NCERT Book Class 12 History Chapter 6 Bhakti- Sufi Traditions

140 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II

Bhakti - Sufi Traditions
THEME Changes in Religious Beliefs and
SIX De
Devvo tional T
Tee xts
( c . eighth to eighteenth century)

We saw in Chapter 4 that by the mid-first
millennium CE the landscape of the subcontinent
was dotted with a variety of religious structures –
stupas, monasteries, temples. If these typified
certain religious beliefs and practices, others have
been reconstructed from textual traditions,
including the Puranas, many of which received
their present shape around the same time, and yet
others remain only faintly visible in textual and
visual records.
New textual sources available from this period
include compositions attributed to poet-saints,
most of whom expressed themselves orally in
regional languages used by ordinary people. These
compositions, which were often set to music, were
compiled by disciples or devotees, generally after
the death of the poet-saint. What is more, these
traditions were fluid – generations of devotees tended
to elaborate on the original message, and occasionally
modified or even abandoned some of the ideas that
appeared problematic or irrelevant in different
political, social or cultural contexts. Using these
sources thus poses a challenge to historians.
Historians also draw on hagiographies or
biographies of saints written by their followers (or
members of their religious sect). These may not be
literally accurate, but allow a glimpse into the ways
in which devotees perceived the lives of these path-
breaking women and men.
As we will see, these sources provide us with
insights into a scenario characterised by dynamism
and diversity. Let us look at some elements of these
more closely.

Fig. 6.1
A twelfth-century bronze sculpture of
Manikkavachakar, a devotee of Shiva
who composed beautiful devotional songs in Tamil