Bhakti

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Bhakti ( Sanskrit भक्ति ) in Hinduism , Sikhism and in the mystical currents of Islam in South Asia denotes piety as a way of salvation, a form of love for God that is connected with the devotion to a personal God (Ishtadevata) cultivated in cult .

Since 6./7. It was mainly the Bhakti movements that took a stand against the power of the temples and priests in the 15th century in South India and since the 15th century in North India. Bhakti, the loving affection, characterizes the relationship between man and God, which replaced the Vedic sacrifice and at the same time integrates the intellectual search for redeeming knowledge into a strong emotional relationship. The abstract Brahman of the Upanishads becomes an addressable person in gods like Krishna , Shiva , Devi or the Guru as their representative. An example of this would be the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita : Here yoga , which initially only aimed at disciplining one's own senses and thoughts, achieves the connection or identification of the individual with God through love ( Bhakti Yoga ). The other three yoga paths are: Jnana Yoga (path of knowledge), Karma Yoga (salvation through deeds without attachment), and Raja Yoga ("King Yoga"). Bhakti Yoga can thus be seen as an emotional counterpoint to the more intellectual path of Jnana Yoga, which puts knowledge and understanding in the foreground.

Bhakti is a way of personal reference to a chosen deity (Ishtadevata). The chosen deity can appear as Saguna (endowed with qualities) or as Nirguna (without qualities, formless, impersonal). Shandilya (8th century), whose Bhaktisutra is one of the fundamental scriptures, describes Bhakti there as one's own heart, which has an intense desire or an intense desire for God. Elsewhere, the bhakti path is described in such a way that the highest love for God is bhakti, and this fills people and leads to desirelessness.

Because of this love for God, in the religious texts, especially in South Indian Vishnuism and Shaivism, the personal relationship to the deity is expressed in terms of romantic love.

Bhakti does not only take place as a personal relationship, there are practices such as pujas and chanting of bhajans, and pilgrimages are made.

Bhakti, while considered a separate religious movement, has influenced other systems as well. So there was B. famous Vedanta philosophers like Ramanuja , who related Bhakti to Vedanta.

History of the Bhakti Movement

The Bhakti movement and the Sant tradition ( Sant Mat ), i.e. the devotion to a personal God and to a human saint ( Sant ), are religious-historical phenomena that changed the religious history of all of India . In addition, the Sant tradition is the subject of research into the origins of Hinduism and Sikhism.

Due to the plurality of the Sant tradition, it should not be understood as a unified movement. The seals became historically tangible from the 15th century and suggest the following basic principles as characteristics of the Sant tradition:

  • The Sant tradition is made up of Bhakti poets.
  • Turning to personal belief.
  • A monotheistic understanding of God to which every incarnation or manifestation of the sacred is alien. In terms of religious history, the origin of the monotheistic faith from Islam is likely.
  • Dominant piety, such as B. the Vaishnava piety provided the negative foil of allegedly empty external traditions compared to the inward-looking religious understanding of the Bhakti movement.

The content-related proximity to Nath Yoga or Islamic Sufism - although a clear dividing line between the two currents is not possible - points to interactions between the religions. The numerous receptions among poets of different origins show that this plurality was not offensive.

Historically, Bhaktimarga, the path of devotion, is one of the most recent ways to achieve moksha . Proto-Bhakti, however, already appears in the Vedas and the Upanishads , since here already reference is made to divine grace . The most important scriptures to which the Bhakti movement refers are the epics ( Mahabharata , Ramayana ) and the Puranas , as well as the Bhagavadgita and the Bhaktisutra Shandilyas . The latter scriptures refer to a more philosophical bhakti term and served to reunite the movement with Brahmin Hinduism. Nevertheless, the bhakti religiosity represented a way of demarcation that rejected the caste system and gender differences, and was open to everyone, so that social barriers were overcome here. What all bhakti movements have in common is that they are based on theism and that the grace of God is central to liberation. The respective deity is seen as the sole creator of the universe. The monotheism of the bhakti is probably u. a. attributed to influences from Islam .

The history of the bhakti movement probably began in Tamil Nadu in the 7th century AD. During the 7th to 9th centuries, the bhakti path was practiced in large temples where it was institutionalized through performances of music, dance and poetry . The heyday was in the 12th-18th centuries. Century. During this time Bhaktimarga spread over all of India and also took regional forms.

Bhaktimarga is now considered a mass movement, especially in Vishnuism . Bhaktimarga has produced thousands of Indian poets and mystics, whose songs are widespread and sung everywhere, especially in rural India. Famous Bhakti poets are e.g. B. Ramanuja , Kabir , Jayadeva and Tulsidas . Bhaktimarga also produced a variety of other scriptures.

Vishnuism

One of the great Vishnuit Bhakti movements are the Shri-Vaishnavas. This movement originated in South India and is closely related to Brahmin culture. Vishnu is here considered to be as he appears in the Puranas and the Shri-Vaishnavas ritually worship him in great temples. This worship, unlike other forms of bhakti, is not ecstatic and controlled.

Another Vishnuit tradition was founded by Vallabha (1481-1533). His new teaching was called Pushtimarga, and it is related solely to the grace of God. In Pushtimarga the emphasis on moksha shifts through renunciation and asceticism as sannyasin to the idea of ​​the householder who lives in love for Krishna, is connected to his guru and devoted to the deity Shri Govardhana-nathaji, a form of Krishna who appeared to Vallabha in a vision serves. The service ( seva ) to Krishna should generate love ( prema ), self-centered action should be abandoned, the connection to worldly things should be given up and absorption in the divine should be cultivated. The follower of this path should be able to achieve bliss by the grace of God. In contrast to the Shri Vaishnavas, Pushtimarga was also open to women, lower castes and followers of other schools.

Another famous Bhakta was the Krishna worshiper Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the founder of the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. The Gaudiya Vaishnavas, who have their roots in Bengal, regard Krishna's play ( purple ) with Radha and the Gopis as a model of Prema, the pure love that leads to liberation. This game of Krishna is performed as Ras lila , a dance theater piece, all over India and also appears in countless poems, e.g. B. the Gitagovinda Jayadevas .

Other Vishnuit Bhakti schools go back to the blind Surdas and to the poet-saint Mirabai .

Shaivism

In Shaivism, forms of bhakti religiosity emerged, which particularly changed the predominance of the Brahmins and the attachment to the knowledge of the religious texts and the execution of the rituals. Instead, a socially critical theology emerged here.

Complex theologies arose in both Shivaitic and Shaktist Bhakti, especially in Tantra and Shaiva-Siddhanta. Some elements of these bhakti movements are very different from bhakti, which relate to poetry and worship of the formless, as there are e.g. Animal sacrifices, drug use, sexual practices, and ecstatic singing and dancing. Nevertheless, Shiva-Bhakti and Shakti-Bhakti have also flowed into Vedic orthodoxy and are accepted by it.

Shivaitic bhakti have some similarities with Vishnuism. For example, Shivaiten and Vishnuiten refer equally to the Puranas , in which Shiva (or Vishnu) is worshiped as the highest and only God and this worship alone brings liberation.

The worship of Shiva also takes place in temples where the god is worshiped in anthropomorphic iconography and as a lingam. Since Shiva also appears as a Mahayogin (highest yogi), Shiva-Bhakti is particularly widespread among yogis. Shiva appears in mythology partly as wild and uncivilized and as an outcast, so that he also represents the deity of low castes , Dalits and some Hindu tribes .

Shaktism

The Bhakti tradition, which applies to Devi , is closely related to Shaivism and Vishnuism , since both Vishnu and Shiva have wives or female forms. In Vishnuism, for example, Shri or Lakshmi are venerated and in Shaivism Shakti , Parvati , Kali or Uma . Here, for example, Shri is considered to be the producer of the line of Vishnuit gurus, and is venerated as the first guru. The wives of the Avatars of Vishnu are also venerated, Krishna's wife is Radha and Rama's wife is Sita . Likewise, the worship of Shiva and Shakti is expressed as an activity of Brahman , in Tantrism or in yoga as Kundalini ( Durga ) and original consciousness (Shiva) in forms of Bhakti.

It is believed that the worship of goddesses in India is older than the worship of male gods, so there has always been a form of bhakti that only Devi and their forms are considered to be the Indian goddesses. This sole worship of Devi as Ishvara and sole deity is particularly widespread in Bengal. That is why there are many Bengali scriptures devoted to devotion to Devi. A famous Bengali Shakta poet is Ramprasad who was a great influence on Ramakrishna . Even Sri Aurobindo came from Bengal and is closely linked to the Devi Bhakti. In the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo , love for a personal God can be of great importance. However, in order to avoid the goal of a transcendent escape from the world, this teaching recommends that these sensations and feelings also be extended to the community of like-minded people and furthermore to all people, all creatures and all appearances of this worldly cosmos.

Nirguna Bhakta

Nirguna-Bhakta, resp. the Sants movement in northern India is the last Bhakti movement to emerge. Nirguna bhaktas reject all Hindu gods and refer to nirguna, the formless divine, they are therefore to be regarded as iconoclastic . The Sants movement is comprised of both Hindus and Muslims , and all external forms of religion are rejected, both Hindu and Muslim. The poet Kabir has a special meaning in this movement, equally for Hindus and for Muslims, since he viewed any form of outward religiosity , whether it was Muslim or Hindu, as a misleading delusion. Since 19./20. In the 19th century, this form of the Sant tradition is seen as a forerunner of modern Hinduism. Since the movement massively criticizes and rejects the Brahmanic traditions and rituals, this thesis of a coherence between the Sant tradition and modern Hinduism is controversial. The normal hypothesis of religious studies suggests that the Sant tradition did not exist until the 19th and 20th centuries. Century was increasingly instrumentalized for the conception of Hinduism. This happened in the course of the confrontation with the western understanding of religion to which the 'Hindus' of the 19th century positioned themselves.

The deity of the nirguna bhaktas, to whom the bhakti applies, is a formless but personal deity, transcendent and nevertheless immanent in creation , which is ultimately recognized in the human heart. The immanence of the divine is understood as the presence of God in all beings. Of great importance to the nirguna bhakti is the name of God or the divine word that is manifested in all beings. The respective divine name of the Nirguna Bhaktas is chosen depending on the orientation. The concept of liberation of the Nirguna-Bhakti is not based on the after-death liberation, but rather a liberation in this life is sought.

Since everyone is seen as part of the divine, everyone, regardless of caste, gender or religion, has access to the nirguna bhakti.

Since the Sant tradition is mainly native to northern India, there is also a relationship to Sikhism . Guru Nanak is part of the Sant movement, and since at that time there was neither Sikhism nor Hinduism , Nanak can only be distinguished from the Sant tradition in retrospect, but in the understanding of the time it was a guru of the Sant movement.

Sufis

Particularly in northern India there is a close connection between Sufism and Nirguna Bhakti. It is assumed in both forms of religion that there can be union with God and that separation from God is experienced as pain. Likewise, there is hope for the grace of God, which can be achieved by continuing to focus on the name of God to produce this grace as a gift of God's love. In Hinduism, Samadhi is seen as a state of being absorbed in the divine, while in Sufism this state is called Fana . In samadhi and in fana, being absorbed in God leads to the dissolution of the individual self.

Not all Sufis, however, recognize the similarities with Hinduism. The Indian Sufis are divided into those who are more orthodox Muslims and those who recognize Hindu scriptures and compare Bhaktimarga with Tasawwuf .

Moksha

In the Bhakti movement, a concept of liberation ( moksha ) came into being, which postulated that close contact with the deity was more important than dissolution in impersonal Brahman. The goal is no longer understood here as redemption from samsara , but ideas arose of an eternal heavenly kingdom or abode of the deity into which the bhakta enters, and even ideas arose that bhakta would be eternally reborn in order to serve the deity forever .

meaning

What is of great importance about the bhakti movement is first of all that a personal reference to the deities was established here, and followers of the bhakti turned away from institutionalized forms of religion so that caste and gender were also overcome. In addition, an abundance of slang scriptures emerged, everyday life was strongly influenced by the bhakti and the chants of the poet-saints were recited everywhere.

The first effect of the bhakti lies in the fact that in this movement the importance of the brahmins and their exclusive claim strongly decreased, the traditional eschatology was transformed and bhakti represents a path for millions of followers.

Also of great importance is the contrast to the traditional Hindu ideal of asceticism , since bhakti offers a way for everyday people who recognize physical and emotional needs.

Thousands of sampradayas arose in the Bhakti movement, and they continue to form new traditions and develop in regional cultures.

Bhakti in Buddhism

Even in traditions that are not oriented towards the worship of a personalized God ( Buddhism ), the bhakti is an important part of religious practice. Here, however, the believer should be aware that the personalized gods (resp. Buddha-forms, see Tara , Avalokiteshvara ) etc. from the " void " resp. emerge from one's own mind and will return to it as spiritual development progresses .

literature

  • Michael Bergunder: Comparison of religions in the North Indian Nirguna Bhakti of the 15th-17th centuries Century? The Sant tradition and its concept of "Hindus" and "Muslims" . In: Peter Schalk (Ed.): Religion in Asia? Studies on the applicability of the concept of religion . Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 2013. pp. 43–80.
  • George Weston Briggs: The Gorakhnth and the Knphata Yogs . Calcutta 1938.
  • Denise Cush, Catherine Robinson, Michael York (Eds.): Encyclopedia of Hinduism . Routledge, London (et al.) 2008.
  • David N. Lorenzen: Who Invented Hinduism ?. Comparative Studies in Society and History 41 . 1999. pp. 630-659.
  • Nikhilananda : Hinduism: The Meaning for the Liberation of the Spirit . George Allen and Unwin, London 1958.
    • German by Leopold Voelker: Der Hinduismus. Its importance for the liberation of the mind . Ullstein, Berlin 1960.
  • DS Sarma: Hinduism through the ages . Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1973.
  • Karine Schomer: Introduction: The Sant Tradition in Perspective. In The Sants. Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India . Edited by Karine Schomer and WH McLeod, 1–17. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987.
  • Monika Thiel-Horstmann (Ed.): Bhakti in current research: 1979–1982. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Early Devotional Literature in New Indo-Aryan Languages, St. Augustin, March 19-21, 1982 . Reimer, Berlin 1983, ISBN 978-3496007500 .
  • Ram Adhar Mall: Hinduism - Its Position in the Diversity of Religions . Primus Verlag, Darmstadt 1997, ISBN 3-89678-057-3 .

Web links

Commons : Bhakti  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Bhakti  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Sushil Gupta in the publisher's foreword for a reprint by George Herbert Westcott: Kabir and the Kabir Panth . Cawnpore 1907.
  2. ^ David N. Lorenzen: Who Invented Hinduism ?. Comparative Studies in Society and History 41 . 1999. pp. 630-659
  3. ↑ Karine Schomer: Introduction: The Sant Tradition in Perspective. In: Karine Schomer, WH McLeod (Ed.): The Sants. Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India . Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi 1987, pp. 1–17, here p. 5
  4. ↑ Michael Bergunder : Comparison of religions in the North Indian Nirguna Bhakti of the 15th-17th centuries. Century? The Sant tradition and its concept of "Hindus" and "Muslims" . In: Schalk, Peter (Ed.): Religion in Asia? Studies on the applicability of the concept of religion . Uppsala Universitet, Uppsala 2013, pp. 43–80, here p. 44.
  5. ↑ For example with the poet Kabir. See: David N. Lorenzen: The Kabir Panth: Heretics to Hindus. In Religious Change and Cultural Domination . Edited by David N. Lorenzen. Mexico 1981. And: David N. Lorenzen: The Kabir Panth. In The Sants: Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India . Edited by Karine Schomer and WH McLeod. Delhi 1987. pp. 285-286.
  6. ↑ George Weston Briggs: The Gorakhnth and the Knphata Yogs . Calcutta 1938. pp. 238-239.
  7. ↑ Michael Bergunder: Comparison of religions in the North Indian Nirguna Bhakti of the 15th-17th centuries. Century? The Sant tradition and its concept of "Hindus" and "Muslims" . In: Peter Schalk (Ed.): Religion in Asia? Studies on the applicability of the concept of religion . Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 2013. pp. 43–80, here p. 58.
  8. ↑ Schomer, Karine. Introduction: The Sant Tradition in Perspective. In The Sants. Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India . Edited by Karine Schomer and WH McLeod, 1–17. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987. p. 1.
  9. ^ David N. Lorenzen: Who Invented Hinduism ?. Comparative Studies in Society and History 41 . 1999, pp. 630-659. Reprinted in John E. Llewellyn (Ed.): Defining Hinduism: A Reader . London 2005, pp. 52-80.
  10. ↑ Bergunder, Michael: Comparison of religions in the North Indian Nirguna Bhakti of the 15th-17th centuries. Century? The Sant tradition and its concept of "Hindus" and "Muslims" . In: Peter Schalk (Ed.): Religion in Asia? Studies on the applicability of the concept of religion . Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 2013. pp. 43–80, here p. 46f.
  11. ↑ Bergunder, Michael: Comparison of religions in the North Indian Nirguna Bhakti of the 15th-17th centuries. Century? The Sant tradition and its concept of "Hindus" and "Muslims" . In: Peter Schalk (Ed.): Religion in Asia? Studies on the applicability of the concept of religion . Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 2013. pp. 43–80, here p. 76f.
  12. ↑ Schomer, Karine: Introduction: The Sant Tradition in Perspective. In The Sants. Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India . Edited by Karine Schomer and WH McLeod. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987. p. 230.