Between the eighth and eighteenth centuries, the subcontinent witnessed an extraordinary flowering of devotional (bhakti and sufi) movements that transformed religious life. This chapter examines these traditions through the devotional texts they produced, and considers the relationship between religious ideas, social groups and political power. The term "bhakti" refers to the loving devotion to a personal deity, while "Sufism" refers to the mystical strand of Islam that sought union with God through love and selfless devotion. Both emerged as critiques of arid ritualism and as movements that often crossed social and religious boundaries.
The chapter stresses that these traditions were not simple or uniform. They developed in specific regional and historical contexts, produced a rich literature in regional languages, and were shaped by their relations with kings, merchants, peasants and other religious groups. Historians therefore study them not as timeless "mystical" phenomena but as historical movements whose texts, institutions and teachings can be dated, located and analysed.
The earliest bhakti movements of the region arose in Tamil Nadu between the sixth and tenth centuries. The Alvars, meaning those "immersed" in devotion to Vishnu, and the Nayanars, devotees of Shiva, preached personal devotion to their chosen deity. The Alvars composed hymns in Tamil that celebrated Vishnu, while the Nayanars composed hymns devoted to Shiva. These hymns, later compiled into collections called Divya Prabandham (for the Alvars) and Tevaram (for the Nayanars), are among the earliest bhakti literature.
The most celebrated Alvar was Nammalvar, and the most celebrated Nayanars were Appar, Sambandhar and Sundarar. These poet-saints travelled from shrine to shrine, singing their compositions. Their devotion was intensely personal and emotional, and they rejected the formalities of caste and ritual, insisting that the deity could be reached by pure devotion alone. The tradition also remembers the devotion of the Andals, women saints, among whom Andal, the female Alvar, is the most famous.
The bhakti of the Alvars and Nayanars is often described as a movement that questioned caste and gender hierarchies. Some saints were from low castes, like Nandanar (a Nayanar who was a Pulaiya, an untouchable) and the Alvar Tiruppan, and the tradition proudly records their devotion being accepted despite their birth. The hymns of Andal, a woman, were included in the Tamil canon, and she is even worshipped as a goddess, showing the extraordinary esteem in which the tradition held her.
Yet historians are cautious about overstating this radicalism. The Tamil texts were composed in the context of the Brahmanical temple and devotional tradition, and the Alvars and Nayanars did not challenge the temple-centred worship that was dominated by Brahmana priests. The deities themselves were often perceived in Brahmanical terms. The tradition thus both challenged and worked within the existing social order, and its claims about the universality of devotion coexisted with a continuing Brahmanical hierarchy.
A more radical movement arose in the twelfth century in Karnataka, founded by Basavanna. The Virashaivas (or Lingayats) challenged the authority of the Vedas and the Brahmana priest, rejected caste distinctions, and, most strikingly, allowed widows to remarry and permitted the burial of the dead rather than cremation. They wore the linga, a small stone symbol of Shiva, on their bodies, hence the name Lingayat. Their teachings were recorded in the Kannada language in texts called vachanas, short poems of devotion.
The Virashaiva movement also produced a number of women saints, the most famous being Akkamahadevi, who renounced worldly life and devoted herself entirely to Shiva. The tradition records that she composed vachanas of extraordinary intensity. The Virashaivas were a good example of a bhakti movement that went beyond devotional poetry to attempt a thorough reform of social practice, though over time they too developed their own hierarchies and became a recognised religious community.
In the twelfth century, the cult of Jagannath (literally "Lord of the World"), a form of Vishnu, became important in Orissa. The worship of Jagannath centred on the temple at Puri, which was patronised by the Ganga rulers of Orissa, and the king himself participated in the annual chariot festival (ratha-yatra) in which the deities were taken out in a huge procession. This festival drew vast crowds of pilgrims, and the king's association with the deity gave divine legitimacy to his rule.
The cult was remarkable because the wooden image of Jagannath was regarded as sacred despite being replaced periodically, and the deities were worshipped alongside their siblings, including a deity of the "tribal" Sudra folk. The cult of Jagannath shows how a regional deity could be transformed into a major imperial god with royal patronage, and how tribal and Brahmanical traditions could fuse in a single cult. The temple and its festivals bound together the king, the priests and the masses in a shared religious world.
Sufism was the mystical tradition of Islam, which grew from the Qur'anic emphasis on love and remembrance (zikr) of God, and from the example of the Prophet Muhammad's ascetic practice. Sufis sought union with God through renunciation, meditation, selfless love and service. They were organised in orders (silsilas) around a pir or shaikh, a spiritual master, and his disciples. The term "Sufi" may derive from the Arabic word "suf" (wool), referring to the coarse woollen garment worn by early ascetics.
As Islam spread into India, Sufism took root, and by the thirteenth century there were large Sufi communities, especially in the north. Sufis emphasised love and devotion to God as the essence of religion, and their belief that the divine could be reached through the heart made them open to dialogue with Indian bhakti traditions. The earliest Sufis were drawn largely from the khanqah tradition of the east (Iraq, Iran), and they settled in cities and towns across north India.
The Chishti order was one of the most important Sufi orders in India. It was founded by Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti (c. 1142-1236), who settled at Ajmer, and was further developed by his successors, especially the celebrated Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi (c. 1243-1325). The Chishti centres, called khanqahs, were places where the shaikh lived, taught and met his disciples, and where food (langar) was distributed to visitors, including both Muslims and non-Muslims.
The Chishti shaikhs taught that the disciple should concentrate on the remembrance of God, and they practised a ritual called sama, or devotional music, which they believed helped in the worship of God, though this was controversial among the orthodox. The tombs (dargahs) of the Chishti saints, especially the dargah of Muinuddin Chishti at Ajmer and of Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi, became centres of pilgrimage, and rulers, nobles, merchants and common people all visited them to seek blessings.
The relationship between the Chishti saints and the rulers was complex. Rulers such as the Delhi Sultans showed great respect for the Chishti saints and often visited their dargahs, seeking their blessings and using their moral authority to legitimise their rule. The Sultan Alauddin Khalji, for example, was rebuked by Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya, who refused to meet him and sent him away with the harsh remark that he had "been present in this world for many years, and still no one had been helped by him." This shows that the saints could assert independence and even criticise royal power.
At the same time, the Sufis did not depend on the state, and the Chishti principle of "disregarding the gifts of kings" (their alms) preserved their moral authority. When rulers did grant gifts or build structures, the shaikhs often refused them or distributed them. The success of the Chishti order was built on its popularity among ordinary people, its generosity (langar), and its accessibility, rather than on state patronage.
A crucial feature of the bhakti-sufi movements was their production of devotional literature in regional languages rather than in Sanskrit. The Tamil hymns of the Alvars and Nayanars, the Kannada vachanas of the Virashaivas, the Marathi abhangs of the Varkari saints such as Namdev and Tukaram, and the later Hindi poetry of Kabir, Surdas, Mirabai and Tulsidas were all composed in languages people could understand, which helped the movements spread far beyond the literate elite.
These texts are invaluable to historians because they preserve the ideas, hopes and social vision of the saints. At the same time, they pose problems: the oral transmission of many of these texts over centuries means that the versions we have today may differ from the original compositions, and the traditions have been added to and edited by later generations. Historians must therefore treat the texts as living, evolving traditions rather than fixed documents.
The chapter gives special attention to Kabir (c. 1440-1518), one of the most remarkable poet-saints. Kabir, a weaver by occupation and of humble origin, attacked both Brahmanical ritualism and the formalism of religious leaders, whether Hindu or Muslim. His verses, composed in a language that mixed Hindi, Punjabi and other dialects, and collected in traditions such as the Kabir Bijak and the Adi Granth, proclaimed a path of nirguna bhakti, devotion to the formless, attributeless divine, without any image, temple, mosque or scripture.
Kabir's poetry, preserved orally and written in several languages including the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh scripture, shows that his message crossed religious boundaries and appealed to weavers, peasants and artisans. Kabir's insistence that "the divine is within" and his rejection of all external markers of religion made him a model for the nirguna bhakti tradition, which influenced later saint-poets like Ravidas and Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism. Kabir's legacy shows how the bhakti-sufi movements created spaces for questioning both Brahmanical Hinduism and orthodox Islam.
| Movement / Tradition | Region | Period | Key Saints | Language / Text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alvars (Vishnu) | Tamil Nadu | 6th-10th cent. | Nammalvar, Andal | Tamil, Divya Prabandham |
| Nayanars (Shiva) | Tamil Nadu | 6th-10th cent. | Appar, Sambandhar, Sundarar | Tamil, Tevaram |
| Virashaivas / Lingayats | Karnataka | 12th cent. | Basavanna, Akkamahadevi | Kannada, vachanas |
| Jagannath cult | Orissa | 12th cent. | Temple of Puri | Regional cult, chariot festival |
| Chishti Sufis | North India | 12th-14th cent. | Muinuddin, Nizamuddin Auliya | Persian, khanqah tradition |
| Theme | Bhakti saints | Sufis |
|---|---|---|
| Path to God | Loving devotion to a personal deity | Mystical love, zikr (remembrance) |
| Organising unit | Temples, shrine networks | Khanqahs, silsilas, pir-disciple |
| Key practice | Singing hymns, temple worship | Sama (music), langar (food) |
| View of ritual | Critical of empty ritualism | Focus on inner devotion |
| Language | Regional languages (Tamil, Kannada, Hindi) | Persian and regional languages |
The bhakti-sufi traditions transformed the religious landscape of the subcontinent over a thousand years, from the Tamil hymns of the Alvars and Nayanars to the vachanas of Karnataka, the chariot festivals of Puri, the khanqahs of the Chishti saints and the fire of Kabir's poetry. These movements shared a devotion to the divine that bypassed empty ritual, reached out in regional languages, and often welcomed the lowly, the outcast and the woman. Yet they were also shaped by temples, kingdoms and established hierarchies, and their histories are full of both challenge and accommodation. Reading their texts critically, the historian sees not a single harmonious devotional wave but a rich, contested and constantly changing conversation between faith, society and power.