Tulasi Dasa (1532 – 1623) a worshipper of Rama compossed Ramcharithamanasa in Hindi. His other works are Kavitavali and Gitavali.
- Mirabai (1498 – 1509) a Rajaput princess hailed from the Sisodiya dynasty of Chittoor was a devotee of Lord Krishna. Her lyrics were written in Brijbhasha and in Rajasthani.
- Jnanadeva, Namadeva, Eknatha Tukaram and Samarth Ram Das were the leading Maratha saints of Bhakti movement.
- Jnanadeva founded the Maharashtra Dharma. His famous work ‘Jnaneswari’ is a commendarel on Bhagavatgita.
- Ekanath promoted the custom of singing Kirthana and he composed ‘abhangas’ or typical poems.
- Tukaram a contemporary of Shivaji was the promoter of Maratha nationalism.
- Samarth Ramdas, the spiritual guide of Shivaji, wrote ‘Dasabhodha’.
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