Bhakti-Sufi Traditions

2.1 Core concepts

• A wide range of gods and goddesses became visible in sculpture and text; Vishnu, Shiva and the goddess were visualised in many forms — the period saw "the integration of cults" through two parallel processes: dissemination of Brahmanical ideas via Puranas (in simple Sanskrit, accessible to women and Shudras) and the Brahmanas' reworking of beliefs of other social categories (NCERT §1.1, p. 141).
• A continuous dialogue between "great" Sanskritic Puranic traditions and "little" local traditions — Puri's Jagannatha (twelfth century), a local wooden tribal deity, was identified as a form of Vishnu; local goddesses were equated with Lakshmi or Parvati (NCERT §1.1, p. 141-142).
• Tantric practices, often associated with the goddess, were open to women and men and ignored caste/class within the ritual context; they influenced Shaivism and Buddhism in eastern, northern and southern parts of the subcontinent (NCERT §1.2, p. 142).
• Vedic deities (Agni, Indra, Soma) became marginal in Puranic religion although the Vedas continued to be revered as authoritative; bhakti is to be located in this context — devotional worship had a thousand-year history before the period (NCERT §1.2, p. 142-143).
• Historians classify bhakti broadly into saguna (Shiva, Vishnu and avatars, the goddess in anthropomorphic forms) and nirguna (worship of an abstract form of God) (NCERT §2, p. 143).
• Alvars (devotees of Vishnu) and Nayanars (devotees of Shiva), c. sixth century, travelled across Tamil Nadu singing Tamil hymns; shrines they visited became centres of pilgrimage and large temples (NCERT §2.1, p. 143-144).
• Compositions of 12 Alvars compiled by the tenth century as the Nalayira Divyaprabandham ("Four Thousand Sacred Compositions"), described as the Tamil Veda; the Tevaram is the collection of poems of Appar, Sambandar and Sundarar — compiled and classified in the tenth century on the basis of music (NCERT §2.2 box, p. 144).
• Women devotees: Andal (woman Alvar, saw herself as Vishnu's beloved) and Karaikkal Ammaiyar (Shiva devotee, adopted extreme asceticism) — challenged patriarchal norms (NCERT §2.3, p. 144-145).
• Chola rulers (ninth-thirteenth centuries) patronised Brahmanical and bhakti traditions — built Shiva temples at Chidambaram, Thanjavur and Gangaikondacholapuram and produced spectacular bronze sculptures; Parantaka I (c. 945) consecrated metal images of Appar, Sambandar and Sundarar; kings introduced singing of Tamil Shaiva hymns and collected them into the Tevaram (NCERT §2.4, p. 146).
• Twelfth century Karnataka — Basavanna (1106-68), a Brahmana minister in the Kalachuri court, led the Virashaiva or Lingayat movement; Lingayats worship Shiva as linga, men wear a small linga on a loop over the left shoulder, revere wandering jangamas, believe the dead unite with Shiva and so bury (not cremate) the dead (NCERT §3, p. 147).
• Lingayats challenged caste and pollution, questioned rebirth, encouraged post-puberty marriage and widow remarriage; sources are the vachanas in Kannada composed by women and men of the movement (NCERT §3, p. 147).
• Tamil bhakti ideas were incorporated into the Sanskritic tradition, culminating in the Bhagavata Purana; bhakti traditions developed in Maharashtra from the thirteenth century (NCERT box, p. 147).
• In north India, before the fourteenth century there is no evidence of Alvar-Nayanar type compositions; Rajput states had Brahmanas in key positions. Naths, Jogis and Siddhas — many from artisanal groups (e.g. weavers) — questioned the Vedas in popular languages; the Turks and the Delhi Sultanate undermined Rajput-Brahmana power and were accompanied by the coming of the sufis (NCERT §4, p. 148).
• Islam in the subcontinent: Muhammad Qasim conquered Sind in 711; Delhi Sultanate established c. thirteenth century; Mughal Empire in the sixteenth century. Theoretically rulers were to be guided by the ulama and rule per shari'a (based on Qur'an, hadis, qiyas, ijma) (NCERT §5.1, p. 149).
• The category zimmi (protected people who followed revealed scriptures — Jews, Christians) paid jizya and were protected; the status was extended to Hindus in India. Rulers (including Akbar and Aurangzeb) gave land grants to Hindu, Jaina, Zoroastrian, Christian, Jewish institutions (NCERT §5.1, p. 149-150).
• Five pillars of Islam: shahada (one God Allah, Muhammad is messenger), namaz/salat (five daily prayers), zakat (alms), sawm (Ramzan fast), hajj (Mecca pilgrimage). Local diversities — Khojahs (a Shi'a Ismaili branch) used ginan (from Sanskrit jnana) in Punjabi, Multani, Sindhi, Kachchi, Hindi, Gujarati; Arab traders on Malabar coast adopted Malayalam, matriliny and matrilocal residence (NCERT §5.2, p. 151).
• Mosques show universal features (orientation to Mecca, mihrab, minbar) with local variations — shikhara-like roof of a Kerala mosque (c. 13th century), brick Atiya mosque in Mymensingh (1609), wooden Shah Hamadan mosque in Srinagar (1395) (NCERT §5.2, p. 151-152).
• Terms "Hindu" and "Muslim" did not gain currency for long — eighth-fourteenth century Sanskrit texts and inscriptions rarely use "musalman"; migrants were called Turushka, Tajika, Parashika, Shakas, Yavanas, mlechchha (NCERT §5.3, p. 152).
• Sufis turned to asceticism and mysticism in protest against the Caliphate's growing materialism; were critical of dogmatic interpretation of the Qur'an and sunna; the word for Sufism in Islamic texts is tasawwuf (possibly from suf — wool, safa — purity, or suffa — platform outside the Prophet's mosque) (NCERT §6, p. 153).
• By eleventh century sufis organised around the khanqah (Persian — hospice), controlled by a shaikh/pir/murshid, enrolling murids (disciples) and appointing a khalifa (successor). Silsila ("chain") signified continuous master-disciple link going back to Prophet Muhammad. On the shaikh's death his tomb-shrine became a dargah ("court"), the centre of pilgrimage (ziyarat); death anniversary = urs ("marriage" of soul with God). The shaikh was revered as wali (plural auliya) — friend of God with barakat (Grace) and karamat (miracles) (NCERT §6.1, p. 153).
• Outside the khanqah were radical mystics — Qalandars, Madaris, Malangs, Haidaris — who defied shari'a and were called be-shari'a, in contrast to ba-shari'a sufis (NCERT §6.2, p. 154).
• Chishtis were the most influential silsila in India — adapted to local environment. Major teachers (year of death — dargah location): Shaikh Muinuddin Sijzi 1235 — Ajmer; Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki 1235 — Delhi; Shaikh Fariduddin Ganj-i Shakar 1265 — Ajodhan (Pakistan); Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya 1325 — Delhi; Shaikh Nasiruddin Chiragh-i Dehli 1356 — Delhi (NCERT §7, p. 154).
• Shaikh Nizamuddin's khanqah at Ghiyaspur on the Yamuna (c. fourteenth century) had a jama'at khana, an open kitchen (langar) run on futuh (unasked-for charity); visitors included Amir Hasan Sijzi, Amir Khusrau and Ziyauddin Barani; practices like bowing before the shaikh, shaving the head, yogic exercises were assimilations of local tradition (NCERT §7.1, p. 154-155).
• Most revered Chishti shrine is that of Khwaja Muinuddin — "Gharib Nawaz" (comforter of the poor) at Ajmer; Muhammad bin Tughlaq (1324-51) was the first Sultan to visit; the earliest construction housing the tomb was funded in the late fifteenth century by Sultan Ghiyasuddin Khalji of Malwa; Akbar visited fourteen times till 1580, offered a huge degh (cauldron) in 1568 and had a mosque built within the dargah (NCERT §7.2, p. 155-156).
• Chishti devotionalism: ziyarat at tomb-shrines, sama' (mystical music), zikr (recitation of divine names); Amir Khusrau (1253-1325) introduced the qaul (Arabic — "saying") sung at opening/closing of qawwali (NCERT §7.2, p. 157-158).
• Local languages — Hindavi at Nizamuddin's hospice; Baba Farid's verses in the local language were incorporated in the Guru Granth Sahib; Malik Muhammad Jayasi's Padmavat (love story of Padmini and Ratansen of Chittor) used human love as an allegory of the soul's journey to the divine; Dakhani (Urdu variant) verses in seventeenth-eighteenth century Bijapur included lurinama (lullabies) and shadinama (wedding songs), inspired by Kannada vachanas and Marathi abhangs (NCERT §7.3, p. 158).
• Sufis and the state — Chishtis kept distance from worldly power but accepted unsolicited grants; Sultans set up auqaf (charitable trusts) and gave inam (tax-free land). When the Turks set up the Delhi Sultanate they resisted the ulama's pressure to impose shari'a as state law because most subjects were non-Muslims; they turned to sufis who derived authority directly from God (NCERT §7.4, p. 159).
• Nizamuddin Auliya was addressed as sultan-ul-mashaikh — there were also occasional tensions (e.g. royal-gift refusals, as in Source 9, 1313) (NCERT §7.4, p. 160).
• Kabir (c. 14th-15th centuries) — verses compiled in three overlapping traditions: Kabir Bijak (preserved by Kabirpanth in Varanasi/UP), Kabir Granthavali (Dadupanth in Rajasthan), and the Adi Granth Sahib; his poems are in sant bhasha and include ulatbansi ("upside-down sayings"); he drew on Islamic (Allah, Khuda, Hazrat, Pir), Vedantic (alakh, nirakar, Brahman, Atman), and yogic (shabda, shunya) vocabularies; Vaishnava hagiographies suggest he was born a Hindu raised by Muslim julahas (weavers), initiated by Ramananda — but verses use only "guru/satguru" without naming a preceptor (NCERT §8.1, p. 161-163).
• Baba Guru Nanak (1469-1539) — born in a Hindu merchant family at Nankana Sahib near the Ravi; advocated nirguna bhakti; rejected sacrifices, ritual baths, image worship, austerities and the scriptures of both Hindus and Muslims; for him "rab" had no gender or form; expressed his ideas as shabad in Punjabi and sang with Mardana on the rabab; organised sangat for collective recitation; appointed Angad as successor (NCERT §8.2, p. 163).
• The fifth preceptor Guru Arjan compiled Nanak's hymns and those of four successors along with poets like Baba Farid, Ravidas (Raidas) and Kabir in the Adi Granth Sahib (gurbani); in the late seventeenth century the tenth preceptor Guru Gobind Singh added Guru Tegh Bahadur's compositions to make the Guru Granth Sahib, founded the Khalsa Panth and defined its five symbols — uncut hair, dagger, pair of shorts, comb, steel bangle (NCERT §8.2, p. 163-164).
• Mirabai (c. 15th-16th centuries) — Rajput princess of Merta in Marwar married against her wishes to a Sisodia prince of Mewar, defied her husband to recognise Krishna (Vishnu's avatar) as her lover; her in-laws tried to poison her; she escaped to live as a wandering saint composing bhajans; according to some traditions her preceptor was Raidas, a leather worker; she donned white robes of a widow or saffron robes of the renouncer; her songs are still sung especially by the poor and those considered "low caste" in Gujarat and Rajasthan (NCERT §8.3, p. 164-165).
• Shankaradeva — late fifteenth-century Assam Vaishnava; "Bhagavati dharma" based on Bhagavad Gita and Bhagavata Purana, surrender to Vishnu, naam kirtan in sat sanga, satras (monasteries), naam ghars (prayer halls); major work Kirtana-ghosha (NCERT box, p. 165).
• Sources to reconstruct sufi history: (1) Treatises/manuals — Hujwiri's Kashf-ul-Mahjub (d. c. 1071, Lahore); (2) Malfuzat ("uttered" — conversations) — Fawa'id-al-Fu'ad (conversations of Nizamuddin Auliya compiled by Amir Hasan Sijzi Dehlavi); (3) Maktubat ("written" — letters) — Maktubat-i Imam Rabbani of Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1624, Naqshbandi); (4) Tazkiras (biographical accounts) — Siyar-ul-Auliya of Mir Khwurd Kirmani (fourteenth-century, the first sufi tazkira in India) and Akhbar-ul-Akhyar of Abdul Haqq Muhaddis Dehlavi (d. 1642) (NCERT §9 box, p. 166).

2.2 Definitions to memorise

2.3 Diagrams / processes to remember

• Fig. 6.1 (p. 140) — Twelfth-century bronze of Manikkavachakar, Shaiva devotee-composer in Tamil.
• Fig. 6.2 (p. 141) — Jagannatha with Subhadra and Balarama at Puri; an example of "integration of cults".
• Fig. 6.4 (p. 145) — Twelfth-century bronze of Karaikkal Ammaiyar; visualises her self-description as a "demoness".
• Fig. 6.5 (p. 146) — Shiva as Nataraja, the iconic Chola bronze of the bhakti era.
• Figs. 6.9, 6.10, 6.11 (p. 151-152) — Kerala mosque with shikhara-like roof (c. 13th c.); brick Atiya mosque, Mymensingh (1609); wooden Shah Hamadan mosque, Srinagar (1395) — universal-plus-local architecture.
• Fig. 6.12 (p. 155) — Seventeenth-century painting of Nizamuddin Auliya with Amir Khusrau.
• Fig. 6.13 (p. 156) — Manohar's c.1615 painting of Jahangir's Ajmer pilgrimage.
• Fig. 6.15 (p. 160) — Dargah of Shaikh Salim Chishti in Fatehpur Sikri — bond between Chishtis and the Mughals.
• Chart "Major Teachers of the Chishti Silsila" (p. 154) — five names, dates of death, dargah locations.
• Timeline (p. 167) — c.500-1700 CE, key teachers century by century (Appar, Sambandar, Sundaramurti c. 500-800 to Sirhindi/Miyan Mir c. 1600-1700).

2.5 Timeline / Key events

2.4 Common confusions / NTA trap points

• Alvars = Vishnu, Nayanars = Shiva — easy to swap. Same for the Nalayira Divyaprabandham (Alvar = Vaishnava) vs. Tevaram (Nayanar = Shaiva).
• Basavanna was a Brahmana minister of a Kalachuri ruler — NOT a Chalukya/Hoysala minister. Lingayats BURY the dead (do not cremate).
• Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti's dargah is at Ajmer; Nizamuddin Auliya and Bakhtiyar Kaki and Nasiruddin Chiragh-i Dehli are at Delhi; Baba Farid (Fariduddin Ganj-i Shakar) is at Ajodhan (Pakpattan in Pakistan).
• The first Sultan to visit Ajmer was Muhammad bin Tughlaq, but the earliest construction housing the tomb was funded by Ghiyasuddin Khalji of Malwa (late 15th c.) — not by Akbar. Akbar visited fourteen times till 1580 and offered the degh in 1568.
• The Adi Granth Sahib was compiled by the fifth guru, Guru Arjan; the Guru Granth Sahib was finalised by the tenth, Guru Gobind Singh (adding Guru Tegh Bahadur's verses). Don't confuse the two compilations or assign them to Nanak himself.
• The Fawa'id-al-Fu'ad is a malfuzat (conversations) of Nizamuddin Auliya — compiled by Amir Hasan Sijzi (NOT by Amir Khusrau). Amir Khusrau is associated with the qaul in qawwali.
• "Be-shari'a" sufis (Qalandars, Madaris, Malangs, Haidaris) defied shari'a; "ba-shari'a" complied with it. The prefix "be-" reverses the meaning.