Bhakti (; Pali: bhatti) is a concept common in Indian religions which means attachment, fondness for, devotion to, trust, homage, worship, piety, faith, or love.See Monier-Williams, Sanskrit Dictionary, 1899. In Indian religions, it may refer to loving devotion for a personal God (like Krishna or Devi), a formless ultimate reality (like Nirguna Brahman or the Sikh God) or an enlightened being (like a Buddha, a bodhisattva, or a guru).Bhakti, Encyclopædia Britannica (2009)Karen Pechelis (2011), "Bhakti Traditions", in The Continuum Companion to Hindu Studies (Editors: Jessica Frazier, Gavin Flood), Bloomsbury, , pp. 107–121 Bhakti is often a deeply emotional devotion based on a relationship between a devotee and the object of devotion., Quote: "The foundations of emotional devotionalism (bhakti) were laid in south India in the second half of the first millennium of our era (...)". A devotee is a bhakta or bhakt.
One of the earliest appearances of the concept is found in the early Buddhist Theragatha (Verses of the Elders) through the term bhatti. Early texts such as the Shvetashvatara Upanishad and the Bhagavad Gita, describe bhakti as contemplating God as a form of yoga.John Lochtefeld (2014), The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Rosen Publishing (New York), , pp. 98–100. Also see articles on bhaktimārga and jnanamārga.
Bhakti ideas have inspired many popular texts and saint-poets in India. The Bhagavata Purana, for example, is a Krishna-related text associated with the Bhakti movement in Hinduism. Bhakti is also found in other religions practiced in India, and it has influenced interactions between Christianity and Hinduism in the modern era.A. Frank Thompson (1993), Hindu-Christian Dialogue: Perspectives and Encounters (Editor: Harold Coward), Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, , pp. 176–186Karen Pechelis (2014), The Embodiment of Bhakti, Oxford University Press, , see Introduction chapter Nirguni bhakti (devotion to the divine without attributes) is found in Sikhism, as well as Hinduism. Outside India, emotional devotion is found in some Southeast Asian and East Asian Buddhist traditions.
The bhakti movement, pioneered by the Tamil Alvars and Nayanars, developed around the Hindu gods Vishnu (Vaishnavism), Shiva (Shaivism) and Devi (Shaktism) in the second half of the 1st millennium CE.Jerry Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 120.
Terminology
The meaning of the term bhakti is analogous to but different from kama. Kama connotes emotional connection, sometimes with sensual devotion and erotic love. Bhakti, in contrast, is spiritual: a love and devotion to religious concepts or principles, that engages both emotion and intellection.Karen Pechelis (2014), The Embodiment of Bhakti, Oxford University Press, , pages 19-21 Karen Pechelis states that the word bhakti should not be understood as uncritical emotion, but as committed engagement. She adds that, in the concept of bhakti in Hinduism, the engagement involves a simultaneous tension between emotion and intellection, "emotion to reaffirm the social context and temporal freedom, intellection to ground the experience in a thoughtful, conscious approach". One who practices bhakti is called a bhakta.Karen Pechelis (2014), The Embodiment of Bhakti, Oxford University Press, , page 3
The term bhakti, in Vedic Sanskrit literature, has a general meaning of "mutual attachment, devotion, fondness for, devotion to" such as in human relationships, most often between beloved-lover, friend-friend, king-subject, parent-child. It may refer to devotion towards a spiritual teacher (Guru) as guru-bhakti, or to a personal God, or for spirituality without form (nirguna).Karen Pechilis Prentiss (2014), The Embodiment of Bhakti, Oxford University Press, , page 21
According to the Sri Lankan Buddhist scholar Sanath Nanayakkara, there is no single term in English that adequately translates or represents the concept of bhakti in Indian religions. Terms such as "devotion, faith, devotional faith" represent certain aspects of bhakti, but it means much more. The concept includes a sense of deep affection, attachment, but not wish because "wish is selfish, affection is unselfish". Some scholars, states Nanayakkara, associate it with saddha (Sanskrit: Sraddha) which means "faith, trust or confidence". However, bhakti can connote an end in itself, or a path to spiritual wisdom.
The term bhakti refers to one of several alternate spiritual paths to moksha (spiritual freedom, liberation, salvation) in Hinduism, and it is referred to as bhakti marga or bhakti yoga.Karen Pechelis (2014), The Embodiment of Bhakti, Oxford University Press, , pages 14-15, 37-38 The other paths are Jnana marga (path of knowledge), Karma marga (path of works), Rāja marga (path of contemplation and meditation).John Martin Sahajananda (2014), Fully Human Fully Divine, Partridge India, , page 60KN Tiwari (2009), Comparative Religion, Motilal Banarsidass, , page 31
The term bhakti has been usually translated as "devotion" in Orientalist literature.Karen Pechilis Prentiss (2014), The Embodiment of Bhakti, Oxford University Press, , pages 15-24 The colonial era authors variously described bhakti as a form of mysticism or "primitive" religious devotion of lay people with monotheistic parallels.Paul Carus, , pages 514-515DG Mandelbaum (1966), Transcendental and Pragmatic Aspects of Religion, American Anthropologist, 68(5), pages 1174–1191DC Scott (1980), Hindu and Christian Bhakti: A Common Human Response to the Sacred, Indian Journal of Theology, 29(1), pages 12-32 However, modern scholars state "devotion" is a misleading and incomplete translation of bhakti.
Many contemporary scholars have questioned this terminology, and most now trace the term bhakti as one of the several spiritual perspectives that emerged from reflections on the Vedic context and Hindu way of life. Bhakti in Indian religions is not a ritualistic devotion to a God or to religion, but participation in a path that includes behavior, ethics, mores and spirituality. It involves, among other things, refining one's state of mind, knowing God, participating in God, and internalizing God. Increasingly, instead of "devotion", the term "participation" is appearing in scholarly literature as a gloss for the term bhakti.Karen Pechilis Prentiss (2014), The Embodiment of Bhakti, Oxford University Press, , pages 23-24
Diverse ideas continue in Hinduism, where both saguni and nirguni bhakti (devotion to divine with or without attributes) or alternate paths to spirituality are among the options left to the choice of a Hindu.
Bhakti is an important term in Sikhism. The term appears as bhagti () in the Guru Granth Sahib; there, it never appears alongside the terms nirgun or sargun. David N. Lorenzen writes that bhakti of nirguni (which he considers as devotion to the divine without attributes) is particularly significant in Sikhism, and Sikhism is derived from it.. However, Hardip Singh Syan writes that mainstream Sikh Gurus developed a separate conception of bhakti opposed to the existing social structure. The Mina sect, which vehemently opposed mainstream Sikhism and the Khalsa, merged Sikh bhakti with Vaishnavite bhakti with the opposite aim, while producing literary works that affirmed traditional bhakti values.Hardip Syan (2014), in The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies (Editors: Pashaura Singh, Louis E. Fenech), Oxford University Press, , page 178
History of Hindu bhakti The Upanishads The last of three epilogue verses of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad (6.23), dated to be from 1st millennium BCE, uses the word Bhakti as follows:Paul Deussen, Sixty Upanishads of the Veda, Volume 1, Motilal Banarsidass, , page 326Max Muller, Shvetashvatara Upanishad, The Upanishads, Part II, Oxford University Press, page 267
This verse is one of the earliest use of the word Bhakti in ancient Indian literature, and has been translated as "the love of God".WN Brown (1970), Man in the Universe: Some Continuities in Indian Thought, University of California Press, , pages 38-39 ScholarsPaul Deussen, Sixty Upanishads of the Veda, Volume 1, Motilal Banarsidass, , pages 301-304Max Muller, The Shvetashvatara Upanishad, Oxford University Press, pages xxxii – xlii have debated whether this phrase is authentic or later insertion into the Upanishad, and whether the terms "Bhakti" and "Deva" meant the same in this ancient text as they do in the modern era. Max Muller states that the word Bhakti appears only once in this Upanishad, that too in one last verse of the epilogue, could have been a later addition and may not be theistic as the word was later used in much later Sandilya Sutras.Max Muller, The Shvetashvatara Upanishad, Oxford University Press, pages xxxiv and xxxvii Grierson as well as Carus note that the first epilogue verse 6.21 of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad is also notable for its use of the word Deva Prasada (देवप्रसाद, grace or gift of God), but add that Deva in the epilogue of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad refers to "pantheistic Brahman" and the closing credit to sage Shvetashvatara in verse 6.21 can mean "gift or grace of his Soul".
Post-Vedic movement
Scholarly consensus sees bhakti as a post-Vedic movement that developed primarily during the Hindu Epics and Puranas era of Indian history (late first mill. BCE-early first mill. CE)."Scholarly consensus today tends to view bhakti as a post-Vedic development that took place primarily in the watershed years of the epics and Puranas." Karen Pechilis Prentiss (2014), The Embodiment of Bhakti, Oxford University Press, , page 17
The Bhagavad Gita is the first text to explicitly use the word "bhakti" to designate a religious path, using it as a term for one of three possible religious approaches or yogas (i.e. bhakti yoga).Karen Pechilis Prentiss (2014), The Embodiment of Bhakti, Oxford University Press, , page 5
The Bhagavata Purana (which focuses on Krishna bhakti) develops the idea more elaborately, while the Shvetashvatara Upanishad presents evidence of guru-bhakti (devotion to one's spiritual teacher).
Bhakti movement
The Bhakti Movement was a rapid growth of bhakti, first starting in the later part of 1st millennium CE, from Tamil Nadu in southern India with the Shaiva Nayanars and the Vaishnava Alvars. Their ideas and practices inspired bhakti poetry and devotion throughout India over the 12th-18th century CE. The Alvars ("those immersed in God") were Vaishnava poet-saints who wandered from temple to temple, singing the praises of Vishnu. They hailed the divine abodes of Vishnu and converted many people to Vaishnavism.
Like the Alvars, the Shaiva Nayanar poets were influential. The Tirumurai, a compilation of hymns by sixty-three Nayanar poets, is still of great importance in South India. Hymns by three of the most prominent poets, Appar (7th century CE), Campantar (7th century) and Sundarar (9th century), were compiled into the Tevaram, the first volumes of the Tirumurai. The poets' itinerant lifestyle helped create temple and pilgrimage sites and spread devotion to Shiva. Early Tamil-Shiva bhakti poets quoted the Krishna Yajurveda.Karen Pechilis Prentiss (2014), The Embodiment of Bhakti, Oxford University Press, , pages 17-18 The Alvars and Nayanars were instrumental in propagating the Bhakti tradition. The Bhagavata Purana's references to the South Indian Alvar saints, along with its emphasis on bhakti, have led many scholars to give it South Indian origins, though some scholars question whether this evidence excludes the possibility that bhakti movement had parallel developments in other parts of India.