What is the impact of Bhakti on Hindu Religion?

It would appear that the Hindu religious leaders were apprehensive of the growing popularity of the Jainas and the Buddhas.

This led to the intemperate language and the determined propagandist methods adopted by the leaders of the Bhakti movement, especially the Saiva Nayanmars in Tamilnad.

Though the early Alvars of the 6th century, as the Vaishnavite men of religion were called, were more tolerant, from the 7th century downwards both the Saiva Nayanmars and the Vaishnava Alvars adopted an attitude of stern hostility to Jainism and Buddhism. The Saiva Nayanmar were according to the official computation in their canon 63 saints enumerated by one of them namely Sundaramurthy in the 8th century.

Of these Appear, Sambandar and Sundarar were the authors of the Tevaram, a collection of standard Saivite canonical literature. Manikkavachakar of the 9th and perhaps early 10th century was the illustrious fourth of this illustrious group of Saiva bhakti-its. Kannappa Nayanar, Karaikkal Ammai, Kochchengat Cholan and a few others listed among the Saiva saints belonged to pre-6th century while the rest lived between then and the late 8th centry.

Among the Vaishnavites there were twelve Alvars of whom Pay, Bhudam and Poyhai are collectively known as the Mudal Alvars (the first saints); and they lived in the 6th century and are supposed to be contemporaries. Nammalvar considered by the Vaishnavas as the greatest among the Alvars was a great and true mystic and the author of a thousand verses collectively called the Tiruvaymoli; he was a Velala saint.

His hymns are treated as equal in spiritual merit to the Vedic hymns. Of the Alvars Perialvar, his putative daughter Sri Andal and Kulasekara Alvar whole belonged to Kerala were among the chronologically latest. Tirumangai Mannan, a robber chief turned devotee, composed the largest number of verses in the Nalayiram i.e., the collection of 4,000 devotional hymns sung by the twelve Alvars.

The Bhakti movement especially its Saivite wing set out to achieve two purposes and they were equally onerous. The first was to stem a heretical tide of Jaina Buddha mass popularity and to reclaim the people to a sort of Hindu orthodoxy.

The second was to convert of Kalamukhas, Kapalikas, Pasupatas and a variety of other primitive sects which exulted in violent orgies and indulged in barbarous superstitions which did not exclude a belief in the practice of human sacrifice and dealing in crematorial relics.

The Mattavilasa Prahasana of Mahendravarman I and some allusions in the Periyapuranam of Sekkilar point to this stituation. So the twin concerns of the bhakti-ites were to prevent external heresy and internal religious disorders so that a reformation and counter-reformation were simultaneously undertaken.

By the end of the 9th century, at least by the time of Andal of Sri Villiputtur and Manikkavachakar the famous author of the reputed Tiruvachakam, the situation had been completely redeemed, i.e., from the point of view of the bhakti leaders; this qualification is needed because we know that primitive Saivism though deprived of its more objectionable features was still popular in some quarters, and this is shown by its prevalence as late as the reign of Rajendra I (Chaola) in Tiruvorriyur and other religious centres.

The followers of the Saktha religion (worship of Sakti female generative energy) at times degenerated to levels of obscence orgies and the attractions of orgiastic freedom got the better of the tendency to civilized restraint. But Saktaism of a sort has persisted even in high quarters like Adi Sankara himself.

The Bhakti efforts were nearly spent out by the 10th century. It is not generally realised by students of Indian history, particularly those who tend to ignore the history of the south that the bhakti movement (as a movement) started in the Tamil country in fact with the Mudal Alvars. It is not contended that they were the first saints ever of India.

But it is true that they were undoubtedly the first to give expression to their experiences in the language of the masses and communicate spiritual, mystic and religious experiences; the tradition which they started moved on like a stream to reach its terminal in the 10th century.

The corresponding age of bhakti in North India was indirectly influenced by Ramananda who was influenced by Ramanuja. Ramananda took the spark from the south and lit such a torch of religious effusion in North India that revealed great mystic figures like Chaitanya and Kabir.

A qualitative difference between the two bhakti traditions however is that the South Indian tradition was singularly loyal to ancient Hindu thought from the Vedas downwards, embracing in its sweep the upanishads and the Gita; the teachings of the Alvars and the hymns of the Vedas were held in equal esteem by the Vaishnavites; and the Saivites called the Tevaram, the Tamil Veda.

The northern bhakti which flourished most during the 12th to the 16th (or even in the 17th if we include Marathi Ramdas and Ramdas of Golkonda) centuries, was heavily influenced by Islam. The lamp lit by Ramananda has a color glass dome and the color was Islamic green.

This later (and no doubt partial) influence of Islam on North Indian bhakti, especially Kabir, is mistaken often for an alleged Islamic influence on Hindu bhaktism per se throughout India and through the ages. Apart from the superficiality which detects the hand of Islam wherever there is theism is medieval India, the fact that the Saiva, Vaishnava bhakti of Tamilnad and Kerala can be directly derived from early Hindu and Vedic roots is significant.

In the development of religion in the Tamil country in particular the following tendency is noticeable and is to be remembered. A considerable segment of this development may be described as an attempt on the part of continuously reforming Hinduism to adjust itself to the changing situations created by the popularity of the Jainas and the Bauddhas-a popularity that was waxing and waning by turns.

In the pre-Sangam age there was a tripartite religious stituation common to the south; i.e., one, the ancient local worship of village Gods, animism and totemism etc., two, the brahmana and the Sramana (Jaina) elements which were reaching the south in growing strength due not only to its own impetus but also the disincentives it suffered from in Magadha on account of the pre- Buddhist proclivities of the Mauryan emperors from Asoka downwards; and three, the spread of Buddhism occasioned by the positive support given to that religion by the government of Magadha and through officially appointed Buddhist religious agents called the Dharma Mahamatras. The consequent religious condition was a multi-layer set up.

During the Sangam age these different groups coexisted and there is no record of interdenominational strife of any kind. The Kalabhra period (dark because we know little about the socio-religious changes during then) there is reason to believe, generated religious forces which altogether altered the balance of faith in that age of the disadvantage of the Hindus. Hence the bhakti movement.

But it is easily believed and stated with certainty that when the bhakti age came to an end, the heretical religions retreated never more to return and play a meaningful role in the social history of the people.

This is just not true. For an example the Chintamani, a Jaina epic of the 9th century AD, became very popular and it so delighted scholars with its literary merit and that delight was for so long a source of intellectual nourishment to literary men that Chola Kulottunga II, a fanactical Saiva, was obliged to seek ways to counter this influence; the product was the Periyapuranam-the story of the 63 Saiva saints-by Sekkilar.

Further, most of the Tamil grammarians from Neminathar to Pavanandi were Jainas. Nilakeasi, Valaiyapati, Kundalakesi, Chulamani and other epics were composed by Jainas or Bauddhas and except for the last the others have not survived fully.

The partial disappearance of these texts could also be attributed to Hindu fanaticism working in a variety of ways. Hence the struggle between Hinduism which was trying to revive and its heretical enemies which were trying to survive continued unabated through the centuries.

The Hindu bhakti movement reached its Culmination with the collection and the edition of the Vaishnava and Saiva hymns by Nadhamuni and Nambiandar Nambi respectively in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. The standardisation of the canonical texts was followed by other worthy texts being added to the corpus as part of the total.

But the bhakti movement which obviously was a departure from the sacrifical Vedic religion or the intellectual Upanishadic pursuits embarrassed the Hindu revivalists and so it became incumbent on their part to link the devotional hymns with the Vedic tradition. Hence Ramanauja in his Sri Bhashya and Madhva in his commentary on the Brahmasutras compromised bhakti with the Vedas and created Vaishnavite theism.

Sankara of Kaladi in Keral, who lived earlier in the 8th century (788 to be precise) along with Kumarila Bhatta recreated the ancient Vedic brahmanical thought and established smartaism to which all the non-Vaishnava brahmans are now affiliated, preasched a philosophical monism. He promoted the great doctrine of Maya or “‘illusion which to the Hindu mind was so alluring.

But all these three great commentators on the Vedanta and the Gita provided philosophical justification of one kind or another to more ancient traditions whether they be bhakti or jnana or karma. They asserted that even the Vedas contemplated these three vehicles to salvation.

Apart from them we have Meykandar who wrote the Sivajnanabodham which is the essence of Saiva Siddhanta philosophy following on which a number of standard Saiva texts were written by great scholars of whom Umapathi Sivam was the greatest.

Alavandar of the Vaishnava group was a link between Nahamuni and Ramanuja and he provided the necessary incentives for Ramanuja to set Sri Vaishnavism firmly on its feet. A number of commentaries on the Vaishnava 4000 hymns by erudite scholars have come down to us. Among these commentators Periavachan Pillai is considered to be the greatest.

The writing of these scholars spread Sir Vaishnava religion-philosophical ideas far and wide. A number of esoteric texts called Rahasyas were also written and among these the Sri Vachana Bhuskanam ranks very high.