Bhakti Movement — Part 2 MCQs with Explanations

The greatest saint of the Bhakti movement was Shri Chaitanya, popularly known as Gouranga Mahaprabhu. He was born in 1486 A.D. at Navadweep in West Bengal in a Brahmin family. His childhood name was Nimai or Biswambhar Mishra. He was a promising student and mastered all branches of Sanskrit learning. After formal education he married Lakshmi Devi. But gradually he developed a sense of detachment towards worldly affairs.

Chaitanya is said to have travelled all over India in spreading the Krishna Cult. He spent most of his time in Puri, Orissa on the feet of Lord Jagannath. He believes that through love and devotion, song and dance, a devotee can feel the presence of God.

Surdas was the disciple of Vallabhacharya and he popularized Krishna cult in north India.

Bhakti Reformers influenced by the preaching of Sufi teachers were Ramananda, Kabir, Nanak.

Ramananda was the first Bhakti saint to use Hindi for the propagation of his message. He was known for communicating in vernacular Hindi, and accepting disciples of all castes.

Nimbarka's commentary on the Brahma-Sutras known as the Vedanta-Parijata-Saurabha, and that of his immediate disciple Srinivasa styled the Vedanta-Kaustubha are the chief works of the school of philosophy associated with the name of Nimbarka. The latter is not, however, a mere commentary on the former, as is sometimes wrongly supposed, but a full exposition of the views expressed I the Vedanta-Parijata-Saurabha which is very terse and concise and is not always clear. Both the treatises are therefore essential for the proper understanding of the doctrine of Nimbarka.

Tukaram, also referred to as Sant Tukaram, Bhakta Tukaram, Tukaram Maharaj, Tukoba and Tukobaraya, was a 17th-century Hindu poet and sant of the Bhakti movement in Maharashtra, India. He was part of the egalitarian, personalized Varkari devotionalism tradition.

Kabir is widely believed to have become the first disciple of the Bhakti poet-saint Swami Ramananda in Varanasi, known for devotional Vaishnavism with a strong bent to monist Advaita philosophy teaching that God was inside every person, everything.

Kabir was contemporary of both Guru Nanak and Sultan Sikandar Lodi.

Kabir was a 15th-century Indian mystic poet and saint, whose writings influenced Hinduism's Bhakti movement and his verses are found in Sikhism's scripture Adi Granth. His early life was in a Muslim family, but he was strongly influenced by his teacher, the Hindu bhakti leader Ramananda.

The sect founded by Birbhan is known as Satnamis and their religious granth is known as Pothi, which is revered like the Granth of the Sikhs.

Ramananda was a 14th-century Vaishnava devotional poet sant, in the Ganges river region of Northern India. The Hindu tradition recognizes him as the founder of the Ramanandi Sampradaya, the largest monastic Hindu renunciant community in modern times.

Madhava propagated Dvaita or dualism of Jivatma and Paramatma. According to his philosophy, the world is not an illusion but a reality. God, soul, matter are unique in nature.

Rudra Sampradaya School was founded by Vallabhacharya.

Kabir emphasised the essential oneness of all religions by describing Hindus and Muslims ‘as pots of the same clay’. To him Rama and Allah, temple and mosque were the same. He regarded devotion to god as an effective means of salvation and urged that to achieve this one must have a pure heart, free from cruelty, dishonesty, hypocrisy and insincerity. He is regarded as the greatest of the mystic saints and his followers are called Kabirpanthis.

Ramanuja gave a philosophic basis to the teachings of Vaishnavism. He wrote a commentary on the Brahma sutras, refuted Shari Kara and offered his own interpretation based on the theistic ideas. His commentaries on Brahma sutras are popularly known as Sri Bhasya.

The Gaudiya Sampradaya is an intensely emotional form of Hinduism which flourished from the sixteenth century, mainly in Bengal and eastern Orissa.

Namdev was influenced by Vaishnavism and became widely known in India for his devotional songs set to music (bhajan-kirtans). His philosophy contains both nirguna and saguna Brahman elements, with monistic themes. Namdev's legacy is remembered in modern times in the Varkari tradition, along with those of other gurus, with masses of people walking together in biannual pilgrimages to Pandharpur in south Maharashtra. He is also recognised in the North Indian traditions of the Dadu Panthis, Kabir Panthis and Sikhs.

Madhav propagated Dvaita or dualism of Jivatma and Paramatma. According to his philosophy, the world is not an illusion but a reality. God, soul, matter are unique in nature.

In Sikhism, "nirguni Bhakti" is emphasised – devotion to a divine without Gunas (qualities or form), but it accepts both nirguni and saguni forms of the divine. Guru Nanak, the first Sikh Guru and the founder of Sikhism, was a Bhakti saint.

Shankaracharya Bhakti Saints was responsible for founding many punyakshetram along the length and breadth of India, by taming avatars of Parvati and imprisoning her essence in Sri Chakras.

According to Bhakti Movement, God is one, He alone should be worshipped. By following the path of true devotion (Bhakti) one can find salvation or (nijat, mukti). A true guru is indispensable for realizing God or attaining salvation. All men are equal and there is no question of superiority or inferiority among men. There is brotherhood of mankind. The image worship and caste distinctions and class hatred were the worst enemies of man. They strongly denounced useless ceremonies and rituals and rites must be given up. They are unnecessary and do not help persons to attain salvation. Only the good actions of man can help him to attain salvation.

In spite of Vallabha's stress on self-control and renunciation, his doctrine came to be known as “Pushti Marga” for his successors laid stress on the physical side of Krishna's sports so that the creed came to be called as the “Epicureanism of the East“.

Madhava did not believe in the qualified monism of Ramanuja and emphasised the doctrine of duality, based mainly upon the Bhagavata Purana.

Gnanadevawas the founder of the Bhakti Movement in Maharashtra in the thirteenth century. It was called Maharashtradharma. He wrote a commentary of Bhagavat Gita called Gnaneswari.

Andal was a woman Alvar, the most striking features of her compositions were widely sung (and continue to be sung to date), Andal saw herself as the beloved of Vishnu and Krishna; her verses express her love for the deity,

The Bhakti movement originated as a reaction against caste division, untouchability and ritualism in India. Devotion was the pivotal point in the Bhakti cult in uniting human soul with god. The basic concepts of the Bhakti cult though present in the Vedas, the Gita and Vishnupuran were not practiced by the masses until the appearances of Vaishnava Alwar and Shaiva Nayanar saints of South India in the seventh and twelfth centuries.

Mirabai was a great Bhakti saint, Hindu mystic poet and a devotee of the Lord Krishna. Born in the late fifteenth century into a royal family of Rajasthan, Mira, from her childhood was a great devotee of Lord Krishna and wrote many beautiful poems in praise of her Lord.

Bhakti Movement resulted in a surge in Hindu literature in regional / vernacular languages mainly in the form of devotional poems and music. II. Bhakti Movement resulted in a surge in Buddhist text in regional / vernacular languages mainly in the form of devotional poems and music.

The features of Bhakti Movement are Condemnation of rituals, ceremonies and blind faith and Rejection of idol worship by many saints.

Ramananda could not even cast off the sense of superiority of a Hindu over the Mohammedan. Similarly he accepted the superiority of the regenerate classes (dwijas) -over Sudras. Thus Ramananda, like the other saints of the South, did not believe in social equality. He enjoined strict segregation and perfect privacy in the matter of food. Though Ramananda did not believe in the equality of the four varnas and numerous castes, but he made disciples from almost all castes.

Tradition asserts that Ramananda developed his philosophy and devotional themes inspired by the south Indian Vedanta philosopher Ramanuja, however evidence also suggests that Ramananda was influenced by Nathpanthi ascetics of the Yoga school of Hindu philosophy.

Silsila is an Arabic word meaning chain, link, connection often used in various senses of lineage. In particular, it may be translated as "(religious) order" or "spiritual genealogy" where one Sufi Master transfers his khilfat to his spiritual. Silsilas originated with the initiation of Sufi orders which dates back to the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

It was the first of the four main Sufi orders (Chishti, Qadiriyya, Suhrawardiyya and Naqshbandi) to be established in this region. Moinuddin Chishti introduced the Chishti Order in Lahore (Punjab) and Ajmer (Rajasthan), sometime in the middle of the 12th century CE.

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was an ascetic Hindu monk and social reformer in 16th century Bengal. A great proponent of loving devotion for God, bhakti yoga, Chaitanya worshiped the Lord in the form of Krishna.

Nimbarkacharya in his commentary in 'Dashashloki' dealt with three realities: Brahma(the supreme reality), soul(chit) and matter(achit).

Namdev preached the sublime gospel of love and devotion and liberated the people from the shackles of rituals and caste system.

The Saivaite Nayanmars and Vashnavaite Alwars preached the Bhakti cult under the Pallavas, Pandyas and Cholas. But, the spread of Bhakti movement in medieval India is a different kind. This medieval Bhakti movement was the direct result of the influence of the spread of Islam in India.

Chaitanya means "consciousness"; Maha means "Great" and Prabhu means "Lord" or "Master". Chaitanya was born as the second son of Jagannath Mishra and his wife Sachi Devi. Jagannath's family lived in the village of Dhakadakshin, Golapganj, Srihatta, Bengal. According to Chaitanya Charitamruta, Chaitanya was born on the full moon night of 18 February 1486, at the time of a lunar eclipse. Alternatively, Chaitanya is also believed to born in Mayapur. Mayapur is located on the banks of the Ganges river, at the point of its confluence with the Jalangi, near Nabadwip, West Bengal, India, 130 km north of Kolkata (Calcutta). Mayapur is considered a holy place by a number of other traditions within Hinduism.

Another Bhakti saint of Maharashtra was Tukaram, a contemporary of Sivaji. He was responsible for creating a background for Maratha nationalism. He opposed all social distinctions. The importance of women in society was also increased because the Bhakti movement gave equal importance to them.