A

Genealogy
of
Devotion
 A
Genealogy
of
Devotion
Bhakti, Tantra, Yoga, and
Sufism in North India

Patton E. Burchett

Columbia University Press

New York
Columbia University Press gratefully acknowledges the generous support for
this book provided by Publisher’s Circle member Neil Krishan Aggarwal.

Columbia University Press wishes to express its appreciation for

assistance given by the Dean’s Office at the College of William & Mary,
as well as the Columbia University Seminars’ Schoff-­Warner
Publication Funds, in the publication of this book.
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
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Copyright © 2019 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved

Chapter 8 contains some material previously published in

“My Miracle Trumps Your Magic: Encounters with Yogis in Sufi and
Bhakti Hagiographical Literature,” in Yoga Powers: Extraordinary
Capacities Attained Through Meditation and Concentration,
ed. Knut A. Jacobsen (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

Chapter 9 contains some material previously published in

“Bitten by the Snake: Early Modern Devotional Critiques of
Tantra-­Mantra,” Journal of Hindu Studies 6, no. 1 (2013).

Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data

Names: Burchett, Patton, author.
Title: A genealogy of devotion : Bhakti, Tantra, Yoga, and
Sufism in North India / Patton Burchett.
Description: New York : Columbia University Press, 2019. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018036629 (print) | LCCN 2018043259 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780231548830 (electronic) | ISBN 9780231190329 (cloth : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Bhakti. | Sufism. | Yoga. | Tantrism. | India—­Religion.
Classification: LCC BL1214.32.B53 (ebook) | LCC BL1214.32.B53 B87 2019 print) |
DDC 294.5/43609545—­dc23
LC record available at https:​­//lccn​­.loc​­.gov​­/2018036629

Columbia University Press books are printed on

permanent and durable acid-­f ree paper.
Printed in the United States of America

Cover image: Julia Kushnirsky

 To Jack

and

To Michelle
 Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Notes on Transliteration and Translation xv

Introduction: Tantra, Yoga, and Sufism in

the Historiography of Bhakti 1

Part I

From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

1. The Tantric Age: Tantra and Bhakti in Medieval India 29

2. Sultans, Saints, and Songs: Persianate Culture, Sufism,
and Bhakti in Sultanate India 64
3. Akbar’s New World: Mughals and Rajputs in
the Rise of Vaiṣṇava Bhakti 99

Part II

Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility in Mughal India

4. Between Bhakti and Śakti: Religious Sensibilities Among

the Rāmānandīs of Galta 129
 viii 9 Contents

5. Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas: Styles of Yoga

and Asceticism in North India 169
6. Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti:
Formations of Bhakti Community 195

Part III

The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

7. Yogīs and Tantra-­Mantra in the Poetry of the Bhakti Saints 239

8. The Triumphs of Devotion: The Sufi Inflection of Early Modern Bhakti 276
Conclusion: Bhakti Religion and Tantric Magic 305

Appendix: List of Manuscripts Containing Compositions by Agradās 313

Notes 317
Bibliography 389
Index 413
 Acknowledgments

T
his book is the culmination of more than a decade of study, research,
and writing—­including two years spent in India—­a nd could not have
been completed without the support of many individuals and institu-
tions along the way. The origins of this project go back to the fall of 1997 in a
classroom at Davidson College in North Carolina, where Professor William
Mahony inspired me in ways he could not have imagined and thereby set me
on a path that has led to a doctorate in South Asian religions, a tenure-­t rack
position as an assistant professor, and now the publication of this book. Thus,
the first of many thanks I want to offer goes to you, Bill. I also owe a great deal
of thanks to my mentors in the Religious Studies Program at Indiana Univer-
sity Bloomington, David Haberman and Rebecca Manring, who took in a rather
clueless master’s student fresh out of the army and very unsure of his aca-
demic prospects, deftly transforming him into a young scholar of religion and
South Asia with fundamental skills and perspectives necessary for success in
my doctoral work at Columbia. After completing my PhD, I was extremely for-
tunate to spend three years in a postdoctoral position in the Religious Studies
Program at New York University, where Angelo Zito and Adam Becker provided
an unusually supportive and intellectually vibrant atmosphere and helped me
to grow as a teacher and scholar in ways I do not think I otherwise would have.
Since arriving at the College of William & Mary in 2015, I have received an
exceptional level of institutional support. The college has awarded me two
summer grants that were crucial to the final stages of writing and revising
while also generously providing subvention funds vital for the publication
of this book. I feel very fortunate to be a part of its Department of Religious
 x 9 Acknowledgments

Studies, whose faculty members have guided and supported me while creating
a remarkably positive and collegial working environment. In particular, I want
to thank my colleagues Alex Angelov, Annie Blazer, Aaron Griffith, Max Katz,
Mark McLaughlin, Oludamini Ogunnaike, and Chitralekha Zutshi. The advice,
mental-­emotional support, and intellectual stimulation you have offered me
have been more helpful than you know in completing this book.
I am heavily indebted to the American Institute of Indian Studies for the
gracious support it provided at several key points. It was in its Hindi-­language
program in Jaipur that I received the intensive language training that allowed
me to undertake much of the archival research and ethnographic fieldwork
that my dissertation—­f rom which this book emerged—­required. Swami-­ji,
Neelam-­ji, Vidhu-­ji, Rashmi-­ji, Anita-­ji, Rekha-­ji, Vivekananand-­ji, and Prem-­ji:
as so many other American scholars of North India do, I owe you a great debt of
gratitude. I am thankful for the institute’s Hindi Language Fellowship (2007–­
2008) and for the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (summer
2009), which made my language training possible, and I am especially grateful
for the institute’s Junior Research Fellowship (2010–­2011), which provided the
necessary funding and organizational support for my dissertation research in
India. For its support during my research in India, I want to express my grati-
tude to the institute’s office in Delhi, as well as to the staffs at the Rajasthan
Oriental Research Institute in Jodhpur and the royal library of the Jaipur City
Palace, whose patient help allowed me to attain copies of vital manuscript
materials. Prem Singh Rajpurohit offered key guidance as I sat down to make
initial sense of several of these materials. Chitranjan Dutt and especially Din-
kar Rai, at the Landour Language School in Mussoorie, provided two weeks of
crucial assistance as I worked through some difficult passages of Brajbhasha
poetry later in the project. While in Jaipur, I was given crucial guidance and
encouragement by Monika Horstmann, Dominique Sila-­K han, and Véronique
Bouillier, who each (at different moments in the project) generously offered
their time and local expertise to further my research in important ways.
I am grateful to the Columbia University Seminars Publication Committee
for the award of subvention funds necessary for the publication of this book.
The Columbia University Department of Religion sponsored several summers
of research vital to this book (in its dissertation form) and always provided
an intellectually vibrant and supportive environment that offered numerous
opportunities in which faculty members and graduate students were able to
hear and comment constructively on aspects of my research and writing. My
close friends from Columbia’s doctoral program have provided truly invaluable
support—­intellectual and emotional—­ever since I met them. Joe Blankholm, Susie
Andrews, Todd French, Matt Pereira, Greg Scott, Dan Vaca: the conversations,
 Acknowledgments = xi

debates, and laughter I have shared with you and the memories we have made
and continue to make have been absolutely essential to the successful comple-
tion of this book. I can say the same about a number of those from my South
Asian studies cohort at Columbia. Hamsa Stainton, Tyler Williams, and Dalpat
Rajpurohit: I have learned so much from each of you and cannot overstate my
appreciation for the multitude of ways you have supported and encouraged me
and the progress of this book in our informal conversations, our research
trips together in India, and beyond. Tyler, I am especially thankful to you for
the time and effort you gave to reading and offering detailed and remarkably
insightful comments on drafts of several chapters. Dalpat, with regard to many
of the translations of primary sources in this book, I am forever indebted to
you for sacrificing hours of your time to sit with me and work through many
challenging passages of Brajbhasha poetry. I am also incredibly grateful for all
the feedback I have received and the insights and new ideas I have gained in the
course of many conversations with my fellow Columbia-­trained South Asianist
friends and colleagues, in particular Joel Bordeaux, Udi Halperin, James Hare,
Jon Keune, Joel Lee, Simran Jeet Singh, Drew Thomases, Audrey Truschke, and
Anand Venkatkrishnan.
Personal conversations, academic collaborations, and informal email
exchanges with a number of other scholars have also fueled this project. I want
to express my gratitude to the following scholars, who each at some point
offered inspiring ideas, thoughtful comments, or meaningful feedback that
helped this project along in vital ways: Dean Accardi, Purushottam Agrawal,
Peter Awn, Lisa Bjorkman, John Cort, Daniel Gold, Daniel Heifetz (formerly Dan-
iel Cheifer), Linda Hess, Monika Horstmann, David Lorenzen, Philip Lutgendorf,
Ann Murphy, Heidi Pauwels, Jason Schwartz, Sarah Pierce Taylor, Archana Ven-
katesan, and Robert Yelle. In researching and writing chapter 1, I ventured into
some unfamiliar territory and thus was particularly dependent upon the assis-
tance and critical feedback of those more experienced with and learned in
medieval Sanskrit tantric and devotional source materials. Any inaccuracies in
that chapter are entirely my own, but I could not have arrived at the final prod-
uct without the generous help and critical, constructive comments on drafts (or
sections) of the chapter offered by Dominic Goodall, Shaman Hatley, Florinda
De Simini, Michael Slouber, and Anand Venkatkrishnan. In writing chapter 5,
I relied significantly on both the groundbreaking research and the guiding hand
of James Mallinson. Jim, I cannot thank you enough for our conversations and
your generosity in sharing your own work, patiently answering my many long,
question-­filled emails and commenting in detail on chapter drafts.
There are a handful of people who deserve special thanks for their particu-
larly significant contributions to this book. In its early (dissertation) form,
 xii 9 Acknowledgments

Allison Busch, William (Vijay) Pinch, and Rachel McDermott each offered exten-
sive, detailed comments on every chapter of the work. I am indebted to Vijay
for more than this, as the core idea for my project was, in large part, sparked
upon reading chapter 4 of his magisterial Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires
(2006). To Rachel, one of my PhD advisers, I also owe much more. Rachel, your
unending kindness and encouragement, your always wise and sympathetic
guidance, your uncanny ability for carefully structuring and clearly articulat-
ing ideas and arguments, and your talent for seeing and highlighting the big
picture were all hugely important in the composition of this book.
I am extremely thankful to Wendy Lochner at Columbia University Press for
believing in this book and to both her and Lowell Frye for their guidance and
steadfast editorial support. Ramya Sreenivasan, one of the reviewers of my man-
uscript (who kindly revealed herself in order to address some of my follow-­up
questions), provided me with extensive critical, constructive comments. Her
many penetrating insights and thoughtful suggestions played an absolutely fun-
damental role in the revision of the book into its final form. I owe a huge debt of
gratitude to Christian Novetzke, who also reviewed my manuscript (revealing
himself in order to carry on an extended dialogue with me regarding revisions),
for the many pages of detailed notes, carefully considered critiques, and percep-
tive interpretations he gave me, as well as the time he invested in Skype calls and
email exchanges, all of which helped me to see what my book was really about
and to revise it accordingly.
Over the long course of this book project—­which has seen, among other
things, multiple lengthy trips to India, the awarding of a doctoral degree, my
marriage, an anxious multiyear search for a tenure-­track position, and the
birth of my two daughters—­the loving support and encouragement of my par-
ents, Paul and Betsy, and my sister, Susan, have been unwavering and utterly
necessary. Perhaps inevitably, mental and emotional stresses, doubts, and logis-
tical challenges littered the path to this book’s completion. More than anyone
else, my wife, Michelle, saw the darkest, most difficult moments of this process
and carried me through them with the warmth of her love, the strength of her
support, and the unfailing steadiness of her faith in me. Michelle, there is no
way to properly thank you for the way you’ve been my rock through it all or for
the many sacrifices you’ve made in order for this book to see the light of day, but
as a small token of my appreciation I dedicate this book to you. My dear Ella and
Cate—­how could I possibly leave you out? You and your mom are the light of my
life and bring me a joy deeper, warmer, and sweeter than any I’ve ever known.
I dedicate this book to one other as well: John Stratton Hawley. A better
mentor and model I could not possibly imagine. In teaching me, connecting
me with other scholars, providing me with pages upon pages of fastidious and
 Acknowledgments = xiii

insightful comments on my written work, and constantly offering his time to

respond to emails or meet personally, he has set an impossibly high standard
for mentorship. I’ve saved you for last, Jack, because I think this book owes
more to you than to anyone else. My guru and my friend, at every single stage
of this project you have been there, offering an inestimable measure of emo-
tional support, critical scholarly feedback and appraisal, and sincere encour-
agement and advice without which this book would certainly never have been
possible. I am ever grateful.
 Notes on Transliteration and Translation

F
ollowing the standard system for transliterating the Devanāgarī sylla-
bary into the Roman alphabet, I have chosen to use diacritics for San-
skrit and Hindi titles, personal names, and key terms; however, I have
generally not done so for location names (e.g., Vrindavan and Galta instead of
Vṛndāvan and Galtā), language names (e.g., Brajbhasha and Hindavi instead of
Brajbhāṣā and Hindavī), or certain familiar (in scholarly usage) Arabic and
Persian names and titles (e.g., Shattari, Babur, and Timur instead of Shaṭṭārī,
Bābur, and Tīmūr). In general, I have dispensed with diacritics for foreign terms
that are well established in English (e.g., brahman, Sufi, sultan) and for the
names of modern South Asian authors.
When translating and discussing primary source materials, I have elected
to insert the original text, in transliteration, in the main body only for pri-
mary source material that has never before been translated.
 A
Genealogy
of
Devotion
 Introduction

Tantra, Yoga, and Sufism in

the Historiography of Bhakti

A
defining feature of the Hindu religious world in early modern1 North
India was the emergence and rapid expansion of a diverse set of new
devotional (bhakti) communities united by their focus on an all-­
immersing love for and an unmediated personal relationship with the Divine.
This book seeks to understand the phenomenal rise of this bhakti religiosity in
North India, circa 1450–­1750. What about this bhakti was new and why was it so
successful at this particular time? How did early modern devotional communi-
ties define bhakti and themselves in relation to other religious approaches and
communities? To answer these questions, this book explores bhakti’s crucial and
historically shifting relationships with tantra, yoga, and asceticism over the
course of many centuries. Sultanate and Mughal India is the primary context
for this study, and thus the important role of Islam—­more specifically, Sufism—­in
the development of bhakti is also at the heart of this book. As I show, bhakti’s
multifaceted relationships with tantra, yoga, and Sufism are critical for an
understanding of historical events and processes in the religious landscape of
early modern North India.
Since the early twentieth century, the history of bhakti has generally been
told in terms of “the bhakti movement.” As typically conceived, the bhakti move-
ment was “a transformatory avalanche in terms of emotional devotion and
social reform” that began in Tamil South India between the sixth and ninth cen-
turies with the Śaiva Nāyanārs and Vaiṣṇava Ālvārs and gradually swept its
way across the subcontinent as a single, coherent movement.2 As A. K. Ramanu-
jan once put it, “Like a lit fuse, the passion of bhakti seems to spread from
region to region, from century to century, quickening the religious impulse.”3
 2 9 Introduction

Appealing as they may be, such conceptions and their attendant metaphors (e.g.,
the passion of bhakti spreading like a lit fuse) have limited the historiography of
bhakti by (1) conceiving bhakti almost exclusively in terms of emotion and affect,
inattentive to its other varying community-­ and period-­specific meanings, and
(2) obscuring the actual means (discourses, embodied practices, institutions) by
which—­and the specific historical and regional contexts in which—­bhakti, as a
lived mode of religiosity, spread.
John Stratton Hawley, in A Storm of Songs (2015b), has brilliantly traced the
complex history of the idea of the bhakti movement, the notion that between
600 and 1600 a vernacular, grassroots, socially inclusive, emotional bhakti con-
nected and enlivened the culture of the entire Indian subcontinent, originat-
ing in the Tamil south, then making its way northward into Karnataka and
Andhra, next traveling to Maharashtra and Gujarat, and finally entering into
North India and Bengal.4 The recent (early twentieth-­century) term “bhakti
movement” (bhakti āndolan) and the (considerably older) narratives tied to it are
often central in popular understandings and nationalist tropes of Indian reli-
gious history; however, they are actually quite misleading in positing an illu-
sory historical continuity and coherence to the development of bhakti, while
glossing over significant qualitative differences in the form and style of bhakti
practiced in various regions and at different points in Indian history.5 We would
be better served to imagine that at different times, each of the various regions
of India had its own distinctive, multivocal bhakti movement shaped by region-
ally and historically specific social, political, and cultural factors.6
In the following pages, I refer to specifically early modern North India’s bhakti
movement using this convenient but imperfect term to denote the historical fact
that, beginning especially in the sixteenth century, a variety of bhakti commu-
nities emerged and rose to prominence in North India, different from and
competing with one another but sharing at least the following four key fea-
tures. First and foremost, these communities were united by a distinctive focus
on personal devotion to the Divine, as opposed to other traditional pillars of
Indic religiosity such as knowledge, ritual, or the practice of yoga or asceti-
cism. This devotion took place in the context of an intimate, loving relation-
ship with the Divine in which caste, class, or gender typically were said to have
no place. This was a bhakti that found its most characteristic expression in
(a) the context of spiritual fellowship (satsaṅg) with other devotees (bhaktas),
(b) the medium of song, (c) the idiom of passionate love (śṛṅgāra/mādhurya) or
painful separation (viraha), and (d) the remembrance—­in meditation, recitation,
chant, and song—­of the name(s) of God. Second, these new devotional commu-
nities of Mughal India7 were alike in their production and performance of devo-
tional works, composed in vernacular languages, remembering the deeds of
 Introduction = 3

God (especially Kṛṣṇa and Rām) and exemplary bhaktas. Third, important in all
these communities was the performance and collection of songs attributed to
renowned bhakti poet-­saints like Kabīr, Raidās, and Sūrdās. Finally, despite
their many differences, the vast majority of bhakti authors and sectarian com-
munities in early modern North India came together in articulating a devo-
tional sensibility distinct from—­a nd often explicitly positioned in opposition
to—­certain tantric paradigms of religiosity. It is this last point about the rela-
tionship of bhakti to tantric religion to which scholars have drawn all too little
attention and that I therefore intend to highlight in what follows.
The religious landscape of early modern North India saw the rise of a “vul-
gate Vaiṣṇava” devotional tradition among Hindus at both the elite and pop-
ular levels.8 This was a catholic Vaiṣṇava religiosity that included yet extended
well beyond those affiliated with a Vaiṣṇava sampradāy (sect) and those whose
worship focused on one of the forms of Viṣṇu. Thus, whether as initiated
Vaiṣṇavas, worshippers of Rām or Kṛṣṇa with no clear institutional affiliation,
or devotees of a God conceived as being without form or attributes, Indians from
all social strata in Mughal India increasingly came to take on and participate
in a loosely Vaiṣṇava sensibility, a shared set of bhakti values articulated in a
Vaiṣṇava idiom utilizing the imagery, themes, myths, and names of Rām and
Kṛṣṇa.
Importantly, the rise of this vulgate Vaiṣṇavism was a phenomenon that often
occurred at the expense of tantric Śaiva and Śākta religion. In the new social and
political context that facilitated this change, an increasing number of Indians
were starting to conceive of (Vaiṣṇava) bhakti as a type of religiosity distinct from
and superior to (Śaiva-­Śākta) tantric religious forms. The religious literature of
this period brings to light a noticeable tension between, on the one hand, bhakti’s
shared ethical, emotional, and aesthetic orientation, and, on the other, the atti-
tudes and values of tantric yogīs and ascetics. Especially in devotional poetry and
hagiography, the bhakti approach of self-­surrendering, loving devotion to God is
regularly positioned in opposition to depictions of the self-­asserting, power-­
focused perspective of tantric religiosity. These representations were often cari-
catured, but they carried persuasive force nonetheless. A new and distinc-
tive bhakti sensibility was emerging among many Hindus in early modern
North India, an outlook and disposition formed in contradistinction to several
other religious modes but, perhaps most importantly, defined against the “other”
of the tāntrika. Importantly, this bhakti sensibility had distinctive Sufi “inflec-
tions.” The great rise of bhakti communities in Mughal India, then, was closely
intertwined with the growth of a new and Sufi-­inflected bhakti sensibility, itself
largely dependent upon the stigmatization and subordination of key aspects of
tantric religiosity.
 4 9 Introduction

Rāmānandīs and Nāths

In order to explore the development of bhakti sensibilities and communities in

early modern North India, I focus on the Rāmānandī sampradāy at Galta in east-
ern Rajasthan. This Vaiṣṇava monastic community was pivotal in articulating
and propagating a catholic vision of bhakti that would, in many ways, come
to serve as a foundation for mainstream modern-­d ay Hinduism. The early
Rāmānandīs at Galta were an incredibly diverse array of practitioners, and a
study of them offers important insights into how a new bhakti sensibility
emerged out of the interwoven threads of devotion, yoga, tantra, and asceticism.
As the Rāmānandī community demonstrates, yoga and asceticism remained
important dimensions of the devotional life for many in the sixteenth century,
but a number of bhaktas at this time began to conceive their religious approach
as quite different from the tantric asceticism and magic represented most strik-
ingly and pervasively by the Nāth yogīs. The Nāths were an amorphous confed-
eration of tantric yogīs united by their roots in the Śaiva (Kaula) and Siddha
traditions and by a perspective oriented toward the attainment of siddhis
(magical abilities), worldly power, and bodily immortality. In much early mod-
ern bhakti literature, the Nāth yogī is the “tantric other” par excellence, a foil
against whom bhakti values and teachings are highlighted and defined. In fact,
however, the Nāth yogīs had quite a bit in common with devotee-­ascetics like the
Rāmānandīs. They were fellow participants and competitors in a common cul-
ture of charismatic asceticism and represented themselves (in part, at least) in
shared idioms of vernacular sainthood.
In examining bhakti portrayals of yogīs and tāntrikas, it is important to take
up Jon Keune’s admonition that we distinguish between “discursive others” and
“historical others” in bhakti sources.9 Bhakti authors often used alterity as a
teaching device, a pedagogical tool for effectively conveying particular devo-
tional messages, and we must not assume that their representations (of yogīs,
Śāktas, etc.) necessarily offer reliable historical information about those “oth-
ers.”10 Attending to the exaggerated, stereotyped “pedagogical otherness” of
Nāth yogīs in bhakti texts will prevent us from misunderstanding the historical
realities of Nāth religiosity, but it will also help us to see how bhakti authors (and
presumably to some extent their audiences) perceived themselves and their reli-
giosity as being meaningfully different from tantric yogīs like the Nāths and
their religiosity. In exploring how devotional communities like the Rāmānandīs
differed from and criticized the Nāths, yet also shared much in common with
them, I show how broad social, political, and cultural changes in early modern
North India manifested themselves in the religious landscape, particularly in
terms of shifts in the perceptions, representations, and social positions of bhakti
 Introduction = 5

and tantra. By comparing and contrasting the Nāth yogīs and the Rāmānandī
bhaktas, this study seeks to bridge important gaps that separate the study of
Bhakti, Tantra, and Yoga in the field of South Asian religious studies, interro-
gating the crucial historical relationships that weave together these seemingly
different genres of religiosity.11

Approaches to Bhakti in South Asian Studies

Bhakti is most often translated as “devotion,” a word with a wide range of con-
notations, many of them Protestant Christian. If bhakti has, on the one hand,
been vaguely characterized as a mode of personal devotion, on the other hand
it has often (rather problematically) been described as a social movement seek-
ing egalitarian social change while protesting empty and excessive ritual, blind
adherence to orthodoxy, and caste discrimination.12 In either case, scholarly cat-
egorizations of bhakti almost always invoke a distinction between nirguṇ and
saguṇ modes and traditions of bhakti. The term nirguṇ refers to the concept of a
Divine without (nir) attributes (guṇ) or form, ultimately inconceivable, and acces-
sible mainly through an individual’s cultivation of purified perception and
inner experience, whereas the term saguṇ denotes the notion of a Divine in form
and with (sa) attributes (guṇ), accessible within the realm of sensory experi-
ence.13 As Krishna Sharma has pointed out, our modern-­d ay conceptions of
bhakti as “devotion,” whether nirguṇ or saguṇ, are heavily influenced—­a nd
distorted—­by the Protestant Christian disposition of the Orientalist scholars
(European Indologists, British colonial officials, etc.) who described bhakti as a
type of Hindu religion.14
In recent years, a number of scholars have sought to counter this bias and to
expand our conceptions of bhakti in several different ways. In the view of Karen
Pechilis, “Academic discussions of bhakti that focus on the image of God, includ-
ing monotheism and nirguṇa and saguṇa, and those that focus on social move-
ments, including reform, revolution, and revival, tend to obstruct scholarly
recognition of the pattern of concern with embodiment common to bhakti’s
proponents and interpreters.”15 Pechilis’s scholarship presents bhakti as a his-
tory of active, embodied devotional engagements, an approach complemented
by the work of Barbara Holdrege, who also emphasizes the crucial place of
embodiment in bhakti traditions, both in their lived devotional practices and
their proliferating constructions of divine embodiment (in which an abstract,
translocal Divine takes localized, particular, material—­even corporeal—­forms).
Holdrege highlights “the oral-­aural and performative dimensions of devotional
 6 9 Introduction

practices,” stressing that the core practices of bhakti “are embodied practices—­
practices through which the bodies of bhaktas engage the embodied forms of
the deity.”16
Christian Novetzke has also pushed for a reconceptualization of bhakti but
takes a different approach, emphasizing the intrinsic sociality of bhakti. Novetzke
argues that the category of bhakti should be understood neither as a social move-
ment nor as a kind of personal devotion “but, rather, as an ongoing effort to
construct publics of belief, maintained through intricate systems of memory.”17
He states that “all manifestations of bhakti are performances” that take part in
and help to form “publics of reception,”18 social entities created through the
reflexive circulation of bhakti discourse among diverse individuals and made
coherent by “the metaphorical sharing of a common object, the object of devo-
tional fervor.”19 Seeking a middle path between the extremes of bhakti as per-
sonal devotion and as a social movement, Novetzke argues that “bhakti connects
the personal and the social, linking an individual to a shared social moral order
(dharma).”20 While the individual is “the essential node of creation and trans-
mission,” bhakti only really manifests itself when “ideas, materials, and memo-
ries circulate among individuals” and thereby form publics of reception.21 Here
bhakti is conceived as inherently social; it is a shared flow of sentiment and mem-
ory circulating between poet-­performer, audience, and God that generates an
interactive devotional community or public. Along similar lines, John Stratton
Hawley has remarked that, at the level of the individual, when it comes to bhakti,
“What matters is the heartfelt, intrinsically social sense of connectedness that
emerges in the worshipper.”22 Hawley conceives of bhakti as a far-­reaching
network—­or, really, “a complex network of networks”—­connecting people and
places across regional, linguistic, and social boundaries through shared narra-
tives, poetic genres and forms, and tropes (e.g., humility, love in separation, etc.).
Looking out upon the vast history of bhakti traditions, he sees a “crazy quilt” of
overlapping memories and multidirectional exchanges between different
regions and social classes, a common, musical “bhakti grid” along which poems,
poets, stories, and motifs circulate, interconnect, and often manifest themselves
at more than one point.23
A central feature of scholarly attempts to conceive bhakti in more accurate
and sophisticated terms—­and to displace Protestant-­biased notions of “devo-
tion to a personal god”—­has been attention to (and emphasis on) the etymol-
ogy of the word bhakti and the crucial associations its root, bhaj-­, has with
notions of “sharing” and “participation.” As Hawley writes, “bhakti means devo-
tion not in the sense of cool, measured veneration, but as active participation:
the word bhakti derives from a Sanskrit root meaning ‘to share.’ ”24 Similarly,
 Introduction = 7

Pechilis has sought to reframe scholarly discussions of bhakti “from its static
definition of ‘devotion’ to a multidimensional characterization of it as ‘devo-
tional participation.’ ”25 She argues that the most fundamental thesis of bhakti
is that an embodied “engagement with (or participation in) God should inform
all of one’s activities” and experiences in life.26 For Pechilis, the agency of the
bhakti poets in their vernacular works is a crucial feature of bhakti religiosity
in general: devotees actively participate in distinctive personal relationships
with the Divine that are colored by their own language, geographical and socio-
historical setting, personal experience, etc., and that involve an emotional
commitment through which “they are making God theirs.”27
While attention to bhakti’s Sanskrit root (and its links to “sharing” and “par-
ticipation”) nuances our understanding of its meaning, John Cort has ques-
tioned too great an emphasis on bhakti’s etymology. As he argues, “We need to
move beyond the standard academic definition of bhakti with its concern for the
derivation of bhakti from notions of sharing and ontological interpenetration. . . . ​
Etymology does not tell us how a concept is understood in its actual usage.”28
Rather, Cort suggests we pay attention to the way diverse South Asian bhaktas—­
Vaiṣṇavas, Śaivas, Śāktas, Sants, Jains, Buddhists, and others—­have understood
bhakti, an approach that reveals it to be “a highly complex, multiform cultural
category.” As he explains, “Bhakti is both something that one does and an atti-
tude that can suffuse all of one’s actions. Bhakti can range from sober respect
and veneration that upholds socioreligious hierarchies and distinctions to fer-
vent emotional enthusiasm that breaks down all such hierarchies and distinc-
tions in a radical soteriological egalitarianism. Bhakti is not one single thing.”29
Relatedly, Kumkum Sangari has remarked, “The ideological diversity and con-
tradictory locations of bhakti are startling,” arguing that bhakti is “a product
and partaker of a changing society,” able to either assist or resist particular
hierarchical, patriarchal, and feudal relations and “can neither be understood
solely in terms of its social content and ideology, nor evaluated separately from
the social practices in which it is implicated.”30 Krishna Sharma has also stressed
how bhakti cannot be understood as a “uniform set of ideas or beliefs” or “a
specific religious mode” with any common ideology, while emphasizing how
scholarship has often falsely opposed bhakti to jñāna (knowledge), when in fact
the two have been closely intertwined through much of Indian religious his-
tory.31 For all these reasons, Jon Keune rightly suggests that in our attempts to
understand Indian history, the term bhakti can obscure more than it reveals,
since modern references to bhakti “tend to be historiographically over-­burdened,
neglectful of how the term was reshaped over time.”32 As Keune remarks, “The
term [bhakti] has taken on a deceptive aura of familiarity, although its precise
 8 9 Introduction

definition is vitally rooted in the contexts in which it is used. These contexts

(inflected by language, tradition, social location, and historical period) differ
significantly from one another and exhibit a wide range of socio-­political
dynamics.”33 Keune, Sangari, Sharma, and Cort remind us of the multiplicity of
bhakti’s lived forms, the diversity of its historical expressions, and thus the cor-
responding caution and care required in deploying the term.
With this in mind, rather than seeking to understand bhakti in terms of cer-
tain intrinsic qualities one may suppose it to possess, I propose to approach
bhakti on the basis of its historically specific relationships with other key con-
cepts, traditions, and institutions in the broader South Asian social and religious
world. In other words, considering bhakti’s varying contextually rooted mean-
ings it may be especially productive to approach the term relationally. To para-
phrase Douglas Renfrew Brooks, whose methodological approach to discussing
tantra somewhat mirrors my own to bhakti, since any general attributes that
would seem to define bhakti are part of larger, context-­specific networks of social
and religious relations in India, we can productively approach bhakti by seek-
ing to understand the “oppositional social, political, and religious relations and
structures” that help constitute it.34 While the field of relationships in which
bhakti is situated at any given historical moment is infinitely complex, I argue
that we can learn much by seeking to understand bhakti in terms of its crucial
but historically shifting relationships with, specifically, tantra and yoga.
The work of the scholars mentioned here—­Hawley, Novetzke, Pechilis, Hold-
rege, Sangari, Sharma, Cort, and Keune, among others—­represents an important
shift in focus that has allowed scholars to highlight networks of interrelation and
community among devotees, dimensions of memory, performance, embodiment,
and emotional involvement in devotional participation, the diversity of forms
and styles bhakti can take in different traditions and social locations, and the role
of region-­specific languages, sacred sites, and saints in the embodied life of devo-
tion, all of which are crucial components of bhakti religiosity not adequately
accounted for in the earlier Orientalist, Protestant-­biased conceptions of bhakti
as devotion to a personal god. This work has undoubtedly been a very positive
development in our understanding of bhakti. Still, conceptions of bhakti have con-
sistently continued to neglect tantric, yogic, and ascetic dimensions of its history
and practice, fostering lines of separation that, historically speaking, simply did
not exist—­at least not before the early modern period—­between bhakti and other
“categories” of Indic religiosity.35 A critical exploration of bhakti’s vital but inad-
equately understood links to and interpenetrations with tantra, yoga, and ascet-
icism is thus at the very heart of this book.
 Introduction = 9

Bhaktas, Ascetics, and Monasteries

Odd as it may seem, to provide a satisfying history of bhakti it is necessary to

reflect on the history of asceticism in India—­more specifically, India’s ascetic
lineages (parampara) and monastic institutions (maṭhas). The close relationship
between bhakti and asceticism has rarely received the scholarly attention it
deserves, in large part because the two are commonly seen as polar opposites.
In the eyes of many scholars and Hindus alike, as John Carman puts it, “When
passionate attachment to the Lord is stressed, bhakti is a striking contrast to
yoga and other ascetic paths to salvation that stress detachment and the over-
coming of all passions, positive as well as negative.”36 Jessica Frazier has also
noted how “the renunciatory, inward-­facing, dispassionate practice of yoga” is
regularly perceived “as a diametrically opposed state to the communal, sense-­
rich, passionate practice of popular bhakti,” yet she points out that in fact “the
dichotomization of yogic dispassion and ascetic lifestyle from theistic devotion
is ill-­g rounded.”37 Along these lines, Timothy Dobe has critiqued the schol-
arly tendency to define bhakti as “inner devotion” or “love” and thus “to pres-
ent bhaktas (devotees) as anything but ascetics,” when in many cases “bhakti cul-
tivates and is cultivated by embodied practices and rigorous, bodily discipline—­in
other words, through asceticism.”38 Contrary to what some would assume,
throughout bhakti’s history, asceticism and ascetics (and relatedly, yoga and
yogīs) have actually been crucial elements in the life of devotion. The paradox
I explore—­provocatively articulated in John Stratton Hawley’s essay “Asceti-
cism Denounced and Embraced” (1983)—­is that, on the one hand, early modern
North Indian bhakti literature regularly disparages renouncers, monastics,
and yogīs while, on the other hand, when we look beyond this rhetoric to
social realities, we find that professional asceticism and monastic institutions
have been and still are important aspects of nearly every North Indian bhakti
tradition.39
This book shows the ways in which, through most of Indian religious history,
asceticism and yoga have been closely intertwined with bhakti, on both the level
of personal practice (i.e., the ascetic qualities of devotional praxis) and the level
of social and institutional interactions (i.e., relations between communities of
devotee-­adherents and monks/yogīs). In the latter respect, I am particularly con-
cerned with the figure of the professional ascetic—­the religious adept (usually
but not necessarily a monk or yogī) who somehow in terms of spiritual commit-
ment and authority sets himself apart from the rest of society. The lay popu-
lace has often looked upon such a figure as an ideal of spiritual achievement and
power. Regardless of the religious tradition or sectarian context, these profes-
sional ascetics were crucial in everyday lay religious life as objects of devotion,
 10 9 Introduction

as service providers (in temple worship, healing, protection, and well beyond),
as spiritual guides and teachers (of doctrine, ethics, religious narratives), and
as recipients (individually or on behalf of their monastic institutions) of gifts
and patronage, in exchange for which they offered spiritual merit, cultural
capital, and the teachings and ritual services alluded to here.
This brings us to the role of the monastery, or maṭha. In order to arrive at a
more sophisticated understanding of the historical relationship between bhakti
and asceticism—­a nd, importantly, also the ways that bhakti communities and
ascetic orders influenced and were influenced by the larger social order and po-
litical economy—­it is imperative we attend to the maṭha. Between the eighth
and twelfth centuries, sectarian ascetic orders rose in prominence and their
monasteries came to dot the landscape of the entire Indian subcontinent. In the
early modern period, the presence and sociopolitical role of maṭhas and their
Sufi counterparts continued to expand. As the work of Indrani Chatterjee,
Tamara Sears, and Valerie Stoker, among others, has highlighted, monastic
teachers and their institutions across traditions—­Buddhist, Śaiva, Vaiṣṇava,
Sufi, Jain—­were central to the political and economic order in premodern India.40
They engaged with and connected political elites and diverse local lay popula-
tions (often acting—­symbolically or practically—­as instruments of the court’s
authority) and served as key nodes in networks of pilgrimage, trade, military
movement, and textual-­ideological transmission. As Chatterjee puts it, “These
teachers and their disciples, students, and adherents constituted a basic unit of
political society in precolonial India.” 41 Whatever their sectarian differences in
ideology and ritual practice, maṭhas across the Indian subcontinent were simi-
larly organized and administered and served similar religious, economic, and
political functions, thus certain shared (translocal, transsectarian) forms of
social organization—­a nd shared idioms of ascetic sainthood and power—­rose
around them, facilitating shared religious worlds.
In the pages that follow, as I trace shifts in the historical relationships
between bhakti, tantra, and yoga I will show the continuity of monasticism as a
South Asian institution—­w ith great social, political, economic, and religious
importance—­over the longue durée, while also attending to important histori-
cal changes by means of which certain powerful monastic lineages and ascetic
orders withered and new ones emerged. These changes were caused by newly
arising popular religious currents, new forms of political organization, an
expanding military labor market, and the shifting socioeconomic positions of
key segments of the lay population. While attending to the significant ways in
which ascetic lineages (Śaiva Siddhāntins, Nāths, Rāmānandīs, etc.) differed in
their religious outlooks and sensibilities, their social makeups, and their levels
of involvement with state power, it is important to notice the crucial ways that
 Introduction = 11

all their monastic institutions shaped popular religious life by producing reli-
gious literature (philosophical, ritual, poetic, and hagiographical works), collect-
ing and transmitting manuscripts, teaching, and facilitating popular devotional
and ritual activities. At the same time, their own sustenance and success were
fundamentally dependent upon—­even parasitic in relation to—­communities of
lay adherents. The Rāmānandī lineage and its maṭha at Galta offer us an opportu-
nity to explore the ways in which, even as bhakti songs critical of yogīs and ascet-
ics circulated throughout early modern North India, monastic institutions were
crucial in the growth of the bhakti public, particularly in their production and
transmission of devotional literature and their relationships with state power.

Bhakti and Tantra

If most scholars have not adequately considered the interrelations of bhakti,

asceticism, yoga, and tantric practice, enduring Protestant biases (regarding
bhakti as “devotion”) are partly to blame, but there is another crucial factor at
play. In the early modern period, bhakti traditions themselves began to conceive
their identity and practice in increasingly exclusive terms, which often opposed
or marginalized dimensions of tantric and yogic religious modes that previously
had regularly interfused with devotional practice. This book explores this piv-
otal historical moment in North India and its impact on modern-­d ay under-
standings of bhakti and tantra.
In the late Sultanate and Mughal periods, a major historical change was tak-
ing place in North India’s religious landscape as a new bhakti sensibility emerged
and came to be shared among a diverse array of bhakti communities. This bhakti
disposition and outlook was formed and performed by devotional poets and
singers whose works often artfully deprecated or co-­opted other modes of Hindu
religiosity, especially aspects of tantra and yoga. We find bhakti compositions
criticizing, marginalizing, and satirizing tantric yogīs—­and tantric or yogic reli-
giosity more broadly—­in manuscript sources from throughout the late six-
teenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries and in places stretching across
northern and central India and into Maharashtra (to the south) and Bengal and
Assam (to the east) as well.
In the following pages, sometimes this “anti-­tantric, anti-­yogī” perspective
will be seen as an implicit element of didactic devotional verses encouraging
their audience to take up a certain ethical and religious life (different from that
espoused in tantric yogī circles), but it will also be revealed as a rather explicit
polemical position articulated by bhakti “insiders” and “ideologues” against
 12 9 Introduction

their opponent competitors. While these anti-­tantric, anti-­yogī perspectives in

bhakti compositions would certainly have had influence on the members of their
bhakti publics, it is not entirely clear to what extent they, or the larger popu-
lace of Mughal India, would have shared the perception of tantric religiosity
found in this bhakti discourse. Nevertheless, as I discuss in the conclusion, the
evidence clearly suggests that, over time, the devotional perspective expressed
in early modern North Indian Hindu bhakti literature significantly influenced
(and continues to color) mainstream attitudes toward “tantra” in modern India.
While tantric notions and practices are actually ubiquitous in India today, they
are seldom identified as “tantric,” since many modern Indians regard “tantra”
as a disreputable sphere of hocus-­pocus trickery or a secretive, sinister realm
of dark power. Widely held (though far from universal) among Indians today,
negative perceptions of “tantra”—­often paired with generally positive under-
standings of bhakti as good, wholesome religion—­a re usually attributed to the
influence of the British and Protestant Christian Orientalist scholars, missionar-
ies, and colonial administrators. Yet as I show, in the early modern bhakti litera-
ture of Mughal North India and its critiques of tantric religiosity we can see an
important precolonial, indigenous basis for such modern Indian religious per-
spectives. While the British certainly exaggerated and added new dimensions to
a particular view of (and distinction between) bhakti and tantra, the origins of
prevalent modern-­day North Indian understandings of these two genres of reli-
giosity lie squarely in the early modern flourishing of North India’s bhakti move-
ment, circa 1500 to 1700—­well before the British had any significant presence.

Persianate Culture, Sufism, and Bhakti

Unorthodox, transgressive ascetics had almost always been marginalized by the

religious mainstream in South Asia (e.g., the skull-­carrying, cremation-­ground-­
frequenting Kāpālika is often mocked in medieval Sanskrit dramas),42 but in
early modern North India we see a far broader critique of tāntrikas, ascetics, and
yogīs of all stripes, one that takes on a new and bhakti-­centered tenor. Why does
this happen at this particular time? And what exactly was new and distinctive
about this early modern North Indian bhakti perspective? These are big ques-
tions that I explore over the course of this work, but at this juncture we can say
that much of the timing of this historical development and much of the nature
of this new devotional sensibility had to do with the increasingly powerful
and pervasive presence of Sufi popular religiosity and Persianate political and
aesthetic traditions in North India after the thirteenth century.
 Introduction = 13

As noted earlier, scholarship on bhakti has all too rarely taken tantric religi-
osity into full consideration, and, until quite recently, it can also be faulted for
its generally inadequate treatment of the role and influence of Islam and Per-
sian culture. Sufism and Persianate literary and political culture were crucial
factors in the rise of bhakti in early modern North India. As I discuss in chap-
ter 2, the Central Asian Turks who took control of vast swaths of northern and
central India in the thirteenth century brought with them the cosmopolitan cul-
ture of “the Persian cosmopolis,” to use Richard Eaton and Phillip Wagoner’s
term, and its moral, aesthetic, and sociopolitical forms and norms.43 The grad-
ual spread of Persianate sensibilities and institutions—­a nd the complex inter-
actions between the Sanskritic and Persian literary-­cultural systems—­have not
often been addressed in historical studies of bhakti, yet it is clear that they were
crucial factors in early modern North India’s bhakti movement. Following Eaton
and Wagoner, this book seeks to move beyond the narrow and inaccurate frame
of “Hindu-­Muslim” encounter to one that sees the Sultanate and Mughal peri-
ods in terms of an often fruitful encounter between Sanskrit and Persian
literary-­political systems or, even more broadly, an interaction of Indic and Per-
sianate cultural traditions. If my focus here is nevertheless on “religion”—­on
bhakti, tantra, yoga, and Sufism—­it is with the understanding that it is ultimately
impossible to separate the “religious” from the intertwined social, political, eth-
ical, and aesthetic aspects of this larger cultural encounter.
One of my key concerns in this book is with the complex relationship of Islam
and specifically Sufism to bhakti in Sultanate and Mughal India. Aditya Behl has
stated that, in representations of bhakti in history, “the greatest gap or silence
is the role of Islam and Islamic religiosity in the formation of the bhakti move-
ment.” 44 Similarly, Vasudha Dalmia and Munis Faruqui have noted that despite
the fact that “the Mughal period can be seen as the golden age of bhakti litera-
ture in the many vernacular traditions of the subcontinent,” in contemporary
scholarship, rarely “are bhakti and Muslim religious formations considered
together, let alone as acting positively upon each other.” 45 Dalmia and Faruqui
blame this lacuna especially upon scholars such as Ramchandra Shukla (1884–­
1941), who, biased in part by “Orientalist scholarship with its mistrust of Islam,”
presented “the emergence of the bhakti movement (in the singular) as a direct
reaction to the alien Muslim presence on the subcontinent and the sense of
despair and inwardness (udasi) that Muslim political dominance occasioned in
Hindus at large.” 46 Entrenched historiographical perspectives such as this have
too long obstructed both popular and scholarly understandings of bhakti. In fact,
there should be no doubt that the rise of bhakti in early modern North India was,
as Behl writes, “an intensely interactive and plural affair, with genealogies that
have to include Islam in an historically complex way.” 47
 14 9 Introduction

Recent work by scholars such as Behl, Francesca Orsini, Tony Stewart, and
Thomas de Bruijn, among others, has highlighted the South Asian Sufi tradi-
tion’s critical interconnections with and influences upon bhakti literature,
performance, and community.48 Drawing on and contributing further to this
scholarship, this book highlights how early modern bhakti discourse resonates
with (and was likely influenced by) Islamic literary and hagiographical tropes
as well as Sufi conceptions regarding the nature of God and the proper rela-
tionship between humans and the Divine. As I show, Indian Sufi hagiographies
and premākhyān (love story) literature display specific religious perspectives
and literary strategies—­even particular metaphors and narrative motifs—­that
bhakti authors adopt in their own writings and that marginalize tantric-­yogic
goals, attitudes, and approaches while exalting the power of selfless love and
humble devotion. It is for these reasons that throughout the book I refer to the
bhakti sensibility of early modern North India as “Sufi inflected.”
Given the incredible diversity in types of Sufis, just what do I mean by “Sufi
­inflected”? Early modern India was home to a vast array of Sufi initiates who
might have been any (or a mix) of the following: establishment Sufis advocat-
ing strict Islamic orthodoxy; antiestablishment Sufi dervishes seeking spiritual
ecstasy; Sufi literati (authors of Sufi mystical or popular literature); militant,
warrior Sufis; wealthy, landowning Sufi political elites; or poor, yoga-­practicing
Sufi ascetics. As Eaton has remarked, “it is simply not possible to generalize
about the Sufis [of India] . . . a​ s any unitary group relating in any single or pre-
dictable way to the society in which they lived. They clearly played a variety of
social roles.” 49 The bhakti sensibility of early modern India that I describe was
inflected most especially by the values of typically sedentary Sufi literati and
their idioms of love and devotion, but certainly also by the perspectives of ascetic
Sufi dervishes, who not infrequently composed literature themselves. I have nei-
ther orthodox (‘ulamā-­associated) Sufis nor warrior Sufis in mind here; rather,
it is the ethical principles, aesthetic understandings, and emotional values of
Sufi literati and contemplative mystics—­particularly (though not exclusively)
those of the Chishti order—­that seem to have inflected expressions of early mod-
ern North Indian bhakti in important ways.
In seeking to illuminate aspects of Sufi and Persianate contributions to North
India’s bhakti movement, I draw attention to a simple but critical fact: the advent
and eventual military-­political dominance of Persianized Turks in North India
was, in important respects, just as disruptive to existing Indian religious and
political paradigms and just as profoundly generative of new forms of Indian
thought and practice as when the British came to dominate India in the late-­
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this book I seek to counter a scholarly
emphasis on British colonial impact that has sometimes led to the occlusion of
 Introduction = 15

important continuities between premodern and modern Indian perspectives,

especially perceptions of bhakti and tantra. Colonialism obviously occasioned
real and important “ruptures” in India, but I wish to shift attention to the
more distant yet equally important historical shifts brought about by the mili-
tary and political conquest of northern and central India by Central Asian
Turks and the subsequent penetration of Persianate cultural forms and Islamic
perspectives. It was largely in response to and productive interaction with this
new Persianate and Islamic presence that many of the unique features of North
India’s bhakti movement emerged.

Theoretical Frames: Bhakti as a Public,

Bhakti as a Sensibility

In analyzing this process—­a set of changes specific to South Asian religious his-
tory—­I also engage three big-­picture intellectual questions of great interest
across the humanities and social sciences. The first of these questions is, What
happens in the encounter of different traditions and cultures? For our specific
purposes, what happens in the encounter between Persianate/Islamicate and
Sanskritic/Indic traditions? My approach here largely follows that of Finbarr
Barry Flood, in that I frame this historical encounter as a multidirectional
exchange, “a complex process of transformation unfolding through extended
contact between cultures.”50 Acknowledging that prior to their encounter, Per-
sianate and Indic cultures were “always already hybrid and in process,” I under-
stand the transculturation process that occurred in Sultanate and Mughal
India as one that took place “both between and within cultural codes, forms,
and practices.”51 While Persianate and Sanskritic cultures resonated in impor-
tant ways, they were fundamentally different. This difference was not constant
or stable but rather a product of ongoing negotiations, a difference we should
conceive of as “dynamic in its emphases, contingent in its expression, and vari-
able in its meaning.”52
This brings us to a second broad question taken up by this book: historically,
how does a social group’s “worldview” change? As I use it here, the term “world-
view” is not meant to denote an intellectual, cognitive frame in the minds of
individuals so much as a way of perceiving and understanding the world that is
embodied in sentiments, habits, physical practices, and social institutions. In
terms of this case study, how and why does the worldview characterizing
medieval India’s Tantric Age—­its religious attitudes, ethical understandings,
and cosmological conceptions—­give way among many social groups to an early
 16 9 Introduction

modern bhakti sensibility in which certain tantric approaches and perspec-

tives, once taken for granted, become increasingly questioned or marginal-
ized? The historical shifts in worldview that this book explores are insepa-
rable from changes in political economy, the growth of new communities, the
rise of new discursive forms, and the emergence of new embodied sensibilities
in Sultanate and Mughal India.
This brings us to a third set of big questions that lie at the heart of this book:
How do communities form and grow? How are ideas transmitted and what are
the limits of their diffusion? How do group sensibilities change? Within the con-
fines of this study, how does a transregional, transsectarian North Indian
bhakti public develop? How do its ideas and values spread and lead to shifts in
identity and sensibility? In order to address these questions and conceptualize
the emergence of a broad bhakti social formation in early modern North India,
I draw upon the work of an array of scholars who have productively theorized
the nature of social groups and the process of community formation, particu-
larly the crucial roles of discourse, aesthetics, emotion, and ethics in forming
social bodies.
Like Christian Novetzke, I find Michael Warner’s notion of “publics” useful
in thinking about bhakti and the kind of expansive, participatory social entity
that emerged in association with it in early modern North India. While Warner
and most other scholars have understood publics as exclusively modern phe-
nomena, Novetzke’s creative and original treatment of bhakti as public demon-
strates the value of applying the concept in the premodern sphere.53 In Warner’s
sense, a public is a social entity that comes into being in relation to discourse
and its circulation; it is different from a crowd, audience, or group in that it is
a community embracing otherwise unrelated people who all participate in the
same discourse at different times and places.54 As Warner states, “Publics do not
exist apart from the discourse that addresses them.”55 The discourse of bhakti
is one of poetry and narrative (about the gods and saints), and in early modern
North India this bhakti discourse—­these devotional poems and stories—­were
performed; they were sung. Put simply, bhakti “discourse” was bhakti song, and
to participate in bhakti discourse—­a nd thus to be a part of the bhakti public—­
was to sing or hear (or, much less often, read) bhakti’s circulating stories and
songs. From the mid-­sixteenth century on in North India an array of more
tightly bounded bhakti sects (sampradāys) and institutions emerged within the
larger embrace of the bhakti public. The distinct bhakti sectarian communities
that proliferated at this time differed from one another in specific doctrines and
practices and competed with each other for support, but all looked outward
toward the larger social sphere of the early modern North Indian bhakti public,
 Introduction = 17

a transregional community of belonging and participation limited only by the

constraints of bhakti’s circulation in performance and text.
Warner posits that a public’s members understand themselves as directly and
actively belonging to a social entity that exists historically and has conscious-
ness of itself. 56 In similar fashion, I argue that the bhaktas of Sultanate and
Mughal India, whatever their sectarian affiliation(s), if any, may not have shared
a common religious identity, or even a uniform social ideology, but did share a
common sensibility and thus, in some sense, understood themselves as actively
belonging to a larger “imagined community” sharing that particular aes-
thetic, emotional, and ethical disposition. Throughout this book, I frame the
history of North India’s bhakti movement as the growth of a transregional,
transsectarian bhakti sensibility. By this, I am suggesting the emergence of an
expansive bhakti public—­a broad, imagined bhakti community—­in early modern
North India that was united by similar aesthetic tastes, a common moral sense,
and shared norms of emotional value and expression.57
Through the movement of manuscripts, itinerant ascetics, traveling singers
and scholars, bhakti’s metrical verses spread across North India, sung and heard
in public settings in which they conveyed and shaped a distinctive bhakti sensi-
bility while fostering a consciousness of belonging to a translocal imagined
bhakti community.58 If the bhakti public of Sultanate and Mughal India was an
“imagined community” of sorts, then, like any imagined community, as Birgit
Meyer has explained, “to become experienced as real,” it had to “materialize in
the concrete lived environment and be felt in the bones” of its members. 59
Through their active participation—­singing and listening—­in the discourse of
bhakti, members of the imagined community that was the bhakti public were able
to experience its reality viscerally, in shared experiences and emotional senti-
ments. As Sara Ahmed has highlighted, sentiments are not private psychologi-
cal states “residing” in people and things; rather, “emotions do things,” they
circulate between people and work to bind individual subjects into a collec-
tive.60 As I demonstrate, the cultivation, celebration, and circulation of partic-
ular emotions was central to the bhakti public of early modern North India. In
this respect, we might characterize the bhakti public as, in some sense, a broad
“emotional community,” a term coined by Barbara Rosenwein to suggest the
existence of a type of social formation “in which people adhere to the same
norms of emotional expression and value—­or devalue—­the same or related
emotions.” 61 Rosenwein explains, “Emotional communities are groups,” which
can be narrowly delineated (e.g., the Rāmānandī sampradāy at Galta) or more
broadly conceived (e.g., the early modern North Indian bhakti public), “that
have their own particular values, modes of feeling, and ways to express those
 18 9 Introduction

feelings.” 62 Similarly, Bruce Lincoln has argued that social entities are “con-
structed from nothing so much as from sentiments.” These sentiments, he
says, “constitute the bonds and borders that we reify” as social groups, and it is
discourse—­in our case, bhakti songs and stories—­that “evokes the sentiments
out of which [such social formations are] actively constructed.” 63 We might say
that the bhakti discourse circulating through early modern North India was
able to forge community so successfully because it appealed more to the heart
than to the head.
The social work of bhakti was accomplished in the cultivation of feeling—­the
transmission of affect—­far more than in the conveying of theology and ideol-
ogy. The bhakti public expanded and generated conviction among its members
not through rational persuasion so much as through affective congruence, not
by “winning minds” but by investing participants in deeper structures of reli-
gious feeling.64 As Ann Pellegrini has written, “the capacity of any particular
religious rhetoric to speak to someone, to reach in and grab hold, is not about
cognitive matching, but affective resonances.” 65 Or, in Donovan Schaefer’s words,
religion “feels before it thinks, believes, or speaks.” 66 While theological lessons
and doctrinal teachings certainly matter in important ways, it is especially
through affect—­feelings and sentiments that exceed our conscious, cognitive
capacities—­that religion ultimately moves people and binds them in collectivi-
ties.67 Throughout this book, I conceive bhakti as a sensibility in order to high-
light this embodied, affective dimension of religious life and community
formation. In doing this, I foreground the emotional, aesthetic, and moral
dimensions of bhakti religiosity and understand them as inextricably interre-
lated aspects of an embodied disposition rather than as merely cognitive or dis-
cursive phenomena.68 To think of bhakti simultaneously as both sensibility and
public is to focus attention on the ways in which bhakti religiosity, as a social phe-
nomenon, grew via the deployment of a repertoire of technologies for the
evocation and transmission of particular affects, and thus the shaping of a
particular embodied emotional, ethical, and aesthetic temperament.
Bhakti poems and stories were able to effectively mediate values and evoke
sentiments, thereby successfully enabling community formation, and a large
part of their efficaciousness in this regard comes from the fact that they were
sung. Bhakti communicated in and through song (kīrtan, bhajan)—­t ypically in
social settings (with active audience participation) and accompanied by music—­
and this gave it great affective power. As Linda Hess has stated, “A song is much
more than its lyrics. A song is sound. A song is a mood, an environment of
emotion—­bhāv in Hindi.” 69 The meaning and emotional experience of a poem
or story change drastically when music is wedded to the words and when the
words are not read but heard—­felt in the body—­a s song. As Tyler Williams
 Introduction = 19

explains, the aesthetic effect of a performed bhakti song or story “could only take
place through sound, and in time. Meter, alliteration, rhythm, rhyme and the
various ‘special effects’ crafted by virtuoso poets . . . ​only worked when the
poems were recited and experienced out loud.”70 The experience of song is an
aesthetic event in which the values and sentiments expressed discursively in
poetry are dislodged from the constraints of language such that they can be
received by the senses in a more visceral fashion. For those participating in the
performance—­the singing—­of the poet’s work, bhakti is imbibed, tasted, and
digested as a fact of the body, not simply the mind.71 Repeated participation in
these social contexts—­with their common aesthetic forms (types and styles of
storytelling, singing, musical performance, etc.), repertoire of consistent bhakti
themes and messages, and references to shared narrative heroes (gods and
saints)—­would no doubt have induced certain “modes, and moods, of feeling
together” and generated an “effervescent sentiment of sharing and taking part
in a larger social ensemble.”72 Here we glimpse bhakti’s pedagogy of affect,
wherein participants—­by singing and hearing bhakti songs and stories—­a re
taught (at a prediscursive level) what bhakti feels like, and what it feels like to
be bhakta-­jana, one of “the people of bhakti.”73 Whether singing along or simply
listening, those who attended the performance of these bhakti compositions
would have been shaped by their participation, their senses and sensibilities
tuned in particular ways, with shared emotions mobilized among them.
The songs and stories of bhakti not only evoked shared emotion and bound
their participants into a collective but also imagined a social world and pro-
moted particular ethical values and virtues. As Warner explains, “All discourse
or performance addressed to a public must characterize the world in which it
attempts to circulate, projecting for that world a concrete and livable shape, and
attempting to realize that world through address.”74 Along these lines, as I see it,
the circulating songs and stories of bhakti elaborated a particular culture and
its embodied way of life, encouraging the further circulation of—­a nd, more
importantly, the realization of—­their outlook and sensibility. Drawing on the the-
oretical work of Charles Hirschkind (elaborated in his research on Islam, piety,
and popular media in modern Egypt), we can say that the bhakti public promoted
the cultivation of certain emotions, modes of expression, and aesthetic tastes,
as well as certain ethical values, and thereby shaped the form of collective life
and culture that its members would endorse and contribute to.75 Through
repeated participation in bhakti song, story, and ritual, a certain pious disposi-
tion—­an emotional and aesthetic sensibility underlying ethical conduct—­would
become sedimented in the character of the bhakta.76 In the historical context of
early modern North India, then, it seems that the circulation of the aural media
of bhakti songs produced a “soundscape” that animated and sustained the
 20 9 Introduction

perceptual habits and embodied (emotional-­aesthetic-­ethical) sensibilities

undergirding the larger bhakti public.77
I touch on these theoretical points throughout the book, but to briefly sum-
marize, in the forthcoming pages I approach the early modern social world of
bhakti in North India in terms of the growth of a bhakti public defined by the
circulation of devotional compositions whose performance communicated and
rendered bhakti ideas and values as a sensibility—­as facts of the body, not just
the mind.78 Bhakti songs and stories evoked shared emotions and thereby gen-
erated an experience of participation in the larger bhakti public, an imagined
community defined by the circulation of its discourse, yes, but also—­a nd just
as importantly—­an emotional and aesthetic community materializing in concrete,
lived environments and felt in the bones of its members. Importantly, the kind
of emotional, aesthetic, and ethical sensibility that characterized Sultanate and
Mughal India’s bhakti public was one that was Sufi inflected and one that, in sig-
nificant part, was formed in contradistinction to the sensibilities of yogīs and
Śāktas.

Methodological Frames: On History,

Categories, and Comparison

From one angle, this book’s central intention is to offer a fine-­grained investi-
gation of the content of early modern bhakti primary sources in order to under-
stand the historical context, causes, and dynamics of the rise of bhakti idioms
and communities in Mughal India. The most fundamental conclusions of this
monograph emerged through the close reading and interpretation of bhakti
primary sources in old dialects of Hindi (especially Brajbhasha, Avadhi, and
“Sant-­bhasha”), many in unpublished manuscripts acquired over the course
of multiple years of archival research in North India. Nevertheless, as these
introductory pages should have made clear, this book attempts more than just
a focused, philologically incisive analysis of early modern bhakti poetry and
hagiography in North India. It is also a sweeping genealogical study of the his-
torical origins of popular Indian conceptions of bhakti and tantra and a tracing
out of bhakti’s changing, but always constitutive, historical relationships with
yoga, tantra, and asceticism. In this respect, I have ventured far from the early
modern period in order to construct a wide-­ranging historical narrative of
South Asian religiosity with Bhakti as its central protagonist, Tantra as some-
thing of a costar, and Yoga and Sufism each also playing key supporting roles.
 Introduction = 21

The historical sweep of the narrative I present is somewhat ambitious. Though

I focus my attention primarily on the period from roughly 1450 to 1700, and on
Hindi-­Brajbhasha sources of North India, I make an argument about major reli-
gious and epistemic changes stretching from medieval India (ca. 600–­1200) to
the present day. It would have been easier to restrict the scope of this project
to a narrower field, but I have deliberately sought to offer a broad-­strokes argu-
ment out of the conviction that such work is necessary—­i ndeed, absolutely
crucial—­to advancing the scholarly conversation. On occasion, all the up-­close
research on “the trees” conducted in our various subfields—­themselves subtly
divided along lines of specialization in particular languages, periods, regions,
methodological approaches, and research topics—­needs to be competently
woven together in order to provide a new and improved picture of “the forest,”
an updated, overarching historical frame within which more narrowly focused
scholarship can be situated. Kathryn Lofton has noted “a diminishment of stud-
ies attempting to explain broad themes in religious history out of a fear that to
do so may violate the granular greatness of any subject’s contradictory expres-
sion.” As she puts it, “We have become so worried that we will contribute to the
bigotry of caricature that we have become lost in pointillist profusions. . . . ​We
have become Borges’s cartographers, who, in their effort to map accurately
the crevice of every mountain, created a map the size of the territory.”79 With
this in mind, several of the major arguments of this book—­e.g., those about the
relationships between bhakti, tantra, and Sufism—­a re meant to speak to broad
themes in India’s religious history. While it is possible that fine-­g rained case
studies of particular devotional, tantric, or Sufi authors or region-­specific com-
munities might complicate the broad picture this book paints, I am confident
that any such work cannot deny the overarching trends and relationships iden-
tified here.
As historians know well, history is not “revealed” or “discovered” so much
as it is constructed in the narratives we compose about it. From a huge, seam-
less, and only partially accessible historical reality, we fabricate manageable
intellectual parts and perceptual frames, categories with which to talk about
and make sense of the past. There are elements of genuine creativity and imag-
ination involved in our crafting of history, particularly in the crucial act of
bringing “coherence to the historical archive by identifying an organizing prin-
ciple or theme.” As Christian Wedemeyer explains, this is an act that “involves
using rhetoric to juxtapose two or more things, with the aim of illuminating
the subject matter through comparison.”80 This book takes up, juxtaposes, and
compares Bhakti, Tantra, Yoga, and Sufism in a variety of ways in order to pres-
ent a historical narrative that self-­consciously slices up and shapes an infinitely
 22 9 Introduction

complex, obscure, and polyvalent historical reality into a story—­incomplete yet

faithful to the historical record.81 The hope is that it brings new coherence to
our understanding of a broad swath of Indian religious history.
Bhakti, “tantra,” and “yoga” are indigenous terms with multiple, historically
changing and contested meanings, but they are also scholarly categories. Con-
ceptual categories like Bhakti, Tantra, and Yoga allow us to wrap our heads
around and make sense of the objects of our scholarly inquiry; they allow us to
impose meaningful distinctions upon what is in actuality “a world of continu-
ous shades of difference and similarity.”82 The categories we use should always
be subject to interrogation and revision, changing as our understanding changes,
but in fact, it is often our categories that mold our understanding rather than
the other way around. We know, on some level, that “map is not territory,” but
still the map very often comes to dictate the terms in which we understand the
territory. In this sense, the conceptual categories that are our most important
tools in the scholarly enterprise of understanding and explaining are also our
most dangerous obstacles.
For anyone trying to understand South Asian history and religion, there is
no question that Bhakti, Tantra, and Yoga are “historiographically over-­
burdened” conceptual terms that can obscure more than they reveal.83 One of
this book’s goals is to challenge dominant scholarly understandings of Bhakti,
Tantra, and Yoga and to show how the currently accepted parameters of these
academic categories (a) marginalize important dimensions of what bhakti, tan-
tra, and yoga have been historically in South Asia and (b) neglect the impor-
tant and changing historical interrelationships between these broad forms of
Indic religiosity. Thus, in the forthcoming pages I assess, problematize, and
nuance scholarly conceptions of Tantra, Bhakti, and Yoga, historicizing and
reconceiving the tāntrika, the bhakta, and the yogī. In reality, these religious
forms and figures are not entirely discrete, existing on a spectrum in which they
may be far apart or may merge into one another completely. Upon this world of
continuous shades here I postulate—­and then methodically manipulate—­a clear
difference between them. In the words of Jonathan Z. Smith, I am “playing across
the ‘gap’ in the service of some useful end.”84 In the end, as Peter Gottschalk has
astutely observed, “the comparative methods we choose and the categorical
reflexes that we discipline in ourselves determine what interpretations appear
possible.”85 This book confirms that by adopting new comparisons—­by reflecting
upon, juxtaposing, and comparing familiar categories in unfamiliar ways—­
new and enlightening interpretations of South Asian history and religion
become possible.
 Introduction = 23

Plan of the Work

This book is divided into three parts. Part 1 (chapters 1–­3) presents an overarch-
ing historical narrative of Indian religiosity from the early medieval age to the
Mughal period, with an aim to provide the necessary historical background and
context for understanding the rise of bhakti in early modern North India and
the significance of that event. In order to see the full picture, in chapter 1 I look
back to the medieval period in South Asia, when tantric religiosity was a main-
stream tradition pervasive in public culture. As I describe the distinctive fea-
tures, historical development, and sociology of tantric religiosity, I also explore
its relationship with bhakti. In particular, I show how tantric monastic orders
and their institutions became key players in an early medieval religiopolitical
economy linking lay bhaktas, tantric yogīs, and kings in exchanges of economic,
political, and spiritual capital. In the process readers will also learn how, dur-
ing this period, bhakti was regularly subordinated or assimilated to tantric
ritual or yogic values and practices.
In chapter 2, I explore the ways in which the spread of Sufism and cosmo-
politan Persianate culture during North India’s Sultanate period paved the way
for the explosive growth of bhakti in early modern North India. In particular, I
examine a series of interrelated historical developments in Sultanate India that
proved crucial to the emergence of North India’s bhakti movement: the decline
of tantra as a mainstream, institutionally based religiopolitical tradition; the
spread of Persian cosmopolitan authority and the growth of a new shared Indo-­
Persian culture; the expansion of popular Sufism; and, relatedly, the emergence
of a transreligious North Indian culture of charismatic asceticism and vernacu-
lar literary composition and performance. In the concluding sections of the
chapter, I describe the new transregional, transsectarian bhakti public that
was emerging in the later Sultanate period, the performative world in which
its bhakti discourse circulated, and the distinctive ethical, aesthetic, and emo-
tional sensibility cultivated within it. As will be seen, this bhakti sensibility res-
onated in remarkable ways with that of Sufism.
In chapter 3, I sketch out the historical context of Mughal India in which
bhakti institutions and literature came to flourish. I focus especially on Akbar
and the dynastic ideology, multicultural projects, religious policies, political alli-
ances, and administrative structures developed during his rule, examining
how the sociopolitical environment of Akbar’s empire facilitated the success-
ful growth of Vaiṣṇava bhakti traditions. As I illustrate, under Mughal rule North
India witnessed a broad shift in which rulers increasingly allied themselves with
Vaiṣṇava bhakti communities and their institutional forms and symbols while
 24 9 Introduction

moving away from those of tantric Śaivism and Śāktism. Through an exami-
nation of the Kacchvāhā rulers of Amer in Rajasthan and the ways they pro-
vided other Rajput courts with a bhakti-­centered model for political success,
I show how new forms of courtliness and statehood initiated under the Mughal
emperor Akbar were linked to the emergence of bhakti communities and
bhakti literature.
In part 2 of the book (chapters 4–­6), I move from broader historical consid-
erations to a more focused study of the Rāmānandī bhakti community of early
modern North India based on close analysis of manuscripts and other (never-­
before-­t ranslated) primary source documents. In chapter 4, the discussion
focuses on the early Rāmānandī devotional community at Galta in the sixteenth
and early seventeenth centuries. Examining the remembered lives of Kṛṣṇadās
Payahārī—­the founder of the community at Galta—­a nd his two primary disci-
ples, Kīlhadev and Agradās, provides insight into several key dimensions of
bhakti and the bhakti movement in early modern North India. In analyzing the
Galta Rāmānandīs, I demonstrate that the religiosity of the bhakta often had
more elements of asceticism, tantra, and yoga than has ordinarily been sup-
posed, while at the same time showing how a new understanding of bhakti was
emerging in early modern North India and these once rather tightly interwo-
ven threads of religious practice were beginning to unravel into increasingly
distinct strands of religious sensibility. As will become clear, the case of the early
Rāmānandī bhaktas suggests the need for revisions to widespread conceptions
of the scholarly category of Bhakti.
In chapter 5, I compare and contrast the yogic-­a scetic stream of the
Rāmānandīs with the tantric Nāth yogīs in order to explore the ways in which
the distinctive bhakti religious sensibility that was emerging in early modern
North India was coming into tension and conflict with certain aspects of the
tantric tradition. How were tantric Nāth ascetics and yoga-­practicing Rāmānandī
bhaktas similar and how were they different? To answer this question, I delve
into the history of yoga, questioning and refining the category of “the yogī”
itself. In contrast to many scholarly claims, the yogic practice of the Nāths was
considerably different from that of the Rāmānandīs and was an expression of
their tantric Kaula and siddha heritage. As reflected in the Rāmānandīs’ and
Nāths’ respective attitudes toward supernormal powers (siddhis) in yogic prac-
tice, the early modern period in North India witnessed a widening gap between
devotional and tantric conceptions of and approaches to the Divine. Indeed, at
this time we see the emergence of a new bhakti sensibility constructed against
the foil of attitudes and practices associated with the tantric yogī.
In chapter 6, I examine the formation of early modern bhakti sensibilities and
communities through a case study of the life and compositions of a particular
 Introduction = 25

Rāmānandī figure, Agradās, the great—­but little studied—­sixteenth-­century

poet-­devotee and founder of the Rām-­rasik tradition. Using never-­before-­
discussed manuscripts collected in the archives of North India, I demonstrate
that the writings of Agradās teach us much about how bhakti communities in
Mughal India went about defining their identities and competing with others
for patronage, prestige, and power. Agradās inaugurated a vernacular literary
project within the Rāmānandī community whose goals were to praise the deeds
of great devotee saints and spread the saving message of bhakti in a manner that
would simultaneously attract the respect of brahmanical orthodoxy, the rec-
ognition and financial support of elites, and the allegiance of devotee followers
of even the lowest social classes. An entrepreneur in Mughal India’s religious
marketplace, his literary project strategically bolstered the position of the
Rāmānandīs while simultaneously expanding the circulation of a transsectar-
ian, transregional bhakti aesthetic, emotional, and ethical sensibility.
In part 3 (chapters 7–­8), I pan out from the Rāmānandīs in order to conduct
a broader investigation of early modern North Indian devotional poetry and
hagiography. These two chapters demonstrate most clearly how developing
bhakti sensibilities contrasted with and opposed tantric, yogic, and ascetic reli-
gious approaches, and the ways in which these bhakti sensibilities were Sufi
inflected. In chapter 7, I survey and analyze references to Nāths, Śāktas, yogīs,
yoga, tantra, and mantra scattered throughout the poetry of major bhakti
saints. Discussing poet-­saints who cover the spectrum in terms of sectarian
affiliation, theological outlook, caste background, and geographical location, I
show how a diverse array of bhaktas typically came together as one in position-
ing themselves against the “twofold tantric other” of the yogī and Śākta. In
looking at the ways in which bhaktas contrasted themselves with tantric yogīs
and Śāktas, we will achieve a better grasp of exactly what bhakti meant to dev-
otees in early modern North India and how it was perceived as different from
other modes of religiosity.
In chapter 8, I explore the Sufi inflection of the early modern North Indian
bhakti by engaging in a comparative analysis of Sufi and bhakti literatures. I begin
by examining the presence of the tantric yogī in the Sufi premākhyāns and in the
poetry attributed to Mīrābāī and Sūrdās, wherein yoga is subsumed by devo-
tion and the yogī subtly co-­opted into the service of a message about the power
of passionate love for God. I then turn to a consideration of miracle stories—­
especially involving spiritual competitions with yogīs—­in Sufi and bhakti hagi-
ographies, where we see the articulation of a shared conception of God and
appropriate religious behavior, one formed in clear contradistinction to tant-
ric and yogic-­ascetic religious modes. In this penultimate chapter, I suggest
important potential avenues of Sufi influence on North India’s bhakti movement
 26 9 Introduction

while adding further evidence for how the formation of devotional sensibilities
in early modern North India relied in part on the stigmatization of tantric and
yogic religious approaches.
In the final chapter, I suggest that widespread modern Indian conceptions
of Bhakti and Tantra are not simply the products of British colonial influence
and imported Protestant-­biased Orientalist understandings; rather, they
have important continuities with the attitudes and values expressed in the
compositions of early modern bhakti authors, themselves influenced impor-
tantly by Persianate literary and political culture and a Sufi-­i nflected reli-
gious environment.
 1
The Tantric Age

Tantra and Bhakti in Medieval India

I
n order to understand the rise of bhakti in early modern North India and
its historical significance, we must first look back to India’s early medieval
period (ca. 600–­1200), a time we can characterize as “the Tantric Age.”1
From roughly the seventh to the thirteenth century, the thought, ritual prac-
tice, and institutional presence of tantric traditions played a major role in the
life of South Asians. As Gavin Flood remarks, “The cultural, religious and po-
litical history of India in the medieval period cannot be understood without Tan-
tra.”2 Critically, however, tantra’s rise to prominence was inseparable from the
growth of popular traditions of devotion, or bhakti, with which tantra forged
symbiotic relationships. In this chapter, I examine the tantric tradition in early
medieval India—­particularly its relationships with state power and popular
forms of devotional religiosity—­in order to set the stage for the book’s consid-
eration of the relationships between bhakti, tantra, and yoga that emerged in
late Sultanate and Mughal India. Tantra first arose as an esoteric tradition for
initiated elites seeking liberation (mokṣa) or extraordinary powers (siddhi), but
it later became deeply involved with royal power and with India’s public tem-
ple cult (and the political and agrarian expansion linked to it), making tantric
ritual, institutions, and ideals of sacred power—­epitomized in the figure of the
tantric yogī/guru—­a fundamental part of mainstream Indian social, religious,
and political life.
Scholars have often emphasized the esoteric and fundamentally transgres-
sive nature of tantra, yet transgression was quite marginal to the “mainstream”
tantric tradition I focus on here. This mainstream tantra was simultaneously
both esoteric and popular, brahmanical and folk. This chapter demonstrates how
 30 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

tantric monastic orders and their institutions became integral players in an

early medieval religiopolitical economy that linked lay bhaktas, tantric yogīs, and
kings in exchanges of economic, sociopolitical, moral, and spiritual capital. In
the process it reveals how, in sharp contrast to the bhakti of early modern North
India, bhakti in this period is regularly subordinated or assimilated to tantric
ritual or yogic values and practices ( jñāna, dhyāna, etc.).

What Is Tantra?

The tantric traditions rest on the foundation of a vast body of tantric scriptures,
primarily termed Tantras, Āgamas, and Saṃhitās, that were composed in
Sanskrit between the fifth and ninth centuries—­i n Śaiva, Vaiṣṇava, Saura,
Buddhist, and Jain contexts—­as well as on a number of other important (usu-
ally more exegetical) tantric works that were produced into the thirteenth
century. 3 As several tantric studies scholars have made clear, these three
designations—­Tantra, Āgama, and Saṃhitā—­were synonymous and interchange-
able terms for tantric scriptural revelation, thus in the pages to come I follow
common practice in using the term “Tantras” to refer to the tantric scriptures in
general.4 In the earliest phase of the tradition, the Tantras were concerned pri-
marily with the various ritual techniques used in the initiated practitioner’s indi-
vidual quest for spiritual liberation or occult powers. Certain branches of early
tantric scripture (e.g., the Bhūta Tantras and Gāruḍa Tantras) also concern them-
selves with protection against and treatment of demonic possession, poison, dis-
ease, and other dangers or misfortunes related to the health and livelihood of
individuals and communities. In the later, post–­eleventh century development
of the tradition in South India, many tantric scriptures came to focus on aspects
of public religious and political life, such as the building of temples, consecra-
tion of kings, and conducting of public rites of worship.
The earliest extant tantric Śaiva scripture that we know of is the
Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā, the oldest sections of which were composed probably
between 450 and 550.5 The text’s central innovation is the teaching that libera-
tion (mokṣa) can be gained through tantric initiation (dīkṣā) itself. In this early
scripture we can already see the core features that would come to characterize
tantra more generally—­namely, (a) tantric initiation (a liberating initiation,
given by an enlightened guru and available to householders and all castes);
(b) the ritual divinization of the body (i.e., the “consubstantiation” of the practi-
tioner with the deity “in a transforming infusion of divine power”);6 (c) the use
 The Tantric Age = 31

of tantric mantras; and (d) a conception of the Divine as immanent, accessible

power that can be employed for bhukti or mukti.
The Tantras claim to be supremely authoritative teachings descended straight
from the mouth of the gods. Medieval Hindu tantric communities typically rec-
ognized the Vedas as a legitimate but lower echelon of scriptural revelation
that the Tantras include and transcend.7 In order to access the “higher” truths
and practice the “more powerful” ritual methods taught in the Tantras, one first
had to be initiated. Initiation into tantric teachings had great appeal because
they offered new ritual techniques and potent tantric (non-­Vedic) mantras that
were understood to be more efficacious in—­and, indeed, entirely necessary for—­
achieving the goals of spiritual salvation (mukti) or extraordinary powers and
enjoyments (siddhi/bhukti). Certain initiatory forms of Śaivism preexisted tan-
tra, but these Atimārga Śaiva traditions focused exclusively on the goal of lib-
eration, demanded renunciation from initiates, and typically admitted only
brahman males. Tantric traditions opened up initiation to all caste classes, and
even women, and did not require the renunciation of family life and traditional
social obligations.8 Hindu tantric traditions typically claimed that their major
initiation ritual was unique in itself effecting salvation. In this tantric initia-
tion rite, the guru uses the power of non-­Vedic mantras to destroy the previ-
ous karma of the initiate, purifying his soul of all impurities and stains (mala)
and allowing him to identify with God and realize the power of the Divine. As
Elaine Fisher explains, “The implications of this assertion—­that a mere ritual,
in and of itself, possesses the means to sever the bonds that tie the individual
soul to transmigratory existence—­radically recast the sociological implications
of elite Indic religion.”9 In offering this ritual initiation to a wide array of social
groups (i.e., not just brahmans and renouncers), tantric Śaivism “effectively cir-
cumvented the strictures of varṇāśramadharma, providing both kings and
Śūdras with access to liberation.”10
The Śaiva Āgamas came to articulate four basic classes of tantric initiates:
(1) the samayin, or entry-­level community member; (2) the putraka, who has
received the primary, liberating initiation (nirvāṇa-­dīkṣā) and whose only goal
is liberation; (3) the sādhaka, who is authorized to practice a special discipline
in order to acquire extraordinary powers (siddhis) and heavenly enjoyments; and
(4) the ācārya, or guru, a community leader granted the privilege and power to
give initiations, perform temple worship (pūjā) and installations (pratiṣṭhās), and
comment on tantric scriptures.11 In tantra, the guru is a spiritually realized
adept in and through whom the Divine acts (i.e., who is the vessel of, or even
nondifferent from, God) and who—­in a direct relationship with his disciples—­
transmits the knowledge necessary to conduct tantric ritual.
 32 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

In most tantric systems, regular ritual action is required to maintain the

purity and power attained in the main tantric initiation (nirvāṇa-­dīkṣā) and to
thereby ensure liberation. The daily ritual worship (pūjā) of the tantric initiate
involves the systematic use of mantras and intricate visualization meditations
to purify and empower a subtle body understood to have homological connec-
tions to the rest of the entire cosmos and to be, at its core, inherently divine—­i.e.,
suffused with the same energy and pure consciousness as the Divine. Tantric
ritual most differentiated itself from mundane brahmanical Śrauta and
Smārta rites in offering a method for divinizing the body and infusing one-
self with divine power through consubstantiation with a deity.12 As Alexis
Sanderson has pointed out, this method is remarkably uniform across tantric
traditions, as all forms of tantric religion share a single ritual system whose
deeper structural unity is not significantly affected by differences such as
the choice of deity invoked and the character of the visualizations, mantras,
and maṇḍalas used.13 The general ritual structure found in the practice of all
tantric traditions consists of (a) the purification (bathing) of the external,
physical body (snāna), then (b) purification of the cosmic elements within
the subtle body (bhūtaśuddhi or dehaśuddhi), followed by (c) the divinization
of the body by placing mantras upon it (nyāsa), then (d) internal worship of
the deity (antara/mānasa-­yāga) utilizing only visualization and the power of the
mind/imagination, and, finally, (e) external worship (bahya-­yāga) of the deity
with ordinary devotional offerings such as fruit, flowers, incense, and bells.
As Gavin Flood has remarked, the notion “that to worship a god one must
become a god is a notable feature of all tantric traditions.” More specifically,
he has stressed that “the ritual construction of the body as the deity through
the use of . . . ​mantras is prototypically tantric.”14 In both its soteriological
aim and its ritual method, then, tantra was all about “becoming God.” It was
especially in this goal (and its associated ritual technologies) that tantra
“definitively shifted the paradigms of Indic religious practice and theology
for centuries to come.”15
If initiation and the divinization of the self mark two essential elements of
tantra, just as important to tantric religiosity is the mantra. The fundamental
religious instrument of the tāntrika is the mantra, understood as the sonic
form—­the sound body—­of a deity or aspect of the Divine. While mantras were
important in other traditions of South Asian religiosity, the Tantras were
unique in conceiving mantras as the vibrational forms of deities. As Shaman
Hatley states, “This ontological identification of efficacious sonic formulae
with divinities is distinctive to the tantric traditions.”16 It was the potency and
agency of these non-­Vedic mantras that made tantric ritual so efficacious, thus
the use of mantras is often considered the most fundamental component of
 The Tantric Age = 33

tantric practice. Indeed, tantric works distinguished and described their

teachings as “the Way of Mantras” (mantramārga or mantrayāna).17
In addition to the foundational features just discussed—­initiation, diviniza-
tion of the self, and tantric mantras—­there is a particular understanding of the
sacred and an assumption about the nature of the cosmos that seems to struc-
ture all tantric practice. In the tantric traditions, the Divine or sacred is con-
ceived in large part as tremendous, immanent, and accessible cosmic power or
energy. In tantric Śaivism and Śāktism, specifically, this power is typically
understood as feminine in nature and identified as śakti, an awesome, infinite
force (potentiality, capacity, energy) that pervades the universe in many forms—­
circulating throughout the human body, the social body, and the body of the
cosmos—­a nd that can be harnessed for any variety of purposes.18 As André
Padoux remarks, “the Tantric vision is that of a world issued from, upheld
and completely permeated by, divine energy (śakti), which is also present in
the human being who can harness and use it (her, rather) for worldly as well
as ritual aims and for liberation.”19 Similarly, Douglas Brooks states, “The
Tāntrika conceives of the world as power. The world is nothing but power to
be harnessed.”20
For most medieval Indians, behind victories in battle, successful pregnan-
cies, and good harvests, as well as illnesses, droughts, floods, and untimely
deaths, was sacred agency of some kind. But this cosmic power typically was
not understood abstractly; rather, it was usually conceived to manifest as the
power of very specific divine or semidivine beings or energies. In practice, then,
to harness divine power often meant to control, pacify, or gain the favor of spe-
cific invisible beings or forces so as to protect and further one’s own interests.
The literature of the medieval period assumes a universe made up of a great
spectrum of beings and energies—­ranging from great gods like Śiva and Viṣṇu
to a vast array of goddesses, nature spirits, and malevolent demons to the śakti-­
charged life forces (e.g., prāṇa, kuṇḍalinī) within one’s own body—­whose power
the tantric practitioner could realize, take hold of, and manipulate through the
use of distinctively tantric mantras and ritual practices.21 Clearly, tantric rit-
ual practices were not aimed simply at spiritual liberation; just as often they
also—­or instead—­sought to control and employ divine power for this-­worldly,
pragmatic reasons.22
With this in mind, it is important to note the importance that the quest for
extraordinary powers, or siddhis, held in the tantric tradition. The pursuit of
siddhis by practitioners of asceticism (tapas), yoga, and sorcery was a time-­
honored one, but one given a uniquely privileged place in tantra. Unlike ortho-
dox traditions, tantra encouraged the pursuit of occult powers and heavenly
pleasures as valued goals alongside the aim of liberation. In particular, the
 34 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

sādhaka class of tantric initiates—­who aimed quite deliberately at the acquisi-

tion of siddhis—­m ight be considered as the tantric institutionalization of the
age-­old path of the siddhi-­seeking ascetic-­yogī.23
India has an ancient and well-­k nown tradition of ascetics whose practices
are believed to result in the possession of special knowledge and extraordinary
powers. Indian epic and purāṇic literature is filled with ascetics who, through
their tapas (ascetic “heat”), have earned the power to accomplish any desire, to
give curses, grant boons, and even to coerce the gods. A fifth of Patañjali’s Yoga
Sūtra is dedicated to the topic of siddhis—­understood to result naturally from
yoga’s forms of intense mental concentration—­including invisibility; superhu-
man strength, hearing, and sight; knowledge of past and future lives; control
over hunger and thirst; knowledge of the thoughts of others; becoming tiny or
gigantic, light or heavy; entering into the bodies of others; reaching any place
by willing it; and controlling natural elements and animals. The ascetics and
yogīs thought to possess these siddhis often also played the roles of sorcerer
(vidyādhara), shaman, and healer, offering services to the wider populace includ-
ing protective amulets, generation of wealth, magical harming of enemies,
love potions, exorcism/healing, and divination, among others. Siddhis, then,
were more than mere entertainments or proofs of sanctity; ascetics and yogīs—­
who might be shaven-­headed monks as often as scantily clad, dreadlocked
wanderers—­often relied upon the (perception of) possession of these “super-
powers” to perform the variety of tasks desired by their patrons and employ-
ers. The powers that yogīs and ascetics were thought to possess garnered them
the fear and respect of others, but more importantly they made them valuable
service providers at every level of society who were sought out to ritually effect
a fruitful harvest, a successful pregnancy, or a victory in battle. In other words,
these ascetics’ occult powers could be employed to empower the actions, achieve
the desires, and protect the health and well-­being of their clients, be they
regional kings or village peasants. Much of tantra’s growth seems to have been
a function of how tantric gurus and sādhakas came to “corner the market” in
supernormal power and were widely sought out for their renowned ability to
harness sacred power for pragmatic this-­worldly purposes.
For those in search of extraordinary power, initiation as a tantric sādhaka
offered access to a new body of uniquely efficacious techniques (centered espe-
cially on the repetition of powerful tantric mantras) for acquiring siddhis.
Furthermore, since the Divine was conceived especially as power in the tant-
ric traditions, the siddhis were not seen simply as a natural by-­product of—­but
potential obstacle to—­one’s spiritual growth (as the classical Pātañjala-­yoga tra-
dition would have it) but were considered by many tāntrikas as the very essence
of that spiritual development, a sign of the unveiling of divine omnipotence
 The Tantric Age = 35

within one’s self. The sheer amount of tantric literature dedicated to the
sādhaka’s pursuit of siddhis indicates that tantric mantra-­centered rites became
a very important practice among the power-­seeking ascetics of early medieval
India.
Marion Rastelli’s research on the tantric Vaiṣṇava (Pāñcarātra) scripture, the
Jayākhya Saṃhitā (ca. ninth century), gives us a better sense of the religious life
of the siddhi-­seeking tantric sādhaka. After many years of dedicated, isolated
ascetic practice, the sādhaka comes to master his mantra, i.e., to possess and use
its power (mantra-­siddhi).24 At this point, the sādhaka can perform rites for him-
self or others, specifically bhaktas (in this case Vaiṣṇava bhaktas) who have
requested his help and are not themselves able to master a mantra.25 Here the
text alludes to the important interaction of lay devotees and initiated tantric
adepts, explored later in this chapter, with bhaktas seeking out the magico-­
religious services of professional tantric ascetics who themselves depended in
significant part on patronage from the bhaktas. The sādhaka might use his
mantra-­siddhi to provide a variety of services, including the performance of rites
to exorcise, pacify, or protect against illness-­causing demons; to treat poison;
to bring about good health, longevity, contentment (tuṣṭi), prosperity (puṣṭi), or
dominion over other beings (including defeat of enemies); to prepare pills giv-
ing special powers like flight or invincibility; to cause or stop rain; to produce
food; or to bestow fertility and good luck in pregnancy and childbirth.26 The
intense demands of the sādhaka’s rituals must have ensured that few took
up this path; however, it is clear that this small group of tantric elites—­i n
the services they provided and the possibility of extraordinary power they
represented—­were a crucial part of tantra’s authority.
Considering all of this, I am now in a position to concisely articulate this
book’s approach to tantra. In the pages to come, I shall understand tantra as
the tradition of specifically tantric ritual techniques used to worship, realize,
and exercise sacred power. What makes these ritual techniques specifically tan-
tric is that they are authorized by and taught in tantric scriptures, their prac-
tice requires tantric initiation, their primary effective instruments are tantric
mantras (i.e., non-­Vedic mantras understood as the sound bodies of deities), and
they typically involve the ritual self-­deification of the practitioner. This strict
definition of tantra suggests an esoteric tradition consisting only of dedicated
initiates and specialist ritual performers, but in fact, these individuals might
be better understood as a single stratum—­though the earliest and most essen-
tial one—­in what would become a larger, popular culture of tantra whose ritu-
als, institutions, and cosmological understandings pervaded much of the
early medieval social world. Behind this larger culture of tantra lay a distinctly
tantric outlook or sensibility whose central element, in White’s words, was “that
 36 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

human practitioners can empower, and even deify, themselves to manipulate

and dominate the entire spectrum of beings and energies that make up the tan-
tric universe.”27 This tantric perspective and many of its associated practices
would prove quite distasteful to the outlook and sensibility at the heart of early
modern North India’s bhakti movement.

The Bhakti in Tantra and the Tantra in Bhakti

What was the place of bhakti in medieval tantric religiosity? It is important to

note that bhakti was not at all absent from the tantric ritual process I have been
discussing, for devotion was often key in developing the closeness necessary for
the practitioner to identify with the deity. As André Padoux notes, “Tantric texts
often say that a given practice or rite is to be performed with devotion
(bhaktyā),”28 and Sanderson describes the heart of medieval tantric religious life
as “routinized ritual duty more or less qualified by the sentiment of devotion,”
or bhakti.29 Yet in medieval tantric communities bhakti was generally understood
not as passionate, emotional love so much as faith, reverence, and service and
was typically subordinated to ritual actions, techniques of self-­empowerment,
and the quest for liberating knowledge ( jñāna).
When discussing the relationship between bhakti and tantra, Alberta Ferrario
points out, it is crucial to recognize the diversity of tantric traditions (e.g.,
Pāñcarātra, Śaiva Siddhānta, non-­Saiddhāntika Śaivism), which did not neces-
sarily conceive of bhakti in the same way, as well as the historical change within
these traditions, since the conception and role of bhakti in certain tantric tra-
ditions changed significantly over time.30 The work of Sanjukta Gupta, Gerhard
Oberhammer, and Marzenna Czerniak-­Drożdżowicz, for instance, demon-
strates that the Vaiṣṇava tantric tradition of the Pāñcarātra gave a central
place to emotional bhakti only in its later development.31 In the early (pre-­
ninth-­century) phase of the tradition, Pāñcarātra texts focus not on humble,
passionate devotion but on ritual acts of worship and yogic meditation (on/
with mantras), tantric ritual practices that were only for initiates.32 Later, a
devotion of emotional self-­surrender (prapatti) enters into the Pāñcarātra tra-
dition, but it only very gradually (over centuries) comes to take a predominant
position over and above ritual and yogic modes of worship. Similarly, it was
only in the post-­t welfth-­century Śaiva Siddhānta of South India, under the
influence of the Tamil devotional tradition, that bhakti took on a new and cen-
tral role in the path to salvation, as well as a passionate, emotional quality absent
in earlier Śaiva Siddhānta sources. 33 While the modern-­d ay Śaiva Siddhānta
 The Tantric Age = 37

tradition understands the bhakti hymns of the Tevārām as a fundamental part

of its canon, in fact these vernacular bhakti songs were not in any sense con-
sidered to be works of the Śaiva Siddhānta tradition in the period in which they
were composed, or for several centuries afterward, being incorporated into the
tradition only in the thirteenth century, nearly five hundred years after their
composition.34
Ferrario’s research demonstrates that bhakti in pre-­t welfth-­century Śaiva
tantric traditions was ordinarily conceived of as attitudes and actions of rever-
ence, obedience, faith, and service but not as a cultivation or expression of emo-
tion, passion, or love. When one examines the context in which the term is
used in pre-­t welfth-­century Śaiva Tantras and exegetical works, she explains,
it is clear that bhakti generally refers “to a devout attitude that manifests as the
desire to receive instruction from a Śaiva teacher; faith in the Śaiva scripture;
good disposition towards the Śaiva community; and the choice of Śiva as one’s
deity.”35 In these tantric texts, the expression “devotion to God/Śiva” (deve
bhaktiḥ; Śive bhaktiḥ) is usually found together with bhakti for the guru, the Śaiva
Āgamas, or one’s fellow Śaiva devotees and carries a meaning “closer to the
semantic field of terms including paricaraṇa (attendance, service), śraddhā (faith),
and viśvāsa (belief, faith), rather than love and affection.”36 Ferrario also shows
that in pre-­t welfth-­century tantric Śaiva sources, bhakti was typically not con-
sidered a means to salvation (as it is in bhakti traditions) but rather a sign of the
descent of Śiva’s grace (śaktipāta) upon a person, which was a prerequisite for
initiation. In other words, whether God’s power had descended upon individu-
als, awakening them to the potential of their true nature and thus making them
eligible for full tantric initiation, could be inferred from the quality of their
devotion.37 For full tantric initiates, even on the rare occasions when devotion
was impassioned and ecstatic, it was viewed as a sign of—­or an affective expe-
rience bound up with—­realization of the Divine but was not conceived of as a
method or path for achieving that realization. As Ferrario explains, even the
uncommon mentions of passionate, emotional bhakti in the literature of tan-
tric communities—­for example, in Utpaladeva’s Śivastotrāvalī (ca. tenth cen-
tury) and some other stotra collections38—­conceive bhakti as an experience
equivalent to (or concomitant with) the end goal of liberation, but not as a
means to that goal. 39
While the bhakti of the lay devotional tradition seems to have seeped into tan-
tric texts on occasion—­see, for instance, Jason Schwartz’s discussion of the
Mataṅgapārameśvara (ca. 600), a supplementary Āgama associated with the Śaiva
Siddhānta tradition40—­orthodox tantric exegetes clearly subordinated bhakti to
the performance of ritual or the attainment of gnosis. In the dualistic tantric
tradition of the Śaiva Siddhānta, ritual alone (namely, the soul-­cleansing,
 38 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

karma-­w iping rite of initiation) is the means to liberation, whereas in the

nondual tantric traditions of Kashmir, in addition to ritual it is knowledge
( jñāna)—­of one’s identity with the Divine—­t hat has primary soteriological
value. In both cases, as a natural result of tantric soteriology, bhakti becomes
marginal and subordinate.
At the same time that we note the “official” marginalization and subordi-
nation of bhakti in the (pre-­t welfth-­century) texts of these major tantric
Śaiva traditions, it is important to remember that realities on the ground
were undoubtedly different from what Sanskrit treatises on theology and
yoga reflect, especially as tantric traditions opened up to admit a wider social
world.41 As I discuss in the following pages, mainstream tantric Śaivism grew
up in dependence upon and interaction with preexisting traditions of temple-­
based lay Śaiva devotion, and the early medieval religious landscape saw regular
exchange between initiated tantric adepts and lay devotees. If tantric texts
tend to present an idealized picture of tantric religiosity oriented to full tant-
ric initiates and thus give a particular impression of bhakti (in which bhakti is
marginalized and subordinated), communities of tantric initiates were never-
theless not far removed from a different world of bhakti, a lay community of
bhakta-­jana whose religious lives centered on temple worship as well as the giv-
ing of material support to their fellow bhaktas and to the professional ascetics—­
yogīs and ācāryas—­who served them as teachers, objects of devotion, emblems
of spiritual authority, and key service providers.
My focus in this book is on North India, but it is instructive to briefly con-
sider the ways in which the “emotional devotion” of early medieval South India
was inflected by and linked to the developing tantric tradition. Drawing on
Friedhelm Hardy’s classic, path-­breaking work,42 Radha Champakalakshmi
argues that the concept of bhakti as an emotional, intimate personal loving rela-
tionship with the Divine was initially developed by the Tamil Vaiṣṇava Ālvārs
and Śaiva Nāyanārs, whose poems drew on the love theme of Cankam poetry as
they sought to carry purāṇic forms (dominated by northern, Sanskritic ele-
ments) “to the Tamil masses in their own idiom, namely an ‘intensely human
religious awareness,’ and in the vernacular, namely Tamil.” 43 These early medi-
eval Tamil bhakti traditions emphasized ritual worship and the temple as the
house of God, features she says were “closely related to the teaching and ethos
of the Āgama and Tantra.” 44
Bhakti in medieval South India was, in fact, “forged in dialogue with Śaiva
Tantrism,” as Karen Pechilis has stated. Pechilis discusses how the Tamil bhakti
saint Kāraikkāl Ammaiyār (ca. 550) intertwines bhakti and tantra in her poetry
and describes her “nearest of kin” as the Śaiva tāntrikas.45 Relatedly, Indira
 The Tantric Age = 39

Peterson’s research on early medieval Tamil Nadu has shown Śaiva bhakti’s
close links with temple life and ritual worship as laid out in the tantric scrip-
tures known as the Āgamas.46 While the early bhakti hymns of the Tēvāram
emerged outside the tantric tradition, in them the Śaiva bhakti saints known
as the Nāyanārs regularly praise the Āgamas and refer their devotion to Śiva to
his wisdom and grace as manifested in these tantric scriptures. For example,
Appar sings, “My tongue will continue to utter the Āgamas in the presence of
its companion (the mind)” (129.1); Campantar states, “They are praising the
Lord of Tiruvorriyūr who is the wealth of the Āgamas” (3.57.10); and Cuntarar
says, “Indeed he is the mother, giving grace to one who preserves the wisdom
of the Āgamas” (7.96.6).47 By the end of the twelfth century, the Āgamas would
prescribe nearly all aspects of ritual religious life in South Indian Śaiva tem-
ples, a sign of tantra’s full integration with public devotional religion.
The devotion of the Ālvārs, the early medieval Tamil Vaiṣṇava bhakti saints,
also seems to have been closely linked to tantric scripture and ritual culture.
Dennis Hudson has argued that the tantric liturgy and yogic-­meditational prac-
tices of the Pāñcarātra Āgama underlie the poems of the Ālvārs.48 In one essay, he
discusses how the ninth-­century Ālvār bhakti saint Āṇṭāḷ “performed Tantric
rites of the Bhāgavatas and described them in her poems.” 49 Similarly, the poetic
corpus of Nammālvār (late eighth to early ninth century), most important of all
the Ālvārs, includes many verses about yogic meditation and ritualized tantric
visualization. In a poem from the Tiruvāymoli (I.9), for instance, Nammālvār
seems to describe a tantric laya-­yoga visualization meditation, praising the Lord
in a series of passages in which he describes Viṣṇu in ascending locations within
his body (loosely corresponding with the cakras of the yogic subtle body): in his
lap, within his heart, upon his shoulders, on his tongue, in his eye, on his brow,
and finally at the crown of his head.50 With poems such as this in mind, Hudson
describes Vaiṣṇava bhakti in medieval South India as, in general, a “disciplined
devotion according to Bhagavata Tantra”—­that is, a surrendering to (taking ref-
uge in) God combined “with the ceremonial activities of a Tantrika liturgical
discipline.”51
By the tenth century tantric monastic orders had thoroughly integrated
themselves into India’s booming temple culture, and devotional life thus had
become “tantra inflected” in many respects. Throughout medieval India, brah-
manical, temple-­ and monastery-­based forms of tantra “blended easily with”
bhakti religiosity, “such that the two became indistinguishable.”52 Popular medi-
eval devotion had considerably different emphases than the religious life of most
tantric initiates, but by the twelfth century (if not well earlier), bhakti seems
to have generally occurred within the frame of—­or in necessary interaction
 40 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

with—­fundamentally tantric principles, institutions, and ritual prescriptions.

The forms of bhakti that arose in North India beginning in the fifteenth cen-
tury would have a considerably different relationship with tantra than this.

The Tantric Age

As Alexis Sanderson has demonstrated, Śaivism was unquestionably the most

successful and influential religious tradition of early medieval South Asia. 53
While Buddhism and Vaiṣṇavism had flourished in the preceding centuries,
between the fifth and seventh centuries Śaivism gradually emerged as the
dominant religion of South and Southeast Asia.54 Sanderson terms this period
(ca. sixth to thirteenth century) “the Śaiva Age,” showing how Śaivism rose
to preeminence in early medieval South Asia and beyond as the principal ben-
eficiary of royal patronage, a fact demonstrated “by the epigraphical record
of pious donations, by the preponderance of Śaiva temples at this time, and by
abundant evidence that Śaivism’s Vaiṣṇava, Buddhist, and Jain competitors
developed systems of ritual observance during this period” closely paralleling
that of tantric Śaivas.55 While Sanderson’s work forcefully demonstrates the
dominant presence and impact of Śaivism—­especially tantric (or mantra-­mārga)
Śaivism—­in the early medieval period, it is clear that Buddhism and Vaiṣṇavism
each also had a large and influential presence in several areas of the subconti-
nent during this time, particularly in their tantric (Vajrayāna and Pāñcarātra)
forms. Indeed, most of the religious communities of early medieval India—­
whether Śaiva, Buddhist, Vaiṣṇava, or Jain—­came to share a parallel repertoire
of tantric rituals for initiation, installation (pratiṣṭhā), and regular worship
while also sharing patronage relationships in which virtually the same pow-
ers and protections were offered to the same royal clients. 56 As Christian
Wedemeyer has stated, “those communities centered around various Śivas,
Viṣṇus, Buddhas, and (Jaina) Tīrthaṅkaras in the late first millennium (A.D.)
participated mutually in a pan-­Indian religious culture, most of whose struc-
turing assumptions were the same and in which a variety of ritual forms were
shared and developed across traditions.”57 This pan-­Indian culture was in sig-
nificant part a tantric one, and it was as much “political” as it was “religious.”
The first major tantric system to emerge in South Asia seems to have been
the Śaiva Siddhānta, a school that was well established in the subcontinent
by the seventh century and by the tenth century had become a tradition “of pan-­
Indian scope enjoying close ties with the political order and often exercising
decisive control over the principal religious and social institutions of the time.”58
 The Tantric Age = 41

A number of Vajrayāna Buddhist traditions, with a repertoire of rites modeled

on tantric Śaiva ritual forms and methods, developed at this time as well and
received widespread royal patronage and competed with tantric Śaiva tradi-
tions, particularly in eastern India. The Vaiṣṇava counterpart of the Śaiva
Siddhānta, the orthodox tantric tradition of the Pāñcarātra, was also an
important presence in this period that, like Saiddhāntika Śaivism, became inte-
gral in the operations of royal power and public, temple-­based tantric devo-
tional religiosity.59 While these tantric traditions, in which transgressive ritual
played little to no role, were predominant religious communities of early medi-
eval India, constituting a sort of tantric mainstream, scholars such as Shaman
Hatley and Dominic Goodall have pointed out that “much of the scholarly lit-
erature has assumed an artificial distinction that, at times, goes so far as to
exclude the Vaiṣṇava Pāñcarātra and/or Śaivasiddhānta from the category of
‘Tantra,’ ” when, in fact, they are at the very center of the tantric tradition.60
While scholarship has tended to emphasize the esoteric and transgressive
dimensions of the tantric tradition, here I want to focus attention on the “main-
stream tantra” of India’s Tantric Age—­i.e., the tantric tradition as it manifested
itself pervasively in medieval Indian social life, both in elite political and pop-
ular quotidian spheres. Drawing on Alexis Sanderson’s work, among others in
the rapidly advancing fields of tantric studies and Śaiva studies,61 I argue that
we should conceive tantra (at least by the tenth century) as a broad, pervasive
mainstream tradition—­only marginally concerned with transgression—­whose
institutions, cosmological assumptions, and ritual forms were key elements in
the social life and religiopolitical structure of early medieval India. A signifi-
cant amount of tantric literature does, of course, discuss radically transgres-
sive rites,62 including the frequenting of cremation grounds, ritual sex with
“untouchable” women, and the consumption of shit, piss, and sexual fluids.63 It
would be absurd to sweep this corpus of tantric discourse under the rug as
unimportant. Yet the crucial fact is that the texts concerned with these radi-
cally transgressive rites were directed toward a small minority of advanced tan-
tric practitioners. The mistake we must avoid is taking the history and practice
of a minority stream of professional tantric ascetics and sādhakas as the history
and practice of tantric religiosity as a whole. While the dedicated tantric adepts
who performed transgressive sexual and mortuary rites had a significance well
beyond their small numbers, their story is but one piece of a tantric tradition
that includes, more importantly, the preeminent religious communities of
the medieval period—­Śaiva Siddhānta, Vaiṣṇava Pañcarātra, and Buddhist
Vajrayāna—­a nd their pervasive institutional networks (which played a key
role in the larger sociopolitical order), as well as a widespread community of
tantric practitioners of healing, exorcism, and “practical magic” (i.e., various
 42 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

practices and rites intended to effect this-­worldly health, wealth, protection,

or harming).64
Observing the historical development of the Hindu tantric tradition, we find
on the one hand a set of more mainstream and orthoprax schools (e.g., Śaiva
Siddhānta, Vaiṣṇava Pañcarātra) that generally avoided transgressive practices
and operated within standard brahmanical purity codes and, on the other hand,
a diverse array of heteroprax Śaiva and Śākta communities that gave a more
central place to goddesses, transgressive behaviors, and impure substances
in the ritual life of their sādhaka initiates. Unlike the Śaiva Siddhānta tradition,
these “non-­Saiddhāntika” Śaiva tantric cults—­based in the Bhairava Tantras of
the Mantrapīṭha and Vidyāpīṭha—­were generally not involved in mainstream
public and lay devotional (temple) religiosity but were oriented toward individ-
uals performing rituals in the private domain for their own or their clients’
benefit.65 While these non-­Saiddhāntika tantric cults gave more importance to
antinomian mortuary and sexual rites involving polluting substances (alcohol,
blood, sexual fluids), they seem to have grown out of the Śaiva Siddhānta tradi-
tion, accepting its legitimacy and assuming its ritual paradigms even as they
claimed to offer more powerful methods to reach the common goals of libera-
tion and siddhis.66
If the misplaced scholarly tendency to see tantra as synonymous with trans-
gression (especially antinomian sexual and mortuary rituals) has been one
factor making it difficult to conceive tantra as mainstream, there are other fac-
tors as well. In particular, one might reasonably ask how a fundamentally eso-
teric, initiatory tradition—­one that originated to serve the interests of only the
most dedicated individual seekers of mokṣa and siddhis—­can be considered a
mainstream, popular tradition integral to the larger religiopolitical order and
pervasive in South Asian social life more broadly. In the following pages, I aim
to explain just this.

Kings and Gurus, Temples and Monasteries

With the collapse of the Gupta dynasty in the mid-­sixth century and the end of
the relative stability it had provided, India saw the emergence of multiple com-
peting regional centers, which led to a culture of militarism and frequent war-
fare. As Ronald Davidson has explained, in this environment, warlords, “seeking
legitimacy and identity, began to increase their patronage of literature and to
strategize their support for religion, searching for religious counselors that
could bolster their political and military agendas.” 67 Beginning in the seventh
 The Tantric Age = 43

century, these aspiring rulers turned increasingly to the emerging tantric tra-
dition and its rituals of empowerment. We have inscriptional evidence of at least
three major kings taking Saiddhāntika Śaiva tantric initiation in the second half
of the seventh century, and “during its first half the Buddhist philosopher
Dharmakīrti (c. 600–­660) goes to the trouble of attacking the Tantric practice
of initiation as a means to liberation.” 68 Between the seventh and twelfth cen-
turies, tantra rose to prominence in South Asia as Hindu rulers increasingly
embraced relationships with tantric gurus and their communities. 69 If rulers
in early medieval India were turning more and more to tāntrikas, these tāntrikas
were also turning to them, adapting to meet their needs. Within the tantric tra-
dition, a new cadre of religious specialists developed who could ritually conse-
crate power-­seeking warlords with tantric mantras, “transforming them into
divine kings and their conquered territories into equally consecrated maṇḍalas
of royal power.”70 In order to extend their influence, tantric communities devised
a new class of initiate, exemplified by the king, who, because of his demanding
social duties, was given a special form of initiation, nirbījā dīkṣā (initiation with-
out seed), which exonerated him from the time-­consuming program of daily
rituals required of most full initiates (putrakas and sādhakas) while still ensur-
ing liberation.71 Tantric gurus claimed that their initiation and consecration
(abhiśeka) rites endowed kings with a power beyond that of their rivals, intensi-
fying their brilliance, ensuring their victory against enemies, and allowing them
to have long and distinguished reigns. These tantric dīkṣās and abhiśekas not only
infused the king with a deity’s immense power but also offered access to a wealth
of potent tantric mantras that could be performed on demand by tantric adepts
to protect and benefit the realm, promote a royal patron’s success, and frustrate
his enemies.72 At the same time, tantric traditions largely sought to accommo-
date and embed themselves within the orthodox brahmanical tradition that had
sanctified and legitimated royal power in India for centuries. As Sanderson has
shown, tantric traditions flourished, in significant part, by co-­opting brahman-
ism, taking over many of the positions, functions, and ritual services that had
previously been exclusive to orthodox brahmans.73
In return for the empowerment and legitimation that tantric initiation pro-
vided them, newly made kings patronized their gurus’ sectarian communities,
building and sponsoring monasteries, or maṭhas, for tantric monastic orders and
promoting their interests throughout the kingdom. India’s early medieval period
is well known by scholars as “the great era of Hindu temple building”74 and the
time when “the temple became the dominant religious institution of South
Asia,”75 but the key role of monasteries is not as widely understood. While
temples—­big and small, urban and rural—­served as centers of religious com-
munity and devotion, symbols of royal authority, and key motors of economic
 44 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

growth, agricultural development, political integration, and brahmanical cul-

tural expansion,76 in many ways maṭhas became just as important in the early
medieval religious and sociopolitical world. Tamara Sears has shown that “mon-
asteries often not only preceded but also served as a stimulus for the develop-
ment of larger temple towns.”77 Maṭhas were frequently built close to temples,
and the members of these monastic communities played a key role in support-
ing ritual activity within the temple and facilitating the social and economic
services offered at temple centers. Maṭhas were established in both the periph-
eries and hubs of the kingdom, together making up a network of interlinked
monastic centers that effectively tied disparate localized communities into the
kingdom’s central administrative and social framework.78 These maṭhas served
as seats of brahmanical learning, dissemination centers of sectarian theology
and philosophy, and sites supporting intensive, unhindered practice of medi-
tation and yoga, sometimes through the establishment of hermitages for pil-
grims or those seeking a base for isolated ascetic practices.79 By the ninth and
tenth centuries, many organized monastic orders—­most of them tantric and/or
Śaiva—­began to function also “as landed, self-­sustaining administrative institu-
tions responsible for the collection and redistribution of taxes and agricultural
revenue.”80 Some maṭhas even maintained armaments and served as sites for
training and garrisoning military forces.81
Like temples, maṭhas were also crucial institutions in lay devotional life. Gurus
and professional ascetics in monasteries “served as key agents in the growth of
wide-­scale devotional activity, both through their role as temple priests and
attendants as well as in their function as foci for ritual in their own right.”82 Initi-
ated members of tantric communities were often expected to worship not only
God but also their initiating guru (who was seen as not simply a respected teacher
but also a revered manifestation of divinity and a vehicle for liberation), and it
was at the maṭha that tantric gurus could personally receive such homage.83 As
mentioned, medieval kings sought out these tantric gurus for the initiation and
empowerment they could provide and, in exchange, rewarded them with maṭhas
and land grants. In this fashion, some tantric gurus accumulated enough wealth
and land that they were able to use their resources independently to establish
new maṭhas, and even “to behave like royal patrons themselves, not only found-
ing new monasteries but also bestowing land-­grants on Brahmins, rewarding
poets, founding temples and new settlements, and providing the means of irriga-
tion.”84 Certain tantric gurus, particularly of the Śaiva Siddhānta tradition, actu-
ally “came to exercise a transregional authority whose geographical extent could
be greater than that of any contemporary king.”85
Gurus and kings, temples and maṭhas, these were the key institutional fig-
ures and spaces that made possible the spread and sustenance of tantric ritual
 The Tantric Age = 45

and worldview in early medieval India. Beginning in the seventh century, rul-
ers increasingly looked to tantric rituals and gurus for empowerment and legit-
imation and sponsored the institutional growth of tantric communities. By the
tenth century, temples (administered by tantric monastic orders) and maṭhas
(housing professional tantric ascetics) had become vital economic, political, and
religious hubs in the institutional network of medieval society.86 Of course, not
all the temples and monasteries patronized by the kings and local communi-
ties of medieval India were tantric, but a great many were. These sites embod-
ied, expressed, and widely disseminated tantric ideology and ritual; they were
the institutions upon which mainstream tantra—­as a key player in the medi-
eval religiopolitical order—­depended. This is important because in later centu-
ries, when those institutions became threatened, damaged, or destroyed,
the stage would be set for a major transformation in India’s religiopolitical
landscape.
In seeking to understand the significance of tantric Śaivism, and of tantra
more broadly, in the early medieval period, we must keep in mind the presence
and influence of popular lay traditions of devotion. While Sanderson’s work has
centered on tantric Śaiva traditions, he makes the crucial observation that these
traditions “were successful in no small measure because Śaiva devotion had
become the dominant religious idiom in the population at large.”87 The rich and
powerful of early medieval India were increasingly aligning themselves with
tantric Śaiva initiatory lineages, in significant part because doing so was “par-
ticularly efficacious in the eyes of a predominantly Śaiva population, not only
among the brahmins but among all social strata, down to and including the low-
est.”88 In other words, it seems that tantric Śaivism achieved its great success
largely because it “hooked onto” and was “parasitic” upon a preexisting, temple-­
based tradition of lay Śaiva bhakti, a tradition I now turn to.89

The Bhakti of the Śivadharma: Lay Śaiva Religion in

Early Medieval India

The traditions of tantra and bhakti grew up alongside and in dialogue with each
other in the early medieval period. The massive success of tantric Śaivism, spe-
cifically, was dependent upon the vitality of a coexisting tradition of lay Śaiva
devotion. A brief investigation of this tradition through its literature—­the
Śivadharma corpus90—­is crucial to establishing the relationships between pro-
fessional asceticism, popular devotion, and political economy in medieval India,
and more specifically to understanding the relationship of bhakti, tantra, and
 46 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

yoga during this period. The earliest texts of the lay Saiva tradition seem to
be the circa sixth-­to-­seventh-­century Śivadharma (Śivadharmaśāstra) and
Śivadharmottara, likely composed in North India but widely known throughout
medieval India.91 These scriptures claim descent from Śiva and present them-
selves as an “easy, affordable set of teachings and rites that would allow common
people to fulfill all their wishes,” in contrast to expensive and ultimately unprof-
itable Vedic rites.92 The lay Śaiva religion prescribed in these texts was open to
śūdras, untouchables (cāṇḍāla), and foreigners (mleccha). The Śivadharma states,
“The one who knows the four Vedas is not dear to me [Śiva]. Even a dog cooker
who is my devotee, one may give to him or take from him. And he is to be wor-
shipped just like I am (to be worshipped).”93
In key respects, this lay Śaiva religion centered on bhakti. As Śivadharma 1.29
states, “The essence of the Śivadharma is Śiva-­bhakti.” The question is, What does
bhakti mean here? In a fascinating passage, somewhat incongruous with the
text’s overall representation of devotion, the Śivadharma describes bhakti as hav-
ing eight limbs, which Śiva characterizes as (1) affection (vātsalya) for my
devotees (mad-­bhaktajana); (2) taking pleasure in (seeing) my worship (pūjā)
(performed by others); (3) worshipping (abhyarcana) me oneself with bhakti;
(4) exerting one’s body (with bhakti) for me (i.e., performing physical activity
[labor] for my sake [mamārthe cāṅgaceṣṭanam]); (5) listening to my stories;
(6) trembling (vikriya) of one’s voice, eyes, and limbs (on hearing such stories);
(7) constantly remembering (anusmaraṇa) me, (8) always depending upon (living
for) (upajīvati) me. The passage concludes, “In whomever this eightfold bhakti
grows, even if a mleccha [foreigner], he is a chief of Brahmans, a glorious sage
[muni], an ascetic renouncer [yati], and a learned man [paṇḍit].”94 While many
scholars associate the sort of bhakti described here with later Vaiṣṇava tra-
ditions, here we find it expressed in a Śaiva scripture composed in Sanskrit
around the sixth century.95 Of particular note here are the Śivadharma’s
(a) stress on listening to the stories of God; (b) valuing of the embodied, affec-
tive dimensions of bhakti religiosity (its “modulations” of voice, eyes, and limbs);
and (c) emphasis on caring for—­and celebrating the virtues of—­one’s fellow dev-
otees (bhaktas), a community of devotion explicitly embracing all caste classes
and even those outside the varṇa system.
The Śivadharma’s stress on listening to stories of God is paralleled in the
purāṇic literature that was proliferating at this same time and that, of course,
was filled with such stories. Well known for their sectarian character, the
Purāṇas seem to have been composed by and for the purposes of “the new sec-
tarian theistic movements that were emergent in the early centuries CE: early
Śaivas and Vaiṣṇavas such as the Pāśupatas, Bhāgavatas and Pāñcarātras, oper-
ating on the frontiers of brahmanical orthopraxis” who, Travis Smith explains,
 The Tantric Age = 47

were “combin[ing] Vedic orthodoxy with a new temple-­based devotionalism

directed toward an expanded pantheon of deities (including most prominently
Viṣṇu and Śiva).”96 It is quite likely the same group—­an educated lay Pāśupata
community—­that authored both the Śivadharma texts and (many of) the Śaiva
Purāṇas. The broader lay population would have heard and absorbed the
teachings in these scriptures in particular ways. A cult of the book—­as part of
“the gift of knowledge” (vidyādāna)—­was important in this period and involved
the ritualized sponsorship (by kings or other laymen), worship, and public rec-
itation of manuscripts containing sectarian religious teachings.97 In this con-
text, listening (śravaṇa), devotion (bhakti), and scriptural knowledge (vidyā) were
understood to depend on one another and to work together in dynamic relation-
ship.98 Since the Śivadharma texts were composed for the laity, they were “gener-
ally written in undemanding Sanskrit that could be expected to be readily
understood by a larger public”; nevertheless, there was clearly a concern that
teachings and stories in Sanskrit would not be fully comprehended by the lay
populace. With this in mind, the Śivadharmottara recommends “that it be taught
to its audiences in the languages of their regions.”99 Thus, when the Śivadharma
lists “listening to [Śiva’s] stories” as an essential feature of bhakti, we can imagine
a world of oral vernacular translations and retellings of sectarian religious sto-
ries and teachings in Sanskrit texts that—­however little information we have to
describe it—­must have been a vital dimension of the social and religious land-
scape of early medieval South Asia.
The Śivadharma’s description of an embodied, emotional bhakti—­the trem-
bling (vikriya) of one’s voice, eyes, and limbs (under the influence of bhakti)—­is
especially striking, seeing as numerous scholars have argued that this sort of
embodied, passionate, ecstatic devotion is first expressed in the Bhāgavata
Purāṇa, a text that was by most estimates composed roughly five hundred years
after the Śivadharma. Among others, J. N. Farquhar, Jan Gonda, S. N. Dasgupta,
Paul Hacker, and, perhaps most influentially, Friedhelm Hardy have asserted
“that the passionate and ecstatic bhakti expressed in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa con-
stitutes a distinctive new form of devotion that is markedly different from the
more intellectual and contemplative forms of bhakti that find expression in dif-
ferent ways in the Bhagavad-­Gītā, the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, and Rāmānuja’s teach-
ings.”100 Barbara Holdrege adds that what is perhaps most new and distinctive
in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s representation of bhakti is “its embodied nature,” with
“the bhakta’s internal ecstatic state . . . ​often described as manifesting through
the external body, overflowing into the senses and limbs and erupting in spon-
taneous bodily manifestations such as the bristling of body hair, stammering
speech, weeping, laughing, singing, and dancing.”101 We should not view a sin-
gle verse in the Śivadharma describing and valuing “modulations of voice, eyes,
 48 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

and limbs [under the influence of bhakti/stories of God]” as somehow equiva-

lent in significance to the multitude of verses in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa that
praise and describe in detail an embodied, emotional bhakti; nevertheless, the
Śivadharma verse once again points toward the existence of a world of bhakti—­of
vernacular storytelling and affective, embodied devotional experience—­that
many scholars would not have imagined for this period of Indian history, or
in this Śaiva context. At the very least, the Śivadharma should cause us to be far
less confident in our current scholarly assumptions about bhakti, specifically
regarding the historical origins of embodied, ecstatic, emotional expressions
of bhakti. We might see here the danger of seeking out or claiming origin points
and moments of genuine novelty, particularly when the available sources give
us such a limited view of on-­t he-­g round historical realities. While further
research on the Śivadharma corpus will almost certainly not uncover any such
true origins, it very well may force a fundamental reassessment of our under-
standing of the historical phenomenon of bhakti.
Also of special note in the Śivadharma’s passage on eightfold devotion is the
very first component in Śiva’s description of bhakti: “affection [vātsalya] for my
devotees [mad-­bhaktajana].” This verse clearly conceives a distinctive form of
community united by its devotion to God—­“Śiva’s bhaktajana”102—­a community
including śūdras, women, and even mlecchas.103 As the text states, “In whomever
this eightfold bhakti grows, even if a mleccha, he is a chief of Brahmans, a glori-
ous sage, an ascetic renouncer, and a learned man.” Timothy Lubin has shown
how the Śivadharma redefines varṇa and āśrama categories in such a fashion that
hereditary status “is subordinated to a ritually mediated spiritual kinship,”
thereby enabling women and śūdras to “partake of the ritual entitlements oth-
erwise identified with Brahmanical status.”104 Lubin is right to conceive this
Śaiva community in terms of “kinship,” for a familial form of care and affec-
tion for one’s fellow bhaktas seems to be central to the Śivadharma’s understand-
ing of bhakti. This becomes more tangible in chapter 11 of the text, which
praises giving (material resources) and rendering service to fellow Śaiva bhak-
tas when they are tired, ill, or otherwise in need.105 The word I have translated
as “affection” is the Sanskrit vātsalya, a word used especially to refer to a moth-
er’s selfless love, tenderness, and care for her children. Thus, here we get the
sense that the Śivadharma is envisioning (and perhaps even reflecting back the
existence of) a community whose members attend to and care for one another
in the intimate and tender manner of a family.
This brings us back to one of the Śivadharma’s key opening remarks (1:29):
“The essence of the Śiva-­dharma is Śiva-­bhakti.” It is worth reflecting on the very
fact that in this verse dharma and bhakti are made virtually equivalent. What
does this imply? Alf Hiltebeitel’s research on the Sanskrit epics offers insights
 The Tantric Age = 49

here. Hiltebeitel points out that in the period of the epics—­not long before the
Śivadharma’s composition—­“bhakti is to be mapped with dharma.”106 He shows
that at the very heart of both dharma and bhakti in the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa
are the values of hospitality (ātithyam) and friendship (sakhya), both of which
are crucial in the construction of community.107 Hiltebeitel’s comments on the
epics, in combination with what we have seen in the Śivadharma, shed light on
an understanding—­and a lived practice—­of bhakti anchored in significant part
in a constellation of terms (e.g., vātsalya, ātithyam, sakhya) that all have to do with
social ethics and the building and “upholding” of community. Just as impor-
tant in this early medieval conception of bhakti as familial affection, hospital-
ity, and friendship was the discourse and practice of the gift (dāna), whose
supreme recipient, notably, is the Śaiva yogī.
The Śivadharma’s eightfold bhakti offers some enticing suggestions about a
world of lay Śaiva devotion whose existence in this period—­in its communal
listening (to stories and teachings), embodied emotionality, and casteless ethic
of care for fellow Śaiva bhaktas—­many scholars would not have imagined. Nev-
ertheless, as the research of Florinda De Simini demonstrates, a closer study of
the Śivadharma and Śivadharmottara illustrates that the devotional religiosity
extolled in the Śivadharma tradition centers not on the cultivation of emotion
but on faith in the spiritual authority of Śaiva scriptures and professional ascet-
ics, and on practices of ritual worship and gift giving (dāna)—­in particular,
offerings of material support to the community of initiated Śaiva ācāryas and
yogīs.108
In the Śivadharmottara, probably composed in the seventh century (not long
after the Śivadharma), bhakti is still important but seems clearly overshadowed
by the term śraddhā, “faith” or “trustworthiness.” Indeed, śraddhā, a word with
considerably less “emotional” and “participatory” connotations than bhakti, is
conceived as “constituting the essence of all Śaiva teachings and the only means
through which Śiva can truly be attained.”109 At the same time, the text claims
that the power of these Śaiva teachings is embodied in the six-­syllable sectar-
ian mantra oṃ namaḥ śivāya. Both the Śivadharma and Śivadharmottara extol the
great benefits of uttering this mantra, with Śivadharmottara 1.38–­39 stating, “One
in whose heart this mantra ‘oṃ namaḥ śivāya’ constantly dwells, he has learned
[all] the knowledge that has been taught, and performed all [rituals],”110 a sen-
timent not too far removed from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s (and many other bhakti
texts’) later stress on the power of reciting the name of God. Overall, the most
common topics in these two earliest Śivadharma texts seem to be (a) instruc-
tions for and praise of the ritual worship of the liṅga (a sphere of devotional prac-
tice that would be adopted and adapted as the core of the tantric Śaiva ritual
repertoire); (b) praise of (and merits accrued by) constructing and maintaining
 50 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

a Śaiva temple; and (c) rules, fruits, and proper recipients of dāna.111 Thus, the
window that Śivadharma texts give us onto early medieval lay Śaivism suggests
that, in fact, bhakti was understood most centrally as performing rituals of wor-
ship to Śiva (in the aniconic form of the liṅga) and as offering material support
to (patronizing) the larger Śaiva community (especially its professional ascet-
ics). These devotional practices were believed to generate sufficient merit to
bring the Śiva bhakta (and their family members) success in this life, a long
afterlife in heaven (śivalokaḥ), and a desirable rebirth in which they might then
be able to attain final liberation.112 If the ritual worship of localized, material
forms of God in temples, combined with gift giving, constituted the heart of the
practice of this early medieval lay devotional tradition, its soteriology and spir-
itual ideals were focused squarely on ( jñāna-­and dhyāna-­) yoga and the yogī. In
fact, lay Śaivas’ relationships with communities of professional Śaiva ascetics—­
namely, Pāśupatas and (later) tantric Śaiva yogīs—­seem to have been a key
piece of their devotional lives.

Yogīs and Devotees in the Early Medieval

Religiopolitical Economy

All indications are that the texts of the Śivadharma scriptural corpus were
probably composed by a lay segment of the Pāśupata Śaiva community.113 The
Pāśupatas, whose cult centered on Śiva as Lord (pati) of Beasts (paśu), emerged
in the second century CE114 as a “Hindu” response to Buddhist and Jain monas-
tic traditions, an ascetic order—­exclusive to brahmans—­that proselytized low-­
caste and tribal populations while maintaining and propagating brahmanical
values. Most scholars have narrowly identified the Pāśupatas with the system
of lifelong renunciation and rigorous asceticism outlined in Kauṇḍinya’s fourth-­
century commentary on the Pāśupata Sūtra; however, as Peter Bisschop has
demonstrated, celibate ascetics were in fact only one strand of a far broader tra-
dition that developed to include a lay community of Śiva bhaktas (Māheśvaras)
faithful to the Pāśupata ācāryas and teachings.115 The Pāśupatas were the first
“Hindu” (non-­śramaṇa) ascetic group in South Asia to emulate and compete with
the Buddhists’ zealous proselytization of marginalized Indian and non-­Indian
peoples.116 Indeed, as Hans Bakker explains, “the Pāśupatas had had a good look
at their Buddhist counterparts and had copied their formula for success, namely
a standing organisation of professional religious specialists—­yogins, ascetics,
and ācāryas—­supported by a following of ordinary devotees, the Māheśvara
community at large, to whose spiritual needs it catered.”117
 The Tantric Age = 51

The Pāśupatas arose in southern Gujarat as a Śaiva initiatory order of brah-

man ascetics. Over time they spread across India, integrating themselves into
the temple-­based lay Śaiva devotional tradition118 and thereby successfully
bringing together the realms of ascetic-­yogic Śaiva practice and popular-­level
Śiva bhakti.119 As Travis Smith explains, the Pāśupatas “were able to establish a
vast lineage-­based Śaiva network, loosely organized yet ideologically coherent.
In each region, new monasteries were built and local ascetic and lay communi-
ties were gradually assimilated into the overarching Pāśupata worldview, spread
through texts of the order and through the circulation of teaching lineages.”120
The available evidence suggests that lay Śaivas who were members of, or associ-
ated with, a larger (loose and weakly bounded) Pāśupata community probably
composed not only the Śivadharma corpus but also the Īśvara Gītā121 and many of
the Śaiva Purāṇas, including the sixth-­to-­seventh-­century Skanda Purāṇa. In sig-
nificant part through these texts, they were able to skillfully accommodate and
incorporate diverse “peoples and practices on the margins of elite society into
the fold of Śaiva orthopraxis.”122 Clearly then, far from an antinomian ascetic
order on the fringes of society, from the sixth to the tenth century, the Pāśupatas
were an important part of the Indian religious mainstream, receiving consider-
able patronage from kings as well as local collectives of merchants, traders, and
artisans,123 and operating monasteries and temples across India, but especially in
Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and the Gangetic valley.124
For the lay population of Śiva bhaktas, the professional Pāśupata ascetic—­the
yogī—­was a crucial figure, a locus of spiritual authority and an object of devo-
tion. As mentioned, Śivadharma texts extol the immeasurable fruits gained by
gift giving, but both the Śivadharma and Śivadharmottara state repeatedly and
emphatically that the best recipients of a gift “are those who are identified with
Śiva and whose cult is thus equivalent to his own, that is the Śaiva yogins
(śivayogin).”125 Indeed, according to Śivadharma 12.35–­38, at the very top of the
hierarchy of beings stands the yogī—­namely, the Śivayogin.126 The text (12.31)
defines the Śaiva yogī as “one who is endowed with knowledge and freedom from
desires thanks to a mind pacified by Śiva” and who is “committed to the prac-
tice of the sixfold yoga.”127 It is clear in the Śivadharma tradition that, whatever
the merits of (the ritual worship and gift giving that primarily constitute) Śiva
bhakti, it is especially dispassion, knowledge ( jñāna), and yoga that lead one to
liberation.128 As a passage from Śivadharma 10 states, “Detachment [vairgāya]
comes from indifference to worldly things; the arising of knowledge [ jñāna]
comes from detachment [vairāgya]; Yoga proceeds from knowledge [ jñāna]; and
one obtains the end of suffering because of Yoga.”129
In early medieval India, not only the Śaiva lay community but also the
Vaiṣṇava and Buddhist lay communities saw the professional ascetic—­the yogī
 52 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

(saṃnyāsi, bhikṣu)—­as the human religious exemplar. Notably, Śiva, Kṛṣṇa, and
the Buddha (and bodhisattvas) all are regularly presented as masters of yoga
(i.e., models of yogic dispassion, knowledge, and power/attainment) in the
first-­millennium literature of their respective devotional communities.130 It is
unclear whether the power, perfection, and charisma ascribed to Śiva, Kṛṣṇa,
and the Buddha were theorized “in terms of powers already attributed to yogis”
or whether the abilities and qualities credited to yogīs were modeled after the
attributes of these divine figures.131 In either case, in the lay communities of all
these traditions, the yogī emerges as an authoritative spiritual model worthy of
respect, awe, and devotion. In the context of lay Śaiva religion, to give to yogīs
(or ācāryas) was to give directly to Śiva and thus to receive the corresponding
fruits/merit. All of this suggests an early medieval economy of spiritual and po-
litical power driven in large part by exchanges between lay devotees and ini-
tiated professional ascetics. Yogīs mediated spiritual knowledge and power to
laypeople (while also providing a number of ritual and practical services) and
gave sacred authority and political capital to kings and other political elites,
while kings and other lay devotees provided for the yogīs’ material support. This
same sort of religiopolitical economy would continue as a new form of initia-
tory religion burst onto the scene—­tantra.
The success of Śaiva tantra (and thus tantra in general) was dependent upon
the existing tradition of lay Śaiva devotion but also on the crucial role that com-
munities of initiated Pāśupata ascetics had established for themselves in early
medieval India’s religiopolitical economy, its particular system of exchanges in
spiritual, political, moral, and economic capital. In a number of key respects,
the activities of the Pāśupatas seem to have laid an ideological and institutional
foundation for the rise of the first major tantric community, the Śaiva Siddhānta.
In the ninth and tenth centuries, lineages of Siddhānta Śaivism “rather swiftly
replaced the Pāśupatas as the most extensive and influential transregional Śaiva
sect,” on the one hand by enticing patrons and followers with their novel and
uniquely efficacious tantric ritual technology and the promise of liberating ini-
tiation for all caste classes and, on the other hand, by appropriating and build-
ing further upon the Śaiva networks and infrastructure established by the
Pāśupatas.132 As Smith explains, the Śaiva Siddhānta community “assumed con-
trol over the administration of particular maṭhas and temples that were built
and maintained by Pāśupatas”133 while also following the Pāśupatas’ lead in dis-
seminating their ritual and doctrine through the popular textual medium of the
Purāṇas. Evidence from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Kashmir, Maha-
rashtra, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu attests to the fact that by
900, “a broadly extended network of interrelated Śaiva Siddhānta lineages [had]
spread itself out over much of India, acting frequently as spiritual preceptors to
 The Tantric Age = 53

kings, constructing and presiding over temples and monasteries, and propa-
gating the teachings of the āgamas.”134
The members of Śaiva Siddhānta monastic orders took on the same roles as
the Pāśupata professional ascetics had, serving as objects of devotion (and
recipients of dāna), spiritual teachers, and service providers who also adminis-
tered the temples and performed the temple worship rites of popular devotional
religion. By offering initiation to householders and members of all castes, Śaiva
tantric orders worked to tie the lay population even more closely to their com-
munities of professional ascetics than had the Pāśupatas. This brings us to
another important piece of tantra’s medieval success story, one oriented toward
the tradition’s broad social reach. In order to explain tantra’s pervasive pres-
ence in the social life of both elite and nonelite populations, I turn to the man-
ner in which the tantric tradition participated in the larger medieval process
of agrarian and political expansion, incorporating cultural and religious
phenomena on the frontiers into brahmanical culture.

The Social Dynamics of Tantra

Tantra has regularly been described as a tradition centered on tribal, indige-

nous, pre-­Aryan religious practices and folk traditions of shamanistic posses-
sion, healing, magic, and the worship of goddesses, nature spirits, and spirits of
the dead. At the same time, many scholars have stressed the brahmanical, con-
servative, elitist, esoteric, and scriptural aspects of tantra as its defining socio-
logical features. Travis Smith has insightfully remarked that “while the debate
between positing either an elite or a non-­elite origin of Tantra seems at first
glance irresolvable, it may itself hold the key to the problem of identifying the
fundamental characterization of Tantra.”135 Along these lines, rather than high-
light either the “elite origins” or “nonelite origins” scholarly position, here I
aim to demonstrate how tantra was simultaneously both brahmanical and folk,
the product of a dynamic and mutually transforming encounter between a tran-
sregional Sanskritic, dharmic culture and a variety of unbrahmanized local
Indian subcultures peripheral to state structure and settled agriculture.
B. D. Chattopadhyaya has argued that one of the core elements in the trans-
formation of early medieval India was “the appearance of state society in areas
that had long been peripheral.”136 Similarly, Sanderson has explained that “the
territorial expansion of brahmanical society into new regions . . . ​was one of the
salient features of the early medieval period,” and one that was inseparable from
the growth of tantra.137 During India’s early medieval period, forest regions of
 54 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

hunters and rudimentary agriculturalists on the peripheries of state power and

Sanskritic culture were increasingly transformed into well-­i rrigated, settled
agricultural regions under royal power.138 It is clear that a major factor in the
growth of both tantric and purāṇic traditions at this time was the extension of
brahmanical culture139 into rural, tribal, local areas alongside the expansion of
state institutions and the growth of settled agriculture. Early medieval political
integration and agrarian expansion were, then, inseparable from a religious
assimilation—­seen in both the Purāṇas and the Tantras—­in which local cults,
rituals, and deities were subsumed into more cosmopolitan, supralocal San-
skritic traditions. When a king expanded his realm into tribal or peripheral
areas, to successfully integrate the people in the area into the kingdom, it was
necessary to integrate local deities—­often goddesses—­who were the primary
objects of worship, into the more cosmopolitan brahmanical religious order.
Alternatively, when a local chief began to expand his power over a larger terri-
tory, in order to assume authority he would adapt his original religion, which
may have been centered on the local goddess, to conform to the larger religious
order.140 Clearly, a key factor in the success of tantric Śaivism was its ability to
effectively incorporate the worship of the goddesses who were so popular among
many South Asian people.141 Indeed, tantric Śaivism rose in conjunction with
Śāktism, for many Śaivas were, in practice, primarily worshippers of the God-
dess (theologically conceived as Śiva’s inherent power, or śakti), often in the form
of various tutelary goddesses (kuladevīs) of land and clan.142
The role of the Purāṇas in the early medieval integration of new populations
(through the assimilation of local deities, mythologies, and ritual practices) into
a reenvisioned, transregional, brahmanical tradition is well known,143 but far
less attention has been drawn to the important overlap between tantric and
purāṇic traditions in this process. In his study of the Bengal Purāṇas, Kunal
Chakrabarti remarks that “large chunks” of the Tantras’ ritual forms and
practices—­e.g., tantric mantras and nyāsa procedures—­were incorporated into
the ritual prescriptions of the Purāṇas.144 Sanderson similarly points out “the
inconstant character of the boundary between [initiatory tantric] traditions and
Purāṇic forms of religious observance,”145 noting that, in fact, “a substantial
amount of Saiddhāntika [Śaiva tantric] ritual material has been propagated
within Purāṇas.”146 Nirajan Kafle gives clear evidence that the Śivadharmasaṅgraha,
a lay Śivadharma text composed in the ninth to tenth century, borrows heavily
from both tantric and purānic sources.147 While much about early medieval reli-
giosity is still quite murky, it seems that, on the ground, the realms of the “tan-
tric” and “purāṇic” often blurred into one another, especially in lay religion.
Drawing on Donald Davis’s pathbreaking historical research on Indian
law, Jason Schwartz has argued persuasively that the growth of the tantric
 The Tantric Age = 55

traditions must also be understood in connection with medieval legal prac-

tices.148 Schwartz argues that the principle of legal pluralism in medieval
India—­e.g., the king’s protection of the right of different autonomous corporate
groups to manage their own affairs in accordance with community-­specific
values, codes, and customs—­was, in fact, the necessary precondition for “the
defining feature of the medieval Indic religious landscape: namely the mass
institutionalization of Tantric communities openly recognized and patronized
by the state.”149 As he insightfully suggests, to become a tantric initiate was
not simply to gain access to the benefits of specific tantric religious rituals and
teachings but also to take on a new legal status, one in which orthodox brah-
manical social codes often were no longer applicable. Samayin (entry-­level) ini-
tiates became subject to the distinctive, community-­specific laws (samaya) of
the tantric community they were initiated into (e.g., nonrecognition of caste
differences, the giving of a proportion of one’s material wealth for use by the
community), with the guru—­over and above the state—­now their final binding
legal authority.150
As noted, tantric traditions changed the rules of the game by opening up ini-
tiation (and its liberating benefits) to all caste classes and not requiring renun-
ciation. Tantric communities likely grew especially by offering initiation to the
increasing numbers of śūdras—­recruited from local populations—­who were
essential in the cultivation of land in newly settled peripheral areas.151 While it
seems safe to assume that the lay populace would have significantly outnum-
bered the community of tantric initiates, Nina Mirnig’s research has suggested
that, in at least some cases, the modes of worship prescribed by the Śaiva
Siddhānta tradition for entry-­level (samayin) tantric initiates were the same as
those prescribed for lay devotees.152 Furthermore, epigraphic evidence suggests
that tantric initiation (especially among heads of household) was considerably
more common than many have assumed and was even conducted in semiregu-
lar, prearranged mass ceremonies. Sanderson discusses an inscription from
Senakapāṭ in Chattisgarh that shows that, already in the seventh century, maṭhas
were receiving endowments to perform tantric initiation in regular ceremonies
on predetermined days (indicating a steady stream of people who would pres-
ent themselves for initiation) and that it was typical to initiate multiple people
in a single ceremony.153 According to the Senakapāṭ inscription, doctrinal teach-
ings were to be expounded on these occasions, implying that the new and pre-
vious initiates gathered at these ritual events were not professional ascetics but
householders living lives dominated by worldly concerns.154 Considering the
unique spiritual (and even legal) benefits to which it provided access, the tant-
ric initiation of householders would have generated a strong sense of debt and
commitment to the guru and larger tantric community and called for a gift or
 56 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

investment of some kind in return. As Indrani Chatterjee reminds us, “All initi-
ates paid for their learning and assimilation in some form,” even if “the qual-
ity, size and nature of these payments separated the humbler initiates from their
wealthier counterparts.”155 Initiation fees and the contributions of initiated
householder patrons (whether of wealth, labor, sustenance, or land)—­which
were probably required by the community-­specific laws (samaya) one became
subject to upon initiation—­provided a crucial economic foundation for tantric
communities. Much further research is needed to better illuminate the histori-
cal relationships between professional tantric ascetics, initiated householders
(samayins and putrakas), and uninitiated lay devotees, but what we do know sug-
gests that the religious lives of tantric initiates and lay devotees were on some-
thing of a continuum and, at a general level, that initiatory tantric traditions
and lay devotional traditions interacted with and influenced each other in vital
ways.
As brahmanical culture spread outward in connection with political and
agrarian expansion, in the overlapping tantric, purāṇic, and Śivadharma tra-
ditions there was a reenvisioning of orthopraxy to accommodate new social
groups and practices. In this process, a number of originally nonbrahmanical,
“folk” religious practices—­possession, exorcism, nature spirit and goddess
worship, etc.—­became important parts of the tantric tradition by being
incorporated into tantric ritual forms and authorized in and by Sanskrit tan-
tric scriptures. In this sense, we might understand much of tantra as brah-
manical appropriations, translations, or domestications of folk religious prac-
tices and traditions. As Travis Smith states, “While many of the elements that
make up Tantra were associated with non-­elite, marginal peoples and sects,”
tantric practices were not “accurate representations of folk or non-­elite
praxes, nor were they intended as such.” Rather, these elements “were bounded
and transformed through a remarkably rigorous ritualization, leading to a
profuse elaboration of precise rules for ritual conduct. . . . ​Tantric practices, it
is clear, were not the actual practices of these groups, but deliberate transfor-
mations and elaborations of them.”156
In all likelihood, many tantric scriptures were composed in areas into which
brahmanical state society had only recently entered, and some may not have
been composed by brahmans at all, but in order for the texts to carry cosmo-
politan authority they had to be in the brahmanical language of Sanskrit. As
Flood remarks, many of the authors and redactors of tantric scriptures “were
not completely at home” in an elite Sanskritic milieu but still “thought it imper-
ative to locate these texts and traditions within the wider, ‘high’ literary culture
of the Sanskrit cosmopolis.”157 The textualization—­i n the language of San-
skrit—­of what were in some cases originally vernacular, oral, nonbrahmanical
 The Tantric Age = 57

traditions of knowledge and practice is one illustration of how the growth of

tantra—­whatever its folk or tribal dimensions—­generally occurred in the hege-
monic terms of brahmanism.
Frederick Smith’s discussion of the relationship between folk traditions of
possession and the core tantric ritual procedure of nyāsa (the tantric method for
divinizing the body) offers further insights that may help to explain how folk
traditions of practice were domesticated into more controlled, brahmanical
modes as they were assimilated into the tantric tradition. As has been noted, the
divinization of the body (through ritual imposition of mantras and visualization-­
based yoga) is a distinguishing feature of tantric practice. In tantric ritual, the
self becomes divine, as Flood puts it, through the ritual “mapping of the body in
tradition-­specific and text-­specific ways.”158 In other words, the tantric diviniza-
tion of the body is not separate from its systematic entextualization. This para-
digmatic tantric self-­deification typically occurs through the practice of nyāsa,
the imposing of mantras on the body, with the practitioner touching the
requisite part of the body and reciting the correct mantra. As Smith writes, “The
intent of nyāsa is to impose or place the power of the mantras, and perforce
the deities, and so on, which they inscribe, on or within various body parts,
either one’s own or that of an image of a deity.”159 The divinization of the body is
also a fundamental part of the folk practice of possession, but unlike nyāsa, it
occurs in a manner that is nontextual, far less systematic, and far more sponta-
neous (though still typically following certain ritual protocols). Smith argues
that the Tantras domesticated possession ritually and conferred philosophical
credibility on it, “apparently sensitive to its historical prominence as a popular
and legitimate mode of religious experience and expression.”160 He states, “Nyāsa,
we can say, is brahmanical possession.”161 In the process of nyāsa, “deities, pow-
ers, and so on are invited to take possession of the body. But they are invited in a
brahmanically programmatic, that is, ‘textual,’ way, one that emphasizes purity
at the expense of spontaneity and danger.”162 Thus Smith provocatively suggests
that, in nyāsa, we have a tantric brahmanical domestication of popular religious
possession. From this perspective, nyāsa, one of tantra’s most distinctive prac-
tices, served to exercise “programmatic control” on the practice of possession
while also conferring brahmanical legitimacy upon it.
Thus, the process by which certain folk practices became “tantric” (i.e.,
became part of the tantric tradition) was inseparable from the process by which
these practices became “brahmanical” and “Sanskritic.” A more specific exam-
ple of the brahmanical nature of tantric practice and the tantric domestica-
tion of folk possession can be found in the practice of the tantric healer known
as the gāruḍika described in the body of scriptures known as the Gāruḍa Tan-
tras. Michael Slouber has conducted trailblazing research on the Śaiva Gāruḍa
 58 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

Tantras, an important but understudied corpus of tantric scriptures focused

especially on healing snakebite and curing poisoning, while also including
broader material related to health care, astrology, possession, and sorcery.163 As
a class of scripture, these texts were known as early as the sixth century, and
by the tenth century the twenty-­eight Gāruḍa Tantras had been canonized as
one the five “streams” of Śaiva revelation.164 The teachings of Gāruḍika medi-
cine articulated therein were, like all the mantras and ritual methods in
tantric scripture, considered to be divine in origin, with a chain of command
flowing from “Śiva to Garuḍa [Lord of Birds and archenemy of snakes] to the
Gāruḍika practitioner who embodies him.”165
The ritual divinization of the body characteristic of tantric practice—­
described by Smith as “brahmanical possession”—­is a crucial element in the
gāruḍika’s healing ritual. The Gāruḍika practitioner ritually identifies with
(becomes possessed by) Garuḍa in order to heal. Slouber explains that “ ‘becom-
ing’ Garuḍa was the fundamental act of the ritual, judging by its frequent men-
tion in the literature.”166 This procedure involved the “mental construction of
the element maṇḍalas and their deposition on both the hand and body of the
practitioner” and “the visualization of oneself as Garuḍa.”167 In other words,
what likely was originally a nontextual folk tradition of practice, in which the
healer became possessed by a locally specific deity, has here become a tantric
practice of controlled and programmatic identification with a Sanskritic deity
(agency and control lying not with the possessing deity/spirit but with the prac-
titioner), authorized by and performed in accord with the prescriptions of San-
skrit tantric scripture.168
The tantric healer of snakebites is a figure that will be encountered again in
early modern bhakti and Sufi literature and is worth a bit more attention here,
particularly insofar as his ritual activities speak to the wide range of functions
to which relatively standardized tantric ritual techniques could be applied.
Gāruḍikas drew on the power of various (textually specified) mantras to heal
snakebite, drive out snakes, and cure poisoning, but in addition to these func-
tions, they made amulets and yantras (from mantra syllables) that could be worn
on the body for protection from snakes, dangerous animals, or thieves, to ward
off fear in dangerous places, to make barren women fertile, or to defend against
possession by hostile spirits.169 Passages from the Jayadrathayāmala suggest that
gāruḍikas were also involved in weather magic and crop protection, conducting
tantric rituals and reciting mantras to ward off thunderstorms, lightning, and
pests.170
The ritual practice of the gāruḍika gives us a sense of the more pragmatic
dimensions of tantric religiosity and the ways in which tantra could be simul-
taneously esoteric and popular. As Lawrence A. Babb has discussed, in Indian
 The Tantric Age = 59

religious life we often find, on the one hand, a “transcendental complex” con-
cerned with the ultimate purposes of man, long-­term welfare, institutional con-
tinuity, and the stability of society, which is usually in the hands of hereditary
brahman priests, and, on the other hand, a “pragmatic complex” concerned
with local and personal welfare and desires, which is usually in the hands of
typically nonhereditary and lower-­caste exorcists and shamans.171 The tantric
ritual practice of the gāruḍika would seem to fall under the pragmatic complex,
but what is far more important to highlight is that the basic ritual forms and
techniques a gāruḍika would use to harness divine power for “pragmatic” func-
tions were no different from those used to access and employ sacred power for
“transcendental” purposes. Both “high” and “low,” elite and popular forms of
tantric practice sought to harness divine power through essentially the same
mantra-­focused ritual techniques. As a modus operandi, tantric ritual bridged
the transcendental and pragmatic aspects of South Asian religious life in its abil-
ity to access and utilize cosmic power. Whether healing snakebite victims or
consecrating kings, exorcising illness-­causing demons or installing temple
images, practicing black magic or striving for liberated consciousness, worship-
ping bloodthirsty goddesses or pure, brahmanical Sanskritic deities, the same
general ritual system and form—­with self-­divinization and the use of tantric
mantras—­was utilized.
Furthermore, this tantric ritual form was used across sectarian lines. While
Gavin Flood has shown us that the tantric body was “mapped” in sect-­and text-­
specific ways, tantric ritual forms were incredibly similar regardless of the
specific sect or text (and its cosmology and doctrine) informing the ritual per-
fomance.172 The Vajrayāna Buddhist monk and the Pāñcarātra worshipper, the
Saiddhāntika Śaiva priest and the transgressive Śākta ascetic, the gāruḍika
healer and the tantric rājaguru—­all seem to have moved and understood their
bodies in remarkably similar ways in their ritual practice. Indeed, Sanderson
has described the ritual of the various tantric sects—­Buddhist, Śaiva, and
Vaiṣṇava—­as essentially different “dialects of a single ‘Tantric’ language.”173
The range of uses to which tantra’s transsectarian ritual techniques could
be applied was remarkably wide; however, knowledge of the specialized ritual
techniques themselves was of limited access and very time-­consuming to
acquire. In the case of the gāruḍika, for instance, “patients would have known
little about the operations of the specialist except that they were renowned as
highly effective” and that “the power of the mantra to heal the envenomation
stems from Garuḍa.”174 To use White’s apt metaphor, tantric scriptures were
“classified documents” and their uniquely efficacious mantras and ritual tech-
niques were “secret codes” given only to those with “top-­secret security clear-
ance.”175 Though specialist tantric ritual knowledge was esoteric—­g uarded by a
 60 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

system of layered initiations—­participation in tantric religious life became a

popular phenomenon in early medieval India, a period that saw pervasive faith
in the power of tantric mantras and rituals to accomplish one’s desires, wide-
spread access to and demand for initiated tantric specialists, and a public life
in which tantric figures and institutions often played a key role.
In sum, in conjunction with the expansion of state society and settled agricul-
ture in early medieval India, a brahmanical tantric civilization extended into
unbrahmanized tribal areas, beginning a multidirectional interaction in which
both the tribal areas and brahmanical culture were transformed. The develop-
ment of the tantric tradition occurred in this context and, in key respects, was
characterized by the assimilation of local, nontextual, and nonbrahmanical tra-
ditions of practice (e.g., possession, exorcism, blood sacrifice) into the controlled,
transregional, brahmanic, textualized ritual forms of tantra. These tantric ritual
techniques served to harness cosmic power for purposes both spiritual and mun-
dane, transcendental and pragmatic, with the same basic ritual technique used
by tantric practitioners, be they Śaiva, Vaiṣṇava, or Buddhist, rural or urban,
high caste or low caste, orthodox or heterodox. The specialized, guarded knowl-
edge and training required to effectively utilize tantric mantras and perform
tantric rituals made tantra, at one level, essentially esoteric, but participation in
the tantric ritual world, interaction with tantric specialists and institutions, and
acceptance of tantric cosmological presuppositions and ritual logic were all so
widespread that, in toto, tantra must be considered a popular tradition.

The End of the Tantric Age

The preceding discussion has shown how tantra became a popular, politically
powerful, mainstream tradition. It did so by allying with kings, by co-­opting
orthodox brahmanism even as it assimilated frontier folk traditions, by dissemi-
nating highly esteemed (flexible but standardized) ritual forms and techniques,
and by integrating itself with temple-­based lay devotional traditions. By the
tenth century, the institutions and ritual networks of tantric monastic orders
had achieved a huge and influential presence throughout India. The continued
existence of these institutions and the tantric communities associated with
them depended largely upon royal patronage and the existence of a religiopoliti-
cal environment in which transregional tantric ritual forms and Sanskritic aes-
thetic expressions were assumed as the shared mediators of sovereign power.
Beginning especially with the Delhi Sultanate period (1206–­1526), this would no
longer be the case in much of northern and central India. The political order and
 The Tantric Age = 61

cultural world of India—­particularly North India—­underwent a major change

at this time with the rise of new Persianate forms of state power, in which insti-
tutional tantric religion had no real place or authority.
It would undoubtedly be a mistake to reduce the decline of mainstream, insti-
tutional tantra in late medieval India solely to the impact of Persianized Turks in
India, though this was clearly a decisive factor in North India. Might the rising
influence of Vedānta (especially in South India) also have played a role in the
“decline” of politically influential, institutionalized forms of tantra? Further
research is needed to determine if and how these two historical trends were
related, but it is a question well worth asking. Beginning in the twelfth century,
there was a proliferation of different Vedāntic philosophical systems in southern
India, often integrated with new sectarian bhakti theologies.176 While main-
stream, institutional tantra appears to have disappeared rather suddenly in
North India, in South India the influence of public, royally sponsored tantra
seems to have waned more gradually at the same time that the ideological and
institutional presence of Vedānta—­most especially Advaita (nondual) Vedānta—­
was continually expanding. Over the course of the late medieval and early
modern periods, the growing Vedāntic tradition seems to have assimilated or
significantly impacted a variety of devotional and tantric-­yogic modes of religi-
osity.177 With some Indian social elites perceiving the traditional brahmanical
social order to be under threat (whether directly or indirectly) from Persianate
Turks, perhaps Vedānta offered something the tantric tradition could not: a
scripturally based philosophical axis around which (and a shared conceptual
language through which) a unifying, orthodox “Hindu” intellectual identity
could arise and cohere.178 As Elaine Fisher has shown, in late medieval and early
modern South India, Vaiṣṇava and Śaiva traditions ceased to operate as indepen-
dent religious systems (each with their own separate, sect-­specific ultimate
scriptural authority)—­as they had in the Tantric Age—­and instead increasingly
sought to position themselves, through Vedāntic exegesis, as ideal representa-
tives of Vedic orthodoxy.179 The expanding influence of the Vedāntic tradition
had its own internal logic and should not be viewed simply as “a direct response
to Islam”;180 yet brahmanical perceptions of and concerns regarding the pres-
ence and expanding political influence of Central Asian “mlecchas” in India likely
gave real impetus to developments already under way in the rising Vedāntic
tradition, which in turn may have contributed to shifts in the position of insti-
tutional tantra.181
Whatever role Vedānta (and its rise) may or may not have had in the process,
with the spread of Turkish power across North India beginning in the twelfth
century, we see the rapid decline of the relationship between ruler and tāntrika—­
political authority no longer relying upon tantric ritual and institutions—­which
 62 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

brings about a significant change in the religious landscape. As White writes,

“The rise and fall of Hindu Tantra as a religious ‘mainstream’ is directly linked to
the rise and fall of its royal patrons. In north and central India, Hindu Tantra
thrived as the royal cultus under the Kalacuri, Somavamshi, Chandella, Calukya,
and other dynastic lines, until their lands fell into the hands of Muslim rulers in
the 12th century.”182 While identifying these Turkish rulers first and foremost as
“Muslim” is problematic (essentializing them in terms of religious identity when
Indians at the time did not understand them in this light), White nevertheless
hits on a crucial point. As he states, “For so long as [the] relationship between
kings and tantric specialists remained in force, Tantra persisted as a sanctioned
religious force in India, with the ceremonial life of the kingdom being conducted
in a tantric mode. When that relationship was dissolved, as Hindu kings were
overthrown or reduced to vassal status by Muslim [Persianate Turkish] rulers (or,
from the 16th cent. forward, increasingly opted for a devotional religious style),
Tantra disappeared.”183 Here White does not mean that all tantric religiosity van-
ished but that tantra as a mainstream, public tradition—­one held together as
such by royal patronage and participation in an overarching politico-­religious
ideology and institutional culture—­largely disappeared.
Tantric religiosity in North India would live on, but it would do so primarily
(a) in more private, secretive contexts among Hindu royal families now subor-
dinate to Turkish rulers and (b) among lineages of tantric practitioners that were
less dependent on the royally patronized institutional structure of temples and
maṭhas. Tantric ritual forms would maintain a key place in North Indian Hindu
religious life, but with the end of the Tantric Age these ritual procedures and
techniques were often detached from tantric religiosity per se, persisting in new
contexts (e.g., Vedāntic, bhakti, and yogic frameworks) not linked to sectarian
tantric traditions or institutions. In the new Persianate political culture of Sul-
tanate India, the infrastructure of mainstream, public, institutional tantra
largely collapsed, and the sphere of tantric religion underwent a transforma-
tion and contraction into one constituted largely by less-­institutionalized lin-
eages of yogīs, warrior ascetics, and rural tantric healers and “magicians.”

R
In this chapter, I have articulated an understanding of tantra as a broad reli-
giopolitical tradition whose ritual culture, institutional figures and spaces, and
cosmological presuppositions were pervasive in early medieval India. The rest
of this book seeks, in large part, to explain the rise of bhakti in early modern
North India and the concomitant marginalization of Śaiva-­Śākta tantra, a phe-
nomenon that cannot be understood apart from two interrelated factors: (a) the
 The Tantric Age = 63

spread and influence of Persianate political culture and popular Sufism in the
Sultanate and Mughal periods and (b) bhakti authors’ and performers’ critique
and attempted delegitimation of the tantric outlook. The Tantric Age comes to an
end with the Delhi Sultanate, but tantric ritual technique would persist in and
beyond the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, sometimes in new
Sufi and bhakti contexts. The tantric outlook would also persevere, with tantric
yogīs now as its primary representative. In the early modern period, however,
tantric paradigms of thought and behavior—­no longer having the sociopo-
litical context and state support that had sustained them—­would often find
themselves marginalized and subordinated to Hindu religious practices and
perspectives that were more congenial to the new social environment and its
increasingly prevalent Islamicate worldviews. In the next chapter, I explore
this process, looking at the ways in which Sultanate political culture and the
spread of popular Sufism paved the way for the emergence of the great bhakti
poet-­saints of North India.
 2
Sultans, Saints, and Songs

Persianate Culture, Sufism, and

Bhakti in Sultanate India

T
he previous chapter pointed to some of the ways in which medieval
bhakti—­in its varied forms and expressions—­was in close relationship
with the scriptural authority, religious goals and sensibilities, ritual
forms, institutions, and monastic representatives (yogīs, ācāryas) of tantra. My
contention in this book is that the bhakti of North India’s own regionally spe-
cific bhakti movement, which arose in the late Sultanate and Mughal periods—­
though certainly continuous with aspects of earlier forms of bhakti—­was, in key
respects, qualitatively distinct from the bhakti of the early medieval period. The
bhakti of early modern North India grew up in conjunction with a set of cultural
traditions and cosmological presuppositions considerably different from those
dominant in the Tantric Age, for this was a bhakti inflected by the values, insti-
tutions, and perspectives of (a) Persian literary and political culture and (b) pop-
ular Sufism.
In this chapter, I explore the ways in which the spread of popular Sufism
and cosmopolitan Persianate cultural forms during the Sultanate period
paved the way for the emergence of the bhakti poet-­saints of North India.
These poet-­saints and the bhakti communities that drew inspiration from
them cultivated a distinctive religious sensibility—­a n ethical, emotional, and
aesthetic disposition—­remarkable in its similarities with key Sufi values and
perspectives and in its divergences from certain tantric religious attitudes
and approaches.
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 65

Getting Beyond “Muslim Invasion”: Indic Encounters

with the Persian Cosmopolis

The historical shifts occasioned by the influx of Persianate peoples and Islami-
cate1 culture into the Indian subcontinent beginning in the thirteenth century
were closely linked to the demise of mainstream, institutional forms of tantra
and the rise of North India’s bhakti movement. If bhakti is best understood not
in terms of its supposed intrinsic qualities but on the basis of its historically and
geographically specific relationships with other key concepts and institutions
in the larger field of Indian social and religious life, then, during the Sultanate
period, we see many of those relationships shift in consequential ways. To under-
stand the Sultanate period as a time of momentous historical change in India is
hardly a novel position; however, the overwhelming majority of scholarly works
highlighting Sultanate “rupture” have been deeply problematic in placing the
religion of Islam at their very center as the fundamental agent of change. In the
pages that follow, I seek to understand the history of this time within a more
productive and sophisticated frame than that of religious identity. As Richard
Eaton has stated, “Modern textbooks routinely characterize the advent of Per-
sianized Turks in India as a ‘Muslim conquest,’ and the entire period from the
thirteenth to the eighteenth century as India’s ‘Muslim Era.’ ”2 From this all-­too-­
common perspective, “the agent of conquest is not a people as defined by their
ethnic heritage or place of origin, but rather, a religion, the Islamic religion.”3
Rather than viewing Indian history in the “narrowly religious terms” of Hindu-­
Muslim encounter, here I follow Eaton and Phillip Wagoner in framing our
understanding of the Sultanate and Mughal periods as, in part, “an encounter
between civilizations defined by Sanskrit or Persian literary traditions.” 4 As they
put it, “in place of competing religions, we see a complex and often fruitful
encounter between two literary-­cultural systems, the Sanskrit and the Persian,
each of which encompassed and transcended religious systems.”5 Through the
encounter of these elite literary-­political cultures of Sanskrit and Persian, but
also through more vernacular (often Sufi-­driven) interactions at the popular
level, Islamicate cultural forms would gradually become interwoven into the
fabric of North Indian society.
Sanskrit cosmopolitan culture had been well established in South Asia since
the fourth century and was intertwined in important ways with tantric reli-
giopolitical paradigms in the medieval period. The Sanskrit cosmopolis—­so bril-
liantly elaborated by Sheldon Pollock6—­had existed for centuries when, in
roughly the eleventh century, a cosmopolitan Persian culture clearly emerged
in Central Asia. The roots of the Persian cosmopolis lie in the court of the
 66 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

Samanid dynasty (819–­999) in Khurasan (modern-­day Uzbekistan). Reasserting

a rich pre-­Islamic Persian heritage that had been largely submerged in the Arab
conquest of the Iranian plateau in the seventh century, the Samanids adopted
Persian as “their language of administration and a vehicle for both high litera-
ture and political theory.”7 This literary language of Persian—­a nd the political,
aesthetic, and moral ideals embedded in it—­would spread beyond Iran into Cen-
tral and South Asia in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. As was
the case with Sanskrit, the production of Persian literature came to be inti-
mately linked to the expression of authority, prestige, and sophistication and
the inculcation of shared moral and political ideals across a broad territorial
expanse. For societies in the embrace of this transregional Persianate culture,
governance was decoupled from Islam and instead grounded in pre-­Islamic Ira-
nian notions of kingship. According to the political ideals of the Persian cosmop-
olis, society was to be upheld not by a pious caliph but by a just king, a sultan
whose rule is divine in origin and who ensures the well-­being of diverse religious
and cultural groups.
This cosmopolitan Persian literature and political culture first made its way
into South Asia with the Ghaznavids. Once subordinate to the Samanids, the
Ghaznavids (a dynasty of Central Asian Turkic origin) established their own in-
dependent realm in the late tenth century, bringing Persian literary and cul-
tural traditions with them to the east as they built centers of power in Ghazna
(in eastern Afghanistan) and Lahore (in the Punjab).8 Beginning with the
Ghaznavids (977–­1186), the Turko-­Afghan presence (or fear of it) would play an
increasingly significant—­and disruptive—­role in North Indian social and po-
litical life. In the early eleventh century, Maḥmūd of Ghazna (971–­1030) under-
took a series of seasonal raids on various cities in northwestern India, including
Kanauj, which had been the capital of the Gurjara-­Pratihāra dynasty and the
center of brahmanical culture in North India for more than a century. Heralding
the destruction of the religiopolitical infrastructure that was to come, he infa-
mously ransacked major religious sites such as Mathura and Somnath, looting
temple treasuries and returning to Afghanistan with the plundered wealth.
In 1186, the Ghurids (a dynasty of eastern Iranian origins) took power from
the Ghaznavids but continued their enthusiastic patronage of Persian literature
and culture. Led by Turkish general Quṭb-­ud-­dīn-­Aibak, the Ghurids conducted
a major offensive into the heart of North India in 1192–­1194, defeating several
Rajput houses and sacking both Kanauj and Varanasi. After the death of the
Ghurid ruler Muhammad Ghūri in 1206, General Aibak declared himself the sul-
tan of Delhi, thereby commencing the Mamluk dynasty, the first of the several
dynasties that constituted the Delhi Sultanate, each dynasty representing a dif-
ferent segment of Afghan-­Turkish Inner Asian military lords and their clients.
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 67

The “Delhi Sultanate” is typically understood to have lasted from 1206 to 1526
under the leadership of five major dynasties: the Mamluks (1210–­1290), the
Khaljis (1290–­1320), the Tughlaqs (1320–­1414), the Sayyids (1414–­1451), and the
Lodis (1451–­1526). In actuality, the Sultanate was only a centralized, tran­
sregional power until the late fourteenth century, when—­toward the end of
Tughlaq rule—­multiple remote areas began to break away and form indepen-
dent sultanates and some local Hindu Rajput dynasties in the north recovered
power. Nevertheless, from 1206 to 1398, the Sultanate of Delhi was the dominant
military and political power of North India. As Digby states, it “was a pan-­Indian
realm, which at one time or another exercised control over an expanse of the
subcontinent comparable to the realms of Ashoka and of the Mughal emperors
in their heyday and only exceeded by the British colonial unification.”9 The
establishment of the Delhi Sultanate marked several momentous changes in
northern and central India. In this chapter, I highlight three key dimensions of
this social and cultural change: (1) the decline of mainstream, royally patron-
ized institutional forms of tantra; (2) the spread of Persian cosmopolitan author-
ity and the growth of a new shared Indo-­Persian culture; and (3) the expansion
of popular Sufism and, relatedly, the growth of a transreligious North Indian
culture of (a) charismatic asceticism and (b) vernacular literary composition and
performance. All of these were important factors in the emergence of North
India’s bhakti movement. In the following I address each in turn.

The Decline of Mainstream Tantra

As a number of scholars have demonstrated, Indians living in the Sultanate

period generally did not understand their encounter with Persianized Turks in
religious terms. The ruling Turks were not seen as “Muslims” but instead as “just
one more ethnic group . . . ​in an already ethnically diverse region.”10 Rosalind
O’Hanlon reminds us that “these were not simply alien outsiders”; rather, “the
Persian culture, Islamic religion and central Asian military heritage that these
warrior communities introduced in India added further diversity to societies
that were already heterogeneous.”11 Nevertheless, the Turks’ military conquest—­
especially their destruction, desecration, or takeover of existing religious
and political institutions—­t hough generally not religiously motivated,12 was
extremely disruptive to India’s religious landscape. The new Sultanate rulers of
northern and central India also brought with them a rich Persianate cultural
heritage that put no stock in the Sanskritic traditions and tantric ritual culture
that had for centuries served to authorize and express power in India.
 68 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

While anti-­Turkic sentiment certainly existed among Indians in the early Sul-
tanate period, it seems not to have been based on any hostility toward the
Turks’ Islamic religious beliefs or practices but rather to have resulted from their
extraction of high revenues from local populations (to support the sultans’
military activities), their large-­scale destruction of existing sociopolitical
networks (especially through temple destruction and desecration), and their
general failure to uphold the traditional brahmanical social order.13 Carl
Ernst explains that, for most Indians, the “religion” of the Turks was just another
form of worship of the supreme being and did not distinguish them in any
significant way; however, the Turks were demonized when they “violated the
purity of sacred lakes and disrupted the traditional royal patronage of tem-
ples and brahmans.”14
Sultanate rule brought about a number of significant shifts, particularly with
regard to the institutional structures that had long upheld the Indian sociopo-
litical order. As has become clear, mainstream tantra was closely linked to the
interdependent institutions of the temple, the monastery (maṭha), the Hindu
king, and the brahman, and in North India each of these religiopolitical insti-
tutions suffered dramatically at the hands of the Turks. During the Tantric Age,
brahmans commanded great prestige and power, as well as considerable prop-
erty and wealth, but under Sultanate rule patronage of brahmans seems to have
declined and their influence was substantially diminished.15 Hindu kings and
their royal temples often fared no better than the brahman establishment. In
the early Sultanate period, as Michael Willis states, “the power and influence
of the indigenous ruling elite that had built and endowed temples was increas-
ingly circumscribed” and “temple building declined precipitously.”16 Andre
Wink writes that “without the independent Hindu king, the intimate connec-
tion of kingship, temple building and Hindu religious worship was lost in the
areas which were conquered. If the temples were not destroyed, patronage
dried up, and few great temples were built in North India after the thirteenth
century.”17
These developments had a major impact on institutionalized tantric commu-
nities and monastic orders. With military and political power in North India no
longer predominantly in the hands of the independent Hindu dynasties that had
supported them, many of these tantric orders struggled to survive. In this con-
text, the most powerful of the medieval tantric communities, the Śaiva
Siddhānta, “seems to have quickly disappeared as an identifiable school in
northern India.”18 While some tantric ascetic lineages subsisted primarily on
local community support and thus were able to endure, major tantric orders
like the Śaiva Siddhānta were based in institutional networks of temples and
maṭhas and heavily dependent on continuing royal patronage, thus these
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 69

brahmanical, mainstream forms of tantric religiosity were “particularly vul-

nerable to this transformation of the North Indian political order.”19
In many cases, the monasteries of India’s ascetic orders, like temples, “formed
centers of power that may have posed an impediment to the assimilation of new
territories under sultanate control,” thus they frequently became targets of
desecration or—­perhaps more often—­appropriation.20 As Tamara Sears has
argued, at numerous locations in the expanding Sultanate domain, the maṭhas
of tantric communities such as the Śaiva Siddhānta were transformed into mil-
itary garrisons, with a mosque and tomb built in place of the maṭha’s accompa-
nying temple.21 In this fashion, the Delhi sultans were able to take control of a
site associated with a powerful local tantric institution, destabilize the tantric
monastic community that had previously resided there, and transform the site
into a marker of Sultanate political and military authority. Many of the maṭhas
appropriated by Sultanate forces were on the frontiers of centralized power and
Sears’s research suggests that they likely served as military garrisons for sol-
diers and new local authorities, places of worship, and educational centers facil-
itating the transmission of Islamic knowledge.22
Thus, while tantra had been a crucial part of mainstream medieval Indian
religious and political life since at least the tenth century, by the beginning of
the thirteenth century and the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate, the Turks’
military conquest and political dominance had resulted in the collapse of much
of the infrastructure sustaining institutionalized (royally patronized), brah-
manical forms of tantric religion in North India. Persianate Turkish political
authority did not rely upon Sanskrit, brahmanical legitimation, or tantric rit-
uals and institutions, and this simple fact would have profound implications for
India’s religious landscape.
In the new political context of the Sultanate, tantric religion certainly did
not altogether disappear in northern and central India, but it largely shifted out
of mainstream public settings, losing much of its prior institutional presence
and political influence. Tantric ritual forms and techniques continued to be
prevalent throughout Hindu religious life, but increasingly in nontantric (often
devotional) contexts. Tantric religious goals and attitudes also persisted but
found representation mostly among less-­institutionalized lineages of tantric
ascetics and service providers. Indeed, even as formerly state-­sponsored insti-
tutional tantric forms withered in North India, this period saw the rise and
flourishing of the tantric Nāth yogīs (the focus of chapter 5), who had roots partly
in the medieval siddha tradition.23 Overall, though, in early modern North India
and beyond, tantric paradigms of thought and behavior no longer had the
sociopolitical context, institutional bases, or state support that had once
sustained them, and consequently they were increasingly marginalized and
 70 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

subordinated to religious practices and perspectives better suited to the new

social environment and its largely Persianate and Sufi-­inflected sensibilities. It
was in the Sultanate’s new and culturally hybrid socioreligious atmosphere
that North India’s bhakti movement would emerge.

The Spread of Persian Cosmopolitanism and

the Growth of Indo-­Persian Culture

If the demise of mainstream, institutional tantra and the corresponding weak-

ening of a “tantric episteme” constitute one key dimension of the historical
change occasioned by the entry of Persianized Turks into India, then the spread
of Persian cosmopolitanism and the growth of a shared Indo-­Persian cultural
life are related and equally crucial aspects of the social and cultural transfor-
mations ignited by Sultanate rule. Inheriting and continuing the legacy of Per-
sian cosmopolitan literary-­political culture of the Samanids, Ghaznavids, and
Ghurids before them, the Delhi Sultans based their rule primarily on Persian
royal symbolism and generously patronized Persian scribes, writers, and poets.
Nevertheless, the spread of Persian culture in South Asia might easily have been
far more circumscribed had it not been for major historical events happening
outside the Indian subcontinent. In the early thirteenth century, western Asia
was the victim of devastating Mongol invasions that uprooted many Iranians
and Persianized Turks from their homelands in Iran and Central Asia, driving
them into the shelter and service of the newly formed Delhi Sultanate in India.
The tens of thousands of refugees who migrated to North India in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries “would contribute very significantly to the rooting of
Persian cultural ideals in their adopted home.”24 Among these migrants were
Persianate cultural elites—­members of distinguished ruling families, Sufis, and
Muslim scholars (‘ulamā)—­who were patronized by the Delhi sultans with rev-
enue grants of lands, often located in the Indian countryside where Sultanate
presence was weak. In this way, explains Muzaffar Alam, a “gradual penetra-
tion of the small towns and rural centres began via this class of migrants” and
“the life of north India became considerably marked, in various aspects, by the
influence of Persian language and culture.”25
With the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate in the thirteenth century and
the influx of elite Persianized migrants uprooted by the Mongol invasions, Per-
sian cosmopolitan culture and its distinctive ethics, aesthetics, and political
practices gradually took root in North India and, later, the Deccan, overlapping
and interacting with the preexisting Sanskrit cosmopolis. The ideals of the
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 71

Persian cosmopolis—­just like those of Sanskritic culture—­were not imposed

but emulated or assimilated.26 Indian elites from North India to the Deccan
plateau increasingly came to participate in the broad Persianate political cul-
ture of the ruling sultans, adopting certain Persianate cultural forms, social
practices, and standards of taste, particularly in performative, public contexts.
While many Indians came to embrace Persianate architecture, dress, courtly
comportment, cuisine, and language, they typically maintained their tradi-
tional religious beliefs and practices and continued indigenous norms in
the domestic, private sphere. As Wagoner’s research on the fourteenth-­to-­
sixteenth-­century Deccan state of Vijayanagar has demonstrated, cosmopoli-
tan Persian culture came to inform the intertwined realms of Indian politics
and aesthetics to such an extent that even independent Hindu kings could no
longer rely solely on traditional Indic idioms. In order to be respected (by their
subordinates and the rulers of other states) and to effectively wield power, it
had become imperative to express and legitimate oneself according to Islami-
cate and—­more specifically—­Persianate models.27
After conquering lands through military force, the Sultanate exercised its
authority and administered its territories largely through the iqtā‘ system. In
this political and revenue-­collecting structure, the Delhi sultans gave a military
officer or nobleman temporary rights of revenue collection over an iqtā‘, a par-
ticular province or unit of land. In order to accomplish the vital work of land
clearance, agriculture, and military defense in their assigned provinces, iqtā‘
holders often recruited settlers, especially Sufis, who could sanctify their terri-
tory and attract more migrants.28 Local landholders in the province paid tributes
or taxes to this Sultanate official, who might have his own smaller provincial
court (modeled on the Persianate political-­aesthetic practices of the sultan’s
court) and who would send part of the land revenue to Delhi while using the rest
to train, equip, and pay soldiers responsible for garrisoning forts in the Indian
countryside.29 As the Persianized Turks and Afghans of the Sultanate subju-
gated local Indian populations, a slow process of cultural and linguistic assimi-
lation began, exemplified in the Sultanate elites’ “adaptation of local literary
and artistic forms to express new poetic and religious agendas within a complex
multilingualism of religious and symbolic vocabularies.”30
By the end of the thirteenth century, a significant part of the Sultanate aris-
tocracy was Indian born and raised. Most would have been native speakers of
Hindavi, the general vernacular spoken language of North India. The Tughlaq
dynasty (1320–­1414) is known to have cultivated Hindavi verse, patronizing its
musical and recitative performance, and the very first work of Hindavi liter-
ature—­a Sufi romance (premākhyān)—­the Cāndāyan, was composed in 1379 at a
Tughlaq provincial court in Avadh. The Tughlaqs were also the first to make
 72 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

tentative attempts to bring Hindus into the Sultanate’s central ruling appara-
tus. While we can find the beginnings of significant cultural exchange and
hybridity—­a simultaneous Indianization of Persianate traditions and a Persian-
ization of aspects of Indian culture—­beginning in the late thirteenth and early
fourteenth centuries,31 it is especially after Timur’s invasion of India in 1398,
and the fracturing of the centralized Delhi Sultanate, that a shared vernacular
culture comes into full bloom, thereby creating the context out of which North
India’s great bhakti saints would emerge.

The “Influence of Islam”

While the expansion of Persianate courtly and literary culture represents a key
dimension of the broader cultural change occurring in Sultanate India, related
to this expansion, and just as—­if not more—­important than it, was the spread
of Sufism. Even as we seek to avoid an anachronistic and inaccurate reading of
the Sultanate period in the narrow terms of (“Hindu” vs. “Muslim”) religious
identity, we still must acknowledge the importance of Islam, and particularly
Sufism, in the societal changes that took place in late medieval India. The Per-
sianized Turks who took control of northern and central India in the Sultanate
period were Muslims, and the religion of Islam was a significant factor in their
worldview and self-­understanding.
To talk about Islam “entering” India and “influencing” the culture problem-
atically posits Islam as a homogeneous, bounded, monolithic entity apart from
other aspects of culture and social life and possessing an agency of its own when,
in fact, it is none of these things. Nevertheless, it is true that with Sultanate rule
and the influx of Persianized Turks into India, an array of theological doctrines,
philosophical conceptions, historical narratives, ethical values, and embodied
ritual practices that were part of the diverse and internally contested tradition
of Islam—­as it had been localized in late medieval Persianate culture—­made their
way into India. The cultural effects of this Islamic presence in India were quite
significant, for Muslims and non-­Muslims alike. In seeking to understand these
effects, I follow Tony K. Stewart and Richard McGregor by approaching the his-
tory of Islam as “a history of local innovations by Muslims in response to their surround-
ings,” a history of “how Muslims made Islam their own” in particular local contexts.32
In what follows, then, when I refer to Islam in Sultanate and Mughal India I am
not discussing an entity so much as a process, a continuous activity in which Mus-
lims creatively shaped their Islamic beliefs, practices, and self-­understandings in
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 73

symbiosis with people of different ethnic and religious communities in the spe-
cific South Asian local environments in which they lived.33
In 1258, the Mongols destroyed the Abbasid capital of Baghdad, which had for
centuries been the global center of Islamic power, thus many immigrants to
India came to see it as the new center of the Islamic world, and elites often
“equated ‘Muslim’ sovereignty in India with Islam itself.”34 For many elite Mus-
lims, India was now “the sole remaining bastion of Islamic civilization,” and the
Turkish sultan of Delhi was the savior of Islam and “the last defender of the faith
against the pagan Mongol threat.”35 In this context, a number of India’s new Mus-
lim elites—­particularly the poets and historians who formulated the Delhi Sul-
tanate’s imperialist ideology—­highlighted their own Islamic identity in opposi-
tion to the “pagan” population within their new domain.36 As is well known, prior
to this historical moment, the Persian term “Hindu” had served only as an ethnic
designation, simply denoting those peoples living on the other side of the Indus
River. In the writings of the Sultanate’s Muslim elites, however, non-­Muslim Indi-
ans “were for the first time seen in distinct and generically religious terms—­
unfavorable ones”; they were conceived of as idolaters or unbelievers, like the
Mongols, “and their general designation as Hindu came to have a newly collective
religious force.”37
While Turkish ethnicity and Islamic religious identity had great symbolic
prominence for the Delhi Sultanate, “pragmatism was dominant over ideology,”
and, despite the anti-­Hindu rhetoric found in the writings of Sultanate imperial
poets and historians, in practice the regime patronized non-­Muslim religious
institutions (or allowed Indian kings who were their tributaries to do so) and
seems to have rarely interfered in the lives of (and much less to have persecuted)
its non-­Muslim subjects.38 Nevertheless, the exclusiveness of India’s new Muslim
elite seems to have gradually called forth the sense of an exclusive religious
identity among Hindu elites as well. The work of scholars such as David Lorenzen
and Andrew Nicholson suggests that, over the course of the Sultanate period, the
perceived threat of Islam gradually led Sanskrit-­educated brahman elites (of dif-
ferent philosophical and sectarian backgrounds) to view themselves for the first
time as a unified “Hindu” religious tradition.39
North India’s bhakti poets and sectarian traditions would respond in diverse
ways to the gradual emergence of distinct “Hindu” and “Muslim” religious com-
munities, with some disparaging both Muslim and Hindu orthodoxies, others
freely mixing Hindu and Muslim elements in their religious lives, and others
projecting a Hindu identity willfully ignorant of the existence of Islam in India.
Nevertheless, in general terms, all these bhakti poets and communities were sig-
nificantly and unavoidably influenced by the presence of Islam in Indian
 74 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

culture. When thinking broadly about “the presence of Islam” in South Asia,
however, the crucial fact is that it was not so much insulated Muslim elites like
imperial poets, historians, and members of the ‘ulamā as it was Sufi orders that
rooted aspects of the Islamic worldview (particular understandings of the
nature of and relationship between human beings, the Divine, and the world)
in Indian soil. The form and style of “Islam” that flooded into India from Cen-
tral Asia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was one largely defined by
Sufism, and more specifically by a new brand of Sufism centered on popular
devotion to the Sufi saint.

Sufism in Sultanate India

As noted, the Mongol invasions of Iran and Central Asia in the thirteenth cen-
tury led to the immigration of thousands of Persianized cultural elites into India
and also made India—­a nd Delhi—­the new center of the eastern Islamic world.
In addition to these major impacts, the Mongol invasions also led indirectly to
the rise of a new mass-­based Sufism throughout Asia, centered on devotion to
charismatic Sufi saints. Prior to this, Sufism seems to have been primarily a per-
sonal form of piety not deeply integrated into either political culture or pop-
ular religious life, but during the fourteenth century, in the aftermath of the
sociopolitical devastation caused by the Mongols, Sufi brotherhoods in Iran and
Central Asia “began breaking out of their monastic shells and reaching out to
the masses.” As Azfar Moin explains, in the post-­Mongol centuries, “Sufi orders
absorbed local saint cults, Sufi shrines became important centers of pilgrim-
ages and social life, and Sufi leadership became hereditary. The result was a tre-
mendous increase in the material, cultural, and martial resources commanded
by Sufi leaders, their kin, and their devotees.” 40
In post-­Mongol Asia, Sufi orders and shrines were not simply key features of
a changed religious landscape but also constitutive elements of a new sociopo-
litical order. Sufi sainthood came to inform the institution of kingship in fun-
damental ways, with the authority of kings and Sufis thoroughly intertwined
and interdependent. In Sultanate India, a ruler’s sovereign power depended
upon the blessing and spiritual authority of a Sufi shaikh, who was usually
understood to have divine jurisdiction (wilāyat) over a specific territory. As Rich-
ard Eaton puts it, “in the Perso-­Islamic literary and cultural world of the day,
spiritually powerful Sufi shaikhs, not sultans, were understood as the truly valid
sovereigns over the world. It was they who leased out political sovereignty to
kings, charging them with the worldly business of administration, warfare,
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 75

taxation, and so forth.” 41 In a relationship that had clear and important struc-
tural parallels with that between tantric ācāryas (and their monastic orders) and
early medieval Indian kings, Sufi saints legitimized and spiritually anointed Sul-
tanate rulers, who in turn patronized the Sufi institutions at the heart of pop-
ular Islamic religiosity. Sufi communities and their hospices depended on the
financial support of rulers in the form of tax-­f ree land grants (madad-­i ma‘āsh)
and regular alms (futūḥāt). While the rhetoric of orders such as the Chishtis
stressed their noninvolvement in political matters and their avoidance of the
rich and powerful, in fact the historical records of these land grants and gifts
show important and regular interaction between rulers and Sufi orders.
In general, Sufi shaikhs were considered “ideal Muslims” who—­as evidenced
by their behavior and personal qualities—­had fully submitted to God’s will and
received God’s grace, maintaining an intimate relationship with God that made
them authoritative conduits for the flow of divine power. They were typically
renowned for strict orthodoxy and mastery of Islamic doctrinal or Sufi texts;
the practice of austerities; the working of miracles (without vulgar display of
them); displays of divine ecstasy; caring for and accommodating the needs of
disciples, visitors, and other dependents; and, importantly, a refined musical and
poetic sensibility.42 These Sufi saints, even after their deaths, were understood
to possess a spiritual power (baraka) that enabled them to act as intermediaries
between God and devotee, interceding with God on behalf of the devotee. The
lodges, hospices (khānqāhs) and tombs (dargāhs) of Sufi saints thus became impor-
tant shrines and pilgrimage centers where Indians of all religious backgrounds
went for divine aid in their personal affairs. In the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, seemingly in conjunction with the disruption and decline of North
India’s tantric institutions and temple-­based religion, new networks of these
Sufi holy places began to expand across the Indian landscape.43
As Sultanate power spread outward from Delhi, Sufis played a key role in
extending settlement and cultivation, with provincial communities often cen-
tered on the establishment of Sufi hospices and tomb shrines.44 In the fourteenth
century, the Chishti order,45 in particular, became dominant throughout the
Indian subcontinent, in no small part because of the profound influence of the
great Chishti shaikh Nizām al-­Dīn Awliyā’ (1242–­1325). The foremost Sufi saint
of his generation, Nizām al-­Dīn was preeminent in Delhi at a time when the cap-
ital city was at its peak and the Delhi Sultanate’s literary, cultural, and institu-
tional traditions had spread throughout much of the subcontinent. Since his
spiritual jurisdiction (wilāyat) extended over the Delhi area, Nizām al-­Dīn and
his Sufi piety were linked not only to the well-­being and good fortunes of the
capital city but also to the entire, expanding Sultanate realm over which it held
sway.46 His numerous disciples spread the Chishti order—­a nd popular Sufi
 76 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

religiosity more generally—­all over India. In this regard, it is worth noting that
the centerpiece of Chishti religious practice was samā‘, the evocation of the Divine
via singing or listening to music in the company of others, a practice that had
important resonances in popular traditions of bhakti religiosity.
Through most of the fourteenth century, the Chishti order had an especially
important impact on the development of Sufism and, more broadly, “Indo-­
Muslim” culture in South Asia, but other Sufi lineages (silsilahs)—­including the
Suhrawardi (the Chishti’s primary competitors in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries), the Naqshbandi, the Mahdavi, the Shattari, and the Qadiri—­would
also establish networks of influence throughout the subcontinent in the fif-
teenth and sixteenth centuries.47 While all these Sufi orders consisted of initi-
ated disciples dedicated to devotion, remembrance of God, asceticism, scriptural
study, and meditation, their Sufi shrines and hospices were also centers of pop-
ular religiosity. People came to receive teachings, to experience and access the
spiritual power of the Sufi saint, to obtain amulets (which protected from evil,
brought good fortune, cured disease, etc.), to eat at the khānqāh’s public welfare
kitchen (langar-­khānā), to listen to ecstatic Sufi singing (qawwālī), and to partake
in dhikr, the remembrance of God (typically through the recitation of the names
of God), or samā’ sessions of Sufi music and poetry. Association with a partic-
ular Sufi dargāh or khānqāh did not demand exclusive allegiance or even personal
commitment to the Sufi way of life; rather, for much of the populace, the Sufi
order served “more as an organization for collective religious experience and
moral guidance in everyday life, and as a point of contact with a person of man-
ifest holiness, the leading shaikh of the order.” 48
The practices and symbols of this mass-­based Sufism, based on the cult
of the Sufi saint, would be far more important in molding Indian worldviews
than the texts and traditions of doctrinal Islam. As Moin remarks, with the
rise of saint-­focused popular Sufism, “Islam came to be experienced by most
people in early modern Iran and India—­Muslims and non-­Muslims alike—­
through the mediation of holy men and their bodies.” 49 In a similar vein, Eaton
has shown that for most Indians—­i lliterate or non-­A rabic speakers—­t he
Quran was not a particularly compelling source of sacred authority; rather,
it was Sufis—­their words and actions—­that served as the representatives, the
embodiments of Islam.50 Sufi shrines and the rituals conducted at them “made
Islam accessible to non-­lettered masses, providing them with vivid and con-
crete manifestations of the divine order, and integrating them into its ritual-
ized drama both as participants and as sponsors.”51 Centered around the cha-
risma of Sufi saints, the shrines and hospices associated with South Asia’s
different Sufi orders spread across the subcontinent and together functioned
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 77

to incorporate local cultural systems into a larger Indo-­Persian, Islamicate

culture that would have a clear impact on developing bhakti sensibilities.

Sufism and Tantra, Sufism and Bhakti

Framing the cultural changes of the Sultanate period in terms of a dynamic

encounter between the Sanskrit cosmopolis and Persian cosmopolis is an
extremely useful approach; however, it tends to shed far more light on elite
spheres of power and politics and the interaction of sophisticated literary and
court cultures than it does on the popular sphere. While Sufis were crucial in
the dissemination of high Persianate literature and cosmopolitan cultural forms,
Sufism also operated at the level of local, vernacular religious life. Sufis offered
Indians “ritualistic, tactile, and performative” ways to engage the sacred, a
sacred “grounded in geographies and embodied in personalities that were local,
concrete, and highly visible.”52 In this respect, an important aspect of the spread
of Sufism through the subcontinent during the Sultanate period was the way
in which it interfaced with the embodied, local, pragmatic dimensions of pop-
ular tantric religiosity.
Tantric religiosity and its ritual idioms permeated mainstream Indian soci-
ety prior to the Sultanate period. Though specialist tantric ritual knowledge was
esoteric—­guarded by a system of layered initiations—­participation in tantric
religious life was a popular phenomenon in early medieval India, a period that
saw pervasive faith in the power of tantric mantras and rituals to accomplish
one’s desires, widespread access to and demand for initiated tantric special-
ists, and a public life organized in significant part around the institutions of
a distinctly tantric religiopolitical culture. People of all backgrounds sought
out initiated tāntrikas as embodied sources of sacred power whose performa-
tive rituals offered not only potential transcendence but also the achievement
of their pragmatic, worldly, personal goals. In some respects, Sufis may have
been so successful in South Asia because of their ability to mirror, compete
with, and replace the forms and sociological functions of this embodied tantric
religiosity.
The traditions of Sufism and tantra had much in common. On the one hand,
both Sufism and tantra were esoteric cultures based on initiation, a master-­
disciple relationship, and intensive individual ascetic and meditative disci-
pline, but on the other hand, both were popular forms of religiosity in which
people sought out the embodied sacred presence and power of the tāntrika or
 78 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

Sufi for mundane concerns such as protection, healing, and good fortune. Sufi
shaikhs and tantric gurus both legitimated sovereign rulers, infusing the po-
litical order with their spiritual authority. Furthermore, the manner in which
medieval tantric maṭhas operated seems to have had clear parallels with the
operation of Sufi khānqāhs. These were places, respectively, where tantric gurus
and Sufi masters could receive devotion but also places of communal worship
activities. In fact, the work of Tamara Sears has suggested that many tantric
maṭhas were taken over and utilized by Muslims—­likely Sufis—­as military and
cultural outposts on the expanding frontiers of Sultanate political authority.53
While more research is needed to confirm the details, it seems likely that, as
many tantric communities’ sources of political and financial support evaporated
under Sultanate rule, Sufis were in certain respects able to occupy (sometimes
quite literally, as Sears’s work indicates)—­or at least compete for—­the place that
tāntrikas had long held in Indian society.
This process was facilitated by the continuity between the Sultanate and
early medieval (Tantric Age) religiopolitical economies. After the Mongol inva-
sions a new spiritual-­political order arose in Central Asia in which Sufis became
crucial elements of state power, with the authority of Persianate rulers often
dependent upon the support of charismatic Sufi saints. This Persianate spiritual-­
political economy had substantial parallels with the system of exchanges in
economic, political, moral, and spiritual capital that existed among early medi-
eval India’s rulers, lay devotees, and professional (often tantric) ascetics. While
I have stressed the social, political, and religious change brought to India by Per-
sianate Turks and the key differences between the Tantric Age and the Sultan-
ate era, here we see an important instance of continuity: monasticism as an
institution remains a central pillar of India’s social life, religion, and political
order. In Sultanate and Mughal India, monasticism does not die out; rather, old
ascetic lineages (e.g., Śaiva Siddhānta ones) wither as new lineages (e.g., Sufi,
Vedāntic, and Vaiṣṇava bhakti ones) emerge to fill very similar structural roles
and functions in relation to popular devotional life and the legitimation of rule.
Even as the institutional, mainstream religiopolitical tradition of tantra
was largely destroyed in North India, less-­institutionalized communities of
tantric ascetics, in particular those commonly known as the Nāth yogīs, actually
came to flourish in the new religious culture of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. I will defer a proper introduction to the Nāth yogīs until chapter 5,
but here it is important to note the remarkable number of ways in which the
Sufis resembled these tantric ascetics. Sufis and tantric yogīs had overlapping
interests in asceticism and psychophysical yogic techniques, and both presup-
posed a subtle physiology that served as the focal point in meditations involv-
ing syllabic formulas, visualization, and breath control. Both Sufis and Nāth
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 79

yogīs practiced burial (rather than cremation), and both possessed very liberal
attitudes toward caste and brahmanical purity restrictions. As Carl Ernst
observes, “The similarity between yogis and Sufis extended to the point that
the heads of Nath yogi establishments became known by the Persian term pir,
the common designation for a Sufi master.”54 Relatedly, Charlotte Vaudeville
states that, over time in Sultanate India, “the tantric yoga current and the Sufi
current, which were at first parallel, tended to converge in the minds of the
masses,” a confusion that may have been “carefully cultivated by the Sufis them-
selves” to gain popular support.55
Perhaps most interesting, sociologically the religiosity of Sufis and Nāth yogīs
functioned in very similar ways, with “elite” and “popular” forms feeding off each
other’s mystique.56 Tantric yogīs and Sufi saints represented an esoteric tradition—­
requiring initiation and intense meditative and ascetic discipline—­that could
result in the acquisition of extraordinary powers. At the same time, the prestige
and social capital that possession of such powers brought to individual Sufi saints
and tantric yogīs made them staples of popular religiosity, sought and worshipped
as wonder-­workers, protectors, and healers.
Altogether, Sufism’s similarities with tantra—­a nd especially tantric yogīs—­
may have allowed Sufis to successfully compete for and take over some of the
roles left vacant in the world of popular religiosity by the disintegration of insti-
tutionalized tantra in the wake of the Persianate Turkish invasion. Undoubt-
edly, these similarities also allowed for a vibrant exchange between Sufis and
Nāth yogīs in the Sultanate and Mughal periods. As Behl has remarked, the Sufis’
“closest contacts, competitors, and collaborators were the yogis.”57 A number
of scholars have discussed the ways in which Indian Sufis in the Sultanate and
Mughal periods adopted and adapted the yogic concepts and practices of the
Nāth yogīs. Behl explains that the Shattari order, for instance, “took from the
Nāths general concepts and forms of yogic practice such as the cakras, inverted
meditation (ulṭī sādhanā, taken over by the Sufis as namāz-­i ma‘kūs), and the
cleansing of the body through prāṇāyāma or breath control (Persian, ḥabs-­i dam),
[but] they often emptied out the specific instructions within these frameworks
and replaced them with Sufi concepts and terminology.”58 Sufis saw practical,
functional value in Nāth yogic practices but typically placed them within fully
Islamic doctrinal frameworks and thus gave them entirely new meaning. Simon
Digby has shown how the Chishti Sufi shaikh ‘Abd al-­Quddūs Gangohī (1456–­
1537), in his Rushd-­nāma (ca. 1480), incorporated the ideas and practices of the
Nāth yogīs in his teachings for Sufi disciples, allegorizing and refining unortho-
dox tantric yogic concepts and techniques in order to bring them “within the
confines of a learned (though profoundly Indianised) Muslim orthodoxy.”59 Sha-
man Hatley’s study of Bengali Sufi appropriations of tantric yogic practices
 80 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

similarly demonstrates “a consistent concern for framing Tantric yoga within

the Sufi praxis regimen and Islamic view of the sacred,” with “Islamic spiritual
beings and dhikr formulas almost entirely displac[ing] Tantric deities and man-
tras.” 60 Similarly, Carl Ernst discusses the Baḥr al-­ḥayāt (The ocean of life) of the
Indian Sufi shaikh Muhammad Ghawth Gwāliyārī (d. 1563), in which famed yogīs
such as Gorakh, Matsyendra, and Chaurangi are identified with prophets of
Islam.61 While Ghawth (Ghaus) questions or criticizes Nāth doctrinal under-
standings, he approves of their yogic practices, seeing them as effective spiri-
tual techniques that “can be successfully integrated into the overall worldview
of Sufism.” 62 Sufi interactions with (and borrowings from) tantric yogīs in late
medieval and early modern India helped to forge what Dean Accardi has called a
“shared but not syncretic grammar of asceticism,” a culture in which there was a
general acceptance of—­and a mutual respect for—­the techniques of, and extraor-
dinary powers acquired through, asceticism, as well as a shared belief in the exis-
tence and possible control of spirit beings.63 This common Sultanate-­Mughal cul-
ture of asceticism and occult power did not erase religious differences or bring
theologies into question but allowed for shared ascetic technologies (differently
framed and interpreted) and the reverence and emulation of ascetic saints across
religious boundaries. Moreover, it was not only Sufis and tantric yogīs who took
part in this shared grammar of asceticism and used its “shared idioms of ver-
nacular sainthood” 64 but also bhaktas like the Vaiṣṇava ascetics of the Rāmānandī
sect, the focus of subsequent chapters.
Overall, the Sufi “Islamization” of yoga was, of course, about Sufis taking
an indigenous Indian technology and “making it their own,” but it is important
to stress that this process was not a superficial one meant simply to make a set
of heterodox practices acceptable. Rather, the ways in which tantric yogīs
approached the Divine—­their motivations, attitudes, and religious idioms—­were
foreign to the religious disposition of most Sufis and needed to be reframed in
a fashion that made intuitive sense and accorded with the sensibilities of Per-
sianate Sufi Islam. All this is to say that while Sufis and tantric yogīs had impor-
tant similarities and engaged in productive exchange with one another, there
were also real differences between them; differences that I believe were, in many
ways, more significant than their similarities.
The primary religious goals of the Nāth yogīs were achieving bodily immor-
tality and “becoming God”—­i.e., ontologically divine. For Sufis, both these goals
were generally considered heretical, being fundamentally at odds with Islamic
understandings of the respective natures of (and the proper relationship
between) God and human beings. While Sufis and tantric yogīs shared yogic-­
ascetic techniques, were thought to possess certain similar extraordinary
powers, and functioned in some sociologically analogous ways, there was a
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 81

critical divide in their conceptions of and approaches to the Divine. The pri-
mary idiom of Sufi religiosity, the primary Sufi conception of God, and the
primary Sufi motive in religious life can all be boiled down to a single word:
love.65 Humility before God and a passionate love and longing for God—­whose
own nature was that of pure love—­characterized Sufi religious approaches at
their most fundamental level, while tantric yogīs expressed an attitude of self-­
assertion and a yearning for empowerment, conceiving the Divine primarily as
sacred amoral power to be realized. In the eyes of many Sufis (and bhakti poets
as well), it would seem that, as William Pinch puts it, tantric yogīs “were not
remarkable for their intense love for God, and did not seek to bask in the glow
of God’s special love for them. Rather, they aspired to become gods on earth.” 66
In contrast to the often haughty (and sometimes vulgar) Nāth yogīs, Sufis
did not conceive the sacred to be amoral at all; rather, they trusted in a God
whose nature and activity defined moral righteousness and ethical virtue.
This understanding seems to have translated into a major Sufi interest in the
ethical life that was not a serious concern of tantric yogīs. While Sufi hagio-
graphical works stress the Sufi saint as a humble exemplar of morality, the same
cannot be said of the hagiography of Nāth yogīs.67
What is most striking in this is the way in which the differences between tan-
tric yogīs and Sufis mirror those between tantric yogīs and the bhaktas of early
modern North India. Put differently, it is remarkable how similar Sufi and bhakti
communities (as well as Sufi and bhakti saints) appear to be in the ways their
religious perspectives and approaches differed from those of tantric yogīs like
the Nāths. Early modern Sufis and bhaktas seem to have shared a basic approach
of humble, loving devotion as well as an analogous emotional, aesthetic, and eth-
ical sensibility. In these key respects both seem to have differed substantially
from the Nāth yogīs. As Tony Stewart points out in his research on the popular
Bengali saint Satya Pīr, who has both Hindu (Vaiṣṇava bhakta) and Muslim fol-
lowers, “The proper conduct common to both the Vaiṣṇava and Islamic God . . . ​
hinges on humility and benevolence.” 68 In the tales of Satya Pīr, “Śaivas, Śāktas,
Nāthas, and members of other Hindu sects are often vilified in opposition to
Vaiṣṇavas and Muslims.” 69 Stewart thus observes a “Vaiṣṇava alliance with Mus-
lims” and discusses how, in early modern Bengal, tantric yogīs and Śākta tradi-
tions of blood sacrifice appear as anathema to both Vaiṣṇava bhaktas and Sufis.70
I elaborate on these observations later in this book.
A central argument of the present volume is that, in early modern North
India, a transregional bhakti social formation arose, and with it a new and Sufi-­
influenced bhakti sensibility that by and large defined itself especially against
the pedagogical “other” of the tantric yogī. As will become clear, bhakti authors
of many different persuasions, from many different regions—­Punjab, Bengal,
 82 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

Malwa, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and the Gangetic Plain—­were united by a

common critique of the religiosity of tantric yogīs (or at least caricatured tant-
ric yogīs), particularly the Nāth yogīs, who were in many respects the primary
public representatives of tantric religiosity during the Sultanate and Mughal
periods. Much of what follows is dedicated to demonstrating this Sufi-­inflected
bhakti understanding of tantric(-­yogic) religiosity and exploring the ways in
which early modern Sufis and bhaktas tended to share a basic approach of hum-
ble, loving devotion as well as an analogous emotional, aesthetic, and ethical
sensibility.
The preceding observations bring us face-­to-­face with a major historiograph-
ical issue at play in this chapter and throughout the entire book: the role of
Islam in the bhakti movement. Considering the nationalistic character of India’s
bhakti movement narrative, as John S. Hawley has noted, “the question of Mus-
lims’ participation in the great sweep of the bhakti movement is key.” While
“certain ideologues, both Hindu and Muslim, have wanted to deny [a] com-
mon bhakti religiosity in favor of a Hindu-­Muslim split they hold to be intrac-
table, perennial,” others—­a s a seeming counterpoint to such communalist
perspectives—­have presented bhakti as a “people’s movement” that fused with
Sufism.71 My perspective is no doubt clear by now: in North India, at least, Sufism
and Persianate culture played enormous roles in the emergence and overall
development of the bhakti tradition. I am hardly the first either to comment
upon the similarities between Sufism and Hindu bhakti or to make a case for
some form of Sufi influence on North India’s bhakti movement.72 Diana Eck, for
example, notes “a certain commonality of spirit linking Sufi to Hindu bhakti
piety” in which both “stressed the inner life of devotion and love, not the outer
world of ritual and practice.”73 Shahabuddin Iraqi remarks that “the various
trends of spiritual thought that developed under the Bhakti and the Sufi move-
ments drew much from each other, consciously and unconsciously” and goes
on to say that “the nature and scope of the [bhakti] movement was almost the
same as that of Sufism.”74 Along the same lines, Satish Chandra states, “The Mus-
lim emphasis on monotheism, on the role of the pir, and on mystic union with
the ‘beloved’ coincided with many aspects of the Hindu thinking and, by a pro-
cess of symbiosis, quickened the heterodox movement in that direction. The
remarkable similarity in the thinking of the sufis and the popular monotheistic
[bhakti] saints, including their opposition to the orthodox elements belonging
to the two faiths, was both a cause and an effect.”75 Aziz Ahmad asserts that in
the fourteenth and fifteen centuries, “the Bhakti movements rose as a popular
Hindu counter-­challenge to the proselytizing pull of Sūfī humanism,” and adds
that, in early modern North India, bhakti “came in contact with Islam, was
inspired by its monotheism and stimulated by its challenge, and developed
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 83

against it a system of self-­defence and self-­preservation for Hindu spirituality

by borrowing Islam’s monotheistic egalitarianism.”76 While numerous scholars
have made vague remarks such as these (often unsupported by any detailed evi-
dence), in this book I hope to provide a more specific and nuanced account of
the role of Sufism in North India’s bhakti movement and the relationships
between Sufi and bhakti religious sensibilities.
It was only in the later Sultanate period, after the invasion of Timur, that
the conditions for the emergence of North India’s great bhakti poet-­saints
truly came into existence. We need to understand the literary-­performative
environment that arose during this period and, in particular, the role that
Sufis played in forging a certain emotional-­aesthetic culture that resonated
powerfully with, and was influential in, the development of bhakti in North
India.

Language, Literature, and Religion in the Later

Sultanate (ca. 1398–­1526)

Sufism and Persianate literary-­political culture spread gradually through the

Indian subcontinent in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; however, it was
not until the fifteenth century, in the new social and political environment fol-
lowing the invasion of Timur in 1398, that North India’s famous bhakti poet-­saints
burst onto the scene. By the mid-­fourteenth century, the Tughlaq conquests had
reached their limits and the Delhi Sultanate was forced to face the challenges
of scale, with the sultans often at major pains to prevent the rise of local bases
of power. In the latter half of the fourteenth century, Delhi’s authority began
to decline, with regional governors becoming wealthier and more autonomous.
Already tottering, the Tughlaq dynasty received a crushing blow with Timur’s
invasion in 1398, which ensured the fragmentation of the centralized Delhi Sul-
tanate into various regional sultanates.77
Timur (ca. 1330–­1405) was a Central Asian Turk who claimed descent from
the Mongols and who became the most powerful ruler in the Islamic world of
his time and was seen by many as a messianic figure who would inaugurate a
new era. Timur was a lavish patron of the Persian arts who supported classical
traditions of Islam but practiced norms of comportment based in the traditions
of ancient Iran and the Mongol heritage of Chinggis Khan, while also relying in
important ways upon occult sciences and the cosmopolitan intellectual tradi-
tion of astrology.78 The thirteenth-­century Mongol invasions had destroyed the
structure of the Islamic caliphate as well the ideological authority of the caliph
 84 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

as anointed deputy of God, thereby opening up radical new possibilities of

sovereignty for Muslim rulers.79 In the new post-­Mongol Persianate religiopo-
litical environment (ca. 1300–­1700), sanctified power gave proof of sovereign
authority, and the practitioners and symbols of occultism (e.g., lettrism, astrol-
ogy, geomancy)80 offered important avenues for accessing and displaying that
power, a fact that explains the Persianate ruling class’s interest in certain Indian
tantric practices.81 Timur, in his use of occult symbols and power, as well as his
stress on Persian aesthetic refinement and his mixing of Islamic, Chinggisid, and
ancient Iranian norms and customs, offered a lasting ideal of sovereign power
in post-­Mongol Islamic Asia. The following chapter examines how this “Timurid”
style of kingship served as a foundational model for the rulers of India’s Mughal
Empire.
Here what is crucial to note is Timur’s sacking of Delhi in 1398, which signifi-
cantly altered India’s political and cultural landscape. With the capital city’s
authority destroyed, regional governors took the opportunity to strike out on
their own, and “the turbulent process of the ‘state-­formation’ of the ‘provincial
sultanates’ ensued.”82 In the fifteenth century, Delhi became just one of many
regional power centers as a series of independent sultanates arose in Bengal in
the east, Jaunpur in the mid-­Gangetic region (between Delhi and Bengal), Gujarat
in the west, Malwa in central India, and the Deccan, along with the emergence of
several Rajput kingdoms in Rajasthan.83 In all these regional kingdoms, new
artistic ventures, literary styles, and cross-­religious collaborations flourished.
Regional rulers patronized new forms of poetry and arts at their courts as part of
the project of establishing political legitimacy. At the same time, the overall
decentralization of power across North India meant the increased prominence of
rural gentry, local warlords, and merchants who provided local resources to
regional rulers and who (like those rulers) also sought to assert their status and
authority by patronizing poets, scholars, and performers.84 In this environment,
there was widespread demand for literary specialists (many of whom were Sufis),
who utilized prestigious Persian and Sanskrit conventions while adapting their
works—­in style, narrative content, and theme—­to the distinctive concerns of
their patrons to produce sophisticated new vernacular literary works.85 While the
fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries have been characterized as “the twilight
of the Delhi Sultanate,” in fact, as Francesca Orsini notes, this was “a period of
considerable regional political, cultural and religious dynamism” and “the
beginning of the widespread vernacular literary production in north India.”86
Moreover, the emergence of North India’s bhakti movement was tied to the
development in the latter (post-­Timur) Sultanate of this new vernacular liter-
ary and performative culture, in which Sufis played a major role.
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 85

Orsini explains that in the fifteenth century circulation and trade across
North India was “easy and intense” and that “while north India was not a homog-
enous region in political terms, it seems to have been a fairly well-­connected
cultural and linguistic region.”87 North India’s “high”88 languages at this time
were Arabic, Sanskrit, and particularly Persian, which spread through sultan-
ate administration, madrassa education, and Sufi religious culture, eventually
being taken up even among Hindu elites and artisanal classes.89 Operating along-
side these languages was the generally intelligible common tongue of Hindavi.
A composite indigenous North Indian language, Hindavi, or bhākhā (bhāṣā), was
a generic spoken vernacular—­a “proto-­Avadhi-­Braj Bhasha”90 —­that could be
written in multiple scripts (Persian, Kaithī, Devanāgarī, etc.). Locally produced
compositions in Hindavi—­primarily stories (kathās), songs, and poetic couplets
(dohās)—­“could travel and be understood over the whole of north India” and
were performed in regional and subregional courts, Sufi khānqāhs, and in the
“open, ‘Bhakti public sphere’ of towns and villages.”91 Thus, in the fifteenth and
early sixteenth centuries, North Indian society was a multilingual and multi-
cultural one in which the growth of vernacular Hindavi literary forms was hap-
pening in conjunction with the spread of Persian language and literature.92
It was in this diverse and interactive socioreligious context, with its emerg-
ing vernacular literary-­performative culture, that the age of the great bhakti
saints of North India began with figures such as Nāmdev,93 the tailor from Maha-
rashtra, a devotee of Kṛṣṇa’s as Viṭṭhal and master of devotional song and per-
formance; Kabīr, the iconoclastic weaver from Benares whose fierce rhetoric
criticized Muslims and Hindus alike for not truly loving God but getting lost in
egoistic concerns, ritual obligations, and doctrinal details; Raidās, the “untouch-
able” leatherworker, also from Benares, who was a model of humility in his
devotion to a nirguṇ God that cherished the troubled and lowly as much as any-
one; Narasī Mehtā, the poor but ever-­generous brahman Vaiṣṇava devotee from
Gujarat; Pīpā, the Rajasthani king who abdicated his throne to serve God and
the community of bhaktas; Nānak, the great Punjabi nirguṇ bhakta who founded
the Sikh community; Sūrdās, the artful (and supposedly blind) poet and Kṛṣṇa
devotee of Braj; and Mīrābāī, the Rajasthani princess and passionate devotee of
Kṛṣṇa. The exact dates for most of these important bhakti figures are disputed,
but the key point is that these poet-­saints—­who all composed in the vernacular—­
all seem to have flourished in the culturally dynamic period stretching from
the fifteenth through the mid-­sixteenth century (i.e., post-­Timur and pre-­
Jahāngīr). Furthermore, this list of saints demonstrates the social and geo-
graphic reach of the emerging bhakti movement in that they came from all social
backgrounds (from brahman to “untouchable”) and from places across the
 86 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

breadth of North India (from Gujarat, Panjab, and Rajasthan to Braj and Bena-
res). During Akbar’s reign and throughout the seventeenth century, important
bhakti poets and community leaders would continue to emerge and flourish,
including figures such as Tulsīdās, the brahman devotee of Rām and author of
the famous vernacular Hindavi rendition of the Rām story, the Rāmcaritmānas;
Dādū, the nirguṇ devotee who started a bhakti community in Rajasthan known
for its prolific literary production; and Agradās, the founder of the Rām-­rasik
bhakti sect and a major focus of this book.
As John S. Hawley has stated, these bhakti figures (particularly Kabīr, Ravidās,
Nānak, Sūrdās, Mīrābāī, and Tulsīdās) “have contributed more to the religious
vocabulary of Hinduism in north India today than any voices before or since.
In its style of worship, in its institutions, even in its political ramifications, mod-
ern Hinduism sings their tune.”94 A key aim of this chapter is to understand the
historical context in which these influential bhaktas lived and composed their
works, and particularly to explore how they and the bhakti communities that
drew inspiration from them (a) participated in a larger Indo-­Persianate liter-
ary and performative culture and (b) forged a certain emotional, aesthetic, and
ethical sensibility that had great resonance with Sufism and, simultaneously,
significant dissonance with certain key aspects of tantric religiosity.
While these renowned bhaktas are most often known as poet-­saints, in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries their vernacular poetry was generally not
read but sung. While written literature would become more important to the
life of North Indian bhakti communities beginning in about 1600, prior to this
bhakti seems to have been essentially an oral and performative tradition of
song and music experienced in social gatherings. As Christian Novetzke has
remarked, most people did not want to read a bhakti poem, “they wanted to see
it, hear it, experience it displayed before them.”95 At this time, the performance
of devotional song “was the nexus of the public culture of bhakti, and of public
entertainment in general.”96 Indeed, as scholars such as Francesca Orsini have
shown, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries bhakti stories and songs were
performed by groups of singers, wandering ascetics, resident swamis, and Sufi
shaikhs and could be heard in urban centers, at fairs, at Sufi samā‘ gatherings,
and in private worship.97 These songs and stories held aesthetic and emotional
resonance, as well as entertainment value, for people across traditions and
communities, even if theological and technical meanings often had to be skill-
fully adjusted based on the specific audience.98
North India’s early modern bhakti movement, as a literary and institutional
phenomenon, was closely linked to the rise of Hindavi (and by the end of the
sixteenth century, specifically Brajbhasha) as a vernacular language of artistic
sophistication, culture, and status, a development in which Sufis played a major
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 87

part. Behl has shown that in late Sultanate India and throughout the Mughal
period, Hindavi compositions were popular “among groups of cultivated listen-
ers in courts, Sufi hospices (khānqāhs), and other spaces where poetry was sung
or recited.”99 Indeed, in North India it was actually Sufis who inaugurated the
literary use of vernacular languages. By the fifteenth century, most Indian Sufis
would undoubtedly have spoken an Indian dialect as their mother tongue, thus it
should come as no surprise that Sufis in North India appreciated and composed
poetry in their own vernacular of Hindavi.100 Orsini explains that, for North
Indian Sufis, “Arabic was the scriptural language, Persian was the textual lan-
guage of exposition and poetry, and Hindavi was comfortably the local language
of Islam and a parallel poetic language to that of Persian. . . . ​Whereas the textual
world of North Indian Sufism appears to have been overwhelmingly Persian, its
oral and oral-­literary world must have been more substantially Hindavi.”101 While
India’s traditional Sanskrit-­based literary culture did not encourage the use of
vernaculars for literary purposes, Sufis were not enculturated into (and thus not
bound by) the codes of Sanskritic tradition and were therefore well situated to
lead the way in transforming the spoken idiom of Hindavi into a courtly lan-
guage and a literary tradition. In this regard, it is particularly important to dis-
cuss the new and uniquely Indian genre of the premākhyān, or Sufi romance.
The Indian Sufi romances were composed in Hindavi, generally followed the
conventions of the Persian masnavī (a long romantic, martial, or didactic poem
written in rhyming couplets), incorporated the Indian aesthetic theory of rasa,
and utilized regional Indian narratives and imagery. This Muslim-­penned genre
actually constitutes “the first substantial body of devotional and narrative lit-
erature in pre-­modern Hindi.”102 The major premākhyāns are Maulānā Dā’ūd’s
Cāndāyan (1379), Qutban’s Mirigāvatī (1503), Jāyasī’s Padmāvat (1540), and Man-
jhan’s Madhumālatī (1545). As Aditya Behl has so masterfully shown, these Hin-
davi Sufi romances took Persian concepts and poetic forms along with Islamic
models of piety and re-­presented them “in Indian dress,” using local Indian aes-
thetics, imagery, religious practices, and narratives to communicate Sufi cos-
mology, metaphysics, and devotional sensibilities.103 The cultural and literary
impact of this vernacular Indian Sufi literature—­particularly upon North India’s
burgeoning bhakti tradition—­was significant. Indeed, one of the signature lit-
erary achievements of the bhakti movement and arguably the most popular reli-
gious text in North India today, Tulsidās’s Rāmcaritmānas, composed in Hindavi
in 1575, adopted and adapted the language, narrative technique, and meter of
the premākhyāns, thereby bringing a Sufi tradition of expression “into the cen-
ter of north Indian Vaishnava devotionalism.”104
The premākhyāns participated in a “double system of circulation and perfor-
mance,” in which, on the one hand, they were performed orally in the courts of
 88 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

nobles and rulers, at Sufi shrines and hospices, in bazaars, and privately in the
homes of the affluent and, on the other, they were “circulated across great dis-
tances in manuscript form and became the object of artistic virtuosity and
courtly connoisseurship.”105 These premākhyāns were crucial in making a place
for Hindavi as a language of written literature, fit for performance at court, and,
relatedly, in making a place for Hindavi manuscripts as material forms of sta-
tus and power in the Indo-­Persian aesthetic and political culture of the day. As
I discuss in chapter 3, while bhakti compositions were initially circulated almost
entirely through oral channels, around the late sixteenth century—­following
the lead of the Sufis—­bhakti communities began to produce thousands of hand-
written manuscripts of vernacular bhakti literature that would circulate
throughout North India, connecting bhaktas far and wide to each other as well
as to the halls of Mughal and Rajput power.
In their hybrid content and style, the literary genre of the premākhyān offers us
clear evidence of the diverse, complex, and interactive socioreligious environ-
ment and literary-­performative culture of North India in the fifteenth and six-
teenth centuries. As Behl states, “It is only when groups of people share the same
cultural landscape that we have mixed or boundary-­crossing literary and devo-
tional traditions of poetry. . . . ​The formation of creolized or mixed literary
genres [like the premākhyān] implies a world of conversion and conflict, dialogue
and intermingling.”106 The Sufi authors of the premākhyāns were “competitors and
conversation partners” with the Nāth yogīs, the nirguṇ bhakti poet-­saints com-
monly known as the Sants, and the burgeoning sectarian traditions of Vaiṣṇava
(especially Kṛṣṇa) devotion and were able utilize the multivocal symbols of these
traditions to express their own distinctively Sufi message of love for Allah.107 In
addition to the premākhyāns, other Indian Sufi works such as Gangohī’s Rushd-­
nāma (ca. 1480) and Bilgrami’s Haqā’iq-­i Hindī (1566, a Sufi interpretation of terms
found in Vaiṣṇava devotional songs) illustrate that this was a social world in
which many of the same symbols, images, and narratives—­including especially
those of the Nāth yogī tradition and the Kṛṣṇa bhakti tradition—­circulated among
multireligious audiences but could and did take on different meanings in these
different interpretive communities.108
Samira Sheikh has characterized this environment as a “religious market-
place,” in which competing communities “used simple poetic verses dealing
with similar issues to convey their message, differentiated only by sectarian
motifs that would be recognizable by adherents. This allowed them to simulta-
neously disseminate difference and similarity with other sectarian beliefs and
customs.”109 Communities of Sufis, yogīs, nirguṅ Sants, and saguṅ Kṛṣṇa and
Rām devotees all competed with each other for followers and patrons in the
religious marketplace of late Sultanate and early Mughal India, marking
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 89

their distinctiveness while operating in a world of largely shared images,

words, themes, and narratives. Put in different terms, beginning in the fif-
teenth century North India was the site of a competitive religious economy “in
which the adaptive logic of the market led different religious firms to borrow
each others’ ‘tools’ while simultaneously differentiating their ‘products.’ ”110
While the language of “markets” and “competition” helps to illuminate
important aspects of North India’s religious environment at this time, it may
occlude others. If the early modern religious world was, in many respects, a com-
petitive marketplace, we might also consider it a giant chorus, a vast ensemble
of saints, poets, performers, and communities each contributing their own voice,
their own timbre, to the contrapuntal motions of a complex musical perfor-
mance. In other words, the religious landscape of late Sultanate and Mughal
India was not merely a competitive religious economy but also a polyphonic
network of song.
The bhakti communities of interest in this book operated in this larger con-
text. My primary case study, the Rāmānandī bhakti community, is, in fact, situ-
ated at the nexus of several of the historical developments described in this
chapter. Like others, the Rāmānandīs competed for followers and patronage in
a crowded religious marketplace, while contributing to the expansion of a
broad bhakti public and sensibility; they took part in a vibrant transreligious
culture of song and performance; they participated in a shared grammar of
asceticism and pragmatic power (embodied in charismatic saints); and they
engaged in new aesthetic trends and the expansion of vernacular Hindavi
beyond the oral and popular realms into the written and literary-­courtly
spheres. Before turning to the topic of bhakti’s development in the Mughal
period—­the focus of the remainder of the book—­it is important to discuss in
more depth the nature of the bhakti public that emerged in late Sultanate India
and its relation to Sufism.

Song and Sensibility in Bhakti and Sufism

The world of bhakti in Sultanate and Mughal India was one primarily of song
and performance. By reflecting in more depth on the importance of song and
music in bhakti we can gain more insight into the distinctive character of early
modern North India’s bhakti public and the religious sensibility developed
among its members. Song and singing were vital to and inextricably inter-
twined with bhakti religiosity in at least three important ways: soteriology,
community, and ethics. Let us briefly examine each one.
 90 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

As Hawley has observed, from the bhakti perspective, “the act of making
contact with God and participating in a divine interaction has something
intrinsically to do with the realm of song.”111 Indeed, the word for devotional
song, bhajan, is in form the action noun that implies “the doing of bhakti”; thus,
to “do bhakti” is, at one core level, to sing to and of God. The bhakti poets them-
selves extolled the salvific power of song. Kabīr is remembered to have said,
“You won’t reach it without singing; if you don’t sing, it’s far. But when you sing
with deep feeling, God is right where you are!”112 Sūrdās, in one of his poems,
states, “Songs to Hari work great wonders. They elevate the lowly of the world,
who celebrate their lofty climb with drums. To come to the feet of the Lord in
song is enough to make stones float on the sea.”113 Concluding another poem,
he pleads, “Sūr says, unless we sing to the Lord, we’re camels and asses—­that’s
what we are.”114 Passionately singing one’s devotion to God, hearing and chant-
ing the name of the Divine, listening to and reciting the stories of the gods and
great saints—­these were fundamental religious practices of bhakti that offered
a path to spiritual experience and even salvation. As Tyler Williams explains,
bhakti poems “themselves encode the logic that liberation (mokṣa) from the
world of saṃsāra and from the cycle of birth and death depends upon hearing
the praise, stories, or words of the Divine . . . a​ nd singing them oneself. The
soteriological efficacy of these texts therefore depended upon their oral per-
formance and aural reception.”115
The salvific value of bhakti songs and stories was linked to their perfor-
mance in social settings. Indeed, bhakti songs were meant to be sung and
heard in “the company of good people” (satsaṅg). Bhakti performances were
social events. The soteriological power of a bhakti song was magnified when
sung or heard in the company of other bhaktas, a fact that the bhakti poets
emphasized in their compositions. But communal song was not only a valu-
able tool for achieving liberation; in bringing people together and evoking
shared sentiments among them, song was also crucial in the formation of
bhakti community. It is not hard to imagine the powerful aesthetic effect of the
structured, pitched sounds of bhakti song and music reverberating in the body,
one’s own voice merging with voices of fellow bhaktas, and one’s ego self tem-
porarily lost in a larger social entity. In this way, participation in bhakti song
could generate a powerful shared emotional experience that provided a tan-
gible sense of community. Furthermore, in a social setting in which people
have gathered in order to sing to God, the sense of community generated is
rather naturally one in which “the considerations of boundary, location, and
propriety that govern the dhārmik conception of society fall into the back-
ground.”116 Hawley has described the distinctive musical character of bhakti
community as following from a shared assent to the “truth” of bhakti song,
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 91

which is not speech so much as it is music. He explains, “Though songs have

words, of course, they depend for their power on a level of truth that is not
just propositional. . . . M​ usic requires assent at a more primordial level than
speech does. To find it true is to have been pulled naturally into a community
of others who make the same assent—­who ‘appreciate’ the music, we say. If
one finds it false, one is by that token outside the whole discourse, and outside
the community that it establishes.”117 Here a particular aesthetic sensibility—­
linked to the evocation and circulation of emotion—­goes hand in hand with
bhakti religious community. Whether singing along or listening intently,
those who attended the performance of bhakti compositions in early modern
North India were molded by their participation, their senses and their aes-
thetic and emotional sensibilities tuned in particular ways that would unite
them as a community.
Bhakti songs were essential in forming not only the aesthetic and emotional
sensibility of the larger bhakti public but also its ethical sensibility. As noted in
the introduction, the songs and stories of bhakti evoked shared emotion and
bound their participants into a community, but they also imagined a social
world and promoted particular forms of ethical behavior. Drawing on the work
of Charles Hirschkind, I discussed how bhakti songs and stories cultivate emo-
tional and aesthetic dispositions that underlie a particular type of ethical con-
duct. If the circulation of bhakti discourse in Sultanate and Mughal India brought
a bhakti public into being, using Hirschkind’s language, we can say that this
bhakti public existed in large part as a framework for particular kinds of ethi-
cal action. Bhakti songs and hagiographies were intended to facilitate the devel-
opment and practice of virtues esteemed by and in the bhakti public.118 While
semantic meaning could be subordinated to the aesthetic and emotional force
of sound in bhakti performances, the words of the songs still mattered a great
deal and were often ethical in content. Indeed, the ethical messages and teach-
ings conveyed in these songs often would have possessed more weight and deliv-
ered a greater impact because they were sung to music.
Hawley has observed that in the bhakti hagiographical tradition the great
saints are remembered not only for their devotion and musicianship but also
because they exemplify certain virtues such as fearlessness, generosity, and
community service. In the life stories of the bhakti saints (which themselves were
also sung), “it becomes clear that song is to be understood not only as an anti-
dote to a life of moral and devotional laxity but as a partner, defender, and shaper
of the ethical life.”119 In other words, in the life of bhakti, song and morality are
closely bound; it is those very individuals who dedicated their lives to singing
to the Lord who are also the exemplars of bhakti’s most cherished ethical vir-
tues. It is as if, in and through singing to and of God, these saints were able to
 92 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

empty themselves of fear, greed, and ego and fill themselves with love and
compassion.
As I discuss in more detail in the next chapter, North India’s bhakti move-
ment was in many respects a Vaiṣṇava movement. However, to be a Vaiṣṇava
did not necessarily mean to be a saguṇ devotee of Viṣṇu (i.e., nirguṇ Sants could
be Vaiṣṇava as well), though it probably did presume dedicated recitation of
the Vaiṣṇava name(s) of God (such as Rām or Hari). Françoise Mallison has dis-
cussed how in late Sultanate India to be a Vaiṣṇava often meant above all to
follow a certain code of ethics; namely, compassion, humility, tolerance, con-
trol of passions, not lying, stealing, or committing adultery.120 In other words, a
broad, vulgate Vaiṣṇava bhakti identity seems to have been closely correlated
with valuing and striving to uphold particular forms of ethical virtue that
were celebrated in bhakti poetry and hagiography. If bhakti songs expressed
(and helped to inculcate) a certain moral disposition, that ethical sensibility
was “distinctive not merely in terms of the sort of nobility it celebrate[d], but
also in terms of the sort of baseness it condemn[ed]; its vices [were] as stylized
as its virtues.”121 As will become clear, the baseness and vice that the bhakti
public stylized and condemned was especially that associated with tantric
yogīs and Śāktas.
The preceding discussion of bhakti song and performance in early modern
North India has brought to light the close interrelationships of aesthetics, emo-
tion, and ethics in the life of—­and the sense of community generated within—­the
bhakti public. To use the language of Clifford Geertz, the performed poems, sto-
ries, and rituals of bhakti conveyed, “for those for whom they [were] resonant,
what [was] known about the way the world is, the quality of the emotional life it
supports, and the way one ought to behave while in it.”122 In other words, partici-
pation in bhakti discourse attuned one to a particular worldview and a particular
emotional, aesthetic, and ethical sensibility. What is remarkable is the extent to
which this bhakti sensibility resonated with that of Sufism.
I have touched briefly on a common interest in the ethical life among bhak-
tas and Sufis and a shared understanding that humility and benevolence are at
the heart of proper conduct. A brief comparison of specific Sufi and Vaiṣṇava
bhakti compositions can give us a better sense of the parallels between their
ethical visions. The fifteenth-­century Gujarati bhakti saint Narasī Mehtā
(Narasiṃha Mahatā) is remembered to have composed the following poem,
famous in India for having been Gandhi’s favorite prayer.

He alone can be called a true Vaiṣṇava, who understands the

sufferings of others, who helps them in their miseries and has
no conceit.
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 93

He greets everyone and despises none, he is firm in speech, deed

and mind: blessed, blessed is his mother.
He regards all equally and is free (tyāgī) from all desire, he sees a
mother in another man’s wife; he does not utter untruth nor
does he grab the wealth of others.
Attachments and illusions don’t overpower him, his mind knows
stern detachment (vairāgya); he is absorbed in the name of
Rām and he embodies all places of pilgrimage within himself.
Free from all greed and fraud, he has gone beyond passion and
anger. Narasi says: The sight of such a man may emancipate
one hundred and one generations.123

The ethical ideals celebrated in this bhakti song are echoed closely in the
teachings of the great Chishti shaikh Nizām al-­Dīn Awliyā’ (1242–­1325), as seen in
Fawā’id al-­Fu’ād (Morals for the heart), a text composed by his disciple, the poet
Amīr Ḥasan Sijzī Dihlawī, which inaugurated the new genre of the malfūzāt, the
recorded conversations and teachings of the Sufi master.124 One of the basic
moral and spiritual principles laid out in Nizām al-­Dīn’s teachings is service to
mankind: showing affection to people, striving by whatever means to help fellow
human beings, removing the misery of others, bringing consolation to distressed
hearts, and assisting the downtrodden. Throughout Fawā’id al-­Fu’ād, he also
stresses “living for the Lord alone,” rejecting materialistic attractions, com-
pletely trusting in God, and abandoning greed and egoistic motivations.125 These
teachings clearly resonate with the bhakti-­inspired moral message seen in Narasī
Mehtā’s poem that the true Vaiṣṇava should understand the sufferings of others
and help them in their miseries; be kind to all; remain free of desire, passion, and
greed; and show firm detachment from worldly attachments.
In addition to the similarities in their ethical ideals, for both bhaktas and Sufis
to be a great devotee was, in many ways, to be a great poet, and to be a poet
usually meant to be a singer of songs. Piety and aesthetic sensibility were inti-
mately linked in both bhakti and Sufism. Simon Digby has described the Sufi
shaikhs of pre-­Mughal India as “leaders in fashions of religious sensibility, in
which piety is with difficulty distinguished from aesthetic reaction to literary
and musical forms.”126 Both the bhakti saints and Sufi saints of North India
attracted followers by exhibiting a religiosity defined not only by its passionate
devotion and asceticism but also by its musicality and poetic sensibility. Partici-
pation in—­and aesthetic appreciation of—­poetry and music was, then, central to
both Sufi and bhakti religious life.
Katherine Butler Schofield has argued that there was “experiential common
ground between Persianate and Indic ontologies of music—­that is to say, what
 94 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

music is and what it does—­a nd particularly music’s central role in both tradi-
tions in mediating the various moods of love.”127 She explains that in both Per-
sianate Sufi and Sanskritic aesthetic discourses (appropriated by North Indian
bhakti traditions), music was considered “the direct aural manifestation of sen-
timent” and, in particular, “the sonic embodiment of love,” and in both its pur-
pose was “to move the listener’s emotions” and especially “to arouse feelings of
love in the listener.”128 Furthermore, Persianate aesthetic theory shared with
Sanskrit aesthetics an emphasis on the audience; that is, an understanding that
a work of art (music, poetry, literature, etc.) succeeds or fails not so much on its
own terms as in the degree to which it evokes emotion and aesthetic experi-
ence in its audience. This also meant that audience members and, in the case
here, the initiates of both Sufi and bhakti religious orders were expected to pos-
sess a certain aesthetic sensibility, a cultivated emotional-­spiritual awareness
and preparedness.129
Clearly, then, the experience of the Divine, in both Sufism and bhakti at this
time, was closely intertwined with the experience of emotion, an emotion that
could be evoked through participation in and aesthetic response to poetry, song,
and music. In particular, Indian Sufis and bhaktas in Sultanate and Mughal India
both celebrated the erotic sentiment and the emotion of love—­a passionate love
exceeding all bounds and drawing the self outside itself130 (‘ishq/prema)—­while
both also gave special emphasis to impassioned human longing for the absent
beloved (viraha/firāq) as a metaphor for—­and a vehicle to the experience of—­pure
love for the Divine. In order to express a religious vision and to evoke a religious
experience so closely tied to emotion and art (poetry, song, music), early mod-
ern Sufis and bhaktas both drew on the popular aesthetic concept of rasa (liter-
ally, “taste,” “juice,” or “essence”). The term rasa refers to the sweetness of
aesthetic experience, the essential flavor of an artistic work or, put differently,
the purified ego-­f ree experience of emotion evoked by and during absorption
in art.131 Classical Indian aesthetic theory posited eight rasas, of which the one
that came to be celebrated above all others as “the king of rasas” was śṛṅgāra rasa,
the erotic sentiment. Jayadeva’s twelfth-­century Gītagovinda, a Sanskrit lyrical
poem describing the love play of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā, was crucial in correlating the
aesthetic experience of śṛngāra rasa (erotic human passion) with the religious
experience of bhakti (devotional love), suggesting a jointly devotional and aes-
thetic goal of transmuting baser emotion and desire into an experience of pure
divine love.132 On the heels of this work came Vopadeva’s Bhāgavatamuktāphala
(ca. 1300), seemingly the first text to conceive the various emotional atti-
tudes a devotee can have toward Viṣṇu in terms of rasa theory, while also
first developing (along with Hemādri’s contemporaneous commentary, the
Kaivalyadīpikā) the idea that the canonical rasas are in fact simply aspects of a
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 95

single “devotional rasa.”133 It was not until the sixteenth-­century Vaiṣṇava bhakti
sampradāyas, however, that bhakti theology became explicitly anchored in
Sanskrit rasa theory, a feat accomplished (especially in Rūpa Gosvāmin’s
Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu of 1541) by the replacement of śṛṅgāra rasa with bhakti rasa
as the pinnacle of aesthetic-­spiritual experience.134 Sheldon Pollock explains
that this was not “another new interpretation of aesthetic response” but a “new
aesthetics of religion, a new understanding of religion as aesthetic action, which
encompasses and transcends what had hitherto been thought of as the aes-
thetic.”135 What is especially interesting here is that, as Behl has insightfully
observed, in some respects Indian Sufis actually anticipated this move in the
premākhyān genre, which made the most of the considerable resonances between
Persianate and Sanskritic aesthetics and conceptions of love to offer certain
innovations in the increasingly intertwined realms of Indian religion and aes-
thetics.136 The goal of the Sufi romances—­as shown in the stages of the hero’s
quest to reunite with his Beloved—­was to awaken and gradually purify base
human desire (shauq/kāma) into divine love, which they characterized not
as the physical, erotic passion of śṛṅgāra rasa but as the more selfless, excessive
(and potentially transcendental) love of prema rasa.137 A passage from the first
premākhyān, the Cāndāyan, illustrates this well. Composed by Maulānā Dā’ūd in
1379 at a Tughlaq provincial court in Avadh, the Cāndāyan was a Sufi rendition
of the popular regional folktale of Lorik and Cāndā. Dā’ūd adopts the terminol-
ogy of rasa and prema in the following scene, which depicts Cāndā pining for her
absent beloved and asking her nurse, Biraspati, to tell her a story of love to soothe
her pain.

Cāndā called Biraspati to her,

“Come and tell me a tale of love,
full of love’s savor, its taste,
that I may forget my mind’s insipid state,
and light the lamp of rasa in my heart’s niche.
Give me the food of rasa, do not tire,
only rasa can put out the flames of separation.
I have tried many medicines and powders,
now tell me a story full of flavor and juice.
In its rasa, the night will pass quickly,
and sweet sleep will come to my eyes.
O Biraspati, speak sweet words of rasa, sweeten my bitter mind—­
divert me with an hour of rasa, that this pain, this burning and
agitation, may go!”
[C 172]138
 96 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

As Behl explains, here Dā’ūd appropriates a classical Sanskrit term into the
poetics of a new vernacular Hindavi genre while presenting the rasa of purified,
unconditional love (prema, not śṛṅgāra) “as the remedy for the existential con-
dition of viraha or separation. Just as savoring the rasa or juice of a story is what
gives a reader pleasure in a text, so savoring the rasa of love [prema] removes
the burning pain of separation between lovers.”139 This idea—­that the only ade-
quate remedy for the suffering of separation from the Beloved is the taste of love
of and for God, which can be experienced in the aesthetic relish of literature,
articulated here in a late fourteenth-­century Indian Sufi text—­would be a fun-
damental theme in many compositions of North India’s early modern bhakti
movement.
The traditions of bhakti and Sufism in Sultanate and Mughal India were quite
different—­divided by differing theologies, ritual forms and obligations, religious
authorities, and collective memories, among other key differences—­but they
grew up in conversation with each other and resonated on numerous levels. As
noted, bhaktas and Sufis drew on a shared pool of images, symbols, narratives;
offered similar modes of participation in their religiosity; circulated their dis-
course in similar forms and contexts; and celebrated and sought to mobilize
similar sentiments. The fact that Sufis and bhaktas valued the same emotions,
aesthetic styles, and ethical ideals is significant. While they were certainly not
part of a single tradition or even a single public (though it seems clear that the
bhakti and Sufi publics would have shared a number of members),140 might we
consider the Sufis and bhaktas of early modern North India as part of a com-
mon “emotional community”? As stated in the introduction, Barbara Rosenwein
defines an “emotional community” as a group “in which people adhere to the
same norms of emotional expression and value—­or devalue—­the same or related
emotions.”141 She explains that emotional communities (in their discourse) “offer
exemplars of emotions belittled and valorized” and develop characteristic emo-
tional styles that “depend not only on the emotions that they emphasize—­a nd
how and in what contexts they do so—­but also by the ones that they demote to
the tangential or do not recognize at all.”142 Sufis and bhaktas alike valorized self-
less love and emphasized passionate longing for an absent Beloved while criti-
cizing hubris, envy, hatred, and greed. Moreover, they used similar aesthetic
styles to express and evoke the emotions (as well as the ethical ideals) they val-
ued. While I am hesitant to consider Sufis and bhaktas as part of the same com-
munity, the preceding discussion has made clear that they often shared a very
similar emotional, aesthetic, and ethical sensibility. Emerging from the same his-
torical context and participating in many of the same historical trends—­the
demise of mainstream, institutional tantra; the encounter between Persian-
ate and Sanskritic cosmopolitan cultures; a shared grammar of charismatic
 Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 97

asceticism and, relatedly, the key role of monastic lineages and their institu-
tions in political society; and the rise of vernacular literary composition and
performance—­bhakti and Indian Sufi religious sensibilities held important elec-
tive affinities and developed in dialogue with each other. It is in this sense that,
throughout this book, I describe the bhakti sensibility of early modern North
India as Sufi inflected. Nonetheless, we must not forget the obvious fact that not
all bhaktas were alike, nor were all Sufis (nor were all tantric yogīs). It is useful
to speak about a general (early modern North Indian) bhakti sensibility only if
we acknowledge from the outset the incredible diversity of interests and
religious-­aesthetic proclivities that the members of the bhakti public would have
had and the vast number of ways such a general bhakti sensibility might have
manifested in the lived reality of particular geographic, sectarian, and famil-
ial contexts.

R
I began this chapter with a discussion of the social and cultural changes occa-
sioned by the establishment of Sultanate rule in North India. India’s military
conquest by Persianate Turks ended an era in which tantric religiopolitical par-
adigms and institutions had been an important feature of the subcontinent for
centuries. This shift in the sociopolitical order resulted in new patterns of cir-
culation, encounter, and exchange that would, in time, create the conditions for
the emergence of new bhakti sensibilities, communities, and forms of litera-
ture.143 The Sultanate period was a time of cultural translation; a complex,
dynamic, and extended encounter of Persianate-­Islamicate and Sanskritic-­Indic
cultures. In this new historical context, traditional, accepted, and customary
tantric institutions and paradigms of thought waned in importance, while new
bhakti social formations emerged, along with new discursive instruments sus-
taining and mobilizing those social formations.144 The remainder of the book
examines these bhakti social formations and discursive instruments and, par-
ticularly, the way in which they articulated a Sufi-­inflected bhakti sensibility in
contradistinction to core aspects of tantric religiosity.
In this chapter, my larger aim has been to understand the significant role
Persianate cultural forms and Sufism had in the development of North India’s
bhakti movement. I have also sought to understand the character of this new
transregional, transsectarian bhakti public, the performative world in which its
discourse circulated, and the Sufi-­inflected ethical, aesthetic, and emotional
sensibility cultivated within it. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, a
social and cultural environment arose that allowed for the spread of bhakti
throughout North India, but it was not until the rule of Akbar, beginning in
 98 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

1556, that bhakti communities, institutions, and literature really began to flour-
ish in North India, something that happened in large part because of the
patronage of the Mughal emperors and nobles as well as that of Hindu Rajputs.
During Akbar’s reign, Mughals and Rajputs forged a political alliance that
would prove to have far-­reaching consequences. In the next chapter, I discuss
how this alliance led to the development of a Mughal-­Rajput court culture and
religiopolitical idiom in which Vaiṣṇava bhakti institutional and literary forms
became valuable cosmopolitan symbols of power and deportment for aspiring
Hindu rulers and thus Vaiṣṇava bhakti communities became the beneficiaries
of extensive patronage.
 3
Akbar’s New World

Mughals and Rajputs in the Rise of Vaiṣṇava Bhakti

N
orth India’s bhakti movement began in the specific social and cul-
tural conditions of the later Sultanate, but it was during the Mughal
period that bhakti became a major institutional and literary phenom-
enon in North India. In this chapter, I explore the Mughal-­Rajput sociopolitical
context that allowed bhakti institutions and literature to flourish in early mod-
ern North India, focusing in particular on the reign of the third Mughal emperor,
Jalāl ud-­Dīn Muhammad Akbar (r. 1556–­1605), or Akbar the Great. Under Akbar,
the Mughal Empire became the largest and most bureaucratically sophisticated
political entity that India had ever seen. The religious policies, political alliances,
and administrative structures developed during Akbar’s rule were crucial in
facilitating the successful growth of Vaiṣṇava bhakti traditions.
Akbar and his allies constructed “a new corporate and inclusivist ideology
of service to emperor and state” that successfully drew together a disparate
range of ethnic groups in the leadership and administration of the Mughal
Empire.1 The Rajputs—­a politically powerful, ethnically diverse, and geograph-
ically widespread Hindu status group often associated with warriorhood 2—­
played an especially vital role in these political and administrative innovations
but also in the formation of a joint Mughal-­Rajput court culture whose cosmo-
politan codes and symbols of virtue, deportment, and aesthetic sophistication
contributed to, and were intertwined with, the rise of Vaiṣṇava bhakti. In order
to investigate the crucial part played by Rajputs, I focus on one particularly
important Rajput clan, the Kacchvāhās of Amer, and their involvement in the
Mughal policies, practices of rule, and literary-­aesthetic understandings that
provided fertile conditions for the spread of bhakti traditions in early modern
 100 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

North India. The Kacchvāhās critically influenced, contributed to, and partici-
pated in new Mughal forms of courtliness and statehood that were intimately
linked to the emergence of bhakti communities and their literature.

Babur, Humāyūn, and the Timurid Model of

Sacred Sovereignty

In 1526, Babur defeated the Afghan Lodis, the last dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate,
at the Battle of Panipat, thus inaugurating the Mughal Empire. Babur (r. 1526–­
1530) was a Chaghatay Turk and the great-­grandson of Timur. As proud descen-
dants of Timur, and thus also of Chinggis Khan, Babur and the Mughal emperors
who followed him considered themselves heir to a unique prestige and world-­
conquering destiny. As Azfar Moin explains, “Even as they became an insepara-
ble part of the Indian landscape, the Mughals continued to trace their dynastic
origins from Timur and practice the norms of comportment of Chinggis Khan.”3
The Mughals, then, did not enter India as orthodox Sunni Muslim kings seeking
to establish “another Muslim dynasty”; rather, they came as inheritors of a
Timurid style of kingship that had developed in the extremely diverse socioreli-
gious world of Iran and Central Asia.4 The Mughals inherited the inclusivist vision
of Islamic law of Nasīr al-­Dīn Tūsī (d. 1274), who felt that it was a king’s duty to
ensure the harmony and well-­being of all the diverse groups in his kingdom, not
just Muslims.5 As Muzaffar Alam writes, “While there were certainly Indian
Muslims who desired the total dominance of Muslims and the humiliation or
destruction of infidelity and infidels, the Mughal rulers and most Sufis felt the
central task of Islamic law was to ensure the balance of conflicting interests of
groups and communities, with no interference in their personal beliefs.” 6
As noted in the preceding chapter, the Timurid model of sacred sovereignty
practiced by the Mughals involved especially (a) support for Sufi institutions and
close relationships with charismatic Sufi saints (and other figures embodying
sacred power); (b) elite occultism—­i.e., reliance upon astrologers, lettrists, geo-
mancers, and other sources of occult knowledge (including even yogīs); and (c)
patronage of—­and cultivated sophistication in—­Persian arts. It was especially
through Sufi orders, and particularly those firmly entrenched in the Indian
landscape such as the Chishtis and the Shattaris, that the early Mughals sought
to engage with and establish themselves within local networks of influence.
Babur began this process, but since he died just four years after conquering
India, it was especially his son and successor, Humāyūn (r. 1531–­1540, 1555–­1556),
who carried it out by forging a close relationship with the Shattari Sufi order.
The Shattaris were known for their wonder-­working abilities and their occultist
 Akbar’s New World = 101

and yogic inclinations. Humāyūn became an initiate of the Shattari Sufi

brothers Shaikh Muhammad Ghawth (Ghaus) and Shaikh Phul (Bahlul), the lat-
ter of whom was known by contemporaries for his “great interest in the occult
sciences, and a passion for invoking prayer spells and spirits.”7 It is no coinci-
dence that Humāyūn gravitated toward this particular Sufi order, for he was
keenly interested in the occult and made Islamicate traditions of astrology and
alchemy an important element of his rule. Humāyūn’s occultist predilections
and his relationship with the Shattaris—­much like the well-­documented con-
tacts that subsequent Mughal emperors (Akbar, Jahāngīr, Aurangzeb) had with
Indian yogīs and ascetics—­should be understood in connection with the broader
post-­Mongol Persianate/Timurid interest in embodied sacred power and occult
knowledge.8 The occult sciences (al-­ʿulūm al-­gharība) had become fundamental
to the construction of imperial ideologies in post-­Mongol Asia. Humāyūn styled
his own sacred sovereignty in competition with the contemporary Safavid king
of Iran, Shāh Ṭahmāsb (r. 1524–­1576), a serious student of the occult sciences
(especially geomancy) who presented himself simultaneously as the sovereign
of Persia and the pious leader (and greatest living saint) of the Safavid Sufi
order.9
While the Mughal period officially begins with Babur’s victory over the Lodi
sultans in 1526, this standard periodization obscures the fact that Afghan fam-
ilies with roots in North India continued to battle Babur and Humāyūn for years.
Indeed, the Afghan Sher Shāh Surī defeated Humāyūn in 1540 and took control
of the empire. Humāyūn fled India and, after wandering about in poverty,
eventually submitted himself before his Safavid rival, Shāh Ṭahmāsb, in order
to receive refuge in Persia.10 Back in India, Sher Shāh (r. 1540–­1545) and his son
Islām Shāh (r. 1545–­1554) instituted a number of changes to centralize power
and make civic and military administration more efficient—­including a new
network of roads and hostels and an effective revenue-­collection system—­thus
paving the way for Akbar’s successful consolidation of the empire. Upon Islām
Shāh’s death, Humāyūn returned from Iran to reconquer India for the Mughals
in 1555. However, less than a year after retaking the throne in Delhi, he fell
down the staircase from his library, hit his head, and died three days later. His
son, Jalāl ud-­Dīn Muhammad Akbar, only thirteen years old at the time, suc-
ceeded to the Mughal throne on February 14, 1556.11

Akbar’s Empire

There is a vast and ever-­growing body of scholarship on Akbar (r. 1556–­1605)

and the Mughal Empire under him and his seventeenth-­century successors:
 102 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

Jahāngīr (r. 1605–­1627), Shāh Jahān (r. 1628–­1658), and Aurangzeb (r. 1658–­1707).
Here I offer only a brief and selective introduction to the intriguing historical
figure of Akbar in order to sketch the all-­important sociopolitical context of
bhakti’s development in Mughal India. Akbar’s inventive form of Indian king-
ship was built upon Timurid and Safavid understandings of sacred sovereignty,
whose institutional and narrative forms “were flexible enough to adapt to the
requirements of the Indian milieu.”12 In accord with the Timurid-­Safavid style,
Akbar’s imperial rule gave an important place to Sufism, occultism, patronage
of (and connoisseurship in) Persian arts, and bold messianic (and millennial)
claims.
Early in his reign, Akbar’s devotion to the Chishti Sufi order was a founda-
tional element of his rule. He not only patronized Chishti institutions but also
personally sought out the blessing and prophecy of a Chishti shaikh (Shaikh
Salīm Chishtī, d. 1571) regarding the birth of his male heir, built (and frequently
visited) a Chishti Sufi shrine at the heart of his new capital in Fatehpur Sikri
(active 1571–­1585), and traveled on foot each year to the tomb of the Chishti
founder (Khwājā Mu‘īn al-­Dīn Chishtī), d. 1236) in Ajmer. Through these actions,
between 1568 and 1579 Akbar performed the message that “royal heirs, royal
victory, and royal authority flowed from devotion to the Chishti saints.”13 There
were strategic elements to Akbar’s relationship with the Chishtis. They were
India’s largest and most widespread Sufi order, one deeply embedded in local
networks of influence throughout northern and central India. Furthermore, the
Chishti order grew up in the Indian subcontinent and practiced a form of Islam
tailored to and inseparable from Indian culture. Eclectic and accommodating
in their religiosity, the Chishtis bridged Indic and Islamicate cultural fields and
exemplified Akbar’s “willingness to embrace the multi-­ethnic and multi-­
religious nature of his empire.”14
Akbar was interested not only in the Sufis, of course. Religious questions and
occult possibilities clearly fascinated him, and during the 1570s while based at
Fatehpur Sikri, he began holding lengthy discussions with Muslim theologians,
Hindu brahmans, Parsis, Jains, Christians (Jesuit priests), and yogīs. In the course
of these personal spiritual inquiries, in which he learned about a diverse array
of religious ideas and practices, Akbar seems to have become less enchanted
with orthodox Islam and increasingly moved away from it, though he contin-
ued to publicly support Islamic institutions and to make occasional gestures to
appease the powerful body of Muslim scholars and jurists. With resistance
mounting from the ‘ulamā to his liberal policy decisions, some of which seemed
to increasingly place Muslims and non-­Muslims on an equal footing, Akbar and
his closest advisers—­particularly his dear friend and courtier Abu al-­Fazl (Abu
al-­Fazl ibn Mubārak)—­began formulating a new dynastic ideology that would
 Akbar’s New World = 103

generate a broad-­based political appeal independent of the institutions of ortho-

dox Islam.
Munis Faruqui has argued persuasively that Akbar’s early imperial self-­
presentation and religious policy decisions were fundamentally influenced by
the threat posed by his Kabul-­based half brother, Mīrzā Muhammad Hakīm. For
two decades, from roughly 1560 to 1580, Mīrzā Hakīm bitterly opposed Akbar’s
imperial claim, proving himself a formidable threat by invading Mughal terri-
tory twice, taking in Mughal political refugees, regularly opposing Akbar’s po-
litical initiatives, publicly criticizing Akbar for abandoning his family’s Central
Asian roots and legacy, and presenting himself as an orthodox Sunni alterna-
tive to Akbar’s heterodox religious positions.15 As Faruqui explains, “As long as
Mīrzā Hakīm posed a serious politico-­religious threat, Akbar was seemingly
forced—­perhaps against his better judgment—­to occasionally play the ‘Islamic
card’ even as he desperately searched for ways to assert his authority over the
religious establishment.”16 Akbar’s relationship with the Chishti Sufi order would
seem to illustrate this point quite well. While he had been closely affiliated with
the Chishtis since the 1560s—­u ndertaking regular pilgrimages to the great
Chishti shrines in Ajmer, Punjab, and Delhi—­once the threat posed by Mīrzā
Hakīm was permanently ended in 1582, Akbar never undertook another such
pilgrimage for the rest of his life and showed complete indifference toward the
Chishti order.17 The death of Mīrzā Hakīm and the capture of his sons in 1585
seem to have marked a key moment in Akbar’s reign. As Faruqui states, “No lon-
ger would opponents within the ranks of either the Mughal nobility or the
ulema have an axis around which to focus their opposition to Akbar’s political
and religious initiatives. Once rid of the menacing shadow cast by Mīrzā Hakīm,
Akbar no longer felt compelled to tailor his imperial initiatives to woo dispa-
rate political and religious constituencies.”18 Akbar was thus freed to pursue the
new vision of empire he had formed with his close adviser Abu al-­Fazl.
In 1579, just months after warding off a threatened invasion by Mīrzā Hakīm,
Akbar issued an imperial decree declaring himself the supreme authority over
religious affairs in the empire, with a power above that of the ‘ulamā in decid-
ing disputed matters of religious doctrine. Then, in 1582, shortly after Mīrzā
Hakīm was conclusively defeated at the Battle of Kabul-­K hurd, and at the
moment of the Islamic millennium as heralded by a Saturn-­Jupiter conjunction,
Akbar “revealed” himself “as the Perfect Man, the saint of the age, who would
formally accept his subjects as devotees.”19 In the new imperial dynastic ide-
ology, presented by Abu al-­Fazl in his Akbarnāmā, Akbar appeared at once a
perfected Sufi saint, a pedigreed Mongol sovereign, a battle-­tested epic hero, and
an astrologically predicted messiah. According to the Akbarnāmā, he was in pos-
session of a hidden divine light that had passed down from Adam and the
 104 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

biblical prophets to Chinggis Khan and Timur and eventually to Babur and
Humāyūn, arriving finally at Akbar himself, in whom it found its perfection.20
This articulation of Akbar’s “true” identity borrowed directly from the Illumina-
tionist (Ishraqi) philosophy of the great Persian mystic Suhrawardī (d. 1191),
whose work had successfully infused Islam with Neoplatonic and pre-­Islamic
Iranian (Zoroastrian) strands of thought. If Suhrawardī’s Illuminationist form of
Islam was one key source of Akbar’s new dynastic ideology, it was one closely
tied to traditions of occultism that had been rising in importance in the Per-
sianate political world since the fourteenth century.21 Indeed, Matthew Melvin-­
Koushki has argued that “Akbar’s imperial identity is perhaps best described
as talismanic: his sacralised body as astral-­letter-­magical device marrying
heaven to earth in order to rule the whole. His infamous aristocratic court rit-
ual, furthermore, should be understood in the first place as an astral-­magical
operation, using tried and tested procedures to harness celestial powers for
specific, constructive ends.”22
A cornerstone of Akbar’s new imperial ideology was the celebrated ecumen-
ical policy of ṣulḥ-­i kull, in which all were to be treated equally and respectfully;
i.e., non-­Muslims were officially accorded the same rights as Muslims. While the
term ṣulḥ-­i kull is often translated as “universal toleration” or “universal peace,”
Rajeev Kinra suggests it be rendered as “complete civility.” He points out that
the term ṣulḥ did not refer simply to generic peace between and tolerance toward
the other but “also to the balance and compromise necessary to maintain the
stability and peaceableness of the social order within a ruler’s dominions,”
which “involved the promotion of intra-­community harmony, even among dif-
ferent ethnic or sectarian categories of Muslims, just as much as it required the
promotion of respect towards the non-­Muslim other.”23 The Mughal doctrine of
ṣulḥ-­i kull seems to have been inspired in part by a particular strand of Persian
millennialist occultism (lettrism) developed by the Iranian Āzar Kayvān (1533–­
1618), itself closely related to Suhrawardian Illuminationism. Daniel Sheffield
has argued convincingly that Akbar’s policy of “absolute civility” likely derived
from the Islamo-­Zoroastrian Āzarī doctrine of āmīzish-­i farhang (mixing of cul-
tures). Āzar Kayvān and his followers (Āzarīs) believed that “each of the religions
of the world was a translation of the same fundamental truth.”24 As Sheffield
states, “This belief in the underlying unity of the world’s religions engendered a
form of religious practice in which Āẕarī disciples were to treat members of
different religious communities equally, a practice which seems to have been a
direct antecedent for the Mughal Emperor Akbar’s policy of ṣulḥ-­i kull (Univer-
sal Civility).”25 Indeed, the Dabistān-­i Mazāhib (ca. 1658) states that Akbar and
Abu al-­Fazl wrote letters to Āzar Kayvān asking him to come to India and
that he sent them a book of his writings expressing the idea that just as all
 Akbar’s New World = 105

languages derive from a single source (a celestial language), so all Indian, Per-
sian, and Islamic intellectual and religious traditions also “all reflect a single
essence.”26 Akbar’s adoption of this open-­m inded, tolerant perspective as the
basis for his imperial religious policy was one key factor—­a mong others, such
as especially his alliance with Hindu Rajputs (discussed later in this chapter)—­
that helped to produce a sociopolitical environment in which bhakti communi-
ties and their institutions would flourish in the late sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.
As the importance of Persian thought (e.g., Suhrawardī and Āzarī) to Akbar’s
new dynastic ideology suggests, Persian intellectual and literary culture became
foundational aspects of Akbar’s Mughal Empire. While the various regional sul-
tanates of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries had continued to pro-
mote Persian and to use it as a cosmopolitan language of Islamicate rule and
culture in India, during the latter Sultanate period the overall role of Persian
in the subcontinent diminished slightly because of the new emphasis on regional
vernacular literary cultures (e.g., Hindavi, Marathi, Bengali, Telugu). However,
under Akbar and the Mughal emperors who followed him, India witnessed “its
most productive—­perhaps even incomparable—­efflorescence of Persian literary
culture. Indeed, Mughal literary culture has been celebrated primarily, if not
exclusively, for its extraordinary excellence in Persian poetry and prose.”27 As
Alam has noted, Akbar had an “unusual interest in promoting social, cultural,
and intellectual contacts with Iran,” and his “efforts to engage Iranian literati
received an encouraging response from Iran.”28 During the reigns of Akbar and
Jahāngīr, there was a great migration of Persian literati to Mughal India. Some
came fleeing Safavid religious or political persecutions, but most came simply
because “the Mughal Empire commanded far greater financial and human
resources and consequently offered far better opportunities for patronage than
its Safavid counterpart,” especially considering “the immense prestige enjoyed
by Persian culture in Mughal India.”29 As war raged between the Safavids, Uzbeks,
and Ottomans in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, “Akbar’s India earned
distinction as the place of refuge, an abode of peace (dār al-­amān) where the wise
and the learned received encouragement.”30 Under Akbar, Persian became “the
language of the king, the royal household, and the high Mughal elite,” as well
as the formally declared language of government administration at all levels,
including that carried out by indigenous Hindu communities.31
The importance accorded to Persian under Akbar and his successors has led
many scholars to view the Mughals as an exclusively Persian-­language dynasty;
however, as Audrey Truschke has stressed, in fact “the Mughals cultivated a
notably multilingual and multicultural courtly environment that included royal
support of Hindi, Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit.”32 She emphasizes that the
 106 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

Mughal court’s cross-­cultural activities—­including Persian translations of the

Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, and Harivaṃśa—­were not mere “sideshow curiosities”;
rather, “multiculturalism was foundational to the imperial dispensation.”33
Truschke shows how the Mughals understood their multicultural literary, artis-
tic, and intellectual pursuits as crucial to their construction of power.34 In other
words, in Akbar’s India, power derived in large part from aesthetic practice, with
political influence often exerted and acquired through literary, intellectual, and
cultural endeavors. Corinne Lefèvre has remarked upon the enormous political
significance and prestige associated with cultural and literary-­artistic activities
in Mughal India, not just at the imperial court but also among subimperial nobles
and nonstate actors.35
Particularly noteworthy is Mughal support of Brajbhasha and the self-­
assertive literary activity in Brajbhasha at subimperial Mughal courts and in
devotional communities of the period. The trailblazing work of Allison Busch
has shown how Brajbhasha “functioned as a zone of sociolinguistic contact, a
medium that the Persian-­using Mughals and the Sanskrit-­proficient Hindu lite-
rati had in common.”36 As she explains, the vernacular of Brajbhasha “had the
innate ability to foster the participation of multiple groups and linkages between
them. In contrast to Sanskrit and Persian, . . . ​Brajbhasha was readily intelligi-
ble to most North Indians from Gujarat to Bengal and . . . ​was a marvellously
adaptable linguistic resource because writers could manipulate registers to suit
diverse literary contexts and patrons.”37 Beginning at the end of the sixteenth
century there would be an unprecedented explosion of Brajbhasha literary
activity, much of it driven by emerging bhakti communities that, in the Mughal
cultural environment, increasingly sought patronage and power—­a nd forged
their sectarian identities—­through their literary practices and products.
Under Akbar, the Mughal Empire tripled in size as successful military cam-
paigns brought Malwa and Gondwana in central India, the states of Rajasthan,
Gujarat, Bengal (including modern-­day Bihar and Orissa), Kabul, and Kashmir
under Mughal imperial control. The administrative systems, political alliances,
imperial ideology, and religious policies developed during Akbar’s rule brought
these diverse and far-­flung territories together into a coherent, stable, central-
ized state.38 These same Akbar-­era sociopolitical innovations and developments
were crucial in facilitating the successful growth of Vaiṣṇava bhakti institutions
and literature. Before giving attention specifically to bhakti and the role played
by the Mughal rulers and their Rajput allies in its development, we must under-
stand the political and economic context that shaped the development of reli-
gion more generally in Mughal India.
The research of Irfan Habib, among others, suggests that the institution of a
new land-­revenue system in the Sultanate period helped to establish an econ-
omy in which (in at least some key areas) agrarian exploitation—­the systematic
 Akbar’s New World = 107

appropriation of agricultural surplus by the ruling class—­f ueled urban growth

and, correspondingly, an expansion in craft production and commerce. In the
Mughal period, the basic character of this economy seems to have continued
and to have reached an even more developed form.39 The growth of merchant
and urban artisan classes and the dispossession and disempowerment of (at least
certain segments of) the peasantry that occurred in the Sultanate and Mughal
periods were likely related to the rise of both devotional communities and sol-
diering (warrior-­ascetic) groups that we see in North India beginning in the fif-
teenth century, if in ways that are not yet fully understood.40 Vasudha Dalmia
and Munis Faruqui identify three other interrelated historical-­material phe-
nomena that had particularly significant effects upon religious life in the
Mughal Empire.41 First, the gradual absorption of northern India’s post-­1398
regional kingdoms within a single imperial state—­the consolidation of Mughal
authority from Kabul to Bengal, Kashmir to the northern Deccan—­created a po-
litical context that no ambitious religious group could ignore. Second, a net-
work of roads and related facilities (stepwells, roadside hostels, etc.) were built
in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, greatly improving commu-
nications and the ease of travel, facilitating commerce and the expansion of
economic networks. Third, the growing wealth of India beginning in the late
fifteenth century—­a n increase in gold and silver coming into India from its
many exports (cotton and silk textiles, spices, manufactured goods, agricul-
tural products)—­spurred great economic development. In the seventeenth
century, the Mughal Empire possessed greater wealth and manpower than all
other early modern Islamicate empires, including those of the Safavids, Uzbeks,
and Ottomans.42 As Dalmia and Faruqi state, “This wealth not only enhanced the
military and administrative capacities of the Mughal Empire” but also provided
resources that would lead to “widespread temple and mosque construction, the
expansion of old pilgrimage sites, rising numbers of Hindu and Muslim pil-
grims, as well as increasing religiously oriented textual production.” 43 We really
begin to see the effects of these historical developments—­political consoli-
dation, improved transportation and communication, and rising wealth—­on
India’s religious landscape in the reign of Akbar, and these conditions would per-
sist through the seventeenth and into the eighteenth century.

North India’s Early Modern Shift from Śaivism to Vaiṣṇavism

I turn now to the incredible growth of Vaiṣṇava bhakti in early modern

North India. In order to explore the Mughal-­R ajput sociopolitical context in
which bhakti flourished, I examine the Kacchvāhā Rajput clan, their religious
 108 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

patronage, and their special relationship with the Mughal emperor. Up until
the middle of the sixteenth century, the Kacchvāhā clan of eastern Rajasthan
(or Dhundhār) was just one royal kṣatriya family among a host of others in
North India, meriting no special distinction in the annals of history. Threat-
ened by the expanding Marwar and Mewar states and plagued internally by
feuds over succession to the throne, in 1562 this minor local power forged a
marital alliance with the new Mughal emperor Akbar that would change its
fortunes in an unexpectedly powerful way, profoundly influencing the history
of North India in the process. The story of the Kacchvāhās, their relationship
with the Mughal Empire, and their impact on bhakti religious formations must
necessarily be told in parallel with the story of the rise of the new religious
communities at Galta and Vrindavan, which served as two of the most impor-
tant institutional locations for the spread of bhakti across Mughal India.
In the early sixteenth century, the Kacchvāhā ruler Pṛthvīrāj shifted his alle-
giance from the tantric Nāth yogīs to the Rāmānandī bhakti community,
becoming a disciple of the Rāmānandī devotee-­ascetic Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī and
the chief patron of the monastic community he founded in nearby Galta.
Pṛthvīrāj adopted an image of Sītā-­Rām brought by Payahārī as the Kacchvāhās’
dynastic deity, thereby inaugurating a close, centuries-­long relationship with
the Rāmānandīs at Galta. Pṛthvīrāj’s move was emblematic of a trend we see
beginning in this period in which rulers across North India increasingly allied
themselves with Vaiṣṇava bhakti communities and their institutional forms and
symbols while moving away from those of tantric Śaivism and Śāktism. As Cath-
erine Asher and Cynthia Talbot have written, “Although elite Hindus in previ-
ous centuries had primarily focused on Shiva as the object of their worship . . . ​
the situation changed from c. 1500 onward, after a wave of devotion toward
Vishnu became more widespread.” 44 William Pinch similarly states that “the
major Rajput clans underwent what might be deemed a kind of ‘conversion’ pro-
cess, from Shaiva and Shakta cult affiliations in the early 1500s to more ‘ortho-
prax’ Krishna and Rama devotion by 1800, and . . . ​this occurred in tandem with
participation in the overarching framework of the Mughal imperium.” 45
There is plentiful evidence for this broad shift toward Vaiṣṇava bhakti. Samira
Sheikh has discussed the rise of devotional Vaiṣṇavism in Gujarat in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries in association with a decline in Śaivism, which had been
dominant there for centuries.46 She explains that “the transition to Vaiṣṇava
bhakti,” beginning in the fifteenth century, “seems to have happened in some
important instances at the expense of Śaivism,” something that “was also true
of the rise of Vaiṣṇavism in other South Asian regions.” 47 Orsini and Sheikh have
noted how, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, “Rajput groups formerly
associated with goddess or Shiva worship began to link up their genealogies with
 Akbar’s New World = 109

Krishna.” 48 As I describe in chapter 4, popular oral traditions from Rajasthan,

Panjab, and the Kullu Valley (Western Himalayas) each relate the defeat of tan-
tric Nāth yogīs and the subsequent conversion of the local ruler and populace
to Vaiṣṇava devotional sensibilities in the early modern period. Charlotte Vaude-
ville has demonstrated that Śaivism and Śāktism dominated Braj prior to its
takeover by Vaiṣṇava (Kṛṣṇa) bhakti in the sixteenth century.49 Relatedly, in her
study of Rāmāyaṇa-­related pilgrimage sites that became popular in the early
modern period, Diana Eck has shown how early modern Vaiṣṇava bhakti move-
ments in North India took over, and were superimposed upon, what had long
been Śaiva religious territory.50 Heidi Pauwels has drawn attention to the move
by the Bundelā rulers of Orchha from Śākta-­centered religious practice to that
of Vaiṣṇava bhakti in the sixteenth century.51 Kathleen Erndl has discussed evi-
dence for the predominance of Śāktism in Panjab prior to the emergence of
devotional Vaiṣṇavism there in the seventeenth century.52 Pika Ghosh has doc-
umented the rise of new, devotional types of temple construction in associa-
tion with the rise of Vaiṣṇava bhakti in seventeenth-­ and eighteenth-­century
Bengal and its challenge to brahmanical tantric institutions and goddess cults
there.53
As Vaiṣṇava bhakti grew in popularity and influence in the early modern
period, Śaiva-­Śākta tantric communities were supplanted, marginalized, or
forced to adapt to the newly dominant devotional culture. Patricia Dold has dis-
cussed the ways in which, already in the sixteenth century, the rise of bhakti in
Bengal and Assam had put Śāktas there on the defensive, as we find them writ-
ing apologetic works seeking to demonstrate the compatibility of their tantric
traditions with the growing Vaiṣṇava devotional movements of Śaṅkaradeva (ca.
1449–­1568) and Caitanya (ca. 1485–­1533).54 Rachel McDermott has shown how the
influence of bhakti in Bengal led to a “gradual decline in knowledge about and
sanction of things Tantric” and a radical change in—­a nd softening of—­Bengali
Śākta worship in the eighteenth century in which the dangerous, bloodthirsty
tantric deity became a compassionate, loving mother.55 Similarly, the work of
Ann and Daniel Gold has demonstrated the “devotionalization” of the Nāth yogīs
of Rajasthan, who, for the most part, seem to have held considerably more tan-
tric sensibilities prior to North India’s bhakti movement.56
Plainly, there is no shortage of evidence for a general historical shift from
tantric Śaiva-­Śākta religiosity to devotional Vaiṣṇavism in early modern North
India; however, there are three important caveats. First, this was a shift, not an
erasure. Tantric Śaivism and Śāktism in no way disappeared; rather, generally
speaking their role—­especially their public presence—­d iminished and often
became subordinate to the ideologies, institutions, and symbols of devo-
tional Vaiṣṇavism. Second, as significant as it was, this shift was in some tension
 110 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

with—­a nd cultivated considerably different sensibilities from those promoted

within—­another major historical development happening at the same time: the
expansion, since roughly 1450, of North India’s military labor market and the
related rise in soldiering groups whose religious orientations were more ascetic
and in many (though not all) cases distinctly tantric, often Śākta, in nature.57
Third (and as the previous point suggests), this shift toward Vaiṣṇava bhakti was
not a universal fact but an incomplete and uneven process, occurring at differ-
ent times and fashions in different locations and varying in impact among dif-
ferent social strata.58 Very generally, the early modern shift to institutionalized
forms of Rām-­or Kṛṣṇa-­focused devotional Vaiṣṇavism seems to have occurred
especially among North India’s rulers, aristocracy, brahmans, and merchant
class and to have been less widespread among peasant and pastoral castes. In
some areas, such as the Western Himalayas, while saguṇ Vaiṣṇava bhakti was
taken up by the ruling class, it does not seem to have held much appeal or to
have spread widely among the broader populace.59 Even in Braj (the Vrindavan-­
Mathura area), the beating heart of early modern North India’s rising Kṛṣṇa
devotional movement, the region’s indigenous peasant and pastoralist inhabit-
ants tended to be excluded from or marginalized within the major Kṛṣṇa bhakti
sampradāys and to maintain earlier traditions revolving around the worship of
goddesses and nature and the pragmatic services and occult powers offered by
locally renowned charismatic ascetics.60 Indeed, the Braj region’s dominant
peasant caste, the Jāṭs, seem to have held an “intense hostility” toward, and to
have been in active conflict with, the rapidly growing brahmanical Vaiṣṇava
(Gauḍīya and Vallabhite) establishments based in the area.61 This is not to say
that the spread of bhakti in early modern North India was only an upper-­caste
affair or one that served simply “to endear the dominant to the subordinate and
thereby justify servitude,” 62 for it occurred at all social levels and, as Kumkum
Sangari has shown perhaps better than anyone, it involved the empowering of
low castes and women and the subversion of traditional structures of dominance
even as it often perpetuated the inequities of status quo caste, class, and gen-
der relations.63 Lower-­caste (peasant, pastoralist, artisan) groups more often
participated in nirguṇ-­oriented bhakti communities (e.g., the Sikhs, Dādū ­Panth)64
or less brahmanical, if still saguṇ-­friendly, Vaiṣṇava sects (e.g., the Rāmānandīs).65
Of course, to be a part of the expanding bhakti public of early modern North
India did not necessitate formal association with any institutionalized sectar-
ian bhakti community. At the popular level, it could just as easily mean unaffili-
ated participation in a spreading, transsectarian “vulgate Vaiṣṇava” bhakti
ethos, sensibility, and practice—­most especially the singing and remembrance
of the divine Name.66 Sectarian devotional communities (patronized especially
 Akbar’s New World = 111

by rulers, wealthy landowners, and merchants) provided institutional nodes

crucial for the production and spread of bhakti teachings and manuscripts, but
bhakti songs and stories themselves—­embodying and expressing the ethos and
sensibility I speak of—­circulated and were performed not only within these
institutional settings but in the vast spaces between and around them as well.
In making sense of the various dimensions of bhakti’s rise in early modern
North India, the trend among Rajputs and other political elites of taking up the
symbols and allying with the institutions of saguṇ devotional Vaiṣṇavism (often
to the detriment of previous Śaiva-­Śākta loyalties) is particularly important
because of the new patronage, prestige, and public visibility it afforded to
Vaiṣṇava bhakti. Importantly, these Hindu rulers would not typically have con-
sidered the matter as an either-­or choice between tantric Śaiva-­Śākta religion
and Vaiṣṇava bhakti. Since the power and appeal of sacrifice-­demanding clan
goddesses and the reputations of charismatic tantric yogīs were typically quite
localized in nature, rulers often continued to give them a measure of local sup-
port that was meant to complement the cosmopolitanism of Vaiṣṇava bhakti,
which increasingly came to serve as the more public face of Hindu kingdoms,
able to link rulers into a larger empire-­w ide network of shared values and
symbols of authority, purity, and virtue. Mahesh Sharma’s work, for example,
shows how rulers of the Western Himalayan kingdom of Chambā in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries attained “consent-­to-­r ule” from subjects in
their core area by appropriating and supporting local symbols and sacred
centers linked to goddesses and Nāth yogīs while simultaneously legitimating
their authority and fostering “an association with the subcontinental cos-
mos” by publicly adopting and formally associating themselves with devo-
tional Vaiṣṇavism.67 Even the Kacchvāhās, who were major patrons of bhakti
and great devotees of Govindadev (Kṛṣṇa) and Sītā-­Rām, also continued to place
themselves under the protection of their tutelary goddess Jamvai-­m ātā and
the guardian of the royal territory, the tantric goddess Śilā-­devī.68 As Jason
Schwartz has suggested, it seems likely that Śākta tantra was present behind
the scenes at several major sites where Vaiṣṇava bhakti was being publicly trum-
peted in Mughal India, including the Kacchvāhā court.69 Thus, it appears that
some Hindu rulers in Mughal India supported locally esteemed tantric cults of
worship or sought out tantric (Śākta) empowerment in private, esoteric set-
tings at the same time that they openly espoused Vaiṣṇava bhakti and publicly
displayed its cosmopolitan symbols.70 As the following chapters reveal, North
Indian bhakti poets and communities did not view their own devotion in such
strategic, political terms and were typically far less accommodating to the reli-
giosity of Śāktas and tantric yogīs.71 The politics of rule, however, necessitated
 112 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

a degree of accommodation to all forms of religion, even if Hindu kings in

North India were increasingly finding it most strategically advantageous to
express their virtue and power through formal association with and patronage
of devotional Vaiṣṇavism.

Mughal Imperial Service and Vaiṣṇava Devotion:

Ideological Parallels

Why this broad shift to Vaiṣṇava bhakti? The influence of devotionally inclined
Rajputs like the Kacchvāhās was one crucial factor. As Pinch has remarked, “Love
of God (bhakti) itself was not new. But the harnessing of [Vaiṣṇava] bhakti to
Mughal imperial expansion, or more precisely, to the widely dispersed Rajput
clans . . . ​who provided the lion’s share of the military manpower of the Mughal
state, was.”72 Generally speaking, as Orsini and Sheikh propose, it seems that
“Vaishnavism offered a devotional vocabulary that did not pose the political
threat of royal Shaivism or goddess worship” while also providing “a rather
open vocabulary for sectarian interpretation and investment.”73 In fact, it was
a constellation of many factors, all of which are not yet fully understood, that
led to Vaiṣṇava bhakti’s new popularity in early modern North India. Undoubt-
edly, one of the most crucial of these factors in the rise of bhakti religiosity in
Mughal India was the particular sociopolitical environment inaugurated under
Akbar. Just as tantric religiosity emerged in and reflected a certain medieval
feudal political environment (as Ronald Davidson has demonstrated),74 bhakti’s
rise at this time in North India also must have been related to a resonance
between Mughal imperial ideology, with its “patrimonial-­bureaucratic” po-
litical structure, and the ideology of Vaiṣṇava devotion.
The second half of the sixteenth century witnessed the birth of a new and
“powerful dynastic ideology . . . ​given dramatic public expression in the ceremo-
nial of the imperial court” that “glorified Akbar as the living embodiment of the
Empire itself, and focus for the direct personal devotion of the imperial nobil-
ity.”75 While the regional sultanates had been structured by horizontal ties (of
both marriage and military give-­and-­take), things changed with the Mughals—­
especially under Akbar—­as they successfully “open[ed] up a hierarchical chasm
between themselves and those whom they ‘commanded,’ ” in which the emperor
was “the single source of political legitimacy and authority.”76 There are fascinat-
ing similarities between the devotion, loyalty, and service that Mughal officials
gave to the emperor and that offered by Vaiṣṇava bhaktas to God. As Kumkum
Chatterjee has stated, “The intensely personal, unquestioning bhakti that
 Akbar’s New World = 113

underlay the phenomenon of Vaishnava devotionalism in northern India dur-

ing this period, constituted a parallel, at least at the conceptual level, with the
cult of devoted imperial service and devotion” to the Mughal emperor.77 She
notes, for instance, the striking parallels between the Mughals’ royal ceremo-
nies (such as the custom in which the emperor appeared on the palace balcony
to give his darśan, or “viewing,” to gathered subjects) and the daily rituals of
bhakti temples (such as the awakening of the deity and its ceremonial darśan by
devotees at specific times of the day).78 As John Richards has demonstrated,
Akbar and his advisers established “a degree of paramount spiritual authority
for the Emperor unprecedented in previous Indo-­Muslim experience,” a glori-
fication of the emperor that “provided a basis for more intense, emotive ties
with imperial nobility.”79 This new Mughal system succeeded because it synced
with and helped to transform the values of high-­status warrior-­aristocrats like
the Rajputs, assisting in a “shift from personal, lineage, or sectarian pride—­that
of the ‘free’ warrior chief—­to a more impersonal, imperial pride—­that of the
‘slave’ warrior-­administrator.”80 Intriguingly, this shift would seem to mirror
that from tantric paradigms of domination and personal empowerment to devo-
tional paradigms of humble submission, service, and loyalty.
During Akbar’s reign, the Rajputs came to support and adhere to the Mughal
throne. As Norman Ziegler explains, “This support and loyalty rested primar-
ily upon a basic ‘fit’ between Rajput ideals and aspirations” and the “Mughal
policy of support for local rulers, of alliance through marriage, and of granting
lands in return for service and allegiance.”81 Rajputs in this period saw loyal ser-
vice (to a military-­political superior) “as a form of worship, expressed through
acts of devotion and self-­sacrifice, which involved both a willingness to support
a superior and to offer one’s life in battle in his behalf.”82 Within Mughal impe-
rial culture, honor thus came to be understood in terms of dedicated service
and obedience to the emperor and empire while advancement and promotion
meant a “movement nearer to the person of the Emperor.”83 Again, this concep-
tion of honor as selfless service and obedience, in conjunction with a desire to
be near the presence of the emperor, is striking in how closely it mirrors the
values of Vaiṣṇava bhakti and the relationship between the devotee and the
Divine. Indeed, Ziegler has noted that Rajput bardic traditions often equated
Akbar with Rām and understood service to the emperor or his subordinates as
no different from service to God (or from service to a local ruler or ṭhākur).84
The association of Akbar with Viṣṇu (especially Rāmcandra) seems to have
been quite common. Keśavdās (1555–­1617), the great Brajbhasha poet of Orccha,
described Akbar as “dūhū dīn ko sahib (the master of both religions), possessing
the attributes of the Hindu god Vishnu.”85 The writings of the Mughal historian
and translator Badā’ūnī attest “that the royal court was familiar with the claim
 114 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

that Vishnu was Akbar’s divine identity.”86 In the 1580s, Akbar ordered the first
full Persian translation of the Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa, while also ordering that coins
bearing the image of Rām and Sītā be minted in his realm.87 As Audrey Truschke
explains, “Akbar idealized Rama, an avatar of Vishnu’s and the hero of the epic,
as a model Indian monarch. Imperially illustrated manuscripts of the transla-
tion overtly parallel the two men and suggest what other Sanskrit texts state
explicitly: Akbar was another incarnation of Vishnu.”88 Badā’ūnī mentions the
introduction of Sanskrit works predicting Akbar’s rise to power as Viṣṇu’s ava-
tar and remarks on how brahmans told the emperor “repeatedly that he had
descended to earth, like Ram, Krishna, and other infidel rulers, who, although
lords of the world, had taken on human form to act on earth.”89

The Kacchvāhās of Amer and the Growth of

Vaiṣṇavism in Vrindavan and Galta

Considering the aforementioned parallels between Vaiṣṇava devotional ideals

and Mughal imperial values, as well as the popular association—­even identifi-
cation—­of Akbar with Viṣṇu, it is no wonder that Hindu rulers increasingly
forged relationships with Vaiṣṇava devotional institutions during the Mughal
period. Yet as interesting and meaningful as these parallels and associations are,
we should not construe them as the cause of Hindu rulers’ shift to Vaiṣṇava
bhakti. More likely, upwardly mobile Rajputs were increasingly patronizing
Vaiṣṇava maṭhas and temples and using Vaiṣṇava devotional idioms because this
allowed them to legitimize their rule among a broad, diverse array of commu-
nities and to propagate an ideology and an ethic that helped uphold the partic-
ular religiopolitical economy in which their dominance was rooted. One of the
most important of the relationships between rulers and bhakti communities in
early modern North India was that between the Kacchvāhās and the Gauḍīya
Vaiṣṇavas of Vrindavan in Braj. In the early sixteenth century, just as a new
bhakti monastic community was beginning in Galta, a profoundly influential
bhakti center was also developing in the region of Braj. This area had long been
known as the mythical land of Kṛṣṇa’s youth, but—­largely because of the efforts
of the Gauḍīyas (and those of Vallabha and his followers)—­it was now beginning
to transform from a sparsely inhabited semiwilderness into a major pilgrimage
site and the home of several important devotional communities.
Sent by their guru, Caitanya (1486–­1533), the charismatic brahman who began
a movement of enthusiastic Kṛṣṇa devotion in Bengal,90 Rūpa and Sanātana
Gosvāmī arrived in Braj circa 1517–­1519 and gradually established sites for the
worship of Kṛṣṇa and a literary and theological foundation for the burgeoning
 Akbar’s New World = 115

Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava movement.91 Four other devotees joined Rūpa and Sanātana
in Vrindavan, forming a group known as the Six Gosvāmīs,92 who “began to com-
pose treatises in Sanskrit with the intention of providing the movement with a
systematic theology based upon authoritative scriptures.”93 In the 1530s, Rūpa
built the initial temple of Govindadev, an image of Kṛṣṇa that would soon take
on special importance in relation to the Kacchvāhā family. By 1552, the area had
developed into an important enough religious destination that Nārāyaṇ Bhaṭṭ
saw fit to compose his Vrajabhaktivilāsa (The devotional enjoyments of Braj), the
first detailed and systematic itinerary of all the sacred pilgrimage places of
Braj.94 This massive text catalogued “every conceivable forest, grove, or ford in
the Braj countryside, connecting each with a deity or character in the life of
Krishna, and instructing potential visitors about the mantra to be uttered at
each place and the time that would be optimal for offering such an utterance.”95
The early bhakti developments at Vrindavan and Galta occurred in the wan-
ing years of the Delhi Sultanate—­during the reigns of Sikander Lodi (r. 1488–­
1517) and his son Ibrahim Lodi (r. 1517–­1526)—­and in the early (pre-­A kbar) years
of the Mughal Empire (ca. 1526–­1540). We have seen how the Kacchvāhā king
Pṛthvīrāj (r. 1502–­1527) inaugurated an important relationship with the new
Rāmānandī bhakti community at Galta. Later Kacchvāhā rulers would play a cru-
cial role in the development of bhakti in Vrindavan, owing largely to their close
alliance with the Mughal emperors. In 1562, Akbar and the Kacchvāhā clan
forged an alliance that would prove hugely influential, not only for the devel-
opment of bhakti in North India but also for the long-­term success of the Mughal
Empire as a whole. In the first half of the sixteenth century, however, when the
bhakti communities of Braj and Galta were in their earliest stages of existence,
the Kacchvāhās would have seemed extremely unlikely candidates for such a
history-­changing alliance.
In March of 1527, Mahārājā Pṛthvīrāj fought under the banner of his father-­
in-­law, Rānā Saṅga (Rānā Singh) of Mewar, against Babur, founder of the Mughal
Empire, at the Battle of Khanua. Less than a year before, in April 1526, Babur
had brought an end to the Lodi dynasty, coming from Central Asia and defeat-
ing the last Lodi sultan, Ibrahim, at the Battle of Panipat.96 The Sisodiya clan of
Mewar, ruling from the great fortress of Chittor, was the most powerful and
prestigious Rajput kingdom in Rajasthan at this time and united the other
Rajputs against Babur and the invading Mughals. Babur’s victory over the
Rajputs at Khanua would prove critical in consolidating his control over North
India and establishing the Mughal Empire. Pṛthvīrāj died just six months after
the Battle of Khanua, and following his death a certain amount of turbulence
and infighting seems to have ensued in Amer during the short reigns of the
Kacchvāhās Pūraṇmal (r. 1527–­1534), Bhīm (r. 1534–­1537), and Ratan Singh
(r. 1537–­1547). When Bhārmal Bihārīmal), the fourth son of Pṛthvīrāj, ascended
 116 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

the throne in 1547, it marked an important turning point in the history and
fortunes of the Kacchvāhā clan. Seven years earlier, in 1540, the Afghan upstart
Sher Shāh Surī had expelled Babur’s son and successor, Humāyūn, from India
and begun to rule from Delhi. Sher Shāh’s death in 1545 left power in the hands
of his son, Islām Shāh Surī. Bhārmal aligned himself with Islām Shāh upon tak-
ing the Kacchvāhā throne in 1547. Early in his twenty-­six-­year reign in Amer
(1547–­1573), Bhārmal would witness a constantly shifting political landscape.
In 1555, Humāyūn returned to power in Delhi (after Islām Shāh’s death), only
to die one year later and be succeeded by his young son, Akbar, in 1556. With
Akbar but thirteen years old, chaos broke out in the empire as old servants of
Sher Shāh Surī’s dynasty moved aggressively to take land from the Mughals.
At this time, Rāja Bhārmal of the Kacchvāhās provided valuable assistance that
saved the lives of the Mughal garrison under Majnun Khan Qaqshal. Akbar
later sent for Bhārmal and rewarded him in Delhi for his loyalty. Abu al-­
Fazl’s Akbarnāma (ii, 69–­70) comments that “the steadiness displayed by [the
Kacchvāhās] pleased the lofty glance of His Majesty and he made inquiries
about the Rajah [Bhārmal] and told him ‘We will cherish you.’ ”97 It is with this
event, and the inauguration of Akbar’s reign as Mughal emperor, that a new
chapter in our story begins.
When Akbar took control of the Mughal Empire in 1556, the Kacchvāhās of
Amer were hardly a power to be reckoned with, even within Rajasthan.98 At this
historical moment, they were but one of a number of Rajput kingdoms estab-
lished in the region, smaller and weaker than Rajput principalities such as
Mewar, Marwar, Jaisalmer, and Bikaner.99 In 1562, with his Kacchvāhā kingdom
under threat of invasion and annexation by the stronger forces of Mīrzā Muham-
mad Sharfuddin Husain (Akbar’s governor of Mewat), Bhārmal appealed to
Akbar for protection. The emperor was on a pilgrimage from Agra to Ajmer (only
about eighty miles from Amer), site of the tomb (dargah) of Khwājā Mu‘īn al-­Dīn
Chishtī, the famous founder of the Chishti Sufis, North India’s most popular Sufi
order, with whom Akbar was then closely involved. As this important pilgrim-
age route went directly through Kacchvāhā lands, Bhārmal found it an oppor-
tune time to request an audience with the emperor, and at their meeting,
hoping to forge a defensive alliance, he offered Akbar his eldest daughter, Hīra
Kunwar (sometimes popularly known as Jodhābāī), in marriage.100 Impressed by
the Kacchvāhās’ previous show of loyalty to him and his father, among other
considerations, Akbar consented, and the two were married on February 6, 1562.
Given the official title of Mariam-­uz-­Zamānī (Mary of the Age), the first woman
to bridge the Mughal and Kacchvāhā families—­and Akbar’s first Rajput bride—­
would become the mother of his heir, Salīm, the future Jahāngīr.
The historical implications of this Mughal-­Kacchvāhā alliance were enor-
mous. While the giving of Hindu princesses in marriage to Muslim kings had
 Akbar’s New World = 117

long been in practice, this particular case “introduced in its effect a complete
revolution in the policy of the Muslim monarchy in India” because for the first
time such a marriage served as the basis for bringing Hindus—­in this case
Rajputs, particularly of the Kacchvāhā lineage—­into the court and the ruling
apparatus of the empire.101 After the wedding, Bhārmal’s eldest son, Bhagvantdās,
and grandson, Mān Singh (the son of Bhagvantdās), were presented to Akbar and
enrolled as nobles in the permanent service of the empire.102 Both Bhagvantdās
and Mān Singh would become not only trusted military leaders and governors
for the empire but also close friends and allies of Akbar.103 As would many Rajputs
after them, the Kacchvāhās swore allegiance to the Mughal emperor, agreeing
to provide specified numbers of cavalry for service in the imperial forces, and
in exchange they were able to keep their ancestral lands, Hindu customs, and
clan standing.104 They thus came to exemplify a new political possibility in
which regional allies of the Mughal emperor could be simultaneously “loyal
servants of the empire and stout defenders of their own regional territories
and cultures.”105
The Kacchvāhās would acquire great power, influence, security, and wealth
through their imperial service,106 but what made this alliance worthwhile for
Akbar? The Rajputs had developed a reputation as heroic and loyal warriors and
Akbar knew that he could make good use of them in his campaigns to expand
and secure the empire, not to mention that some of his nearest and most trou-
blesome foes (particularly the states of Marwar and Mewar) were in Rajasthan,
so having an ally there would stabilize the region while also allowing for ease
of communication with Gujarat, which Akbar hoped to annex for its valuable
coastal ports. The success of his relationship with the Kacchvāhās of Amer would
lead Akbar to make similar alliances with other Rajput kingdoms such as Bikaner
and Jaisalmer (in 1570) and later Jodhpur; however, the Kacchvāhās would (with
a few hiccups) maintain a particularly large and influential position in the
Mughal military and administrative system up until the death of Mīrzā Rāja Jai
Singh in 1667.107
Following the alliance between Akbar and the Kacchvāhās, almost immedi-
ately changes took place in Mughal policy that substantively affected Hindu
religious life. Within the first two years of that history-­changing marriage (1562–­
1563), Akbar abolished the levying of pilgrimage taxes on Hindus visiting
sacred places, granted non-­Muslims permission to repair temples and to build
new structures, issued a decree forbidding the forced conversion to Islam of pris-
oners of war, and permitted Hindus forcibly converted to Islam to return to
Hinduism without incurring the death penalty for apostasy prescribed by
Islamic law.108 In 1564, in the face of orthodox opposition, he abolished the jizya,
the tax—­customary under Islamic law—­levied on non-­Muslims. While these
actions were taken partly as a result of Akbar’s increasingly liberal personal
 118 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

religious views and partly from the shrewd Mughal political insight that “in a
country where the majority of the population was non-­Muslims, it was unwise
to rule for the benefit of a few of their coreligionists,”109 we should not discount
the likely influence that Akbar’s close relationship with the Kacchvāhās had on
these decisions. The importance of this relationship becomes especially evident
in the historical records of 1565, when Akbar made a land grant to the officiat-
ing priest of the Govindadev temple in Vrindavan.110 This revenue grant seems
to be the first awarded by the Mughals to a Hindu priest for support of a temple
and, importantly, it was made on behalf of the Kacchvāhā ruler Rāja Bhārmal.111
By 1580, the Mughals had become intimately involved in the religious affairs
of Braj, having awarded jāgīr grants to at least seven temples in the region. Con-
temporary records indicate that Vaiṣṇavas from several different sects in Braj
“quite regularly petitioned and lobbied the imperial darbar for the settlement
of grievances as well as for additional land and other material grants,” while
“imperial farmans suggest that the Mughal establishment played a direct role
in appointing and confirming the offices of temple adhikaris and sevaks” of the
Gauḍiya Vaiṣṇavas.112 In addition to the Gauḍīyas, the Vallabha sampradāy (Puṣṭi
Mārg) in Braj was also a major beneficiary of Mughal patronage, receiving eight
land grants in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the first one
issued in 1577.113 The Puṣṭi Mārg community claims Vallabha—­a renowned brah-
man scholar, philosopher, and Kṛṣṇa devotee—­as its founder, though it was his
son Viṭṭhalnāth (Śrī Gusainjī) who seems to have truly established and expanded
its institutional presence, a presence centered especially at the Śrī Nāthjī tem-
ple in Govardhan. One early grant of tax-­f ree land to Vallabha’s sampradāy was
issued by Akbar’s mother, Hamida Banu Begum, demonstrating that Mughal
patronage of Vaiṣṇava institutions was not limited specifically to the patron-
age of Akbar.114
What was it about Braj and the Kṛṣṇa-­worshipping Vaiṣṇavas there that mer-
ited such attention from the Mughals? While a popular local myth holds that
Akbar visited Vrindavan in 1573,115 there is no solid nonsectarian evidence of
this event (Jahāngīr, however, clearly did visit, in 1620) nor that Akbar held any
particular predilection for Kṛṣṇa, even if plentiful evidence (including regular
personal conversations with brahmans and yogīs) demonstrates that other
Hindu religious traditions intrigued him greatly. Nevertheless, even if Akbar did
not visit Vrindavan, he certainly passed by it on numerous occasions, for geo-
graphically it was at the very center of his empire. Indeed, the new, well-­kept,
and well-­defended highway (built by Sher Shāh Surī) that connected the impe-
rial establishments at Agra and Delhi passed directly through Braj and helped
make it a major place of pilgrimage. As a pilgrimage site, Vrindavan was a center
of trade and economic activity, and thus its success meant increased commercial
 Akbar’s New World = 119

traffic that translated into revenue for the empire.116 Kumkum Chatterjee has
suggested that the Mughals likely saw their “cordial relationships with the
Braj-­based Gaudiya [Bengali] Vaishnavas to be a factor that might assist them
in” their determined efforts to consolidate their “control over the eastern
regions of the subcontinent.”117 In the estimation of R. P. Rana, the Mughal
emperors actively fostered the Vaiṣṇava takeover of Braj (through revenue-­f ree
land grants) in order to stabilize a key region that was inhabited and bordered
by certain rebellious and predatory peasant groups, and thus to establish a geo-
graphically strategic center of imperial legitimation wherein the Vaiṣṇava
holders of charitable grants “willingly acted as apologists and propagandists”
of the Mughal regime.118 Indeed, Richard Eaton’s research on the Sufis of Bija-
pur suggests that charitable land grants made their recipients beholden to the
state, since “the sole compensation owed by the [recipient] for perpetual state
support . . . ​was to render unswerving loyalty to the government.”119 Even as tax-­
free land grants potentially secured the political loyalty of Vaiṣṇava bhakti
institutions in the key region of Braj, this state support also suggests a Mughal
appeal to the larger quotidian populace of devotees supported by these Vaiṣṇava
temples and maṭhas, a way for the state to cultivate positive relations with a
growing bhakti public that clearly had a certain political power and utility.120
Braj’s location near the heart of Mughal power, its economic value, and its
potential strategic role in achieving Mughal political goals all made it an attrac-
tive site to support,121 but Akbar’s choice to make Vrindavan the major place at
which to demonstrate his liberal, tolerant religious patronage must also have
been influenced by the religious leanings of the Kacchvāhās, who had developed
close ties with the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas there. In the years since their initial alli-
ance (in 1562), the relationship between Akbar and the Kacchvāhās had become
considerably tighter. A number of Akbar’s children had died after birth, and he
fretted intensely over the fact that he was without an heir, so when Salīm was
born in 1569 from his Kacchvāhā wife (the sister of Bhagvantdās), he was incred-
ibly thankful and was brought even closer to the Kacchvāhās. Furthermore, in
1584, Bhagvantdās cemented the uniquely strong position of the Kacchvāhās at
the Mughal court when he married his daughter Mān Bhawati (Mān Kanwar)
to Prince Salīm (Jahāngīr), a union that produced Jahāngīr’s first son, the prince
Khusrau, in 1587.122 Meanwhile, Mān Singh had quickly become one of Akbar’s
most important and trusted leaders.123
The Kacchvāhās may have had a uniquely close relationship with Mughal
power under Akbar, but I have not yet made clear how this would have trans-
lated into patronage for the burgeoning Kṛṣṇa devotional center of Braj. After
all, the Kacchvāhās trace their royal lineage back not to Kṛṣṇa but to Rām, and
they adopted a mūrti of Sītā-­Rām as their dynastic deity in the early sixteenth
 120 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

century. Nevertheless, it seems that the emergence of Vrindavan (and the

greater Braj area) as a center of Kṛṣṇa worship under Caitanya’s Six Gosvāmīs
was an event that sent waves across the religious landscape of the time, and the
Kacchvāhā rulers had been swept up in this current. Indeed, Rāja Bhārmal’s son
and successor, Bhagvantdās (r. 1573–­1589), a close friend and ally of Akbar’s, was
allegedly initiated into Caitanya’s Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava sect.124 He built the Haridev
(Hari Gopālrāy) temple at Govardhan (in Braj), and he was almost certainly very
influential in his son Mān Singh’s decision to construct a magnificent new tem-
ple on the site of the first Govindadev temple in Vrindavan.125 Begun in 1576
and completed in 1590, the new Govindadev temple was the largest built in North
India since the twelfth century and was made from the red sandstone preferred
by Mughals for their imperial construction projects, combining Hindu and Mus-
lim architectural styles.126 Mān Singh’s temple represented “the centerpiece in
the [Mughal] royal patronage of Braj”127 and simultaneously served as “the sym-
bol of Kachavāhā glory.”128 While it was especially the Kacchvāhās of Amer
(who were of the Rajawat branch of the Kacchvāhā clan) who offered patronage
toward bhakti institutions in Braj, other Kacchvāhās did so as well. Notably, a
chief of the Shekhavat Kacchvāhā lineage by the name of Raisal Darbari is cred-
ited with founding the temple of Gopīnāth in Vrindavan.129
David Haberman has written that “the development of Braj was clearly
inspired by charismatic Vaishnava leaders such as Chaitanya, Vallabha, and oth-
ers, and was carried out by their diligent followers; but much of the early suc-
cess in the physical development of Braj was insured by imperial patronage
resulting from political compromise which recognized the vital service impor-
tant Hindu officers were rendering the Mughal emperor Akbar.”130 This is cer-
tainly true, but, as previously pointed out, it was not just any Hindu officers
whom Akbar sought to recognize and reward in the giving of land grants to tem-
ples in Vrindavan; it was specifically and especially the Kacchvāhās. As Horst-
mann notes, “The Kacchavāhā munificence is visible everywhere in Braj. The
Kacchavāhās’ attachment to the sacred land of Kṛṣṇa became, in acts of political
and religious symbolism, converted into a visible inventory, and the grants
which the family made perpetuated their dynastic presence.”131 The Kacchvāhās
thus furthered their own interests, legitimacy, and public image at the same
time they contributed to the growth of bhakti as an institutional form of reli-
gion across North India. Without the powerful presence of the Kacchvāhās in
the Mughal court, Vrindavan may not have received the measure of patronage
it did, and without that patronage Vrindavan would likely not have become as
vibrant a bhakti religious center as it did, nor attained its importance so quickly.
Kacchvāhā and Mughal patronage was, of course, not limited to Braj. The bur-
geoning bhakti community at Galta also received significant attention and
 Akbar’s New World = 121

patronage during Akbar’s reign. Galta was situated just miles from the Kacchvāhā
court at Amer and lay just above the Mughal imperial road to Agra and Akbar’s
capital at Fatehpur Sikri; thus, its location alone made it an important and
attractive site for patronage. As Hawley puts it, “Both literally and metaphor-
ically, Galtā in the late sixteenth century straddled the terrain on which the
great new Mughal axis intersected with earlier forms of regional power that the
Kachvahas had exercised.”132 Documentary evidence confirms that Akbar gave
a revenue grant to the Galta Rāmānandīs, a fact suggestive of the prominent
position Galta had attained by the start of the seventeenth century.133 We
know that since the early decades of the sixteenth century, when Pṛthvīrāj
became the disciple of Kṛṣnadās Payahārī, the Kacchvāhās had supported the
Rāmānandīs at Galta. Unfortunately, the documentary record for relations
between Galta and the Kacchvāhās is quite sparse until the time of Savāī Jai
Singh II (r. 1700–­1743). Nevertheless, Priyādās’s Bhaktirasabodhinī (1712)—­though
a sectarian work that cannot be fully trusted as a historical document—­speaks
to this important relationship in telling a story in which Rāja Mān Singh visits
Galta in order to pay homage to the great Rāmānandī rasik bhakta Agradās (a
disciple of Payahārī’s) and another in which Mān Singh meets and “abases him-
self before” Kīlhadev (Payahārī’s successor).134 Furthermore, we know that
Kīlhadev (the mahant of Galta for roughly the second half of the sixteenth cen-
tury) had two Hanumān temples built in Galta prior to 1600,135 which very likely
would have required Kacchvāhā financial support, while Nārāyaṇdās, the mid-­
seventeenth-­century abbot, oversaw the building of the two great temples of
Gopāl-­jī and Raghunāth-­jī in Galta, along with Galta’s water architecture and
gardens.136 These latter construction projects, huge in scope, took place during
the reign of Mīrzā Jai Singh I (r. 1622–­1667)137 in Amer, and it is almost certain
that they were funded by Kacchvāhā patronage with the aim of making the Galta
complex “part of the symbolic apparatus of regnal power.”138 Since the maṭhas
and temples of Vaiṣṇava communities like the Rāmānandīs, Vallabhites, and
Gauḍīyas owned and developed land (for which they must have employed local
laborers) and also served as centers of economic activity (bazaars, trading posts,
etc.), in patronizing them the Kacchvāhās and Mughals were supporting the
economic and agrarian development and political integration of their realms
while also gaining “dependents” who would, in some sense, represent and dis-
seminate their royal authority.
Although the focus here is on developments during the foundational
period of Akbar’s rule, it is important to mention that the succession of
Jahāngīr to the Mughal throne did not substantially alter the firmly estab-
lished alliance with the Kacchvāhās, nor did it greatly affect imperial reli-
gious policy. As Asher and Talbot state, “In both his own attitudes and in the
 122 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

state’s practices, Jahāngīr for the most part continued along the lines set by
Akbar. Jahāngīr not only maintained earlier grants given to temples, mosques,
and religious leaders of all kinds, but he even increased their number consid-
erably.”139 Rajeev Kinra adds that “[Jahāngīr’s] court was essentially just as
accommodating, and just as interested in fostering cosmopolitan pluralism, as
it had been under his father.”140 Similarly, when Jahāngīr was succeeded by his
son, Shāh Jahān, in 1627, there were no major breaks in previous policies. While
Shāh Jahān (r. 1627–­1658) took a much more traditional posture toward Islam,
seeking to be seen as a devout Muslim in his public persona and curtailing the
construction of new Hindu and Jain temples, he nevertheless “maintained the
sponsorship of religious institutions and people that his father and grandfa-
ther instituted; here, there was no change in policy.”141

R
In many respects, bhakti spread across North India as a popular movement based
in communal devotional song and storytelling; nevertheless, we can see that
the institutions of sectarian bhakti communities, which became increasingly
prominent beginning in the second half of the sixteenth century, relied espe-
cially upon the patronage of merchants, landowning nobles, princes, and emper-
ors. In this context the Kacchvāhās played a key role, for they influenced the
Mughal court’s patronage of Vaiṣṇava devotional communities, they patronized
these communities themselves, and—­in the profile and success they achieved
working within the Mughal Empire—­they served as models of behavior for other
aspiring Rajputs, who, partly through them, came to see Vaiṣṇava bhakti as an
essential element in the projection of royal virtue and power. Particularly influ-
ential in this regard was the Kacchvāhā king and great Mughal general Mān
Singh.
In a variety of ways, Mān Singh (r. 1589–­1614) was truly critical to the Mughal
project under Akbar. Battling and subduing other Rajput rulers, he helped the
Mughals gain fuller control over Rajasthan; his military victories in Gujarat
secured a vital transportation route connecting the Mughal heartland with the
ports of the Arabian Sea; he led successful military campaigns for Mughal con-
quest in Bihar, Orissa, and Bengal; and he served as the governor of three admin-
istrative provinces (Kabul, Bihar, and Bengal), proving especially essential to
the consolidation of Mughal rule in eastern India. By 1605, he had earned the
highest rank of any noble besides the emperor’s own sons. Mān Singh patron-
ized the construction of Hindu temples all over the empire, including Rajast-
han, Braj, Banaras, Bihar, and Orissa. Catherine Asher remarks that “the
temples patronized by Rājā Māna Siṃha span a larger geographical area
and outnumber those of any other premodern patron.”142 While most of his
 Akbar’s New World = 123

patronage went to Vaiṣṇava bhakti institutions, he mirrored the political

savvy and active religious accommodation of Akbar in also patronizing some
Śaiva and Śākta temples, as well as a mosque and a Sufi shrine.143 In terms of
the Mughal architectural landscape, Mān Singh’s influence was not simply in
the sponsoring of temples but of specifically devotional temples that were
newly formatted to provide space in which crowds could assemble multiple
times a day for darśan of—­“visual communion” with—­t he divine image. His
patronage was thus instrumental in accommodating the popular shift from
individual to congregational worship that was occurring with the rise of
bhakti.144 Furthermore, through the temples he sponsored, Mān Singh led the
way in developing a distinctly Mughal-­Rajput religio-­aesthetic idiom, for his
temples displayed Mughal presence and power even as they asserted a Rajput
identity and Vaiṣṇava devotional values.145
A contemporary poet praised Mān Singh as “the maintainer of Akbar’s pres-
tige,” almost certainly “alluding in part to his role in spreading imperial Mughal
taste.”146 It was not only his patronage of architecture that expressed and
extended Mughal prestige but also his sponsorship of painting and written lit-
erature. Indeed, “the earliest known examples of the Rajput school of painting
come from a garden house in Bairat believed to have been built for Man Singh
in 1587 CE.”147 In tune with the Persianate book-­manuscript culture of the time,
Mān Singh also patronized and collected written works in Sanskrit, Brajbhasha,
and Rajasthani.

Mughal Manuscript Culture and the Explosion of

Written Bhakti Literature

Mughal court culture was heavily Persianate and had imbibed Islamic traditions
that placed great value in books, honoring them as marks of culture and
repositories of knowledge, even as embodiments of sacred power.148 In this
milieu, manuscripts became an index of wealth and sophistication. The work
of Tyler Williams is especially illuminating on this topic. As Williams explains,
in Mughal-­Rajput court culture, “written manuscripts formed a type of cur-
rency in the rhetoric of kingship and nobility, and also served as a material
currency of monetary wealth. A manuscript held value both as a symbol of par-
ticipation in the elite culture of the empire, as well as an object that could be
assigned a specific monetary value.”149 Akbar’s imperial court commissioned,
collected, and maintained an abundance of manuscripts, which “were central
to both the rituals of the court and to symbolic exchanges of power among the
Mughal nobility, including Hindu manṣabdārs like the Rajput kings of Rajasthan.
 124 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

Consequently, their courts also began to devote substantial attention and

resources to the production and collection of manuscripts.”150
Mān Singh is known to have collected manuscripts and patronized written
works in Sanskrit, Brajbhasha, and Rajasthani. He established the Kacchvāhās’
own royal pothīkhānā, “which was not only a library but also [an] atelier for the
production of fine, embellished manuscripts.”151 Under Mān Singh’s rule, a new
interest in manuscript culture emerged at the Kacchvāhā court that would grow
further under Mīrzā Jai Singh (r. 1621–­1667), who was a great patron and collec-
tor of literature and who “employed no less a poet than the famous Bihārīlāl,
whose compositions incorporated both Krishna-­related devotional themes and
the literary motifs of the ascendant rīti tradition.”152 Allison Busch’s work sug-
gests that it was not only the Kacchvāhās but also most Rajput courts of the
Mughal period that were “actively transmitting literature, scholarship, and his-
torical records through manuscripts.”153
This new Mughal-­Rajput literary culture and patronage milieu was vital in
spurring the production of written works among bhakti communities that sought
to gain prestige, power, and financial support. Indeed, a number of scholars have
observed that, beginning around 1600, there was an explosion of written vernac-
ular literary activity in North India, particularly in bhakti religious communi-
ties.154 The abundance of manuscripts of bhakti songs that begins to appear in
late sixteenth-­century Mughal India is remarkable in that, prior to this point,
vernacular bhakti compositions in North India seem to have circulated almost
exclusively through oral transmission and performance.155 While today there are
thousands of North Indian vernacular (Hindavi) bhakti manuscripts extant from
the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, one would have an extremely
difficult time finding any before the late sixteenth century. This shift was likely
connected to the value placed on written manuscripts (and paintings) in the
newly developing Mughal-­Rajput cultural context.156
Williams’s research indicates that among bhakti communities in Mughal
India, manuscripts of devotional compositions came to be thought of as possess-
ing a certain metaphysical power, therefore producing and donating them was
a practice believed to generate spiritual merit, while the power they contained
made them valuable objects in exchanges with the ruling elite as well as with
laity and other monastic communities.157 In early modern North India, it was
increasingly the case that a devotional community needed to produce some type
of written literature for it “to have visibility among Mughal and Rajput political
elites.”158 In addition to these emerging conceptions of the written text among
North India’s bhakti communities, the conditions of relative social stability,
peace, and prosperity in the Kacchvāhā heartlands must also have been a key
factor engendering the production and circulation of bhakti literature.159 With
this in mind, it is striking to note how many of our earliest extant North Indian
 Akbar’s New World = 125

bhakti sources come out of regions of Kacchvāhā (or Mughal-­Kacchvāhā) con-

trol or influence: the Fatehpur Sūrdās manuscript (1582); the vast literature of
the Dādū Panth, including Jan Gopāl’s Janma Līlā, the Sarvāṅgīs of Rajabdās (1620)
and Gopāldās (1627), the Pañc-­vāṇī collections (of the bhakti poetry of Dādū, Kabīr,
Nāmdev, Raidās, and Hardās) (the earliest manuscript of which dates to 1614),
and Rāghavdās’s Bhaktamāl (1660); the writings of the early Rāmānandīs, includ-
ing Agradās’s Dhyān Mañjarī (and twelve other compositions) (ca. 1570–­1590),
Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl (ca. 1600), and Anantadās’s parcaīs (ca. 1580–­1610); and the
works of Nandadās, Harirām Vyās, and others in the Kṛṣṇa-­worshipping com-
munities of Braj. The larger point with regard to bhakti and Mughal manuscript
culture is simply this: beginning in the seventeenth century, the devotee mem-
bers of North India’s bhakti public were increasingly connected not only
through the circulation of oral discourse but also through the circulation of
manuscripts, tangible material forms of bhakti discourse produced in and by
bhakti communities as markers of identity and legitimacy and as important
forms of symbolic capital in transactions of religious and political power.160
Through the lens of the Kacchvāhā clan, this chapter has shown how the
rise of Vaiṣṇava bhakti in early modern North India occurred in a new and dis-
tinctly Mughal-­Rajput cultural and political context. In Akbar’s India, aesthetic
practice and political power were inextricably intertwined. The Kacchvāhās
patronized literature, architecture, and painting in accordance with proto-
cols of Mughal court culture and thereby made a public claim to be men of
cultivation and power. The Kacchvāhās did not simply imitate Mughal court
culture but played a key part in carving out a Mughal idiom in which Rajputs
could articulate an empowered self-­identity closely associated with Vaiṣṇava
bhakti. Allison Busch has highlighted the fact that “courtliness in India was in
part an imitative behavior, which is to say that courts responded to what other
courts were doing, particularly those that were higher in status.”161 This is cer-
tainly the case with the Kacchvāhās, whose rise to wealth and power under
Mughal rule made their behavior a model to be emulated by other regional
Hindu rulers. The implications this had for the growth of devotional Vaiṣṇavism
were significant. To take just one example, let us look to the city of Orchha in
the late sixteenth century, where the Bundelā ruler Madhukar Shāh seems to
have severed his kingdom’s affiliation with tantric goddess worship and adopted
Vaiṣṇava bhakti. As Heidi Pauwels explains, Madhukar’s decision “may well have
represented a desire to partake in a new prestigious form of religion. Bhakti had
become associated with other successful Rajput rulers in Rajasthan, such as Mān
Singh Kacchvāhā, and thus may have been perceived as setting a trend for the
socially and politically upwardly mobile elsewhere, like Madhukar in Orchha.”162
Again stressing the Vaiṣṇava bhakti–­linked model of success that the Kacchvāhās
had become, Pauwels goes on to say that “Madhukar’s bhakti could . . . ​be viewed
 126 9 Part I: From Medieval Tantra to Early Modern Bhakti

as a way of carving out a different, more progressive identity for himself,” one
“inspired by the success of other upwardly mobile Rajputs, in particular the Kac-
chvahas.”163 Throughout Mughal India, then, Vaiṣṇava bhakti was increasingly
coming to serve as a way for Hindu rulers and aspiring warlords and rulers to
acquire and express political power and legitimacy.
In focusing on the Kacchvāhās, my intention has not been to reduce the
complex array of social and historical forces that engendered the bhakti move-
ment in North India to functions of Kacchvāhā influence. Rather, I have stressed
the particularly important role played by this Rajput clan as a way to under-
standing a larger historical context in which new forms of courtliness and state-
hood initiated under the Mughal emperor Akbar allowed for the emergence of a
bhakti-­centered model for the expression of Rajput-­Hindu virtue and power.
Having provided a general understanding of the Mughal-­Rajput sociopolitical
context in which bhakti rose to prominence, I turn in the next chapter to a study
of the early Rāmānandī bhakti community at Galta. Tied to the Kacchvāhās
seemingly from the beginning, the early Galta Rāmānandīs offer a number of
key insights into the nature of bhakti in early modern North India and its chang-
ing relationship with tantric religious traditions.

R
With the next chapter we begin part 2 of the book. From what has thus far been
a broad, thematically focused history, based on a novel engagement with—­a new
interpretation and organization of—­a vast array of scholarly literature, we shift
to a more fine-­grained study (of a specific group of Mughal-­era bhaktas and yogīs)
based on original, primary-­source research. Chapters 4 through 6 focus on the
Rāmānandī bhakti community of early modern North India, a close examina-
tion of which reveals a great deal about the development of and dynamics at
play in North India’s larger bhakti movement. Through this case study of the
Rāmānandīs, these chapters explain the emergence of a distinctive early mod-
ern bhakti sensibility and explore the relationships between bhakti, tantric reli-
giosity, and yoga in sixteenth-­and seventeenth-­century North India.
 4
Between Bhakti and Śakti

Religious Sensibilities Among

the Rāmānandīs of Galta

A
s you make your way on the winding stone path leading down the
mountainside away from Jaipur and into the narrow valley that cra-
dles the five-­hundred-­year-­old Vaiṣṇava monastic community of
Galta, you pass a small and rather curious shrine dedicated to none other than
the tantric god Bhairava—­that is, Śiva in his most terrifying, violent, and trans-
gressive form.1 This tiny shrine, the Albelā Bhairav Bābā Temple, houses an
ancient natural image of Bhairava—­a large smooth stone, now covered in orange
paint. Bhairava Śiva’s presence as protector of a Vaiṣṇava stronghold like Galta
is not necessarily unusual, but the characteristics of this particular Bhairava
are certainly noteworthy. While Bhairava is commonly worshipped with alco-
hol or animal sacrifice, this image would never allow its purity to be sullied with
such things and instead receives a daily offering of tulsi, the sacred basil plant
linked specifically to Viṣṇu. Skulls, snakes, fearsome weapons, and the other
staples of Bhairava’s iconography are nowhere to be seen, for this Bhairava is
vegetarian, supremely peaceful, and known most especially as the friend, part-
ner, and devotee-­protector of the monkey god Hanumān.2 In many ways this
“Vaiṣṇavized” Bhairava mūrti supplies a fitting introduction to Galta, the site
of a Rāmānandī community that played a major role in bhakti’s domestica-
tion, devotionalization, and, in some instances, supplanting of tantric Śaiva and
Śākta traditions in early modern North India. Indeed, this curious Bhairava
shrine may offer us insights into the Rāmānandī community begun by Kṛṣṇadās
Payahārī in the early sixteenth century, a community that exalted Vaiṣṇava
devotion above all else. The Rāmānandīs criticized and competed against the
Nāth yogīs, but they also maintained close links with certain aspects of the
 130 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

practice and lifestyle of these Śaiva tantric ascetics, links seen especially in the
mediating figure of Hanumān.
This chapter, then, focuses on the Rāmānandī bhakti sampradāy, particularly
the lineage of Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī at Galta outside modern-­day Jaipur, in order
to analyze several developments that were characteristic of the early modern
North Indian religious sphere. As a bhakti movement spread across Mughal India,
a major expansion and blossoming of Vaiṣṇava devotional forms occurred, often
at the expense of Śaiva-­Śākta religion, a phenomenon that took place at the level
of both royal patronage and popular practice. Linked to this trend of
“Vaiṣṇavization” was an increasingly noticeable confrontation between the per-
spective of tantric-­yogic asceticism and that of selfless, emotional devotion to
a personal God. In the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, while yoga and
asceticism remained crucial dimensions of the devotional life for many, a num-
ber of other bhaktas began to conceive their religious behavior as quite apart
from that of yogīs, ascetics, and, most especially, tāntrikas. In the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, with the growth of sedentary bhakti communities
focused on monastery and temple life and the production of written literature,
this trajectory only continued and intensified.
My aim in this chapter and the next is to contextualize and describe the
emergence of a new early modern bhakti sensibility and to improve our under-
standing of the relationships between bhakti, tantric religiosity, and yoga in
North India during this period. I complicate, deconstruct, and reconstruct mod-
ern categories of bhakta, tāntrika, and yogī, shifting their boundaries and shed-
ding light on their areas of overlap and interaction as well as their key points
of tension and difference. This chapter also seeks answers to a few concrete
questions, deceptively simple in appearance: Who were the early Rāmānandīs?
What was the nature of the bhakti they practiced? And what was their relation-
ship with tantric ascetics like the Nāth yogīs? I address these questions through
an examination of the early Rāmānandī community at Galta and its historical
roots, thereby laying the critical groundwork for a discussion of the emergence
of a new, self-­conscious bhakti sensibility defined in significant part against the
figure of the tantric yogī.
I begin this chapter by examining the remembered life of Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī,
particularly his relations with the Nāth yogīs, in order to demonstrate an emerg-
ing Vaiṣṇava confrontation with Śaiva-­Śākta religion in North India, while also
providing perspective on the bhakti movement’s complex relationship with the
separate but interrelated traditions of tantra and yoga. The next section dem-
onstrates how, in hagiographical descriptions of Payahārī’s lineage of disciples,
we see clear evidence of the existence of two different but related bhakti paths
among the Rāmānandīs, one more yogic and tapas oriented, the other more
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 131

devotional, literary, and rasa oriented. This leads to a critical discussion of the
scholarly category of bhakti in which I consider how the case of the early
Rāmānandī bhaktas suggests revisions to our modern-­d ay conceptions of the
term. After exploring the historical roots and heritage of the Rāmānandīs at
Galta, I conclude the chapter with a look at how the figure of Hanumān helps us
better understand the character of the early Rāmānandī community.

Payahārī and Tārānāth at Galta

A tale from sixteenth-­century Rajasthan sets the stage for my examination of

Vaiṣṇava bhakti’s early modern confrontation with Śaiva-­Śākta religion. The
story begins in Amer with the Kacchvāhā ruler Mahārāj Pṛthvīrāj (r. 1503–­1527).3
Pṛthvīrāj seems to have initially been a follower and patron of the Nāth yogīs.
He is said to have been a disciple of the Nāth yogī Tārānāth, who resided in the
strategic location of Galta. Tucked away in a narrow valley in the (once) densely
forested hills just outside present-­day Jaipur, a hot and arid region not far from
Rajasthan’s Thar Desert, Galta offered privacy, protection, and scenic beauty, as
well as a natural source of fresh running water in the form of an underground
spring. According to legend, this natural spring is none other than the holy
Gaṅgā (Ganges River), herself come down from the heavens in response to the
great tapas and devotion of the legendary ṛṣi Gālav, the namesake and ancient
mythical inhabitant of Galta. Tradition has it that one of Pṛthvīrāj’s queens,
Bālānbāī, was a disciple of the Rāmānandī guru Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī, who was a
grand-­disciple of Rāmānand himself. The queen faced constant pressure from
her husband, the king, to abandon her guru and become a disciple of Tārānāth.
When she reported this situation to her guru, Payahārī—­who had been engaged
in the performance of devotional asceticism at the great Rajasthani tīrtha of
Pushkar—­he immediately made his way to Galta, where he chose a spot, sat
down, and began meditating. Noticing the stranger in their midst, some of the
Nāth yogīs approached Payahārī, challenged his presence there, and demanded
that he leave. Rather than leave altogether, Payahārī stood up, wrapped his dhūnī
(an ascetic’s sacred fire) in a bundle of clothing, and simply moved to another
place nearby, where he set the still-­burning fire on the ground and sat back
down. Miraculously, the clothes in which he had wrapped the dhūnī did not catch
fire. Seeing this, the Nāths realized that Payahārī possessed extraordinary
power and went directly to their guru, Tārānāth, to tell him about the visitor.
In the confrontation that ensued, Tārānāth used his yogic powers to take the
form of a tiger and began growling ferociously in the direction of Payahārī,
 132 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

seeking to frighten him away. Unperturbed, Payahārī began to feed the tiger
the flesh of his very own leg, but, unsatisfied, the fearsome beast inched closer
and continued to roar, seemingly intent on devouring Payahārī. Several more
times Payahārī offered up his own flesh, but each time the tiger ate it only to
continue growling and moving closer.4 Finally, with the tiger about to pounce
upon him, Payahārī exclaimed, “What a jackass [gadhā] you are!”5 At the pre-
cise moment Payahārī said these words, Tārānāth was transformed from a tiger
into a donkey, and his Kānphaṭa earrings (mudrā) fell from his ears onto the
ground in front of Payahārī.6 Having sent the cowardly donkey off into the sur-
rounding forest, Payahārī entered a nearby cave and began to meditate.
It was Mahārāj Pṛthvīrāj’s habit that he would not eat before taking the vision
(darśan) of his guru, Tārānāth. Searching for him at Galta, Pṛthvīrāj came upon
Payahārī in his cave and inquired as to the whereabouts of his missing guru.
Payahārī said to the king, “Your guru has become a donkey and is out grazing
grass” and explained what had happened. Incredulous at first, when Pṛthvīrāj
saw his guru’s earrings lying on the ground, he realized that Payahārī was speak-
ing the truth. Putting the dust of Payahārī’s feet upon his forehead, he bowed
before him, saying, “Prabhu, forgive my guru’s crime; please restore him to his
earlier form!” Payahārī replied, “I will make him human again, but only on these
two conditions: that the Nāths must leave this place and go somewhere else and
that every day they must bring me wood so I can keep my dhūnī continuously
burning.” Once Tārānāth had been restored to his human form, both he and the
king accepted Payahārī’s conditions. Mahārāj Pṛthvīrāj became Payahārī’s dis-
ciple, and Galta thereafter became an important Rāmānandī center.7
Regardless of the historical fact or fiction of the confrontation between
Payahārī and Tārānāth, this story seems to reflect a change of genuine histori-
cal significance in the early sixteenth century. At that time the bhakti commu-
nity that would come to be known as the Rāmānandīs defeated the Nāths at
Galta, whether through debate8 or physical force, and took control of that stra-
tegic location. Moreover, Mahārāj Pṛthvīrāj and the Kacchvāhās shifted their
primary patronage and allegiance from the Nāth yogīs to Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī and
the Rāmānandī bhaktas. Pṛthvīrāj adopted the two images that Payahārī had
brought with him to Galta—­Nṛsiṃha and Sītārām (which became the dynastic
deity of the Kacchvāhās)—­a nd installed them both in Amer,9 inaugurating a
period of more than three-­hundred years in which the Kacchvāhās would
remain closely affiliated with Vaiṣṇava bhakti. Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl (ca. 1600)
corroborates this picture of Pṛthvīrāj, extolling him as a great patron of
Vaiṣṇavas.10
This early sixteenth-­century episode in Galta is indicative of the beginning
of an important broader trend in North India. It points toward the expanding
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 133

sphere of Vaiṣṇava bhakti religiosity and its historical confrontation with, and
gradual social and political marginalization of, the sphere of Śaiva tantric ascet-
icism and occult power represented most prominently by the ubiquitous Nāth
yogīs. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries references to the Nāth yogīs
began to appear in a wide array of Indian literary sources, attesting that they
had come to possess real social influence.11 The rather amorphous group of yogīs
known as the Nāths had roots especially in an unorthodox and noninstitutional
stream of the larger tradition of tantric Śaivism that had been India’s preemi-
nent religious form since roughly the seventh century. Complementing the role
of orthodox tantric priests in temples and palaces, siddhas and tantric yogīs of
the early medieval period were experts in magic and bodily power who fre-
quented both cemeteries and royal courts, acting as village healers and sha-
mans while also serving as the agents, counselors, and bards of kings.12 Heirs to
this tradition of heterodox, nonsectarian siddhas and yogīs, and with close links
to the tantric tradition of Kaula Śaivism as well, the Nāths seem to have first
come to prominence in about the thirteenth century, especially in the Deccan
region. In the wake of the changes brought on by the Persianate Turkish mili-
tary conquest and political takeover, they developed an influential presence
throughout much of the subcontinent, probably not as an organized, coherent
transregional “Nāth” community but as disparate yogī lineages following dif-
ferent local traditions. With Sultanate rule spreading, institutional public forms
of tantric religion dying out, and other forms of the tantric tradition retreat-
ing into esoteric (often socially elite) private cults that were otherworldly in
focus, the tantric Nāth yogīs emerged as leading providers of a path offering real,
pragmatic, and accessible power in the world. As David Gordon White remarks,
“For the masses, as well as for kings whose concerns were often more this-­
worldly than those of Brahman metaphysicians, the Nāths and many of their
fellow Siddhas became the supernatural power brokers” of the day.13 However,
as we move into the sixteenth century and the early modern period, the role of
these Nāth yogīs was being challenged, for the Hindu religious world of North
India was changing in major ways with the emergence of Vaiṣṇava bhakti com-
munities like the Rāmānandīs.
The Payahārī legend at Galta can be understood as a historical remembrance
of the emergence of an increasingly close relationship between bhakti commu-
nities and royal power, a shift in state opinion about what form of religion was
considered most sociopolitically advantageous to support and patronize. For
many Hindu rulers in North India in the sixteenth century and later, tantric
models and legitimations of kingship—­with the niches and opportunities they
had created for both orthodox tantric brahmans and heterodox siddhas and
yogīs—­no longer promised the political dividends they once had. From the
 134 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

instrumental perspective of the state, patronage of bhakti was starting to make

more and more sense.14 Although in an earlier period tantric occultists and yogīs
may have been key advisers to and agents of Hindu kings, with the sociopoliti-
cal changes brought on by the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire and the rise
of bhakti in North India, it was the Vaiṣṇava gods Kṛṣṇa and Rām—­a nd devotion
to them—­that came to be considered most powerful in realizing the this-­worldly
goals of the Hindu king and state.15 In the historical memory of many Hindus, it
seems that these shifts in the religiopolitical landscape were catalyzed espe-
cially by the efforts of charismatic devotee-­saints like Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī and
those in his Rāmānandī lineage.

Payahārī and Vaiṣṇava Conversions in the Kullu Valley

Interestingly, the story from Galta is not the only mention of Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī’s
name in connection with a major conversion to Vaiṣṇavism. Local tradition in
the Kullu Valley of the lower Himalayan range strongly links Payahārī to Rājā
Jagat Singh’s conversion from Śaiva-­Śākta religion to Rām bhakti in the mid-­
seventeenth century. Jagat Singh is usually recognized as the most powerful
king in the entire history of Kullu, and tradition remembers his most remark-
able deed as the installation of the mūrti of Raghunāthjī (brought from Ayod-
hya) and the introduction of Vaiṣṇavism in Kullu.16 As archaeological evidence
makes clear, prior to Jagat Singh’s reign, Śaivism was the state religion in Kullu.17
Before Jagat Singh, the Goddess had been worshipped in Kullu and kings had paid
great respect to the Nāth yogīs, so much so that they would not take anything
for themselves until they had paid a visit to these Śaiva tantric ascetics and
offered them homage, food, and gifts.18 Indeed, local oral tradition has it that
Rājā Jagat Singh’s guru was initially none other than Tārānāth, the same yogī
who played a starring role as the loser in the story of the confrontation with
Payahārī at Galta.19 All this changed, however, when Jagat Singh converted to
Vaiṣṇavism through the influence of Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī. There are several ver-
sions of the story, but the core legend is that Jagat Singh needed help to absolve
himself of a great sin. His Nāth guru’s tantric powers had proven ineffective in
this task, thus the king approached Payahārī, who was meditating in a nearby
mountain cave. Payahārī advised the king that he should have the image of
Raghunāthjī brought from Ayodhya and should abdicate the state to Rām
(Raghunāthjī) and thereafter rule the kingdom as merely the agent of the Lord.20
Legends aside, two inscriptions, one of 1650 and the other 1656, confirm that
Jagat Singh introduced Vaiṣṇavism as the state religion, consigned his kingdom
to Rāma, and then acted as a tutelary ruler, as did his successors.21
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 135

Jagat Singh ruled Kullu from 1637 to 1672, and thus he surely could not actu-
ally have been in contact with Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī, who founded the Vaiṣṇava
monastic community at Galta in the early 1500s. Nevertheless, to this day care-
fully guarded and worshipped in the royal palace at Kullu are footwear and a
tattered garment allegedly belonging to Payahārī.22 Furthermore, not far from
Kullu, in the mountain village of Jhiri, just a mile or so outside Naggar, is the
cave where Payahārī is said to have resided as well as a temple dedicated to him
that also claims to have some of his earthly possessions in its safekeeping.
Despite the chronological impossibility of a meeting between Payahārī and Jagat
Singh, the tradition linking these two figures is clearly strong, and it is not
merely local. In fact, it was significant enough that Priyādās, dwelling in Vrin-
davan, included a story about Payahārī and the Kullu king in his Bhaktirasabodhinī
(1712), a commentary on Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl.23 In commenting on Nābhādās’s
verses about Payahārī, Priyādās writes that the rājā of Kullu was witness to the
fact that Payahārī never asked for anything in return from those he blessed
(“those whose head Payahārī put his hands upon, he never spread his hands
beneath theirs”). According to Priyādās, the king came to take Payahārī’s darśan
in a mountain cave and Payahārī filled him with such bhakti that his only desire
was to do service to Hari and the saints. In fact, the king’s devotion was so strong
that when his own son mistakenly ate a sweet that was to be offered to God, he
took up his sword to kill the boy, and those around had to rush to his rescue.
Priyādās explains that this young Kullu prince later became a great devotee
unequaled in the honor of the saints. Precisely how and why Payahārī was linked
to a king in mid-­seventeenth-­century Kullu—­a place and time quite removed
from his early sixteenth-­century community in eastern Rajasthan—­is some-
thing of a mystery, but this connection suggests a powerful and pervasive col-
lective memory of Payahārī as a charismatic figure pivotal in effecting Vaiṣṇava
bhakti’s supplanting of Śaivism and Śāktism in North India.

Vaiṣṇava-­Nāth Encounters in Panjab

The memory of Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī’s influence as a Vaiṣṇava saint and mis-

sionary is one that extends even beyond Galta and the Kullu Valley. A fasci-
nating tale links Payahārī, through his supposed disciple Bhagvān-­jī, to the
defeat of Nāth yogīs in the hills of Panjab and to the subsequent spread of
Vaiṣṇavism in that area. According to the tradition of Pindori Dhām, a major
Rāmānandī center in the Gurdaspur district of Panjab, the young Bhagvān-­jī
met Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī at Galta while on a pilgrimage. Payahārī is said to
have converted him to Vaiṣṇavism and made him his disciple.24 Goswamy and
 136 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

Grewal suggest that “it was probably with an eye on spreading the doctrine
of Vaishnavism to the Punjab Hills which then owed almost exclusive alle-
giance to Shaivism or Shaktism that Shri Krishnadas Payahari induced Bhag-
wanji to make the district of Gurdaspur as the base of his activity.”25 Indeed,
the Pindori gaddī founded by Bhagvān-­jī seems to have served just this his-
torical role, for evidence shows that he and his successors at Pindori and its
offshoots successfully spread the Vaiṣṇava bhakti message in the previously
Śaiva-­Śākta-­dominated Panjabi hills, winning the allegiance of numerous
hill chiefs, including the rulers of the states of Nurpur, Guler, Chamba, Jas-
wan, Mankot, Bandralta, and Jammu.26
According to tradition, after being initiated by Payahārī, Bhagvān-­jī returned
to the Panjabi hills, where he encountered a group of Nāth yogīs residing in
the dense forests of Pindori near the Beas River. Defeating them in a battle of
miraculous powers, Bhagvān-­jī forced the yogīs to flee the site, where he then
established the Rāmānandī community that remains there today as one of the
fifty-­t wo Vaiṣṇava dvārās (“gateways” to the Lord; i.e., recognized initiatory
centers/lineages).27 Not only is Bhagvān-­jī remembered as the disciple of Payahārī
in these tales, but the story itself also bears striking similarities to Payahārī’s
own legend in Galta.28 As in that episode, there is here a “miracle battle” with
Nāth yogīs in which the Vaiṣṇava bhakta triumphs over the Śaiva tāntrikas,
forces them to leave, and establishes his bhakti community directly on the site
where they had been.
While Bhagvān-­jī is remembered to have defeated a group of Nāth yogīs resid-
ing at Pindori in order to establish the Rāmānandī center there, the full story
of Bhagvān and the Pindori community suggests a closer and more complex rela-
tionship between the Nāths and the Rāmānandī Vaiṣṇava ascetics. Tradition
attributes Bhagvān-­jī’s birth to a blessing given to his elderly father Totārām
by none other than Tārānāth, the very same Nāth yogī said to have battled
Payahārī in Galta.29 Richard Burghart states that it was actually Tārānāth who
led the group of Nāth yogīs that Bhagvān-­jī defeated at Pindori, implying that
after his defeat at the hands of Payahārī at Galta, Tārānāth shifted locations to
Pindori, only to then be ousted once again, this time by Payahārī’s supposed dis-
ciple.30 This seems extremely unlikely; however, historical factuality is rather
irrelevant here, for what is noteworthy is the very existence of so many collec-
tive memories linking these Rāmānandī and Nāth figures in such interesting,
intersecting, and overlapping ways. Even if Tārānāth later became Bhagvān-­jī’s
enemy, Vaiṣṇava tradition in the Panjabi hills firmly maintains that it was this
particular Nāth yogī who helped bring about Bhagvān’s birth and even named
him. 31 This connection with the Nāths lingers in a variety of ways. For one,
we should note that Bhagvān-­jī’s other main disciple, in fact his most senior
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 137

disciple, Maheśdās, was actually a Nāth yogī who was known as Maheśnāth
before being converted to Vaiṣṇavism by Bhagvān-­jī.32 Furthermore, still today
in the town of Bhagvān-­jī’s birth, Kahnuwan, lies a Nāth yogī worship site with
a constantly burning dhūnī and small tombs over the remains of Bhagvān’s par-
ents.33 Most interesting of all, whenever a new mahant is installed at Pindori, a
Nāth ṭopī (headpiece) is received from the yogī establishment in Jakhbar and
placed upon the head of the incoming Vaiṣṇava mahant. As Goswamy and Gre-
wal explain, “The ritual is of such importance that without it the ceremony is
deemed to be incomplete. This topi is an unusual conical kind of headgear not
at all common to Vaishnava establishments and can be seen in all the paint-
ings of the mahants of Pindori that have survived.”34 An old wall painting of
Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī in the cave at Galta, one widely reproduced in all the
Rāmānandī centers of Rajasthan, depicts Tārānāth standing in a worshipful and
submissive pose next to Payahārī and wearing exactly this type of conical head-
gear (figure 4.1).

Figure 4.1 Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī (center) with his two main disciples, Kīlhadev and
Agradās (left), as well as (right) Tārānāth and King Pṛthvīrāj of Amer.
Photograph by author of painting at Raivasa monastery (Rajasthan), July 11, 2009
 138 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

Clarifying Rāmānandī and Nāth Identities

The evidence makes it abundantly clear that in early modern North India the
relationship between Nāths and Rāmānandīs—­or more broadly between Śaiva
tāntrikas and Vaiṣṇava bhaktas—­was a complex one not characterized simply by
hostile confrontation. The traditions of Galta, Kullu, and Pindori discussed in
the preceding, all have well-­established narratives, historical memories of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in which there is a shift away from Śaiva-­
Śākta religiosity, especially that of the Nāth yogīs, toward Vaiṣṇava bhakti. Each
of these traditions links itself to the figure of Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī and highlights
the significant role the Rāmānandīs played in the great expansion of Vaiṣṇavism
that occurred in the early modern period. However, the Vaiṣṇava bhakti that was
becoming so prominent was by no means a unified entity—­even among the
Rāmānandīs—­rather, it had multiple forms and styles, some of which had a sig-
nificant degree of overlap with ascetic streams of the very Śaiva-­Śākta tantric
forms that they were increasingly supplanting as the favored state religion of
Hindu rulers throughout North India. What, then, was the nature of this
sixteenth-­century bhakti? Let us now seek a fuller, more precise and nuanced
understanding of the practices, perspectives, and identities of early modern
bhaktas like Payahārī and the religious world they inhabited.
In this regard, it is important to note that the tales about Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī
and Bhagvān-­jī from Galta, Kullu, and Pindori are all oral traditions whose antiq-
uity is difficult to determine. Each of the stories speaks to a real historical shift
from Śaiva-­Śākta religion to Vaiṣṇava bhakti that was taking place in certain
Hindu kingdoms of Rajasthan, in the lower Himalayan range, and in Panjab;
however, some of these traditions—­particularly the legends about Payahārī’s
and Bhagvān-­jī’s confrontations with Nāth yogīs—­give a rather misleading and
anachronistic view of the specifics of the religious world and sectarian situa-
tion of the sixteenth century. In the verses on Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī in their respec-
tive Bhaktamāls, both Nābhādās (ca. 1600) and Rāghavdās (1660)—­our earliest
hagiographical sources on Payahārī—­confirm elements of the legend at Galta
in mentioning that he fed his own flesh to a tiger (or lion) and that he was the
guru of Pṛthvīrāj; yet neither they nor Priyādās (1712), in his commentary on
the Bhaktamāl, ever mention any sort of confrontation between Payahārī and
the Nāth yogīs. While the oral tradition is quite strong and although the legend
may hint at a certain historical reality, our available sources suggest that the
tale of the magical battle between Payahārī and the Nāth yogī is one that was
not significant in the early historical memory of Vaiṣṇava bhakti communities
and did not take written form until at least the mid-­eighteenth century, if not
later. All things considered, it seems likely that oral traditions about Rāmānandīs
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 139

pitted against Nāths are rather late in origin (perhaps eighteenth century) and
reflect a heightened sectarianism that was at only a fledgling state in the six-
teenth century.35
This is not to say that there was not genuine tension and conflict between
bhaktas and tantric yogīs in the sixteenth century; as the textual evidence in
bhakti poetry and hagiography (discussed in chapters 7 and 8) demonstrates,
there certainly was. But the differences between these groups at that point were
much more subtle, the boundaries more porous, and any sense of sectarian iden-
tity far more fluid than they came to be in the eighteenth century. In other
words, the tales specifically identifying Nāth yogīs as the losers in confronta-
tions with Rāmānandī bhaktas most likely emerged in a religious world whose
sectarian boundaries were far more firm (ca. eighteenth century) than the
actual religious world in which these stories are set (ca. sixteenth century). Thus,
we should read them not as evidence of the historical situation in the sixteenth
century but as later manifestations of a process of confrontation, competition,
and conflict (between bhaktas and tantric yogīs as well as between various bhakti
groups)—­a process of community formation—­t hat was only just beginning
in the sixteenth century.
In order to properly articulate the actual similarities and differences between
the Rāmānandīs and Nāth yogīs of early modern North India and to understand
the sort of bhakti sensibility that was emerging, I now turn to an analysis of the
hagiographical descriptions of Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī and his two main disciples,
Kīlhadev and Agradās, as found in Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl. As Heidi Pauwels has
written, “Gleaning information from Nābhādās’s Bhakt-­māl has become the first
step in writing about any of the medieval North Indian bhaktas, and it is per-
ceived to be the earliest and most authoritative source of evidence on the life
of any given saint.”36 Nābhādās was a Galta-­dwelling Rāmānandī and grand-­
disciple (through Agradās) of Payahārī. Moving from oral tradition to his
(roughly) datable text, we find ourselves on somewhat firmer ground for gain-
ing an accurate sense of the fissures between and areas of overlap among the
spheres of bhakti, tantric religiosity, and yoga in sixteenth-­ and seventeenth-­
century North India. Also of use in this pursuit is the Bhaktamāl of Rāghavdās,
a member of the Dādu ­Panth who wrote in 1660, also in Rajasthan. 37 As will
become apparent, hagiographical descriptions of the Galta Rāmānandīs belie
any easy distinction between bhaktas and yogīs and allow us to see the identity
of the early modern devotee in clearer terms. While bhakti is always paramount
in the verses on Payahārī, Kīlhadev, Agradās and their disciples, in them we also
find impressive evidence of the growth of two separate but related bhakti paths,
one more yogic, martial, nirguṇ, and tapas oriented, the other more devotional,
literary, saguṇ, and rasa oriented. Nevertheless, even in its more yogic and ascetic
 140 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

form, early modern Rāmānandī bhakti consistently displayed certain marked

differences from the tantric approach of the Nāth yogīs.

Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī: The Yogic Nature of

Early Rāmānandī Bhakti

According to our earliest sources, both Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl (ca. 1600) and
Anantadās’s Pīpā-­paracaī (1588), Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī was a disciple of Anantānand’s,
who was a disciple of none other than Rāmānand himself.38 As mentioned, tra-
dition states that in the early sixteenth century Payahārī traveled from Push-
kar to Galta, where he defeated a group of Nāth yogīs and established a major
Rāmānandī bhakti community supported by the patronage of the Kacchvāhā
Rajputs in Amer. But just what kind of bhakta was this Payahārī? Nābhādās
describes him in terms stressing his asceticism, renunciation, and yogic acu-
men. Payahārī is said to have lived only on milk (payas)—­hence his name—­a nd
is praised as a “great ascetic-­sage” (mahāmuni) whose “seed” was turned upward
(ūrdharetā), a reference specifically marking his mastery of haṭha yoga. Nābhā
also notes his identity as a Dāhimā brahman and the powerful influence he had
on major kings of India. He writes,

In the Kali age, Kṛṣṇadās was the paragon of renunciation; he

had relinquished food and drank [only] milk.
He would not beg from him on whose head he laid his hand. He
granted him the abode of release and rendered him fearless of
sorrow.
He was a hoard of luster, power, worship, a great muni whose
semen was directed upwards [ūrdharetā]. Kings who had
conquered the earth served the lotus of his feet.
He was the sun that had risen from a Dāhimā family. He gave
happiness to the heart lotus of the sants.39

In the next chappay, Nābhādās lists Payahārī’s twenty-­three disciples—­

including kings, women, householders and ascetics, Kṛṣṇa devotees and Rām
devotees, and munis and rasiks—­a group reflecting the diversity and catholicity of
the Rāmānandī community.40 Toward the end of the Bhaktamāl, Nābhā dedicates
another set of verses to Payahārī, this time linking him to Galta, highlighting his
virtue, hospitality, and self-­sacrifice and stressing his ascetic self-­d iscipline
alongside his devotion to Rām.
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 141

In Galtā, oozing ambrosial excellencies, of virtuous conduct and

firm ethics,
Kṛṣṇadās, who had conquered the Kali Age, invited a lion (or a
tiger) whom he gave of [his own] flesh to eat.
Keeping the laws of hospitality, he acquired public fame in the
world. He was an epitome of renunciation, he did not lust for
gold and women.
Intoxicated with the lotus of Rām’s feet, he abided by it day and
night.41

In addition to these verses, we learn more about Payahārī in Nābhā’s verses

on Pṛthvīrāj. Nābhā writes, “Thanks to the teaching of Śrī Kṛṣṇadās [Payahārī],
he [Pṛthvīrāj] became acquainted with the Supreme Truth. By the description
of it as nirguṇ and saguṇ [Payahārī] destroyed the darkness of unknowing.” 42 The
fact that Payahārī is praised for destroying ignorance by describing the ultimate
Truth as both nirguṇ (without qualities) and saguṇ (with qualities) is notewor-
thy, for it suggests that at least by Nābhādās’s time this nirguṇ-­saguṇ distinction
was something of an issue, one on which not everyone agreed. Indeed, the Nāth
yogīs, as well as the bhakti communities of Dādū and Nānak, tended to acknowl-
edge the Divine as nirguṇ only, and this may have placed them in significant
tension with the Rāmānandīs.
Payahārī does not seem to have been a prolific writer, but a short work
called Rāj-­yog attributed to him deals with the role of yoga in Rām bhakti,
stressing meditation and the repetition of the name of Rām while also giv-
ing attention to the saguṇ form of Rām.43 That Payahārī would have authored
such a text seems entirely in character, for while Nābhā praises his devo-
tion to the lotus feet of Rām, it is his yogic and ascetic qualities that most
stand out.
The memory of Payahārī as an accomplished yoga-­practicing muni is one that
is documented well beyond Nābhādās’s hagiographical masterpiece. Rāghavdās,
of the Dādū ­Panth, in his Bhaktamāl of 1660, also describes Payahārī. For the most
part Rāghav simply translates Nābhā’s Brajbhasha verses into Rajasthani in
describing Payahārī; however, he does add two new chands, one of which again
emphasizes Payahārī’s links to yoga and asceticism:

jñān anant dayo anatānand yauṃ pragaṭyau kṛṣṇadās paihārī /

jog upāsyau jugati sū tejasī antaravṛti akyañcan dhārī /

Anantānand gave him unending knowledge; that is how

Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī came into his own.
 142 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

He worshipped yoga and his resplendent yogic skill [discipline/

technique] spread throughout the world [even as] he remained
in strict poverty.44

Monika Horstmann remarks that “Kṛṣṇadās was a yogi whose yogic practice
need not be imagined to have been totally different from that of the Nāths.” 45
To what degree and how his yogic practice was similar to and distinct from the
Nāths is a crucial question that I will turn to shortly; here, however, it is impor-
tant to note the existence of a unique text on haṭha yoga written in 1737 in Vrin-
davan by a Rāmānandī by the name of Jayatrāma, who proclaimed himself to
be a spiritual descendant of none other than Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī.46 James Mal-
linson describes this text, called the Jogpradīpakā, as “a manual of haṭhayoga
written in 964 Braj Bhāṣā verses, using dohā, sorṭhā and caupāī metres.” 47 Yet it is
certainly no ordinary haṭha yoga manual, for Śiva—­credited as the original
teacher of haṭha yoga in all other such manuals—­is mentioned but a single time,
whereas Sītā and Rām (Siyārām) are together presented as the chief deities of
the text and on many occasions directions are given to visualize them as part
of one’s yogic practice.48 Whether this means that Payahārī’s own yogic prac-
tice involved the visualization of Sītā-­Rām cannot be determined based on the
sources available to us. There is certainly no conclusive evidence that it did.49
Nevertheless, as I explore in the next chapter, Payahārī’s yoga did in fact differ
from the yogic practice of the Nāths in significant ways, and distinguishing the
two will help us to better grasp the distinctions and connections between the
early modern realms of bhakti, tantra, and yoga.

Agradās and Kīlhadev: Two Streams of Rāmānandī Bhakti

In order to further flesh out the nature of Rāmānandī bhakti and its relation-
ship with tantra and yoga, I turn to the hagiographical descriptions of Payahārī’s
main two disciples, Agradās and Kīlhadev. What do we know about the religious
life and practice of these two Rāmānandīs? At the death of their guru, Payahārī,
Kīlhadev took over the Galta gaddī and Agradās is said to have traveled to Raiv-
asa, near modern-­day Sikar, where he founded the Rām-­rasik tradition. Agra is
associated with rasik devotional practice, which typically involves a daily regi-
men of external rituals of worship and service as well as internal practices such
as visualization, meditation, and role-­playing (often as an intimate female friend
and attendant of Sītā’s) aimed at bringing about full participation in the ulti-
mate reality of Rām and Sītā’s eternal līlā. The literary record tells us that Agra
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 143

was also a prolific writer, the author of at least fifteen works in addition to many
scattered verses found in anthologies of bhakti poetry.
Our earliest description of Agradās comes from his disciple Nābhādās’s
Bhaktamāl:

śrī agradās haribhajan bin kāl vṛthā nahiṃ bitayau /

sadācār jyoṃ sant prāpt jaise kari āye /
sevā sumiran dhyān caraṇarāghau cit lāye //
prasidh bāg soṃ prīti suhath kṛt karat nirantar /
rasanā nirmal nām manhūṃ varṣat dhārādhar //
śrī kṛṣṇadās kṛpā kari bhaktidatt manavac kramakari aṭal diyau /
śrī agradās haribhajan bin kāl vṛthā nahiṃ bitayau // 40

Agradās never spent a moment when he was not absorbed in

doing bhakti to Hari.50
He acted in accordance with the good conduct of the saints. In
service, meditation, and remembrance, he kept his heart on
the feet of Rāghav [Rām].51
He loved his famous garden and worked on it endlessly with his
own hands. The pure name of God fell from his tongue like
rain from a cloud.
Blessing him, Kṛṣṇadās [Payahārī] gave [Agra] the gift of bhakti
and made him firm in heart, speech, and action. Agradās
never spent a moment when he was not absorbed in doing
bhakti to Hari.52

Agra’s devotion and service to God are especially highlighted here, and there
is an interesting mention of the “famous garden” Agra is said to have tended
with great love and dedication.
I examine Agradās’s writings in some detail in chapter 6, but for now we can
gain a bit more insight into his character from a few remarks Nābhādās makes
in other sections of his Bhaktamāl. At the very beginning of the text Nābhā
explains that it was his guru, Agra, who ordered him to compose this work in
praise of the devotees of God. In the fourth dohā, he states, “Guru Agradev gave
the order: ‘Sing the glory of the bhaktas. There is no other way to cross the ocean
of existence.’ ”53 Nābhādās has been recognized as something of a revolution-
ary for raising the status of the bhaktas—­the devotees—­and equating them with
God.54 The famous opening line of the Bhaktamāl states, “Bhaktas, bhakti, God,
and guru, though four in name, are one in essence.”55 It seems, however, that
the original inspiration for this idea was actually Agradās, who stressed that
 144 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

singing the praises of the devotees brings liberation. This is demonstrated again
toward the end of the Bhaktamāl, where Nābhā states, “Agra says, he who nar-
rates the virtues of the followers [of God] gains the power of Sītā’s Lord [Rām].”56
It is clear from Nābhā’s verses that Agra was not simply a great bhakta of Rām
and Sītā but also one who sought to spread his firm conviction that all true bhak-
tas are worthy of devotion and that by cherishing the memory of the great
bhakti saints and following the model they set, one grows closer to the Divine.
Nābhā’s description of Agradās becomes more meaningful when contrasted
with his description of Payahārī’s other chief disciple, Agra’s guru brother,
Kīlhadev:

As Death did not destroy Gāṇgeya [Bhīṣma], so it could not

subdue Kīlha.
Day and night he stayed absorbed in the contemplation
[ciṅtavani] of Rām’s feet.
All beings bowed before him, he was a hero who partook of the
bliss of doing bhakti.
He was strong in the Sāṃkhya and Yoga doctrines, he held the
experience [of the Divine] in his hand like a cherry plum.
Through the power [bal] of Hari and bodily [tan] practice [karnī],
he proceeded to the brahmarandhra.
In the world the son of Sumerdev [Kīlha] is well known; his pure
fame spread over the earth.57

While in Agradās’s description (in the original Brajbhasha) it is the words

bhakti, haribhajan (doing bhakti and singing to Hari/Viṣṇu), sevā (service), and
smaraṇ/sumiraṇ (remembering God, especially God’s names and deeds)58 that
stand out, here Kīlha is characterized most especially by his mastery of yoga,
through which he was able to subdue his body and conquer death, choosing the
time of his own passing by leaving through the brahmarandhra opening at the top
of his skull.59 It is worth noting that Nābhā uses the word bal (power or strength)
to describe Kīlha’s yogic practice and that he compares Kīlha to Bhīṣma, the great
warrior and yoga-­practicing ascetic of the Mahābhārata, known for his ability to
control the time of his own death. In chapter 289 of book 12 of the Mahābhārata,
Bhīṣma expounds the practice of yoga, emphasizing its bal and the power and
strength of its practitioners.60 Kīlha’s yoga likely had its roots in this tapas-­linked
yoga tradition of the Mahābhārata. Ghurye writes that Kīlha “established the prac-
tice of ‘yoga’ as a necessary ingredient of Rama-­devotion for the inmates and fol-
lowers of his centre,” and sectarian tradition associates him with the founding of
the ascetic branch (tapasī śākhā) of the Rāmānandī sampradāy.61
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 145

In contrast to Agradās’s significant literary output, Kīlha seems not to have

composed more than a few poems. In my manuscript searches in the archives
of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, I found only three extant pads attributed to
Kīlha, one of which is not entirely legible in the manuscript. Here I offer a first-­
time translation of the other two. In large part, these poems correspond to the
image of Kīlha as an austere yogī that we get from the hagiographical sources.
Their content suggests that intense asceticism and detachment from the world
were foundational elements of Kīlha’s religious life. The first poem comes from
the Fatehpur manuscript62 of 1582, one of the oldest sources of North Indian
bhakti poetry. Kīlha says,

[Rāg Rāmagarī]
re man tū tū hī tū tū hī tū tū hī terā /
mai nāhī tan mai na koū kāhū karā (kerā?) /
māta nahī tāta nahī kalat bandh pherā (jherā?) /
gād nahī pāni nahī javar bandh gherā /
arath nahī mīt nahī grih sang ghorā /
kīlha kahai kīl nahī sakal gur merā /

O heart, you, only you, only you are yours and yours alone.
I am not this body, I am no one and no one’s.63
No mother, no father, no wife [kalatra]; you are bound to these
troubles (but they are not yours).
No mud, no water, no millet [grain]; [yet] you are enclosed in
[their] bondage.
No wealth, no friends, no home; these things make frightful
company.
Kīlha says, Kīlha is nothing—­the Guru is my everything.64

The next pad comes from a manuscript dated v.s. 1715 (1658) and is similarly
dedicated to denouncing worldly possessions and sensual desires as major ene-
mies in the spiritual quest.

[Rāg Prabhātī]
re man ajāh to tripati tan dharaṇā
jugi jugi phirayau khanḍ khanḍ phiryau
pur pur phiryau phiryau gharaṇ
jahā jahā tahā tahā kanak kaminī bhajyau
tin kiyau tero gyan haraṇ
akal vimuk bhayā sang hī dīp gaī na miṭe janam maraṇ
 146 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

jau jū bikhaī bikhe mat (mast?) suṇo suṇo hit tau jyū supineh na taraṇ
kīlh kahai tere tab trividhi tākai caraṇ saraṇ

O heart, this body holds to the threefold [?] māyā.

You have wandered through birth after birth; you have
wandered the whole world.
You have wandered and wandered through city after city, house
after house.
Wherever you went, there you devoted yourself to gold and
lustful women.
And they have stolen your knowledge.
You became opposed to wisdom, went along with the light [?],
and [could] not erase the [cycle of] birth and death.
As long as you are infatuated with sensual enjoyment—­listen,
listen for your betterment—­even in your dreams you cannot
cross [the ocean of existence].
Kīlha says, the three worlds are yours when you make His [Rām’s]
feet your shelter.65

In both these poems, Kīlha’s strict ascetic outlook shines forth clearly, yet
his austerity and rejection of the world are accompanied by a clear devotion that
stresses that in turning from the world, one must turn to the Guru (i.e., to the
feet of Rām).
While bhakti, yoga, and asceticism all merge in the figure of Kīlha, the hagi-
ographical tradition clearly remembers him especially as a death-­conquering
master of yoga. Adding to Nābhādās’s description of Kīlhadev, Priyādās wrote
in his influential commentary—­the Bhaktirasabodhinī—­that at the time of his
death Kīlha gathered all the saints, and, honoring all of them, he abandoned
his body through the “tenth door,” the final cakra at the top of the head (also
called the brahmarandhra or brahmāṇḍ). This story clearly suggests that Kīlha had
achieved a level of yogic accomplishment in which he had gained the power to
live as long as he wanted until consciously deciding to exit his body out the top
of his head, the “gateway of Brahmā,” for final liberation. Rāghavdas’s Bhaktamāl
alludes to this same perfection in yoga when it introduces what becomes a stan-
dard feature of Kīlha’s hagiography, that he was bitten three times by a snake
but that each time the poison did not affect him.66 The Bhāgavata Purāṇa lists
both these abilities—­the power to determine the time of one’s death and that
to neutralize poison—­as siddhis (powers) acquired through the mastery of yoga
and its various modes of concentration (dhāraṇā).67
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 147

If, then, our enduring image of Kīlhadev is that of the yoga-­practicing ascetic,
of Agradās we instead imagine the devoted gardener. The garden is a key fea-
ture of Agra’s hagiography and, whatever its factual basis may be, it seems to
act as a metaphor for the loving care and fastidious attention he gave to God.
Nābhā’s verse suggests that the pure devotion of Agradās’s bhajans and his rep-
etition of the name of Rām were the water that nourished his garden. As I explain
in chapter 6, the image of Agra as a gardener is quite appropriate, for he sought
to cultivate devotion in himself and others, to grow and tend to a devotional
community through his dedicated service, offering the fruits (literal and met-
aphorical) of his labor to God.
In all the earliest available sources, it is Agra’s devotion that is highlighted,
whereas it is Kīlha’s expertise in yoga—­his conquering of death through austere
mental and bodily practice—­that is at the forefront. Both are bhaktas, but their
styles of practice appear quite separate. This distinction is also highlighted in
the Rām-­rasik oral tradition, which tells a story about a gathering of saints
attended by both Kīlha and Agra. Kīlhadev proclaimed to the assembled bhaktas
that “with the help of one’s own power, through steadfast love, doing bhakti, God
can be obtained.” Agradās responded with a slightly different perspective, say-
ing, “All action is dependent on God, and believing this while acting, it is possible
to obtain God.” 68 In other words, while Kīlha stressed bhakti in combination with
one’s own effort or power (bal), Agra stated that everything—­all our action—­is
dependent on God, and nothing comes from our own effort. Plainly, Kīlha is
chiefly a devotee—­he “partook of the bliss of performing bhakti” and “stayed
absorbed in the contemplation of Rām’s feet day and night”—­yet his bhakti also
maintains elements of a tantric-­yogic reliance on the self and on the power(s)
generated through one’s own ritual and ascetic practices. A critique of this sort
of tantric-­yogic perspective—­a multifaceted, devotion-­based critique of Śaiva-­
Sākta outlooks and practices—­emerged as a sort of rallying point for many bhakti
authors, a pole around which a common bhakti sensibility would come together,
especially in the rapidly developing traditions of bhakti that reflected Agradās’s
perspective of emotion, humility, and dedicated service far more than Kīlha’s
yogic-­ascetic bhakti approach.
In addition to their different styles of devotional practice, their literary out-
put also distinguished these two bhaktas. The production of vernacular written
literature was a key feature of bhakti’s rise in North India and a critical factor in
its success. This vernacular literature—­primarily collections of bhakti poetry, sto-
ries of deities and legendary devotees, and hagiographies of poet-­saints—­was at
the heart of North India’s bhakti movement and its vital role of forming commu-
nity identities, spreading coherent bhakti ideologies over wide geographical
 148 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

expanses, and, perhaps most importantly, providing a textual foundation for

the traditions of performance (storytelling, recitation, song, etc.) that so
informed the community experience of devotees.69 Not all bhaktas composed lit-
erature, however, and those who did definitely did not all do so to the same
extent. Devotees’ chosen lifestyle and mode of practice—­in addition, of course,
to their natural temperaments and talents—­certainly affected their degree of
participation in the world of bhakti literary composition. Payahārī’s two main
disciples illustrate this fact perfectly. While Agradās has at least fifteen works
attributed to him, in addition to hundreds of pads, there seem to be only a few
scattered pads attributed to Kīlhadev.
This evidence strongly suggests that these two disciples of Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī
at Galta represent the emergence of two separate but related streams of reli-
gious practice among Rāmānandīs in the mid-­sixteenth century, one more
focused on tapas and yoga, with closer links to an itinerant (and perhaps even
warrior) lifestyle, and the other centered on rasik bhakti, with closer links to a
sedentary, temple-­or monastery-­based life and the production of written litera-
ture. In the descriptions of some of the disciples of Agra and Kīlha, these distinc-
tions become even clearer. For instance, Rāghavdās portrays Kīlha’s disciple
Dvārkādās as a master of haṭha yoga, whereas he depicts Agra’s disciple Nābhādās
as a rasik bhakta devoted to the praise of the saints. Of Nābhā he writes,

nābhai nabh setī kīnhauṃ khīr-­nīr bhin bhin

granthan kau sār sarbaṅgī hari gāyau hai /
bhakti bhagat bhagavant gur dhāri ur
bic ra bakhāṇi sarvahī kauṃ sir nāyau hai /
sat-­jug tretā ar dvāpar kalū ke bhakt
nāv kritamālā kīnī nīkau bhed pāyau hai /
rāgho gur agar kūṃ arpi girā gaṅgajal
pure patibrat bala rām yauṃ rijhāyau hai // 160

Nābhā made a bridge to heaven; [like a haṃsa] he separated milk

[knowledge] from water [ignorance].
He sang the essence of the various forms of devotion to God
described in the scriptures.
Having kept bhakti, bhakta, Bhagvān [God], and guru in his
heart,
He knew and praised all these and bowed his head to them.
The bhaktas of the Sat Yug, Tretā Yug, Dvāpar Yug and Kali Yug,
He made a garland of their names; he knew the beauty of their
subtle differences.
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 149

Rāghav says, he offered his words, pure as the water of the

Ganges, to his guru, Agra.
Through the power of his complete pativrat [devotion of a wife to
her husband] he attracted Rām.70

In contrast, Rāghav describes Kīlha’s disciple Dvārkādās in this way:

haṭh-­jog jamādik sādhikai dvārikādās hari sauṃ milyau //ṭek

kukas kī nadikā nīr maiṃ lagī samādh ī/
prabhu pad suṃ rati acal yek ātma ārādhī /
bām jām ghar bit bandh kul jagat nirāsā /
kām kraudh mad moh karam kī kāṭī pāsā /
gur kīlh karaṇ prasād taiṃ bhakti sakti bhram kauṃ gilyau /
haṭh-­jog jamādik sādhikai dvārikādās hari suṃ mililyau // 165

Having mastered haṭha yoga and conquered Death [Yama],

Dvārkādās met Hari.
In the water of the Kukus River, he attained samādhi [meditative
absorption].
He had immovable passion to the feet of Prabhu; he devoted
himself to that one and only soul.
He was without passion for the things of this world: wife, son,
home, wealth, brother, and family.
He cut the net of desire, anger, ego, attachment, and karma.
With the blessing of Guru Kīlha’s compassion, he swallowed
[gilyau] the confusion [bhram] regarding bhakti and śakti.
Having mastered haṭha yoga and conquered Death [Yama],
Dvārkādās met Hari.71

Nābhādās also wrote verses on Dvārkādās (upon which Rāghav likely mod-
eled his own), stating that he “abandoned his body [through the practice of]
aṣṭāṇg jog” and “cut the net of māyā with the sword of knowledge and the power
of doing bhakti.”72 While Nābhā thus depicts his contemporary Dvārkādās as an
ascetic bhakta and an expert practitioner of yoga, in contrast he says this about
himself in the concluding verse of the Bhaktamāl: “Some have the power of yoga,
some the power of Vedic ritual, some the power of family/caste [kul], and some
have the hope of [attaining fruits from good] action. [I don’t have any of
these], only the garland of devotees [bhaktamāl] and Agra dwell in the heart
of Nārāyaṇdās [Nābhādās].”73 The clear implication seems to be that, in con-
trast to saints like Payahārī, Kīlha, and Dvārkā, his Rāmānandī brethren who
 150 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

combined bhakti with the bodily self-­disciplines of tapas and yoga, he knows
nothing of yoga and does not place hope of salvation in any sort of action, rit-
ual, or social standing, but only in cherishing God, guru, and the bhaktas in his
heart.
Even in the disciples of Kīlha and Agra, then, we can see two rather distinc-
tive kinds of devotee. While Nābhā, like his guru, Agradās, seems to have been
a rasik practitioner and devotee of Rām and Sītā, as well as a producer of litera-
ture (in addition to the Bhaktamāl, he is said to have authored two aṣṭayāms—­
one in prose, one in verse—­a nd several pads found in anthologies of bhakti
poetry),74 Dvārkādās appears to be like his guru, Kīlha, a world-­renouncing,
tapas-­practicing master of yoga. Agradās with his disciple Nābhādās, and
Kīlhadev with his disciple Dvārkādās, are thus representative of what would
become the two main branches of the Rāmānandī community, the vairāgīs
(or tyāgīs), peripatetic yoga-­practicing ascetics, and the rasikas, temple-­ or
monastery-­dwelling “savorers” of the sweet essence (rasa) of devotion.
How should we interpret this apparent binary division within the Rāmānandī
fold? One possibility returns us to the legendary stories about Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī
securing royal patronage at Galta and Kullu. Arik Moran has argued that the
narrative pattern of stories such as these probably reflects an early modern his-
torical reality in which (a) a charismatic holy man (sādhu) and his itinerant
ascetic followers would venture into a kingdom and gain the king’s favor by
offering spiritual, military, or economic support; (b) the king would then pro-
vide him and his sect or community with royal patronage, often establishing a
temple dedicated to the sādhu’s or sect’s patron deity; and (c) the peripatetic
ascetics would then settle down or be joined by sedentary devotionally oriented
monastics who saw to the extension of their power base in the kingdom.75 More
evidence is needed to determine the accuracy and prevalence of such a histori-
cal pattern, but Moran’s suggestion is intriguing in light of the two streams of
practice we have identified in the early Rāmānandī community at Galta. In this
model, early modern North Indian ascetic orders like the Rāmānandīs and the
Daśanāmis can be conceived in terms of two categories of ascetics—­one
monastically rooted, the other itinerant—­who depended on and complemented
one another in key ways.76 The lifestyle of the peripatetic lineages would have
made them perfectly suited for involvement in military labor (e.g., as hired sol-
diers, guardians of sectarian property and resources, protectors of trade and
pilgrimage routes or caravans) and the long-­distance transmission of goods and
information, while monastery-­based members worked to support and further
popular worship, recruited members and patrons, maintained a base (presum-
ably one node in a larger network) supporting long-­d istance commercial
activities, and composed scholarship and literature propagating their ideology
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 151

and increasing their public profile. As useful as this general picture is, we should
be wary of drawing too stark a distinction between these two “categories” of
ascetic—­the sedentary monastic and the itinerant yogī—­a nd of conceiving
ascetic lineages as purely “monastic” or “nonmonastic.” Véronique Bouillier’s
many years of research on the modern-­d ay Nāth sampradāy has shown that
monasticism ought not be equated with a process of sedentarization or a “tam-
ing” of free-­moving ascetics, as some have suggested.77 As she demonstrates,
monasteries are “intrinsic to the nature and even the emergence” of ascetic
communities, acting as a crucial institutional base connecting to the larger
social, political, and economic world and a necessary anchor for the collective
organization of a body of diverse, individualistic, ascetic practitioners.78 Fur-
thermore, the worlds of sedentary monastic life and peripatetic asceticism
“are not opposed”; rather, wandering and monasticism typically exist “in a rela-
tion of complementarity,” a dialectic wherein ascetics easily change their way
of life, not remaining permanently sedentary or itinerant.79
The early Rāmānandīs seem to bear out Bouillier’s view. Although Payahārī,
Kīlhadev, and Dvārkādās, on one side, and Agradās and Nābhādās, on the other,
are representative of two distinctive styles of bhakti practice, we should not
conceive these men or these two bhakti streams as entirely separate from
one another, for in fact they were undoubtedly intertwined. Indeed, the
ascetic lineages of the Rāmānandī community were not exclusively monas-
tic (sedentary/rasik) or nonmonastic (itinerant/yogic). Agradās, for instance,
did not have disciples of only the rasik bhakti persuasion but was also guru to
disciples like Bhagvān-­jī (who, as noted, is remembered in Panjab as an itiner-
ant ascetic who bested a group of Nāth yogīs in a battle of supernormal powers)
and Puraṇ, whom Rāghavdās describes as a cave-­dwelling practitioner of aṣṭāng
yoga who worshipped the name of God, lived his life without desire for worldly
things (gold or women), and started a community where meditators practiced
yama, niyama, prāṇayāma, and āsana (the first four “limbs” of aṣṭāng yoga).80
Rāghav also penned verses on Khem, who was either a disciple of Kīlha’s or of
Agra’s (Rāghav mentions both as having a disciple named Khem), clearly depict-
ing him as a rasik bhakta.81 In contrast to the verses on Puraṇ, yoga and asceti-
cism are not mentioned in the chappay on Khem, who is instead praised for
knowing and meditating in his heart on only Sītā and Rām, for holding their
form (rūp) dear to him, and for composing verses in the depths of love (prem).82
From the preceding hagiographical descriptions, it should be plain that
the Rāmānandī community of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century
embraced a wide range of devotional practices and religious lifestyles. In par-
ticular, the early Galta Rāmānandīs brought together aspects of yoga and
asceticism—­i ncluding a number of practices and lifestyle elements that they
 152 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

seem to have shared with the Nāth yogīs—­with an emerging bhakti perspective
that was coming into conflict with elements of the tantric outlook. I will explore
this bhakti-­tantra conflict shortly in the context of the Rāmānandīs’ relation-
ship with the Nāth yogis, but to properly contextualize our discussion, I must
first refresh our understanding of bhakti and the bhakta more generally.

Reimagining the Bhakta

The insights that the preceding hagiographical accounts give us into the early
Rāmānandī bhaktas’ religious lives raise some interesting questions about the
nature of bhakti itself. In particular, the yogic-­a scetic stream of the Galta
community—­which seems to have been its earliest stratum—­challenges preva-
lent understandings of, and common assumptions about, bhakti as a distinct cat-
egory of religiosity. The work I have drawn most heavily on thus far, Nābhādās’s
Bhaktamāl, calls itself a “garland of devotees” and is a work explicitly dedicated
to singing the praises of the great bhaktas; yet, as has been noted, Nābhā describes
many of the members of his own devotional community as practicing a religious
lifestyle that, while including bhakti, clearly seems to center most on asceticism
(tapas) and yoga. If “death-­conquering,” yoga-­mastering, “paragons of renun-
ciation” like Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī, Kīlhadev, and Dvārkādās constitute exemplars
of bhakti, then it would seem that our conception of bhakti needs some serious
revision. If these are bhaktas, what then is bhakti?
Scholarly descriptions of bhakti draw on a vocabulary of devotion that ranges
widely from veneration, worship, and submission to passionate emotion, par-
ticipation, and performance to embodiment, circulation, and memory. Never-
theless, too rarely does the spectrum of this vocabulary include words that
would reveal any yogic, ascetic, or tantric dimensions of bhakti. Generally speak-
ing, scholars of bhakti have not adequately studied its important historical
relationships with yoga, tantra, and asceticism, sometimes fostering an inac-
curate impression of bhakti as a discrete and autonomous genre of religiosity.
As glimpsed in chapter 1, for most of Indian history the practices of bhakti, yoga,
tantra, and asceticism have been tightly intertwined. The Bhagavad Gītā (200
BCE–­200 CE) presents bhakti as a kind of yoga, essentially a fixing of the mind
(citta/man), consciousness (cetas), and intellect (buddhi) on God (Kṛṣṇa), which
ideally requires disciplined meditation (dhyāna) and dispassion (vairāgya).83 Early
medieval traditions of Śiva bhakti, such as that seen in the Skanda Purāṇa, describe
“Śiva’s favorite devotees” not as ideals of passionate emotion or aesthetic
sensibility but as one-­pointed (ekāgramanasaḥ) and self-­controlled (dāntāḥ),
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 153

“skilled in Sāṅkhya and Yoga,” and as worshipping “by means of the six-­limbed
yoga” (ṣaḍaṅgena yogena).84 In the Vaiṣṇava traditions, Gerard Colas has noted
that “Sanskrit literature from around the third century AD attests a tendency
which stresses asceticism and yoga in association with devotion for Nārāyaṇa. . . . ​
The early Pāñcarātra and Vaikhānasa traditions promoted this yogico-­ascetic-­
cum-­devotional tendency.”85 Even the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (BhP), frequently cited by
scholars of Hinduism as the early foundation of the tradition of emotional bhakti,
is far from being as bhakti centric as it is often assumed to be. In that the BhP
seems to have set the stage—­to a greater or lesser extent—­for all the Vaiṣṇava
bhakti traditions that followed, it is a particularly interesting example for illus-
trating the underappreciated fact that, at least up to the sixteenth century (my
period of concern), bhakti, yoga, tantra, and asceticism often went hand in hand.
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa is a Sanskrit text composed probably in the ninth or
tenth century, most likely in the Tamil region of South India,86 that gives a nar-
rative, didactic, and philosophical treatment of the life of the god Kṛṣṇa, plac-
ing bhakti above jñāna and karma (ritual activity) in the path to liberation. In
Thomas Hopkins’s words, it “is generally considered to be the first major sys-
tematic statement of emotional devotionalism.”87 David Haberman states that
the BhP “introduces passionate emotionalism into the world of intellectual Kṛṣṇa
bhakti,” citing Friedelm Hardy’s influential argument88 that it was through the
BhP that “the emotional religion of the southern Ālvārs became united with
northern Vedānta philosophy and spread through the authority of a Sanskrit
purāṇa to influence the developments of emotional Kṛṣṇa bhakti throughout
India.”89 Despite all this talk of emotional devotion, when one actually reads
through the text, particularly when one looks beyond the famous book 10 ded-
icated to the līlās of Kṛṣṇa, one finds that alongside mentions of impassioned
bhakti are reference after reference to practices of yoga, asceticism, renuncia-
tion, and tantric ritual.
To take an example, the yogic practice attributed to Kīlhadev of abandoning
the body at the time of death (by leaving through the brahmarandhra opening at
the top of the skull) is described in book 11, chapter 15, which states, “Having
blocked his rectum with his heel and pushed up the vital air to his heart, chest,
throat, and crown of the head, forcing it upward through the brahmarandra to
Brahma, the sage should shed the body [whenever he likes].”90 book 2, chapter 2,
offers similar instructions, stating that the muni (sage), whenever he desires to
give up his body, should control his breath, restrain his senses, and merge his
Self into the Supreme Spirit.

First of all he should squat [on his seat] pressing the anus with his heels and
then, overcoming languor, should draw the air upward through the six places
 154 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

[where the six mystical circles are located]. The muni should draw the air
located in the circle within the navel upward into the heart, then raising it
along the path of the up breath [udāna], he should take it into the breast, then,
joining [breath] with knowledge, he should bring it slowly to the root of the
palate. Thereafter, having closed the seven passages [i.e., eyes, ears, nostrils,
and mouth], he should bring it to the circle located at the middle of the eye-
brows. Then, remaining [in this state] for twenty-­four minutes, he whose gaze
is sharp, taking the breath up and piercing his cranial vault [mūrdhan], he will
surge upward into the beyond.91

The text then gives an alternative set of instructions for the one who desires to
“acquire the eight siddhis [superpowers]” and “to sport in the company of celes-
tial beings” and “move freely within and outside the three worlds.”92 Subject
matter like this makes it clear the BhP is not simply about bhakti, at least not
bhakti in the way many are prone to conceive it today.
While it is true that bhakti and emotionality receive striking new emphasis
in the BhP, as a whole the text articulates a bhakti that cannot be easily—­if at
all—­separated from practices of renunciation, tantric worship, and yoga. Book
3, chapter 28, for instance, describes the practice of yoga—­citing five of the stan-
dard eight limbs of Pātāñjala yoga—­but frames this yoga as a preparatory prac-
tice for a visualization meditation meant to develop intense devotion to the
Lord. The text states that one should take a seat on the ground, controlling one’s
posture (āsana) and keeping the body erect, practice breath control (prāṇāyāma),
withdrawal of the senses (pratyāhāra), concentration of the mind (dhāraṇā), and
meditation (dhyāna), and that “when the mind is controlled and purified by [this
practice of] yoga,” one should meditate on the form of the Lord (III.28.11–­12).
Then follows a detailed description of how the sage should visualize each min-
ute aspect of the Lord in his heart, a meditation intended to develop his emo-
tion for God, so much so that “his heart melts through bhakti, the hairs on his
body stand erect through excessive joy, and he is constantly bathed in a stream
of tears occasioned by intense love” (III.28.34). Here we have the emotional bhakti
usually associated with the BhP, yet the preparation for and means to that
ecstatic experience of devotion are practices of Pātāñjala yoga and visualiza-
tion techniques of tantric yoga.
These key tantric and yogic dimensions of bhakti in the BhP have not received
the attention they deserve, but I am certainly not the first scholar to note them.
Edwin Bryant, for example, has presented the bhakti of the BhP as “a very spe-
cific type of yoga practice,”93 and Barbara Holdrege has demonstrated how the
text draws heavily on tantric (especially Pāñcarātra) conceptions of mantra and
ritualized practices of tantric yoga centered on visualization meditation and
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 155

mental repetition of the mantra as a sonic form of a deity. As Holdrege shows,

in a section on the legendary bhakta Dhruva, book 4 of the BhP presents an essen-
tially tantric meditative practice “which involves visualization of Bhagavān’s
four-­armed form, mental repetition of his sonic form, and mental offerings to
him enshrined within the heart—­as the pivotal practice of bhakti-­yoga that leads
to liberation (vimukti).”94
In book 11, chapter 14, of the BhP, Kṛṣṇa states that nothing—­not Yoga,
Sāṅkhya, the study of sacred scriptures, asceticism, nor renunciation—­captivates
Him as does intense bhakti, adding that righteousness, truth, mercy, knowledge,
and asceticism cannot purify a mind bereft of bhakti.95 In an oft-­quoted verse, he
says, “A man full of devotion to Me—­who speaks in a voice choked with emotion,
whose heart melts, who weeps incessantly and laughs, who sings unabashedly at
the top of his voice and dances—­purifies the world.”96 Nevertheless, a close read-
ing of the text suggests that the way in which one attains this level of emotional
devotion is through practices of renunciation, contemplation, and yoga, for
immediately following these verses about the nature and importance of bhakti,
Kṛṣṇa says,

The mind of a man dwelling on the objects of sense gets attached to them.
The mind of one contemplating Me gets absorbed in Me alone. Therefore, giv-
ing up the thought of the unreal and worthless objects [of the world] as
things seen in a dream or fancied, concentrate your mind—­purified through
devotion to Me—­on Me alone. Abandoning from a distance the company of
women as well as of men delighting in the company of women, and having
conquered one’s mind, one should sit down in a secure and lonely place and
unweariedly think of Me.97

After thus advocating renunciation and one-­pointed mental concentration,

Kṛṣṇa explains how such “a seeker of liberation [mumukṣu]” should contemplate
Him.98 The text describes posture, methods of breath control, and a detailed
visualization meditation on the form of God within one’s own heart (envisioned
as an upside-­down lotus bud), continuing with a detailed account of the vari-
ous powers (siddhis) attained through yogic concentration (yoga dhāraṇā) on dif-
ferent forms of God.99
While there is no doubt that bhakti is paramount in the BhP, it has not been
stressed enough that in this text, and throughout the entire medieval period,
bhakti is often understood to be closely intertwined with, even inseparable from,
practices of yoga, tapas, renunciation, and tantric visualization. As book 3,
chapter 32, of the BhP tells us, the ultimate spiritual goal is possible only for one
“whose mind has been composed and rid of all attachments through faith
 156 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

[śraddhā], devotion [bhakti], daily practice of yoga [yoga abhyās], and renuncia-
tion [virakti].”100 From the sixth to the thirteenth century, tantric ideology and
ritual were central in South Asian religious life and, in this context, bhakti—­
conceived in a multitude of fashions—­usually appeared as one element, one
dimension, among many in the religious life. There are certain medieval
compositions—­like the Sanskrit BhP and the Tamil poetry of the Āḷvārs and
Nāyanārs—­in which bhakti undoubtedly takes center stage as a mode of expres-
sion (Tamil devotional songs) or as a path of great salvific power (BhP), but even
in such texts, prior to the sixteenth century, we do not typically—­if ever—­see
the bhakta positioned in opposition to the ascetic, tāntrika, or yoga-­practicing
muni. Rather, prior to the early modern period the term bhakta seems to be an
entirely nonexclusive identity that simply marks one as having a participatory
relationship with God, one in which—­especially after the BhP—­the cultivation
and expression of deep emotion, particularly in song,101 were often seen to be
central; however, the form of the bhakta’s “participation” and the means to his
or her emotional experience in no way precluded, and often actually called
for, renunciation, asceticism, yoga, or tantric ritual technique.
For our purposes, the point is that when Nābhādās, circa 1600, praises world-­
renouncing, yoga-­practicing ascetics like Payahārī, Kīlhadev, and Dvārkādās as
exemplary bhaktas, this should not be any cause for cognitive dissonance. There
was nothing whatsoever unusual about the bhakti of these figures. The yogic-­
ascetic stream of the early Rāmānandī community at Galta serves as a reminder
that bhakti must be conceived in a way that allows us to imagine a certain breed
of detached, yoga-­practicing ascetic as just as much a bhakta as the poet-­saint
singing songs to God. Indeed, there is no doubt that in many instances the yoga-­
practicing ascetic and the passionately singing poet-­saint were one and the
same person.102
If, then, on the one hand the early Rāmānandīs at Galta remind us that bhakti
had long been clearly intertwined with asceticism, tantra, and yoga, on the other
hand they also offer valuable insights into how these once rather closely inter-
woven threads of religious practice began to unravel into increasingly distinct
strands of religious identity. As the forthcoming pages show, in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, among many bhakti communities of North India we
see a move away from an inclusivist bhakti closely intertwined with tantric and
yogic practices toward a more circumscribed bhakti that marginalized or directly
opposed elements of tantra, yoga, and ascetic religiosity. It seems that a num-
ber of bhaktas in early modern North India—­the Rāmānandīs among them—­were
beginning to cultivate a new bhakti sensibility and imagine a new bhakti com-
munity positioned against certain core components of tantric, yogic, and
ascetic thought and practice. We can see this trend especially in the rasik bhakta
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 157

stream of the early Rāmānandīs represented by Agradās and Nābhādās, but we

also see aspects of it in the ascetic-­yogic stream of Payahārī and Kīlha, espe-
cially when we contrast them with their superficially similar tantric competi-
tors, the Nāth yogīs.

Rāmānandī Roots

In order to properly understand the Galta Rāmānandīs, and to differentiate

them from the Nāth yogīs, we must first get a better sense of their heritage.
Ascertaining the historical roots of the Rāmānandīs is no easy task, especially
considering that the first real evidence we have of a community tracing itself
to the figure of Rāmānand (and including as his disciples famed yet heterodox
bhakti poet-­saints such as Kabīr and Raidās) does not occur until the end of the
sixteenth century in Rajasthan. Both Nābhādās, in his Bhaktamāl (ca. 1600), and
Anantadās, in his Pīpā-­parcāī (1588), connect themselves to Rāmānand through
Agradās (i.e., Rāmānand → Anantānand → Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī → Agradās).
Nābhādās places Rāmānand in Kāśī (Banaras) and links him somewhat ambig-
uously to the lineage of the great southern Vaiṣṇava ācārya Rāmānuja (eleventh
century) and his Śrī Vaiṣṇava sampradāy.103 Notably, Anantadās never mentions
Rāmānuja or the Śrī sampradāy. Nābhā devotes two stanzas to Rāmānuja, one of
the few times he gives any one person so much attention. He states, “No one is
equal to Rāmānuja” and praises his Śrī sampradāy as “the crown jewel of
sampradāys” and “the canopy of bhakti.”104 Nābhādās certainly had good reasons
for linking his burgeoning community to the prestige of Rāmānuja and the Śrī
Vaiṣṇavas; Nābhā’s community was liberal in its social views and diverse in its
social makeup (including śūdras, untouchables, and women), and as Pinch writes,
he “afforded this ragtag band of bhaktas and sants a modicum of Vaiṣṇava
respectability by endowing them with an unimpeachable sectarian pedigree.”105
Yet beyond Nābhā’s assertion there seems to be no evidence of any formal or
otherwise meaningful affiliation between the Rāmānandīs and the Śrī
Vaiṣṇavas.106 If Rāmānand’s connection with the Śrī sampradāy is doubtful, Rich-
ard Burghart has demonstrated that it is even more unlikely that Rāmānand
actually founded a monastic order of his own.107 Regardless of these uncertain-
ties, what is clear is that Nābhādās wanted to assert that his community, through
Rāmānand, was closely linked with both saguṇ-­f riendly orthodox Vaiṣṇavism
(indeed with its most prestigious ācārya, Rāmānuja) and the popular group of
predominantly low-­caste, nirguṇ-­focused bhakti poet-­saints known as the Sants.
Nābhā did not reconcile the seemingly contradictory strains in his assertion,
 158 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

leaving scholars somewhat puzzled over the Rāmānandī community’s origins

and early identity. Were they an orthodox Vaiṣṇava monastic community seek-
ing to expand its base of support by bringing popular heterodox saints like
Kabīr and Raidās into the fold? Were they a community of socially liberal yoga-­
practicing ascetics and Name-­chanting nirgūṇ bhaktas who sought to acquire
more respectable, orthodox credentials by linking themselves to the Śrī
sampradāy? Were they a schism from the Śrī Vaiṣṇavas, a lineage that split off
because of their unorthodox views on caste (i.e., their practice of initiating the
low caste)?108 It is difficult to answer these questions with any certainty, but in
looking back to the origins of Rām devotion and the Sant tradition we can gain
a much better sense of the identity of the early Rāmānandīs.
The two streams of Rāmānandīs identified earlier may have common roots
in the tradition represented by a text known as the Agastya Saṃhitā (AgSaṃ), a
Sanskrit work composed in Banaras, in Vaiṣṇava brahman circles, in the twelfth
century.109 The AgSaṃ is novel in making Rāma the exclusive object and aim of
worship; he is not just another incarnation of Viṣṇu but is equated with supreme
reality itself. In the content and emphases of its teachings, the AgSaṃ possesses
several intriguing links to the sixteenth-­century Rāmānandī community in
Galta. For one, the AgSaṃ stresses the recitation of the divine Name, which seems
to have been the foundational practice of all the early Galta Rāmānandīs. In
addition, the text advocates two paths of worship that mirror the tendencies of
the two streams of the early Rāmānandīs. It teaches worship of both the nirguṇ
Rām and the saguṇ Rāmcandra, prescribing practices of yoga, meditation, tan-
tric ritual and visualization, and singing the Name. Furthermore, the primary
mantra taught in the AgSaṃ is the six-­syllable ṣaḍakṣara mantra (rāṃ rāmāya
namaḥ), the same mantra used by Rāmānandī ascetics today and one that clearly
differentiates them from the Śrī Vaiṣṇavas, who use the aṣṭākṣara mantra (oṃ
namo nārāyaṇāya).110 Interestingly, Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl follows the AgSaṃ in
reconciling Śaivism and Vaiṣṇavism by presenting Śiva as part of the lineage of
great Rām bhaktas initiated through this Rām (ṣaḍakṣara) mantra.111 In addition
to these links, Agradās, in his Dhyān Mañjarī (discussed in depth in chapter 6),
describes a meditative vision that adopts the very same detailed description of
Rām and Sītā seated on a lotus throne under a tree that the AgSaṃ (33.7–­15) first
articulates in its instructions for the visualization and mental worship of saguṇ
Rām.112
According to the AgSaṃ (20:29), the primary spiritual goal is to realize the
identity of the Self (ātman) with Rām, and this can be done either by yoga and
meditation on the abstract (nirguṇ) Rām, by means of worship (to the saguṇ Rām),
or by both.113 In the Kali Age, the path of kīrtana (devotional singing) and saguṇ
worship (ārādhana) is deemed the easier path. For the AgSaṃ, this worship is
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 159

primarily “a device to convert the supreme abstract principle (which is identi-

cal to the ātman) into a qualified form, that is, to make god visible in one’s own
heart and/or in an idol in order to facilitate the identification of the worship-
per with him.”114 The saguṇ worship of Rām advocated in the text is thoroughly
yogic and tantric—­involving prāṇāyāma (yogic breathing practices) and the ritu-
alized visualization practices of bhūtaśuddhi (destruction and purification of
the mundane body) and nyāsa (divinization of the body)—­a nd does not differ in
principle from the Pāñcarātra tradition and its Śaiva and Śākta counterparts.115
We should not find anything unusual in this; to reiterate an earlier point, bhakti
and tantra were largely integrated throughout the medieval period with wor-
ship and devotion regularly taking place in tantric modes and ritual contexts.
The AgSaṃ places special emphasis on the salvific power of the Name of Rām,
which is conceived as both the phonic equivalent of the supreme, nirguṇ Divine
and as “the key or the medium through which the devotee gains access to god
in a tangible form.”116 As Hans Bakker explains, in the text “singing the praise
of Rāma (kīrtana), remembrance of him (smaraṇa), and listening to the story of
his deeds (śravaṇa) are all more or less concomitant with the practice of utter-
ing his name.”117 The AgSaṃ (25:9–­10) states that the Rām mantra can be used
even without initiation (dīkṣā)118 or tantric divinization of the body (nyāsa), pro-
claiming further that “even sinners who say Rāma, Rāma, Rāma, truly even
them he pulls out of the pool of their millions of sins” (3:25).119
While the Rāmānandī community at Galta did not come into existence until
approximately four hundred years after the composition of the AgSaṃ, the text’s
emphasis on singing and chanting the Name, its worship of nirguṇ Rām and saguṇ
Rāmcandra, its description of yogic practices and visualizations, and its accom-
modation (within an orthodox framework) of men and women of all castes,
including the uninitiated, offer some fascinating parallels with what we know
about the practices and attitudes of the community of Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī,
Kīlhadev, and Agradās. It is uncertain whether these early Rāmānandīs had any
direct historical link to the community that composed the AgSaṃ, but they cer-
tainly seem to have followed that twelfth-­century community in spirit and, in
several ways, in thought and practice as well.
The AgSaṃ is especially noteworthy as an orthodox Vaiṣṇava scripture that
so early and so adamantly advocates the practice of repeating the Name of Rām
as a means to salvation. Vaiṣṇava references to the power of the divine Name
date back at least to the BhP, where the four syllables of the name Nārāyaṇa are
considered to have great salvific potency. However, the practice of chanting the
Name—­and particularly the name of Rām—­is most closely associated with, and
was most extensively adopted by, the nirguṇ Sant tradition of bhaktas like Kabīr,
Raidās, Dādū, and Nānak. Bakker’s work is important in demonstrating an early
 160 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

source and an orthodox Vaiṣṇava framework for this tradition’s most cher-
ished practice. He writes that “the Rāmarakṣāstotra, of which the nucleus
must be old since it is referred to by the Agastyasaṃhitā [12th cent.] declares:
‘The world is protected by the Name of Rāma which is the unique victorious
mantra. Accomplishment in all pursuits is easily attainable for him whose
voice pronounces (It).’ ”120
The practice of reciting the name of Rām seems to have arisen alongside the
cult of the divine Rāmcandra, which, beginning in the twelfth century, became
an increasingly prominent aspect of Hindu political theology. While Rāmāyaṇa
themes are prevalent from an early date, Sheldon Pollock has noted that there
is no evidence of Rām as a deity or focal point of religious practice in South Asia
until the mid-­t welfth century, when we see “a sudden onset of activity of build-
ing temples to Rāma, which intensified over the next two hundred years.”121 As
Bakker similarly remarks, “We should view the evolution of a Ramaite form of
Vishnuism in north India as a new departure occasioned by the specific social
and political conditions of the 11th to 13th centuries.”122
More than in the emergence of Rām as supreme deity and exemplar of Hindu
kingship, here we are interested in the related rise of the so-­called Sant move-
ment of nirguṇ bhaktas. By the early thirteenth century, not long after the com-
position of the AgSaṃ, nearly all of North India, from the Ravi River on the
border of modern-­day Pakistan to Assam in the far northeast, had come under
the military dominion of Persianized Turks.123 With most of North India under
Persianate rule, and with political repression “imped[ing] the construction of
new sanctuaries and durable religious artifacts, such as idols,” in this period
there seems to have been a shift “from temple worship to non-­material modes of
devotion as found in the Sant movement and the cult of the Name.”124 Bakker
points out that “the cult of the name as a separate strand in the religion of
North India coincided roughly with the period of most stringent repression of
temple worship and idolatry.”125 According to R. S. McGregor, the “nonmaterial
praxis” of reciting the divine Name grew up in North India at this time not
only because “the building of temples faced restrictions in many north Indian
areas” but also because the practice was “in keeping with both the meditational
practice of nāth śaivas and the Muslim practice of dhikr.”126 The Sants, then,
emerged and flourished in the altered sociopolitical situation of Sultanate
India, a new environment characterized by the expansive presence of both
Persianate politico-­military power and Sufi religious activity.
The “Sant movement” is a scholarly designation for a group of like-­minded
bhaktas of fifteenth-­to-­seventeenth-­century North India; however, the Sants
did not actually make up an organized, coherent community with a clear
self-­identity.127 The word sant does not mean “saint” but is from the Sanskrit sat
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 161

(truth, being) and refers to “one who knows the truth” or “one who has experi-
enced ultimate reality.”128 In general, the Sants are united by their low social
class; their heterodox nonsectarian perspective; their orientation toward a
formless, nirguṇ (qualityless) Divine; their focus on unmediated inner spiritu-
ality; their simple puritan lifestyle; their vernacular compositions of devotional
song and poetry; the importance they gave to satsaṅg (the company of the sants)
and the divine Guru (satguru); and, perhaps most of all, their devotion to the
Name.129
The Sant tradition is typically considered to be a synthesis of three different
movements in late medieval and early modern North India: Sufism, Vaiṣṇava
bhakti, and the tantric asceticism of the Nāth yogīs.130 With the establish-
ment of the Delhi Sultanate at the beginning of the thirteenth century, Sufi
orders began to expand, in the process encouraging and promoting certain
shared beliefs and practices among the Indian populace.131 The Sants were clearly
influenced by Sufi ideas, practices, and attitudes. In keeping with the Sufis, they
rejected ritualism, idol worship, and caste distinctions and devoted themselves
to a Divine without qualities (nirguṇ). The Sants advocated ideas and practices
shared by Sufis and Hindus alike, such as worship through communal singing
(samā‘/kīrtan), remembrance and recitation of the name of God (dhikr/nāma-­japa),
and the concept of divine love (often conceived of in terms of separation).132 In
many ways, the Sufi-­Sant relationship was not so much one of influence as one
of “elective affinity.” A number of these ideas and practices had already been
articulated in the orthodox Vaiṣṇavism and Rām devotion of the AgSaṃ, and,
in the changed social, political, and religious environment of late Sultanate
India, they found themselves particularly well suited for emphasis, adoption,
and adaptation.
I have stressed that the practice of the Name was fundamental for the
Sants, but it is crucial to note that the Name they invoked was almost exclu-
sively Vaiṣṇava—­most often it was Rām, but frequently also Hari, Govind, and
Mādhav. While the Sants interacted with and (in certain ways) resembled Sufis,
they maintained a loosely Vaiṣṇava identity that kept them distinct from, and
in competition with, Sufi Islam. However loose, nonsectarian, and “vulgate”
their Vaiṣṇavism actually was, a number of the most famous Sants—­K abīr,
Raidās, Pīpā, Dhanā, and Sen—­a re typically remembered as Rāmānandīs; that
is, as members of an orthodox Vaiṣṇava sampradāy.133 Nābhādās claimed these
figures as disciples of none other than the founder of the community, Rāmānand,
who likely was a leading Sant himself.
As Purushottam Agrawal has demonstrated, the image we have from San-
skrit sources of Rāmānand as an orthodox ācārya is a recently constructed
and spurious one.134 Agrawal argues persuasively that the Rāmānand of Hindi
 162 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

vernacular sources—­our earliest sources on Rāmānand—­was a historical per-

sonage who lived in fifteenth-­century North India and was a significant figure
in the Sant tradition, as seen in Vaiṣṇava hagiographies and the poetic compo-
sitions attributed to him in the Ādi Granth and the Sarvāṅgīs of Rajjab and
Gopāldās.135 These poems of the “Hindi Rāmānand” emphasize chanting the
name of Rām, renunciation and the illusory nature of worldly pleasures, and
turning inward to attain a state of sahaj or śūnya (concepts with clear links to
the Nāths), thus offering an ascetic, nirguṇ vision that closely parallels that of
Kabīr.136
Both the poetry and disciples attributed to Rāmānand place him, and the
Galta community that traced itself back to him, squarely within the tradition of
the Sants.137 Certainly, what we know about Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī and his successor,
Kīlhadev, indicates that they, too, followed the Sants in thought, practice, and
social attitudes. If, then, we can safely say that the Rāmānandī community at
Galta had deep roots in the Sant tradition, we must remember that this Sant tra-
dition—­in addition to its Sufi and Vaiṣṇava connections—­also had links with the
Nāth yogīs.
In scholarship on bhakti, the link between the Nāths and the Sants (some-
times called nirguṇīs), most especially Kabīr, has become something of a trope.
Pitambar Datta Barthwal, in an essay published in 1931 and titled “Hindī kavitā
meṃ yog-­pravāh” (The yoga stream of Hindi poetry), first “drew scholarly atten-
tion not only to the general significance of the Nath compositions in the devel-
opment of Hindi literature, but more importantly to the powerful connection
between Naths and the Nirgunis.”138 He elaborated this argument in his semi-
nal work, The Nirguna School of Hindi Poetry (1936), declaring that the nirguṇ bhak-
tas “are deeply indebted to the Nath Pantha.”139 Western-­language scholarship
on the Sants (nirguṇ bhaktas) has followed in Barthwal’s footsteps. As Karine
Schomer explains, “The general scholarly consensus is that the Sants represent
a synthesis of Vaishnava bhakti and elements from the tradition of the Naths.”140
Charlotte Vaudeville similarly states, “The Sant sadhana or the Sant ideal of
sanctity . . . ​may be viewed as a subtle blending of the two main traditions of
Hindu mysticism, apparently antagonistic to each other: Vaishnava bhakti and
an esoteric Tantric tradition, whose most popular representatives are Gora-
khnath and the Nath Yogis.”141 Long before these modern scholars, we have evi-
dence that Mughals in the seventeenth century also understood the Sants and
the Nāth yogīs (as well as the Sufis) to be closely linked, if nevertheless separate.
In a fascinating Mughal miniature painting commissioned around 1650, the
Sant bhaktas Kabīr, Raidās, Pīpā, and Sen are depicted sitting in a row with—­
but separate and across from—­Gorakhnāth, the reputed founder of the Nāth yogī
order, and his guru, Matsyendranāth, at a gathering of Sufis at a major Sufi
shrine (figure 4.2).142 Furthermore, the poetry of Kabīr and Raidās makes it clear
 Figure 4.2 Mughal miniature of Sufi celebration (with bhaktas and yogīs),
commissioned circa 1650 (probably by Dāra Shikoh), at the shrine of the
Sufi saint Mu‘īn al-­Dīn Chishtī in Ajmer (Rajasthan). Top, Sufis standing and
observing; middle, Sufis performing dhikr, chanting names of God to accompaniment
of music and dance; bottom, seated bhakti saints and Nath yogīs; left to right:
Raidās, Pīpā, Nāmdev, Sena, Kamal (Kabīr’s son), an Aughar, Kabīr /
Matsyendranāth, Gorakhnāth, Jadrup, Bābalāl Dās Vairāgī, unidentified.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
 164 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

that, whatever differences these devotee poets had with the Nāth yogīs, they
rubbed elbows enough with them to be quite intimate with their yogic practices
and ideas.
From all this, it becomes clear that the Rāmānandīs, with their Sant roots,
had a rather complex relationship with the Nāth yogīs, one in need of further
analysis and interpretation. The early Rāmānandī community at Galta combined
dimensions of yoga and asceticism—­i ncluding certain practices and lifeways
shared with the Nāth yogīs—­w ith a new bhakti sensibility that was increas-
ingly at odds with key aspects of tantric religiosity. Determining what these
Rāmānandī bhaktas had in common with the Nāths and, even more importantly,
what distinguished the two is the subject of the next chapter. Before proceed-
ing to that, I conclude this chapter with a brief but crucial look at the monkey
god Hanumān, a metonymic figure who can help us understand the nature of
the Galta Rāmānandīs’ religiosity and the way in which they sought to embrace
a multiplicity of (sometimes contrasting) religious modalities in a changing
sociopolitical landscape.

The Role of Hanumān

I opened this chapter by taking note of the Bhairava shrine along the path lead-
ing into Galta, an intriguing presence at a Vaiṣṇava stronghold, and even more
so in that this ordinarily fierce, tantric form of Śiva is, at this tiny shrine, wor-
shipped with tulsi leaves as the peaceful, vegetarian devotee-­protector of the
monkey god Hanumān. Having examined the Galta Rāmānandīs and their her-
itage, we can now see why this aniconic stone image is a rather fitting intro-
duction to the Rāmānandī community of Galta, reflecting its nirguṇ, ascetic,
yogic, and even (to a lesser extent) tantric roots. The “Vaiṣṇavization” of this
Bhairava image at Galta speaks to the Rāmānandīs’ bridging of the tantric,
ascetic realm of śakti and the vulgate Vaiṣṇava devotional realm of bhakti, a
mediation symbolized especially in the very figure this Bhairava is said to wor-
ship and protect, Hanumān.
Hanumān is renowned as a paragon of both bhakti and śakti. In his relation-
ship to Rām and Sīta he is the model bhakta, the supreme ideal of dedicated ser-
vice and selfless devotion, but he is also the god of yogīs and fighting sādhus, a
great ascetic with extraordinary powers (siddhis) who is often considered the
avatār (or the son) of Śiva.143 It is no wonder then that the oldest shrines at the
Rāmānandī community of Galta—­the community Payahārī founded and where
Kīlhadev and Agradās resided—­are dedicated to Hanumān.144 It is clear that this
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 165

community had risen to prominence by the late sixteenth century, for we have
a record of a grant given to the Galta Rāmānandīs by Akbar (r. 1556–­1605).145 Tra-
dition has it that Kīlhadev built Galta’s first temple and made it a Hanumān
shrine, and it may have been Mughal patronage that allowed him to finance this
project. Installed in the temple, and in Galta’s other early Hanumān shrine
(known as Interior Hanumān-­jī), which was also likely built during Kīlha’s ten-
ure as abbot, is the peculiar feature of the perpetual fire (akhaṇḍajyotiḥ), which
“is characteristic of both Bhairava and Hanumān worship.”146
Why would the Rāmānandī community at Galta have chosen to dedicate the
very first temple they constructed to Hanumān? It would seem that Hanumān’s
two sides, his ability to bridge the realms of śakti and bhakti, tantric asceticism
and devotional Vaiṣṇavism, made him the perfect mediating figure for the
Rāmānandī community and its diversity of practitioners. As Monika Horstmann
writes, “His impressive presence in Galta integrates the various religious strands
and propensities within the early monastic constituency.”147 If śakti and bhakti
“allude to dual aspects of Hanuman’s personality,” then, as Philip Lutgendorf
notes, “among Ramanandis, the two aspects seem to have corresponded to the
main subdivisions of the order, into tyāgīs or wandering ‘renouncers,’ who prac-
ticed strenuous yogic disciplines, and Rasiks (‘savorers’ of the sweetness of
devotion), who resided in temple-­monasteries and practiced visualization based
on selected Ramayana episodes.”148 Indeed, for tyāgīs, Hanumān is an immortal
yogī, master of tapas, and avatār of Śiva, while for rasik devotees, “Hanumān is
understood to be one of the ‘eternal attendants’ (parikara or parṣad) of the Lord
and his Shakti. He appears (depending on the sub-­sect into which one is initi-
ated) either as a stalwart guardian of the eastern gate . . . ​or (in his ‘secret’ iden-
tity) as Charushila, one of the eight intimate female friends of Sita.”149
In light of the fact that Galta’s earliest shrines are dedicated to Hanumān, it
is interesting to note that one of the six Hindi poems attributed to Rāmānand
is a pad praising Hanumān. Scholars have tended to discount this poem because it
is saguṇ in orientation (all the other poems attributed to him being decidedly
nirguṇ) and is found in neither the Sikh Ādi Granth nor the Dādū-panthī Sarvāṅgīs.
While it is entirely possible that this poem is of dubious provenance, this should
not be so readily assumed. First, that this poem is not in Sikh or Dādū-panthī
collections makes perfect sense, for while the Rāmānandī community included
bhaktas of both nirguṇ and saguṇ persuasions, the Sikhs and Dādū-panthīs were
rather strictly nirguṇ and would not have adopted a poem about Hanumān. More
importantly, considering the early Galta community’s apparent preference for
Hanumān (as suggested by the two early Hanumān shrines there), it would only
make sense if their founder was, like many of them, something of a nirguṇ, ascetic
Sant as well as a Hanumān devotee. The two were hardly mutually exclusive, as
 166 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

some scholars have mistakenly presumed. Rāmcandra Śukla, among others,

used the aforementioned Hanumān poem to imagine the existence of two
Rāmānands, since, in his eyes, the Vaiṣṇava bhakta who authored the Hanumān
pad could not possibly have composed the other poems rejecting idol worship
and celebrating the nirguṇ worldview.150 Here again we have an example of a
modern conceptualization of bhakti, replete with an overdrawn nirguṇ-­saguṇ dis-
tinction, being projected back onto the past with problematic results. Poten-
tially adding to the evidence that Hanumān played a key role in the early
Rāmānandī community, R. S. McGregor notes that two early seventeenth-­
century Brajbhasha adaptations of the Sanskrit drama the Hanumān-­nāṭaka (a
version of the Rām story centered on the deeds of Hanumān) indicate a sepa-
rate Hanumān-­focused strand of early Rāmānandī literature.151
Hanumān first comes into his own as an independent god in the tenth to four-
teenth centuries (his rise roughly paralleling that of Rām), when freestanding
Hanumān images emerge in northern and central India; however, “the real icon-
ographic boom” does not begin until around the fifteenth century.152 Thus, it was
especially beginning in the early modern period that, among both bhaktas and
tāntrikas, Hanumān’s importance began to increase, the surge in his icono-
graphic presence coinciding with the beginning of the North Indian bhakti
movement. It may be that Hanumān’s rise in popularity occurred at this partic-
ular time because, in the context of expanding Vaiṣṇava devotionalism, he was
able to serve as such an effective mediating figure, appealing to a wide spectrum
of types of practitioners and religious approaches. As bhakti communities and
devotional perspectives spread across North India, for many, especially those
with historical links to tantric or ascetic-­yogic traditions, Hanumān could
act as an ideal focal point, an accessible deity who “combined self-­a ssertive
shakti and success with self-­sacrificing bhakti and subordination.”153
This certainly seems to have been the case for the Rāmānandīs of Galta. Much
like Hanumān, the early Rāmānandī community embodied “two contrasting
(though not necessarily opposing) religious orientations.”154 The concluding
lines of the description of Dvārkādās in Rāghavdās’s Bhaktamāl seem to allude
to the Rāmānandī reconciling of the tantric yogic and the devotional, of śakti
and bhakti. In the original Rajasthani, the verse reads gur kīlh karaṇ prasād taiṃ,
bhakti sakti bhram kauṃ gilyau, which I translated earlier as “With the blessing
of Guru Kīlha’s compassion, he [Dvārkādās] swallowed [gilyau] the confusion
[bhram] regarding bhakti and śakti.” How should we interpret this line? Note-
worthy is the clear implication that in the religious world of the time there
existed some contention regarding the proper relationship between bhakti and
śakti. But what exactly was this “confusion”? And who was confused? Regard-
less of the correct interpretation of the verse, it is clear that the Rāmānandī
 Between Bhakti and Śakti = 167

community did seek, like Hanumān (and perhaps through him), to reconcile the
two modes of practice I have been discussing.
The figure of Hanumān would have been able to unite the two different
streams of Rāmānandī bhakti practitioners, absorbing whatever differences they
may have had into a common focal point whose symbolic resonances could meet
all their diverse needs at one and the same time. Much like Hanumān himself,
these Rāmānandīs maintained an emphasis on yogic calm, ascetic austerity, and
tantric power while also engaging an emotionality, regard for dignity and self-­
limitation (maryādā), and self-­effacing, humble devotion that were distinctly
bhakti qualities. Whatever similarities these Rāmānandīs may have had with the
Nāths, their veneration of Hanumān and their idealization of his deep emotional
attachment and humble, self-­effacing love and service to Rām and Sītā clearly
distinguished them from those tantric yogīs. Indeed, while the Nāth yogīs regu-
larly worship Hanumān today, there does not seem to be any historical evidence
for the monkey god’s presence in the religious life of the Nāths prior to the eigh-
teenth century.155
Lutgendorf has suggested that Hanumān’s dual (śakti and bhakti) aspects actu-
ally constitute “a shorthand for two of the principal currents in Hindu reli-
gious history, and their confluence creates a paradoxical yet highly desirable
ego-­ideal: that of being powerful, autonomous, and self-­realized, and yet simul-
taneously of having an ‘open heart’ and ready access to deep feeling, especially
self-­giving love.”156 In a number of ways, it seems that this ideal was exactly what
many of Galta’s early Rāmānandīs strived to attain in their religious lives. Nev-
ertheless, in early modern North India, the tides of history were clearly mov-
ing in the direction of the bhakti side of this dialectic. Thus, even as the
Rāmānandīs (in their yogic-­ascetic dimension) resembled and were in dialogue
with the Nāth yogīs, it was their fundamental differences that increasingly were
coming to the fore. In the next chapter, I analyze these key distinctions and
thereby attempt to give insight into the emergence of a new early modern bhakti
sensibility formed, in large part, in opposition to a caricatured tantric “other.”
Reading the past with our modern categories, we have often tended to see
Bhakti, Tantra, and Yoga as distinct entities, often conceiving the bhakta in stark
contrast to the tāntrika and the yogī. In this chapter I have shown that, histori-
cally speaking, bhakti religiosity often had more elements of asceticism, tantra,
and yoga than we would ordinarily suppose. That is not to say, however, that
there were not real differences between these areas, differences that were
becoming more and more conspicuous in the socioreligious context of early
modern North India. The early Rāmānandīs of Galta, particularly when com-
pared with the Nāth yogīs, illustrate both these points quite well. Understand-
ing yoga-­practicing ascetics like Payahārī and Kīlhadev as Nābhādās did—­that
 168 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

is, first and foremost as bhaktas—­forces us to expand our conception of bhakti

and the bhakta. At the same time, comparing these ascetic Rāmānandīs with the
Nāth yogīs allows us to see that there were important differences between these
two communities, differences we might understand as initial fissures in an
increasing divide between the realms of bhakti and tantra. It is to these differ-
ences that I now turn.
 5
Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas

Styles of Yoga and Asceticism in North India

E
arly modern North India saw the expansive growth of a new and dis-
tinctive bhakti sensibility that was in tension with key aspects of the tan-
tric tradition. To offer insights into the nature of this tension, in this
chapter I explore the specific ways in which the Rāmānandī bhaktas differed
from the Nāth yogīs. Comparing the Nāths and the Rāmānandīs not only pro-
vides a better understanding of each group but also sheds light on the manner
in which a new early modern bhakti sensibility was formed, in large part
with a caricatured tantric “other” as its necessary foil. While the perspective of
Agradās, Nābhādās, and rasik devotees like them makes a more obvious contrast
with the Nāth yogīs, the difference between the more ascetic-­yogic Rāmānandīs
(like Payahārī and Kīlhadev) and the Nāths is more subtle and difficult to deter-
mine. As Pinuccia Caracchi has claimed, the tapasvī śākhā, the ascetic-­yogic
lineage of Kīlhadev, is “a Rāmānandī branch that was deeply influenced by
the doctrine of Gorakhnāth.”1 How, then, did this tapasvī lineage of Rāmānandīs
differ from the Nāth yogīs? As I show in this chapter, the answer lies partly in the
origins, techniques, and goals of their yogic practice and, perhaps even more so,
in a growing distinction in perspective, a fundamental contrast between the
devotional approach to God and the tantric quest for occult power.

Who Are the Nāth Yogīs?

I have made frequent reference to the Nāth yogīs, but they have not yet received
a proper introduction. It was in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries that
 170 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

the Nāth yogīs seem to have come to prominence in India’s religious landscape,
yet they had roots in the far older traditions of siddhas, Vajrayāna Buddhists,
and Kaula Śaivas. The medieval siddhas were a diverse group of practitioners who
sought—­by various tantric, ascetic, and alchemical means—­to acquire the pow-
ers and accede to the station of various immortal demigods (also known as
Siddhas) and magicians (vidyādharas) residing in heaven. The tradition of these
siddhas, famous for their magical powers and antinomian behavior, transcended
sectarian boundaries and was popular among Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains.
Early (thirteenth-­to-­fifteenth-­century) lists of the great Siddhas include
Ādinātha (Śiva), Matsyendra, Gorakṣa (Gorakh), and Jālandhara, who each
appear in later lists of “the nine Nāths” to which the present-­day Nāth order
traces its origins.2
Gorakhnāth (Gorakṣa) is considered the historical founder of the Nāth yogīs
and is almost always remembered as the disciple of Matsyendranāth; however,
these two figures seem to have lived at least three centuries apart. Matsyendra
(Mīna, Macchinda) probably lived in the ninth century, and tradition holds that
he was the founder of the Kaula Śaiva tantric movement. Gorakhnāth likely lived
in the twelfth century and is said to have come from this Kaula tradition but to
have reformed it, purging it of sexual practices and establishing a Nāth lineage
of celibate yogīs. The earliest references to Gorakh are in two texts from oppo-
site ends of the subcontinent (Karnataka and northern Bengal). Both are dated
to the early thirteenth century and both “refer to him as a master of yoga, sug-
gesting that his reputation was well-­established” throughout much of India by
that point.3 The late medieval yogī lineages of the Gangetic Plain and northwest-
ern India appear to have initially linked themselves not to Gorakhnāth but to
other Siddhas, especially Jālandharnāth.4 These Nāth yogīs were not a homoge-
neous group with any single, clear ideology or shared system of practice; yet
we can understand them as a coherent community, a loose-­k nit, heterogeneous
confederation of yogīs with a clear corporate identity based on their allegiance
to renowned Nāth Siddhas and their distinctive insignia—­particularly, the wear-
ing of large hooped earrings (mudrā) and a horn (siṅgī) around the neck.5 We
know (from Dā’ūd’s Candāyan) that by the late fourteenth century some of these
yogī lineages had come to adopt Gorakhnāth as their founder and tutelary deity,
and over the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the vast majority
of Nāth yogīs in northern and northwestern India would follow suit.6
The social, political, and cultural conditions of thirteenth-­to-­fifteenth-­
century North India generated a religious environment characterized in part
by a shared grammar of asceticism that often superseded sectarian reli-
gious boundaries. In this context, Sufis, tāntrikas, and yoga practitioners of
all stripes interacted with and borrowed from each other. Intermingling
 Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas = 171

their soteriological techniques and ascetic lifestyles, they “produced a North

Indian ascetic archetype that survives to this day, with the result that mem-
bers of the main North Indian ascetic orders, including the Nāths, are almost
identical in lifestyle and appearance.”7 In the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies, sectarian identities began to crystallize among both ascetic and devo-
tional communities. By the mid-­sixteenth century, the various loosely related
Nāth yogī lineages had become organized into twelve panths and were clearly
contrasted with other organized ascetic orders, especially the (Daśanāmī)
saṃnyāsīs.8 The different lineages of tantric ascetics that eventually came to
be formally organized within a Nāth sampradāy and that I have referred to as
Nāths or Nāth yogīs were for centuries popularly known simply as yogīs. Con-
fusing the historical picture, however, is the fact that other yoga-­practicing
ascetics were also sometimes called yogīs.
There is much that separated the Nāth yogīs and the early yoga-­practicing
ascetic Rāmānandīs of Mughal India, but let us first briefly highlight their sim-
ilarities. Both communities tended to conceive of a single, formless Divine with-
out qualities (nirguṇ) and both held liberal social attitudes, accepting members
from every caste. Furthermore, both placed great value on asceticism, renun-
ciation, and inner spirituality. Nāths and ascetic Rāmānandīs both praised the
divine Guru, shunned worldly attachments, and stressed the need to turn inward
to find ultimate Truth. In addition to these shared perspectives, scholars
have often asserted that yoga-­practicing Rāmānandī bhaktas such as Payahārī,
Kīlhadev, and Dvārkādās also closely resembled the Nāth yogīs in their yogic prac-
tice. Peter van der Veer, in his historical and ethnographic study of the Rāmānandī
sampradāy, contrasts their rasik-­devotee branch with that of the tyāgīs, the branch
of itinerant ascetics, and states that it is the tyāgīs who “have remained most
faithful to the original identity of the Ramanandi order.”9 Following Charlotte
Vaudeville, he argues that the early Rāmānandīs were the inheritors of a Śaiva
yogic tradition, were “deeply influenced by the Tantric community of the Nath
yogis,”10 and “could hardly be distinguished from the Nath yogis in appearance
and practice.”11 Monika Horstmann echoes this view, claiming that Kṛṣṇadās
Payahārī “was a yogi whose yogic practice need not be imagined to have been
totally different from that of the Nāths.”12
What, then, separated these two early modern religious communities? The
Rāmānandīs differed from the Nāths in two major ways. First, despite scholarly
claims to the contrary, they generally practiced quite different forms of yoga.
Second, the Rāmānandīs’ religious sensibility was shaped by a bhakti attitude
and approach to the Divine that was in marked contrast to the Nāth yogīs’ tan-
tric perspective. I explore both these differences in the following, beginning
with the key distinctions in these two communities’ yogic backgrounds and
 172 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

orientations. In short, when it came to yoga, the Nāths were usually doing some-
thing considerably more tantric and siddhi oriented than the Rāmānandīs and
other ascetic lineages (like the Daśanāmīs), whose yogic practice fell more
squarely within the liberation-­oriented orthodox yoga tradition. In order to
untangle the threads of the complex relationship between the Nāths and
Rāmānandīs of sixteenth-­century North India, and to trace their different yogic
roots, we must first make a brief foray into the history of yoga.

Modes of Yoga in Indian History

The Sanskrit word yoga derives from the root yuj, meaning “to harness or con-
trol,” “to yoke,” or “join,” and a key thread running throughout the history of
yoga—­in all its great diversity of forms—­is the “harnessing” (taming, control-
ling, and directing) of a lower-­order being, entity, or aspect of consciousness
by a higher-­order being (level of consciousness, etc.) for some purpose.13 The first
systematic account of yoga seems to occur in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad (ca. third cen-
tury BCE), where it is linked to the reining in of the senses and the stilling of
the mind to reach the highest spiritual state.14 Our next major source of infor-
mation on yoga is the Mahābhārata, in which the terms yoga and yogin occur
nearly nine hundred times “and do so in contexts which often suggest a broader
and rather different understanding of the terms from that found in classical
yoga.”15 In the Mahābhārata, yoga is a loose set of practices often closely linked
to tapas (ascetic practice or “heat” that purifies the body and generates powers
and boons) and typically involving withdrawal from the everyday world, moral
conduct, control of the body (diet, posture) and the breath, withdrawal of the
senses, concentration, and meditation.16 Overall in the Mahābhārata, we see the
development of two distinctive yogic tendencies: on the one hand, a tradition
of yoga practice aimed at acquiring power (bala, vibhūti), mastery, and lordship
(aiśvarya)—­a tradition associated with the developing Yoga school of philosophy—­
and, on the other hand, a tradition of yoga practice aimed at achieving gnosis
(i.e., salvific knowledge) or liberation through meditative insight—­a tradition
drawing heavily on Buddhist thought and associated with the developing
Sāṃkhya school of philosophy. If some practitioners of yoga and asceticism
tended to seek nondual consciousness (samādhi) or knowledge/experience of the
Divine through utter detachment (vairāgya) from sense objects and desires, oth-
ers tended instead to utilize their senses in order to gain control over them and
their objects, seeking to become “as powerful as a God”—­i.e., to master and use
“entities in the world by exercising acquired yogic power in the fashion of a God,
 Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas = 173

a Lord, an īśvara.”17 This sort of distinction in yogic practice, present already

in the Mahābhārata, would prove meaningful well into the early modern period.
Regardless of their approach, for all these yogic practitioners of ancient India,
successful yoga practice was assumed to result naturally and inevitably in the
possession of extraordinary “godlike” powers (siddhis, vibhūtis, balas), although
the attitude taken toward these yogic powers differed considerably.
The term yoga came to possess a complex set of varying meanings in Indian
history.18 In this book, following arguably its most common and consistent usage,
I conceive yoga as an assortment of methods of meditation and mind-­body
asceticism—­technologies for “harnessing” oneself—­i ntended to bring about
spiritual realization (liberation) or extraordinary power. In understanding yoga
in this way—­as psychosomatic disciplines designed to transform consciousness
and realize the full potentials inherent in the human mind and body—­we see
that, historically, yoga has been a diffuse set of different techniques, not con-
fined to any particular sectarian affiliation or social form, that could be appro-
priated and practiced independently of any ideological allegiances. Therefore,
it should be no surprise that both Nāths and Rāmānandīs practiced some form
of yoga. The question is how their approaches to yoga, and their specific yogic
practices, were similar and different.
In attempting to make sense of the vast yoga tradition, I identify three major
streams of distinctive yogic practice: (1) ascetic (tapasvī) yoga, (2) meditational
yoga, and (3) tantric yoga. This division of yoga has heuristic value, but it is an
artificial one, a drastic oversimplification of a very complex and foggy histori-
cal reality. These three streams might be considered genres of yogic practice
with particular emphases (in practice and thought) and characteristic meth-
ods; however, they were never entirely separate from each other, often commin-
gling their respective techniques.
The specific psychosomatic techniques and disciplines of yoga emerged from a
larger body of ancient Indian ascetic practice. In Vedic sacrificial religion, prior
to performing the ritual the sacrificer was required to engage in asceticism, or
tapas, in order to purify his sinful human condition and attain a purified, divine
condition.19 The term tapas generally refers to the transformative power of heat—­
whether in fire, the sun, or the human body—­but can be more specifically defined
as both the “heated effort” of asceticism and the “heated potency” produced by
that ascetic effort.20 Practices of tapas developed in both Vedic (brahmanical) and
non-­Vedic (śramaṇa) contexts and involved especially the regulation and reten-
tion of the breath (prāṇāyāma, often understood as the highest form of tapas),
recitation of mantras (japa, svādhyāya), meditation, fasting, sexual abstinence,
and a variety of other physical austerities and bodily mortifications such as
prolonged silence, isolation, begging for food, not sleeping, and performance of
 174 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

arduous physical postures.21 In the Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa, and the Purāṇas,

yoga and tapas often go hand in hand, with many yoga-­practicing ascetics also
described as cultivating tapas through celibacy, holding difficult postures for
long periods, and practicing extended breath retention in order to still the
mind completely and to develop a store of potent energy within the body that
could be used to give blessings and curses or to win boons such as supernormal
(“magical”) abilities. The extraordinary power generated by tapas was neces-
sarily based on the ascetic’s celibacy (the retention of his life essence, or
semen), renunciation, and mastery of his vital breath and physical body.22 While
physical austerities and the regulation of respiration were components of many
(but not all) forms of yoga in South Asia, in what I am calling the ascetic (tapasvī)
stream of the yoga tradition these made up the primary emphasis. At the core
of this historical genre of yoga is the discipline of the body and the manipula-
tion and preservation of key energies within it, especially through breath-­
control practices (prāṇāyāma). While the physical (bodily) focus of tapasvī yoga
is one of its more distinctive elements, I do not mean to imply that there was no
mental or meditational component.23 Indeed, to control one’s breath (directing
the movement of the life force of prāṇa within the body), to preserve one’s vital
essence (retas/semen), and to make the mind motionless required intense men-
tal (meditational) concentration. A fundamental principle undergirding such
yogic practice came to be that mind, breath, and life essence (semen) are all
closely interrelated, thus the discipline and manipulation of one is closely linked
to the control of the others. It is especially in this tapasvī stream that the
Rāmānandī practitioners of yoga find their historical roots.
While a diverse array of yoga practices had existed for centuries prior, it was
the Pātañjala Yogaśāstra (325–­425 CE) that seems to have first codified them into
the classical yoga system of eight limbs—­i.e., aṣṭāṅga yoga.24 Developed from ear-
lier Upanishadic models and drawing upon Buddhist and Jain traditions (e.g.,
the Buddhist eightfold path, the ten bodhisattva bhūmis of Mahāyāna Buddhism,
the fivefold ethical code of Jainism), Patañjali’s system of yoga came to serve as
a transsectarian template—­“in a sense, the gold standard”—­for later systems
of yoga.25 For more than a century, the standard scholarly claim has been that
Patañjali was the author of the Yoga Sūtra and that, not long after its composi-
tion, his work was glossed by an author named Vyāsa (or Vedavyāsa) in a
commentary called the Yoga Bhāṣya, which nearly always appears along with
manuscripts of the Yoga Sūtra. In fact, as Philipp Maas has persuasively
argued, the Yoga Sūtra and Yoga Bhāṣya very probably have one, common
author named Patañjali and constitute a unified whole, a single work called
the Pātañjala Yogaśāstra.26 Most likely composed between 325 and 425 CE,
 Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas = 175

Patañjali’s work had, by the early seventh century, become widely accepted as
the authoritative exposition of yoga.27
Though fundamentally informed by Sāṃkhya metaphysics and Buddhist
(especially Yogācāra) traditions of philosophy and meditation, the Pātañjala
Yogaśāstra offered a nonsectarian, brahmanical Hindu vision of yoga that would
be drawn upon by nearly all schools of yoga.28 Even so, Pātañjala yoga is a clear
representative of meditational (gnosis-­centered) yoga, a stream of yogic tradi-
tion whose content and emphases remained distinct in key ways from ascetic
and later tantric modes of yoga. While tapas, recitation of scripture, and breath
control are discussed as preparatory practices, the focus of the Pātañjala
Yogaśāstra is on the cultivation of mental concentration and contemplation to
achieve increasingly deeper levels of samādhi and to attain “truth-­bearing
insight” into the ultimate nature of reality and the Self.29 The meditational
stream of yoga expressed in the Pātañjala Yogaśāstra (and in early Buddhist texts
on yoga and meditation) focused above all on contemplation and the discipline
of the mind in order to achieve nondual consciousness or salvific knowledge of
the Self/Divine.
In the tantric traditions that emerged in India in the fifth and sixth centu-
ries, we see a rather different stream of yoga practice. Indeed, Patañjali does
not mention what is most central to the practice of tantric yoga: in order to be
liberated, one must first become divine.30 In contrast to both meditational and
ascetic yoga, tantric yoga is particularly concerned with visualization exer-
cises designed to facilitate contact or union with God, by virtue of which the
practitioner can partake of God’s divine power(s).31 The visualization-­based
meditations of tantric yoga involved detailed conceptions of the human “sub-
tle body”—­u nderstood as a microcosm of the universe—­combined with the
practice of mantra-­japa (recitation of mantras). Tantric scriptures posited dif-
ferent types of prāṇa (vital energy, breath) flowing through a network of chan-
nels (nāḍīs)—­said to number seventy-­t wo thousand—­in the yogic body and
concentrated in different knots (granthis) or circles (cakras) vertically aligned
along the central channel, or suṣumna nāḍī, running up the spine. These
granthis or cakras (sometimes also called padma, or “lotuses”) corresponded to
primary elements and sounds in the cosmos, were considered the dwelling
places (sthāna) of particular deities, and often served as points or foundations
(ādhāras) on which to fix the mind during yogic meditation. Tantric concep-
tions of the yogic body and techniques for raising the life breath (prāṇa) or pri-
mal energy (kuṇḍalinī) along the suṣumnā drew on and expanded existing ideas
about the body from medical traditions and the ancient stream of tapasvī yoga.
In turn, these tantric innovations in theorizing the subtle body—­especially
 176 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

Kaula ideas about the inner ascent of the serpent goddess kuṇḍalinī32—­were
then drawn upon by yoga practitioners of all stripes.
In contrast to ascetic yoga, which was informed especially by the (somewhat
misogynistic) logic of seminal retention, tantric yoga was often based upon a
fundamentally sexualized logic in which the fusion of masculine and feminine
principles (e.g., Śiva and Śakti, semen/bindu and menstrual fluid/rajas) was cen-
tral to realizing the power and liberated consciousness of the Divine. If ascetic
yoga tended to conceive the body in ultramasculine terms and to fear, ignore,
or marginalize women and sexual union as distractions or obstacles to yoga’s
aims, then tantric forms of yoga instead often highlighted the role of both fem-
inine and masculine energies/substances in the body and emphasized—­at least
in symbolic or sublimated form—­the transformative power of their sexualized
union. While many (though not all) varieties of tantric yoga practice required
seminal retention or celibacy, the effecting of a sublimated union of masculine
and feminine principles/fluids within the subtle body nonetheless remained at
the core of tantric yogic practice, clearly distinguishing it from ascetic yoga.
Tantric texts presented a yoga that was also clearly distinct from medita-
tional yoga. Formulations of tantric yoga were usually ṣaḍaṅga, or “six limbed.”33
The tantric traditions were concerned primarily with mantra yoga and laya yoga
(yoga through dissolution; i.e., techniques for “dissolving” the mind in higher
levels of consciousness). Tantric varieties of laya yoga typically involved
visualization-­based meditations on progressively more subtle elements and
energies within the subtle body, the most well-­known techniques being the rais-
ing of kuṇḍalinī up the spine and the dissolving of the mind in an internal sound
(nādānusandhāna). The practice of raising the kuṇḍalinī—­the feminine power and
divine energy of śakti within the body, conceived as a serpent sleeping coiled at
the base of the spine—­was initially one among many forms of laya yoga but
quickly rose to a level of preeminence among the methods of tantric yoga. It was
only beginning in the thirteenth or fourteenth century that tantric communi-
ties began to seriously incorporate physical practices—­those we associate espe-
cially with haṭha yoga—­into their (mantra-­ and visualization-­focused) yogic
repertoire.
While the goal of meditational yoga was direct perception of reality or non-
dual consciousness (samādhi), in tantric yoga the aim was framed in theistic
terms as equality or identity with the Divine, the attainment of God’s powers
and liberated consciousness.34 If meditational yoga reached its aim most espe-
cially through the disciplining, concentrating, and stilling of the mind, then
tantric yoga instead sought its goal most characteristically by putting the imag-
inative capacity of the mind to work in various visualization-­based medita-
tions that involved purifying and imaginatively destroying the conventional
 Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas = 177

body (dehaśuddhi) in order to reconstruct a divine body in its place (nyāsa), then
using that creative capacity to worship inner deities and manipulate inner ener-
gies (which were usually associated with particular mantras). A word often
used to describe this distinctive meditation of tantric yoga practice is bhāvanā,
translated variously as “mental construction,” “creative contemplation,” or
“imaginative meditation.” It is also often referred to as dhāraṇā, a term used in
a slightly different sense than Patañjali uses it in his eight-­limbed system, where
it refers specifically to a fixation of the mind on a particular object. Here the
meaning is similar to that of bhāvanā in that, in tantric dhāraṇā, one utilizes visu-
alization and the creative, imaginative capacity of the mind to “yoke” oneself
to the object of concentration in order to take on certain attributes or powers
(siddhis) associated with that object (usually a deity). While all three of the
streams of yoga I have discussed were concerned with the acquisition of siddhis,
in meditational yoga they were typically seen as obstacles to the ultimate spir-
itual goal, whereas in tantric yoga these godlike powers were often the primary
objective and were seen as signs of the unveiling of divine omnipotence within
oneself. If the sixteenth-­century Rāmānandī practicing yoga could trace his
yogic roots most especially to the tapasvī stream, then the Nāth yogī found his
in the stream of the tantric sādhaka just described.

The Democratization of Yoga

With the end of the Tantric Age from roughly the thirteenth century came major
changes in the field of yogic practice. The conquest of northern and central
India by Persianate Turks in the thirteenth century had a major impact on
India’s religious landscape, particularly on certain tantric traditions that had
been prominent for centuries. Under the military and political dominance of
Persianized Turks, the patronage and infrastructure sustaining institutional-
ized and brahmanical forms of tantric religion in northern and central India
largely collapsed. Nevertheless, tantric yogic technologies did not disappear
in the Sultanate period but rather found themselves released from the elit-
ist grip of brahmanically oriented, esoteric systems of tantric ritual charac-
terized by complex, sect-­specific mantras, cosmologies, and theologies. With
the rapid decline of this brahman-­run, institutional tantra, the rise of a trans-
sectarian Vedāntic orientation, and the spread of Sufism, Sultanate India wit-
nessed the emergence of a new ascetic environment and yogic sensibility in
which complex rituals and metaphysical teachings had little place. In this con-
text, new and simplified modes of yoga practice emerged centering especially
 178 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

on (a) stripped-­down forms of (often kuṇḍalinī-­based) tantric laya yoga and (b)
the distinctive physical techniques of haṭha yoga.
Haṭha yoga is known as the yoga of force, the name coming from the root
haṭh-­, which means “to treat with force or violence,” a reference to the forceful
effect that haṭha-­yoga practices were said to have upon the vital energies (bindu,
prāṇa, kuṇḍalinī) within the yogī’s subtle body.35 In haṭha yoga’s earliest formula-
tions, its distinctive feature is a set of physical techniques, called bandhas or
mudrās, that are used, in combination with breath control practices, (a) to raise
and preserve the elixir of life, the bindu (i.e., semen), stopping its natural down-
ward flow and dissipation by forcing it up the central channel and keeping it in
the head, and (b) to raise the feminine principle (rajas, kuṇḍalinī) at the base
of the spine within the subtle body and unite it with the masculine principle
(at the top of the head), resulting in full, liberating spiritual realization. Haṭha
yoga developed especially between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries,
reforming and combining elements of all three of the traditions of yogic prac-
tice discussed in the preceding, but particularly the tantric and ascetic (tapasvī)
streams. The haṭha-­yoga tradition offered a simple spiritual path “based solely
on the practice of yoga (rather than ritual, gnosis or devotion),” a method that
“omitted the doctrinal and ritualistic complexity of earlier tantric and philo-
sophical traditions,” utilizing simpler meditation methods and more physical
techniques and thereby making the practices and goals of yoga available to a
much wider audience.36
The pathbreaking work of James Mallinson, of which I make extensive use
here, has greatly advanced our understanding of the haṭha-­yoga tradition. As he
demonstrates, the first text to teach many of haṭha yoga’s distinctive principles
and physical practices is, in fact, a Vajrayāna Buddhist work, the circa eleventh-­
century Amṛtasiddhi.37 It is not until the thirteenth century, however, that we
see a real surge in textual composition related to yoga, products of a milieu in
which a diverse group of ascetic lineages were engaged in extensive yogic exper-
imentation. This spate of textual production suggests the participation of
ascetic lineages in new patronage relationships (with householders), a desire to
codify their yoga teachings for and disseminate them to new audiences and
practitioners, and new forms of competition among these yoga-­practicing lin-
eages involving textual claims to authority and prestige.38 Of special note is the
Dattātreyayogaśāstra, a Vaiṣṇava work composed in the thirteenth century that
is the first text to teach a systematized form of haṭha yoga and call it by that
name. The text describes ten physical techniques called mudrās or bandhas (each
supposedly practiced by the ṛṣi Kapila), which would thereafter distinguish haṭha
from all other forms of yoga, teaching these ten practices as methods for pneu-
matically or mechanically achieving the ancient tapasvī goal of preventing the
 Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas = 179

downward flow of the masculine vital principle (bindu).39 At about the same time
that text was written, a Śaiva (Nāth-­Siddha) lineage composed the Gorakṣaśataka,
which teaches three haṭha-­yogic bandhas (locks) and introduces one haṭha-­yogic
mudrā (seal) and several haṭha-­yogic breath-­restraint techniques (kumbhaka), all
in order to master the breath and achieve the tantric (laya-­yoga) goal of raising
and uniting the kuṇḍalinī (Śakti) with Śiva at the top of the head in an experience
of spiritual realization.40 As these two contemporaneous texts illustrate, tantric
and nontantric ascetic lineages—­as well as celibate and noncelibate lineages—­
chose to emphasize (or ignore) different yogic techniques and to use them for dif-
ferent purposes, but these Sultanate-­era ascetics all seem to have been invested
in the reform and simplification of yoga practice, an opening up of yoga’s meth-
ods and aims to a broader range of practitioners.41 They accomplished this
especially by adopting (a) haṭha yoga’s physical and breath-­control techniques
and (b) simplified versions of contemplative tantric laya yoga, especially involv-
ing the raising of kuṇḍalinī, but also by (c) placing their yoga teachings within a
nonsectarian Vedāntic metaphysical framework.
As I noted in chapter 1, at roughly the same time that the Tantric Age was
coming to an end, Vedānta was rising as a shared “Hindu” scriptural-­
philosophical foundation and soteriological orientation.42 Beginning with
Rāmānuja in the twelfth century, the various “Vaiṣṇava Vedāntas” produced in
South India placed Vedāntic knowledge (jñāna) and bhakti-­driven (theistic) forms
of meditational yoga into an intimate, interdependent relationship.43 In the thir-
teenth and fourteenth centuries, the tradition of Advaita Vedānta, which until
then had been unambiguously critical of yoga practice, began to assimilate the
traditions of yoga and yogīs.44 As Jason Schwartz has demonstrated, beginning
in this time the scholars and theologians of Advaita Vedānta increasingly
embraced the meditative praxis and subtle body technologies their tradition had
long rejected, homologizing these yogic methods with the goal of realization of
ātman and brahman.45 If Advaita Vedāntins were increasingly incorporating yoga
into their religious systems in this period, it seems that practitioners of yoga
were also increasingly adopting and expressing Advaita Vedāntic orientations.
The corpus of the haṭha-­yoga tradition was composed at the very same time that
“Vedānta was becoming the dominant paradigm of scholarly religious thought.” 46
Mallinson has shown that most of the texts of early haṭha yoga (ca. 1200–­1450)
were products of a Vedāntic milieu and tended to express their spiritual goal
in Vedāntic terms—­i.e., as gnostic realization of the Self and absorption in brah-
man.47 The use of Vedāntic soteriology—­the conceptual language of salvific
knowledge of or union with the Divine (ātman/brahman) within the body—­
assisted in the larger historical process of simplifying and democratizing yoga
by detaching it from its earlier sectarian theistic contexts. At the same time,
 180 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

these yogic teachings and practices contributed to the further expansion of

Vedānta’s influence in early modern India.48
The modes of haṭha and laya yoga developed in the thirteenth to fifteenth cen-
turies drew on but significantly transformed earlier traditions of tantric and
ascetic yoga in order to increase the accessibility and effective power of yoga.
They downplayed demanding physical austerities and rejected “extreme ascetic
practices such as sitting amid five fires, standing on one leg for twelve years,
lying on a bed of nails or holding the arms up until they wither away.” 49 These
forms of yoga reacted to the exclusivity and secrecy of the many tantric (and
other sectarian) lineages current in the early medieval period by simplifying,
interiorizing, and corporealizing much of earlier tantric practice.50 Elaborate,
sect-­specific theological and cosmological systems were now abandoned,51 the
various items required for ritual practice were now located within the yogī’s own
body, 52 and the visualizations and mantras that had been the near-­exclusive
means for raising kuṇḍalinī were now often accompanied or replaced by breath-­
restraint techniques and mechanical physical acts.53
The rise of the stripped-­down, interiorized, and democratized yogic practices
described here foreshadowed the straightforward, accessible religiosity of North
India’s bhakti movement and, by the fifteenth century, was paralleled by—­a nd
sometimes intertwined with—­the spread of the simple, inward-­oriented, socially
liberal devotion of nirguṇ-­oriented bhakti figures and communities there like the
Sants. As noted, the origins and development of both were intimately linked to
the sociopolitical conditions of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries in India:
the military-­political dominance of Persianized Turks, the corresponding
decline of institutional (brahmanical, royally patronized) forms of tantric reli-
giosity, the rise of Vedāntic orientations, and the increasing presence and influ-
ence of Sufis. While the new yogic sensibility that emerged in this historical
context rejected certain aspects of the tantric tradition (such as sectarianism,
exclusivity, complex ritual and metaphysics), the bhakti poets of North India
would reject certain other aspects of tantric religiosity that persisted into the
early modern period (especially via the ubiquitous Nāth yogīs), such as the tan-
tric emphasis on becoming a god and acquiring extraordinary powers. Early
modern bhaktas would aim their criticisms especially at tantric yogīs, but—­as I
will show in chapter 7—­many bhakti poets also deemed the practice of haṭha yoga
and asceticism in general to be misguided, ineffective, and in some sense at odds
with their own bhakti ethos. However simplified, open, and accessible haṭha yoga
was in comparison with previous forms of yoga in South Asia, it was still an
intensive and time-­consuming form of religiosity, one spread almost entirely
through the expert guidance and oral instruction of qualified gurus and one
practiced by individuals (primarily male renouncers) in solitary contexts.54 The
 Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas = 181

bhakti of North India’s bhakti movement, on the other hand, was a fundamen-
tally social phenomenon, a discourse and a sensibility spread especially through
the performance of songs and stories in social contexts in which entertainment,
artistic virtuosity, aesthetic appreciation, ethical instruction, and ecstatic reli-
giosity melded in moments of collective effervescence. By and large, ascetics
and yogīs worked for themselves, for their own goals, and were not particularly
interested in diffusing a religious message to a broader public, while bhakti sing-
ers and reformers sought a wider audience and strived, in some sense, to work
for the general good of a larger community.55 This is not to say that practitio-
ners of tapas or haṭha-­yoga practitioners could not also be bhaktas—­they could
be and they were—­however, it is to highlight at a general level what was a very
real difference and tension between these two styles of religiosity and their cor-
responding sensibilities, a contrast that would often be stressed in devotional
literature of the Mughal period, as I discuss in chapter 7.

Munis Versus Siddhas

Having surveyed relevant pieces of the history of yoga, let us return to the spe-
cific questions at hand: How did the yoga of the Nāths differ from that of the
Rāmānandīs? What might their yogic differences suggest about more fundamen-
tal differences in religious sensibility? As has been mentioned, prior to the
fifteenth century the Nāth yogīs of the Indian subcontinent were a rather
amorphous group of different regionally based lineages of itinerant tantric
ascetics sharing only a certain siddhi-­oriented perspective and a claimed
affiliation with one of various semidivine, perfected humans, or Siddhas,
such as Matsyendranāth, Jālandharnāth, and Gorakhnāth. Many of these yogī
lineages had roots in the very tantric community that seems to have originated
kuṇḍalinī yoga, the Paścimāmnāya Kaula tradition of the Deccan to which Gorakh
and Matsyendra probably belonged, thus it is not surprising that their yoga
practice was primarily a continuation of tantric kuṇḍalinī-­style laya yoga, in a
simplified form suiting the times. While the Nāths have long been widely con-
sidered as the primary exponents and systematizers of haṭha yoga, Mallin-
son’s research shows that the Nāth yogīs of the early modern period had little
interest in the physical practices of haṭha yoga and focused instead largely on
the pursuit of siddhis “through means such as tantric ritual, mantra-­repetition,
alchemy and visualization-­based layayoga. These Yogīs were yogis as magi-
cians.”56 In contrast to the Nāths, the ascetic stream of Rāmānandīs in early
modern North India were, in fact, active practitioners of haṭha yoga.
 182 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

As pointed out in the previous chapter, if we understand the early Rāmānandīs

as a “devotional” community (one of the four orthodox Vaiṣṇava sampradāys)
and perceive them through the lens of our modern category of bhakti—­one that
usually leaves little room for asceticism and yoga in its conception of an emo-
tional practice of devotion and humble service to a personal God—­it would be
easy to miss out on how very yogic their religious practice was. Yet we know that
many of the Galta Rāmānandīs—­like Payahārī, Kīlha, Dvārkādās, and Puraṇ—­
were, in fact, master practitioners of yoga. Their yoga, however, was a liberation-­
directed (mumukṣu) haṭha-­yoga practice that had little to do with the predomi-
nantly siddhi-­oriented (bubhukṣu) and laya-­yoga-­based practice of the Nāths. In
contrast to the perspective of the yoga-­practicing Rāmānandī ascetics, the ori-
entation of Nāths was actually far more in tune with what the tantric tradition
had termed a sādhaka. In many tantric texts, a clear technical distinction is made
between the yogī, who has liberation (mokṣa) as his aim, and the sādhaka, who
puts great emphasis on supernormal experiences/enjoyments (bhoga) and pow-
ers (siddhis). While nearly all South Asian religious communities believed that
siddhis emerge naturally as part of yogic practice, the attitude taken toward
these powers varied considerably from tradition to tradition. As Mallinson
states, “In the Pātañjala and haṭha yoga traditions . . . ​siddhis have been said to
be impediments to the ultimate aim of yoga, liberation, since the composition
of the Yogasūtra in the fourth or fifth centuries CE. In the tantric tradition, on
the other hand, siddhis are the main aim of the [sādhaka] initiate.”57 While the
sādhaka may also aim for liberation, or the “great siddhi” (i.e., realization of
Śivahood), he does so only after enjoying worldly and otherworldly powers and
pleasures as long as he wishes.
While it is quite rare to find a Nāth yogī today who practices the mudrās
and bandhas of haṭha yoga, “the ascetic traditions among which the first for-
mulations of Hatḥa Yoga originated, namely, the forerunners of the Daśanāmī
saṃnyāsīs and the Rāmānandīs,” adopted classical haṭha yoga and “continue
to write about and practice it up to the present day.”58 The Bhaktamāls of
Nābhādās and Rāghavdās indicate that Rāmānandī ascetics were practicing a
liberation-­oriented, tapas-­rooted haṭha yoga in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, and in the eighteenth century, among other evidence, we have a
Rāmānandī-­authored haṭha-­yoga manual, the Brajbhasha Jogpradīpakā (1737)
by Jayatrāma, who proudly proclaimed himself part of the lineage of Kṛṣṇadās
Payahārī. 59 During these same centuries of the early modern period, the Nāth
yogīs were composing no such works and do not seem to have been particu-
larly concerned with haṭha yoga at all.60
The Gorakhbāṇī, a collection of vernacular (“Hindi”) writings61 attributed to
Gorakhnāth whose oldest manuscripts come from the seventeenth century,62 is
 Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas = 183

probably our best resource for understanding the Nāth yogīs in early modern
North India and confirms this picture. The first thing to note about the
Gorakhbāṇī is that it is extraordinarily heterogeneous, with verses sometimes
contradicting themselves, a reflection of the fact that the Nāth yogīs were not
then an entirely coherent community but a loose-­k nit confederation of yogī lin-
eages whose practices and perspectives were not always the same. The
Gorakhbāṇī emphasizes a number of practices and concerns common to all yogic
and ascetic traditions, such as breathing exercises (prāṇāyāma), not eating or
sleeping too much, restraining the five senses, and maintaining control of the
mind. Overall, the verses show a distinct hostility toward women and lust,
though in typical fashion for this inconsistent text the occasional contradictory
verse suggests that some Gorakhnāthī yogīs were engaging in sexual activity and
utilizing the practice of vajrolī mudrā to do so without “losing their seed.” 63
Despite the heterogeneity of the text, if we look for trends, they are clear. In its
275 sabdīs and 62 pads, although the preservation of bindu is a prominent con-
cern, the Gorakhbāṇī makes only a couple of references to the āsanas, bandhas,
and mudrās of haṭha yoga (those physical practices that distinguish haṭha from
other forms of yoga). For instance, in one of the few references to these physical
practices of haṭha yoga, sabdī 232 states, “Leave the bad woman, give up bhang /
Perform the bodily bandhas day and night / In this way, all success in yoga
comes to you / And the guru will establish you in nirvāṇ samādhi.” In contrast,
sabdī 134 criticizes key elements of haṭha-­yoga practice, stating, “O pundit, why
do you die struggling for knowledge? / Know the highest place in some other
way! You are practicing āsan [postures] and prāṇāyām [breathing exercises] / Day
and night, you start and finish tired.” Sabdī 133 is particularly interesting as it
explicitly rejects orthodox Pātañjala yoga (in contrast to eighteenth-­century
Sanskrit texts by the Nāths that treated Gorakh’s yoga as a continuation and
development of classical aṣṭāṅga yoga), while advocating a yogic practice involv-
ing tantric innovations (brought into haṭha yoga) such as khecarī mudrā, the
practice of lengthening the tongue and reaching it to the soft palate to taste
the nectar (amṛta) of immortality in the skull. This poem states, “Nine nāḍīs and
seventy-­t wo rooms / All aṣṭāṅga [eight-­limbed yoga] is a lie / Use the suṣumnā
as the key and the lock / Reverse the tongue and touch the palate.” 64
If references to haṭha yoga’s distinctive physical techniques are quite rare in
the Gorakhbāṇī, again and again in a large number of poems, we find references
to siddhas and siddhis, the raising of kuṇḍalinī, subtle body physiology (nāḍīs,
cakras, etc.), and related practices of tantric laya yoga aimed at uniting sun (Śakti)
and moon (Śiva), listening to the “unstruck” internal sound (nād), and drink-
ing the nectar (amṛta) of immortality.65 In other words, the clear tendency
in the text is toward an ascetic lifestyle and a simplified (kuṇḍalinī-­ and
 184 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

nādānusandhāna-­based) tantric laya yoga whose primary goal is the (sublimated,

erotic) union of the two divine principles within the human body to attain
immortality, transcendence, and power.66 Other Nāth texts confirm this gen-
eral picture. In his study of Sanskrit Nāth-­Siddha texts, Lubomír Ondračka notes
that an extensive number of these works repeat the following verse: “When the
rajas is impelled by the motion of śakti through the breath, then it achieves unity
with the bindu, whereupon the body becomes divine.” 67 Like so many of the yoga
practitioners in the Sultanate period’s new and more nonsectarian ascetic
milieu, the Nāth yogīs rejected the complex metaphysics, theologies, and ritu-
als of earlier tantric practice, but they nevertheless seem to have maintained
simplified forms of tantric laya yoga at the core of their yogic practice, along with
a focus on the acquisition of embodied divinity, immortality, and siddhis that
was characteristic of tantric siddhas and sādhakas.
It should now be apparent that the essential contrast between the yogic prac-
tice of the Nāths and the Rāmānandīs is that between the tantric heritage of
siddhas, on the one hand, and the tapasvī heritage of munis and ṛṣis, on the other.
Mallinson points out that this distinction is found in a wide range of texts in
which kuṇḍalinī and related tantric laya-­yoga practices are associated with sid-
dhas like Gorakṣa and Matsyendra, while the practices of bindu-­preserving,
tapas-­based yoga are linked to munis and ṛṣis like Dattātreya, Mārkaṇḍeya, and
Kapila. He remarks that this distinction “manifests among today’s ascetics as a
distinction between the Śākta Nāths and the relatively more orthodox Daśanāmīs
and Rāmānandīs.” 68 Mallinson is careful to note that the distinction between
muni (or ṛṣi) and siddha (or yogī) is a general principle, not a universal rule, and
many anomalies exist (Kapila, for instance, while usually called a muni, is
referred to as a siddha in the Bhagavad Gītā and Dattātreyayogaśāstra).69 The key
point here is that the Nāth yogīs of the early modern period traced their yogic
lineage back to siddhas and tended to remain true to those tantric roots—­both
in their interest in acquiring siddhis and in the tantric laya-­yoga (i.e., kuṇḍalinī-­
and nādānusandhāna-­based) practices that stayed at the heart of their practice—­
whereas ascetic Rāmānandīs traced their yogic lineage to munis, practicing a
haṭha yoga that maintained close ties with those munis’ ancient physical tech-
niques of tapas.
It should not surprise us, then, that Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī, founder of the
Rāmānandī community at Galta, is described in Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl not as a
siddha or yogī but as a muni. Nābhā describes Payahārī not simply as a muni but
as “a great muni [mahāmuni] whose seed was turned upward [ūrdhvaretās].”70 The
term ūrdhvaretās refers to an individual who has managed to raise and preserve
his bindu (i.e., retas, “semen”), an accomplishment demonstrating real yogic mas-
tery. Mallinson explains that “the ancient tradition of the ūrdhvaretās tapasvī
 Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas = 185

(the ascetic whose seed is [turned] upwards), which is closely associated with
the practice of yoga in texts such as the Mahābhārata, is likely to be the source
of early Hatḥa Yoga, in which the preservation of bindu is paramount. This rela-
tively orthodox tradition has survived in ascetic orders such as the Daśanāmī
saṃnyāsīs and the Rāmānandīs.”71
When Nābhā describes Payahārī’s disciple and successor at Galta, Kīlhadev,
he seems to link him to this same yogic tradition, for he explicitly compares
Kīlha to Bhīṣma (Gāṇgeya), the great warrior and yoga-­practicing ascetic of the
Mahābhārata, and writes, “Through the power [bal] of God [Hari] [in/through]
his [yoga] practice [karnī], he proceeded to the brahmarandhra and [abandoned]
his body [tan].”72 As this verse indicates, through his mastery of yoga Kīlha was
able to choose the time of his own passing by leaving (i.e., projecting his soul
up the suṣumṇā nāḍī) through the brahmarandhra opening at the top of his skull.73
Like that of his guru, Dvārkādās’s yogic expertise was also deemed noteworthy,
for Rāghavdās writes, “[He] mastered haṭha yoga and conquered Death.”74
Clearly, Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī, Kīlhadev, and Dvārkādās were masters of yoga.
The interesting thing is that, despite their yogic expertise, in the Bhaktamāls of
Nābhādās or Rāghavdās, neither they nor any of the other early Rāmānandī
ascetic practitioners of yoga are ever called yogīs. As just noted, these Rāmānandīs
typically would have traced their roots back to munis and ṛṣis, in distinction to
siddhas and yogīs, but even so, a key question remains: What, then, is a yogī? If
not simply the practitioner of yoga, then who is the yogī?

Seeking the Yogī

The close study of the early Rāmānandīs conducted in chapter 4 demonstrated

that we likely need to reconceptualize commonplace understandings of bhakti
and the identity of the bhakta. From another angle, these same Galta Rāmānandīs
show us that our view of yoga and the identity of the yogī may need to be revised
as well. According to Gerald Larson, “the term ‘Yoga’ in the tradition of the [Yoga
Sūtra] and its principal commentaries is seldom used in the sense of ‘yoke,’ ‘join’
or ‘union,’ as it is sometimes claimed in popular accounts of Yoga. The term
refers, rather, to concentration and is most easily understood in the [Yoga Sūtra]
and its commentaries simply as ‘disciplined meditation’ in regard to the vari-
ous states of awareness.”75 David Gordon White counters that overemphasis on
philosophical and analytical texts like the Yoga Sūtra, Bhagavad Gītā, and their
commentarial literature has skewed understandings of yoga toward this defi-
nition of “disciplined meditation,” which, he claims, is not historically accurate.
 186 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

In Sinister Yogis, White argues that when we focus our attention on the prac-
titioner of yoga, the yogī, then Vedic sources, epic literature, and medieval
narrative accounts demonstrate that the “purest,” most original, and most
consistent meaning of the term yoga centers not on meditation but rather on
“yoking,” or “occult and extrovert techniques of effecting union by project-
ing the self outwards in order to overcome death, enter other bodies and
effect various kinds of wizardry.”76
White highlights medieval Indian literature that depicts yogīs as sinister,
frightening figures who seek and wield awe-­inspiring supernormal powers that
can benefit or harm those with whom they interact. Using these narratives to
stress the centrality of “yoking” and siddhis in yoga (over and above meditation,
breath control, etc.), White asks, “Why is it that not a single yogi in these nar-
ratives is ever seen assuming a yogic posture (āsana); controlling his breath,
senses, and mind; engaging in meditation (dhyāna); or realizing transcendent
states of consciousness (samādhi)—­all of the practices of what has been deemed
‘classical yoga’? If these be yogis, then what is yoga?”77 The answer to his first
question seems simple enough. These narratives were just that, stories meant
to engage and entertain their audiences; they were not how-­to manuals on yoga
and would obviously seek to highlight the most captivating aspects of a yogī’s
character and practice.78 The fact that narrative literature would underscore
yogīs’ dangerous side should therefore not surprise us; yogīs were widely assumed
to gain access to siddhis and were free to use them in whatever way they wished.
Yet there seems to be no good reason for considering these narrative expres-
sions of awe and fear regarding the potential dangers inherent in yogic powers
as the basis for, or even as a privileged source for, our understanding of the con-
tent of yogic practice or the historical identity of yogīs.
The question of extraordinary powers, or siddhis, looms large over recent
scholarly attempts to make better sense of yoga and yogīs. As noted, a key ele-
ment in distinguishing the Nāths and the Rāmānandīs is their respective atti-
tudes toward the siddhis. In both the Mahābhārata and the Yoga Sūtra it is quite
clear that the acquisition of siddhis is an important and natural by-­product of
yoga practice, but the attitude toward them is ambiguous. In the Mahābhārata,
warnings of their dangers appear as well as approval of their use for certain pur-
poses.79 In the Yoga Sūtra, descriptions of extraordinary powers and forms of
cognition occupy almost the entirety of the third book (pāda)—­constituting
more than one-­fourth of the whole text—­yet these siddhis are explicitly regarded
as hindrances to the larger goal of liberation.80 White rightly notes that histo-
rians have largely ignored the Yoga Sūtra’s third pāda and have generally
neglected the powers and wizardry that are, in fact, a crucial dimension of
yoga.81 In bringing attention to the siddhis and to unexplored dimensions of
 Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas = 187

“yoking” that constitute critical elements of yoga practice, White provides an

important corrective. Nevertheless, as Mallinson points out, we should not con-
fuse the siddhis acquired through yoga with yoga—­i.e., yoga practice—­itself.82
The larger point is that if we comb the records of history for figures called
yogīs, we undoubtedly will miss out on a great many “practitioners of yoga,” for
they are not necessarily one and the same. In their respective Bhaktamāls, nei-
ther Nābhādās nor Rāghavdās even once uses the term yogī in describing
Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī, Kīlhadev, Dvārkādās, or the other early Rāmānandī ascetic
practitioners of yoga. Interestingly, despite the great importance of renuncia-
tion to their lifestyle, Nābhādās and Rāghavdās also never refer to any of the
Galta Rāmānandī ascetics as saṃnyāsīs.83 At around the same time that Nābhādās
composed his Bhaktamāl, two Sikh sources—­Guru Granth Sāhib 9.2, 34.2,84 and
Vārāṅ Bhāī Gurdās 8.13—­mention the organization of yogīs into twelve panths (a
feature of the Nāth order today) and the organization of saṃnyāsīs into ten divi-
sions (a feature of the Daśanāmī order today). It seems, then, that by the begin-
ning of the seventeenth century the terms yogī and saṃnyāsī had come to refer
to specific sectarian communities of ascetics distinct from the Rāmānandīs;
thus, Nābhādās was likely quite deliberate in not using these words.85 As noted,
by the early sixteenth century the term yogī referred most especially to Gorakh-­
following Nāth ascetics; however, there is ample evidence that the word still
sometimes denoted Rāmānandī and Daśanāmī practitioners of yoga as well.86
That a practitioner of yoga would sometimes adopt the label of yogī is under-
standable; however, “sometimes” is the operative word, for it would seem that
the more the term became associated with the Nāths, the more it came to hold
sinister, low-­caste, and generally undesirable connotations—­especially for bhak-
tas or those concerned with orthodoxy and social propriety—­leading the
Rāmānandīs to distance themselves from the formal label of yogī.87
Clearly, there is a great deal of confusion surrounding the term yogī itself,
which has not had a historically consistent meaning or referent and has been
used rather loosely to refer to individuals whose yogic practices and religious
outlooks differed considerably.88 While it might seem that a yogī is quite simply
one who practices yoga, what is considered to constitute “yoga,” and to what
degree that yoga is central in the religiosity of any given yogī, varies greatly.89
Depending on the period, region, and specific community in which the term is
being used, what is meant by the label yogī may be something quite different,
and scholars writing about yoga and yogīs must remain cognizant of these
differences.
In seeking the yogī in the historical context of early modern North India, one
must be aware that many master practitioners of yoga, like the early Rāmānandīs
at Galta, might not necessarily have gone by that name. Furthermore, by the
 188 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

sixteenth century, those who were most often called yogīs, the Nāths, seem to
have practiced mainly simplified forms of tantric laya yoga quite distinct from
the tapasvī-­oriented physical practices (bandhas, mudrās) that were the primary
basis of the haṭha-­yoga tradition.90 This liberation-­oriented classical haṭha-­yoga
tradition was transmitted and practiced most especially by Rāmānandīs and
Daśanāmīs, practitioners of yoga who were sometimes called yogīs but more
often went by other terms that would distinguish them from the Nāths. Indeed,
for Nābhādās, regardless of their level of yogic mastery, the members of his
Rāmānandī community at Galta were first of all bhaktas, and even more than in
their yogic practice it was in their devotional perspective that they differed from
the Nāths.

Nāth Yogīs and the Quest for Occult Power

Clearly, the Rāmānandī and Nāth communities differed in their yogic practice
and roots, as has been described. Yet the most fundamental difference between
the two was one of basic religious perspective and sensibility, one indicated by
their respective attitudes toward the siddhis. Namely, the Rāmānandīs’ bhakti
approach contrasted significantly with the Nāths’ tantric approach to the Divine,
specifically their quest for occult power.
A major theme of scholarly literature on the Nāths is their association with
magic and the occult. Véronique Bouillier, one of the foremost ethnographers of
the modern-­day Nāths, writes that “very few [Nāth yogīs] practice complex yogic
practice (sādhanā). What ancient narratives and modern stories glorify, more
than personal spiritual achievements, are the wondrous deeds, the supernatu-
ral powers obtained by heroic yogīs.”91 According to Dasgupta, “The general reli-
gious nature of Nāthism is characterized by a wide-­spread belief in occult
power attained through the practice of yoga. All the legends are permeated
through and through with a spirit of supernaturalism more in the form of the
display of magical feats and sorcery by the Siddhas than in the form of occa-
sional interference from the gods and goddesses, or any other supernatural
being.”92 Mircea Eliade adds, “[Gorakhnāthis] are chiefly known and respected
for their magical prowess: they have a considerable reputation as healers and
magicians, they are supposed to be able to bring rain, they exhibit snakes. The
ability to tame wild beasts is also attributed to them; they are said to live in the
jungle, surrounded by tigers, who sometimes serve them as mounts.”93 George W.
Briggs regales us with a host of legends about the magical feats of Gorakhnāth,
 Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas = 189

who is said to have turned the water of a well into gold and then crystal; pro-
nounced a spell over a sword enabling it to sever rocks; filled dried-­up lakes
with water; caused withered gardens to bloom; brought about a twelve-­year
drought in Nepal; taken the form of a fly to avoid guards; changed himself into
iron and then into a frog; transformed some of his disciples so that half their
bodies became gold and the other half iron; restored numerous deceased indi-
viduals to life; granted children to barren women; turned horse dung into
locusts and then into a human body that he infused with life; restored his
own hands and feet cut off by his angry stepmother; and carried with him a
magic bag from which he drew grains, apples, flowers, and ashes that con-
ferred the gift of sons or transformed themselves into gems, goods, or cloth-
ing.94 The performance of such wonders and wizardry is clearly an essential
trait of the Nāth yogī.
As Gordan Djurdjevic has argued, the tantric practice of the Nāth yogīs “is
ultimately not a quest for salvation but for power,” a fact seen clearly in “the
ultimate ideals the Nāths are striving to achieve: divine body (divya deh), per-
fection of body (kāya siddhi), liberation while in life ( jīvanmukti), obtainment of
the elixir of immortality (amṛt), becoming a perfect adept (siddha), being a wiz-
ard (vidyādhar).”95 Djurdjevic explains that “what these ideals and goals signify is
explicitly the attainment of infinite occult power in an immortal body. This is
the will to power and a dedication to a lifestyle committed to its acquisition.”96 A
key point is that the power sought by tantric yogīs is sacred in nature. From the
perspective of tāntrikas like the Nāth yogīs, in general “the sacred manifests itself as
power.”97 The tāntrika relates to the sacred, to the Divine, by trying to access and
appropriate that power for himself. In contrast, the bhakta tends to approach the
sacred as, above all, the Beloved, relating to the Divine especially through feel-
ing. This is not to say that bhaktas did not also conceive the sacred as powerful
but rather that, for the bhakta, the power of the all-­powerful Divine was to be
supplicated; it could not be appropriated by one’s own actions. In Winand Calle-
waert’s terms, the tantric yogī believes that “no exterior agent is necessary”
since “his own energy, when properly directed,” will achieve his spiritual goal,
while the bhakta instead “relies on God’s grace” and “asks for God’s help.”98
A number of passages from the Gorakhbāṇī allow us to get a better grasp of
how the perspective of the Nāth yogīs would have differed from that of bhaktas—­
even yoga-­practicing bhakti ascetics—­in early modern North India. In the fol-
lowing sabdī (200), we see the Nāth yogīs poking some fun at the Vaiṣṇavas, claim-
ing that their founder and tutelary deity Gorakhnāth bested Kṛṣṇa and Rām
(as well as Viṣṇu’s other avatārs) by conquering the powerful force of sexual
desire that even these great gods could not master.
 190 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

Viṣṇu descended into the ten avatārs,

But they were overcome by lust.
The invincible lust was conquered by the ascetic Gorakh.
He preserved the downward flowing [bindu].99

The poem implies that through his yogic mastery, Gorakhnāth attained a sta-
tion above even the gods. To say the least, this sort of irreverence would not have
been popular with Vaiṣṇava bhaktas, yet it is quite common in the Gorakhbāṇī.100
The first three lines in each of the following three sabdīs (17–­19) convey fairly
typical yogic and ascetic themes—­meditation, controlling the senses, aban-
doning worldliness and desire—which ascetic Rāmānandīs would also have
supported; ­however, in the last line of each poem, we see an attitude that could
hardly be more opposed to the humble devotional approach of the bhaktas.

The yogī who holds above what goes below

Who burns sex, abandons desire,
Who cuts through māyā [worldly illusion]
Even Viṣṇu washes his feet.

He who does the ajap-­jap101 maintains meditation on śūnya

[emptiness],
Who controls the five sense organs
And offers his body as an oblation in the fire of Brahman102
Even Śiva [Mahādev] bows to his feet.

He who places no hope in wealth and youth

Having no thoughts about women
In whose body the nād103 and bindu are burnt
Even Pārvatī serves him.104

While the bhakta’s religious practice aimed at an intimate knowledge and,

even more, an emotional experience of the Divine, the Nāth yogī’s practice aimed
at accessing the power within his own body to become divine, and even to excel
the gods themselves. According to the text, Pārvatī serves such a yogī, Śiva bows
to him, and Viṣṇu washes his feet. These expressions of the Nāth’s tantric per-
spective could only come off as arrogant, egotistic, and deluded to the humble
devotee of God.
In the two following sabdīs (147–­48), the tantric yogī’s goal of divinizing him-
self is made even more explicit. If the bhakta strived to worship and to love God,
the Nāth yogī strived to become God.
 Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas = 191

Breath [pavan] is verily yoga, breath is verily pleasure.

Breath verily takes away the thirty-­six diseases.
Few know the mystery of the breath.
In so doing, you are the creator, you are God.

Bindu is verily yoga, bindu is verily pleasure.

Bindu verily takes away the thirty-­six diseases.
Few know the mystery of this bindu.
In so doing, you are the creator, you are God.105

This “you are God” perspective would certainly not have been well received
by either bhaktas or Muslims, for whom—­no matter how intimate their relation-
ship with the Divine—­there remained a certain distance between man and
God, a separation and duality necessary for the devotional relationship to exist
at all. More essential than this, however, was that—­to reiterate the point—­for
the bhaktas (and Sufis), the Divine tended to be of the nature of Love and was
distinctly moral and good in character, whereas the Nāth yogīs and other
tāntrikas tended to conceive the Divine as sacred power, an amoral power that
could be accessed (through appropriate rituals, mantras, or yogic practices) and
used for any purpose, worldly or spiritual, sinister or beneficent.106

The Vernacular Nāths

Even as we come to a clearer understanding of the primary religious perspec-

tive and sensibility of the Nāth yogīs, and how distasteful it was to many early
modern bhaktas, it is important to note that not all Nāth lineages, and certainly
not all individual Nāths, should be understood as power-­obsessed, siddhi-­seeking
tantric “magicians.” Particularly in the vernacular Nāth traditions of Rajasthan
and Maharashtra, we find evidence of a sort of Nāth yogī rather different from
the tantric sādhaka-­oriented kind I have been describing. In Maharashtra,
Jñāndev, the thirteenth-­century author of the Jñāneśvarī (Bhāvārthadīpikā), the
famous vernacular (Marathi) translation of and commentary on the Bhagavad
Gītā, was part of a Nāth lineage (indeed, the “great-­grand-­disciple” of Gorakhnāth
himself), yet—­far from a pursuit of occult power—­his religious practice seems
to have fused Vedāntic jñāna, tantric kuṇḍalinī-­based laya yoga, and a contem-
plative, dispassionate mode of bhakti in a quest for liberation.107 This is not the
place for a proper discussion of the Jñāneśvarī (1290), but it must be noted how
so many of the key late-­medieval and early-­modern historical shifts discussed
 192 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

here—­e.g., simplified forms of tantric laya yoga, the increasing influence of

Vedānta, and the rise of bhakti in connection with a shift from Śaiva to Vaiṣṇava
orientations—­can be seen in this fascinating late-­thirteenth-­century vernacu-
lar text, intriguingly with a Maharashtrian Nāth author as their apparent
nexus.108 In the vernacular literature of Rajasthan—­albeit three centuries later
than the Jñāneśvarī—­we also find evidence of Nāths who can hardly be consid-
ered as tantric yogī-­magicians. Monika Horstmann has discussed a tradition of
“vernacular Nāths” in early modern Rajasthan that is quite distinct from the
image of tantric wonder-­workers we tend to get in either the legends or San-
skrit texts of the Nāth tradition. These vernacular Nāths—­perhaps heirs, in some
loose sense, to the Nāthism of Jñāndev—­practiced a religiosity that emphasized
yogic breath control and contemplation in an “interior journey leading to
liberation in the esoteric body” while scorning the unnecessary external
signifiers (split ears, etc.), occult practices, and displays of siddhis that were
characteristic features of so many Nāth yogī lineages.109 They also seem to have
had some affinity with the nirguṇ bhakti of the Sants, for in North India it was
actually not the Nāths themselves but the Dādū Panth—­a nirguṇ bhakti commu-
nity of Rajasthan—­who first disseminated swaths of vernacular Nāth litera-
ture, notably in the very same manuscripts containing their own and other
bhakti literature.110 Horstmann discusses the “Hindi” compositions of a Nāth
by the name of Prithīnāth who flourished in the sixteenth century.111 Prithīnāth’s
work demonstrates that his religious practice aimed at Brahman gnosis and
the attainment of bodily perfection and immortality through yogic breath
control and the conquering of the fickle mind. He shows no interest in siddhis,
does not mention kuṇḍalinī (though he discusses the importance of uniting the
“sun” and “moon” within the subtle body), and he disparages those who need-
lessly practice austerities and attend to external appearances. Still, he often
repeats that his spiritual goal—­a characteristically Nāth one that would not
have gone over well with most bhaktas—­is to “make the body divine,” to “trans-
form the impure body into a deity,” and “to make oneself a god.”112
There is no doubt that the Nāth yogī often served as a foil for the articulation
of an early modern North Indian devotional sensibility. I cite the examples of
Jñāndev and Prithīnāth not to dismiss the characteristic tantric sādhaka/siddha
orientation of most Nāth yogī lineages but to highlight the facts that (a) Nāths
certainly did not come in just one size and shape, and (b) the “other” of the Nāth
yogī in bhakti literature was a constructed, caricatured, and pedagogical one, not
one that necessarily accurately reflected on-­the-­ground realities. Diverse Nāth
identities and caricatured Nāth depictions aside, there was a substantive tension
between the characteristic outlook of the Nāth yogīs and that of the Vaiṣṇava
bhaktas. The following passage clearly illustrates the core features of the Nāth’s
 Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas = 193

tantric perspective that most humble, God-­loving bhaktas would have found
objectionable. Having analyzed the corpus of bāṇīs (sayings) attributed to
Gorakhnāth and other early Nāth Siddhas (Carpaṭi, Gopīcand, Bhartṛhari, etc.),
David Gordon White identifies the following major themes as characteristic of
the Nāths:

First, the bāṇīs are nirguṇ: there is nearly no mention of any god in them, and
when the divine is mentioned, it is without a name, qualities, or attributes.
Second, on those rare occasions that the saguṇ gods of Hinduism (Brahmā,
Viṣṇu, and Maheś) are named, they are not at all objects of worship or even
respect: what the bāṇīs say is that the yogin who succeeds in his practice
makes these high gods his slaves! Third, Gorakhnāth and the other authors
of the early bāṇīs never state that they are themselves incarnations of gods.
On the contrary, they emphasize that mere humans like themselves can
become unaging and immortal (ajarāmara) Siddhas—­perfected beings,
demigods—­through various types of (usually yogic) practice. This is the entire
thrust of all of the early Nāth Siddha teachings, both in the vernacular lan-
guages and Sanskrit: that humans can, by means of their practice, raise them-
selves up from their mortal status and become jıvanmukta, liberated in their
human bodies. They were in fact claiming more than this, as the name they
chose for their order makes clear: human yogins could, through their prac-
tice, lift themselves up to the level of the very same divine Nāths and Siddhas
that people were worshiping in the medieval period in western India. They
could become “self-­made gods.”113

As taken up in chapter 7, in the poetry of the bhakti saints, from Kabīr to Surdās
to Tulsīdās, yogīs are regularly mocked and ridiculed for exactly the claims
described in this passage. Relatedly, in chapter 8 I discuss a genre of stories
(shared by Sufis and Hindu bhaktas) in which devotee-­saints triumph over “mag-
ical” yogīs through the gift of miracles from God (or from their devotion to
God), powers revealed as much stronger than any derived from individual prac-
tices of tapas, laya yoga, or tantric mantra-­japa.
In the preceding pages, I explored how the Nāth yogīs of the early modern
period were different from the specifically ascetic-­yogic stream of Rāmānandīs.
In many ways, Galta Rāmānandīs like Payahārī, Kīlha, and Dvārkā shared much
with the Nāth yogīs, from their liberal social attitudes to their ascetic, renun-
ciatory lifestyle and appearance; however, they also differed in important ways.
In contrast to a number of scholarly claims, the yogic practice of the Nāths was
generally quite distinct from that of the Rāmānandīs, reflecting their tantric
Kaula and siddha heritage in comparison with a Rāmānandī yoga rooted in the
 194 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

more orthodox traditions of tapas-­practicing munis. More essential than this

difference—­though reflected in their respective attitudes toward the siddhis in
yogic practice—­was the widening gap between these two communities’ respec-
tive (devotional versus tantric) conceptions of and approaches to the Divine. As
William Pinch aptly puts it, bhaktas’ conflict with tāntrikas like the Nāth yogīs was
“not simply an argument about style. It reflected a profound disagreement about
the very nature of God: and whether men could legitimately aspire to be gods. As
such, it reflected a deep disagreement about the meaning of religion.”114
While this chapter has discussed the Nāths in relation to the ascetic-­yogic
stream of the Galta Rāmānandīs, in fact nearly everything we know about the
early Rāmānandīs comes from the literary efforts of the community’s other
more rasik and devotional stream, the inaugurator of which seems to have been
Payahārī’s disciple Agradās. In the next chapter, I focus on the figure of Agradās,
his disciple Nābhādās, and their writings and bhakti vision. Exploring their devo-
tional project provides key insights into the ways in which the emerging bhakti
communities of early modern North India sought to define themselves and com-
pete for followers and patronage within the new social and political contexts
of Mughal India.
 6
Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti

Formations of Bhakti Community

T
his chapter examines the life and influence of the sixteenth-­century
Rāmānandī devotee-­poet Agradās in order to understand the remark-
able rise of bhakti communities and sensibilities in early modern
North India. I explore the strategies and motivations at work in Agradās’s liter-
ary compositions, demonstrating how his corpus tactfully negotiated pious sen-
timents, political agendas, and aesthetic tastes to address multiple audiences
and expand the circulation of a bhakti sensibility. Agradās is an important but
virtually unstudied figure whose life and literary output offer valuable insights
into the ways in which the emerging bhakti communities of early modern North
India forged their identities, competed for followers and patronage, and contrib-
uted to the expansion of a larger bhakti public. Inaugurating a vernacular liter-
ary project within his community that sought to praise the deeds of great
devotee-­saints, Agradās spread the saving message of bhakti in a fashion that
would garner the Rāmānandīs prestige, power, and patronage in the new
Mughal-­R ajput political, aesthetic, and religious environment of the late six-
teenth century. In the service of this project, he composed works that engaged
popular literary and theological trends centered on the aesthetic experience
of sublime emotion (rasa) while simultaneously articulating popular Sant val-
ues that were at the earliest core of his Rāmānandī community.
In the following I show how Agradās sought to articulate a “sensible” bhakti;
that is, one prudently fashioned to appeal to many, combining pious sentiment
with a pragmatic concern to bring “elite” and “popular,” rasik and Sant, aesthetic
and ascetic together into a broad, inclusive bhakti community. Agradās was one
of many bhakti “entrepreneurs” of his day who strategically sought to attract
 196 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

followers (“consumers”) by adapting the techniques of competitors in the reli-

gious marketplace while also generating his own distinctive (if hybridized) reli-
gious forms.1 In addition to describing how prudent or “sensible” Agradās’s
bhakti literary project was, given the historical circumstances, in supporting the
interests of his own Rāmānandī community, I also explore the way in which his
compositions assisted in the growth of a transsectarian bhakti sensibility. In
early modern North India, a broad bhakti public emerged whose members were
united by similar aesthetic tastes, a common moral sense, and shared norms of
emotional value and expression. In this context, the compositions of Agradās
and other bhakti poets like him acted as discursive instruments whose perfor-
mance communicated and rendered bhakti ideas and values as facts of the body,
not just the mind, evoking shared emotions and thereby generating an experi-
ence of participation in the larger bhakti public.
With regard to the historical figure of Agradās, in this chapter I ask the fol-
lowing questions: Who was this great bhakta? How is his life remembered in the
sources available to us? What did he write and what are the key themes and mes-
sages in his compositions? What was his religious outlook and what role did
that viewpoint play in the larger bhakti movement spreading across North
India? I show that Agradās represented an important perspective within the
Rāmānandī community and within the early modern North Indian bhakti move-
ment as a whole, a vision of religiosity that focused on saguṇ devotion, was
institution friendly and literature producing, and utilized certain tantric reli-
gious technologies while positioning itself in deliberate opposition to key tan-
tric attitudes and perspectives.

The Life of Agradās

Agradās was a disciple of Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī’s at Galta, the reputed founder of

the Rām-­rasik tradition, and the guru of Nābhādās, the famous author of the
Bhaktamāl. Of the fifty-­t wo Vaiṣṇava dvārās (gateways to the Lord; i.e., recog-
nized initiatory centers/lineages), thirty-­six of which are Rāmānandī, he is
said to have established at least eleven,2 more than any other individual. The
literary record tells us that Agra, unlike any preceding Rāmānandī, was a pro-
lific author, the composer of at least fifteen works in addition to many scattered
verses found in anthologies of bhakti poetry. Despite his clear importance,
extremely little scholarship exists on the work and influence of Agradās, and a
full study of his life and literature has not yet been conducted in any language.3
While a complete study of Agradās is beyond the scope of this chapter, I
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 197

demonstrate here his critical importance in North Indian bhakti history, discuss-
ing aspects of his hagiography and writings that have never before received
scholarly attention.
Agradās’s exact dates are difficult to ascertain with any confidence; however,
it is clear that he flourished during the second half of the sixteenth century,
which would have made him a contemporary of Tulsīdās and the later Vrindavan
Gosvāmīs.4 Tradition maintains that he was born as a brahman at Pīkasī village in
Rajasthan and in his late teenage years traveled to Galta, where he took initiation
from Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī into the Rāmānandī samprāday. At the death of his guru,
Payahārī, Agradās’s guru brother Kīlhadev took over the Galta gaddī, and Agradās
is said to have traveled approximately sixty miles north-­northwest to Raivasa
(Rewasa), situated at the base of the Aravali mountains, near modern-­day Sikar,
where he began the Rām-­rasik tradition.5 According to Rāghavdās’s Bhaktamāl
(1660), Agradās had the following thirteen disciples: Nābhā, Jangī, Prāg (Prayāg),
Vinodī, Pūraṇ, Banvārī, Bhagwān, Divākar, Narsiṃh, Khem, Kisor (Kiśor),
Jaganāth, and Laghu Udhyau.6 While it is Nābhādās who usually receives all
the fanfare and whose fame is highlighted at Raivasa today, it was in fact Agra’s
disciple Vinodī who is said to have taken over the gaddī at Raivasa dhām.
Today Agradās is most often remembered as the founding father of the Rām-­
rasik sect. Rām-­rasik bhakti seems to have emerged in response to and in dia-
logue with the earlier rasik tradition of Kṛṣṇa devotion, which the Gauḍīya
Vaiṣṇava Gosvāmīs of Vrindavan developed in the first half of the sixteenth cen-
tury. This bhakti tradition took up legends about the adolescent Kṛṣṇa’s erotic
sports with Rādhā and the gopīs and melded them with the Sanskrit aesthetic
theory of rasa to formulate a new kind of devotional practice in which different
varieties of human love could be purified and transformed into an experience
of spiritual bliss through the devotional contemplation of the deeds of Kṛṣṇa.7
Devotees would assume the role of one of the intimate companions of the Lord
(e.g., servant, friend, elder, or lover), imaginatively participating in and savor-
ing the emotions of the divine “play,” or līlā, of their beloved Kṛṣṇa. Those initi-
ated into this system of ritual and practice became known as rasiks, “those who
savor ras,” and undertook a regimen of daily external rituals of worship and ser-
vice of the deity as well as internal practices such as visualization, meditation,
and role-­playing in order to fully participate in the ultimate reality of Kṛṣṇa’s
eternal līlā.8
Beginning in the sixteenth century, the theology and practices of Rām-­and
Kṛṣṇa-­oriented sects developed along very similar lines and continuously cross-­
pollinated each other.9 The success of Kṛṣṇa devotion and the influence of the
theology of the Vrindavan Gosvāmīs seem to have led Agradās to rapidly adapt
their teachings and found the Rām-­rasik sect. Indeed, it appears that Agradās
 198 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

and his disciple Nābhādās were quite aware of, and significantly influenced by,
developments in Vrindavan and that they held the leading figures of Caitanya’s
Gauḍiyā Vaiṣṇava community there in high esteem. Key aspects of Agradās’s
religious vision seem to closely resemble those of the Gauḍiyā sect in Vrinda-
van, particularly in their śṛṅgāra-­centered rasik bhakti toward Kṛṣṇa and their
heavy emphasis on the divine Name, practices that Agradās held very dear.
Despite some important differences between them, it is hard not to see that the
Gauḍiyā Vaiṣṇava community must have been a major influence on Agradās and
his disciple Nābhādās. Nābhā’s Bhaktamāl devotes a surprising amount of space
to praising Gauḍiyā Vaiṣṇava bhaktas, with full entries on Caitanya, Nityānanda,
Viṣṇupurī, Raghunātha Gosvāmī, Keśav Bhaṭṭ, Rūpa and Sanātana Gosvāmī, and
Jīva Gosvāmī, as well as brief mentions of Gopāl Bhaṭṭ and several other bhaktas
of the Gauḍiyā tradition in Braj.10
It is difficult to know to what degree Agradās consciously modeled his own
project on that of the Vrindavan Gauḍiyās, but in all likelihood he intentionally
followed their lead and did so not solely out of attraction to their teachings but
also as a strategic decision to model the community that, more than any other
bhakti sect, had earned the special attentions—­and financial support—­of his own
sect’s primary patrons, the Kacchvāhās, and through them the Mughals. As
Kumkum Chatterjee has remarked, the Kacchvāhās “supported various religious
sects, but had a particularly close relationship with the Gaudiya Vaishnavas with
their strong Bengali affiliations,” with Rājā Bhagwān Dās, the father of Rājā Mān
Singh, perhaps even having accepted initiation into the sect. Perhaps because of
the Mughals’ close alliance with the Kacchvāhās, Akbar and his nobles made
generous rent-­free land grants to Gauḍiyā Vaiṣṇava–­controlled temples from the
1560s to the 1590s, the royal decrees for which make clear the “close involvement
of Rajput nobles such as Bhar Mal, Todar Mal and Ramdas Kachhwaha.”11
Rāmānandī rasik tradition holds that rasik practice had existed for centuries
but was kept secret until Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī gave Agradās the task of popular-
izing rasik teachings.12 Agradās is thus considered to have formally begun the
Rām-­rasik tradition in Rajasthan in the late sixteenth century. It was not until
the early eighteenth century, however, that Rām-­rasik bhakti spread eastward
and gained in popularity, taking root most especially in Ayodhya, but also in
Citrakut, Janakpur, and Varanasi, among other places.13
Rām-­rasiks tend to focus on a very particular portion of the life of Rām and
Sītā—­the period of approximately twelve years that they enjoyed together in
Ayodhya (Saket) after getting married but before Rām was exiled. In most ver-
sions of the Rāmāyana, this phase of Rām’s life receives little or no attention;
however, Rām-­rasiks delight in imagining the details of this idyllic period, a līlā
in which Rām and Sītā express their ultimate reality through the quality of
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 199

mādhurya, or “erotic sweetness.”14 Agradās’s best-­k nown composition is the

Dhyān Mañjarī, a late sixteenth-­century Brajbhasha text that appears to be
the earliest Rām-­rasik meditation manual, a genre of texts offering detailed
descriptions of Rām, Sītā, and the beautiful city of Saket with which the initi-
ated Rām-­rasik could conduct elaborate visualizations of the intimate life of
Rām and Sītā, typically taking on the role of either a female companion
(sakhī) or maidservant (mañjarī) of Sītā or a male companion (sakhā) of Rām.
These companions were the select few who had access to the inner sanctum
of the Kanak Bhavan (House of Gold) in Saket, where they served and wor-
shipped Rām and Sītā, witnessing their supreme līlā.15 Agradās thus seems to
have been a pivotal figure in taking the figure of Rāmcandra—­t raditionally
centered on divine kingship, power in battle, and righteous rule of the
world—­and shifting his worship toward a Kṛṣṇaite erotic theology and a refined
emotional experience that “cultivated a distinctly apolitical interiority” among
devotees, a style of religiosity better suited (than traditional forms of Rām wor-
ship) to the new Mughal-­Rajput political and cultural context.16 In his own rasik
practice, Agradās is said to have taken on the persona of Candrakalā, Sītā’s
dearest female companion—­who is remembered to have artfully arranged Rām
and Sītā’s initial meeting in the Puṣp Vāṭikā (Flower Garden) of King Janak’s
palace grounds in Mithila—­and many hold that he was actually an incarnation
of this sakhī. Indeed, some of his poetry is signed Agra-­ali, the “-­ali” being a col-
loquial term for a woman’s intimate female friend.17

R
Our earliest description of Agradās comes from his disciple Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl.
Nābhā writes,

Agradās never spent a moment when he was not absorbed in

doing devotion to Hari.
He acted in accordance with the good conduct of the saints. In
service, meditation, and remembrance [sumiran], he kept his
heart on the feet of Rāghav [Rām].
He loved his famous garden and worked on it endlessly with his
own hands. The pure name of God fell from his tongue like
rain from a cloud.
Blessing him, Kṛṣṇadās [Payahārī] gave [Agra] the gift of bhakti
and made him firm in heart, speech, and action. Agradās
never spent a moment when he was not absorbed in devotion
to Hari.18
 200 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

Love, devotion, and service are the focal points of Agra’s description, and
he is also linked to the word sumiran, the remembrance of God. Anantadās, the
grand-­disciple of Agra (yet his contemporary), in his Pīpā-­parcāī, written in the
late sixteenth century, confirms the lineage given by Nābhā and similarly notes
that Agra “excelled in love (prem) and strictly observed the rules of remembrance
(sumiran).”19 Nābhādās’s and Anantadās’s use of the word sumiran20 was deliber-
ate and particularly apt in that this term’s two main connotations—­the prac-
tice of chanting the divine Name and the practice of visualization meditations
of the Lord—­seem to have been the two primary components of Agra’s devo-
tional life and religious practice.21
In describing his guru, Nābhādās makes a point of mentioning Agradās’s
“famous garden” and presenting him as a devoted gardener. The garden is a cru-
cial feature of Agra’s hagiography from the very beginning and acts as a meta-
phor for the loving attention, constant care, and dedicated service he gave to
God while also suggesting the sedentary nature of his religious life (in compari-
son with more itinerant Rāmānandī ascetics). Nābhā’s verse suggests that the
pure devotion of Agradās’s bhajans and his repetition of the name of Rām were
the water that nourished and sustained his garden. Rāghavdās echoed these
sentiments in his 1660 Bhaktamāl, writing, “Understanding his garden to be
Hari’s, [Agra] loved it very much. Weeding, digging and watering [the garden]
himself, whatever fruits and flowers grew, he offered them all to Prabhu.”22
As Philip Lutgendorf notes, “Portraits of Agradas often show him in a garden:
he is said to have chosen this setting for his visualizations of Ram and Sita’s
intimate pastimes, and the custom of planting formal gardens adjacent to Ram
temples may have originated with him.”23 Indeed, Jhā writes that Rām-­rasik
bhaktas continue to follow the example of Agradās by keeping small gardens in
their temples and by combining their names with bāg, kuṅj, nikuṅj, bāṭikā, van,
and other similar horticultural words.24
Agra’s garden plays a key role in a popular story, first found in Priyādās’s
Bhaktamāl commentary of 1712, in which Mahārājā Mān Singh comes to visit and
pay homage to Agradās. As Priyādās narrates it, Mān Singh arrived with a great
entourage while Agra was working in his garden. The king entered the garden
but was asked to wait by two guards seated at the entrance. Agra, meanwhile,
was sweeping some leaves out of the garden when he saw the large crowd assem-
bled outside. Not wanting his devotional routine to Rām and Sītā to be disturbed
by them, he sat down and became absorbed in a state of ras-­filled meditation. At
this point, Nābhādās came to speak with his guru. Having approached and pros-
trated himself before Agradās, Nābhā stood up and became so moved by the sight
of his beloved guru engrossed in meditation that his eyes filled with tears. By
this time, Mān Singh had grown tired of waiting and had come looking for
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 201

Agradās. Arriving at the scene and witnessing with his own eyes the two sants’
extraordinary and tender display of love and devotion, Mān Singh realized
that Rām had indeed fully bestowed his mercy and kindness on these servants
of his.25 In this story, Priyādās praises the single-­minded dedication and deep
emotion inherent in the devotion practiced by Agra and his disciple Nābhādās
while simultaneously showing these saints’ interaction with and impact
upon perhaps the leading Hindu-­Rajput political figure in the Mughal Empire.
Indeed, oral tradition at Raivasa remembers this as the event responsible for
firmly planting the seed of bhakti in Rājā Mān Singh’s mind and making him
thereafter a great patron of the Vaiṣṇavas.26 In his Rāmrasikāvalī (1864), the
rasik devotee and writer Raghurājsiṃh of Rewa went so far as to say that Mān
Singh became the disciple of Agradās.27
One legend in particular is often told about Agradās’s arrival in Raivasa. Hav-
ing left Galta, Agradās was traveling with a group of sants. They were on the
road in an uninhabited area when evening came upon them. Looking out into
the distance they could not see a single dwelling. That day also happened to be
the Ekādaśī fast and, sitting in the wilderness, they became very thirsty and
hungry. Agradās was extremely concerned about the suffering of the sants with
him. He wondered how God could watch the distress of his true devotees. At that
exact moment, far away they saw a flickering light in a hut. Seeing this light in
the midst of the desolation and darkness, their hearts rose. Agradās led the men
toward the hut, and upon arriving they saw that a radiant elderly woman was
seated there beside a charming lake and garden. The old woman gave them cold
water and insisted on giving them a meal of fruit. The sants accepted and when
the meal was ready, they offered prasād to God and invited Agradās to come and
take fruit. Wanting to give to the old lady first, Agra requested that she come;
however, when the sants went to get her they saw that the old lady was no lon-
ger there and that the beautiful lake and garden had vanished as well. Under-
standing what had happened, Agradās then realized that this woman who had
come to their aid, offering light in the darkness, was none other than the divine
mother Sītā (Jānakī). He was filled with great sorrow that Mā Jānakī had suf-
fered so much difficulty for him and that he was not able to properly take her
darśan. All night tears flowed from his eyes in separation from his Jānakī. He
began to wonder how long Jānakī, who bestows happiness on the world, could
endure her devotee’s intolerable grief. At that very place, smiling, Sītā then pre-
sented herself. She gave her devotee assurance that she would always be
ensconced in Raivasa and that he should start a community there. It was based
on that divine encounter that Agradās arrived in Raivasa village at the feet of
the Aravali hills. There at the base of the mountains, under a pīpal (fig) tree—­
that still stands today, right next to his still-­burning dhūnī—­Agra sat down and
 202 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

began meditating. In those days, there was a serious drought; there was no water
whatsoever in Raivasa. Hearing that a famous saint had arrived in their village,
some residents came out to Agradās and told him about the great suffering they
were experiencing because of the lack of water. Moved by their stories, Agradās
thrust his cimṭā (fire tongs) into the ground. At that moment, at that precise
spot, an underground spring of fresh water burst through the earth. Later a well
was built there that, according to tradition, is the very well that stands today
in the garden behind Raivasa monastery.28
While tradition—­as well as all scholarship—­maintains that Agradās founded
a Rām-­rasik community at Raivasa after leaving Galta in the mid-­sixteenth cen-
tury, there is good reason to believe that no Rāmānandī institution existed at
Raivasa until the early eighteenth century and that Agradās never actually went
there and, perhaps, never left Galta.29 The earliest text explicitly linking Agradās
to Raivasa is Jivārām Yugalpriyā’s Rasik-­Prakāś-­Bhaktamāl (1839). This sectarian
hagiographical text devotes two stanzas to Agradās:

ras-­bodh vipul ānandaghan agra svāmi bānī biśad /

akṣar pad anuprās madhurtā bālmīk sam //
āśay gūṛh upāy prāpti rasikan kī saṅgam /
raivāse jānakī vallabhī rahasi upāsī //
lalit rasāśray raṅg mahal kal kuñj khabāsī /
ācāraj ras rās-­path rasik barj rasikan sukhad //
ras bodh vipul ānandaghan agra svāmi bānī biśad // 14

Agra Swāmī’s beautiful words showered [revealed] rasa like

abundant clouds of bliss;
His use of letters, verses, and alliteration and his mādhurya
[erotic love/sweetness] were like that of Vālmīki.
He obtained the hidden meaning and secret method of the
meeting of the rasiks. Living in Raivasa, he enjoyed the
worship of Jānakī [Sītā] and her Lord.
The servant30 Agra’s garden was a beautiful shelter of rasa like
Sītā and Rām’s private royal chamber.
Founder [leader] of the sect which delights in rasa, he is the
greatest rasik, and gave happiness to all the rasiks.
Agra Swāmī’s beautiful words showered [revealed] rasa like
abundant clouds of bliss.

agra svāmi śrī-­agra sahacarī janaklalī kī /

puṣp bāṭikā milan hetu priy bhānti bhalī kī //
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 203

candrakalā priy nām śyām siy vas kari rākhī /

pragaṭi svāmi pad lahī dhyān ras man man cakhī //
granthkār śṛṅgār ras sāgar mañjari dhyān hīṃ /
bhedī anbhedī paṛhai rasik rās path jān hīṃ // 15

Agra Swāmī was first [the favorite] among the female

companions of Janak’s daughter [Sītā].
She/he expertly arranged Rām and Sītā’s meeting in the flower
garden.
Candrakalā was [Agra’s] name, the beloved female companion
who helped bring Rām under Sītā’s spell [power/control].
Meditating on the feet of the manifest God, Agra deeply tasted
rasa.
He is the author of that ocean of śṛṅgār rasa, the Dhyān Mañjarī.
Whether wise or ignorant, whoever reads this work will know
the essence of the rasik path.

These verses from the Rasik-­Prakāś-­Bhaktamāl demonstrate the features that

had solidified into key elements of Agra’s hagiography by the early nineteenth
century. Unlike Nābhādās, Rāghavdās, and Priyādās before him, Yugalpriyā
describes Agradās as the founder of the Rām-­rasik tradition, remembers him to
have resided at Raivasa (a place never mentioned by any earlier hagiographers),
and emphasizes his identity with Sītā’s favorite companion, Candrakalā. Fur-
thermore, by this time (1839) we see that Agra’s work, the Dhyān Mañjarī, has
become a definitive, essential text of the Rām-­rasik tradition. The Dhyān Mañjarī
offered a detailed vision of Rām and Sītā in Ayodhya that probably served as the
foundational early manual of Rām-­rasik meditation. Interestingly, of the twenty-­
four manuscripts of this text I have found in my research in the archives of
North India (more than twice as many as of any other work attributed to
Agradās), the overwhelming majority come from the nineteenth century; in
fact, only a single one comes from before 1800.31 The nineteenth century was
the heyday of Rām-­rasik bhakti, thus it makes good sense that it was then that
the Dhyān Mañjarī found its greatest popularity. Yet Agradās seems to have been
just as much a Sant as a rasik, and he composed a number of works and poetic
verses that do not have explicitly rasik themes but instead emphasize renuncia-
tion, the power of reciting the Name, and the importance of bhakti in a more
general sense. It is actually these (non-­rasik) compositions that we find in all the
earliest manuscripts of works attributed to Agra, including two seventeenth-­
century manuscripts of his Kuṇḍaliyā and at least six seventeenth-­century man-
uscripts of collected poetry that include his pads. We cannot be certain, but all
 204 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

of this suggests that it was not until the late eighteenth or early nineteenth cen-
tury, when Rām-­rasik bhakti was rising to prominence and felt the need to look
back and establish a clear lineage with a distinguished past, that Agradās was
marked as the founder of the Rām-­rasik tradition and thereafter increasingly
came to be remembered almost exclusively as a rasik (his hagiography perhaps
even acquiring new elements), while the rest of his work and historical identity
were marginalized.32
I turn now to the compositions of Agradās to provide a sense of both the rasik
and Sant dimensions of his religiosity and the way in which his literary output
(and that of his disciples) embraced the ethos of nirguṇ ascetics and Sants while
also engaging with the burgeoning śṛṅgār (erotic love) devotional themes and
Brajbhasha aesthetic refinements that could garner his community patronage
and prestige within the developing Mughal-­Rajput literary and court culture.
Agradās was a religious entrepreneur who worked to circulate both a sensible
bhakti and a bhakti sensibility in early modern North India. His compositions
were both pious and pragmatic, seeking to articulate a prudent bhakti that would
appeal to a variety of potential “consumers” (and thus benefit his own
Rāmānandī community) while also expressing and mobilizing a distinctive set
of aesthetic tastes, ethics, and emotional values—­a sensibility—­common to the
larger bhakti public.

The Compositions of Agradās

Scholars writing in Hindi have been rather inconsistent in the texts they attri-
bute to Agradās, though two works, the Dhyān Mañjarī and the Kuṇḍaliyā, are
always mentioned. In my own manuscript searches in the archives of Rajasthan
and Uttar Pradesh (namely, in Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Vrindavan, and Vara-
nasi), I have found thirteen compositions attributed to Agradās (including one in
Sanskrit), in addition to many scattered verses in anthologies of bhakti poetry.33
Unlike any other Rāmānandī before him, it is clear that Agra was quite prolific.
Based on the number of manuscripts I have found for each of his compositions, it
seems that his most popular works are, in order of significance, these four: the
Dhyān Mañjarī, the Kuṇḍaliyā, the Prahlād-­caritra, and the Nām Pratāp. Of these key
works, I focus below especially on the Dhyān Mañjarī and the Nām Pratāp, for they
represent what seem to have been the two most important aspects of Agra’s spir-
itual life: rasik meditation practice (on Rām-­Sītā) and the remembrance of the
divine Name.
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 205

The earliest known compositions of Agradās are the poems attributed to

him in anthologies. The earliest verses I have located come from a manu-
script dated v.s.1670 (1613 CE), which would be remarkably close to the saint’s
lifetime. 34 In bhakti anthologies that include his compositions, it is safe to say
that Agradās is most commonly found with Tulsīdās or Sūrdās. His poetry is also
quite often grouped with that of Nandadās and Kṛṣṇadās (of the Vallabha
sampradāy), and not uncommonly with that of Paramānand, Mīrā, and Kabīr.
We should be careful not to read too much into this, but one might speculate
that he was most often grouped with Tulsī and Sūr because, like him, these poets
wrote in a more polished, literary fashion and with a typically saguṇ Vaiṣṇava
orientation.
In addition to his more rasik (saguṇ, śrṇgār, refined aesthetic) sensibilities,
Agradās had a clear Sant dimension as well (i.e., a more ascetic, nirguṇ outlook
we might associate with the likes of Kabīr and Raidās). Sometimes his verses are
even included with those of the famous Rajasthani nirguṇ bhakta Dādū, whom
he seems to have explicitly criticized. Regardless of Agra’s and the Rāmānandīs’
feelings toward them, members of the Dādū ­Panth seem to have had no problem
including Agradās’s verses in their collections of bhakti poetry. Indeed, Rajjab’s
Sarvāṅgī (ca. 1600) includes ten of Agradās’s poems.35 Here I translate five of these
poems that speak to some representative themes in Agra’s oeuvre.36
I begin with a poem about a practice that was undoubtedly at the very heart
of Agradās’s spiritual life: the remembrance (reciting, singing) of the divine
Name.

rām nām sidhānt siromani /

des kāl kul nem nahīṃ tahṃ bidhi niṣedh ḍāre dūnyūṃ cuni // ṭek //
ved purāṇ sumaratī sāstra hūṃ ihai ank rakhyau sabhīṃ gani /
mārg rāj duhūṃ kar sonauṃ nirabhai calai nisīdin bani ṭhani //
siv virañci sanakādi seṣ such nārad sārad sākhi sant muni /
viduṣaṇi sār udhāri liyau mathi agra nirantari ātam pati bhani // 20.937

The Name of Rām is the crown jewel of all accomplishments.

Where there is no country, time, family, or daily rites, there I
have abandoned both the proscriptions and restrictions [of
orthodox religion].
The Vedas, Purāṇas, smṛti, and śāstras, having considered them
all, I have embraced this [Rām-­Nām].
On a highway with gold in both my hands, I walk fearlessly day
and night, well adorned [with the Name].
 206 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

Having mulled over [all knowledge], scholars have revealed this

essence, thus Agra endlessly speaks of [recites the Name of]
his own Lord [husband].

In this pad, Agradās shows his learning in the orthodox Sanskritic traditions
(saying that he has considered the Vedas, Purāṇas, smṛtī, and śāstras), yet at the
very same time he expresses a strong Sant sentiment that orthodoxy’s require-
ments and prohibitions are meaningless beside—­or perhaps better put, they can
be transcended in—­the practice of remembering the name of God. In the last
line of the poem, Agra states that he recites the Name without end as “his own
Lord [husband],” a phrase that could indicate his rasik sensibilities and prefer-
ence for approaching the Divine in a feminine role (i.e., one of the servant com-
panions of Sītā).
The next pad further emphasizes the power of the divine Name and its
recitation, one of the most consistent and emphatic themes in all of Agradās’s
work.

jo nar rām nām anusaraī /

bidhi niṣedh bādhā nahiṃ tākauṃ tīn karam tan taiṃ jhari paraī //
ṭek //
loh aginat pākhān nāv pari jo baisai so pār utaraī /
koṭi baras kau timar sadan meṃ dīpak udai tihī chin haraī //
cit kī vṛtti avidyā ṭākau kañcan kalaṅk again jaisaiṃ jaraī //
agradās sansau nahīṃ yāmeṃ anīyās bhav dūtar taraī // 22.1438

The one who follows the name of Rām,

For him, proscriptions and restrictions are not obstacles; the
three karmas fall away from his body.
One who sits on a stone boat loaded with countless pieces of iron
[with the Rām-­Nām], even he crosses [the ocean of existence].
For even in a house that has been in darkness for one hundred
million years, when a lamp is lit the darkness is banished in
the blink of an eye.
As a fire burns away gold’s impurities, so [the name of Rām
purifies] the workings of the mind bound to ignorance.
Agradās says, there is no doubt in this [with the Rām-­Nām], one
effortlessly crosses the insurmountable [ocean of] existence.

This poem extols the purifying, salvific potency of the name of Rām, which
can carry even the most sinful beings across “the ocean of existence.” Agra
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 207

devotes an entire ninety-­eight-­verse independent work, his Nām Pratāp, to this

theme; it was clearly of fundamental importance in his belief and practice.
The following poem is striking in its expression of intense humility and ser-
vitude. In this, it is representative of an increasingly prominent devotional per-
spective that was in sharp contradistinction to tantric religious approaches
and attitudes.

yahu mohi dījai rājā rām /

dāsanidās dās kau anucar śravan kathā mukh nām // ṭek //
mokhi ādi de-­cāri padārth mere nāhin kām /
caran ren sādhan kī sir pari kṛpā karau such dhām //
santani kau anurāg nirantari ihi bidhi bītahuṃ jām //
agradās jācat hari carcā sudhā sindhu biśrām // 41.639

Oh King Rām, give me just this,

I am the follower of the servant of the servant’s servant, put your
story in my ear and your Name in my mouth.
Liberation and the things of this world, I have no use for them.
[I place] the sand from the feet of the saints upon my head; have
mercy on me, abode of happiness.
[Engaged in the] endless love of the saints, in this way let me
spend every period of the day.
Agradās begs to hear about Hari,40 that resting place, the ocean
of nectar.

These verses overflow with a loving devotion that revels in humble service,
adoration, and praise. Agra, the “follower of the servant of the servant’s ser-
vant,” wants only one thing, to have his ears filled with accounts of the Lord’s
deeds and good qualities and his mouth filled with the Lord’s sacred Name. He
would give up worldly pleasures and even spiritual liberation in order to con-
tinue to immerse himself in devotion to Rām. It is hard to imagine a perspec-
tive more contrary to that of the power-­seeking approach of the Nāth yogīs (e.g.,
as seen in the Gorakhbāṇī) than this.
The following composition comes from a section of poems in the Sarvāṅgī ded-
icated to the theme of warnings (citāvanī). This particular pad is in tune with
common Sant attitudes about the body and the fragility and preciousness of
human life.

nānau nikhar sakhar saudā milai tau kāhe na lehu maṃdamati āgar /
kari hari bhajan pratīt na tan kī jyūṃ jal bharyau karautī kāgar //
 208 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

deh kheh chin bhaṅgar kram biṭ nāhin chānī bāt ujāgar /
agra syām kau nām amolak rasnā sumari rām sukh āgar // 73.3641

If, in a trade, you get a pile of good things for just a penny, why
not take this treasure, you fool?
Sing your devotion to Hari! Don’t trust the body, it’s like a paper
cup filled with water.
Oh ignorant one, you haven’t learned the obvious: this body—­
breakable in a moment—­will next be dust.
Agra says, the name of God [Syām] is priceless; let your tongue
remember [recite] Rām, the treasure house of contentment.

In this poem, Agradās warns his listeners not to become attached to the body,
which is unreliable and impermanent. Again, Agra expresses a point of view very
much at odds with that of the Nāth yogīs, whose tantric practice used the
body as its foundation in a quest for physical immortality. From Agra’s devo-
tional perspective, one must not rely on the body but should instead focus
solely on devotional songs and actions to God. Agra praises the Name once
again in this pad, using a business or trade metaphor to stress its great value,
attained with such ease. As he reiterates in others of his poems in the Sarvāṅgī,
with one’s life span so uncertain, and human birth so rare, why not take the
name of God and do bhakti right away!
The next poem is quite striking, especially if one thinks of Agradās in the
way he has almost universally been remembered by scholars and devotees alike,
as the great rasik devotee of the saguṇ Rām. First, the pad stresses the impor-
tance of the nirguṇ dimension of the Divine, then, when Agra shifts the poem’s
orientation by pointing out the identity of saguṇ and nirguṇ, he does so with a
reference not to Rām but to Kṛṣṇa (Śyām) and the ladies of Braj.

sukah paihau nirguṇ ke jānaiṃ /

ahūṃ mamat gun doṣ bisarihau byāpak brahm pichānaiṃ // ṭek
jyūṃ til tel dār meṃ hutabhūk aise sab meṃ dekhau /
kistūrī ke mṛg kī nāī anant kahūṃ jinni pekhau //
yahū upades syāmsundar kau braj banitā ur dhārau /
agra syām pūraṇ paramānand bichūran bharam nivārau // 43.1442

Contentment is obtained by knowing the nirguṇ.

By recognizing the pervasive Brahman, one forgets worldly
attachment, good qualities, and faults.
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 209

As the oil within a sesame seed or fire within wood, see [the
Brahman] within all.
Look for it just as the musk deer looked about endlessly [for that
sweetest of scents].43
This is the instruction of Kṛṣṇa [śyāmsundar]; the ladies of Braj
hold it in their hearts.
Agra says that Śyām is complete and supreme bliss; abandon
the illusion [confusion] of separation [between nirguṇ and
saguṇ].

It is tempting to say that Agradās could not possibly have composed this
verse. While that is certainly a possibility, it seems more reasonable and pro-
ductive to accept the poem and correspondingly expand our view of Agradās
in the realization that, in a community like that of the early Rāmānandīs, the
perspective of this poem is not only completely plausible but also actually quite
representative.
This poem from the Sarvāṅgī is certainly not the only instance in which
Agradās composed devotional verses with Kṛṣṇa in mind. To give one other
example, in a pad from a 1685 manuscript titled the Bhāgavat Pad Prasaṅg, con-
taining more than three hundred of his poems, Agradās describes the lush,
enchanted environment of Braj in the rainy season and praises the “gentle,
heart-­stealing” smile of Kṛṣṇa, concluding that “his face is a treasure house of
bliss like the moon of Vrindavan.” 44 In early modern North India’s world of bhakti,
it should come as no surprise that a devotee-­poet with a special preference for
the worship of Rām would nonetheless have also composed devotional verses
focused on Kṛṣṇa. When it came to Rām and Kṛṣṇa, those two brightest stars of
early modern North India’s Hindu devotional scene, there was certainly no
imperative to choose one to the exclusion of the other. Devotional preferences
existed, but they were typically nonexclusive in nature. The great Kṛṣṇa poet
Sūrdās wrote poems about Rām (as well as about Sītā and Hanumān), while
Tulsīdās, the great Rām bhakta, dedicated a full work of poems to Kṛṣṇa, his Kṛṣṇa
Gītāvalī. Even Sant poets like Kabīr and Raidās, whose perspective was predom-
inantly nirguṇ in orientation, drew on the imagery and narrative traditions of
both Rām and Kṛṣṇa.
This inclusive Vaiṣṇava approach also seems to have characterized the early
Rāmānandī community to which Agradās belonged.45 Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī, the
founder of the community at Galta (and Agra’s guru), seems to have been a dev-
otee of Kṛṣṇa—­as his name indicates—­a nd to have turned his disciple King
Pṛthvīrāj to Kṛṣṇa devotion as well,46 yet he is also remembered for bringing
 210 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

aniconic (śālagrām) images of both Sītā-­Rām and Nṛsiṃha (Viṣṇu in his half-­
man, half-­lion avatār) with him to Galta (which were then installed at the court
of the Kacchvāhās at Amer);47 thus he seems to have been a devotee of Viṣṇu
in all forms. If this was the devotional perspective of Agradās’s guru, that of
his disciple Nābhādās was quite similar. In the opening passage of his Bhaktamāl,
Nābhā implies that he venerates all twenty-­four avatāras of Viṣṇu that proceed
from the four vyūhas (though he states that he especially reveres Rām and Sītā).48
That Agradās would praise Kṛṣṇa in some of his poems is, then, clearly not so
odd. What begs for a bit of further explanation, however, is Agradās’s extolling
of the nirguṇ (qualityless) Divine in the poem.
The distinction between nirguṇ and saguṇ conceptions of the Divine goes back
to at least the late sixteenth century, and perhaps much earlier, in North India.
That this was a topic of debate—­a matter on which all did not see eye to eye—­is
suggested by a number of bhakti sources, including the Rāmcaritmānas, in which
Tulsīdās “goes out of his way to assert the essential compatibility of both con-
ceptions of Ram.” 49 In a key scene, Pārvatī tells Śiva that she is unable to recon-
cile the transcendental majesty of the nirguṇ Rām with the worldly deeds and
qualities of the saguṇ Rām. Śiva explains (1.121.3–­4) the essential correspondence
of these nirguṇ and saguṇ dimensions, asserting that it would be deluded not to
see the two as ultimately one and the same. Tulsī (via Śiva) states,

Wise men, sages, the Vedas and Puranas declare that there is no
difference between the sagun and nirgun forms of Brahman.
That which is without attributes, without form, imperceptible,
and without birth is compelled to take on the qualities of the
iconic under the influence of the devotees’ love.
How can that Absolute without attributes become qualified? In
the same way that water and hailstones are not different from
each other.
He whose very name is like the sun to the darkness of ignorance,
tell me how can he be subject to ignorant delusion?50

I return to this important subject later, but for now it is enough to note that
Agradās seems to have shared Tulsī’s views on the relationship and essential
compatibility of the nirguṇ and saguṇ Divine. In the final line of his poem, Agra
urges his listeners to abandon the illusion that there is any separation between
the nirguṇ Brahman and the saguṇ Kṛṣṇa. Many others on the religious scene of
the day—­Sufis, Sikhs, and Nāths, to name a few—­shared different and more
strictly nirguṇ theological views, and this may have been a source of real conflict.
In other words, while it was not unusual for bhakti poets with a saguṇ preference
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 211

to praise the nirguṇ dimension of the Divine, as Agra does, acknowledging it as

the ground or essence of the saguṇ, it is far more rare to find poets with a nirguṇ
preference praising the saguṇ. For Agradās and many other poets and bhaktas
like him, for whom aesthetic experience and religious experience were closely
intertwined (and dependent upon relishing the specific qualities of the Divine),
to reject the saguṇ dimension of the Divine was in many ways to miss the
point—­the savor or rasa—­of bhakti altogether.
In the poems attributed to him in Rajjab’s Sarvāṅgī, we have seen Agradās
express the themes of total humility, servitude, the fragility of the body, the
preciousness of human life, and, above all else, the power of the Name. Tulsīdās,
in the Rāmcaritmānas, had asserted that the name of Rām was the vital bridge
between the saguṇ and nirguṇ dimensions of the Divine. He wrote, “The Name is
a witness between the nirguṇ [aguṇa] and saguṇ realms; it is a clever translator
through which both [realms] become illuminating.”51 Once again, Agradās seems
to have felt just the same way. As a bhakta who not only sought to bridge the
nirguṇ and the saguṇ but also to embrace his community’s Sant values while
simultaneously asserting for them a more patronage-­f riendly orthodox iden-
tity, the Name was of the utmost importance to Agra, for its practice and theol-
ogy were something agreed on and respected by nearly all. We can gain some
valuable insights on Agra’s perspective on the divine Name, as well as his over-
all literary project, in his Nām Pratāp.

Agradās, the Divine Name, and the Cultivation of

Brajbhasha Literature

The Nām Pratāp is essentially Agradās’s vernacular rendering and interpretation

of the story of Ajāmil as told in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (BhP), VI.1–­3. The following
discussion and translations are based on the ninety-­eight Brajbhasha verses of
this text found in a manuscript dated 1701 (v.s. 1758).52 As in BhP VI.1–­3, the verses
of Agra’s Nām Pratāp occur within this narrative frame: Śukdev (son of Vyāsa,
the sage-­author of the Mahābhārata) is telling the story of Ajāmil to King Parikṣit,
the first king of the Kali Yuga, who is deeply troubled at the corruption and evil
of the age and fearful of the horrible sufferings of hell. Ajāmil was a corrupt,
sinful brahman who, after wasting away years in immoral behavior, found him-
self on his deathbed. As the story goes, when the messengers of Death (Yama)
approached to take him away, Ajāmil cried out for his son, who happened to be
named Nārayaṇ. When Viṣṇu (Nārayaṇ) heard his Name called out, he immedi-
ately sent his own messengers to confront those of Death and protect Ajāmil
 212 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

from them. After some debate, Death’s messengers returned defeated and
empty-­handed to the realm of Yama, who then had to explain why they could
not take away this man whose sins seemed to so greatly outnumber his merits.
The reason, of course, was the saving power of the divine Name, which protected
Ajāmil and ignited a transformation within him that would eventually lead him
to become a model of piety.
With Śukdev as his mouthpiece, Agradās explains this purifying, salvific force
of God’s Name, writing (v. 43), “If the Name comes to your tongue / The tyranny
of death can never grasp you.”53 Even after hearing the tale of Ajāmil, however,
King Parikṣit remains doubtful about the power of the divine Name. The text
states (v. 50), “In response, the king asked a question / How can just reciting the
Name bring you salvation?”54 Śukdev replies to the king’s question in a series of
verses that articulate the core message of Agradās’s work.

nām sakal sādhani kau rājā / jog jagya tap sarai na kājā // 69

The Name is the king of all spiritual practice.

[Without it] yoga, sacrifice, and asceticism achieve nothing.

sādhan sabai nām bal sāñce / nām binā sādhan sab kāce // 70

The power of the Name is the essence [truth] behind all spiritual
practice.
Without the Name all spiritual practices are worthless.

aur jugani bahu bidhi byauhārā / kali keval hari nām adhārā // 71

In other ages, there were many systems and paths,

but in this Kali Age, the name of Hari is our only shelter.

In verse after verse, Agradās praises the incomparable glory and efficacy of
the Name. He writes (vv. 86–­88),

dhani janam soī baḍbhāgī / rām nām sauṃ rasnā pāgī // 86

He who is so very fortunate as to have this blessed [human] birth

/ Let his tongue be immersed in the name of Rām.

des kāl pūjā mantra hīnā / sab nirbighan nām kai līnā // 87
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 213

Without country or time, without worship or mantras / One

engrossed in the Name [can achieve] all things without
obstacle.

rām set bin sāgar vārā / nām liyai nar hai bhav pārā // 88

Without the bridge of Rām, [one cannot cross] this endless ocean,
[but] taking the Name, a man crosses this [ocean of] existence.

Having extolled the Name in virtually every conceivable way, Agradās con-
cludes his composition with these two verses:

nām pratāp jo sunai sunāvai / jīvan mukat param pad pāvai // 97

ān upāi nahī kī koī āsā / agardās śrī hari nām bisvāsā // 98

Whoever listens to and recites the glory of the Name [Nām

Pratāp],
Their soul is liberated and attains the highest place.

There is no hope in other ways.

Agradās places his faith in the Name of Hari.

The Nām Pratāp clearly demonstrates the incredible importance that the
Name held in the theology and practice of Agradās and his Rāmānandī commu-
nity. Agra’s verses in this text reiterate the message of many of his poems in
the Sarvāṅgī. The absolute power of the Name was a message proclaimed by bhak-
tas far and wide in early modern North India: Tulsīdās, the Sikhs, the Gauḍiyā
Vaiṣṇava followers of Caitanya, and Sants like Kabīr and Raidās, among others,
were united in this core belief and practice. Indeed, Agra’s words in verse 71,
kali keval hari nām adhāra (“in this Kali Age, the name of Hari is our only shelter”),
are nearly identical to those in verses composed by both Raidās55 and Tulsīdās.56
For Agradās, the bhakti practice of remembering the Name (in song, recitation,
or meditation) was a truly necessary form of devotion without which all other
spiritual practices became useless. He highlights the ultimate superfluity (if not
worthlessness) of yoga, asceticism, sacrifice, worship rituals (pūjā), and the use
of mantras (vv. 69 and 87); one need only have faith in the Name.
The significance of Agra’s Nām Pratāp is not simply its emphatic advocacy of
the Rām-­Nām. As a rendition of a popular devotional tale from the BhP, this work
 214 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

also suggests Agradās’s involvement in the project of making Sanskrit religious

and literary texts available (in written form) to a broader audience in the emerg-
ing cosmopolitan vernacular of Brajbhasha. The Rāmānandīs had deep roots in
the tradition of the Sants, and the spirit of asceticism, renunciation, and yoga
among the early community at Galta has been noted. Agradās sought to main-
tain the Rāmānandīs’ Sant values while taking the community in a new direction
that could garner it prestige, power, and patronage in a changing sociopolitical
environment. While the Sants by and large rejected Sanskritic and brahmanical
traditions, in certain contexts Agradās—­especially in his Dhyān Mañjarī and
Kuṇḍaliyā—­embraced Sanskrit literary authority and joined a growing movement
of poets who were cultivating in Brajbhasha “a new and self-­consciously classiciz-
ing idiom of Hindi.”57 Agra seems to have authored at least one work in Sanskrit58
and was probably quite learned in Sanskritic traditions, but his mission was to
spread the messages and stories of bhakti in Brajbhasha, a language of great
promise in that it was not only accessible to everyday devotees but also devel-
oping a new register perfectly suited for sophisticated literary expression in the
courts of Rajput kings, and perhaps even Mughal emperors.
In the second half of the sixteenth century, while poets such as Nandadās in
Braj were rendering Sanskrit texts into artfully constructed Brajbhasha verses,
giving special attention to the legends of Kṛṣṇa in the BhP, Agradās chose to
write interpretive vernacular tellings of stories—­all found in the BhP but also
almost certainly in vernacular oral circulation—­about the power of bhakti and
the deeds of exemplary bhaktas, a concern and a project he would pass on to his
disciple Nābhādās. In this effort, Agradās authored not only the Nām Pratāp, on
the tale of Ajāmil (BhP VI:1–­3), but also the Prahlād Caritra, about the story of the
great devotee Prahlād (BhP VII:1–­10), and the Dhruv Caritra, which retells the nar-
rative of the inspiring and praiseworthy bhakta Dhruv (BhP IV:8–­12).59 In his
mission to celebrate the great bhaktas and the transformatory power of devo-
tion to those bhaktas, Agradās’s choice to focus specifically on devotees featured
in the BhP was a strategic one linked to a larger historical trend in which this
scripture had acquired special importance among devotees. In the fifteenth cen-
tury, Lakṣmīdhara’s Bhagavannāmakaumudī (Moonlight of God’s Name) had
made “a serious scholastic attempt to accord the genre of purāṇa—­specifically,
the Bhāgavata Purāṇa—­a superlative place in the hierarchy of Sanskrit scrip-
ture,” 60 and by the sixteenth century, the BhP had come to be “regarded by
many as the definitive commentary on and sum of all Vedic knowledge.”61 Audi-
ences would have been quite familiar with its stories and characters, able to
admire the specific ways a poet rendered them. Furthermore, listening to the
BhP’s tales was considered a meritorious activity and one of the most efficacious
ways of cultivating love for God.62 Wherever Agra’s vernacular renditions of the
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 215

well-­known tales of the great bhaktas of the BhP circulated and were performed,
with their artfully tailored bhakti themes and messages, they would almost cer-
tainly have induced particular “modes, and moods, of feeling together” among
audiences, generating an “effervescent sentiment of sharing and taking part in a
larger social ensemble”: an early modern North Indian bhakti public.63 In other
words, Agradās’s Brajbhasha works on the famed bhaktas of the BhP (Ajāmil,
Dhruva, Prahlād) engaged popular literary and religious trends of the late six-
teenth century in a fashion skillfully tailored to bring in followers and patronage
for the Rāmānandīs, but perhaps more crucially, their circulation and perfor-
mance helped to sustain and expand a far-­reaching transsectarian bhakti sensi-
bility and public.

Agradās the Rasik

I turn now to Agradās’s most famous work, the Dhyān Mañjarī, in order to provide
insight into his rasik side, a dimension that manifested itself in terms of both
his devotional practice and his literary style and output. The Dhyān Mañjarī, or
Handmaiden of Meditation, is Agradās’s most well-­k nown and influential work.
Composed sometime in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, it is the earli-
est known distinctly Rām-­rasik work and became a foundational text of the
Rām-­rasik community. Like nearly all of Agra’s compositions, it is written in
Brajbhasha64 and consists of seventy-­nine rhyming couplets in the rolā meter.65
The only English-­language scholarship on the Dhyān Mañjarī, which also con-
stitutes the only English-­language discussion of any of the works of Agradās,
is that of R. S. McGregor. In a short essay, McGregor gives a brief but useful descrip-
tion of the contents of the text, but he does not translate any of the verses.66 In
the following, I offer translations of some of this foundational work’s most
essential verses.67
Before delving into the text, it is important to note the significance of the
title Agra gave to this composition. It is first a work meant to assist in medita-
tion, or dhyān. The vision of meditation articulated in the text has close paral-
lels with traditional tantric practices of inner worship and yogic visualization,
showing that just as much as bhakti communities were distancing themselves
from many aspects of the tantric tradition, at the same time they were also
appropriating certain tantric ritual practices, remaking them in a new devo-
tional context. Agradās intended his work to be a helper and intimate compan-
ion, or mañjarī, for rasik practitioners, a “handmaiden” working in service of
their meditation on the divine play of Rām and Sītā. Yet Agra’s use of the word
 216 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

mañjarī in the title is suggestive of more than this. In the developing Kṛṣṇa bhakti
of Braj, the girlfriends of Rādhā, her closest companions and servants, came to
be known as mañjarīs. A form of spiritual practice developed in which the rasik
took on the role and identity of one of these mañjarīs in order to best witness
and relish the profound love of Rādhā for Kṛṣṇa.68 As Tony Stewart explains, the
role of the mañjarī had “an advantage enjoyed by no other figure in the līlās of
Krishna: immediate and continuous access to Rādhā’s and Krishna’s play.” 69 As
noted, Agradās is remembered to have taken on the role of Sītā’s closest female
companion in his rasik devotion. There is no doubt he was a trailblazer in tak-
ing contemporary developments in Kṛṣṇa bhakti in Braj—­particularly the rasa-­
centered theology and mañjarī sādhana formulated among the Vrindavan-­based
Gauḍiyā Vaiṣṇava followers of Caitanya—­and adapting them to a Rāmaite devo-
tional context. According to tradition, Agradās felt that taking on the role of
one of Sītā’s handmaidens, or mañjarīs, during devotional meditation was the
most effective means for a practitioner to become “the supreme participant-­
observer” of the līlās of Rām and Sītā, “present and contributing, but not the
direct object of [their] attentions,” and thus perfectly situated to observe and
become a vessel of their sublime emotions.70
The Dhyān Mañjarī opens with the following line, a directive to meditate on
Rām and the power inherent in this practice:

sumirau śrīraghuvīr dhīr raghuvaṃs vibhūṣaṇ /

saraṇ gahe sukhrāsī harat aghsāgar dukhaṇ // 1

Engross yourself in the remembrance of Śrī Raghuvīr [Rām],

ornament of the Raghu family.
He who takes the refuge of this source of joy removes oceans of
sin and suffering.

Following this invocation, Agradās begins describing the city of Ayodhya, or

Avadhpuri (vv. 3–­8), and the righteousness, devotion, and good fortune of its res-
idents (vv. 9–­11). He says (v. 12), “This very Ayodhya is the Ayodhya described in
śruti and smṛti. When you meditate [on this Ayodhya], it gives contentment; pro-
nouncing its name destroys all sins.”71 The text (vv. 14–­27) then proceeds to
describe the pleasure groves of Ayodhya; the divine splendor of its birds, trees,
fruits, and flowers; and the sin-­cleansing and heaven (Vaikuṇṭha)-­granting
power of the Sarju River flowing nearby. In a number of ways, Agra’s description
of Rām’s Ayodhya seems to be modeled on Kṛṣṇa’s Vrindavan. Indeed, these
verses reflect “the quest for a mythical space that would be the site of the mad-
hurya lila of Ram and Sita,” a site that, as Paramasivan puts it, “would parallel, if
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 217

not rival, the spaces of Vrindavan and Golok that had so captured the imagina-
tion of much of North India through the Krishna devotional traditions.”72
The detailed images in Agra’s descriptions are often astonishing. In a par-
ticularly evocative verse about the trees of Ayodhya, he writes, “The branches,
heavy with the weight of fruits and flowers, are leaning to the surface of the
earth, as if extending their arms to offer fruit to those passing by.”73 The vivid
imagery in such verses is a reminder that the disciplined meditation the text is
meant to assist depends on the ability of the rasik practitioner to reproduce first
a spatial environment, the geography of Ayodhya, as the prelude to emotional
involvement with Rām and Sītā.74
After describing the pleasure groves of Avadhpuri, Agra depicts the gold-­
inlaid, jewel-­studded lotus throne upon which Rām sits (vv. 28–­30), then delves
into an elaborate śikh-­nakh (head-­to-­toe) description of the beautiful and
awe-­i nspiring features of Rām (vv. 31–­47), whose form “ten million suns feel
ashamed upon seeing.”75 Verses 48 to 65 offer an equally detailed vision of Sītā
and of the divine pair seated together. Before moving on to describe their
attendants—­Śatrughna, Lakṣman, Bharat, Hanumān, Nārad muni (vv. 66–­70)—
Agradās concludes his verses on Rām and Sītā with these words: “How can one
describe the incomparable appearance of the divine couple? / Whatever poetic
language one uses, it finds meaning and expression only through their divine
power.”76
Before proceeding to a translation and analysis of the final ten verses of Agra’s
text, a few key observations will be useful. More than half the verses in the Dhyān
Mañjarī are devoted to intricate śikh-­nakh verbal portraits, a descriptive genre
commonly seen in Indian poetry but one that, Lutgendorf reminds us, we must
not dismiss “as a mere convention” because “in serving to create (in Kenneth
Bryant’s memorable phrase) a ‘verbal icon’ of the most literal sort, it represents,
in fact, a recipe for visualization.”77 To flip the coin back over, if Agradās’s detailed
descriptions of Rām-­Sītā were recipes for visualization, it is crucial to note that
he composed them according to accepted literary codes and sophisticated aes-
thetic protocols in order to evoke a deep and purified emotional experience. In
Sanskrit literary theory, portraying the beauty of a main character in terms of
these accepted codes was thought to deepen the experience of rasa. The emo-
tional experience that Agradās sought to evoke and heighten through artful lit-
erary method was a devotional one, thus here we see the aesthetic and the
religious truly blurring into one another.
The Dhyān Mañjarī offers a “recipe” for a meditative vision of the divine cou-
ple (yugal svarūp) seated upon a lotus on a throne under a wishing tree, one based
on an image—­a meditation (dhyān)—­of the pair first described in the Agastya
Saṃhitā (where the practitioner is to visualize Rām and Sītā within his own
 218 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

heart) but that Agradās places in the pleasure groves of Avadhpuri. As B. P. Singh
has demonstrated, Agra’s description of this vision (particularly the tree-­throne-­
lotus theme) closely parallels a passage from a no longer extant tantric text
called the Sadāśiva Saṃhitā.78 More than on the Sadāśiva Saṃhitā, it seems that
Agradās drew heavily on the work of the Braj poet, scholar, and Kṛṣṇa devotee
Nandadās.
In the Dhyān Mañjarī, Agradās not only adopts the meter of Nandadās’s
Rāspañcādhyāyī (Quintet on Kṛṣṇa’s dance) but also makes “a series of striking
verbal and conceptual borrowings” from Nandadās’s work in his descriptions
of the beauty of Rām and Avadhpuri’s pleasure groves. As McGregor points out,
“The way Agradās makes these borrowings, from different parts of the source
poem and evidently with close knowledge of its text, illustrates his intention
and ability to make the fullest use of this contemporary, vernacular Kṛṣṇa
source. The variations of topic and interpretation between the two poems, and
the different order of treatment of some shared topics, means that considerable
literary skill was required.”79 The fact that Agradās borrowed from the work of
Nandadās is interesting for two reasons. First, it further indicates his interac-
tion with the burgeoning Kṛṣṇa devotional communities of Braj, and, second, it
speaks to his adoption of a refined literary sensibility, demonstrating a concern
and intent to display poetic artfulness and cosmopolitan sophistication in
accord with the conventions of an emerging Brajbhasha public sphere.
Nandadās’s influence on Agradās seems to have been strictly literary, for their
religious views differed substantially, so much so that Agra’s disciple Nābhādās
does not mention Nandadās at all in the earliest manuscripts of his Bhaktamāl,
which, as mentioned, envisioned an extraordinarily expansive community of
devotee-­saints.80 This is not necessarily surprising since, in many ways, Nandadās
was far more influential as a scholar-­poet than as a bhakta of Kṛṣṇa. Nandadās
flourished in Braj in the second half of the sixteenth century, and while he is
claimed as a member of the Puṣṭi Mārg sect of Vallabha, his literary influence
extended far beyond that of any single religious community, for he was a critical
early figure in familiarizing vernacular poets and their audiences with the the-
ory, conventions, and vocabulary of Sanskrit poetics.81 Indeed, Allison Busch
identifies Nandadās’s Rasmañjarī as a forerunner of the rīti-­granth genre82 and says
that he “paved some of the way toward the classicization and elaboration of Hindi
literary culture.”83
Agradās was probably a junior contemporary of Nandadās’s, with most if not
all his works preceding those of the great rīti poet Keśavdās, who burst onto the
scene in 1591 with his Rasikpriyā. Thus, Agradās wrote at a time when Brajbha-
sha was well established in bhakti religious circles and was on the rise as a
sophisticated literary idiom, rapidly gaining importance in courtly contexts.
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 219

Agra wrote in Rajasthan, within the orbit of the Kacchvāhā rulers of Amer, who
were taking the lead role in establishing “a transregional Rajput courtly cul-
ture that was evolving in dialogue with the Mughal imperial system”84 and was
significantly informed by the values, images, and narratives of Vaiṣṇava bhakti.
This developing cosmopolitan court culture engendered a new interest among
Rajput rulers in literacy and books, which manifested in the second half of the
sixteenth century in an explosion of written texts (that increasingly supple-
mented oral practices) and the first development of libraries.85
Agradās found himself in the midst of all these trends and the new patron-
age conditions to which they gave rise. By producing written texts, especially
ones that interfaced with the increasingly popular Kṛṣṇaite-­influenced śṛṅgāra
literary culture, it was possible for bhakti poets to plug into the petty noble cir-
cuit and perhaps make even bigger court connections that would bring the
benefits of both prestige and patronage to themselves and their communities.86
Agradās wrote at a time when Brajbhasha literary production and the Vaiṣṇava
devotion with which it was so often associated were increasingly becoming part
of Rajput kingly self-­presentation, a self-­fashioning designed to display the
Rajput rulers’ worthiness, prestige, sophistication, and power to (a) the Mughals,
who, crucially, could participate firsthand in the “cultural repertory” of Brajb-
hasha (unlike with the far more inaccessible realm of Sanskrit);87 (b) rival Rajput
houses; and (c) their own local subjects. By following the lead of Brajbhasha
literary figures like Nandadās and composing polished vernacular works on
Vaiṣṇava themes according to time-­honored Sanskrit aesthetic conventions,
Agradās made the Rāmānandī sampradāy into an active participant in an emerg-
ing cosmopolitan Mughal-­Rajput literary culture. His literary project provided
the Rāmānandīs a level of dignity, distinction, and deportment that was vital
in their competition with other religious communities for the support and
patronage of those with wealth, sophistication, and power.
Agradās’s Kuṇḍaliyā—­h is second most popular work (behind the Dhyān
Mañjarī) in terms of number of extant manuscripts—­is also indicative of this
trend.88 The title of this text refers to the kuṇḍaliyā meter in which it is composed,
a long and relatively complex meter (a six-­l ine stanza of cyclical structure
involving a dohā combined with one rolā quatrain) that would seem to indicate
a more self-­consciously “poetic” metric choice in comparison with the gener-
ally simpler meters used by Sants such as Kabīr, Ravidās, and Nāmdev. In man-
uscript collections, Agradās’s Kuṇḍaliyā often goes by the title of Hitopadeśa-­
bāvanī since it deals with the subject matter of the Sanskrit Hitopadeśa, an
independent treatment of the Pañcatantra that includes teachings on morality
and wise political behavior. The Hitopadeśa was quite popular among the
Mughal political elite, so much so that Akbar commissioned painted versions of
 220 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

the text and even commissioned Abu al-­Fazl to prepare his own recension (the
‘Ayar-­i Danish) in simplified Persian. It is probably no coincidence, then, that
Agradās chose to compose a Brajbhasha work, using a sophisticated literary
form and poetic style, dealing with the themes and content of this popular
text, for producing this sort of literature could garner the Rāmānandīs social
and financial capital. In the historical context of Mughal India, thus, compos-
ing works like the Dhyān Mañjarī, Nām Pratāp, and Kuṇḍaliyā was truly a display
of virtue and power.

R
Let us return now to the text of the Dhyān Mañjarī and see how Agradās con-
cluded his most famous work. If the first sixty-­n ine verses of the work were
primarily a display of artful poetic description, in the last ten verses (vv. 70–­79),
Agradās shows a bit more of himself as he elaborates on the significance of the
rasik meditation he has so carefully laid out. He writes,

ye hī dhyān ur dhare svayaṃ tatu suphal karevā /

bhav caturānan ādi caran bande sab devā // 70

Keep only this dhyān89 in your heart and it will bring forth good
fruits in the body.
The feet of Rām are worshipped by Śiva, Brahmā, and all the gods.

yah daṃpati var dhyān rasik jan niti prati dhyāve /

rasik binā yeh dhyān aur sapne nahi pāve // 71

Rasik practitioners meditate daily [always] on the dhyān of this

magnificent couple [Rām and Sītā].
Those who are not rasiks cannot obtain this dhyān even in
dreams.

amal amṛt ras dhār rasik jan yehī ras pāge /

tāku nīras gyān jog tap choī lāge // 72

Rasiks immerse themselves in the pure nectar of the flow of this

rasa.
To them, jñāna [knowledge], yoga, and tapas [asceticism] are as
rasa-­less [dull, useless] as a dried-­up stem of sugarcane.
Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 221

param sār yeh carit sunat śravanani aghahārī /

dhyān param kalyān sant jan ānand kārī // 73

Hearing the supreme essence of this Dhyān Mañjarī destroys all

sins.
The greatest prosperity comes from this dhyān, which gives bliss
to the saints.

tinhī bhūli jani kahu kuṭilatā paṅk malin man /

yah ujjal mani māl paherehi param rasik jan // 74

Even by mistake do not tell this to minds soiled by the mud of

wickedness.
This shining jeweled garland can be worn only by great rasiks.

jagat īs ko rūp varani kahe kavani adhik mati /

kahā alp khadyot bhānu ke nikaṭ kare duti // 75

Tell me, what great wise person can describe Rām, Lord of
the World?
What light can a firefly shine when it is next to the sun?

kahā cātak kī sakti akhil jal caṇcu samāve /

kachuk būṇd mukh pare tāhe le ānand pāve // 76

Does a cātak bird90 have the power to put all water [every single
drop of rain] in its beak?
Just a few drops fall in its mouth and it obtains bliss from these.

suni āgam vidh arth kachuk jo manhī suhāyo /

yah maṅgal kar dhyān jathā mati varani sunāyo // 77

Having heard the Āgamas, some of its teachings pleased my

mind;
According to these, I have proclaimed and described this
auspicious dhyān in keeping with my own understanding.

śrī guru santani anugrah te as gopur vāsi /

rasik janan hit karan rahasi yah tāhi prakāsī // 78
 222 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

By the grace of the guru and the saints, this Gopur-­dwelling man
Has shed light on this secret for the benefit of rasiks.

dhyān mañjarī nām sunat man mod baḍhāve /

śrī raghuvar ko dās mudit man agra sugāve // 79

Hearing just the name of the Dhyān Mañjarī, the heart’s joy
increases.
Agra, the servant of Raghuvar [Rām], sings this [Dhyān Mañjarī]
with a happy heart.

What can we learn from these concluding lines? Let us begin by taking note
of Agradās’s use, in verse 77, of a seemingly innocuous but actually quite reveal-
ing phrase: jathā mati, or “in keeping with my own understanding.” As Allison
Busch has pointed out, this little phrase was “the refrain of rīti poet-­intellectuals,”
invoked by a number of early modern North India’s most refined poets.91 Indeed,
Keśavdās said in his Rasikpriyā (5.41), “I have composed this passage according
to my own understanding” (kahe apanī mati anusāra), while Nandadās used the
similar phrases “according to my own judicious understanding” (sumati anusāra)
and “in keeping with my understanding” (yathā mati).92 Busch argues that we
should take seriously these authors’ claims that they were expressing their own
opinion, as such assertions were frequent and central to their identities and
projects. These statements demonstrate that the poets intended to create new
knowledge, to make their own interpretations and poetic flourishes, offering
their own visions while working within classical genres and protocols.93 Strictly
speaking, Agradās was perhaps not a rīti poet, yet it seems clear that he must
be included among those vernacular poets of early modern North India who
“sought to reshape the classical tradition ‘according to their own understand-
ing.’ ”94 If composing interpretive vernacular renditions of three different
stories from the BhP (his Nām Pratāp, Prahlād Caritra, and Dhruv Caritra) is not
evidence enough, his intention to reshape earlier Sanskritic religious tradition
is expressed clearly in the Dhyān Mañjarī when he states that he has examined
the Āgamas and “proclaimed and described this auspicious dhyān in keeping
with my own understanding ” (v. 77).
It is noteworthy that Agradās refers specifically to the corpus of the Āgamas
as the classical tradition that he has become familiar with and sought to reshape
in his Dhyān Mañjarī. “Āgama” typically refers to one of the Śaivāgamas, the
Sanskrit scriptures of the orthodox tantric Śaiva Siddhānta tradition, but it
seems likely that Agradās meant this as a more general reference to Sanskrit
ritual texts of the orthodox tantric traditions (including works such as the
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 223

Agastya Saṃhitā). Indeed, it seems that in this text Agradās drew on tantric rit-
ual technologies and understandings but placed them within a distinctly bhakti
framework that was largely critical of the tantric approach to the Divine.
In verse 71, we see that there is an element of exclusivity in the devotional
practice that Agradās has described; it is only for rasiks to cultivate and experi-
ence this meditative vision. He uses the word rasik a number of times in these
concluding verses, but what exactly does Agra mean by this term? In the world
of Sanskrit poets, a rasik was a connoisseur, a trained interpreter, an emotion-
ally attuned reader, and this sense is clearly present in Agradās’s use of the
term.95 In the context of Rām bhakti, however, the rasik is an emotionally attuned
devotee, a connoisseur trained specifically to understand and imagine the sto-
ries of Rām and Sītā and to perform himself into the role of their intimate
companion-­servant and thereby taste the sweet, juicy essence (rasa) of divine
love. Agradās’s text was meant not only to appeal to existing rasiks like this but
also to create a new community of such rasiks and to demarcate that commu-
nity from others. As Agradās stresses again in verse 74, the teachings of the
Dhyān Mañjarī are meant only for rasiks and should not be shared with the igno-
rant. In verse 78, he reminds his listeners that this is a “secret” (rahasi) revealed
“for the benefit of rasiks.” In advocating such secrecy and restraint in the prop-
agation of these teachings, Agra’s text here resembles an aspect of esoteric tan-
tric traditions. Indeed, as Lutgendorf has remarked, “Like tantric treatises, rasik
texts often contain warnings against revealing their teachings to the uniniti-
ated or people who have not yet attained mastery over their senses.”96 At the
same time that the Dhyān Mañjarī stresses secrecy, as a work that put into writ-
ing a type of meditation practice that ordinarily had been directly transmitted
only between master and disciple, this text’s very composition was a sign of
changing times, evidence of a new valuing of textual knowledge.
Secrecy and initiation are hardly the only parallels between tantric and rasik
devotional practices. Certainly the element of rasik bhakti most clearly indebted
to the tantric tradition is its detailed visualization meditation. The meditative
process of visualizing an object (usually a deity) and trying to identify oneself
with that object, often termed bhāvanā, dhyāna, or smaraṇa in tantric literature,
is “an indispensible part of tantric ritual and yoga in general.”97 The visualiza-
tion meditation of tantric ritual and yoga described in texts like the Āgamas
involves an imaginative creation, a detailed mental construction of the deity
being worshipped. As Csaba Kiss states, this tantric meditation “is not merely a
‘mechanical’ mental reproduction of a visual image, but an intense, emotional
and empathic ‘living out’ of a dream-­like goal by completely losing one’s self in
the image.”98 Kiss describes the practice of tantric dhyāna as having the follow-
ing three key elements: “[1] the mental creation by effort of something which is
 224 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

not normally present in the mind; [2] the vivid visualization of a predefined
object; and [3] an empathic, emotional attitude towards the created mental
object or a total self-­identification with it.”99 Clearly, this description of medi-
tation in tantric yoga could just as easily refer to the meditative practice of rasik
bhakti. As noted, Agradās links his Dhyān Mañjarī to the tradition of the Āgamas
and uses the same terms—­dhyāna and smaraṇa—­as these tantric texts to describe
rasik meditation. The detailed visualization of Ayodhya, Rām, and Sītā that his
work was designed to assist seems in key respects to be none other than a tan-
tric meditation. Nevertheless, to call Rām-­rasik meditation tantric is rather mis-
leading, since tantric-­style visualization techniques had been vital elements of
devotional practice for centuries (e.g., as is clear in the BhP).
If the ritual process, the creative mental work being done, was essentially
identical in the meditations of tantric yoga and rasik devotion, the two were
quite different in terms of the worldview, sensibility, and goals that framed their
practice and made it meaningful. Put most simply, tantric visualization typi-
cally aimed at identification with the deity; i.e., the divinization of the self,
whereas the visualization of rasik dhyān sought to cultivate a purified emotional
experience of divine love, one that required a separation from—­and a rich emo-
tional relationship with—­the deity. While the rasik practice that Agradās’s text
was meant to assist involved technologies of meditative visualization that had
their roots in tantric tradition, the point of this rasik meditation was to lose one-
self in devotion to Rām and Sītā, to imagine oneself into a position in which
one could heighten one’s experience of love by relishing their every feature and
witnessing their every move. To take on their divine identity and acquire their
power(s), as one might in tantric traditions, would have been the furthest thing
from the rasik bhakta’s mind.
Agradās was not alone in the project of bhakti’s assimilation of tantric tech-
nologies in early modern North India. In her research on Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism,
Barbara Holdrege adeptly describes this same process. She offers a detailed anal-
ysis of how the early Gauḍīya rasik bhaktas of Braj “appropriate[d] certain
devices and practices associated with yogic meditation techniques and tantric
ritual traditions and reinscribe[d] them as components of a distinctively Gauḍīya
regimen in which meditation is re-­visioned as a devotional practice.”100 They stra-
tegically appropriated and domesticated tantric (Pāñcarātra) ritual practices,
reorienting them from the construction of a divinized tantric body to the bhakti-­
inspired fashioning of a perfected devotional body—­with which they would
have privileged access to Kṛṣṇa’s divine līlā.101 At roughly the same time, and not
far from Braj, Agradās similarly sought to reorient tantric methods, but in the
sphere of Rām devotion. His Dhyān Mañjarī utilized a ritualized meditative prac-
tice with origins primarily in the tantric tradition—­a powerful technique of
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 225

disciplined imagination that had been refined in tantric contexts—­but this med-
itation was to be performed with a type of devotional mind-­set incompatible
with the usual goals and perspectives of tantric tradition.
As shown in chapter 1, forms of bhakti and tantric religiosity had long
been intermixed in India, with devotion regularly taking place within a tan-
tric paradigm during the medieval period. In the early modern period in
North India, however, a new bhakti sensibility emerged among many bhakti
poets and communities who criticized and sought to separate themselves
from certain tantric understandings of and approaches to the Divine. At the
same time that they articulated a new and more exclusionary notion of bhakti,
some also—­especially in rasik contexts—­continued to employ certain ritual
methods and meditation techniques with distinctly tantric roots.102 Indeed,
bhaktas like Agradās did not explicitly position themselves and their bhakti religi-
osity against “tantra” per se (the perception of any such clearly bounded genre
of religiosity did not yet exist)—­in fact, they often saw their work as continuous
with the traditions of the orthodox tantric Āgamas and Saṃhitās. However, as
described in more detail in the following chapters, many early modern North
Indian bhakti poets deliberately marked themselves off from and defined their
collective sensibility against certain tantric attitudes and religious approaches,
particularly those associated with Śāktas and tantric yogīs. Agradās’s Dhyān
Mañjarī offers an illustration of how North India’s bhakti movement—­particularly
in its rasik forms—­incorporated and sustained certain dimensions of tantric
practice (e.g., its yogic technologies) even as it reacted against and marginalized
other key aspects of the tantric tradition.

The Bhakti Community Envisioned by Agradās and Nābhādās

Agradās is the first Rāmānandī for whom we have any significant body of writ-
ten literature. It is clear from the corpus of his work, as well as from the litera-
ture produced by his disciple lineage—­most especially his immediate disciple
Nābhādās and his grand-­disciple Anantadās—­that Agra began a literary proj-
ect that aimed to extol exemplary Vaiṣṇava bhaktas and spread the saving mes-
sage of bhakti in a fashion that would give his community a place of prominence
in the new social, political, and cultural atmosphere of Mughal India. While all
indications are that Kīlhadev, Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī, and probably even Rāmānand
himself positioned themselves primarily within an ascetic, yogic, and Sant devo-
tional culture and were not much concerned with either brahmanical propri-
ety or the composition of literature, Agradās seems to have spearheaded an
 226 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

effort to secure respectability and legitimacy for the Rāmānandīs among other
sectarian Hindu communities by producing vernacular devotional literature
that engaged Sanskritic traditions and interfaced with the developing Mughal-­
Rajput court culture. With the Rajputs’ rise to political power within the sys-
tem of Mughal rule developed under Akbar, paralleled by the intertwined ascent
of rasik aesthetics and Vaiṣṇava bhakti, religious communities found themselves
in a new patronage milieu, and Agradās took the lead in adapting and repre-
senting his community in light of these developments, all the while promoting
the power of bhakti and praising the great bhaktas.
Agradās’s disciple Nābhādās, in accord with Agra’s directives, continued this
project, further expanding the circulation of a sensible bhakti and a bhakti sen-
sibility. In fact, while Agra may have inaugurated a multipurpose Rāmānandī
bhakti literary endeavor, there is no doubt that history remembers Nābhā’s
contribution to have exceeded that of his guru. According to Priyādās’s
Bhaktirasabodhinī (1712), one day Agradās and Kīlhadev came across a blind infant
who had been abandoned in the forest; this child was none other than Nābhādās.
Agra and Kīlha restored his sight and brought him back to Galta, where Agradās
initiated him into the Rāmānandī order.103 At the beginning of his Bhaktamāl,
Nābhā explains that it was Agra who ordered him to compose his famous work
in praise of the devotees of God. In the fourth dohā, he states, “Guru Agradev
gave the order, ‘Sing the glory of the bhaktas. There is no other way to cross the
ocean of existence.’ ”104 Toward the end of the Bhaktamāl, Nābhā reiterates the
key role of his guru in the composition of the text, stating, “Agra says, he who
narrates the virtues of the followers [of God] gains the power of Sītā’s Lord
[Rām].”105 As mentioned, Agra composed several Brajbhasha works creatively
retelling stories (all found in the BhP) about exemplary bhaktas—­namely, his Nām
Pratāp, Prahlād Caritra, and Dhruv Caritra—­in order to praise the power of Vaiṣṇava
devotion. Nābhā’s verses about his guru give further evidence of Agradās’s bhakti
philosophy, suggesting that the Bhaktamāl was a work directly inspired by and
dedicated to Agra’s conviction that divine favor, even liberation, can be attained
by singing the praises of the great bhaktas, cherishing their memory, and fol-
lowing their model.
In addition to Nābhā, Agradās’s grand-­disciple Anantadās (a disciple of Agra’s
disciple Vinod) also continued his literary project of praising the great bhaktas
and popularizing the power of their devotion through compositions in Brajb-
hasha. While technically he was Agradās’s grand-­disciple, Anantadās was a con-
temporary of Nābhā’s and thus was likely not any more distant from Agra than
was Nābhā. Anantadās composed a number of parcāīs—­separate hagiographical
works in praise of individual bhaktas; namely, Nāmdev, Pīpā, Kabīr, Raidās, Trilo-
chan, Sen, Dhanā, and Aṅgad—­t hat constitute, along with Nābhā’s Bhaktamāl,
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 227

some of our earliest and most significant sources for understanding bhakti in
early modern North India. Nābhādās is explicit that Agradās’s guidance and
bhakti outlook fundamentally informed his Bhaktamāl, and Agra’s leadership
and vision, in some measure, were likely also behind the bhakti hagiographical
works of Anantadās.106
Hagiographical texts serve as valuable tools for the historian seeking insights
into how communities of the past imagined themselves and defined their iden-
tity in relation to others. In this regard, Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl has received spe-
cial attention from scholars for the catholic Vaiṣṇava devotional community it
imagined into being in early modern North India. In a classic essay, Richard
Burghart suggested that the Bhaktamāl’s liberal inclusion of servant castes,
untouchables, and women (more than 75 percent of the population of the Gan-
ges basin) “reveals the broadening of criteria for recruitment into a Vaishnavite
sect thereby enabling the sect to compete more effectively for devotees and dis-
ciples.”107 Expanding on Burghart’s work, William Pinch has argued that the
Bhaktamāl reimagined the core institution of orthodox sectarian Vaiṣṇavism,
the sampradāy, in order to make room for the popular heterodox group of Sants
thriving outside the order, as well as their lay followers. In the Bhaktamāl,
Agradās’s disciple Nābhādās “crafted a language of and conceptual frame for
supra-­sectarian religious organization that could accommodate both monastic
and lay populations.”108 A closer examination of this important text can teach
us much about Agradās and Nābhādās’s influential bhakti vision.
There are several South Indian hagiographical collections that might be con-
sidered precedents to Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl, but there seems to be no North
Indian Hindu precedent for such a work.109 Nābhā would almost certainly not
have consulted any of the southern hagiographies (which were in Tamil, Telegu,
or Sanskrit); the bhakti community he envisioned was a distinctly North Indian
one. Nābhādās either did not know or was quite unconcerned with the bhaktas
of South India, who get little to no mention in his text. The bhakti community
imagined in the Bhaktamāl is generally restricted to North India, including
devotee-­saints ranging from Gujarat in the west, to Bengal in the east, to Maha-
rashtra in the south, but focused most on those of Rajasthan and the Gangetic
Plain. It is quite possible that the prolific Sufi genre of the tazkirā (on the life
stories and miraculous deeds of Sufi saints) had a significant influence on
Nābhā’s work, perhaps even serving as a model (in its form, style, and intent),
or an inspiration, for the early modern North Indian bhakti hagiographical genre
in general.110 If the Bhaktamāl’s vision of bhakti community had any immediate
Hindu model, it would seem to be in the work of Harirām Vyās, who flourished
in Vrindavan circa 1535–­1570.111 Vyās did not write a hagiographical collection,
but he produced a number of nonsectarian hagiographical poems praising an
 228 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

array of North Indian devotees whom he clearly imagined to be members of a

common bhakti community. Interestingly, Vyās repeatedly lists together and
praises as a group six early Sants—­Nāmdev, Kabīr, Raidās, Sen, Dhanā, and Pīpā—­
five of whom Nābhādās and Anantadās boldly claimed as disciples of Rāmānand
and thus members of their own sampradāy. As Pauwels notes, this was not an
arbitrary grouping; these poets saw themselves as linked, a fact seen in early
poems attributed to them. For instance, in a poem in the Guru Granth Sahib, Dhanā
mentions Nāmdev, Kabīr, Raidās, and Sen, while an early poem by Pīpā mentions
Nāmdev, Kabīr, and Raidās.112 These Sants were from different regions and dif-
ferent castes—­though most were from poor, disadvantaged social classes—­but
they were united in their exemplary devotion to God and, according to Nābhādās
and Anantadās, in their discipleship to Rāmānand (all except Nāmdev).113
Whether or not this assertion was justified, in publicly laying claim to these
highly popular Sants the Rāmānandīs were presenting themselves as the pre-
eminent representatives of a bhakti transcending the boundaries of geography
and social position. At the same time that Nābhā claimed these heterodox, low-­
caste bhaktas, he also explicitly linked his community to one of the loftiest
symbols of Vaiṣṇava orthodoxy, the South Indian brahman ācārya Rāmānuja
and his Śrī sampradāy.114 Faced with the challenge of appealing to both low-­caste
rural communities and the political and intellectual elite, Nābhā once again
followed his guru’s lead, for, as noted, Agra sought to maintain and assert his
community’s Sant values while also providing the Rāmānandīs with orthodox
brahmanical respectability and marketing them for patronage in the new
Mughal-­Rajput cultural and political sphere.
While the Bhaktamāl in part aims to articulate the Rāmānandīs’ position as
first among equals in the early modern bhakti universe, only a handful of the
approximately eight hundred bhaktas it praises are marked as part of the
Rāmānandī sampradāy; the text’s vision of bhakti community is quite broad and
thoroughly nonsectarian. Indeed, James Hare writes that the Bhaktamāl is “rad-
ically inclusive” in its selection of exemplary devotees, praising women, ser-
vant castes, untouchables, and bhaktas of nearly every sectarian orientation in
addition to brahmans, kings, and Rāmānandīs.115 Hare emphasizes that the text
envisions a community that is “striking” in “its breadth and inclusiveness” and
not restricted by sectarian boundaries; “rather, it is defined by bhakti.”116 He
later reiterates that “Nābhādās imagines bhakti as a wildly inclusive commu-
nity.”117 In the midst of all this wild, radical inclusion, it is that much more strik-
ing, and that much more meaningful, that certain popular religious figures
(and thus their communities) are entirely left out of Agra’s and Nābhā’s vision
of bhakti community. This was a broad, catholic Vaiṣṇava community they imag-
ined, but it did not include everyone; it did not even include all of North India’s
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 229

major bhaktas. Crucially, Nānak, Dādū Dayāl, and Gorakhnāth are nowhere to
be found in the Bhaktamāl, nor are any of the members of their respective com-
munities. What do we make of this? Hare is correct that the community envi-
sioned by Agra and Nābhā was defined by bhakti, but exactly what kind of bhakti
are we talking about? In taking a closer look at the Bhaktamāl’s key exclusions
we gain a much better understanding of the bhakti sensibility Agradās and
Nābhādās sought to cultivate.118
A key factor behind the Bhaktamāl’s exclusion of the Nāths, Sikhs, and Dādū
Panth must have had to do with competition, self-­definition, and social status.
In many respects—­in their devotion to the nirguṇ Rām (even if they encouraged
devotion to saguṇ forms of Viṣṇu as well), the importance they attributed to
chanting the Name, and their liberal social values and open acceptance of
low castes—­the Rāmānandīs had more in common with the Nāths, Sikhs, and
Dādū-panthīs than with the three communities of Caitanya, Vallabha, and
Nimbārka. These three sampradāys were rather distinct from the Rāmānandīs
yet quite similar to each other in that they each focused rather exclusively on
worship of Kṛṣṇa, had clear brahmanical roots, and generally held a greater
concern with caste practices and orthodox social and religious propriety.
In claiming themselves as one (arguably the most prestigious one) of the cār
sampradāy, Agradās and Nābhādās must have sought to give their socially
inclusive community, which consisted of many members from the poorest
strata of Indian society, an enhanced social status that would allow them to
compete more effectively for both patronage and followers. If this was the case,
it would only make sense that they would also have wished as much as possible
to (a) distinguish themselves from their closest competitors in recruiting fol-
lowers from the lower rungs of society and (b) distance themselves from any
association with those communities whose orthodox “Hindu” credentials and
brahmanical deportment were in question. In both cases, the Rāmānandīs
probably would have wanted to separate themselves most from Nāth yogīs and
the followers of Nānak and Dādū, and excluding them from the Bhaktamāl was
likely an effort in that direction. Through Nābhādās, the Rāmānandīs thus
made a number of shrewd strategic moves as they laid claim to the most pop-
ular heterodox (nirguṇ) Sants (as disciples of Rāmānand), simultaneously asso-
ciated themselves with the burgeoning orthodox (saguṇ) Kṛṣṇaite communities
of Braj, which seemed increasingly to be the favorite beneficiaries of Mughal
and Rajput patronage, and at the same time distanced themselves from key
competitors of questionable social status by excluding them from their vision
of bhakti community.
Even with these issues of competition and social status in mind, the exclu-
sion of Gorakhnāth, Nānak, and Dādū still begs for further explanation. It was
 230 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

not all a matter of strategy and competition but also something more substan-
tive that kept these figures out of the bhakti community imagined by Agradās
and Nābhādās. Let us take a brief look at these three exclusions.
Perhaps the least surprising of the figures excluded from the Bhaktamāl’s
imagined devotional community is Gorakhnāth. It is clear that the Nāth yogīs’
tantric conceptions of and approaches to the Divine were in sharp conflict
with the perspectives of most early modern bhakti authors. With the signifi-
cant exception of the Dādū-panthī Sarvāṅgīs (of Rajjab and Gopāldās) and the
Dādū-panthī Bhaktamāl of Rāghavdās, none of the early bhakti collections
include either poetry or hagiographical descriptions of Gorakhnāth or any
other Nāth yogīs. Even though Gorakhnāth was a major figure on the religious
scene of the day and despite the fact that the early Rāmānandī community had
a distinctly yogic-­ascetic spirit, Gorakhnāth’s tantric persona (among other
traits) placed him and his followers well outside the bhakti community that
Agra and Nābhā envisioned.
The exclusion of Nānak, the founder of the Sikh community in the Panjab,
seems far more striking, for there is no doubt that Nānak was a bhakta. At
present, it is not entirely certain whether the renown of Nānak’s teachings
or knowledge of the political and anthologizing activities of his Sikh commu-
nity in Panjab would have reached Rajasthan (Galta) by the start of the sev-
enteenth century. Nevertheless, considering the distance between them (less
than four hundred miles), general patterns of circulation in North India (the
very same ones that had brought knowledge and compositions of Rāmānand,
Kabīr, Raidās, and other bhaktas to the burgeoning Sikh community by then),
the likelihood that a Rāmānandī community (Piṇḍorī Dhām) had been estab-
lished in the Panjab by the end of the sixteenth century, and the fact that
Nānak had passed away roughly half a century before the composition of the
Bhaktamāl, it seems extremely unlikely that Agradās and Nābhādās would not
have known about him and his teachings. Like the Rāmānandīs, Nānak and
the Sikhs propagated a bhakti message in distinct opposition to the attitudes
and practices of the Nāth yogīs. In the last three decades of the sixteenth cen-
tury, Sikhs developed some of the first anthologies of bhakti poetry, and amid
the devotional songs of their own gurus they included compositions by Kabīr,
Dhanā, Trilochan, Raidās, and Sen, whom the Rāmānandīs had claimed as their
own. Considering all of this, it is puzzling that Nānak would have been left out
of the Bhaktamāl’s broad collection of exemplary devotees.
Probably the most interesting of all the Bhaktamāl’s exclusions is that of Dādū.
Nābhādās certainly knew about Dādū, for he was a contemporary of Agradās’s
and a fellow Rajasthani who achieved considerable renown during his life and
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 231

resided in Amer, near the court of the Kacchvāhās, from roughly 1579 to 1593.
Dādū wrote nirguṇ devotional songs and preached about the power of bhakti; it
seems that in many ways his message and lifestyle were inspired by Kabīr.119 As
noted, a member of Dādū’s community—­Rajjab, in his Sarvāṅgī (ca. 1600)—­included
Agradās’s compositions in an anthology of bhakti poems composed at about the
same time as the Bhaktamāl, while later Dādū-panthīs praised Payahārī, Kīlhadev,
Agradās, and Nābhādās in their hagiographical collections. All this would seem
to indicate that Dādū and his immediate followers were part of the same gen-
eral bhakti community as the Rāmānandīs; however, Agra and Nābhā did not
seem to think so, as Dādū is nowhere to be found in the verses of the Bhaktamāl.
As I show later, it is clear that the teachings and lifestyle of Dādū were not in
tune with the bhakti vision of Agradās and Nābhādās on two significant fronts.
This may partly have to do with the fact that Dādū was quite friendly with the
Nāth yogīs and seems to have closely resembled them in aspects of his yogic prac-
tice and asceticism. Indeed, there is a “profuse occurrence of Nāth-­Yogic sym-
bols”120 in Dādū’s sākhīs, and his community clearly maintained the link he had
established with the Nāths, for the Dādū-panthī Rāghavdās’s Bhaktamāl includes
passages praising a line of Śaiva yogīs and Nāth siddhas going all the way back to
Matsyendranāth.121
While Dādū’s relationship with the Nāth yogīs must have been a source of dis-
comfort for the Rāmānandīs, it does not explain the absence of Nānak and the
Sikhs in the Bhaktamāl. It would be more convincing if we could find a common
denominator between Gorakhnāth, Nānak, and Dādu, something all shared that
would have made their religiosity unpalatable to Agradās and Nābhādās. Two
related facts come to mind. First, the Nāths, Sikhs, and Dādū-panthīs are all
known to have had regular, friendly relations with Sufis and deliberately blurred
the lines between Islam and “Hinduism” in their practices and philosophies. Bol-
stering the significance of this point is the fact that Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl does
not include any Sufis, whereas Sikh and Dādū-panthī anthologies include the
poems of Sufi devotees. If Muslims were beyond the pale of the bhakti commu-
nity that Agra and Nābhā envisioned, one likely reason for this was that they
shared a fundamental outlook with Nānak and Dādū: a fiercely and strictly
nirguṇ sensibility and approach to the Divine.122
That an exclusively nirguṇ perspective would have been problematic for the
Rāmānandīs is suggested in a revealing verse from the Bhaktamāl about the
Kacchvāhā king Pṛthvīrāj, who had become the disciple of Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī
after Payahārī defeated the Nāth yogī Tārānāth. Nābhādās wrote, “Thanks to the
teaching of Śrī Kṛṣṇadās [Payahārī], he [Pṛthvīrāj] became acquainted with the
Supreme Truth. By the description of it as nirguṇ and saguṇ [Payahārī] destroyed
 232 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

the darkness of unknowing.”123 The fact that Nābhā praises Payahārī for destroy-
ing ignorance by means of describing the ultimate Truth as both nirguṇ (without
qualities) and saguṇ (with qualities) is significant. Indeed, if Pṛthvīrāj’s guru
prior to Payahārī was the Nāth yogī Tārānāth, Nābhā seems to have implied
that a purely nirguṇ conception of the Supreme—­t hat generally espoused by
the Nāths, as well as Nānak and Dādū—­was the “darkness of unknowing” that
Payahārī’s teaching destroyed.124
Agradās and Nābhādās, like Payahārī, fully accepted and respected the nirguṇ
Divine, but they also reveled in the sweet essence (rasa) of a love experienced in
and through praising, reading, hearing, and imagining the deeds and qualities
of a saguṇ God. As I’ve noted, in one of his poems, Agradās stresses that there is
ultimately no difference, no separation, between the nirguṇ Brahman and the
saguṇ forms of Viṣṇu; however, it seems that he could not abide a religious out-
look that would not allow for the incomparable taste of the Divine in form.125 In
fact, one of Agradās’s poems explicitly criticizes Dādū for precisely this reason.126
The following translation is based on the text found in the oldest manuscript of
Agradās’s Kuṇḍaliyā that I have been able to locate, dated 1635.127

apnī mā ḍāyan kahai aisau kaun kapūt /

aisau kaun kapūt kahai ḍāin mahatārī /
daḍū pakarī ṭek bheṣ bin deh bigārī /
kathanī kathanī atibhalī man diyau na cālan /
ek laun ke svād bin bigare sab sālan /
agar svām ke svāṅg bin dekhat hī ke bhūt /
apnī mā ḍāyan kahai aisā kaun kapūt // 65

What kind of a bad son would call his own mother a witch?128
Dādū held firm in his intentions, but without proper dress, he
ruined his body.129
For all his great sayings, he would not let his heart be moved.130
Without any flavor—­not even the taste of a bit of salt—­all the
vegetables are spoiled.131
Agradās says, without [not seeing] the garb [svāṅg] of the Lord
[svāmī], he [one] sees only an evil spirit.132
What kind of a bad son would call his own mother a witch?

This is a difficult poem that resists easy interpretation and could be trans-
lated in a multitude of ways. Nevertheless, Agradās’s core intent is clear. In these
verses, he cleverly criticizes Dādū on two different levels. On the one hand, Agra
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 233

finds fault with Dādū’s inappropriate dress. It seems that Dādū presented himself
in a fashion that was neither clearly Hindu nor clearly Muslim; he may even have
resembled the ascetic Nāth yogīs, who typically roamed about with only a few
ragged garments on their bodies. Supporting this view is Jan Gopāl’s account of
the life of Dādū, the Janma Līlā (ca. 1620), which tells of an incident when “the
question of dress arose and Svāmījī was not pleased,” [and said] “How can I please
the Muslims and what should I wear for the Hindus?” (3:23).133 In another verse,
Jan Gopāl states that Dādū “radiated the contemplative mind of Sukhdev and
had the ascetic appearance of Gorakhnāth” (7:2a).134 Agradās and his disciple
Nābhādās envisioned an expansive Vaiṣṇava community, but their generous
understanding of what it meant to be Vaiṣṇava did not extend far enough to
include a figure whose appearance and lifestyle blurred the boundaries between
ascetic tantric yogī, Hindu, and Muslim. As the poem suggests, for Agradās, Dādū’s
inappropriate dress was not only problematic (and harmful to the body) in itself
but also indicative of far larger misunderstandings.
The second level of criticism in Agra’s poem is the more fundamental one:
Dādū does not understand or appreciate the feminine, immanent dimension of
the Divine (māyā, śakti) and sees in the manifest world only evil and illusion, thus
calling his own mother a witch. Just as he does not wear appropriate dress (bheṣ),
Dādū also does not understand the importance of the garb (svāṅg) of the Lord
(svāmī).135 Agradās’s use of the word svāṅg is significant, for in addition to refer-
ring to dress or garb, it also refers to a drama (play) or dramatic role, as in the
drama or līlā of the Lord and the dramatic role (or garb) that God takes on when
he descends in form into the world. It is this immanent, feminine, saguṇ aspect
of the Divine that Dādū misperceives. It may be a show, a guise, in some respects
(as the other meanings of svāṅg and māyā would suggest), but it is a garb essen-
tial to divine “self-­expression” and to the textured experience of human beings’
relationship with God. However excellent Dādū’s words, however firm and
unwavering his tapas and meditation, in not seeing this vital dimension of the
Divine, Dādū’s heart is unmoved, and he lives a dull and wasted life without the
sweet taste of God.
Agra’s portrayal of Dādū is once again confirmed by Jan Gopāl, who states in
the Janma Līlā that Dādū “rejected svāṅg, bheṣ, partiality, and sectarianism, know-
ing only the [nirguṇ] brahman as the complete truth. He did not perform ritual
worship to any god or goddess, nor did he honor pilgrimage sites, fasts, or
caste.”136 According to Jan Gopāl, Dādū even once stated, “If you stay firm in the
nirguṇ devotion, the Unknown will help you, and there will be no room for the
corruption of a personal deity. Reflect and ponder on this” (15:18.13).137 For
Agradās and Nābhādās, none of this would have been acceptable. To follow a path
 234 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

of strict, exclusive nirguṇ devotion or yogic-­ascetic practices aimed at making

the mind immovable—­as did Dādū, Nānak, and Gorakhnāth—­was, from Agra’s
and Nābhā’s perspective, to make oneself impervious to the sweetest, most rasa-­
filled aspects of God’s grace and presence.
We can now understand why the bhakti community imagined by the Bhaktamāl
did not include religious figures as important as Dādū, Nānak, and Gorakhnāth.
Agradās and Nābhādās envisioned an expansive community defined by bhakti,
but their understanding of bhakti, as catholic as it was, did have its limits. They
celebrated the figure of the bhakta and imagined an expansive community based
on a loosely Vaiṣṇava devotional understanding of, and attitude or approach to,
the Divine. Their vision fully embraced the nirguṇ but found its greatest joy in
the aesthetic experience of sublime emotion—­love—­for God in form and with
qualities.
It is worth noting that many Sufis—­as Sufi premakhyān literature unquestion-
ably demonstrates—­were quite like Agradās, Rūpa Gosvāmin, and other rasik-­
inclined Hindu bhaktas in locating and seeking the experience of the Divine
especially in the emotional-­aesthetic savor of the rasa of love. As early as 1379,
in Dā’ūd’s Cāndāyan, well before the Rāmānandī community in Galta or the Kṛṣṇa
devotional communities in Braj had come into being, Indian Sufis were articu-
lating an understanding of rasa as “the mark of the circulation of desire between
Allah and the world.”138 The Cāndāyan asserts, “It’s only rasa when you wet it with
love; sweet like ghee in sugar-­cane molasses, sweet like moon-­nectar you could
taste, Cāndā! You may avoid rasa, push it away, but the world is sunk only in love’s
savor!”139 Clearly, for Dā’ūd and other like-­minded Sufis, just as for Agradās and
Nābhādās, the beauty and sweetness of the Divine was to be found and relished
especially in the manifest world and in embodied human emotional-­aesthetic
experience. For both theses Sufis and these Hindu bhaktas, love—­the savor of its
pure essence—­was ultimately the means and the end. Here we have one illus-
tration of how, even as Agradās and Nābhādās imagined a bhakti community that
excluded Muslims, they simultaneously articulated devotional values and sen-
sibilities that were closely aligned with—­and subtly inflected by—­those of many
Sufis. We must remember that the Rāmānandīs were participants in a highly
interactive, competitive Mughal religious environment in which mutual bor-
rowings and exchanges of concepts and technologies took place between reli-
gious people of many different backgrounds and inclinations. In their works,
Agradās and Nābhādās, among other early modern Hindu authors, may have
generally ignored the presence of Islam, neither mentioning Muslim figures nor
explicitly engaging Islamic concepts or compositions, but the fact remains that
Islam—­and especially Sufism (its literature, saints, ideas, and institutions)—­was
an inextricable part of the larger religious landscape in which they (and all of
 Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 235

early modern North India’s Hindu bhakti communities) operated, shaping that
landscape and inflecting the development of bhakti religiosity within it in subtle
but important ways.

R
Throughout the medieval period bhakti generally was not a singular, exclu-
sive practice but an element or aspect of a larger religious life, a devotion
performed in combination with asceticism, yoga, and tantric ritual wor-
ship. Agradās and Nābhādās were key proponents of a new understanding of
bhakti. Theirs was a vision of bhakti as a more exclusionary spiritual path, as
well as a distinctive ethical, emotional, and aesthetic sensibility uniting a
vast religious community; it was a vision of bhakti that gave no significant place
to yoga, jñāna (knowledge), tapas (asceticism), and tantric religiosity. As Agradās
said, in comparison with rasik devotion, “jñāna [knowledge], yoga, and tapas
[asceticism] are as rasa-­less [dull, useless] as a dried-­up stem of sugarcane,” and,
in comparison with singing the name of God, “yoga, sacrifice, and asceticism
achieve nothing.”140
Generally speaking, Hindus in premodern India do not seem to have con-
ceived of bhakti as a restricted category of religiosity or a uniform set of ideas
in the way that many Western scholars later would;141 nevertheless, study of the
Rāmānandīs indicates that Hindus in early modern North India did come to
understand bhakti as the basis of a particular community sensibility, as the com-
mon praiseworthy foundation linking a diversity of religious practitioners and
distinguishing them from others. Agradās and his disciple Nābhādās were key
players in this historical development, in a sense reinventing the bhakta as a dis-
tinct category of religious person. While their views were not the final word,
Agra and Nābhā represented and contributed to an expansive new vision of
bhakti community, a catholic Vaiṣṇavism infused with both Sant and rasik val-
ues that would become an important dimension of mainstream Hinduism in
modern India.
This chapter has demonstrated that in the religious marketplace of Mughal
India, Agradās was an entrepreneur who inaugurated a Rāmānandī literary
project that he prudently crafted to serve the specific interests of his own com-
munity (by appealing to potential followers and patrons) while also expressing
and inculcating a transsectarian bhakti sensibility; i.e., a distinctive set of shared
aesthetic tastes, ethics, and emotional values. In this latter respect, the com-
positions of Agradās, Nābhādās, and bhakti poets like them worked to construct
a broad-­based bhakti social formation in early modern North India. Their liter-
ary works acted as mobile (i.e., they circulated across territory) and mobilizing
 236 9 Part II: Yogīs, Poets, and a New Bhakti Sensibility

(i.e., emotionally, socially inspiring) discursive instruments that, when per-

formed, could generate and activate bhakti’s sentiment and sensibility, thereby
inviting (for some) and sustaining (for others) participation in a transregional
bhakti public.
In part 3 of the book, the focus shifts from the Rāmānandī devotional com-
munity to an exploration of some crucial larger trends in the religious landscape
of early modern North India. If bhakti had long been closely intertwined with
asceticism, tantra, and yoga, then in Mughal India these once tightly interwo-
ven threads of religious practice began to unravel into increasingly distinct
strands of religious identity. As a wide-­ranging survey of bhakti poetry and
hagiography reveals, a number of bhaktas in early modern North India—­the
Rāmānandīs among them—­were cultivating a new and Sufi-­inflected bhakti sen-
sibility defined in fundamental contradistinction to certain core components
of tantric, yogic, and ascetic thought and practice.
 7
Yogīs and Tantra-­Mantra in the Poetry
of the Bhakti Saints

Gorakh awakened yoga and drove bhakti away from the people.

—­Tulsīdās

Against the snake of passion, no mantra or magic avails.

—­Raidās

A
significant gap exists in the historiography of North India’s bhakti
movement. As I’ve noted, scholarship to date has generally failed to
consider the important place of tantra and yoga, broadly construed,
in the rise of devotional religion in early modern North India. How did North
Indian bhakti poets, hagiographers, and communities understand tantric and
yogic forms of religiosity, and what role did their depictions of tantra and yoga
have in the growth of bhakti from the sixteenth century onward? This chapter
continues to explore the development of bhakti sensibility and community in
early modern North India as a process that took place in clear interaction with—­
and often opposition to—­t he tantric-­yogic asceticism and magic of groups
such as the Nāth yogīs. If identity is typically formed in opposition to an “other,”
there were multiple others against whom bhaktas defined themselves and their
religious approach, yet arguably the most important foil for the new bhakti
identity and sensibility was one that has not received much scholarly attention:
the twofold tantric other of the yogī and Śākta.
 240 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

In an important article, Heidi Pauwels has examined derogatory references

to Śāktas in the poetry of Kabīr, Tulsīdās, and Harirām Vyās.1 Pauwels demon-
strates that the identity of bhaktas across the spectrum—­whether devotees of
Rām, Kṛṣṇa, or the nirguṇ Divine—­was formed in part by a consistent mocking
and critique of the Śākta, a category whose meaning was inconsistent but closely
associated with blood sacrifice, sexual ritual, goddess worship, and immoral,
polluting practices. Holding certain links to the Śāktas, but quite a separate fig-
ure, the tantric yogī—­whether in the guise of sorcerer-­magician, ascetic, or
healer—­was perhaps an even more important other in the formation of early
modern North India’s distinctive bhakti sensibility. In order to demonstrate this
crucial point, here I examine references to yogīs, yoga, tantra, mantra, and
Śāktas scattered throughout the poetry of North Indian bhakti saints and the
literature of bhakti communities. Looking at both commonalities and differences
in attitudes toward yogīs, asceticism, and tantra-­mantra among the various
streams of North India’s bhakti movement, I discuss poet-­saints who cover the
spectrum in terms of sectarian affiliation, devotional orientation (nirguṇ/saguṇ),
theological outlook, caste background, and geographical location. The discus-
sion ranges from hagiographers like Anantadās and Kṛṣṇadās Kavirāj to poets
like Nāmdev, Nānak, Sūrdās, and Harirām Vyās; however, I focus especially on
the bhakti poetry of Kabīr, Raidās, and Tulsīdās.
As noted in the preceding chapters, it is in North Indian sources of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that we first observe the formation of a
distinctive bhakti sensibility opposed to certain yogic and tantric perspec-
tives. Prior to this time, while tensions between different religious attitudes
and approaches certainly existed, there does not seem to have been any funda-
mental dividing lines between the realms of bhakti and tantra, or bhakti and
yoga. The poetry I examine here helps to demonstrate that, in North India, those
lines began to be drawn especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
and that this trend continued into and even intensified in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries.
By looking at how bhaktas contrasted themselves with the twofold tantric
other of the yogī and Śākta, I shed light on exactly what bhakti meant in early
modern North India and how it was perceived as different from other modes of
religiosity. Yogīs and Śāktas were hardly one and the same. In short, criticism
of yogīs tended to center on the pretensions of their ascetic lifestyle, the point-
lessness of their physical practices, and the ignorance and delusion at the core
of their quest for power(s) and immortality, while criticism of Śāktas tended to
focus more on the moral deprivation, sensual indulgence, and spiritual bank-
ruptcy of their blood sacrifices to the Goddess, meat eating and related impu-
rities, and tantric sexual rituals.2 Nevertheless, in this period bhakti poets and
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 241

communities who differed from each other in many ways came together in
positioning themselves against both these groups. In exploring the reasons for
this phenomenon, I seek to improve our understanding of the development of
bhakti sensibilities during the early modern period and to articulate more pre-
cisely the dynamics involved in a broad change in the Hindu religious world that
manifested itself especially during the Mughal period: the rise of Vaiṣṇava bhakti
at both the elite and popular levels, a development that often occurred at the
expense of tantric Śaiva-­Śākta religious forms.

The Manuscript Sources of Bhakti Literature

This chapter surveys a broad range of bhakti poetry, and before diving in some
preliminary remarks are needed about the manuscript sources of the verses
translated here. It is crucial to remember that the bhakti poems and hagiogra-
phies to which we have access come from manuscripts and a contemporary oral-­
performance culture that have been mediated by any number of (usually
unknown) singers and scribes. As Winand Callewaert states, “Very few of [these
singers and scribes] passed on the songs of a poet-­mystic without changing them.
Musicians adjusted the metre to suit the rhythm; they adapted the language for
the convenience of the audience as they went from village to village, from one
region to another. . . . ​This oral tradition, unlike that of the Vedas, did not shun
variety and creativity.”3 Bhakti in Sultanate and Mughal India was above all a
tradition of song and performance. Kenneth Bryant explains that “poems were
taught by singer to singer, and the corpus of poems known to the tradition
grew rapidly from generation to generation.” 4 A study of bhakti manuscripts
reveals not only the frequent addition of “new” poems attributed to particular
saints but also the constant transformation of the old poems, with each poem
appearing “in almost as many different versions as there are manuscripts that
contain it.” Most often these versions differ in ways that suggest “not the care-
less errors of scribes, but the exuberant and imaginative improvisations of
singers.”5 Linda Hess’s remarks about Kabīr and the body of songs composed in
his name further illuminate this process and can be applied to most of the
early modern bhakti poets:

[The poet-­saint] certainly shared his works orally. Others listened, sang, and
spread the poetry. It naturally changed as they spread it. Dialects and musical
styles transitioned. Slips of the tongue (and ear) and gaps of memory did their
work. Deliberate alterations occurred when someone preferred a different
 242 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

order of the stanzas, inserted a favorite name of God, disliked and jettisoned
a certain verse, or thought up a great improvement in a line. It wasn’t long
until [the poet-­saint’s] name was tacked on to whole poems he never
composed—­whether the source was a song floating around in local tradition
or something the performer made up, feeling that the content was suitable
to [him] or that the attribution honored [him].6

At some point, likely during the lifetime of a given poet-­saint, someone wrote
down the words sung by or attributed to him or her. Performers sometimes jot-
ted down verses in their personal notebooks, but increasingly, beginning in
about 1600 in North India, bhakti compositions also came to be collected in writ-
ten manuscripts that were usually (though not always) sponsored and pre-
served by sectarian religious communities. Over the years, these manuscripts
would be copied, altered, added to, and copied again. While we tend to give a
certain authority to the written text, in fact the bhakti verses found in such man-
uscripts might be best considered as mere snapshots in time of songs that were
constantly transforming to suit the needs, temperaments, and ideological lean-
ings of specific performers, audiences, and sectarian communities.
I mention all of this simply to make readers aware of the textual problems
involved in quoting the poems attributed to any given bhakti poet-­saint. Conse-
quently, when I speak of “Kabīr poems” or “Sūrdās’s compositions,” when I write
that “Raidās says” this, or that “Tulsīdās sings” that, I do so for the sake of con-
venience and not to suggest that the historical figure of Sūrdās or Raidās him-
self actually composed the poem under discussion (though, in the case of some
poems, they certainly could have). Nearly all the verses quoted in the following
come from seventeenth-­or eighteenth-­century manuscripts, and some even
come from the late sixteenth century. In many cases, the bhakti poems I dis-
cuss were probably not composed by the poet to whom they are attributed and,
in all cases, it is impossible to identify an “original” or “authentic” version of
any particular poem attributed to one of these bhakti poet-­saints; however, for
our purposes this is all of very little importance.7 What matters here is that there
are bhakti compositions criticizing, marginalizing, and satirizing tantric and
yogic religiosity in a wide array of manuscript sources, a simple fact demonstrat-
ing that the verses expressing these sentiments were almost certainly being
performed by singers at roughly the same times and places in which the manu-
script collections were made—­i.e., circa 1550–­1800 in locations throughout
northern and central India and also into Maharashtra (to the south) and
Bengal and Assam (to the east). My primary concern in this chapter, then, is
to document the existence and nature of a tension developing in Mughal
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 243

India between the sensibilities of bhakti and tantric-­yogic religiosity and

to demonstrate the clear and widespread presence in early modern bhakti
literature (and, to a certain extent, in Sufi literature as well) of verses that dis-
parage or subordinate aspects of tantric-­yogic religiosity as part of the articu-
lation of a new devotional sensibility.8
As noted in the introduction, we do not know the extent to which the wider
population of early modern North India shared the partisan perspectives seen
in bhakti and Sufi sources. While the implicit and explicit critiques of yogīs and
tantra-­mantra found in these devotional compositions would certainly have been
influential upon the members of the bhakti and Sufi publics, it is not entirely
clear to what degree these people would have shared the perception of tantric
and yogic religiosity found in bhakti and Sufi discourse. In any case, we must
remember that the composers and performers of the bhakti verses discussed
here were devotional “insiders” who were expressing a polemical, ideological
position against caricatured opponent competitors. In the bhakti literature crit-
icizing, subordinating, and satirizing yogīs and tantra-­mantra, it is important we
recognize this element of caricature and, relatedly, the way bhakti authors con-
structed and utilized alterity as a teaching tool for expressing devotional val-
ues. In certain respects, we might say that the bhakti poetry and hagiography
considered in this chapter are not depicting and disparaging the actual tāntrikas
and yogīs of early modern North India so much as pedagogically useful, gener-
alized, stereotyped, and (comically or grotesquely) exaggerated versions of these
figures, in contrast with which these texts’ bhakti religious vision and sensibil-
ity could be put into high relief. Throughout this chapter, I use the term tantra-­
mantra to refer to this caricatured version of tantric religiosity.

Kabīr and the Nāth Yogīs

Whom better to start with than Kabīr in an investigation of the place of yogīs
and tantra-­mantra in the bhakti poetry of early modern North India? Kabīr has
often been associated with the Nāth yogīs, who, according to a number of schol-
ars, are the primary source of the heterodox attitude, paradoxical style, yogic
imagery, and mystical language seen in the poetry attributed to Kabīr. Writing
in Hindi, P. D. Barthwal, in the 1930s, and Hazariprasad Dvivedi, in the 1940s,
first noted that Kabīr’s verses are filled with terminology and imagery borrowed
from the Nāth yogīs. Dvivedi, in his most famous work, Kabīr (1942), described
Kabīr’s metaphysics as a direct outgrowth of Nāth philosophy, going so far as to
 244 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

argue that “Kabir was brought up in a community of weavers which was Nath-­
Panthi by tradition and had only recently converted to Islam”—­a n argument
that has been thoroughly critiqued in subsequent scholarship—­and adding that,
“You just cannot understand the sayings of Kabir, if you do not possess knowledge
of the Nath Panthi doctrines.”9 The Nāths’ influence on Kabīr has been something
of a trope in English-­language scholarship as well. Following Dvivedi, Charlotte
Vaudeville writes that Kabīr “appears so heavily indebted to the Nāth-­panthī
form of Yoga that [his] sayings can hardly be understood without reference to
it.”10 She suggests further that Kabīr’s great popularity derived in part from the
prestige and power of the Nāth symbols and language that he used; that is, his
verses resonated so much because “the mass of his listeners” had already “drunk
deep” of the tantric yogic tradition “through the preaching of the ubiquitous
Nāth-­panthī Yogīs.”11 Similarly, Hawley speaks of “the fundamental debt Kabir
owed to a community of yogis called Nāths, whose teaching crystallized an
approach to the technology of bodily transformation that appears in his poetry
time and time again.”12
If scholars have made clear the Nāth “presence” and influence in Kabīr’s
poetic corpus, most have also rightly emphasized that Kabīr differed from, and
criticized, the Nāth yogīs in important ways. Mariola Offredi argues that Kabīr
responded to the perspective of Gorakhnāth and emulated the paradoxical style
of poems attributed to him but rejected the value that Gorakh and the Nāths
gave to yogic practice.13 As Hawley writes, “Kabir seems to know the whole Nāth
Yogī routine, the husbanding of kuṇḍalinī energies, and to be comfortable with
it—­at least verbally,” yet their yogic “form of discipline, at least as an end in itself,
is not for him.”14 In Kabīr’s opinion, “Anything that depends on a technology of
the senses ultimately doesn’t work. . . . ​Real naturalness, real selfness (sahaja
subai) eludes the disciplines of yoga.”15 For Gorakh and the Nāths, the body is a
source of mortality and decay that must be mastered and purified, made immor-
tal through yogic practices such as raising the kuṇḍalinī, breath control, reten-
tion of semen, and consumption of herbs and alchemical potions. In Lorenzen’s
words, “Kabir, as might be expected, has little use for any of this. For him, the
central truth is that Ram dwells within the body. He is always with us. A person
need only look within his body to find him. The body is not something to be con-
trolled and transformed. The body, as it is, is the key to salvation” because “[it]
is Ram’s vessel.”16
Vaudeville states that whatever influence the Nāths had on Kabīr, he
“emphatically rejected their practices and mocked their vain pretension to
have conquered death and to have obtained bodily immortality.”17 Indeed,
poems attributed to Kabīr are especially critical of the Nāths’ claims to achieve
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 245

immortality and liberation through tantric yoga. The following verses deni-
grating Gorakhnāth come from three sākhīs attributed to Kabīr:

Flickering, struggling, swaying—­no one is left out. Gorakh got

stuck in Death City. So who’s a yogi?18

Gorakh was yoga’s connoisseur. They didn’t cremate his body.

Still his meat rotted and mixed with dust. For nothing he
polished his body.19

Gorakh couldn’t keep his breath though he knew some yogic

tricks. Power, profit, control—­yes, but he couldn’t go
beyond.20

In these compositions, the poet stresses the inevitability of death for all, the
senselessness of haṭha yoga’s bodily practices, and the inability of Nāth tantric
methods to achieve anything other than worldly goals. In another poem, Kabīr
emphasizes the arrogance, sneakiness, hypocrisy, and insincerity of the Nāth.
“How will you cross [the ocean of existence], Nāth, how will you cross, so full of
crookedness? Look how he meditates, serves and prays. Look: the white plum-
age, the crane’s sly ways.21 Mood of a snake, look: utterly lewd, utterly quarrel-
some, utterly shrewd.”22 We find this sort of criticism of the Nāth yogīs in all
three of the major manuscript traditions of poetry attributed to Kabīr—­the cor-
pus of the Dādū ­Panth, compiled in Rajasthan; that found in the Sikh Ādi Granth,
compiled in Panjab; and that represented by the Bījak, compiled in eastern Uttar
Pradesh and Bihar—­as well as in the Fatehpur Manuscript (1582), a Rajasthani
source (separate from these three manuscript traditions) that includes the old-
est extant Kabīr poetry.
While these verses are critical of specifically Gorakhnāth and his follow-
ers, more commonly the compositions of Kabīr and the other bhakti poets
refer simply to yogīs or jogīs. This raises a perplexing question: In the bhakti
poetry considered here, who is the yogī? As in the preceding lines, Gorakhnāth
is occasionally referenced (and criticized) in the bhakti poetry of early mod-
ern North India; however, one only rarely finds mention of “Nāths” in this
same bhakti literature. Up through the seventeenth century, the various
Nāth lineages of tantric ascetics in North India were most often known sim-
ply as yogīs. The confusion comes from the fact that the term yogī could also
refer to a wide range of other yoga-­practicing ascetics with no links to Gor-
akh or the siddhas, including Daśanāmi saṃnyāsīs and even Rāmānandīs. 23
 246 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

Compositions attributed to both Gorakh and Kabīr mark “the yogī” as a cat-
egory of religious identity distinct from “the Hindū” and “the Mussalmān.” As
one Kabīr poem states,

The Yogī cries: “Gorakh, Gorakh!”

The Hindu invokes the name of Rām.
The Musalmān cries: “Khudā is One!”
But the Lord of Kabīr pervades all.24

It is noteworthy that the verse here links the category of the yogī specifically
to Gorakh. In several sixteenth-­century works of Sufi premākhyān (love story)
literature yogīs are also explicitly identified with Gorakhnāth, and many bhakti
poets reference specifically Gorakhnāthi paraphernalia (e.g., the horn, or sīṃgī)
in their yoga-­or yogī-­themed compositions. While we cannot assume that every
mention of a yogī in early modern bhakti literature is meant to refer to a
Gorakhnāthi yogī, it is fair to say that they most often do. In any case, bhakti
critiques of yogīs were certainly not limited to the Nāth yogīs, who exemplified
a number of traits that bhaktas were increasingly finding problematic but were
by no means the only ones exhibiting those traits. While not all yogīs and ascet-
ics shared the Nāths’ tantric roots and traditional interests in siddhis, bodily
immortality, and worldly power—­characteristics most bhaktas found particu-
larly unsavory—­yogīs and ascetics of all stripes pursued a lifestyle and bodily
regime that often came under fire from devotees as misguided and fruitless.

Fake Yogīs, Senseless Yoga

Many of Kabīr’s poems critical of yogīs focus on the uselessness and vanity of
their physical practices, attire, and external markings. The “true yogī,” one poem
states, is the one who has abandoned yoga’s external trappings, powers, and
practices in favor of simple devotion to God. He is, Kabīr remarks, that “rascally
kind of yogī” with “no deeds, no creeds, no yogic powers, not even a horn or
gourd, so how can he go begging?. . . ​That yogī built a house brimful of Rām. He
has no healing herbs; his root-­of-­life is Rām.”25 In another poem, Kabīr says,

Go naked if you want, put on animal skins. What does it matter

till you see the inward Rām?
If the union yogis seek came from roaming around in the buff,
every deer in the forest would be saved.
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 247

If shaving your head spelled spiritual success, heaven would be

filled with sheep.
And brother, if holding back your seed earned you a place in
paradise, eunuchs would be the first to arrive.
Kabir says: Listen brother, without the name of Rām, who has
ever won the spirit’s prize?26

Again and again, Kabīr drives home the point that yogīs’ practices get them
absolutely nowhere, for without devotion to God one remains spiritually empty-­
handed. He says, “Without Hari he’s befuddled, without a guru he’s a mess.
Everywhere he goes he loses himself in nets within nets. The yogi says, ‘Yoga’s
the top, don’t talk of seconds.’ Tuft of hair, shaven head, matted locks, vow of
silence—­who’s gotten anywhere?”27 In another poem, this one from the Ādi
Granth, Kabīr states, “Brother, even dressed up with your staff, earrings, patch-
work cloak, and arm rest, you have gone astray. Madman, give up yogic posture
(āsanu) and breath-­[control] (pavanu). Madman, give up trickery and always wor-
ship Hari.”28 The Kabīr Granthāvalī version of the same song reads, “You stay
fixed on yogic postures and breath-­[control]. But, madman, it is mental impu-
rity you should renounce. What’s the use of going about with horns and ear-
rings? What’s the use of smearing all your body with ashes?”29
Anyone familiar with the poetry of Kabīr knows that he mocks and dispar-
ages not only yogīs but also just about everyone on the religious scene of his day.
Hindus, Muslims, brahmans, mullahs, pandits, shaikhs, Śāktas, and pīrs all come
in for criticism. Why should we give special attention to the figure of the yogī?
In the corpus of poetry attributed to Kabīr, in fact, yogīs (or jogīs) “are mentioned
by name more often than any other group.”30 Clearly, yogīs were an especially
central other against which the bhakti perspective defined itself. And Kabīr was
hardly the only bhakti poet to heap criticism upon the religiosity of yogīs, thereby
bringing the bhakti perspective into relief. Harirām Vyās, a Kṛṣṇa devotee resid-
ing in sixteenth-­century Vrindavan, writes, “[What good are] yogis, yatīs,
ascetics (tapīs) and sannyāsīs? There is no end to their pain.”31 The devotional poet
Trilochan, remembered as a contemporary of Nāmdev’s, has this poem denigrat-
ing ascetics and tāntrikas attributed to him in the Ādi Granth:

Without cleansing your soul from filth, you donned the garb of
an Udāsī [celibate Sikh ascetic],
But within the lotus of your heart, you’ve not recognized
Brahmin: how then have you become a Sannyāsī?
O Jay Chand, you are wandering in error: Never did you find your
Paramānand!
 248 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

Eating in each and every house, you’ve fattened your body,

wearing a patched garment and an ascetic ear-­ring for gain!
In vain you rub on yourself ashes of the cremation-­ground:
without the Guru, you never found the Essence.
What’s the use of your litanies and penance ( jap tap)? Why do
you keep churning water?
O you Seeker of Nirvana! Invoke that One who created the
eighty-­four lakhs of beings!
O you, Kāpālika! What’s the use of carrying that gourd-­pot, of
wandering to the sixty-­eight holy spots?
Says Trilochan: “O living beings, listen: without the corn, there is
no redeeming the pledge!”32

As Winand Callewaert explains, “This pad is a condemnation of all kinds of

wandering ‘holy men’ and ascetics, whatever their garb and denominations. . . . ​
According to Trilochan, all their pretensions are vain, since they never got
the ‘corn,’ i.e., the experience of God within their soul, necessary to ‘redeem
the pledge’ and obtain final release from the bonds of mundane Existence.”33
This same perspective regarding the senselessness of the yogic-­ascetic regime
comes across in Anantadās’s parcaī of Trilochan, which states: “Reciting
mantras, performing asceticism and sense-­control, [one] emaciates the body
in vain.”34
Guru Nānak similarly questions and criticizes the external pretensions of
the yogī in his Siddh Goṣṭ (Siddha Goṣṭi).35 This composition makes up part of the
Ādi Granth and is a philosophical discourse presented as a dialogue between
Guru Nānak and the Nāth yogīs.36 In the text, the Nāths proclaim to Nānak that
the way of yoga is renunciation and asceticism, admonishing him to take up
their garb, earrings (mudrā), small cloth pouch ( jholī), patched cloak (khinthā),
and philosophical perspective (darśan) so that he will become a “master yogī”
(yogendra) and suffer no more. 37 Nānak responds that only one whose mind is
attuned to the Guru (gurumukhi) can attain the way of true yoga. Highlight-
ing the fact that true spirituality rests on inner qualities, not external trap-
pings, he says,

Let the eternal Word [sabad] within you be your earrings and
forsake selfish attachment.
Rid yourself of desire, anger, and egoism and adopt wisdom
through the Guru’s Word.
Let this be your patched cloak and ascetic’s pouch, Nānak says,
for only the One, Hari, brings salvation.38
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 249

He goes on to state,

Let detachment from the worldly be your begging bowl [khapar]

and let the qualities of the five elements be your cap [topī].
Let the body be your meditation mat and let the mind be your
loincloth [ jāgotī]. Let truth, contentment, and self-­discipline
be your companions.
Nānak says, the one whose mind is attuned to the Guru is
immersed in the Name.39

This stanza underlines the futility of the yogī’s outward symbols (begging
bowl, earrings, patched cloak, etc.) and, as Piar Singh notes, “in their place it
advocates the cultivation of virtues of truth, continence, self-­restraint, etc.,”
asserting that spiritual realization is “obtained through the Yoga of Nam-­Simran
[remembrance/recitation of the Name] alone and not through intricate Haṭha-­
yogic practices.” 40 Later in the text, Nānak states, “The twelve sects of yogīs and
the ten sects of saṃnyāsīs wander (over many rebirths) in confusion,” for one
finds the door of liberation only through the Word of the Guru.41
Lying behind these verses from Kabīr, Trilochan, and Nānak seems to be an
overarching perception that most yogīs were not at all what they claimed to be.42
While many may have taken on the garb of the yogī, they simply did not possess
the spiritual qualities these external accoutrements were meant to signify—­
detachment, wisdom, inner purity, etc. They were false yogīs. As Nāmdev remarks
in one of his abhangas, “He thinks he’s renouncing! This isn’t it at all: it’s living
with worldliness and not being moved. . . . Y ​ our clothes, says Nāmdev, you can
easily change, but you won’t change the brazenness inside.” 43 Tulsīdās, in his
Dohāvalī, suggests that these sorts of yogī impostors were prevalent in his day:
“Those who wear inauspicious and inappropriate clothes, external markings,
and ornaments, who eat everything whether clean or unclean—­in the Kali
Yuga these sorts of yogīs and siddhas are revered by people.” 44 Reiterating Tulsī’s
sentiments about these false ascetics, Kabīr says, “In body, they are all ‘yogīs,’
but yogīs of the mind are few.” 45 In another verse, he writes, “Donning an ascet-
ic’s garb, he becomes a Lord, he eats and drinks his fill! But the narrow path
which the saint has taken is ever closed to him.” 46 A frequently cited poem attrib-
uted to Kabīr, but likely of late sixteenth-­century provenance, criticizes war-
rior ascetics who dress as yogīs and falsely claim detachment and wisdom:

Never have I seen such yogis, brother.47

They wander mindless and negligent, proclaiming the way of
Mahadeva [Śiva]. For this they are called great mahants.
 250 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

To markets and bazaars they peddle their meditation—­false

siddhas, lovers of maya.
When did Dattatreya attack a fort? When did Sukadeva join with
gunners? When did Narada fire a musket? When did
Vyasadeva sound a battle cry?
These numbskulls make war. Are they ascetics or archers? They
profess detachment, but greed is their mind’s resolve.
They shame their profession by wearing gold. They collect stallions
and mares, acquire villages, and go about as millionaires.48

Pinch explains that this poem reflects “a wide religious condemnation of false
religion, and false yogis in particular, that was gaining momentum in northern
India, especially after 1500.” 49 This is certainly true; as evident in the preceding,
fake yogīs were major targets of criticism from bhakti poets. Nevertheless, bhakti
critiques extended well beyond false yogīs. Even “real” yogīs—­those whose prac-
tice might be perceived as authentic and sincere—­were often reckoned followers
of a path that simply did not work, or one whose spiritual efficacy was far infe-
rior to that of bhakti. Tulsīdās is particularly vehement in making this point.

Powerful Bhakti, Powerless Yoga

Throughout his poetic corpus, Tulsīdās repeatedly emphasizes how mantras,

yoga, and practices of renunciation and asceticism are completely unneces-
sary; all one needs is loving devotion to God. He writes, “Without detachment
[vairāg], mantric recitation [ jap], sacrifices, yoga, and fasts, without asceti-
cism [tap], without sacrificing the body—­Tulsī says, all contentment is quickly
and easily obtained if you simply love the Prayag-­l ike feet of Prabhu.”50 Not
only are these other (non-­bhakti) modes of religiosity needless; they are also
ineffective. In the Vinay Patrikā, Tulsī states, “People follow the prescriptions of
the Āgamas, reciting mantras and doing sacrifices, but they do not obtain their
goal. Even in dreams, contentment does not come from the practice of yoga and
siddhis; only sickness and sorrow remain.”51 He goes on to conclude the stanza
with this verse: “Tulsī says, without trust and love [in God] one wanders aim-
lessly, is defeated, and dies. The name of Rām is the only vessel to carry one
across the ocean of existence.”52 Here Tulsī stresses that those who follow the
paths of yoga, tantric mantras and rituals, and asceticism do not achieve their
spiritual aims, for contentment and liberation can come only through faith and
love in Rām and the power of the Name.
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 251

For Tulsīdās, bhakti’s great power, and the inefficacy and inferiority of yogic
and tantric religious modes, has much to do with the historical context of the
Kali Age. In days past, he seems to say, yoga, renunciation, and sacrifice may
have worked, but in these dark times such methods no longer have any efficacy.
In the Rāmcaritmānas, he writes, “In this difficult age there is a great wealth of
sins, there is no dharma, no wisdom, no joga, no jap. Abandoning faith in all
these, the one who does bhakti to Ram alone is wise.”53 He reiterates this point
in his Kavitāvalī, stating, “This Kali Age has engulfed all dharma; mantric
recitation, yoga, and renunciation have all fled for their lives. Who grieving
after them will die? Tulsī says, I have sold myself into the hands of the Lord
of Jānakī [Rām].”54
In highlighting the needlessness of asceticism, mantras, and yoga, Tulsīdās
also stressed the great power inherent in singing and hearing stories of the
Divine. In the Rāmcaritmānas, he writes, “Even without renunciation, mantric
recitation, or yoga, those who sing or hear the praises of Ravana’s foe [Rām] shall
be rewarded with steadfast devotion.”55 Anantadās, in his Pīpā parcaī, similarly
states, “Yoga, sacrifices, repetition of mantras, asceticism, and fasts [ joga jigi jap
tap vrat]—­all that cannot equal the recitation of the stories of Hari.”56 Here it is
apparent that in contrast to the esoteric tantra-­mantra, ascetic deprivations, and
solitude constituting various forms of yogic religiosity, a core component of
bhakti’s religion of the heart is simply to absorb oneself in telling and listening
to tales about God. In his Saṃnyāsanirṇaya, Vallabha (ca. 1479–­1531), the brah-
man founder of the Puṣṭi Marg bhakti sect, emphasized this key distinction
between the social, humble nature of bhakti and the solitary, proud nature of
asceticism. He states (vv. 3–­6) that bhakti requires one to regularly “associate
with helpful companions”—­participating in and relying on a community of fel-
low devotees—­while the ascetic’s practice is quite a lonesome affair.57 Further-
more, says Vallabha, the ascetic life leads to conceit (abhimāna), hypocrisy, and
egotistic absorption in the very sensuality it ostensibly seeks to avoid, whereas
bhakti demands humility and surrender.58
Raidās also makes it clear that bhakti is not about asceticism or the pride-­
evoking practice of yoga but about losing oneself in the love of God. He sings,

Bhakti is not like this, my brother. Whatever is done without the

name of Rām, is all called delusion.
Bhakti is not suppression of the senses, not speaking of wisdom,
not digging a cave in the forest. Not some joke, not the snares
of desire. This is not bhakti.
Bhakti is not binding the senses, not practicing yoga, not eating
less—­all these practices are called karma.
 252 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

Bhakti is not reducing the sleep, not practicing renunciation.

These practices are not bhakti; they are the pride of the
Vedas.59

Later in the poem Raidās states that bhakti happens when one loses the self in
Rām; all else is merely senseless pride and delusion.
Pride, egotism, and desire emerge persistently in bhakti poetry as spiritual
obstacles that the yogic and ascetic paths simply cannot overcome. Raidās lists
yogīs and ascetics among those who are enslaved and ruined by these worldly
temptations of māyā. He says, “Viṭṭhal, stop, stop your Māyā devouring the world.
She has such great power, she enslaves all, she leads gods, men and sages astray.
Child, old woman, very beautiful maiden—­she assumes diverse guises. Yogīs,
renunciates, ascetics, sanyāsīs, wise men—­none of them survives.” 60 In another
poem, Raidās lumps yogīs and saṃnyāsīs with several other arrogant figures who
are lost and confused without Rām. He writes, “[They think to themselves] ‘We
are great poets, high-­born pandits, yogīs, sanyāsīs, wise, virtuous men, warriors,
benefactors’—­such states of mind are never destroyed. Ravidās says, none of
them understands, they have fallen into error like madmen.” 61
Despite their difficult practices, yogīs and ascetics are not able to abolish their
selfish greed, pride, and confusion and are haunted by these things through the
night. The bhaktas, on the other hand, sleep like babies, for they have given
themselves in devotion to Rām. In Tulsīdās’s words, “Itinerant yogīs and bands
of ascetics stay awake, practicing meditation, for in their hearts lies a heavy fear
of greed, delusion, anger, and desire. . . . ​But Tulsī sleeps soundly—­his one faith
is in Rām.” 62 From the perspective of many early modern North Indian bhakti
poets, the yogī and his practices represented the epitome of delusion, egotism,
and foolishness. Sūrdās suggests exactly this when he states, “Fool, dispense
with pride and pretension and before you roast in the flames, say the name of
Rām. . . . U
​ nless you reflect on Hari, the Lord of Sūr, you’ll be like those yogīs—­
like monkeys they are—­you’ll wriggle on a leash, and dance.” 63 Here Sūr openly
mocks the yogī by comparing him to a monkey performing tricks on a leash, a
puppet to māyā and its worldly illusions and desires. Hawley notes that this “esti-
mation of yogis as practicing a senseless regimen, one that purports to lead to
liberation but is in fact an instrument of imprisonment, is made at several points
in the Sūrsāgar.” 64
In the excerpts from the following Sūrdās poems, the gopīs of Braj find abso-
lutely no value in yoga. These poems come from a genre called bhramargīt, or
“songs to the bee.” The setting is this: Kṛṣṇa has left Braj for Mathura and the
messenger Ūddhav (or Ūddho) is sent to console the distraught female cowherds
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 253

(gopīs) of Braj, who pine desperately for their Beloved. As Ūddhav speaks, trying
to convince the gopīs that they ought to take up the path of yoga, a bee flies by
and, in their distress, the gopīs address their reproaches and pleas of longing to
this bee.65 “Why should we take up the discipline of yoga, so unknowable, untel-
lable, unmeasurable?” 66 they cry out. In another poem, the gopīs make it clear
that, for them, yoga foolishly and cruelly misses the entire point: the joy of an
intimate personal relationship with God. They sing,

It’s a dirty trick, this yoga, and it won’t sell in Braj.

. . . ​Who will give up grapes to feed on fruit from the bitter nīm
tree?
How could we leave the taste of Sūr’s Dark Lord, and live on that
insipid stuff of yours?67

Here yoga is characterized as bitter and insipid in contrast to the sweetness

of devotion to Kṛṣṇa. This perspective is reiterated in the following excerpts,
which describe the ascetic yogī’s path as tasteless, a source of suffering, and a
worthless concoction that does absolutely nothing to help with the gopīs’ fun-
damental dilemma: separation (viraha) from their Beloved.

[Ūddho] says to leave behind our clothes and jewels, also our love
for family and home,
Let our hair grow wild, put ash on our skin, and study his
tasteless no-­trait path.
To my way of thinking, he’s only speaking grief—­love’s pain—­in
the hearts of poor young maidens.68

Ūdho, they say, has arrived in our midst to peddle his yoga to
poor young maidens.
His postures, dispassion, his eyes turned within—­f riend, how can
they cancel our distance from Śyām?
. . . ​What kind of doctor, says Sūr, can this be who hands out
prescriptions when he doesn’t know the disease?69

These Sūrdās verses, like so many others in early modern North Indian bhakti
literature, clearly convey the opinion that the path of yoga and asceticism is not
only misguided and emotionally empty but also utterly ineffectual in achiev-
ing the religious goals of the bhakta.
 254 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

Locating the Bhakti Critique: Factors of

Caste and Geography

It is interesting to note that when it comes to the specific content of bhakti poetry
referencing Nāth yogīs, there is a marked tendency for poetry attributed to
lower-­caste, nirguṇ Sants like Kabīr, Raidās, and Nānak to show a familiarity with
the technical terms of Nāth tantric yoga practice and philosophy, whereas
poetry attributed to higher-­caste, saguṇ saints like Tulsīdās and Sūrdās shows
a clear awareness of the details of the Nāth yogī’s garb, accoutrements, and life-
style but rarely if ever shows the same intimate knowledge of kuṇḍalinī yogic
praxis or Nāth philosophical terminology. Mīrābāī, a markedly saguṇ poet-­saint,
is an interesting case in this regard. Contributors to the Mīrābāī poetic corpus
seem to have come from both higher-­caste and lower-­caste backgrounds, but
while lower-­caste communities have gone so far as to make her the disciple of an
untouchable Nāth yogī guru,70 poems attributed to her nevertheless tend to show
no evidence of the intimate details of (or terminology associated with) tantric
yoga or Nāth meditative experience. Furthermore, while figures like Kabīr,
Raidās, Pīpā, and Sena occasionally appear with yogīs and Sufis in Mughal minia-
ture paintings, this is not the case with Mīrābāī nor with Sūrdās or Tulsīdās.
Much of Sufi literature shows the same heightened awareness of Nāth yogī
thought and practice that we find in the lower-­caste nirguṇ bhakti poetry, sug-
gesting a common social location shared by some Sufis, yogīs, and nirguṇ bhakti
Sants that may have allowed for more frequent and more intimate exchanges
among them. Indeed, this distinction is borne out in Mughal miniature paint-
ings, which depict extremely few Daśnāmīs and higher-­caste, saguṇ bhaktas but
show many yogīs and a number of lower-­caste nirguṇ Sants.71 Many Sufis and
nirguṇ bhaktas like Kabīr and Raidās were alike in being rather unconcerned with
matters of caste purity, and this likely allowed them to mix more freely with
each other and with yogīs, a fact reflected in the content of literature they
both wrote that utilized Nāth yogī imagery, symbols, and terms even as it dispar-
aged key aspects of Nāth yogī religiosity.
The social location (class and caste) of devotee-­poets—­a nd, just as impor-
tantly, the social makeup of the sectarian communities behind the production of
manuscripts of bhakti poetry—­certainly affected the specific content of different
bhakti critiques of tantric-­yogic religion, but, as the poems attributed to Tulsīdās
and Kabīr make clear, bhakti poets (and bhakti communities) across the social
spectrum were generally in agreement in their negative attitudes toward tantric
yogīs and Śāktas. Earlier I discussed some verses from Kabīr that explicitly
directed themselves at Gorakh and the Nāths, criticizing their yogic practices
and attitudes. It is Tulsīdās, however, who penned perhaps the most striking of
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 255

the bhakti verses that speak to the conflict between bhaktas and Nāth yogīs. In his
Kavitāvalī, he famously wrote, “Gorakh awakened yoga and drove bhakti away
from the people [Gorakh jagāyo jog, bhakti bhagāyo log]. He played with the direc-
tives of the scriptures—­what a fraud!”72 Here Tulsī boldly proclaims not only that
the tantric-­yogic teachings of the Nāths are opposed to the teachings of bhakti
but also that they have actually caused bhakti to weaken among the people.
While Tulsīdās and Kabīr differed in many important respects, they were
in clear agreement in their negative opinion of tantric yogīs and ascetics.
Tulsī was a brahman, a devotee especially of the Divine in form and with qual-
ities (saguṇ),73 and he has often been remembered as a socially conservative
poet who sought to maintain the caste and purity restrictions of traditional
Hindu varṇāśramadharma. Kabīr, on the other hand, was a low-­caste weaver with
a Muslim and perhaps even Nāth background, a devotee of a formless God with-
out qualities (nirguṇ), and he is remembered for his vehement attacks on conser-
vative brahmanical social views and institutions. If these characteristics would
place Tulsī and Kabīr at opposite ends of the spectrum of bhakti poets, the
two are nevertheless united in their rejection of key aspects of tantric and
yogic religious approaches. For both, utter devotion to Rām—­whether con-
ceived as the formless Ultimate or as Rāmcandra, avatār of Viṣṇu—­is the only
valid and authentic spiritual path; all else is worthless egotism, pretension,
and foolishness.
Kabīr and Tulsī were linked in at least one other way. They both resided in the
sacred city of Banaras along the Ganges River. The question that arises from this
simple fact is one about physical location. The impact of social location on bhakti
polemics has been noted, but what about geographic location? To what degree
did the rhetoric of bhakti reformers regarding tantric and yogic religiosity in
early modern North India emerge from specific local contexts? There is no doubt
that an aspect of the differences in the content of poetry attributed to the vari-
ous North Indian bhakti saints (and among manuscript recensions of individual
poets like Kabīr) has to do with the specific contexts of religious competition in
the particular geographic regions in which the poetry was produced, which
were themselves tied to locally specific economies, political relationships, and
situations of land control. The precise nature of “the other” necessarily depended
on exactly who one was competing against for followers and patronage at a par-
ticular place and time. For instance, Sikh literature (especially the janam-­sākhīs)
makes it clear that the developing Sikh community in Panjab was in rivalry pri-
marily with Gorakhnāthi yogīs and the devotees of Sufi saints and faced no seri-
ous competition from any other bhakti sect or Vaiṣṇava group in the area, or
from Śāktas.74 Generally, in the medieval and early modern period in North
India, Nāth yogīs seem to have had a major presence in Rajasthan, Panjab, and
 256 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

around Banaras, thus they were criticized and marginalized especially by poets,
and in manuscript traditions, from these regions. On the other hand, bhaktas
writing in Braj (like those in the nascent Gauḍiya, Vallabhan, Rādhāvallabhan,
and Haridāsī communities) far less frequently refer to yogīs. As a rather new
and developing pilgrimage center for Kṛṣṇa devotees, it makes sense that Braj
would not have been a regular stopping point on the circuits of itinerant tant-
ric yogīs; they simply were not major competitors in the religious marketplace
of the area. Braj-­dwelling bhaktas like Harirām Vyās did, however, compose
polemics about Śāktas, who seem to have maintained a significant presence
in Braj even after the sixteenth-­century Kṛṣṇa revival there. As Vaudeville
writes, “In spite of Vaiṣṇava abhorrence of the bloody rites associated with
Devī-­worship, the pastoral castes, especially the Jāṭs and Gujārs who form the
bulk of the autochthonous population of Braj-­bhūmi, did remain attached to
the cult of their local goddesses.”75
While there are nuances in poetic content and emphasis that correlate (in
part) with differences in bhakti authors’ (and bhakti manuscripts’) geographic
locations, the fact is that criticism of yoga and tantra came from devotional
poets in a wide variety of places, including Banaras, Avadh, Braj, Rajasthan, and
Panjab. Clearly, the bhakti sensibility that was forming in the early modern
period, partly against the foil of the twofold tantric other, was one that stretched
across a broad swath of North India, one extending even into Bengal and Assam.
The sources examined and discussed thus far have come from primarily Raj-
asthan, Panjab, and the Gangetic Plain (e.g., Braj, Avadh, Banaras), but bhakti
critiques of tantric-­yogic religion also came from further east, addressing audi-
ences in Bengal and Assam, as well as from Maharashtra to the south. In the
following poem, Nāmdev, the fourteenth-­century Maharashtrian singer-­saint,
stresses the confused and purposeless nature of the religious practices of itin-
erant ascetics and tantric-­yogī healers:

Show us, then, your herbs, your roots, charms and spells as you
go around naked, a wanderer—­so what?
Show us how you’ve fasted, how stern your yogic acts, as you
meander over the land—­so what?
So what? It only redounds to your disgrace. Remember instead
the One who never ends.
Pointless, says Nāmdev, are your many schemes. First go to
Viṭhobā, his feet—­fasten on to them.76

In another poem, Nāmdev asks, “Mādhav, how shall I perform yoga? There is
great difficulty in doing yoga. . . . ​I have neither knowledge nor meditation. . . . ​
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 257

Let me go to the shelter of Hari.”77 Similarly, a poem attributed to Tukarām,

the seventeenth-­century Maharashtrian poet and Kṛṣṇa (Viṭṭhal) devotee,
emphasizes the value of bhakti over and above yoga, asceticism, and gnosis:
“Yoga cannot grasp You, sacrificial rites cannot get You, You do not yield to
penance, the senses cannot touch You, Knowledge cannot discover You. . . . ​
Because Your form is beyond reach of speech and mind, I have to measure
You with my own devotion.”78
A number of early modern authors writing in Bengali and Assamese also
included yoga in lists of religious approaches they said were worthless in com-
parison with bhakti, or ought to be abandoned in favor of bhakti. Kṛṣṇadās
Kavirāj, in his Caitanya-­caritāmṛta (1537) states, “Karma, yoga, and jñāna—­these
look toward the face of bhakti. But all these sādhanas yield most worthless fruit,
for without bhakti they have not the power to give.”79 In Locanadāsa’s Bengali
hagiography of Caitanya, the Caitanya Maṅgala (LCM) (ca. 1560–­1580), there is a
scene in which the young Caitanya challenges a man, saying, “Wagging your
hands and head [in pride], you have abandoned bhakti and seek yoga. Instead of
jñāna and karma, give your heart over to the worship of Kṛṣṇa and become a
rasika immersed in blissful consciousness. Gaining mastery over the elements
of the material world is not the practice of proper worship.”80 Another example
comes from Kavikarṇapūra’s allegorical drama, the Caitanyacandrodaya (ca. 1575),
in which Caitanya, on his pilgrimage south, encounters the great devotee
Rāmānanda Rāya, who explains to him the essential truths of bhakti. The text
states, “Rāmānanda observed that one who yokes himself to Kṛṣṇa through
love (prema) is better than one who follows the path of yoga; that only the one
who relies on the spiritual body of Bhagvān, the heart-­thrilling form, and not
on the physical form of this worldly body, is truly liberated from the world of
creation.”81
Śaṅkaradeva, a Kṛṣṇa devotee writing in Assam in the sixteenth century, also
saw no value in the practice of yoga. As Phyllis Granoff explains, “Śaṅkaradeva’s
rejection of the practice of yoga comprises a central episode in his biography
that was composed in Assamese by his disciple Daityāri sometime in the early
17th century.”82 While Śaṅkaradeva seems initially to have been a practitioner
of aṣṭāṅga and haṭha yoga and to have seen them as the means to salvation,
Daityāri’s hagiography explicitly and emphatically states that when Śaṅkaradeva
discovered the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, he gave up all practice of yoga and came to
believe fervently in the necessity for the exclusive practice of devotion.83 Granoff
demonstrates how Śaṅkaradeva, in his Bhaktiratnakāra, made very selective use
of verses in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa in order to present it as unambiguously
expressing the message that only devotion to God brings liberation and that
yoga, mantras, austerities, etc., cannot. Śaṅkaradeva carefully chose verses that
 258 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

elevated devotion and the recitation of the Name while also selecting those
explicitly rejecting or marginalizing yoga practices, despite the fact that those
same practices are clearly praised in other verses in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. As I
note later, Śaṅkaradeva and other bhaktas like him were opposed not only to
yoga but also and especially to Śākta and other tantric practices.

Anti-­Śākta Sentiments

While much of the devotional critique was directed at the yogī, Śāktas were also
major targets of criticism. Anantadās described Raidās as being born to Śākta
parents who later convert and become bhaktas of Hari and, in a separate parcaī,
narrated Pīpā’s shift from worship of the Goddess (who admits her own subor-
dinate status) to the love of Hari. In the opening verses of his Kabīr-­paricaī,
Anantadās also remarks that Kabīr spent many days among the Śāktas but had
then become a devotee of Hari.84 Anantadās was not the only hagiographer to
use the Śāktas as a contrast to highlight the devotional perspective of the great
bhakti heroes and heroines. Priyādās, in his Bhaktirasabodhinī (1712), tells us that
Mīrābāī’s in-­laws were Śāktas and that Mīrā’s mother-­in-­law pressured her to
worship the Goddess, but that she adamantly refused, maintaining that she wor-
shipped Kṛṣṇa (Giridhārīlāl) alone.85 In each of these examples from the hagiog-
raphies of Kabīr, Mīrā, Pīpā, and Raidās, we see how Śāktas and goddess worship
were set up as a foil for bhakti devotional religion.
As Heidi Pauwels has noted, “Diatribes against śāktas are widespread through-
out North Indian bhakti texts, in nirguṇa as well as in Rāma and Krishna
bhakti.”86 To get a feel for the anti-­Śākta rhetoric prevalent among bhakti poets
of early modern North India, let us look at examples from two very different
devotees, writing in very different social and geographic locations: Kabīr, a
fifteenth-­century, low-­caste, nirguṇ poet of Banaras/Varanasi, and Harirām
Vyās, a sixteenth-­century, high-­caste, Kṛṣṇa poet of Vrindavan. Although bhak-
tas depicted the outlook and practices of yogīs and tāntrikas as misguided,
worthless, ineffective, or inferior (to love and devotion), in bhakti verses on
Śāktas there is an additional element of vitriol and genuine disgust. Here are
two sākhīs of Kabīr:

Better is the she-­dog of a Vaiṣṇava than the mother of a Śākta:

The one keeps listening to Hari’s praise and the other goes to buy
sin!87
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 259

A pig is worth more than a Śākta, for he keeps the village clean!
When the Śākta, the wretch, has died nobody will take his
name!88

Harirām Vyās voices a similar hostility, writing,

Paint black the face of a śākta, o Heart.

I cannot stand seeing a śākta, whether old or for profit.
When I see a śākta, I’m afraid, even more than of a lion.
The devotee deserves my love, (but) he kills living beings, not
afraid to reduce to dust.
Worshiping garbage-­pots on the eighth and fourteenth day, the
poor guy is dim of wits.89
Vyāsdās (says): leave such company, instead (turn) right away to
worshiping Śyām [Kṛṣṇa].90

In this poem, Vyās targets the “left-­hand” tantric practice and sexual ritual
of sahajiyās and Śāktas in Bengal:

Senseless bairāgīs perform spiritual training in Bengal.

By the power of mineral, alchemy and herbs, [their] desire [the
bodiless god of love] is inflamed night and day.
[They] are not affected by the passionate bliss of Śuk’s words [i.e.,
the Bhāgavata Purāṇa], no element of doubt is dispersed.
Perversions [and] values of the ephemeral world catch on; in
pursuit of wealth, everybody’s concentration is broken.
Living in the woods they grasp the heavy and high breasts of
alluring ladies and serve them.
Considering every woman to be a sādhu, they leave the holy men
and abandon Hari’s lap.
Words of desire, like arrows in every limb, [and still] the quiver
bundling [more arrows] shines brightly.
Vyās [says]: [Even with] the firm noose of desire on his neck, he
[still] likes desire and passion.91

In bhakti poems such as these it is not always clear whether the word śākta
refers to a rival religious community whose specific practices were found
objectionable or is a more generic term for a nondevotee stuck in immorality,
worldly desires, and sensual temptations. Pauwels’s study demonstrates that
 260 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

bhaktas typically associated the Śākta with goddess worship, blood sacrifice, tan-
tric sexual ritual, and unorthodox, low-­caste (impure) practices. While bhakti
opposition to these dimensions of tantric Śākta religiosity was quite real and
quite strong, it is also important to note that, like the yogīs encountered in the
preceding, to an extent the Śāktas of bhakti literature were caricatured figures,
straw men that helped in marking the boundaries of a growing bhakti public and
religious sensibility.92
Eventually, the impact of North India’s burgeoning bhakti movement would
extend into the Śākta realm as well. Beginning in the mid-­eighteenth century,
we find a vibrant tradition of devotional poetry to the Goddess in Bengal, an
intimate, emotional Śākta bhakti that reflects the powerful influence of Kṛṣṇa
bhakti in that region.93 Nevertheless, in sixteenth-­and seventeenth-­century Ben-
gal and Assam (traditional hotbeds of goddess worship and tantric religion),
Śāktism and bhakti—­at least according to the bhaktas—­seem clearly to have been
at loggerheads.94 In his sixteenth-­century hagiography of Caitanya, Vṛndāvana-­
dāsa describes Bengal prior to Caitanya’s devotional movement as “devoid of
Kṛṣṇa-­Rāma bhakti . . . ​the people sang praises of Caṇḍī (the Goddess) far into
the night, and made offerings in pūjā (worship) to Vāsulī (i.e., Caṇḍī); with wine
and flesh they worshipped the Yakṣas (demons/nature spirits). In the uproar . . . ​
no one heard the name of Kṛṣṇa.”95 Here Śākta religion takes on a role similar
to the one it occupies in Anantadās’s parcaīs, serving as a foil for bhakti, an igno-
rance preceding the realization of bhakti’s truth, a darkness that—­in these
authors’ narrative ploys—­a llows the light of bhakti to shine that much more
brightly. Similarly, the seventeenth-­century Narottama-­vilāsa of Narahari-­dāsa
describes the Śāktas of Bengal, untouched by bhakti, as being “practiced in god-
less deeds, knowing nothing of true dharma and karma, and doing indescrib-
ably evil things. At the doors of their houses is the blood of goats and sheep and
buffaloes. . . . ​Lascivious women stay with them, and they use flesh and wine in
their worship.”96 The atmosphere in Assam is described in much the same way.
Rāmānanda Dvija, in his mid-­seventeenth-­century biography of Śaṅkaradeva,
the Guru Caritra, writes that before the advent of Śaṅkaradeva’s Vaiṣṇava move-
ment in Assam, “People did not worship Kṛṣṇa or perform the deeds sacred to
Hari. They, on the other hand, would fain worship Bhairava and consider it to
be the greatest of religions. They made offerings of blood of tortoises and goats
to that deity, and drank of it as a sacred drink (prasāda).”97 While there may be
grains of truth in such remarks, such statements are important not so much
for providing historical information as for conveying the manner in which
tantric Śāktism and Śaivism served as a demonized other against which bhak-
tas were forming their devotional sensibility.
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 261

Śaṅkaradeva (1449–­1569) of Assam seems to have shared the hostile attitude

of Kabīr, Harirām Vyās, and Anantadās toward Śāktas. Śaṅkaradeva was born
into a Śākta family (who kept an image of Cāṇḍī in their home) but became a
great devotee of Kṛṣṇa who led a devotional revival that was “the first major
challenge to Śākta Tantra in Assam,” fiercely rejecting its blood sacrifice, eso-
teric rites, mantras, and tantric yoga.98 Besides his criticism of yoga, Śaṅkaradeva
also scorned blood sacrifice and, in his Kīrttana-­ghoṣa, demonstrated a partic-
ular disdain for “left-­hand Tantric worship with ‘women, wine and meat’ (strī-­
madya-­māṃsa sevā), an ignorant and futile practice that only leads sinful fools
to their own destruction.”99 In this work, Śaṅkaradeva argues that devotion to
Hari utterly surpasses all other rites and practices, including “tantra mantra . . . ​
yajña,” and so forth.100 Tantra-­mantra often gets highlighted as an inferior or in-
effective religious practice in a particular genre of bhakti poetry, which I con-
sider in the following.

Bitten by the Snake: Bhakti and Tantric Healing

I now shift from the Śakta to the figure of the tantric yogī as healer, as repre-
sented in bhakti poetry, and the utter powerlessness of the tantric yogī’s tantra-­
mantra against either the snake of viraha (love in separation from the Divine)
or the snake of māyā (the worldly delusion and desire that bind us in suffering
and prevent liberation). There is a long tradition of tāntrikas and yogīs acting
and earning renown as healers. At the core of these tāntrikas’ and yogīs’ heal-
ing practices were the recitation of mantras and the use of plants and herbs
as amulets consecrated and made potent through mantric recitation.101 The
repertoire of the gāruḍika, or tantric snakebite healer, typically consisted of
herbal medicines, mantras to the bird king Garuḍa, protective diagrams (yan-
tra), and spells (vidyā) understood to be sonic embodiments (i.e., mantras) of
particular goddesses.102 A trope in Indian literature and folktales is the tant-
ric yogī or gāruḍī summoned to cure the sickness that no one else can cure.103
Here of particular concern is the tantric healing of snakebites, which were
not only a real health hazard in many parts of India but also a common poetic
metaphor.104
In the Indian Sufi romance the Madhumālatī (1545), the story’s hero, Prince
Manohar, falls terribly ill, and when none of the physicians, exorcists, or sages
can help him, a tantric healer is summoned. This learned tāntrika boasts of his
“skills and magic,” saying he can raise the dead with his incantations and invoke
 262 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

the gods through his magic;105 however, in the end he is forced to admit that the
illness is beyond his powers: “He tried everything—­words, medicines, all his
skills as a healer—­but all proved useless.”106 The text states emphatically, “The
Prince’s ailment was incurable. No herb, no mantra in this world could heal
him.”107 Similarly, in Jāyasī’s Padmāvat (1540), the protagonist, King Ratansen,
falls into a condition “more grievous than death,” repeatedly losing conscious-
ness in his intense pain. “All his family and dependents, his princes and lords,
all came speedily. And all the magicians and the curers of snakebite (gāruḍī) and
the sorcerers and the physicians and the wise men were summoned.”108 But they
could not heal his sickness. What was this incurable illness suffered by Ratan-
sen and Manohar, seemingly unparalleled in the agony and madness it brought
on? The answer, of course, is viraha—­the passionate, anguished love that occurs
in separation from one’s beloved.
Well before the Hindavi Sufi romances were composed, the great Chishti Sufi
saint of Delhi, Shaikh Nizām al-­Dīn Awliyā’ (1242–­1325), is known to have recited
these Arabic verses that conceive the devotee’s passionate longing for God in
terms of an incurable snakebite.

Each morning, and again, each evening

My eyes, due to love of you, keep weeping.
My liver, bitten by the snake of desire,
No doctor or charmer has the means of curing.
For none but he who enflames me with desire
Can, if he chooses, quench that raging fire.109

Amir Hasan, the collector of the sayings of Nizām al-­Dīn in the Fawā’id al-­Fu’ād
(ca. 1308–­1322), rendered the last two couplets of this poem into Persian:

My liver’s been pinched by a serpent’s deadly bite,

Which no spell, however potent, can hope to right.
Only that one whose love distracts and destroys me
Can cast a healing spell; who but he knows my plight?110

In bhakti literature as well we see this same thematic emphasis on the power
of passionate longing for an absent beloved (viraha)—­expressed in terms of the
very same metaphor of a snakebite inflicting suffering that can be healed only
by the beloved. Though each seemingly drew on earlier, separate traditions of
Islamicate (Arabic and Persian) and Sanskritic love poetry, this shared empha-
sis and metaphor likely served as a point of contact and resonance between Sufis
and bhaktas.
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 263

Rajab, a seventeenth-­century bhakti poet-­saint of the Dādū ­Panth, states, “The

separation from my beloved hurts like a snakebite; only the vision of God is a
suitable medicine. Without seeing him I remain sad, I find no peace in body or
soul.”111 Along the same lines, one Kabīr song says, “The snake of viraha has
entered the body; it has bitten the inmost heart—­yet the saint does not turn a
limb: ‘Let it bite as it pleases!’ he says.”112 Another Kabīr sākhī declares, “I found
a raft formed by a snake in the Ocean of Existence: If I let go, I shall drown, if I
hang on, it will bite my arm.”113 In both these Kabīr poems, the snake is viraha,
and though it causes suffering, that pain is welcomed as a necessary element in
the path of bhakti, which alone brings liberation from the suffering of worldly
existence.
Kṛṣṇadās Kavirāj, in the Caitanya-­caritāmṛta, identifies the snake not with
viraha but with God (Kṛṣṇa), whose serpent bite of love causes that viraha; “Long
and powerful bars are the two arms of Kṛṣṇa; they are not arms, but long black-­
snake bodies. Coiling through the cleft of the twin mountains they bite the
hearts of women; in that poison’s burning women die.”114 Similarly, Sūrdās, in
one of his poems, describes Kṛṣṇa as a snake that has bitten Rādhā then aban-
doned her to suffer intense pain in separation from her Beloved. After listing
multiple failed efforts to cure Rādhā’s faint, feverish condition, Sūr states, “Noth-
ing availed against the cruel bite of that serpent, the God of Love.”115 In another
poem, Sūrdās depicts the Divine as the snakebite curer, the lone healer able to
cure the pain of viraha. Taking on the voice of the gopīs of Braj, Sūrdās sings of
Kṛṣṇa:

We’ve been bitten, my friend, by a dark, black snake

And no one—­no one but the Lord of the Yadus—­can take the
poison away.
Ūdho, it’s a good thing you’ve come to bind us with a tourniquet
before you leave,
But when will you send us Sūrdās’s Lord to pour his mantras on
our heads?116

A slightly later (1640) version of this poem adds these lines: “None of the tan-
tras and mantras work—­the experts have given up and gone. Call the doctor of
snakebites (gāruḍī), call Gopāl: [only] he can make these waves of fainting go
away.”117
Snakebites and tantric healing practices for dealing with them seem to have
been relatively widespread among the audiences to whom many bhakti poets and
storytellers performed. The story and poems referred to here utilize the burn-
ing pain, fever, and fainting caused by a snakebite as metaphors for the intense
 264 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

anguish and longing experienced by the devotee in separation from God.

Together these bhakti sources speak to the paradox that the beloved Divine is
simultaneously both the snake that has caused the tormented love of viraha and
the snakebite curer (gāruḍī) uniquely capable of healing the devotee’s lovesick-
ness. Yet these verses consist of more than just metaphors and clever literary
devices for describing the nature of viraha. That “none of the tantras and man-
tras work” is a detail very much worth noting, for it suggests that for the reli-
gious needs and desires of these bhaktas, tantric methods were increasingly
perceived to have no worth or power. This sentiment, already seen in the devo-
tional perspective of the Padmāvat and Madhumālatī, is one that recurs in the
poetry and hagiography of the North Indian bhakti saints. While snakes,
snakebites, and other painful illnesses were traditional metaphors for describ-
ing the power of devotion, the nature of longing (viraha) for the Beloved, or the
sufferings of saṃsāra, what seems new in early modern North Indian devotional
materials’ use of these metaphors is the way that tantra-­mantra and tantric heal-
ers, specifically, come in as the foil to bhakti, throwing the power and truth of
the devotional path into high relief.
Mīrābāī, in her earliest dated poem (in the 1604 Kartārpur manuscript),
describes the power of the love she feels for the Divine, contrasting it with the
powerlessness of tantras and mantras to relieve her anguish. She sings,

He’s bound my heart with the powers he owns, Mother—­he with

the lotus eyes.
Arrows like spears: this body is pierced, and Mother, he’s gone
far away.
When did it happen, Mother? I don’t know but now it’s too much
to bear.
Tantras, mantras, medicines—­I’ve tried, but the pain won’t go.
Is there someone who can bring relief? Mother, the hurt is cruel.
Here I am, near, and you’re not far: Hurry to me, to meet.
Mira’s Mountain-­Lifter Lord, have mercy, cool this body’s fire!
O Mother, my heart is bound in the bonds of the Lotus-­Eyed
One.118

Mantras are the bread and butter of tantric practice. Indeed, tantra is com-
monly known simply as mantraśāstra, or “the science of mantras.” Yet again and
again in their compositions, the poet-­saints note how these vital tools of the tan-
tric trade have no value and no power in the realm of bhakti. As one of Kabīr’s
poems declares, “Once the snake of viraha is in the body, no mantra can control
it. To live in separation from Rām is to live in madness.”119 An early (1657) poem
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 265

attributed to Mīrābāī shows a similar attitude toward mantras, stating, “Man-

tras cannot bind a heart that Kṛṣṇa the Mountain-­Lifter’s limbs have set free.”120
The message in these verses is clear: love—­love for the Divine—­is far stronger,
far more potent, than any power a tantric mantra might harness.
The ineffectiveness of tantras, mantras, and magical healers is a theme not
only in bhakti poetry but also in bhakti hagiography. The Rāmānandī Anantadās,
writing in Rajasthan in the late sixteenth century, narrates this story about
Pīpā, the great king and bhakti saint. Pīpā was a worshipper of the Goddess; “for
him there was no other deity . . . h ​ e was focused only on the goddess, ignorant
of the true path to liberation.” Having served her well, one day Pīpā asks the
121

Goddess to grant him liberation. Anantadās’s use of parody and satire comes
through clearly in the Goddess’s response to Pīpā’s request. She says, “When did
you ever see anyone find liberation through me? Yet, even understanding saints
do not know that. I can give you every other joy; if that satisfies you, then serve
me. But if you hope to find liberation, then worship only Hari without hesita-
tion.”122 When the Goddess leaves, Pīpā becomes incredibly distraught, crying,
sighing, and refusing to speak. Intimating that these were signs of the anguish
of viraha, a sudden and intense longing for Hari ignited in Pīpā by the Goddess’s
revelatory words, Anantadās says that Pīpā was “like a beautiful woman with-
out her husband.”123 He writes,

Some thought he was under the spell of witchcraft (mūnṭhi), and they called
wise tantric healers (gāruḍī). Others thought a demon had possessed him, or
that he had been cheated by a crook. Some thought he had been struck by a
sudden sickness which caused immense pain. They called for a doctor (vaid)
to give medicines and a sorcerer (bhopā) to exorcise him. Magical practices
(ṭāman) were tried and occult mantras (ṭaunān, spells/charms) were chanted.
The Devī was touched when offerings were made. Brahmins were asked to con-
sult his horoscope and alms were given according to the planets. But they
did not know the secret of Hari, as if they had taken cannabis or daturā (intox-
icating thorn-­apple).124

Here several tantric specialists are summoned and try out their magic and man-
tras, but none of it works, for—­as Anantadās writes—­“they did not know the
secret of Hari.” Eventually, Pīpā speaks to his subjects. He urges them to aban-
don the Goddess and devote themselves wholeheartedly to Hari. Explaining the
source of his anguish, he says, “No cheat has cheated me nor have I been pos-
sessed by a demon. Only the love of Hari has taken root in my heart.”125 Anantadās
depicts devotion to Hari as a higher plane of religiosity, one concerned not with
the transitory, illusory pleasures of goddess-­worshipping Śāktas but with the
 266 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

Real; one grounded in a love whose power tantric magic and mantras simply
cannot touch.
All this is certainly not to say that the everyday people listening to perform-
ers of bhakti poems and stories had come to see gāruḍīs and other tāntrikas as
completely powerless or ineffective. Anantadās, Pīpā, or any other bhakta, if
bitten by a snake or possessed by a mysterious illness may very well have con-
sulted a tantric healer to remedy the situation with his rituals, herbs, and man-
tras. While bhakti poets and hagiographers made metaphorical, pedagogical
use of tantra-­mantra in their compositions in order to better define and advance
their own devotional approach and sensibility, in practical terms bhaktas would
not have been able to offer any real alternatives to the remedies and traditional
folk procedures provided by tāntrikas for snakebite and other poisonings and
illnesses. The point is rather that these tantric powers and methods were being
circumscribed and increasingly placed on a different, lower, and worldlier level
separate from the higher plane of bhakti and the power of God and devotion to
God. While the everyday pragmatic value of tantric methods was not necessar-
ily under attack, the performance of these bhakti poems sought to subtly strip
away tantra’s soteriological appeal, demoting its efficacy to an exclusively
worldly, practical level, while positioning bhakti as the sole, authentic path to
salvation.
In another of his parcaīs, Anantadās tells this story about the young Raidās.
Born into the home of untouchable, Śākta parents, Raidās refuses to take milk
from his mother. Crying and crying, the baby Raidās refuses to eat and is soon
hovering on the brink of death. Anantadās narrates how Raidās’s family, fear-
ing for their son’s life, “summoned many a sorcerer (bhopā) and healer (vaid) to
work magic and minister potions ( jantra mantra auṣaudī karāvai). Whoever saves
this dying child (they said), will be hailed as Dhanvantari [the founder of Indian
medicine and physician of the gods]. We will do whatever he says and heap
things in front of him.”126 None of these tantric healing methods work and Raidās
lies there thinking, “Dying is better than living, for life without Hari is taste-
less.”127 It is only when the great bhakti saint Rāmānand arrives, sent by Hari,
that the baby Raidās is healed. Rāmānand says to Raidās’s family, “If you become
devotees (bhaktas), brothers, Hari will revive your child.”128 They accept,
Rāmānand initiates Raidās, and soon afterward “everyone’s hearts were glad-
dened when Raidās started to suckle at his mother’s breast.”129 Here not only is
the jantra-­mantra of the tantric healer shown to be ineffective but also the baby
Raidās is revived only when his family, explicitly marked as Śāktas, convert and
become bhaktas of Hari. The trend is clear: it’s another loss for the Śāktas and
tāntrikas and another win for bhakti.
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 267

Moving now from Raidās’s hagiography to his poetry, in a composition filled

with references to snakes and snake charming, Raidās states, “Against the snake
of passionate desire, no mantra or magic avails.” The snake in this verse is not
viraha but that of māyā and all the sensual desire and worldly delusion associ-
ated with it. Once again tantric mantras and magic are marked as ineffective,
but this time the critique centers on their inability to liberate one from saṃsāra.
Raidās sings as follows:

Foolish man! How can you sleep in the jaws of death, abandoning
the true Rām, contemplating countless pleasures?
His incredible patience gone, Kṛṣṇa liberated (Braj) from the fury
(of Kāliyā). Against the snake of passionate desire (madan) no
mantra nor magic (mantra jantrā) avails. There is no near nor
far shore for its waves of venomous fire. Your wisdom is slain
by the serpent of greed (lobh).
You are bewildered in the poisonous waves of the ocean of
saṃsār. You are bound in delusion, the guṇs and the senses.
Call out the great snake-­charming (gāraḍī) mantra, place it in
your ears. Awake and cry “Rām”—­why are you asleep?
The Sants have told as many teachings as are told in the smṛti,
but those supreme sages [of smṛti] have not all learnt the true
snake-­charming art. Brahma-­rishis, Nārad, Syambha, Sanak
and his siblings—­only those who repeated “Rām” passed over.
[Previously,] the remedy given for this sickness was performing
vedic rituals, chanting mantras, going on pilgrimages and
giving alms. But the true nāgadamanī medicine (cure for
snakebite) is remembering Rām. Raidās says: Consciousness,
awake!130

In this poem, Raidās initially describes the snake as madan, “passionate

desire.” He goes on to call it the serpent of greed (lobh), whose poison is the delu-
sion of saṃsāra.131 As mentioned, against this snakebite of worldly desire and
delusion tantric mantras and magic have absolutely no power. There is but one
mantra that brings liberation from this affliction: Rām, the name of the Lord.132
In the last verse, Raidās emphasizes that the only medicine capable of healing
the snakebite of māyā and liberating one from its bondage is the loving remem-
brance (sumiraṇ) of Rām.133
In two of his oldest dated poems—­f rom the Fatehpur manuscript of 1582—­
Kabīr similarly stresses that when it comes to the sāṃsāric poison of the snake
 268 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

of māyā, our only hope of salvation is to look with devotion to God. Calling out
to the Divine, in one of these he states, “You’re the snakebite curer (gāruḍī). I’m
a pot of poison. What will you give me, elixir-­giver? The serpent of this world
has bitten my body—­one pain everywhere, fearsome delusions.”134 The other
poem shows Kabīr, in a style all his own, marginalizing tantra-­mantra as part of
the illusory realm of māyā. He says, “People are so dumb. Their minds just can’t
get the point. The mind cannot see it’s tasting māyā’s fake flavor. It just doesn’t
happen; the truth never dawns. Tantras, mantras, medicines—­fakes one and all;
And only Kabīr is left around to sing the name of Rām.”135
While others are lost in ignorance and worldly desire, using tantric practices
with no ultimate efficacy, Kabīr—­like so many of the bhakti poet-­saints—­finds
the Real through the devotional practice of singing the divine Name. And it was
not only the name of God that these bhaktas sang. We must not forget that all
the bhakti tales and poetic verses discussed here were typically not read but sung
and performed. It is no coincidence that the word for “doing bhakti”—­bhajan—­
also means “devotional song.” With this in mind, we might say that bhaktas like
Kabīr, Raidās, Sūrdās, and Mīrābāī were not simply disparaging tantra-­mantra
but actually replacing it with an altogether different use of language, one more
participatory, more emotional, and more infused with devotion and humility.
In some sense, in North India’s bhakti movement, the paradigmatic tantric ver-
bal practice of mantra-­japa, typically an individual activity, is supplanted by the
ordinarily communal bhakti verbal practices of performing poetry, telling sto-
ries, and singing songs to God. Since participatory singing of, to, and about God
was at the heart of bhakti’s exclusive path to salvation, then we might say that
the medium of the critique—­the song, the tale—­was itself the antidote, the real
cure exposing the false medicine (tantra-­mantra) that was the object of the
critique.136
The bhaktas highlighted in the preceding—­Mīrābāī, Sūrdās, Rāidās, Kabīr, and
Anantadās—­all stress the power of bhakti, both in terms of emotional intensity
and salvific ability, while underlining the inefficacy of tantric methods. In posi-
tioning themselves against tantric and yogic religiosity, most of the bhaktas
discussed in this chapter advocated a devotional practice in which the remem-
brance of the name of God—­in singing, chanting, and meditation—­was central.
If bhakti poets frequently marginalized or rejected the soteriological value of
tantric mantras and mantric recitation ( japa), at the same time it would seem
their bhakti possessed a rather mantric core. What, then, was the relationship
between this bhakti “mantra”—­the divine Name—­and the tantric words of power
with which it was in conflict? As explained in the following, the devotional
chanting of the Name entirely reconceived tantric notions of the mantra and
oriented them within a considerably different religious worldview.
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 269

The One and Only Mantra: The Name of God

The specific messages, styles, and locations (both social and geographic) of
the major bhakti poets were sometimes quite different, yet the great major-
ity of these diverse bhaktas came together under a common banner in criticiz-
ing the twofold tantric other of the yogī and Śākta, as well as, necessarily, the
mantras that constituted such a fundamental part of their tantric religiosity. At
the same time, another thing unifying the devotional poets and hagiographers
of early modern North India, arrayed along a spectrum of different forms and
styles of bhakti, was their common faith in the divine Name. As Hawley has writ-
ten, with regard to the saints of the early modern “vulgate Vaiṣṇava” tradition,
“the hallmark of the whole group, from Sūr at one end to Kabīr at the other, is a
trust in the absolute power of the name of God.”137 Indeed, there is good reason to
believe that beginning in the fourteenth century, the label “Vaiṣṇava” referred
not to any sectarian community or group recognizing Viṣṇu as their supreme
deity but to those given to the practice of nāmakīrtana and nāmasmaraṇa—­singing
and “remembering” the Vaiṣṇava names of God (Hari, Rām, Govinda).138
The bhakti saints’ emphasis on the Name drew, at least in part, on tantric con-
ceptions of mantra139 but also radically reinterpreted them by reducing all
other mantras to virtual meaninglessness. Nāmdev says, “There is no other
mantra than the name; whosoever tell are foolish and ignorant.”140 Similarly,
Śaṅkaradeva states in his Bhaktiratnākara, “There is only one religious duty, the
worship of this god [Hari]. There is only one mantra, the name of this god.”141 In
the realm of sacred sound, only the name of God—­the one true mantra—­had
any real power.142 As noted, this bhakti “mantra” was sometimes placed in explicit
contrast with tantric mantras. Kabīr says, “Tantras, mantras, medicines—­fakes
one and all; And only Kabīr is left around to sing the name of Rām.”143 In simi-
lar fashion, Raidās exclaims, “Against the snake of passionate desire (madan) no
mantra nor magic (mantra jantrā) avails. . . . A
​ wake and cry ‘Rām’—­why are you
asleep?” 144

This understanding of the divine Name grew out of the bhakti view that true,
genuine salvific power resides only in God, not in properly performed ritual acts
or pronouncements of magical words or spells. While tantric mantras may have
been granted a limited sphere of efficacy in more mundane affairs (healing,
exorcisms, etc.) and while they might still have served certain practical func-
tions (initiations, etc.), from the perspective of early modern bhaktas, they had
absolutely no value in transcending worldly delusion and achieving spiritual lib-
eration. In the context of a movement founded on humble, loving devotion to
an all-­powerful God, real power could not come from anywhere but God. As Guru
Arjan states in his Sukhmanī, a bhakti text devoted to praising the divine Name,
 270 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

“Man has no power to work his will, for power resides in God alone.”145 Writ-
ing from the Sikh community of bhaktas in Panjab, Guru Arjan asserted, “Bet-
ter by far than any other way is the act of repeating the perfect Name of
God. . . . ​Better by far than any other skill is endlessly to utter the wondrous
Name of God.”146 For bhaktas like Arjan, Nānak, Nāmdev, and Kabīr, among
many others, the Name stood “for God’s being, the sum total of all that He is,
the focus of all that can be said and thought about Him . . . ​the essence of
God’s reality.”147 It seems that reciting the name of God was meant to “actual-
ize the aural dimension of [God]’s very being in the mind or heart of the prac-
titioner, an act that was ultimately ontologically transformative.”148 While
there are stories—­most famously those of Vālmīki and Ajāmila—­i n which the
saying of the divine Name (sometimes accidentally) by a sinful non-­bhakta is
the trigger for a major internal transformation—­a purifying realization that
leads to a life of devotion—­the core message of these tales is not that simply
pronouncing the Name (regardless of devotional attitude and intention) has
automatic salvific efficacy but rather that the Name—­a s the name of God—­
has an inherently purifying and transforming power that both expresses
divine Grace and opens the human heart to God.
We might speculate that just as the idea of a single, all-­powerful, loving God
was making more and more sense in the context of the organized, centralized
Mughal Empire, so the streamlining and “centralizing” of mantric practice also
made sense in this social and political context. We might also speculate that
the great value attached to reciting the name(s) of God in the Islamic tradition
had something to do with this emphasis among the bhaktas of early modern
North India. Indeed, dhikr—­the repetition of the attributes of God—­was perhaps
the single most important ritual practice of Sufis and strongly resembled
Vaiṣṇava nāma-­kīrtana, while Sufi samā held strong resemblances with the bhakti
practice of singing (kīrtan, bhajan) of the qualities of God.149 Furthermore, it is
worth noting that, according to Vaiṣṇava hagiographical literature (including
Kṛṣṇadāsa’s Caitanya-­caritāmṛta), the practitioner par excellence of the bhakti
method of reciting the divine Name was none other than a Muslim, a Sufi named
Haridāsa, “whose recitations were legendary.”150 Of course, reciting the name
of God had long been a part of Hindu devotion. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa (ca. ninth
to tenth centuries) presents nāma-­kīrtana as both the preeminent means to and
expression of realization of the supreme Bhagavān, claiming that singing God’s
name removes all sins and fulfills the goals of human life (puruṣārtha).151 But
there is new interest in and emphasis on this text in the late medieval and early
modern periods,152 seemingly in connection with the text’s resonance with and
ability to give support to then trending religious perspectives (nondualist
Vedānta and devotional aesthetics) and practices (vernacular singing and
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 271

storytelling).153 The practices of Hindu nāma-­smaraṇa and kīrtan and Sufi dhikr
and samā undoubtedly developed independently of each other, but their simi-
larity in both form and effect (ecstatic devotional experience) is nevertheless
remarkable. The clear resonance between bhakti and Sufi religiosity in this
respect must have given further impetus to the practice by both groups and
played a role in the development of a larger, shared devotional culture in early
modern North India with singing (and hearing) the name/qualities of God at
its very center.
In the late Sultanate and Mughal religious landscapes, the divine Name must
also have held great appeal in that, unlike tantric mantras, which were trans-
mitted secretively and selectively, it was open and available for all to sing, a
reflection of the “democratizing” spirit of bhakti. Regardless of how tantric phi-
losophers and theologians may have conceived them, from the perspective of
North Indian bhakti poets, it is clear that the mantras of tantric yogīs and Śāktas
were elements of a subordinate sphere of power whose validity was seriously in
question. Tantric mantras functioned as elements of a world of amoral power
that seemed rather foreign to the worldviews of many Sufi and bhakti authors.
The tantric yogī or Śākta accessed his power (śakti) via the (proper and repeated)
recitation of the mantra (among other means) and could use that power in any
way he pleased, for good or evil, for selfless or selfish motives. The divine Name,
on the other hand, could never be utilized in such a fashion. For the bhaktas,
the Name is not something that can be manipulated or used to manipulate. It is
not an instrument of worldly power or selfish gain—­never is it used this way in
bhakti literature—­but a transformative force. It is the concentrated, aural form
of the transformative force of Love—­the love simultaneously expressed by the
devotee and embodied by the Divine—­a power that, in contrast to the charac-
teristically amoral power appropriated via tantric methods, is distinctly moral
and distinctly good.

The Dādūpanthī “Exception” and Its Implications

In an environment as socially, culturally, and religiously diverse as that of India,

we can expect that there will be outliers in even the most distinctive of histori-
cal trends. When it comes to my argument about the rise of a distinctive bhakti
sensibility (contrasted with yogic and tantric sensibilities) in early modern
North India, such is the case. In sixteenth-­century Orissa, the Pañca Sakhā, or
“Five Companions,” were Vaiṣṇava devotees who advocated a practice far more
focused on jñāna (liberating knowledge) and tantric yoga than the bhaktas
 272 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

discussed in the preceding. Influenced in part by the Buddhist tantric tradition

in the region, these five early modern poets—­Balarāma Dāsa, Jagannātha Dāsa,
Acyutānanda Dāsa, Yaśovanta Dāsa, and Ananta Dāsa—­felt that “the single most
important means to achieve liberation [was] the cultivation of a complicated
yogic practice akin to what we know from scores of Tantric and Haṭha Yoga
texts.”154 Similarly, the Sahajiyā Vaiṣṇavas of Bengal devoted themselves to Kṛṣṇa
and Rādhā, drawing heavily on the Vaiṣṇava bhakti of Caitanya, yet far from
opposing tantric and yogic methods, they made esoteric tantric sexual rites and
yogic practices central to their religiosity.155 The Nirañjanī sampradāy, a small
but prolific (in terms of manuscript production) nirguṇ bhakti sect in Mughal Raj-
asthan, were also outliers in that they actively linked themselves to the Nāth
yogīs, claiming that their founder, Haridās, took initiation from Gorakhnāth
himself and prominently including poetry attributed to Gorakh in their antho-
logical collections.156
The Dādū Panth is perhaps the most interesting of the exceptions to the trend
among early modern North Indian bhakti communities to marginalize or overtly
criticize tāntrikas and yogīs, particularly the Nāths. As noted in chapter 6, the
Dādūpanthī Sarvāṅgīs and Dādūpanthī Bhaktamāl of Rāghavdās are perhaps the
only early (pre-­eighteenth-­century) North Indian bhakti texts that include writ-
ings or descriptions of Gorakhnāth or any other Nāth yogīs. Indeed, Dādū and
his followers, unlike the vast majority of bhakti communities we know of, were
kindly disposed to Gorakhnāth and to yogic practices.
The Dādū ­Panth’s positive attitude toward the Nāth yogīs should be kept in
mind when considering trends in the content of bhakti poetry in Dādūpanthī
manuscript traditions, particularly with regard to major bhakti figures claimed
across sectarian lines. It is worth noting that the few poems attributed to Kabīr
and Raidās that not only reference tantric yoga but also seem to approve of its
practice tend to come from Nāth or Dādūpanthi manuscript collections. Calle-
waert and Friedlander point out, for instance, that while there are several pads
attributed to Raidās in the Dādūpanthī manuscript tradition that contain posi-
tive references to yoga, such references are not found in the Sikh manuscript
tradition of Raidās’s poetry.157
The members of the Dādū ­Panth firmly placed themselves within a tradition
of nirguṇ bhakti and followed Vaiṣṇava devotional thinking in many respects, yet
they also heavily “emphasized the yogic tradition by referring to Gorakhnāth’s
system and also to the Pātañjala-­Yoga and by making it an integral part of their
own theology.”158 In his Kāyābelī (Creeper of the body), Dādū systematically
recasts yoga into a bhakti frame,159 while Sundardās, one of Dādū’s most brilliant
and prolific disciples, asserts in his Jñānasamudra (1653) that the defiled heart
can be purified through three means: bhakti yoga, haṭha yoga, and sāṃkhya yoga.160
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 273

Sundardās was undoubtedly a practitioner of haṭha yoga and wrote several

works on yoga that show him to be indebted to the teachings in Svātmarāma’s
Haṭhapradīpikā (ca. 1450), but he appropriated and framed this haṭha yoga in a
manner that made it compatible with the nirguṇ bhakti understandings of
the Sants.161 Interestingly, in his Sarvāṅgayogapradīpikā, at the same time that
he praises Matsyendranāth, Gorakhnāth, and other renowned Nāth yogīs,
Sundardās mocks and criticizes an array of tantric and ascetic practices, some
of which—­wearing dreadlocks, eating quicksilver, pills and herbs to attain super-
normal powers, employing mantras for nefarious purposes, and conducting
tantric healings—­were often associated with the Nāth yogīs.162 On the one hand,
from this (among other Dādupanthī sources) we can see that even as the Dādū
­Panth distinguished itself from the vast majority of bhakti communities in
Mughal India in (a) the great reverence they gave to the Nāth yogīs and their
teachings and (b) the crucial place they gave to (haṭha and sāṃkhya) yoga in their
devotional life, its members nonetheless shared in a broad bhakti sensibility that
generally looked down upon certain tantric attitudes and practices and opposed
extreme forms of tapas. On the other hand, while the inclusion and positive val-
uation of the Nāths in the literature of the Dādū-panthīs (and Nirañjanīs) made
them bhakti outliers in North India in this period, when we consider the Dādū
Panth’s respect for the Nāths alongside compositions of theirs that are overtly
critical of tantra and extreme tapas, it should remind us of the caricatured
nature of depictions of Nāths and other yogīs in many early modern bhakti com-
positions. In other words, perhaps these yogīs were not all as bad (i.e., deluded,
egotistic, and power hungry) as many bhakti texts made them out to be.
The reason Sundardās could simultaneously criticize tantric practices and
praise the Nāth yogīs is that he and the members of the Dādu ­Panth (and the
Nirañjanī sampradāy) seem not to have understood the Nāths as tāntrikas pos-
sessing a religious sensibility opposed to their own, but rather as exemplary
practitioners of a simple asceticism and mystical yoga that melded naturally
with their own bhakti religiosity. As the discussion in chapter 5 of the Nāths and
the Gorakhbāṇī suggests, there was no single, coherent Nāth system of yogic prac-
tice, and it seems that there were significant regional and lineage-­based differ-
ences in practice among the many yogīs who considered themselves followers
of Gorakhnāth (or other Nāth Siddhas).
Just as the compositions of Jñāneśvar (Jñāndev) suggest a Nāth community
in late medieval Maharashtra in which bhakti and tantric kuṇḍalinī yoga went
hand in hand, it seems that in Mughal Rajasthan (the home of the Dādu Panth
and Nirañjanī sampradāy), there may have also been certain communities of Nāth
yogīs that were far more inclined to bhakti sensibilities—­specifically, Sant-­style
nirguṇ bhakti—­than the rhetoric in the bhakti compositions under discussion
 274 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

would suggest. Indeed, some seventeenth-­century Nāth manuscripts (from Raj-

asthan) include, in addition to songs and utterances of the siddhas, poems of
Nāmdev, Kabīr, Raidās, and other nirguṇ bhakti saints.163 With this in mind,
despite the larger trend, the rise of a bhakti sensibility marginalizing yoga and
tantra, perhaps it should not surprise that some bhakti communities in Mughal
Rajasthan would have viewed Nāth teachings and practices as entirely compat-
ible with bhakti.164
The fact that bhakti communities like the Dādū ­Panth, Nirañjanīs, Sahajiyās,
and Pañca Sakhā did not object to yoga, yogīs, and tantric religiosity in the same
way that most other Mughal bhakti communities did—­and instead actually gave
an important place to them—­reminds us that the trend (i.e., the rising bhakti
sensibility) under discussion was just that, a trend, a general but incomplete shift
in North India, not an ironclad rule or an all-­encompassing social movement.
Bhakti “outliers” like the Dādū ­Panth illustrate the complexity of the early mod-
ern bhakti landscape, highlighting the fact that tāntrikas, yogīs, and bhaktas in
this period—­as in much of South Asian history—­were not three entirely discrete,
coherent groups that could each be easily defined by any single religious dis-
position or set of practices and outlooks. Indeed, it may be somewhat mislead-
ing to call communities like the Dādū ­Panth, Nirañjanīs, Sahajiyās, and Pañca
Sakhā outliers given that the sort of religiosity they practiced—­i nsofar as it
amalgamated bhakti, yoga, tantra, and asceticism—­was largely continuous with
and representative of a very common (perhaps even the most common) form of
religious practice in the broad history of the Indian subcontinent. Nevertheless,
in the specific context of early modern North India, wherein a newly exclusive
variety of bhakti had emerged, these devotional communities were quite distinc-
tive in their positive attitude toward and incorporation of tantric and yogic
religiosity. Thus, the salient point is that these outlier communities stand out
as just that, exceptions bringing into relief the historical phenomenon of a wide-
spread early modern North Indian bhakti sensibility that understood itself
largely in contradistinction to tantric and yogic practices and perspectives.

R
In the preceding I have not explored the many important differences between
bhaktas such as Kabīr and Harirām Vyās, Nānak and Tulsīdās, or Raidās and
Śaṅkaradeva; rather, I have focused on their commonality, their mutual partici-
pation in the composition of literature disparaging yogīs and Śāktas. In urban as
well as rural settings, in cities, villages, and pilgrimage centers both old and new,
from Panjab and Rajasthan across the Gangetic Plain into Bengal and Assam,
whether devotees primarily of Kṛṣṇa, Rāmcandra, or the formless (nirguṇ)
 Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 275

Divine, there was wide agreement among the bhaktas of early modern North
India that their own devotional form and style of religion were quite different
from, and superior to, the religious practice, outlook, and lifestyle of tantric
yogīs and Śāktas. As a distinctive bhakti sensibility developed in North India in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the simple, participatory devotion of
bhakti was consistently contrasted with other forms of religiosity deemed con-
fused or unnecessary, such as Vedic sacrifice (yajña), almsgiving (dān), and
brahmanic learning and knowledge (gyān/jñāna); however, the poetic and liter-
ary moments isolated in this chapter suggest that, in many ways, the most
important foil for this early modern bhakti sensibility was the twofold tantric
other of the yogī and Śākta.
 8
The Triumphs of Devotion

The Sufi Inflection of Early Modern Bhakti

A
central contention of this book is that in early modern North India a
transregional and transsectarian bhakti social formation arose, and
with it a new and Sufi-­inflected bhakti sensibility that defined itself
especially against the “other” of the tantric yogī. In this chapter, I explore in
more depth the Sufi inflection of this early modern bhakti sensibility as I exam-
ine bhakti and Sufi literature in which the power of humble, loving devotion tri-
umphs over tantric-­yogic religiosity. The chapter is divided into two parts.
First, I discuss the ways in which—­i n both Hindavi Sufi literature and bhakti
poetry—­devotion comes to subsume yoga, with yoga practice becoming a
metaphor for one-­pointed, passionate, ego-­d issolving love for God, the pow-
erful symbolism of the yogī co-­opted into a devotional message. After examin-
ing the Sufi premākhyāns and the poetry of Sūrdās and Mīrābāī to illustrate this
point, I turn to the genre of hagiography to see how the Sufi and bhakti tradi-
tions of early modern North India both articulate a particular devotional con-
ception of God and appropriate religious behavior in contradistinction to
tantric-­yogic understandings and approaches. Specifically, I analyze a type of
story in Sufi and bhakti hagiographical literature in which model devotees—­in
moments of need or in conflict with yogīs—­a re rewarded with miracles from
God that illustrate the incomparable power of devotion and the folly of self-­
aggrandizing tantric magic.
As noted, the Sufis and bhaktas of Sultanate and Mughal India were molded
by the same historical environment and participated in many of the same
historical trends—­the demise of mainstream, institutional tantra (alongside
the rise of the Nāth yogīs, haṭha yoga, and Vedānta); an encounter between the
 The Triumphs of Devotion = 277

cosmopolitan literary-­political cultures of Persian and Sanskrit; the emergence

of a transsectarian religious culture centered on charismatic ascetics possessing
occult powers; and the rise of vernacular literary composition and performance.
It should not surprise us, then, that bhakti and Sufi religious sensibilities in early
modern North India held important elective affinities. As I showed in chapter 2,
many bhaktas and Sufis in Sultanate and Mughal India shared a similar emo-
tional, aesthetic, and ethical sensibility, one that was in significant dissonance
with certain key aspects of tantric religiosity. Sufis and bhaktas alike tended to
valorize humility, benevolence, selfless love, and the power of impassioned long-
ing for an absent beloved, while criticizing hubris, envy, hatred, and greed. They
also made use of similar aesthetic styles—­in song, music, and literature—­to
express and evoke the emotions and ethical ideals they valued. While the tradi-
tions of bhakti and Sufism in early modern North India were obviously quite
distinct—­separated by different theologies, ritual forms and obligations, sacred
scriptures, religious authorities, and collective memories—­they grew up in con-
versation with each other and resonated on numerous levels. This resonance
comes to the fore in this chapter’s analysis of the respective literatures of Sultan-
ate and Mughal bhakti and Sufi communities, wherein I discuss their use of
strikingly similar literary techniques and motifs to express strikingly similar
religious attitudes, with the other of the tantric yogī playing a key role in the
articulation of a shared devotional message.

Yogīs in the Sufi Premākhyāns

As chapter 2 made apparent, Indian Sufi writing in the centuries prior to the
North Indian bhakti poet-­saints was fundamental in shaping the poetic, metri-
cal, and narrative conventions—­even the motifs and images—­that bhakti poets
used in their compositions.1 The Sufi premākhyāns and the literary works of
North India’s bhakti movement mirrored each other in celebrating passionate
love—­the kind that overflows all bounds and draws the self outside itself
(‘ishq/prema)—­a nd in placing special emphasis upon intense longing for an
absent beloved (viraha/firāq) as a metaphor for (and a vehicle to the experience
of) pure love for the Divine. In doing so, they also similarly appropriated the
symbolic potency of the figure of the yogī. This chapter demonstrates that in
both the Sufi premākhyāns and the bhakti poems of Sūrdās and Mīrābāī, the yogī
has an important presence, not as the object of direct criticism—­as in the lit-
erature examined in the previous chapter—­but as an artfully deployed symbol
serving, and heightening the effect of, the devotional message. In these Sufi and
 278 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

bhakti texts, the devotee triumphs over the yogī by becoming a yogī, by redefin-
ing the “true yogī” as no yogī at all but as a selfless, impassioned lover of God.
The principal Indian Sufi romances—­Maulānā Dā’ūd’s Cāndāyan (1379), Qut-
ban’s Mirigāvatī (1503), Jāyasī’s Padmāvat (1540), and Manjhan’s Madhumālatī
(1545)—­use the imagery of the Nāth yogīs and give the figure of the yogī a cru-
cial role in their plots. A basic plotline of these works is that the protagonist sees
an idealized heroine representing Truth/Beauty, experiences intense suffering
in separation from her, and is impelled to take on the garb of the yogī, seem-
ingly renouncing all to set out in search of the Beloved. In the Padmāvat, King
Ratansen falls in love with the princess Padmāvatī and, tortured by viraha,
embarks on an ascetic quest for her. Jāyasī describes how love’s suffering leads
King Ratansen to take on the guise of a yogī to find his beloved Padmāvatī:

The king left his kingdom and became a Yogi. Lover-­like he took his viol in his
hand. His body was uncared for, his mind was distraught and drooping: love
was fixed [in his mind] and a tangled knot of hair was on his head. He whose
face was bright as the moon and whose body was fragrant as sandal wood,
reduced his person to a clod of earth, smearing it with ashes. [He was provided
with] string girdle, horn whistle, ring and gorakhdhandha, with Jogbāṭ,
rudraksha necklace and crutch. Clothed in patch-­work he gripped his staff in
his hand, with a view to becoming a siddha, as Gorakh prescribed. In his ears
were ear-­rings, round his neck a rosary, in his hand his drinking bowl, on his
shoulder a tiger’s skin, on his feet were wooden clogs, and he had an umbrella
over his head. He carried a begging bowl and had put on ochre attire. He set
out to beg for happiness, having made outward show of penance and Yoga in
his body. “May I win Padmavati [he said] whose love is implanted in my heart.”2

Here Jāyasī makes specific reference to Gorakhnāth and the paraphernalia of

the Nāth yogīs. The prevalence of Nāth figures, imagery, and ideas in Sufi
romances and hagiographies makes it clear that they were important players
interacting and competing with Sufis on the religious scene of fourteenth-­to-­
sixteenth-­century North India.
In the Madhumālatī, the hero, Manohar, falls deeply in love with the beauti-
ful Madhumālatī, and, overwhelmed by the pain of separation from her, he
resolves to set out to find her, first taking on the guise of—­once again—­a
Gorakhnāthī yogī. Manjhan writes,

Whoever loses his senses on the path of love can comprehend nothing in the
two worlds. So acute was the pain of separation he [Manohar] could not
control himself. He asked for a begging bowl and a yogi’s staff and crutch. He
 The Triumphs of Devotion = 279

marked his forehead with a circle, smeared his body with ashes, and hung
shining earrings in both his ears. He took his drinking cup firmly in hand,
and tightened the strings of his ascetic’s viol. Letting down his matted locks,
he donned the patched cloak and the girdle of rope. With loincloth tied around
his waist, the Prince took the guise of a Gorakh yogi.
The yogi forged within his trident suffering, indifference, and renuncia-
tion. His rosary was a basil-­bead necklace. Around his neck hung the horn
whistle. On his shoulder was the crutch for meditation. With his staff and the
thread of Gorakh, he controlled his mind and his breath. He put on his feet
the sandals of love, and arranged on himself the deerskin of renunciation. He
assumed this guise for a vision of Madhumālatī. For her sake he assayed
wretchedness. He sat in meditation, thinking, reflecting, and his eyes and ears
were steeped in love. He took on this guise for a vision of his beloved, but it
seemed as if Gorakh had awakened.3

In these passages from the Padmāvat and Madhumālatī, Ratansen and Manohar
each take on the appearance of a Nāth yogī, but there is something amiss; this
is no endorsement of the Nāth ascetic’s path of nonattachment, for it is clearly
passionate love that is driving all their actions. Indeed, Ramya Sreenivasan has
noted a sharp distinction between the Sufi and Nāth perspectives. In the Nāth
yogīs’ own legends, when “protagonists like Gopichand and Bhartrhari renounce
their kingdoms and become ascetics in pursuit of a spiritual goal, their renun-
ciation is a step toward overcoming attachments and conquering passion; love
for the queens is here an impediment to spiritual self-­realization.” 4 In the Sufi
romances, however, the hero’s actions are fueled by love, and the final goal is
the consummation of that love; i.e., union with the Beloved. As Aditya Behl
states, “The characters in the story, and by implication the Sufis, are not exactly
yogis; they are like yogis, only better, as they can use yogic practices and lan-
guage framed within a Sufi romantic poetics.”5
The Sufi romances not only feature yogīs as central characters, but key ele-
ments of their plot design also symbolically mirror the inner path and progres-
sion of tantric yoga practice. Simon Weightman describes how Manjhan
“included a complete model of the Tantra yogic psycho-­spiritual process” within
the plot structure and symbolism of the Madhumālatī.6 “But,” he says, “the yogic
symbolism is a disguise. . . . ​It is as if he was indicating that in his eyes the whole
yogic process is valuable only in so far as it sets [the character] free to awaken
the heart to Love, which is the real means of mankind’s salvation.”7 Here is a
clear instance where the bhakti and Sufi textual perspectives merge: they both
mark love for the Divine as the one true path, a religiosity far above and beyond
the methods and goals of tantra and yoga.
 280 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

What do we make of the fact that the yogī is so central in the plots of these
Sufi premākhyāns? Focusing on the provincial elites and military leaders who
patronized these texts, Ramya Sreenivasan has argued that the prominence of
the Nāth yogī in the Candāyan and Padmāvat—­as well as in another Hindavi work,
Nārāyaṇdās’s Chitāī Carita (ca. 1526)—­is all about “the promise of Nath yogic disci-
pline for rural gentry and local warlords with modest resources—­a promise of
physical and spiritual perfectibility that will improve the chances of success,
with the potential bonus of miraculous powers.” In her opinion, these texts “rep-
resent an outsider’s perspective on the Nath worldview,” from which Nāth skills
and abilities were seen as “a valuable asset in the pursuit of one’s political and
military goals as a petty chief or warlord.”8
There is another way to read the consistent presence of Nāth yogīs in these
texts, which, as has been pointed out, was neither an instance of happy, peace-
ful “syncretism” nor an endorsement of tantric-­yogic practices. As Heidi Pau-
wels remarks, “While the yogi symbolizes the seeker for the divine, isn’t there
also a certain amount of irony involved in casting the love-­lorn prince precisely
as an ascetic, someone who is supposed to have risen above worldly ties? Does
this discredit the ascetic garb as a guise rather than a sign of rejection of worldly
joys?”9 There is an unmistakable dimension of satirical critique in the Sufi
romances’ presentation of the yogī. In the Padmāvat, when Ratansen storms the
fort at Singhal to be with Padmāvatī, he is captured in his yogic garb and the
text states, “The people said ‘This is not a Yogi: it is some wandering love-­lorn
prince. For someone’s sake he has become an ascetic.’ ”10 Later, a bard says about
Ratansen, “This is a prince, he is not a Yogi: he has become a pilgrim of love, on
hearing of Padmavati.”11 In these Sufi literary depictions of yogīs—­as well as in
certain of the bhakti poems in which Kṛṣṇa or the virahiṇī takes on the garb of
the yogī—­there seems to be an element of parody and satire. While it is not always
the case, in a number of instances in bhakti and Sufi literature, the incorporation
of yogic figures and imagery is done in order to mock yogīs and mark their reli-
gious path as insufficient. There is no doubt that yogīs constituted a rival
group for both Sufis and bhaktas, whose literary appropriation of yogic elements,
sometimes done in a humorous fashion, demonstrates an implicit criticism of
and challenge to the yogī’s authority.
This element of satire is perhaps nowhere clearer than in a scene in the
Padmāvat in which Ratansen, having attained Padmāvatī’s hand in marriage
after a challenging ascetic quest, at long last goes to meet her. When he arrives
at Padmāvatī’s bedroom, he sees her and instantly “the yoga which he had
accomplished became useless.” At this moment Padmāvatī’s attendants hide her
away and begin to taunt Ratansen. Jāyasī describes the scene with a careful and
deliberate choice of words, writing that, after the maidens took Padmāvatī away,
 The Triumphs of Devotion = 281

it was as if Ratansen had lost an “invaluable mantra” or “a precious herb,” as if

he had eaten a drugged sweet that had caused him “to lose all knowledge of
tantra-­mantra.”12 He could not laugh or cry he was so overcome by her being taken
away. Here, the mere sight of the beloved brings about the loss of all the yogī’s
most cherished tools: his charms, healing herbs, and tantra-­mantra. Once again
we see how paltry these things are beside the power of love and longing in sep-
aration (viraha). The maidens proceed to mock the supposed yogī, saying, “How
is the sun all alone without his moon? You have learnt, O Yogi, to practice
alchemy: how have you now become unmettled and separated?”13 Ratansen tells
the maidens, “If after I have obtained the beloved she is separated from me, this
sets my body on fire. Either by obtaining her will the burning of my body be
extinguished, or it will be extinguished by my death.”14 At this, the maidens only
laugh, remarking, “That moon is now hidden in the sky: How will you obtain
her, O Yogi, by coveting her?” The satire is heavy here, and the large gap sepa-
rating the yogī’s path of detachment and the burning passion of Ratansen’s love
could not be clearer. The maidens continue their mocking: “You are a yogī and
should roam about performing asceticism [tapas] and yoga. How can a yogī know
the story of a king?”15 At last, the maidens bring Padmāvatī before Ratansen,
whispering in his ear with jest, “Gorakh has come and is standing by you: rise,
O disciple.”16 Yet the fun is not over, for now Padmāvatī tells him, “Be gone. . . . ​
The very sight of the ashes [with which you are smeared] is a defilement to me:
the moon trembles and flees from the sun. O Yogi, your ascetic’s body will throw
a shadow upon my limbs. . . . ​No Yogi or beggar can effect an entrance to this
house.”17 At this point Ratansen comes clean, revealing the not-­so-­yogic motives
behind his yogic guise and ascetic quest: “It was for your sake, my dearest love,
that I left my kingdom and became a beggar. It was when your love filled my
heart that I left Chitaur and changed my condition. . . . ​I became a beggar, lady,
for your sake: I became a moth for the lamp and endured the flame. . . . ​When I
heard of your fame in the world, I undertook Yoga and buried my body. When
as an ascetic I took the viol in my hand, the fire of love was renewed.”18 Still
Padmāvatī remains unconvinced, remarking, “I am a princess and you are a beg-
garly Yogi: what acquaintance can there be between a votary of yoga and a
votary of pleasure? All Yogis play frauds like this: you, the beggar-­man, are pre-
eminent in it. . . . ​Yogis are full of tricks: they do not refrain from them.”19
Eventually, Ratansen convinces Padmāvatī of the truth of his words, and the two
consummate their love, but not before his yogic identity has been thoroughly
mocked and satirized.
While the Sufi romances do poke fun at the yogī at times, it is clear that in
them the yogī also plays a respected role and is a figure symbolizing the inner
purification, the difficult emptying of ego and abandoning of worldly concern,
 282 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

that is necessary for the Sufi to experience divine love.20 Even then, however,
for the heroes of premākhyān literature, the identity of the yogī is a temporary
and ultimately false one entirely inappropriate and insufficient to the deepest
goals and meanings of the devotional life.
The religious environment in North India’s Sultanate and Mughal periods was
one in which yogīs, Sufis, and bhaktas did not usually represent sealed communi-
ties; on the contrary, interaction, competition, and mutual exchange of ideas and
practices between them was the order of the day. If one imagines that many Sufis
and bhaktas regularly rubbed elbows with yogīs, respecting and even borrowing
aspects of their thought and practice (and furthermore, that some Sufis and
bhaktas were themselves also yogīs), then head-­on hostility and vitriolic attack
would hardly seem an appropriate means for articulating difference and assert-
ing superiority. At one end of the spectrum of devotional critiques of yoga and
tantra, genuine dislike and clear disapproval certainly do emerge, as noted in the
previous chapter, yet in the dialogical cultural atmosphere of much of early mod-
ern North India, humor, playful satire, and clever appropriation were literary
and performative tools often better suited to the task of subtly disparaging those
religious “rivals” who may have less often been one’s enemies than one’s fellow
participants in debate, collaboration, and competition.21
With this in mind, it now seems clear that the Sufi heroes of the premākhyān
genre do not become Nāth yogīs; rather, Nāth imagery is used—­w ith a mix of
seriousness and satire—­to represent an Indianized Sufi spiritual vision in
which a desire for the beloved is transformed and purified into divine love.
Though this religious vision differed in certain respects from that seen in
Hindu bhakti literature, the Sufi romances—­much like the Mīrābāī and Sūrdās
poems discussed in the following—­appropriated (and thus in some sense
affirmed) yogic imagery, symbols, and values while simultaneously under-
cutting (sometimes satirizing) and transcending them with a different per-
spective, a religiosity centered on love.

Yogic Imagery in the Poetry of Mīrābāī and Sūrdās

In a fashion often quite similar to the Sufi romances, both Sūrdās and Mīrābāī
make frequent use of yogīs and yogic imagery in their compositions and do so
most commonly in depictions of the quintessential bhakti (and Sufi) emotion of
viraha, “love in separation.”22 One of the most widespread themes of medieval
Indian folklore and literature is that of separation, especially that of lover and
beloved. Men in agricultural families often went away for long periods of
 The Triumphs of Devotion = 283

military service or commercial enterprise, and the virahiṇī, the wife separated
from her husband, thus became one of North India’s most common literary
heroines. In poems attributed to Sūr and Mīrā, we see how the virahiṇī, driven
by passionate longing for Kṛṣṇa, considers and sometimes adopts the way of
the yogī in order to seek him out.
The yogī-­themed poetry attributed to Mīrā comes especially out of a tradi-
tion of folk songs and bārahmāsās expressing the virahiṇī’s feelings of abandon-
ment and desire.23 These poems often represented the absent beloved as one who
performed his far-­away trade or warfare in the garb of a yogī.24 In one poem,
Mīrā sings, “Now it’s been many days that I’ve watched for that yogī, and still he
hasn’t come: The flame of loneliness is kindled inside me—­inside my body, fire
(tapan). . . . ​Yogī, the pain of you has burrowed inside me: see that I am yours
and come—­To Mīrā, a desperate, lonely woman. The life in me, without you,
writhes.”25 Mīrā describes Kṛṣṇa as a yogī here and in other poems like this in
order to express the nature of the love that she feels for Him, an anguished love
given to a Beloved whose whereabouts are unknown and who does not come
when He is called or appear when He is desired. She describes the pain of lone-
liness and separation as a fire, deliberately using the word tapan, from the San-
skrit root tap-­, which refers not just to the heat of fire but also to a specifically
ascetic heat. It is the term used by renouncers and yogīs for the inner heat and
power produced in ascetic practices that conserve, refine, and concentrate
bodily energy that would otherwise be expended in desire. The poem thus sug-
gests that the intensity and single-­mindedness of Mīrā’s devotion are essentially
yogic and ascetic in nature. Poetry attributed to Sūrdās also makes use of this
specific term (tāp, tapas) to describe the pain felt by the gopīs in separation from
Kṛṣṇa, alluding to the yogic character of their devotion even as it contrasts that
devotion with, and shows its superiority to, the traditional path(s) of yoga.26
The connection between the devotee and the yogī-­ascetic is made especially
clear in a number of poems attributed to Mīrā in which she explicitly takes on
the identity of a yogī.27 In one, the poet says, “For you, I’ll make myself a yoginī,
wandering town to town looking for you, looking in every grove. Ash on my
limbs and an antelope skin pulled up to my neck, my friend: that’s how I’ll burn
my body to ash for him.”28 If the Beloved seems to have gone away, wandering
as a yogī, then His devotee will also take on the garb of a yoga-­practicing ascetic—­
like the heroes of the Sufi romances—­and wander in search of Him. Just as
Kṛṣṇa has left everything, so too will she abandon all in a single-­minded search
for Him. Mīrā sings,

I’m not staying here, not staying where the land’s grown strange
without you, my dear,
 284 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

But coming home, coming to where your place is; take me, guard
me with your guardian mercy, please.
I’ll take up your yogic garb—­your prayer beads, earrings,
begging-­bowl skull, tattered yogic cloth—­
I’ll take them all and search through the world as a yogī does,
with you—­yogī and yoginī, side by side.29

Here is a model of devotion in which the devotee is willing to abandon fam-

ily, home, modesty—­everything except her Beloved. In striking similarity to
Ratansen in the Padmāvat and Manohar in the Madhumālatī, Mīrā will happily
wander the earth with only the meager possessions of a yogī if it means finding
and being with the Beloved.
Based partly on poems such as this, Maya Burger has gone so far as to say
that “Mīrā was a yoginī before she was made into a bhakti model,” stating fur-
ther that “her yoga cannot be simply classified as belonging to either the
classical line of yoga or to the more popular Nātha tradition, but shows a very
personal character.”30 I disagree with Burger’s assessment here. In fact, the rea-
son that Mīrā’s yoga cannot be classified as belonging to either the classical or
Nāth yoga traditions is that it is no yoga at all. Mīrā is a bhakta through and
through, even if her emotional devotion is expressed in a yogic idiom. Poems
such as this do not describe (or demonstrate knowledge of) the practice of yoga;
they reference the external trappings of the yogī, but in contrast to certain poems
of Kabīr’s, for instance, they give no indication of the details of the physical disci-
plines, inner physiology, supernormal powers, or experiential realities of yogic
praxis. Rather, these poems use yogic imagery and the figure of the yogī as meta-
phors to highlight the desperate passion, restless intensity, and single-­minded
focus of the devotee’s love for God. Here we see—­again, just as in the premākhyāns—­
the appropriation of the yogī and all he stands for in the interests of asserting a
different religious mode, bhakti, as being above and beyond that of yoga.
Many of the poems of Sūrdās also take on the voice of a virahiṇī separated
from her beloved Kṛṣṇa and make use of yogic imagery in much the same way
as Mīrā’s poems. As Hawley explains, “It is relatively commonplace in the Sūrsāgar
for a comparison to be made between the rigors endured by a woman separated
from Krishna and those that yogis (or yoginīs, their female counterparts) under-
take in the cause of spiritual discipline.”31 In fact, in her devotion to Kṛṣṇa the
virahiṇī naturally attains, and even goes beyond, the levels of ascetic discipline
and mental concentration to which yogīs aspire. In Hawley’s words,

The gopīs, separated from Krishna, endure mortifications by virtue of the sun-
dering of their love that are deeper by far than any austerities yoga can
 The Triumphs of Devotion = 285

concoct. They manifest all the marks of yogic discipline naturally. A yogi
must learn through years of practice the art of keeping awake for long peri-
ods of time; for the women of Braj separated from Krishna, sleep is out of the
question. The one-­pointed concentration for which yogis strive is also all too
easily theirs: they can think of nothing but their lost love. They go about
their daily tasks with the indifference that yogis so carefully cultivate; their
egos are mere husks. . . . A
​ s for the internal heat (tapas) that yogis learn to
fan and channel so as to make all this possible, it is theirs without even ask-
ing. Love is an unquenchable forest fire, as they often say: robbed of its object
it scorches everything in sight.32

As this passage clearly suggests, the virahiṇī, in many respects, can be consid-
ered the supreme yogī; yet the unquenchable love she holds for the Divine clearly
distinguishes her spirituality. If bhakti poets like Sūr and Mīrā highlighted cer-
tain parallels between the bhakta and the yogī in order to measure the profun-
dity of the devotional path, they—­like their Sufi counterparts—­also made it clear
that yogic asceticism was utterly unnecessary and, if not grounded in and pow-
ered by love for God, fundamentally misguided. We see this in the following
Sūr poem, which—­with its references to the horn (sīṅgī) and to Gorakhnāth—­
depicts the devotee specifically as a Nāth yogī.

If I knew where to find Gopāl, I’d go—­

Go with horn (sīṇgī), earring (mudrā), begging bowl in hand
And wearing the clothes that yogi women do;
I’d don a patchwork cloak, slather ashes on my skin,
And bind my hair in an unkempt mound.
If I thought I could meet Hari, I’d rouse old Gorakh
By carrying on like Shiva, that great god.
I’d burn my mind and body and cover myself with dust—­
The sort of thing gurus tell lonely women to do—­
For without Sūr’s Dark One, all Braj is empty (sūnau)
Like a cobra that’s lost the jewel in its crown.33

As in the Mīrā poems, here the virahiṇī takes on the role of the yogī, saying
that she would gladly give up her current life and wander about as an ascetic if
it would mean finding her beloved Kṛṣṇa. The implication throughout the poem,
however, is that doing this—­living as a yogī—­would in fact not help the devotee
reach her goal of love-­infused (re)union with God. Hawley’s insightful analysis
of the last line of the poem makes this point clear. Sūr says that without Kṛṣṇa,
all Braj is empty, or sūnau. This is the term Nāths often use to designate ultimate
 286 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

reality, the state of “emptiness” sought in their practices of tantric asceticism.

Yet as Hawley points out, Sūrdās uses the term here to subtly question the
value of the Nāth’s yogic path, highlighting the fact that “the emptiness that
yogis strive so hard to achieve is precisely the state that Krishna’s virahiṇīs would
love to escape.”34
In similar fashion, the following Mīrā poem uses yogic paraphernalia and
practice as its fundamental metaphors but ultimately undercuts the goals and
methods of yogic asceticism.

Your secret [maram], yogi, I have not found.

I’ve sat in a cave, taken a yogic pose [āsaṇ], and meditated [dhyān]
on Hari
With beads around my neck, a bag of beads in my hand, limbs
smeared with ashes.
Mīrā’s Lord is Hari, the indestructible. My Fate has been written
and that’s what I’ve found.35

Here, even after retreating to a cave and trying out the practice of yoga, the
virahiṇī cannot determine the yogī’s secret, she cannot make sense of his ways.
The specific word used here for “secret” is maram, meaning “core,” “heart,” or
“essential truth.” In the yogī’s āsanas (postures) and dhyāna (meditations), Mīrā
finds no essential truth; instead, she finds only her Fate, an anguished love in
perpetual separation from her beloved Kṛṣṇa.
Clearly, yoga and yogīs feature quite prominently in the poems of Sūrdās and
Mīrābāī. The fact that yogic imagery is so marked in many of their viraha-­bhakti
compositions speaks to an environment in which yogīs were visible figures
inspiring a certain measure of awe or respect, yet these poems do not celebrate
yoga; rather, they artfully question its value while co-­opting its symbolic
potency. Neither yogīs nor the yogic life is idealized or endorsed; rather, bhakti
is. In fact, what we see in these poems is a crafty move in which the poets sub-
tly appropriate the yogic ideal even as they supersede it with the ideal of bhakti.
If yogīs—­in their attire, lifestyle, and practices—­were supreme exemplars of an
intense mental focus, selfless abandon, and ascetic discipline in search of spiri-
tual goals, these bhakti poems, like the Sufi romances, use them as metaphors
to ascribe those very qualities to the devotional life. In other words, the bhakti
of the virahiṇī is celebrated for possessing all the admirable spiritual traits asso-
ciated with yogic practice, yet at the same time the yogic ideal is undercut, for
these poems—­some more explicitly than others—­mark the yogī’s lifestyle as
being insufficient and confused. Indeed, in the end these poems make it clear
that neither tantric asceticism nor yogic dispassion can meet the needs of the
 The Triumphs of Devotion = 287

bhakta; they are inferior to the devotional path and fundamentally miss the
point—­the joyful essence—­of the true religious life, an intimate personal rela-
tionship with the Divine.

The Bhakta Versus the Tantric Yogī

I turn now to another satirical Islamicate text, this time to set the stage for a
consideration of a different, and more confrontational, set of representations
of devotional and tantric-­yogic sensibilities. The Kanhāvat is a Hindavi text
attributed to the Sufi author Jāyasī and claiming the same date as his Padmāvat
(1540). Heidi Pauwels has shown that it is unlikely that Jāyasī authored the text
and that it was probably composed after the Padmāvat, though definitely prior
to the mid-­seventeenth century. She argues convincingly that the Kanhāvat’s
narrative, a rather folksy, masnavī retelling of the story of Kṛṣṇa, was intended
as a work of comedy and satire, meant to entertain even as it discredited the
religious paths of both Nāth yogīs and Kṛṣṇa bhaktas.36 The end of the text fea-
tures a fascinating scene in which Kṛṣṇa and Gorakhnāth encounter each other
in Mathura. Francesca Orsini, who has also examined the work, explains that
Gorakhnāth, accompanied by a host of yogīs, comes to Mathura “because the
fame of [Kṛṣṇa’s] bhakti has spread through the whole world.” Gorakh is “disap-
pointed to see [Kṛṣṇa] enveloped in bhoga [enjoyment]: he should take advan-
tage of the time he has left to become a yogī, so as to acquire an immortal body
and the powers that come with it.”37 He tells Kṛṣṇa to give up the life of the
householder and become a yogī, saying, “If one does yoga properly in this world,
you will live for many years. You will become bodily immortal, and you will live
for age after age. And if you wish, then you can travel by flying, you can in a
moment reach what you glance at. Whatever you look at, there (and then) that
[you obtain], if you master asceticism and yoga.”38 Kṛṣṇa responds, “What would
I do with your yoga?. . . y​ our teaching has no use for me.”39 He rejects Gorakh’s
advice on a variety of grounds, defends the value of bhakti-­based bhoga in a world
manifested for the sake of God’s līlā (play), and exhorts Gorakh and his party to
convert to bhakti. Both sides of the debate seem to be caricatured, for—­in words
that few if any bhakti authors would agree with—­Kṛṣṇa consistently emphasizes
the bhoga dimension of bhakti, remarking, “Why not just enjoy yourself and ful-
fill craving? A long life [spent] in yoga is stale; I’d rather live a short life [spent]
in enjoyment.” 40 After this debate, Kṛṣṇa and Gorakh decide to fight each other,
but it is a brief and comical battle with no injuries and no clear winner. The scene
ends with the line “For the yogī, yoga is good; for the bhogī, bhoga is fine.” 41
 288 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

There is more to the story, but what is of special interest here is, first, the
clear use of satire to poke fun at and undermine the religiosity of both Kṛṣṇa
devotees and Nāth yogīs. Second and perhaps even more noteworthy is the very
existence of the confrontation between Gorakh and Kṛṣṇa in this work. It is
unclear who the author of the text is; he seems to have been sympathetic to
neither bhaktas nor yogīs, yet—­despite following certain Islamicate literary
conventions—­his writing also does not evince any clear elements of Sufi spiri-
tuality.42 The fact that such a figure would compose a narrative in the sixteenth
or early seventeenth century, in which the most revered figures of sagun bhakti
and tantric yoga openly challenge each other, illustrates just how clear the con-
frontation between bhakti and tantra had become to everyone in the North
Indian religious landscape of the time.
In chapter 4, I discussed another narrative representation of this burgeon-
ing early modern conflict between bhakti and tantra: the tale of Kṛṣṇadās
Payahārī’s encounter with Tārānāth at Galta. It is useful to briefly recount the
story. The Kacchvāhā king Pṛthvīrāj (r. 1503–­1527) was initially a disciple of the
Nāth yogī Tārānāth, who resided in the hills of Galta. When Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī,
a Rāmānandī ascetic and bhakta, arrived in Galta one day, a confrontation ensued
between him and Tārānāth. Using his yogic powers, Tārānāth took the form of
a ferocious tiger to attack and frighten Payahārī away, but the Rāmānandī ascetic
calmly responded by transforming Tārānāth from a tiger into a jackass (gadhā)
and sending him off into the forest. Later, at Mahārāj Pṛthvīrāj’s request,
Payahārī brought the defeated Nāth yogī back to Galta and reinstated him to his
human form. Once restored to his human self, however, Tārānāth told the king,
“This Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī is far more powerful than me. From now on, he shall
be your guru. And I too will be his disciple.”
There is a crucial dimension of this story that we have not yet discussed: How
and why is Payahārī able to defeat Tārānāth? Pinch analyzes this tale and asserts
that while these two resembled each other in many important respects—­both
were ascetics capable of effecting supernormal powers—­they differed impor-
tantly in that one’s power issued from God, the result of devotion to an ever-­
present, all-­powerful Divine, while the other’s came from himself, the fruit of
tantric yoga and the ascetic practice of tapas. In his words, “The key difference
that separated them was the manner in which they conceived of and related to
God.” On the one hand, the Nāth yogī “Tārānāth affected a yoga-­tantric asceti-
cism, the sole purpose of which was to cultivate supernormal power within—­in
effect, to turn himself into a God,” while, on the other hand, the Rāmānandī
bhakta Payahārī “only appeared to conjure Tārānāth’s transformation into a
jackass,” for this was in actuality “the work of a distant yet ever-­present Lord,
God as a thing apart, God with an upper-­case ‘G’—­a being who inspired total
 The Triumphs of Devotion = 289

self-­abandonment, and offered a sheltering refuge of love in return.” 43 Both

Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī and Tārānāth possessed siddhis, but Payahārī’s attitude
toward these siddhis had roots in the Vaiṣṇava devotional tradition represented
in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (BhP), which tended to see these powers as gifts bestowed
by the Supreme God. BhP XI.15.2, for instance, describes God as “the Bestower
of siddhis on the yogīs,” and in XI.15.35, the Lord states, “I am the Custodian and
Controller of all siddhis.” The Nāth yogīs, on the other hand, typically saw these
powers as personal attainments via the yogic divinization of their bodies or as
the natural, automatic results of their performance of tantric ritual, mantric
recitation, or laya yoga.
In Pinch’s analysis of the legend, Payahārī is victorious over Tārānāth because
of his bhakti approach as opposed to the Nāth yogī’s tantric approach; however,
there is actually no evidence in the tale itself that this is the case. The only thing
that is clear from the story is that Payahārī’s power is understood as being more
powerful than that of Tārānāth, but the precise reason why this is so is never
specified. We must remember that this story is a folktale, a popular oral tradi-
tion in which overt theological differences and explanations would likely have
played little role in comparison with the articulation of perceived differences
in pragmatic power. While we cannot confidently treat the encounter between
Payahārī and Tārānāth as a historical event, the story of their “miracle battle”
nevertheless conveys information about a real historical occurrence in which
the Kacchvāhā king Pṛthvīrāj shifted his allegiance and patronage to the
Rāmānandī bhakti community led by Payahārī at Galta. Let us then reframe the
question: why would Payahārī have been more attractive to Pṛthvīrāj than
Tārānāth? What would have made this Rāmānandī appear to be more powerful
to the king than his Nāth yogī competitor? Put differently, what would have made
allegiance with Payahārī and his bhakti community seem more advantageous
to Pṛthvīrāj than allegiance to Tārānāth and his community of tantric ascetics?
At the most basic level, the Payahārī-­Tārānāth story suggests an increasingly
popular understanding that a devotional relationship with an all-­powerful God
was more potent, efficacious, and formidable than any yogic-­tantric practices
and their resultant siddhis. I wonder if we might consider this change in alle-
giance in terms of a broader shift by Hindu rulers toward a more (post-­Mongol)
Persianate religiopolitical model in which Sufi-­like saints—­i n their intimate
devotional relationship with God—­provided the primary avenue to sacred power
needed for kings to legitimate their sovereignty. In other words, might we see
the rising importance of the figure of the bhakti saint in Mughal India as related
to the respect commanded by the Sufi pīr? More specifically, might the trend
among Hindu rulers—­particularly those in the orbit of Mughal rule—­to increas-
ingly link themselves to Vaiṣṇava bhakti saints and institutions be related to
 290 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

the fact that, since the early Sultanate period, the sovereignty of Islamicate
kings had been modeled on—­a nd dependent upon the power of—­Sufi saints?
In Sultanate India, a ruler’s sovereign power depended upon the blessing and
spiritual authority of a Sufi shaikh, who was usually understood to have
divine jurisdiction (wilāyat) over a specific territory. The leaders and great
saints of Vaiṣṇava bhakti institutions in Mughal India, in some sense, seem to
have increasingly served as Hindu parallels to the Sufi shaikh in their spiritual
legitimation and empowerment of Indian kings, for which their bhakti institu-
tions received royal patronage. In this respect, Pṛthvīrāj’s shift to Payahārī and
the Rāmānandīs might be considered emblematic of the beginning of a larger
shift among Hindu rulers toward Sufi-­i nflected, Islamicate models of sover-
eignty. A study of Mughal-­era bhakti hagiographies suggests that Hindu kings
increasingly understood bhakti saints in a manner very similar to how Muslim
rulers understood Sufi saints; that is, as individuals who—­through their inti-
mate devotional relationship with God—­possessed abilities to influence “the tri-
fling affairs of individuals” as well as powers “for the making and unmaking of
kings and kingdoms.” 44 The basic structure of this spiritual-­political economy, in
which professional religious ascetics and their monastic institutions legitimated
state power (and connected rulers to their communities of lay devotees), had
long been in place in India, but the specific ascetic communities operating in this
economy—­and their particular religious sensibility and ideology—­changed with
the times, and this change was not an inconsequential one. That it was Sufi and
bhakti saints and their associated monastic and lay communities—­with their
characteristic devotional (emotional-­aesthetic-­ethical) sensibilities—­who came
to be at the heart of early modern North India’s economy of spiritual and po-
litical power is a fact that both reflected and drove other aspects of social change
in this period.
From one perspective, the story of King Pṛthvīrāj’s shift in allegiance from
the tāntrika Tārānāth and his Nāth yogī community to the Vaiṣṇava bhakti saint
Payahārī and his community may suggest the subtle influence of Persianate,
Sufi-­inflected understandings of sovereignty and spiritual power. At the same
time, the dramatic confrontation between Payahārī and Tārānāth points toward
the expanding sphere of bhakti and is symbolic of its historical confrontation
with the sphere of tantric religiosity represented most prominently by the
pervasive Nāth yogīs. As William Pinch states, “For their part, bhakti reform-
ers were adamant in their disdain for yogis who claimed special powers by
virtue of their hathayogic and/or tantric prowess. The bhakti literature is rife
with examples of puffed up yogis who are deflated and sent packing by humble,
God-­loving sadhus.” 45 In the following I draw out this point more fully through
 The Triumphs of Devotion = 291

an examination of miracle narratives in North Indian bhakti and Sufi hagio-

graphical literature.

Hagiography, Miracles, and Religious Competition

Beginning in the thirteenth century, the shrines and hospices associated with
South Asia’s different Sufi orders spread across the Indian subcontinent and
functioned together to incorporate local cultural systems into a larger Indo-­
Persian, Islamicate culture that would have a clear impact on developing bhakti
sensibilities. One specific area of Sufi influence on the development of North
India’s bhakti tradition seems to have been in hagiographical writing. Bruce Law-
rence has argued that the Sufi tradition of hagiographical literature was well
established and flourishing prior to the North Indian bhakti movement and was
clearly influential in molding the hagiographical writing of early bhakti com-
munities.46 Simon Digby points out more specifically that “Vaishnava bhaktamālas,
Sikh janamsākhīs and other vitae of non-­Muslim men of religion repeat the
emphasis and structure of Sufi anecdotes, particularly regarding contests of
superiority, magical displays, and a general lack of charity towards opponents
and doubters.” 47 In the next section, I illustrate some important parallels
between Sufi and bhakti hagiographies (and their devotional messages) through
a comparative analysis of hagiographical tales in which devotees (Sufis and bhak-
tas) encounter and triumph over yogīs.
Sufis and Indian yogīs shared much in common and seem to have interacted
regularly, as indicated by multiple instances of Sufis adopting and “Islamizing”
Nāth conceptions, terminology, and yogic practices (discussed in chapter 2). Yet
they were also in clear competition with each other. In order to win over and
spread their influence among the masses, Sufi pīrs and fakīrs had to confront
siddhas and yogīs, as attested in the numerous Sufi hagiographical stories in
which a Sufi saint encounters and defeats a siddha or yogī in a “miracle battle.” 48
The sheer number of this type of story indicates an atmosphere of religious com-
petition between yogīs and Sufis, for, as Nile Green has pointed out, while such
stories “are ostensibly demonstrations of the strength of the saintly victor, they
are by their very existence in fact testament to insecurity and potential weak-
ness” and suggest an environment of competition.49 Richard Davis has similarly
noted how stories of miracles usually “occur in situations of conflict” where dif-
ferent religious groups are in competition and “questions of faith and power
are directly at issue.”50 As I demonstrate here, the specific “situation of conflict”
 292 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

reflected by many of the miracle stories of early modern North India is one
between self-­effacing devotional (Sufi and bhakti) religious sensibilities and more
siddhi-­oriented, self-­asserting tantric and yogic perspectives.

Sufi Miracle Tales (I): God Power Beats Yoga Power

A fourteenth-­century example of a miracle contest between a Sufi and a yogī

appears in what is perhaps the earliest authentic collection of descriptions of
Indian Sufi saints,51 the Fawā’id al-­Fu’ād (Morals of the heart),52 in which the poet
Amir Hasan records the conversations of Shaikh Nizām al-­Dīn Awliyā’ of Delhi:

The conversation that occurred on 5 Safar 710/4 July 1310 turned on the topic
of levitation. . . . ​[Nizām al-­Dīn] recalled how a Jogi had come to the town of
Ucch (in the Panjab) to dispute with Shaykh Safi al-­Din Gazaruni. The Jogi
challenged the Shaykh to display any powers which he could not equal. To
this the Shaykh replied that it was the Jogi who was advancing a claim and
he should show his accomplishment first. The Jogi rose from the ground into
the air until his head reached the ceiling, and then he came down to the
ground in the same fixed position, and then he invited the Shaykh to show
his power. The Shaykh turned his gaze towards heaven, and he said: “O Lord!
You have given this power to one who is a stranger to You! Bestow upon me
this grace!” The Shaykh then rose from his place and flew away towards
the qibla. From there he flew to the North and then towards the South, and
he finally came back to his own palace and sat down. The Jogi was aston-
ished, and, laying his head at the Shaykh’s feet, said: “I can do no more than
rise straight upwards from the ground and come down in the same way. I
cannot go to the right and to the left. You turned whichever way you wished!
This is true and from God: my own powers are false.”53

It seems that Indian Muslims generally took it for granted that yogīs could per-
form extraordinary feats and demonstrate supernatural powers. The issue, how-
ever, was the source and level, or quality, of these powers. The crucial line
comes at the very end of the story when the yogī marks the Sufi’s display as
“true” and “from God” while labeling his own levitation powers as “my own”
(i.e., not from God) and “false.” In Rizvi’s translation of this same line, the yogī
accepts his defeat and says, “Your miracle was possible because of Divine Grace;
mine was the result of human efforts.”54 Note that, in contrast to the yogī, the
shaikh calls on God to bestow upon him the grace to perform the miraculous
 The Triumphs of Devotion = 293

feat of flying. Furthermore, the shaikh’s “levitation” is not only superior to the
yogī’s but also dramatically so; in this way the miracle reveals the unbounded
power that is God. While yogīs may obtain powers through their austerities and
ascetic practice, they are hard-­earned and limited, unlike the infinite power of
God for which the Sufi is a conduit.
In these hagiographies, the Sufi saints’ miracles are typically marked by a spe-
cific word, used in contradistinction to the term employed to identify the magic
powers of the yogīs. An example of this occurs in Nizām Gharīb Yamanī’s Latā’if-­e-­
Ashrafī, which tells a story from the late fourteenth century in which Jamāl al-­
Dīn Rawat, the disciple of Shaikh Ashrāf Jahāngīr, is sent to compete against
a yogī named Kamal, who is occupying the site where Ashrāf Jahāngīr means to
establish a khanqah. Jamāl al-­Dīn arrived at the site and said to the yogī, “We do
not think it becoming to give a display of miracles (karāmāt). Nevertheless we will
give an answer to each of the powers (istidrāj) that you display!” Jamāl al-­Dīn then
easily dealt with a series of attacks conjured by the yogī, including columns of
black ants from all directions and an army of tigers. Next, “when the Jogi had
exhausted his tricks, he said: ‘Take me to the Shaikh! I will become a believer.’ ”
The yogī said the profession of faith before the shaikh, and he and all his five hun-
dred disciples became Muslims and burned their religious books.55 In this story,
we see the Sufi referring to the feats that he can bring to bear as “miracles,” while
he marks the yogī’s abilities as mere “powers.” Both Digby and Rizvi note that in
the Sufi contest anecdotes of the Sultanate period, the term most frequently
used for the display of powers by yogīs is istidrāj,56 while the separate term karāmāt,
“a beneficence, or special grace,” is reserved for the miracles of the Sufi shaikhs.57
The essential point here about the karāmāt—­something attributed only to saints
and never to yogīs—­is that it is not performed by the saint but rather through
divine grace.58

Sufi Miracle Tales (II): The Superfluity of Yogic Powers

Before moving to the bhakti sources, we must note one other important type of
miracle story in the Sufi hagiographical tradition. In many anecdotes, the Sufi
shows his superiority to the yogī by performing a miracle from God. Perhaps
even more commonly, however, after witnessing the yogī’s display of power the
Sufi shaikh responds simply by demonstrating the superfluity of such “magic”
to true religion. In other words, while some stories show that because the Sufis’
power comes from God it is always stronger than yogic powers, other stories
emphasize that such powers are utterly trivial since devotion and humble
 294 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

submission to God are what really matter. Nizām al-­Dīn was particularly
emphatic on this point. According to the Fawa’īd al-­Fu’ād, he once stated to an
assembly of followers, “God Almighty has commanded His saints to conceal their
miracles (karāmāt)” and that a saint who “performs a miracle is disobeying
God.”59 In another instance, he remarked to those gathered around him, “To per-
form miracles is not a commendable work for saints. Rather a Muslim should be
a helpless beggar seeking only Truth.” 60 He then proceeded to tell two stories
about the harm that came to two Sufi shaikhs who were in the habit of openly,
arrogantly performing miracles.61
A particularly revealing episode emphasizing this theme of the triviality of
miraculous powers occurs in the Jawāmi‘ al-­Kalīm of Sayyid Muhammad Akbar
Ḥusaynī, a text recording the conversations of his father, the great Chishti shaikh
Sayyid Muhammad Gesūdarāz, after he left Delhi in 1398 in the wake of Timur’s
invasion. This story relates the shaikh’s refusal of a series of gifts proffered by
the Nāth yogī Bālgundāī in the year 1400. We see the kind of magical materials
and powers popularly attributed to such yogīs as the visiting Nāth successively
offers the secret of alchemy (rasāyan), knowledge to preserve the shaikh from
his enemies, a substance that gives invisibility to its wearer, and a drug for the
retention of semen during intercourse. Finally, he offers to make the shaikh’s
cot move by itself. Realizing that such yogic gifts can lead only to corruption
and away from God, the shaikh promptly rejects all of them, to which the Nāth
responds, “Listen! I have come from far away, and I am being put to shame. You
have accepted nothing of mine.” The shaikh replies, “Why are you ashamed? You
have told well all that you can do, but why should I stretch forth my hand for
what is of no use to me? What is the use of superfluities?” Later, the shaikh relates
a similar encounter with another yogī who, after having his gifts denied, said,
“Why are you turning me away from your door? The whole world is mad about
me!” The shaikh responded, “As God is my Refuge, why should I take a thing
which is of no use to me?” 62 The message here is clear: God is the source, the
goal, and the refuge—­these other powers are not from God and not for God; they
are superfluous.
Another example of this perspective on yogic magic comes from the narra-
tive poem Shajarat al-­Atqiyā describing an encounter between the Chishti Sufi
Amīn al-­Dīn A‘lā (d. 1675) and a Hindu saṃnyāsī (renunciant). The saṃnyāsī pres-
ents a philosopher’s stone to Amīn al-­Dīn after having demonstrated its gold-­
producing qualities, but Amīn al-­Dīn merely throws it into a large reservoir of
water. When the saṃnyāsī begins weeping for his lost philosopher’s stone, Amīn
smiles and says, “ ‘Go in the water and find the stone, And if you find it take it.’
The saṃnyāsī went there and discovered that many philosopher’s stones were
in the water. Thereupon he became a believer in Amin and having said the kalima
 The Triumphs of Devotion = 295

[the Muslim confession of faith] he became his murīd [disciple].” 63 This story is
mirrored by a nearly identical one in the seventeenth-­century Siyar al-­Aqtāb in
which a yogī gives a philosopher’s stone—­that he had discovered “after a thou-
sand exertions and labors” and fancied as infinitely valuable—­to Shaikh Jalāl
al-­Dīn Kabīr al-­Awliyā’ (ca. fourteenth century), who considers it worthless and
promptly throws it into a stream. When the yogī goes to retrieve his stone in
the stream, he finds “thousands upon thousands of Philosopher’s Stones were
lying there” and, amazed, asks the shaikh to teach him how to get beyond such
desires, recites the kalima, and becomes his disciple.64
The bhakti hagiographer Mahīpati’s eighteenth-­century Bhaktavijay (Victory
of the devotees) tells a strikingly similar story in which the bhakti poet-­saint
Nāmdev takes away the philosopher’s stone of a man named Parisā Bhāgavat and
throws it into the river. Once very poor, this man had achieved great wealth with
the stone but had come to live a greedy, duplicitous life. For this reason, Nāmdev
finds a way to acquire the stone and then promptly throws it into the river.
Greatly angered, Parisā Bhāgavat goes to the river to find his stone; however,
when he pulls his hands from the riverbed they are filled with philosopher’s
stones, causing him to realize the superiority of Nāmdev’s spiritual path—­that of
bhakti—­and the superfluity of, and potential corruption in, magic and alchemy.65
Here we have an instance of a specific narrative trope shared by the bhakti and
Sufi hagiographical traditions. This sort of sharing of literary tropes and themes
emerges persistently in the tales from the bhakti hagiographies, reflecting key
attitudes and beliefs held in common by bhaktas and Sufis regarding the nature
of God and proper religious behavior.

Bhakti Miracle Stories (I): Marathi Sources

I turn now to the bhakti hagiographical literature, with an eye toward the Sufi
inflection in its expressions of a devotional sensibility defined against tantric-­
yogic modes of religiosity. The bhakti literary sources I draw on range in date
from the late sixteenth century to the second half of the eighteenth century
and come from Rajasthan, the Gangetic Plain, Panjab, and Maharashtra. The
examples I present do not proceed chronologically, but this is of no real import
since they all fall within a nearly two-­hundred-­year period (ca. 1600–­1775) that
saw the explosive growth of bhakti communities across northern and west-­
central India.
I begin with the Tīrthāvalī, a Marathi hagiographical text attributed to the
great bhakti poet-­saint Nāmdev in the fourteenth century but whose oldest
 296 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

manuscript dates to the early seventeenth century.66 The text tells the following
story about Nāmdev and Jñāndev (Dnyāndev), the thirteenth-­century Maharash-
trian Nāth yogī, Vedānta-­influenced bhakta, and author of the Jñāneśvarī. Nāmdev
and Jñāndev were traveling together in an arid land and became intensely
thirsty. They had no water and began to fear for their lives. Unexpectedly, they
came upon a deep well, but they seemed to have no way of obtaining any water
that might be at the bottom. Jñāndev then said to Nāma, “I have one special way
I can retrieve some water,” and using his yogic powers, he made himself very
light, descended along the wall of the well, and drank some water. After having
his fill of water, he came out of the well and said to Nāmdev, “I could bring water
from the well and pour it into your hands. I don’t see another way for you to get
it.” Nāmdev replied, “I have no fear at all of my thirst” and then said to Jñāndev,
“Be patient for a minute, O Swami, and I’ll show you a miracle.” At this point,
Nāmdev cried out to Viṭṭhal (a regional form of Kṛṣṇa), going deep into prayer
and emotionally imploring him for help. According to the text, the very moment
that he heard of Nāmdev’s affliction, Kṛṣṇa sped off to help him and “at the same
time the dry well began to burst with water just as the Sindhu River used to flow
ferociously thousands of eons ago.” Seeing the miraculously overflowing well,
Jñāndev remarks, “A wondrous thing has occurred. How has God come to be
Nāma’s debtor?” Nāmdev, who had passed out from thirst, awakes and explains
to Jñāndev, “Viṭhobā [Kṛṣṇa] takes care of all my worries.” Jñāndev then replies,
“I have known yogīs who can sit in the highest state of meditation, yet none of
them can create peace in their own minds. I can’t think of any one else who can
immediately indenture God to himself but you, slave [dāsa] of Viṣṇu.” 67
In the Maharashtrian hagiographer Mahīpati’s later retelling of this story
in his Bhaktavijaya (1762), not only are Nāmdev and Jñāndev supplied with water
but also the well flows over with such vigor that it provides much-­needed water
to the entire drought-­stricken village.68 Here, as in the earlier Sufi tale, the power
of God, and of devotion to God, is shown to be dramatically superior to the
powers of yoga. Again we see the boundlessness of God revealed through the
miraculous, this time in the image of the overflowing well. The tale ends with
Jñāndev admitting the superiority of bhakti over “the meditative techniques of
the yogīs” and his own mystical yogic knowledge ( jñāna). As Christian Novetzke
explains, “Jñāndev’s yogic powers serve only him; though he might perform a
service for someone else, he commands this power. This is not a social power.
However, in Nāmdev’s case, his plea for help transcends individual ability, and
the result, likewise, extends far beyond his own needs.” 69
Mahīpati (1715–­1790) is the author of several Marathi bhakti hagiographi-
cal collections.70 While he wrote from Maharashtra in the mid to late eigh-
teenth century, he seems to have largely recycled stories already in circulation,
 The Triumphs of Devotion = 297

including many from North India. In fact, Mahīpati relied considerably on

Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl (ca. 1600), composed in Rajasthan, and explicitly cites it as
a model for his own. Jon Keune and Christian Novetzke have both remarked on
how Mahīpati made a conscious effort to affiliate Maharashtrian bhakti with
North India in order to enhance the Marathi bhaktas’ legitimacy and prestige.71
In Mahīpati’s third hagiographical collection, the Bhaktalīlāmṛt (1774), he tells
a fascinating story involving Jñāndev, but this time in his role as bhakti saint
(rather than as Nāth yogī foil to Nāmdev’s bhakti). Jñāndev’s dual identity as both
a Nāth yogī and a bhakti saint speaks to the interesting religious environment
of Maharashtra in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Catharina Kiehnle
argues that the songs attributed to Jñāndev “reflect the opinions of what one
could call a school of Nātha Vaiṣṇavas” in Maharashtra at that time, a group of
yogīs among whom bhakti was quite central, even if that bhakti was rather dif-
ferent and more contemplative in nature than that associated with and advo-
cated by most of the poet-­saints of early modern North India.72 While Jñāndev
and his peers may have practiced both tantric yoga and an intellectual, mysti-
cal variety of bhakti devotion (and have been praised for both), Mahīpati’s hagi-
ographies (written centuries later) indicate clearly the superiority of love and
humble reliance on God to any yogic powers.73
In contrast to the story involving Nāmdev and the well (which showcases
Jñāndev’s yogic siddhis and Vedāntic jñāna-­based perspective), in this tale
Mahīpati places complete emphasis on Jñāndev’s bhakti dimension in his encoun-
ter with a famous yogī named Chāngdev. Having learned of Jñāndev’s miracu-
lous abilities, the yogī Chāngdev states, “Though I have performed wonders by
dint of superhuman power, this power (of Jñāndev’s) is not in me.”74 Riding a tiger
and using a snake as a whip, Chāngdev sets off to visit Jñāndev, who miracu-
lously causes a wall to leap forward to meet the fast-­approaching yogī. Mahīpati
writes,

[Chāngdev] had studied the fourteen sciences, he had mastered the sixty-­
four arts, he had protected his body for fourteen centuries, and by his power
he had conquered death. But all his power had vanished at the sight of
Dnyāndev [Jñāndev], just as the stars disappear at dawn; just as one, who is
proud of knowing by heart some poems, feels ashamed in the presence of
a saint who has inspiration. . . . ​In the same way was it with the power of
Dnyāndev, for he had made the wall of lifeless stone to move a mile from
Ālandī, and at that sight Chāngdev was overcome with shame. Dismounting
from the tiger, he let go of the snake he had used as a whip. With an unusu-
ally reverent attitude and with loving devotion, he rolled himself with
delight at Dnyāndev’s feet.75
 298 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

At this point in the text, Mahīpati mourns those yogīs like Chāngdev who have
achieved profound mystical absorption but do not know the pleasures of bhakti,
lauding Jñāndev as a rare exemplar of one who possesses knowledge of nondu-
ality while also delighting in loving devotion to the saguṇ form of God.76 While
this story was likely originally a fourteenth-­century tale about the superiority
of Jñāndev’s tantric-­yogic powers to those of Chāngdev,77 in Mahīpati’s
eighteenth-­century editorialized retelling we clearly see a Sufi-­inflected bhakti
perspective that subordinates tantric and yogic religiosity to the power of bhakti.
In Mahīpati’s tale, Chāngdev asks Jñāndev how he was able to move the wall, a
feat that, despite his own superhuman powers, he calls “beyond the power of
all understanding.” Jñāndev responds by explaining that “if God wills to do a
thing, what is there that He will not do?. . . ​Ants will forever subsist on the rays
of the sun, and even crops will grow on a fiery tableland, but all this is only by
the power of Shrī Hari. . . . I​ t was He who by His prowess easily moved the wall.”
He goes on, emphasizing the divine origin of this miracle and the fact that he
(and his own efforts and abilities) had nothing to do with it: “He [Hari] it was
who in order to fulfill your longing made the wall move by His own power. The
Husband of Rukmini [Kṛṣṇa] alone knows that it was not our power at all.”78 Here
we have a theme that emerges repeatedly throughout the bhakti and Sufi hagi-
ographical literature: the notion that the devotee’s power is so great—­a nd so
much better than that of the yogī—­because it is not his power at all; it is the
power of God, who can accomplish anything. Another tale from Mahīpati’s writ-
ings further illustrates this point.
In a story from the Bhaktalīlāmṛta (1774), the Maharashtrian bhakti saint
Eknāth (ca. 1533–­1599) harshly rebukes an ascetic yogī by the name of Śrīpad for
displaying yogic powers to the public by responding to a challenge from a group
of brahmans to raise a donkey from the dead. Ashamed of his behavior, Śrīpad
volunteers to be buried alive as penance. Eknāth buries the yogī alive but then
finds himself confronted by brahmans accusing him of killing Śrīpad out of jeal-
ousy at not possessing such yogic power (siddhāī) himself. The brahmans
threaten to excommunicate Eknāth on the charge of murder if he does not per-
form a miracle by having the stone image of Nandī eat kadabā stalks from his
hands. When the stone bull devours a sheaf of stalks before their eyes, they are
filled with amazement and free Eknāth from the penalty of excommunication.
They remark to each other, “This miraculous deed performed by Eknāth is an
act that cannot be acquired through the practice of Yoga. This astonishing deed
comes from Bhakti. Because of his former devotion to his Guru, his service to
saints, and his loving worship of Śrī Hari, Pāṇḍuraṇg [Kṛṣṇa] has become pleased
with him, and protects him moment by moment.” All seems well until another
group of brahmans arise, claiming that they did not see the supposed miracle
 The Triumphs of Devotion = 299

and that unless he can perform it again, he will still be excommunicated. Eknāth
prays to Nandī to find a way to remove these brahmans’ doubts, and as soon as
he utters the prayer, the stone bull rises, runs, and jumps into a deep hole in
the Godavari River. The brahmans finally believe Eknāth’s holiness, saying,
“[This] is a deed that does not belong to man,” and then, “There is now no excom-
munication for you. You may return to your home. Blessed is your loving devo-
tion. You have brought life to a stone Nandi. The God-­of-­Gods is pleased with
you. We now recognize the real meaning of what has happened.” The reader is
left free to decide exactly what this “real meaning” is, but one key message the
hagiographer Mahīpati wants to convey through the story is clear: God’s power
(not man’s) is greatest and bhakti is the only way to access this boundless power.
As the text states, such a miraculous feat “cannot be acquired through the prac-
tice of Yoga” and is a deed that “does not belong to man” and comes only from
loving devotion to God.79

Bhakti Miracle Stories (II): Panjabi and Hindi Sources

I take up next a story from the bhakti hagiographical literature of the Sikhs. That
Panjab was not only home to the Sikhs but also a major center of Nāth presence
can be seen in the large number of compositions that Guru Nānak is said to have
addressed to Nāth yogīs. As W. H. McLeod writes, “The part played by Gorakhnāth
in the janam-­sākhī traditions reflects a substantial reputation, one which is sur-
passed only by a few distinguished disciples of Baba Nānak. Anecdotes in which
he or other Nāths appear also imply a considerable awe,” often involving “an
impressively fearsome display of magical powers.”80 Their presence in Sikh hagi-
ographical literature suggests that the Nāth yogīs were relatively widespread
in Panjab in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and “commanded both fear
and a grudging respect” from the people because of the powers they were
thought to possess.81
In the Vārāṅ Bhāī Gurdās, a Sikh text from the early seventeenth century, Guru
Nānak confronts and debates a group of yogīs and siddhas led by a figure named
Bhangarnāth. Challenging Nānak, these yogīs invoke their tantra-­mantra, trans-
form themselves into tigers, fly around like birds, hiss like cobras, and shoot fire
from their bodies.82 The siddhas mockingly prod Nānak to respond to their dis-
play with a miracle (karāmāti), but he says, “I have nothing worth showing to
you. I have no support except God (Guru), the community (saṅgati) and the Word
(bāṇī).” Hearing this, the yogīs “exhausted themselves with tantra-­mantra but the
Word of the Guru would not allow their powers to come forth.” Realizing they
 300 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

are out of their league, the yogīs submit themselves before Nānak. The text then
states, “The Guru [God] is the giver and no one can gauge his bounties.”83 Here
we have a message closely mirroring that of the Sufi tales: Why display super-
normal powers? They serve no real purpose and have no real authority, for true
power comes from (i.e., is given by) God alone and cannot be accessed by paltry
means such as tantra-­mantra.
In the B-­40 janam-­sākhi, written in the 1730s, a very similar incident (perhaps
even a different account of the same incident) is related in which Nānak visits
the Nāth siddha location of Achal in Panjab, where he has a confrontation with
the same yogī, Bhangarnāth. Bhangarnāth calls in “the eighty-­four Siddhs, the
nine Naths, the six Jatis, the unseen and the visible, demons of the air and
dwellers on the earth, the fifty-­t wo Virs, and the sixty-­four Yoginis” to engage
Nānak in spiritual competition.84 The siddhas showcase their supernormal pow-
ers by causing deerskins to fly, stones to move, and walls to walk, but Nānak is
unimpressed and challenges them to a match of hide-­and-­seek. The siddhas hide
first and Nānak easily finds them. It is now Nānak’s turn to hide, and he becomes
invisible by merging into the four elements. Unable to find him, the siddhas
finally acknowledge their defeat. As soon as they make their submission, Nānak
reappears and utters the following lines from stanza 19 of the Vār Mājh:

If I were to clothe myself with fire, build my dwelling in the

snows, and subsist upon a diet of iron;
If I were to turn all suffering into water and drink it, [or] reduce
the [entire] world to my command;
If I were to lay the heavens upon scales and weigh them against a
copper coin;
If I were to distend [my body] to infinite dimensions, [or] bind all
in subjection;
If my mind possessed such power that I could act and command
as I chose, [all would be profitless].
Just as He, the Lord, is glorious so too are His gifts glorious, gifts
which he bestows in accordance with His will.
He upon whom the [Lord’s] gracious glance rests—­he it is, Nānak,
who acquires the glory of the True Name.85

Here Nānak stresses that yogic powers and austerities are profitless; they are
utterly futile in comparison with the glorious gifts of God. True power comes
not from tantric incantations and bodily regimens but from God alone, and
when God bestows His gifts—­not in response to ritual action, ascetic feats, or
 The Triumphs of Devotion = 301

recitation of mantras, but only in accordance with His will—­then the limitless
power of the Divine makes itself known in the miracle.86
For another noteworthy tale from the bhakti hagiographies, I turn to
Priyādās’s Bhaktirasabodhinī, an important commentary on Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl
composed in Vrindavan in 1712.87 While this story does not involve an encoun-
ter with a yogī, it speaks directly to the set of themes addressed here. Priyādās
tells the tale of the bhakti saint Tulsīdās’s visit to the Mughal emperor in Delhi.
Upon arrival, the emperor (who remains unidentified but would have been
Akbar or Jahāngīr) states that Tulsīdās is world-­renowned for his miraculous
powers and demands that Tulsī perform a miracle for him. Tulsī replies by stat-
ing that such powers are nonsense; i.e., it is a lie that he is responsible for such
miracles, and only God (Rām) should be recognized.88 Angered, the emperor
locks Tulsī in prison. Tulsī then prays to Hanumān, who answers his devotee’s
call by sending an army of monkeys to wreak havoc upon the palace, “scratch-
ing eyes and noses,” “tearing clothes off the emperor’s women,” and “heaving
down bricks from the ramparts.”89 Realizing what is happening, the emperor
falls at the poet’s feet and begs for mercy, to which Tulsī replies, “Enjoy the mira-
cle [karāmāt] a little bit longer.”90 Finally, with the emperor “drowning in shame,”
Hanumān’s assault ends.91
In this story, we see a trope common in both Sufi and bhakti miracle stories:
the refusal of the miracle worker to perform a marvel requested of him. In the
eyes of both Sufis and bhaktas, displays of magical powers are looked down upon
as petty, self-­aggrandizing, and spiritually futile, since ego-­transcending devo-
tion and humble submission to God are what really matter. Tulsīdās refuses to
perform a marvel for the emperor, but the miraculous power of God neverthe-
less manifests itself when God sends Hanumān to Tulsī’s rescue out of tender
mercy and sincere love for his supplicant’s devotion. In the miracle, then, as
opposed to the magical display, attention shifts from the individual to God—­
and equally perhaps to devotion to God—­as the source of genuine power. As
Pinch states, “Those who would claim supernormal abilities as a function of
their own human effort—­in other words, those who would claim to be gods—­
were, in the eyes of the newly pious, whether bhakta or Muslim, simply trick-
sters. Hence Priyādās’ need to deride such claims as ‘jhuthi karamat’—­false
marvels.”92 Pinch goes on to say that “Tulsīdās scoffed at the very idea of per-
forming a marvel for the emperor not simply because ‘all I know is Rām’ but
because he did not dabble in the kind of marvel the emperor was interested in
witnessing.”93 For Tulsīdās and devotees like him, tantric rites, mantras, ascetic
physical regimens, and magical displays were worthless in the authentic reli-
gious life of devotion to the Lord.
 302 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

I shift now to the hagiography of Kabīr, arguably the most famous bhakta of
them all. In his late sixteenth-­century Kabīr parcaī, the Rāmānandī Anantadās
tells a story in which the Lord sends an apsarā (a heavenly nymph) to test the
firmness of Kabīr’s devotion with various temptations, all of which Kabīr suc-
cessfully resists. In reward, Keśav (Viṣṇu) presents himself before Kabīr, first
offering him wealth and worldly enjoyments, then lordship over the world, and
finally all the siddhis, “in short, every aspiring [tantric] yogī’s dream.”94 The great
bhakta Kabīr, however, has no interest in these magical powers, treasures, or
pleasures. He tells Viṣṇu, “I will request nothing, King of the Three Worlds. . . . ​
How can an ant lift up a mountain? How can a firefly outshine the moon?”95 In
other words, how could such powers compare with the power of God? Kabīr here
proves himself to be a model of firm, intense, and humble devotion that—­like
that of the Sufi saints—­has no use for yogic powers or the arrogance and mis-
placed priorities bound up with seeking and displaying them.
In another section of his Kabīr parcaī, Anantadās tells the tale of how Shāh
Sikander Lodī once came to Kashi (Banaras), where a delegate of Muslim judges
(qāzīs) and clerics (mullahs), brahmans, and merchants together approached him
with a complaint about Kabīr. This heterogeneous group explains to Sikander
that Kabīr has abandoned the customs of Muslims and Hindus, scorned the
sacred places and rites, and in this way has corrupted everyone and tarnished
the reputation of both Hindu and Muslim religious authorities. Sikander orders
that Kabīr be brought before him to be killed. Standing before the shah, Kabīr
states, “If Rām is my protector, no one can kill me. Badashah, I am not afraid.
Whatever God does, that is what will be.” To this, Sikander replies, “You are a
fool not to fear me. Now let’s see a true miracle (karāmāt). Tie Kabīr’s feet and
bind him with chains. Drown him in the water of the Ganges.” This is done, but
as soon as Kabīr is dropped into the river, his chains inexplicably come loose
and he begins to float. Enraged, Sikander then ties Kabīr up, throws him into a
house, and sets it on fire. However, when Kabīr recites the name of God the fire
becomes “cool as water” and he emerges unscathed. In describing this incident,
Anantadās writes, “The gods and men witnessed a true miracle (sācī karamātī).”
(It is interesting to note how frequently both Anantadās and Priyādās use the
Persian word karāmāt rather than any word from the Sanskritic lineage to refer
to miracles in their hagiographies.) Angered by Kabīr’s inexplicable escape, the
qāzīs and brahmans tell Sikander that Kabīr has used “magic arts,” and thus his
apparent miracle must not be accepted as such. Sikander next calls upon a fren-
zied elephant famed for its ferocity in battle. The elephant is brought and made
to attack, but Kabīr does not budge, feeling no fear as he remains there “absorbed
in the love of Ram.” At this point, Kṛṣṇa appears in the form of a lion and seats
himself in front of Kabīr, causing the elephant to flee backward and refuse to
 The Triumphs of Devotion = 303

advance. When Sikander sees the lion he is astounded and says, “Elephant driver,
take the elephant away. A miracle (karāmāt) has just occurred.” Sikander humbly
admits the power of Rām (“the true God”) and begs Kabīr to spare his life. In the
end, Kabīr returns home, saying, “Bhakti to Hari destroys millions of sins. Hari
comes running for his devotees. . . . ​Without bhakti to Hari, no work can prosper. I
recognized the guru and Govinda through devotion. That is why Sikander could
do nothing to me.”96
As in the Tulsīdās story, the focus here is completely on God. Kabīr does not
actually do anything—­other than remain absorbed in devotion to God—­rather,
it is God who does everything. The Sufi-­inflected bhakti message could hardly
be more explicit. All one needs is devotion to the Lord, who provides power and
protection greater than any magic art, tantric ritual, or yogic discipline could
possibly offer. Kabīr refuses to perform a marvel himself, yet nevertheless not
one, not two, but three miracles occur in the story as God repeatedly protects
his cherished devotee.97

R
In its comparative analysis of Sufi romances, bhakti poetry, and hagiographical
episodes, this chapter has brought to light the remarkable resonance between
early modern Sufi and bhakti religious sensibilities and their literary expres-
sions. In the premākhyāns and the poetry of Sūrdās and Mīrābāī, yoga featured
prominently, but was always subsumed by devotion. These texts seemed to say
that, in a world of false yogīs, to be a true yogī is to not be a yogī at all but to be a
bhakta, since impassioned, steadfast, self-­effacing devotion naturally produces
a yoga more powerful and authentic (without false pretenses) than any other.
The Sufi romances and bhakti poems of Mīrā and Sūr both artfully co-­opted the
figure of the yogī, with all its potent spiritual symbolism, into the service of a
message about the unparalleled power of devotion. The hagiographical litera-
ture illustrated a rather different kind of resonance between Sufi and bhakti
perspectives—­and a different use of the figure of the yogī. In these stories, the
miracles of devotion to God were contrasted with the magic of tantric-­yogic reli-
gion in order to stress a shared understanding of God (as the lone source of real
power) and ideal religious behavior (humility, love, and trust) and to celebrate
the incomparable power of selfless, passionate, unwavering devotion to God.
We can now see clearly the Sufi inflection of—­and perhaps even the Sufi influ-
ence upon—­early modern North Indian bhakti. Considering the immeasurably
rich history of Hindu thought and practice, it would be foolish to say that the
manner in which early modern bhaktas related to the Divine was entirely new
or entirely a function of Sufi influence; however, there is no doubt that the
 304 9 Part III: The Devotee Versus the Tāntrika

Islamic presence in North India after the thirteenth century, mediated at the
popular level especially via the Sufis, brought to the fore and distinctively col-
ored those tendencies in Hindu devotion that resonated most with Sufi religious
attitudes and approaches. When it comes to the bhakti of Kabīr, Tulsīdās, Nānak,
Mīrābāī, Nābhādās, and all the other great North Indian devotee-­saints, there
is much that was continuous with preceding forms of bhakti in Indian history,
but there is also much that was novel and distinctive to their specific early mod-
ern social, political, and religious environment. As I have stressed, one key
thing new was early modern North Indian bhaktas’ Sufi-­inflected understand-
ing of devotion in relation to tantric and yogic-­ascetic religiosity.
 Conclusion

Bhakti Religion and Tantric Magic

T
he religious landscape of present-­day North India attests to the
enduring success of early modern North India’s bhakti movement, for
the practices, attitudes, temples, narratives, songs, and symbols of
bhakti—­especially Vaiṣṇava bhakti—­make up one of the most important dimen-
sions of mainstream Hindu religiosity today. Tantra, on the other hand, has not
always fared as well, at least not on the surface. As numerous scholars have
observed, many modern-­day Indians think of (and dismiss or fear) “tantra” as
a tradition of black magic, sinister trickery, and secretive rituals utilizing dark
power for unethical ends.1 These negative perceptions of tantra do not tell the
whole story—­for tantra is no marginal phenomenon in modern India—­but they
are widespread, important, and in clear contrast to the approving tones and
wholesome associations that usually characterize modern Indian attitudes
toward bhakti religiosity.
The marginalization and stigmatization of tantric practices and perspectives
as “magical” in modern India is typically attributed to the British colonial impor-
tation of Western post-­Enlightenment, post-­Reformation categories.2 Late nine-
teenth-­and early twentieth-­century Western scholars drew on their Christian—­
and especially Protestant—­conceptions of religion as monotheistic, personal,
and faith oriented to present bhakti as a kind of reformed Hinduism, an Indian
instance of Christian-­like monotheistic devotion to a personal God.3 Tantric
forms of Hindu tradition, on the other hand, with their focus on power and some-
times bloody and erotic imagery and rites, served as the “magical” foil to bhakti
“religion” and were “quickly singled out as India’s darkest, most irrational ele-
ment—­as the Extreme Orient, the most exotic aspect of the exotic Orient itself.” 4
 306 9 Conclusion

The work of Monier Monier-­Williams (1819–­1899) is a perfect illustration of

this. He wrote that bhakti, which he identified with Vaiṣṇavism, “is the only
Hindū system worthy of being called a religion”5 and stated furthermore that
bhakti “alone [among Hindu religious forms] possesses the essential elements of
a genuine religion. For there can be no true religion without personal devotion
to a personal God.” 6 When it came to tantra, however, Monier-­Williams had an
entirely different opinion. It was he who first used the term “Tantrism” as “a
singular, monolithic class”7 of religion, remarking disparagingly that Tantrism
“is Hinduism arrived at its last and worst stage of medieval development” and
asserting that “the Tantras are generally mere manuals of mysticism, magic, and
superstition of the worst and most silly kind.”8 Here bhakti, with its more famil-
iar (“rational” and Christian-­like) devotional approach, is clearly defined as
“religion” in opposition to tantra, which is, with its unfamiliar and unapproved
perspectives and practices, labeled as “magic” and “superstition.” As the story
typically goes, these Western colonial perceptions were absorbed or appropri-
ated by Indian reformers of Hinduism from Rammohun Roy to Bhāratendu
Hariśchandra to Swami Vivekananda, who extolled bhakti and Vedāntic philos-
ophy while criticizing tantra as a corrupt tradition of magic and superstition
that needed to be cleansed from Hinduism.
While this would seem like a rather open-­a nd-­shut case of Western colonial
perspectives making their way into the outlooks of the Indian people, in fact
the situation is not so simple. The evidence discussed in the preceding chap-
ters suggests that the origins of certain common modern-­d ay North Indian
understandings of bhakti and tantra actually lie in the early modern period,
roughly 1450–­1700, well before the British had a major presence in India. While
colonial and Orientalist authors undoubtedly expanded upon and intensified a
particular view of bhakti and tantra that was consonant with their own predi-
lections, their understanding of these traditions was in many ways drawn from
preexisting indigenous Indian perspectives. In early modern North Indian bhakti
reformers’ Sufi-­inflected caricatures, appropriations, and criticisms of tantric
figures and religious approaches, we can see the indigenous roots of widespread
present-­day Indian attitudes associating devotion with proper religious prac-
tice and tantra with power-­obsessed magic and ineffective mumbo jumbo. More
work needs to be done to determine to what degree, and precisely how, preex-
isting bhakti perceptions informed colonial and Orientalist thought, but we can
confidently say that the modern Indian tendency to see bhakti and aspects of
tantra as two distinct, and even opposed, forms or categories of religiosity
emerges during North India’s bhakti movement in the early modern period. In
making this point, I offer confirmation that, as Richard Eaton has said, “a care-
ful reading of pre-­British historical data can turn up historical continuities
 Conclusion = 307

where postmodernist and postcolonial scholarship, inclined as it is to privilege

European discursive traditions and the epistemological disruptions they
brought, perceives only discontinuities.”9

R
Dismissive, suspicious, and fearful perceptions of tantra may be widespread in
India today, but they do not give a complete picture of tantra’s real presence in
modern India. Tantric practices and notions are, in fact, pervasive in Hinduism
today, though Hindus rarely recognize them as “tantric.”10 Most Hindus gener-
ally do not appreciate the great impact that the tantric traditions have had on
Hindu religious practice, particularly in daily worship at private shrines and
public temples, wherein tantric ritual forms and techniques have had an endur-
ing presence.11 As André Padoux states, “Nowadays, one often finds Tantric ele-
ments, notions or practices, in a non-­Tantric context.”12 One aspect of tantra’s
presence in modern India, then, consists of ubiquitous tantric ritual procedures
that, detached from tantric religiosity as such, are found primarily in nontant-
ric (bhakti, Vedāntic, and yogic) contexts and are not considered as tantric
(because of the word’s associations with dangerous, disapproved, and dismissed
“black magic”). Even so, this is certainly not to say that respectable, self-­
consciously tantric practices have no place in India today.
While many in modern India intentionally keep their distance from things
tantric, others have no qualms about visiting tāntrikas for the powerful practi-
cal services they can provide.13 Tantric rites offering quick access to esoteric
power actually seem to be in some demand in India today, for there is an abun-
dance of popular vernacular publications on them, often sold near temples, indi-
cating that despite what many say and think about tantra, tantric religiosity is
still prevalent in practice and perhaps even on the rise in the context of postin-
dependence India’s expanding culture of consumer capitalism.14 As Madhu
Khanna has observed, modern Indians’ responses to tantra are “somewhat con-
tradictory.” In her research on popular modern-­day tāntrikas and their clients,
she found that many Indians associated tantra with black magic and depraved
ethical behavior but simultaneously felt that the tāntrikas in the bazaars had
access to powers that brahman priests did not and that the tāntrikas were “very
powerful individuals who had [a] variety of ‘mantra-­yantra’ and ‘tantra śaktis’ to
alleviate human suffering.”15 Khanna discusses the pervasive circulation of tan-
tric imagery in modern Indian popular culture and, relatedly, the widespread
presence of what she calls “bazaari tantra”; that is, popular forms of tantra (quite
different from the tantric tradition found in Sanskrit scriptures) that have been
molded to the values and ethos of consumer capitalism, focusing entirely on
 308 9 Conclusion

ritual and yogic prescriptions for acquiring powers to solve life’s problems and
attain one’s desires.16 Engaged with by Indian film stars, politicians, and high-­
powered businesspeople, these forms of “white” (i.e., nonthreatening, sāttvik)
tantra increasingly wield cachet among India’s urban middle classes, catering
to their consumerist tastes and aspirations.17 Along these lines, Philip Lutgen-
dorf has discussed the postindependence-­period proliferation of inexpensive
popular tantric literature and iconography centered on Hanumān, which “dis-
seminates purportedly esoteric techniques and images aimed at individual sat-
isfaction and empowerment” while placing allusions to Vaiṣṇava narrative
within a squarely tantric Śaiva-­Śākta ritual context.18 He calls this “an example
of the ‘Tantrification’ of Vaiṣṇavism,” reflecting the desire of many modern-­day
middle-­class Indians for “the ‘quick-­fix’ of Tantra but within the context of . . . ​
respectable Vaiṣṇava piety.”19 I bring up these examples of modern tantra in
order to illustrate how Vaiṣṇava bhakti’s success and its supplanting (or devo-
tionalization and sanitization) of tantric traditions have clearly not been com-
plete.20 Tantra and tantric religiosity are alive and well, if in forms and contexts
often quite different from the Tantric Age of medieval India.
One of this book’s primary goals has been to explain the phenomenal rise of
bhakti traditions in early modern North India, but another has been to explore
bhakti’s crucial (shifting yet constitutive) historical relationships with tantra,
yoga, and asceticism. The efforts of early modern North Indian bhakti reformers
to construct new boundaries around bhakti—­through especially a critique of
tantric-­yogic religiosity—­had real and lasting impacts, helping to produce a dis-
tinctive, widely shared (but differentiated) bhakti emotional, aesthetic, and ethi-
cal sensibility; yet as I have demonstrated, they could never completely relegate
tantra to the margins. This may be because tantra attends to certain religious
needs that bhakti simply cannot satisfy, but there is another reason. Despite the
efforts of various actors in Indian history to create boundaries between them, in
the end bhakti, tantra, and yoga are not properly bounded entities. They are for-
ever intertwined, often blurring into one another in practice. At a very general
level, we might understand their interactions in Lutgendorf’s terms, as part of
“an ongoing dialectic between two contrasting (though not necessarily oppos-
ing) religious orientations,” one focused more on empowerment, mastery, and
self-­autonomy and the other on ego-­dissolving love, service, and sacrifice.21 Even
so, as this book has shown, a historical study of the different, specific ways that
India’s religious communities have constructed the relationships between bhakti,
tantra, and yoga (and the boundaries around them) can be a very productive
approach to understanding those communities and South Asian social and reli-
gious history more broadly.
 Conclusion = 309

In this regard, my main concern has been understanding the way that bhakti
communities in the specific historical context of early modern North India came
to conceive the relations between bhakti, tantra, and yoga and exploring the
causes and impacts of the new perspectives they expressed. This book has high-
lighted how the influx of Persianate Turks and Afghans in North India was a
momentous event that brought about major changes in India’s social and reli-
gious landscape. While tantric sectarian traditions and their rituals, ideologies,
and institutions had been a fundamental aspect of medieval Indian religious and
political life since roughly the seventh century, the establishment of the Delhi
Sultanate at the beginning of the thirteenth century and the corresponding
military and political dominance of Persianized Turks resulted in the col-
lapse of most of the infrastructure sustaining institutionalized and brah-
manical forms of tantric religion. Alongside the expanding influence and insti-
tutional presence of Vedānta, non-­ (or less-­) institutionalized forms of tantra
would nonetheless adapt, persist, and—­in the case of the Nāth yogīs—­even
flourish in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in a religious culture that
allowed for boundary-­blurring collaboration, borrowing, and dialogue among
diverse spiritual practitioners. The new, “post–­Tantric Age” environment of Sul-
tanate India witnessed the spread of cosmopolitan Persian literary-­political
culture, the expansive growth of popular Sufism, and, relatedly, the rise of
vernacular (Hindavi) literary composition and performance alongside the
emergence of a transsectarian North Indian culture of charismatic asceticism.
Each of these historical developments—­alongside key material improvements
(e.g., new networks of roads) and economic changes (e.g., urban growth,
expanding commerce and artisanal production, agrarian exploitation)—­was
crucial in paving the way for the bhakti poets and communities of early modern
North India. With the Mughal Empire, and particularly during the reign of
Akbar in the second half of the sixteenth century, a Mughal-­Rajput political alli-
ance formed and led to the development of a court culture and religiopolitical
idiom in which institutional forms of Vaiṣṇava bhakti became valuable symbols
of power and deportment for aspiring Hindu rulers, and thus bhakti communi-
ties became the beneficiaries of extensive patronage.
While the rise of bhakti in early modern North India was linked to all these
sociopolitical developments, it also had a force of its own. It was bound up with
the formation of a new and Sufi-­inflected bhakti sensibility, a common aesthetic,
moral, and emotional disposition formed by and expressed in the bhakti poetry,
songs, and stories that circulated throughout North India’s bhakti public. The
sensibility developing among bhakti authors and communities of Sultanate
and Mughal India resonated with Sufi dispositions while it often opposed or
 310 9 Conclusion

marginalized dimensions of tantric and yogic religious modes that had long
been interfused with devotional practice.
I have devoted a significant portion of this work to an analysis of the
Rāmānandī devotional community at Galta, comparing and contrasting it to the
Nāth yogīs in order to exemplify the development of this new bhakti sensibility in
early modern North India and the way it formed especially in contradistinction
to certain key perspectives and attitudes of the tantric tradition. The example of
the Rāmānandīs suggests, in a well-­delineated form, processes that were far
more widespread. Reviewing them provided an opportunity to challenge some
popular scholarly notions of bhakti and yoga and to reconceive them in improved,
historically contextualized and contingent form. The early Rāmānandīs’ com-
munity of yoga-­practicing ascetic bhaktas and literature-­producing rasik bhaktas
served effectively to challenge the boundaries of the modern-­day categories of
Bhakti and Yoga and to show us the initial unraveling of the once closely inter-
woven threads of bhakti, tantra, and yoga. My case study of the Rāmānandīs
also helped to highlight one of the book’s more minor themes: the centrality of
professional ascetics and, more specifically, monastic institutions in the reli-
giopolitical economy of India over the longue durée.
A study of the work of Agradās (and his disciple Nābhādās) showed the criti-
cal role of bhakti literature—­with its artful combination of heartfelt sentiments
and strategic considerations—­in articulating a new bhakti sensibility and bhakti
community that would attract both a popular following and elite patronage.
After this specific case study of an important but relatively unknown Rāmānandī
figure, the book shifted to a much broader examination of early modern bhakti
poetry and hagiography in order to highlight the rise of new bhakti attitudes
toward certain key aspects of tantric and yogic religiosity and to show how these
new bhakti perspectives had a clear Sufi inflection. This investigation brought
to light how bhakti authors with different theological positions and from a
wide range of social and geographical locations all came together in assert-
ing a devotional sensibility in fundamental conflict with ordinary tantric-­yogic
approaches and much more closely aligned with Sufi notions regarding the
nature of (and proper attitude toward) God and the meaning of the religious
life. The striking parallels between the themes, symbols, and literary strategies
of bhakti and Indian Sufi devotional works suggest that Sufism played a key role
in the formation of bhakti sensibilities that—­in some degree—­have persisted in
India ever since.
In the history and culture of the vast and endlessly diverse Indian subconti-
nent, few things if any are clear-­cut or universal, and the arguments I have
advanced here are certainly no exception. Nevertheless, the evidence I have
compiled strongly suggests that throughout North India, beginning in the
 Conclusion = 311

sixteenth century (especially in the new sociopolitical conditions of the

Mughal Empire under Akbar), Vaiṣṇava devotional forms increasingly took the
place of previously dominant tantric Śaiva-­Śākta traditions and—­owing in no
small part to their resonance with Sufi perspectives that had become rooted in
Indian soil in the Sultanate period—­came to be considered by many Hindus,
whether they be kings or peasants, as the most proper and effective way to
achieve their varied desires. Bhaktas achieved this coup through the beauty and
contagious emotion inherent in their poetry and its performance, combined
with a Sufi-­inflected devotional critique of key tantric attitudes and perspec-
tives, a tantric magic against which they defined their own bhakti religion. Their
efforts and vision, never entirely undisputed, have nonetheless left a remarkable
and enduring legacy.
 Appendix

Manuscripts Containing Compositions by Agradās

This does not claim to be a comprehensive list of Agradās’s compositions; it is,

rather, a record of the findings of my manuscript searches in the archives and
libraries of North India (and London).

Poetry Anthologies Containing Verses by Agradās

1670—­Pad Sangrah—­Jodhpur Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute (RORI)

#13498 (2)
1718—­Rāg Pad Sangrah—­Udaipur RORI #3785 (9) (Agradas, Surdas, etc.)
1731—­Sphuṭ Pad Sangrah—­Jodhpur RORI #15613 (18) (Surdas, Agradas,
Gadhadhar, Vyas)
1742—­Pad Sangrah—­Sanjay Sharma Museum #918/939/11 (Hitramray,
Nanddas, Tulsidas, Ramdas, Surdas, Kabir, Agradas, etc.)
1742–­1743—­Spuṭ Sādhu Padāvalī—­Vidyā Bhūsaṇ Sangrah—­Jaipur RORI #12 (12)
(Surdas, Pipa, Jangopal, Sundardas, Rajjab, Agradas, etc.)
1754—­Agradās Padāvalī—­Sanjay Sharma Museum #960/734/2
1774—­Sphuṭ Pad—­Udaipur RORI #4242 (1) (Kabir, Agradas, Tulsi,
Parmanand, etc.)
1796—­Caubīs Avatār Kavit—­Vidyā Bhūsaṇ Sangrah—­Jaipur RORI #91 (13) (Agradas)
18th century—­Pad Rāmajanma kā—­Sanjay Sharma Museum #848/833
18th century—­Agradās ke Pad—­Jodhpur RORI #12380 (24)
18th century—­Rāg Pad Sangrah—­Jodhpur RORI #24426 (Tulsidas, Agradas, etc.)
18th century—­Sphuṭ-­Kavitt—­Udaipur RORI #4325 (5) (Agradas, Gosain
Ramgiri, Sur, Kabir)
 314 9 Appendix

1843—­Vaiṣṇava Poems—­British Library, MSS Hindi A​­.12​­.ac (from 392

foll. Nirañjanī manuscript)
1840—­Agradās kī Vāṇī—­Jodhpur RORI #14473

Compositions Attributed to Agradās

Dhyān Mañjarī

1818—­Nāgarī Pracāriṇī Sabhā #772

1872—­Jodhpur RORI #25307
1873—­Jodhpur RORI #12226 (2-­3)
1876—­Jaipur City Palace #2156 (36)
1891—­Jaipur City Palace #3001
1894—­Udaipur RORI #2127
19th century—­Sanjay Sharma Museum #715/179
19th century—­Sanjay Sharma Museum #1553/450
19th century—­Jaipur RORI #2565 (incomplete)
19th century—­Udaipur RORI #3196
19th century—­Udaipur RORI #3096 (48)
1907—­Nagari Pracarini Sabha #2268
1911—­Udaipur RORI #1867
1914—­Nagari Pracarini Sabha #543
1931—­Vrindavan Research Institute #9680

Undated

Vrindavan Research Institute #14187 (incomplete, fair)

Vrindavan Research Institute #9094 (complete, poor)
Vrindavan Research Institute #10180 (incomplete, poor)
Vrindavan Research Institute #10446 (incomplete, damaged)
Nagari Pracarini Sabha #3156
Nagari Pracarini Sabha #692
Nagari Pracarini Sabha #872
Nagari Pracarini Sabha #885
Nagari Pracarini Sabha #1898

Kuṇḍaliyā (Hitopadeśa-­bāvanī / Viṣṇu-­bāvanī)

1692—­Jaipur City Palace #1489 (15)

1739—­Jaipur City Palace #3676 (1)
early 19th century—­British Library, MSS Hindi C.32.b
 Appendix = 315

19th century—­Jaipur City Palace #197 (4)

19th century—­Jodhpur RORI #13511 (29)
undated—­Jaipur City Palace #3320
undated—­Vrindavan Research Institute #4418-­C (complete, good)
undated—­Nagari Pracarini Sabha #3312
undated—­Nagari Pracarini Sabha #1658

Nām Pratāp

1758—­Jaipur City Palace #1541 (2)

1813—­Jaipur City Palace #2469 (6)
1821—­Jaipur City Palace #1334 (2)
1876—­Jaipur City Palace #2156 (25)
1930—­Sanjay Sharma Museum #759/944/14

Prahlād Caritra

1724—­Jodhpur RORI #12380 (23)

18th century (ca. 1750)—­Jaipur City Palace #1194 (2)
18th century—­Jaipur City Palace #1406 (6)
1859—­Jaipur City Palace #3524 (13)
19th century—­Jaipur City Palace #1935 (49)
undated—­Jaipur City Palace #3519 (9)

Dhruv Caritra

18th century (ca. 1750)—­Jaipur City Palace #1194 (1)

undated—­Jaipur City Palace #3319 (3)

Caturviśati-­avatāranāmāni (Sanskrit work)

undated—­Jaipur City Palace #3090 (2)

Bhāgavat Pad Prasaṅg (contains more than three hundred poems by Agradās)

1742—­Jaipur City Palace #1616 (3)

Sītārām-­nāmlīlā

19th century—­Udaipur RORI #1927 (2)

Rāmjī kī Badhāī

19th century—­Alwar RORI #6017 (2)

 316 9 Appendix

Nāmamāhātmya

undated—­Vrindavan Research Institute #4343 (complete, good)

Gurujī-­aṣṭa

undated—­Vrindavan Research Institute #16882-­A

Rānīmaṇgau

1799—­Vrindavan Research Institute #8089-­C

Sītā-­svayamvar-­gīt

undated—­Chaupāsanī Shodh Sansthān #11984

 Notes

Introduction

1. In using the term “early modern” to describe India circa 1500–­1750, I follow John Richards,
whose classic essay identifies South Asia as being linked to the following six large-­scale
(global) processes that he sees as distinguishing marks of the early modern world: (1) the
creation of global sea passages linking the world through a transportation network; (2) the
rise of a truly global world economy in which long-­d istance commerce connected econo-
mies on every continent; (3) the growth of large, stable, efficient states with largely unprec-
edented power and political unification; (4) the doubling of the world population; (5) the
intensified use of land to expand production; and (6) the diffusion of new technologies
including crop cultivation, gunpowder, and printing (Richards 1997). While I adopt the
term “early modern,” it is an imperfect one, and we must keep in mind Daud Ali’s percep-
tive critical observation that “the arguments for ‘early modernism’ or ‘early modernity’ in
South Asia . . . ​have often relied, rather ironically, on the very tropes of the ‘medieval’ once
used to consign the Mughal Empire itself to a backward ‘medieval period.’ At this level,
early modern historiography has not so much rectified images of medieval stagnation as
simply pushed back their boundaries to pre-­Mughal times” (Ali 2012, 12).
2. Nandakumar 2003, 794, 857.
3. Ramanujan 1973, 40.
4. Hawley 2015b; see also Krishna Sharma 1987.
5. The narrative of the bhakti movement has complex roots, but especially important was
Hindi scholarship produced in the context of twentieth-­century Indian nationalist agen-
das, which sought to create a sense of national identity by propagating the notion of a
shared pan-­Indian bhakti religious heritage. Hawley’s A Storm of Songs (2015b) offers a
detailed investigation of the historical origins, functions, and influences of the bhakti
movement narrative (and the closely linked motif of “the four sampradāys”).
6. Along these lines, David Lorenzen (2004, 208) has also discussed the historical development
of bhakti in terms of a plurality of bhakti movements, each associated with different regions,
languages, social ideologies, and theologies (e.g., Śaiva, Vaiṣṇava, Śākta, nirguṇ, etc.).
 318 9 Introduction

7. In addition to “early modern North India,” I regularly employ the designation “Mughal
India” (with the understanding that Mughal India was early modern) in order to highlight
the fact that most of the processes and communities I discuss took shape and flourished
within the North Indian territorial and cultural sphere under Mughal imperial control and
were fundamentally influenced by that fact.
8. The term “vulgate Vaiṣṇavism” was coined and elaborated by John Stratton Hawley (2005,
285–­300).
9. Keune 2016, 729.
10. Keune 2016, 745.
11. Throughout the book, in certain places I make a somewhat arbitrary, artificial distinction
between the scholarly categories of Bhakti, Tantra, and Yoga, on the one hand, and the
Indian terms and historical phenomena of bhakti, tantra, and yoga on the other. In many
cases, the distinction between one and the other is not at all clear, thus I have generally
opted for the capitalized, nonitalicized forms only in those instances where I specifically
wish to emphasize Bhakti, Tantra, and Yoga as broad subfields of scholarly study.
12. For a discussion of the bhakti traditions’ ambivalent position on caste and a critique of bhakti
as a movement of and for social egalitarianism, see Burchett 2009. If bhakti has a social ideol-
ogy, it certainly should not be conceived as a unitary presence inherent in bhakti songs,
poetry, and hagiographical stories but rather as a range constructed variously by different
readers and listeners in their encounters with the many historically specific forms and
expressions of bhakti.
13. Nirguṇ bhakti poets and communities have tended to be lower caste, socially inclusive, and
antibrahmanical in orientation, while saguṇ traditions have typically identified with caste-­
based Hinduism and purāṇic deities and tended to be more accommodating to orthodox
ritual practices and brahmanical social customs. The nirguṇ-­saguṇ distinction has consid-
erable heuristic value; however, there was normally no clear-­cut division between nirguṇ
and saguṇ conceptions and approaches, and while the distinction did become increasingly
more meaningful over the course of the early modern period, bhakti poets and communi-
ties did not usually identify themselves as exclusively one or the other. See Hawley 2005,
70–­86; Williams 2007.
14. Krishna Sharma 1987.
15. Prentiss 1999, 153–­54.
16. Holdrege 2015, 24; emphasis in original.
17. Novetzke 2008, xi.
18. Novetzke 2007, 255.
19. Novetzke 2008, 19.
20. Novetzke 2007, 259.
21. Novetzke 2008, 22.
22. Hawley 2015b, 4.
23. Hawley 2015b, 295–­312.
24. Hawley 1984, 244.
25. Pechilis 2016.
26. Prentiss 1999, 6.
27. Prentiss 1999, 23.
28. Cort 2002, 61.
29. Cort 2002, 62.
 Introduction = 319

30. Sangari 1990, 1464.

31. Krishna Sharma 1987, ix–­x iv, 41–­43. Sharma was particularly concerned to expose the way
in which scholars have unjustifiably tended to present bhakti in terms of Vaiṣṇava mono-
theism and to falsely contrast it with the monism of Advaita Vedānta. More recently,
Ankur Barua (2017, 320) has eloquently discussed the “conceptual fluidity of jñāna and
bhakti” and the way they are variously, subtly interwoven in the works of medieval Hin-
duism, showing how “textual affiliations to or borrowings from scriptures such as the
Bhagavad-­gītā, the Bhāgavata-­purāṇa, and others are compatible with diverse positions on a
fine-­g rained continuum stretching from ‘pure’ Advaita to bhakti-­inflected Advaita to ‘pure’
bhakti universes.”
32. Keune 2015, 71.
33. Keune 2015, 71.
34. Brooks 1990, 5–­6.
35. The relatively few scholarly works that have offered explicit discussions of the interrelations
of bhakti, tantra, and yoga seem to be confined largely (though not entirely) to three areas: (1)
Scholarship on religious traditions of Bengal, a region in which the threads of bhakti, tantra,
and yoga remained more interwoven after the early modern period than in most other parts
of North India, where they unraveled into more distinctive, exclusive, and oppositionary reli-
gious categories; see especially the work of Edward C. Dimock Jr. ([1966] 1989), June McDaniel
(1989; 2012), and Rachel McDermott (2001). (2) Scholarship on the relationship between Nāth
yogī tantric practice/ideology and the devotion of the Sants, particularly Jñāndev, Kabīr, and
the Dādū ­Panth; see especially the work of Monika Horstmann ([Thiel-­Horstmann] 1983; 2012;
2014) (on the Dādū ­Panth), Catharina Kiehnle (1997; 2000; 2005) and Charlotte Vaudeville
(1968–­1969; 1996) (on Jñāndev), and Charlotte Vaudeville (1974) and Linda Hess ([Hess and
Singh] 1983; 2015) (on Kabīr). (3) Scholarship on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and early modern
Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava interpretations and developments of its Pāñcarātra-­influenced yogic bhakti
praxis; see especially the work of Barbara Holdrege (2015).
36. Carman (1987) 2005, 857.
37. Frazier 2013, 105–­6.
38. Dobe 2015, 16–­17.
39. Hawley 1983.
40. See Indrani Chatterjee 2013, Sears 2014, and Stoker 2016. On the similar social and political
role of Sufi monastic institutions, see the classic works by Eaton 1978 and Ernst 1992.
41. Indrani Chatterjee 2013, 1.
42. The Kāpālikas are a group of ascetic devotees of Bhairava Śiva known for their transgression
of mainstream values and brahmanical purity restrictions. By the seventh century, Sanskrit
literary references to Kāpālikas had become fairly commonplace—­t ypically portraying them
as charlatan ascetics who wander about with a skull begging bowl, drinking liquor, and cov-
ered in the ashes of the dead.
43. Eaton and Wagoner 2014.
44. Behl 2007, 319.
45. Dalmia and Faruqui 2014, xii.
46. Dalmia and Faruqui 2014, xii.
47. Behl 2007, 322.
48. See, for instance, the essays in Orsini and Sheikh 2014; Dalmia and Faruqui 2014; de Bruijn
and Busch 2014; and Orsini and Schofield 2015.
 320 9 Introduction

49. Eaton 1978, 283. Eaton sees the three most fundamental variables defining and distinguish-
ing different Sufis as “(1) how [they] interacted with the Muslim religious establishment or
‘ulama; (2) how they interacted with the court; and (3) how they interacted with the non-­
Muslim population,” while other key variables include their relation to Islamic doctrine,
their social class, their place of residence, and their affiliation by order/lineage (284).
50. Finbarr Flood 2009, 9.
51. Finbarr Flood 2009, 9.
52. Finbarr Flood 2009, 4.
53. See Novetzke 2008. Novetzke also diverges from and adds to Warner’s work by stressing
that publics “by their nature, remember and are constituted by a shared memory . . . ​pub-
lics are systems of memory” (18).
54. Warner 2002.
55. Warner 2002, 54.
56. Warner 2002, 75.
57. Using the term in a different fashion and historical context than I do here, the illustrious A.
K. Ramanujan, in speaking about sixth-­to-­n inth-­century South India, also made reference
to a bhakti “sensibility,” defining it as a “complex of concepts, practices, patterns of feelings
coupled with their artistic expression in texts, temples, etc.” (1981, 103).
58. See Ricci 2011, 2–­3.
59. Meyer 2009, 5.
60. Ahmed 2004, 119–­20; emphasis in original.
61. Rosenwein 2006, 2.
62. Rosenwein 2016, 3.
63. Lincoln 1989, 18, 20, 25.
64. Cf. Pellegrini 2007, 918.
65. Pellegrini 2011, 71.
66. Schaefer 2015, 8; emphasis added.
67. In the field of affect theory, some scholars (e.g., Brian Massumi) sharply distinguish
between affect and emotion, positing an important epistemological gap between how bod-
ies feel (affect) and how subjects make sense (consciously and discursively) of how they feel
(emotion), while other scholars (e.g., Sara Ahmed, Barbara Rosenwein) question this polar-
ized emotion-­a ffect gap, arguing that the two cannot be so easily distinguished.
68. Throughout the book, in considering the history of bhakti I want to keep in mind, whenever
relevant, the insights of affect theory and critical animal studies that suggest that our indi-
vidual and social lives are fundamentally shaped by affects that flow through the body
“at or beneath the threshold of cognition” and “outside of, prior to, or underneath language”
(Schaefer 2015, 4, 24).
69. Hess 2015, 156. On the crucial interrelation of sound/music, emotion, and embodied reli-
gious participation, see also Wilke and Moebus 2011, 792, 807.
70. Williams 2014, 111.
71. If bhakti poems are not so much poems as songs, then our understanding of them cannot be
separated from their performance. This is not to say that we cannot also analyze and
appreciate a song as a poem, a stable written work of literature, nor is it to say that such
songs were not appreciated in this way (indeed, to be a rasik meant, in part, to savor the
subtle artistry in the words of a poem), but it is to say that such poems were by and large
meant to be performed and heard as songs, assimilated not in a relation of eyes and brain to
 1. The Tantric Age = 321

words on a page but digested in the embodied terms of sonic vibrations and animal affects.
To privilege text (and its discursive content) above performed song (and its affective impact)
is to privilege sight over sound in a fashion characteristic of Western modernity and to
diminish and obscure the affective power of the aural.
72. Meyer 2009, 9.
73. Schaefer 2015, 78–­79.
74. Warner 2002, 81.
75. Hirschkind 2005, 41.
76. Hirschkind 2005, 40. While I speak in general terms here, of course there would have been
differing registers of participation and resonance among members of the bhakti public,
therefore we must avoid conceiving bhaktas as unitary or homogeneous in the way they
responded to or participated in performances of bhakti songs and stories.
77. Hirschkind 2009, 2.
78. This formulation owes much to Joel Lee’s wonderful work on the sensuousness of caste; see
Lee 2015, 42–­80.
79. Lofton 2011, 16.
80. Wedemeyer 2013, 6.
81. Wedemeyer 2013, 38–­42.
82. Doniger 2011, 166–­67.
83. Keune 2015, 71.
84. Jonathan Smith 1982, 35.
85. Gottschalk 2012, 338.

1. The Tantric Age

1. Benoytosh Bhattacharyya seems to have coined the term “Tantric Age” in An Introduction to
Buddhist Esoterism (1932) to describe South Asia’s early medieval period. More recently,
Christian Wedemeyer has taken up the term in Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism (2013) to
describe the late-­first-­millennium period of Indian religions. Gavin Flood (2006) has simi-
larly spoken of a “tantric civilization” that flourished “during the medieval period before
the rise of the hegemony of the Delhi Sultanate” (71). This period also generally corre-
sponds with what Alexis Sanderson (2009) has called the “Śaiva Age,” and my characteriza-
tion of it as the “Tantric Age” relies heavily on the evidence he has marshaled.
2. Gavin Flood 2006, 73.
3. Sanderson 1988, 661, 663. While the tantric scriptures are most often termed tantras,
āgamas, and saṃhitās, they also include texts called sūtras, yāmalas, nigamas, and siddhāntas,
among other names ( jñānas, vidyās, ḍāmaras, āmnāyas, arṇavas, rahaysa, etc.).
4. Goodall 1998, xxxvi–­x xxix; Hatley 2007a, 7n20. A general tendency emerged for non-­
Saiddhāntika (Śaiva-­Śākta) tantric texts to be termed tantras, Vaiṣṇava (Pāñcarātra) tantric
texts to be termed saṃhitās, and orthodox Śaiva (Siddhānta) tantric texts to be termed
āgamas, but this was not a hard-­a nd-­fast rule. Śaiva Siddhānta scriptures were designated
as both āgamas and tantras (and occasionally as saṃhitās), and Pāñcarātra scriptures were
termed tantras in addition to their more common designation as saṃhitās.
5. For more on this important text, including a translation of its first three (of five) sūtras, see
Goodall 2015.
 322 9 1. The Tantric Age

6. Sanderson 1988, 660.

7. Nevertheless, the tantric tradition depends heavily upon the Vedic ritual framework and is
in many respects continuous with the earlier Vedic tradition (and, just as much, the Athar-
vedic tradition); Goodall 1996, xxxi–­x xxii.
8. See Sanderson 2012–­2013, 12–­13. He notes that women were usually made “passive benefi-
ciaries of initiation rather than . . . ​active initiates with access to office.”
9. Fisher 2017, 36.
10. Fisher 2017, 36.
11. The samayin receives samayadīkṣā, which allows him or her to take on the community’s
identifying marks and to follow its basic rules of conduct. This is usually followed by the
special initiation (viśeṣa-­dīkṣā) in which the disciple completes his ritual rebirth as a sama-
yin and thus becomes eligible to worship Śiva on his own behalf and to study the Śaiva tan-
tric literature. One becomes a putraka after undergoing the quintessential tantric initiation
rite of nirvāṇadīkṣā, open only to those who had proven their spiritual “ripeness” to the
guru and which ensured liberation at death. In the nirvāṇadīkṣā rite of Śaiva Siddhānta tra-
dition, the guru—­v ia the power of tantric mantras—­ritually transforms himself into Śiva,
enters the disciple’s body, extracts his soul, homologizing it with the various core elements
and levels of the cosmos and (in a process involving ritual gestures, detailed visualizations,
and the uttering of appropriate mantras) gradually purifying it of all previous karma and
impurities—­revealing its full divinity—­before reinstalling it in the initiate, thereby virtu-
ally ensuring his liberation at death. Sādhakas receive the sādhakābhiṣeka, allowing them to
seek out siddhis and bhukti, while the ācārya goes through a special consecration, the
ācāryābhiṣeka. See Brunner 1994, 431–­32.
12. Sanderson 2006b, 3; Sanderson 1988, 660.
13. Sanderson 2006b, 2–­3.
14. Gavin Flood 2006, 11. While scholars have often identified the notion that “to worship a god
one must become a god” as distinctively tantric, in fact, as Walter Kaelber (1989, 51–­52) has
shown, earlier Vedic ritual necessitated the divinization of the body as well (though not
through the imposition of mantras).
15. Fisher 2017, 37.
16. Hatley 2007a, 8.
17. As Annette Wilke explains, “What is most characteristic of Tantric mantras is the idea that
they incorporate—­like a ‘seed’—­in their mere sound pattern the respective god or goddess
(or another numinous force) in a very real sense” (2014, 135). Technically, mantras refer to
the sonic forms of male deities, while vidyās refer to sonic forms of female deities.
18. Śakti is originally a theological concept developed in tantric Śaivism, thus it can be problem-
atic to project it onto other tantric traditions that used different terminology with different
metaphysical connotations. Nevertheless, śakti-­like conceptions of the sacred as tremendous
cosmic power pervaded all tantric traditions. In the Buddhist context, for instance, Glen Wal-
lis has argued that the principle underlying the practice of esoteric Buddhists in early medi-
eval India “was the assumption of the Buddha’s power in the world, and that the design of the
practice was to enable the practitioner to mediate that power and manipulate it toward par-
ticular ends” (2002, 1).
19. Padoux 2017, 16.
20. Brooks 1992, xix.
21. In this sense, David Gordon White is quite right to have stressed the role of demonology in
tantric systems (2012b, 164–­66) and to have described tantra as, in large part, an array of
 1. The Tantric Age = 323

ritual techniques for the control of various powerful spirit beings, “both for one’s own ben-
efit and as tools to use against others” (2003, 13).
22. Relatedly, some aspects of tantric ritual seem to have developed out of post-­Vedic, pretant-
ric śānti (pacification/appeasement) rituals in which the non-­Vedic astrological tradition
( jyotiḥśāsta) appropriated late-­Vedic Atharvan ritual methods for protecting rulers (and
others) from omens and malevolent astrological forces (e.g., adbhuta, utpāta, bhaya, duḥsvapna).
If tantric initiation ceremonies were modeled on royal consecration ceremonies such as the
rājyābhiṣeka, as argued by Ronald Davidson (2002), Marko Geslani (2012) has shown that
these royal coronation rites had a core apotropaic function that has not been adequately
emphasized, making use of non-­Vedic mantras and invoking the power of a wide array of
cosmic deities to protect the king (and his subjects) from misfortune and inauspicious
omens. For an argument (drawing on Geslani’s work) that the esoteric Buddhist maṇḍala
initiation ceremony modeled itself on the paradigm of these post-­Vedic śānti rituals, see
Shinohara 2014, 64–­90.
23. See White 2009, 196.
24. Rastelli 2000, 320–­22.
25. Rastelli 2000, 340.
26. Rastelli 2000, 340–­43, 354–­55. The sādhaka who has mastered his mūla-­mantra is said to have
also acquired the ability to successfully perform any of the infamous sinister six rites, or
ṣaṭkarman. The sādhaka achieves any of these various goals by ritually actualizing the man-
tra and its power through recitation ( japa) of the mantra, supported by visualization medi-
tation (dhyāna) and imposition (nyāsa) of the mantra upon the body or a physical object
(e.g., an amulet) (349–­50).
27. White 2011, 574.
28. Padoux 2017, 132.
29. Sanderson 1995, 22.
30. Ferrario 2015, 16–­20.
31. Ferrario 2015, 20–­24. See Gupta 1986; Oberhammer 2007, 37–­54; Czerniak-­Drożdżowicz 2003.
32. Gupta 1986.
33. Ferrario 2015, 28–­29.
34. Dominic Goodall, email message to author, August 29, 2017.
35. Ferrario 2015, 30.
36. Ferrario 2015, 31.
37. Ferrario 2015, 24, 28–­29, 59.
38. On stotra literature and its relevance to the study of bhakti, see Stainton 2019.
39. Ferrario 2015, 31–­32.
40. The Mataṅgapārameśvara tells the story of a sage named Mataṅga who is meditating intently
on Śiva when he becomes distracted by the sweet sound of wind passing through stalks of
bamboo, loses his focus, snatches a stalk of bamboo, and fashions it into a flute, then fer-
vently plays the flute with “supreme bhakti,” such that Śiva himself comes down and
appears before Mataṅga, who is then further possessed by the fervor of bhakti toward Śiva.
For a discussion of this text and how tantric Śaiva brahmans in the ninth century inter-
preted it in such a way as to minimize or eliminate the value of bhakti while reiterating the
power and salvific efficacy of tantric ritual, see Schwartz 2012a, 216–­225. Schwartz offers an
insightful analysis of the Kashmiri Siddhāntin Bhaṭṭa Rāmakaṇṭha’s commentary on this
text and its subordination of bhakti to ritual; however, it seems to me that he errs in sug-
gesting that the devotional voice of the lay Śivadharma tradition is present in the early
 324 9 1. The Tantric Age

tantric tradition, since all our evidence suggests that bhakti had a very different, and less
important, place in early tantric Śaivism than it did in the Śivadharma. See Ferrario’s (2015,
50–­58) detailed analysis and critique of Schwartz’s position.
41. Dominic Goodall, email message to author, August 29, 2017.
42. Hardy 1983.
43. Champakalakshmi (1996) 2004, 50.
44. Champakalakshmi (1996) 2004, 64.
45. Pechilis 2016. Pechilis is specifically interested in the way in which Kāraikkāl Ammaiyār
emphasizes the potency of the cremation ground, drawing on certain prototantric
(Atimārga) and early tantric (Mantramārga) practices and conceptions but reframing them
in the terms of a bhakti disposition averse to tantra’s elaborate ritual procedures.
46. Peterson 1989, 12.
47. Translated and discussed in Judith Martin 1983, 114–­15.
48. Hudson 2008, 10.
49. Hudson 2000, 206.
50. I am indebted to Archana Venkatesan (email message to author, November 15, 2017) for
making me aware of, and sending me a rough translation of, this passage.
51. Hudson 2008, 25–­26.
52. White 2011, 575.
53. Sanderson 2009.
54. Sanderson 2009, 58–­61.
55. Sanderson 2006b, 4.
56. Sanderson 2006b, 6.
57. Wedemeyer 2013, 31.
58. Davis 1991, 4.
59. An early form of Pañcarātra Vaiṣṇavism likely existed before tantric Śaivism, but this
early Pañcarātra did not have a tantric ritual system and later came to adopt the popular
ritual system developed within tantric Śaivism (i.e., the Śaiva Mantramārga); Sanderson
2009, 58–­70.
60. The mistaken idea that the Śaiva Siddhānta and Pāñcarātra are marginal to the study of
Tantra proper is linked, in part, to the artificial distinction some scholars have made
between texts that designate themselves as Tantras, Āgamas, and Saṃḥitās. These three
designations were, in fact, synonymous and interchangeable terms for tantric scriptural
revelation, with both Pāñcarātra and Śaiva Siddhānta scriptures at times referring to
themselves as Tantras (in addition to Āgamas or Saṃhitās). See Goodall 1998, xxxvi–­x xxix;
Hatley 2007a, 7n20.
61. Thanks to the research of Alexis Sanderson, along with scholars such as Dominic Goodall,
Harunaga Isaacson, Mark Dyczkowski, Diwakar Acharya, Shaman Hatley, and Somdev
Vasudeva, among many other tantric studies experts, as well as ongoing (mostly text-­
critical) studies of the lay Śaiva traditions of first-­m illennium India (by scholars such as
Peter Bisschop, Florinda De Simini, Timothy Lubin, Nirajan Kafle, and Nina Mirnig, among
others), our knowledge of tantric and Śaiva traditions, and of early medieval religiosity
more generally, has grown in leaps and bounds and will only continue to do so in the com-
ing decades. Unfortunately, however, this specialized (and predominantly European) tant-
ric studies scholarship has, for the most part, not made its way into the basic formulations
of nonspecialist scholarship on South Asian religious history and practice, something I
 1. The Tantric Age = 325

hope to address in some small way in this chapter. For a useful assessment of the field of
tantric studies, including discussion of key authors and publications that have advanced
scholarly understandings of Tantra in recent decades, see Goodall and Isaacson 2011.
62. For my present purpose, blood sacrifice and offering of alcohol will not be considered radi-
cally transgressive practices. Sanguinary rites did involve impure and polluting substances,
but they seem to have been so widely practiced in medieval India that they cannot be
understood to have violated fundamental social codes and shocked or aroused social cen-
sure in the same way that (the far more rarely performed) tantric sexual and mortuary
rites clearly did.
63. A major branch of Śaiva tantric scriptures known as the Vidyāpīṭha, for instance, discusses
the performance of mortuary and sexual rites centered on the offering of conventionally
impure substances (including blood, alcohol, and sexual fluids) to feminine deities (god-
desses and yoginīs) in order to acquire their extraordinary powers. Later tantric texts of the
Kaula tradition offered domesticated, private versions (for householders) of such trans-
gressive practices, detailing ritual copulation with “polluted” outcast women and con-
sumption of alcohol, human feces, and sexual fluids as a means to achieve and perform
nondual spiritual enlightenment, with its transcendence of the dualities and arbitrary
moral codes of the social world.
64. The term “practical magic” is meant to refer to a wide spectrum of this-­worldly ritualized
practices with more pragmatic, worldly aims, including making protective amulets, love
potions, and spells, or power-­g iving pills, performing weather and crop-­related rites, and
conducting rites to defeat or harm enemies.
65. Sanderson 2013, 214. While generally not public or mainstream in the way that Saiddhāntika
rituals and institutions were, non-­Saiddhāntika Śākta-­oriented communities also con-
ducted rituals for the protection of the king and state, especially in times of danger.
66. Sanderson 2006a, 146.
67. Davidson 2002, 26.
68. Sanderson 2001, 8–­11. These three kings were from the Deccan, Orissa, and the Tamil south.
Around the same time (seventh to eighth centuries) it seems Pāñcarātra Vaiṣṇava tantra
began to be important in royal cults in Kashmir and the Tamil country.
69. White 2011, 579.
70. White 2011, 578.
71. Sanderson 2009, 254.
72. Sanderson 2009, 258–­59.
73. Sanderson 2009, 249–­52, 301–­3.
74. Davidson 2002, 177.
75. Davis 1991, 8.
76. On the economic role of temples, temple patronage, and the ways that temple building was
linked to the expansion of brahmanical authority, agricultural development, and political
integration, see Talbot 2001, 94, 102–­3, 117–­20.
77. Sears 2014, 10.
78. Sears 2008, 26.
79. Sanderson 2009, 266.
80. Sears 2014, 6.
81. Misra 1997, 75–­77. Misra’s research, relying predominantly on epigraphic records, suggests
that maṭhas of the Mattamayūra order—­a branch of the tantric Śaiva Siddhānta school—­in
 326 9 1. The Tantric Age

the Kalacuri state of central India (ca. seventh to thirteenth centuries) supported the state
by garrisoning war forces, manufacturing armaments, offering training in warfare, and
perhaps even themselves recruiting a combatant force.
82. Sears 2014, 10.
83. Sears 2008, 26.
84. Sanderson 2009, 268.
85. Sanderson 2009, 267.
86. Medieval kings allied themselves primarily with Saiddhāntika Śaiva tantric communities
and institutions, which subsumed and preserved the brahmanical social order; however,
the broad shift of tantra (from esoteric, private contexts) into mainstream, public settings
also involved elements of the heterodox non-­Saiddhāntika tantric traditions, particularly
in rituals conducted to assist and protect the king and state against enemies and calami-
ties. India’s well-­k nown yoginī temples, constructed mostly in the tenth through twelfth
centuries, are a case in point. Shaman Hatley remarks that, by the tenth century, the origi-
nally esoteric yoginīs “became prominent in the wider Indic religious landscape, as attested
by their entry into the purāṇic literature and the unique, circular, open-­a ir temples
enshrining them across the subcontinent” (2012, 107). Citing evidence of the integration of
yoginī temples into major state-­sponsored temple complexes, their proximity to royal capi-
tals, and the royal patronage of these temples, Hatley argues that the yoginī temples reflect
“the adaptation of esoteric pantheons and secretive praxis systems to a more public, calen-
drical liturgy suiting the aspirations of elite patrons and performed in permanent struc-
tures” (2014, 216). In the public context of the yoginī temples, tantric and purāṇic modes of
worship melded. Rituals involving sex or sexual fluids seem to have been abandoned, but
offerings of blood (animal sacrifice) and alcohol, night vigils, and fire rituals were central.
Relatedly, Judit Törzsök (2012) has shown that Kalhaṇa’s Rājataraṅgiṇī, a Sanskrit work of
twelfth-­century Kashmir, recommends a king’s engagement with tantric mantras and
magic but sees participation in polluting, transgressive (Kaula and Krama) tantric rituals
(including yoginīsādhana) as undesirable and dangerous, even as causes of a king’s downfall.
87. Sanderson 2013, 224.
88. Sanderson 2013, 224.
89. Sanderson 2015.
90. The Śivadharma corpus, which has not yet been critically edited, consists of the Śivadharma,
Śivadharmottara, Śivadharmasaṃgraha, Umāmaheśvarasaṃvāda, Uttarottaramahāsaṃvāda,
Śivopaniṣad, Vṛṣasārasaṃgraha, Dharmaputrikā, and Lalitavistara. The first two texts (the
Śivadharma and Śivadharmottara) of this corpus are broadly attested and were clearly com-
posed against a Pāśupata (Śaiva Atimārga) background, but the full corpus is attested only
in Nepal, with the later texts of the corpus reflecting the concerns of other (non-­Pāśupata)
communities; Florinda De Simini, email message to author, June 6, 2018.
91. De Simini 2016a, 22; De Simini 2016b, 236.
92. De Simini 2016a, 49.
93. Śivadharma 1.36; translation in Schwartz 2012a, 211.
94. Translation of this passage is mine, based on the Sanskrit text provided in Ganesan and
Sathyanarayanan 2010–­2011, 54. I have consulted Ganesan and Sathyanararyan’s transla-
tion as well as that in Schwartz 2012a, 212, 227–­28. I am grateful to Florinda De Simini for
checking the Sanskrit text used by these scholars against an earlier manuscript of the text
in her possession (Asiatic Society of Calcutta, G4077, dated 1036). She found only very minor
differences in the text that did not substantively change the meaning of the passage. The
 1. The Tantric Age = 327

manuscript used by Schwartz inserts kīrtan into the description of bhakti, a word not pres-
ent in the other manuscripts used by De Simini or Ganesan and Sathyanarayanan.
95. The Śivadharma and its eight-­limbed description of bhakti precede the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and
its well-­k nown ninefold classification of bhakti by nearly half a millennium. It would seem
to be earlier than even the vernacular “emotional bhakti” expressed by the Vaiṣṇava Tamil
poet-­saints. Nammālvār’s impassioned hymns come from the seventh century (i.e., most
likely after the Śivadharma), and the few Tamil Vaiṣṇava bhakti saints (Ālvārs) preceding
him seem to have expressed a more intellectual devotion related to the theistic yoga of the
Bhagavad Gītā. For some other brief comments upon the nature of the Śivadharma’s bhakti
and its relationship to that of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and later bhakti traditions, see Schwartz
2012a, 212, 227–­28.
96. Travis Smith 2016, 363.
97. On this topic, see De Simini’s outstanding study Of Gods and Books (2016a).
98. The Devīpurāṇa (91.23) states that “[from] listening, bhakti emerges; [urged] by bhakti, one
sits intent upon the guru, and this explains the scriptures of knowledge (vidyā-­āgamān).
Knowledge resides in manuscripts (granthā), o king!” (De Simini 2016a, 79–­80n222).
99. Sanderson 2012–­2013, 4. He remarks that “the text probably envisages its being chanted in
Sanskrit with each verse or group of verses followed by an explanation in the vernacular.”
100. Holdrege 2015, 81, 82–­84.
101. Holdrege 2015, 81; emphasis in original.
102. For a fascinating discussion of the bhaktajana as a devotional public representing the political
power of the quotidian world, and bhakti as “a fulcrum around which social cohesion adheres,”
see Novetzke 2016, 93–­102. Novetzke discusses a series of Marathi inscriptions, 1189–­1311, in
which the Yādava state of Maharashtra invokes a bhakti public—­the bhaktajana—­in a display of
beneficence meant to appeal to a quotidian populace of devotees (and thus acknowledging
them as a political force).
103. It appears that the lay Śaiva devotional tradition of early medieval India was more socially
liberal than its lay Vaiṣṇava counterpart, and this may have had something to do with
Śaivism’s great success. Timothy Lubin (2017) has discussed how the Śivadharma makes far
more significant moves toward social inclusion (particularly for women and śūdras) than
the Viṣṇudharma (the authoritative lay Vaiṣṇava scripture likely composed around the
same time as the Śivadharma), whose conception of Viṣṇu-­bhakti mostly adheres to classical
Smārta brahmanical status hierarchy and its prerogatives.
104. Lubin 2011, XXX.
105. Hazra 1952–­1953, 12.
106. Hiltebeitel 2012, 159.
107. Hiltebeitel 2012, 160
108. De Simini 2016a, 46, 66.
109. De Simini 2016a, 66.
110. De Simini 2016a, 67n194.
111. De Simini 2016a, 58.
112. Sanderson 2013, 212; De Simini 2016a, 50.
113. Bisschop 2014, 134–­35; De Simini 2016a, 51–­52.
114. On the dating of the Pāśupata sect (and debates surrounding it), see Lorenzen (1972) 1991b,
173–­92. Some scholars date the Pāśupatas to the second century BCE, but Lorenzen gives
compelling evidence for a second century CE date.
115. Bisschop 2010, 484–­85.
 328 9 1. The Tantric Age

116. Davidson 2002, 85, 186.

117. Bakker 2014, 14.
118. According to Bisschop, “the earliest explicit epigraphical references to Pāśupatas that we
possess are at the same time among the earliest examples of copper-­plate grants record-
ing endowments for temple worship” (2010, 485). These are late fourth-­century inscrip-
tions that refer to Pāśupatas as recipients of grants for the performance of worship in
temples. This is not to say that Pāśupatas “created” the Śaiva temple cult, for the evi-
dence suggests that the tradition of temple-­based lay devotion was an independent and
preexisting phenomenon with which initiatory communities like the Pāśupatas later
integrated. See Sanderson 2012–­2013, 2–­8.
119. Travis Smith 2007, 85, 313.
120. Travis Smith 2007, 301–­2.
121. The Īśvara Gītā, a circa eighth-­century Pāśupata philosophical poem (part of the popular
Kūrma Purāṇa) studied and translated by Andrew Nicholson (2014), teaches a yoga (seem-
ingly open to śūdras and women) in which visualization meditation exercises facilitate the
yogī’s self-­deification. I have highlighted the divinization of the self as one of the distinctive
elements of tantric practice, thus the goal of the Īśvara Gītā’s Pāśupata yoga—­to identify
with and “become” God (Śiva)—­speaks to how fuzzy the boundaries were been between
“tantric” (mantra-­mārga) practice and atimārga Pāśupata practice in the eighth century.
122. Travis Smith 2007, 295, 313.
123. For evidence of how the patronage of temples and monasteries that spurred the growth of
early Śaivism was not undertaken primarily or exclusively by political elites but was sig-
nificantly dependent upon the religious giving (dāna) of local collectives of merchants,
traders, and artisans, see Cecil 2016.
124. Alvarez 1990, 407–­14. Relatedly, Ronald Davidson identifies a list of more than a hundred
probable Pāśupata sites all over India (2002, 184, 341–­43).
125. De Simini 2016a, 59.
126. Bonazzoli 1993, 348. Śivadharma 12.109 states, yathā śivas tathā yogī yathā yogī tathā śivaḥ //
127. De Simini 2016a, 51n46. The “sixfold yoga” mentioned by the text is likely the same as the
six-­limbed Pāśupata yoga taught in the Skanda Purāṇa, a yoga that, S. D. Vasudeva notes, has
many parallels with the yogas of the Śaiva Mantramārga, an indication of tantric yoga’s
Pāśupata prehistory (2017, 3).
128. While the yogī is the spiritual ideal in these texts, the Śivadharma and Śivadharmottara do
sometimes give hints that others (i.e., not only initiated yogins but also lay devotees) can
attain liberation through the power of the śiva-­jñāna; Florinda De Simini, email message to
author, June 19, 2018.
129. My translation from the Sanskrit text in Hazra 1952–­1953, 13n28. tan nirvedāc ca vairāgyaṃ
vairāgyāj jñāna-­saṃbhavaḥ / jñānat pravartate yogo yogād duḥkhāntam āpnuyāt // Thanks to
Hamsa Stainton for his assistance with this verse.
130. White 2009, 167–­94; Coleman 2014.
131. White 2009, 168.
132. Travis Smith 2007, 304, 307–­9.
133. Travis Smith 2007, 307.
134. Davis 1991, 15. Particularly influential was the Mattamayūra branch of the Śaiva Siddhānta,
based in central India but with a network of monasteries extending from Kashmir to the
seacoasts of the south. On this important tantric lineage, see Sears 2014, 12–­33.
 1. The Tantric Age = 329

135. Travis Smith 2012, 173.

136. Chattopadhyaya 1993, 37.
137. Sanderson 2009, 42.
138. Ronald Davidson (2002, 173, 225–­26) notes a striking change in early medieval literature,
which contains far more positive attitudes toward, and depictions of, “tribal” peoples than
earlier literature, a trend correlated with state/brahmanical expansion into forest/jungle
areas, increased contact with “tribals,” and feudalization of “tribal” clans.
139. Brahmans, of course, are not a homogeneous community; there are enormous regional
variations and complex internal differentiations among brahman communities, yet there
is still great heuristic value in the notion of a “brahmanical tradition.” As Kunal Chakrab-
arti puts it, “We cannot challenge the proposition that if in India’s diverse cultural tradi-
tions there is one way of life and one medium of expression that can claim a semblance of
pervasive influence these are Brahmanism and Sanskrit. The brahmanical tradition has
decidedly the widest horizontal spread which cuts across regional boundaries. It is a con-
tinuous, overarching tradition with an essential unity of content and purpose compared to
the many localized traditions which, though rich in cultural content, are nevertheless
varied and fragmented” (2001, 95–­96).
140. Yokochi 2004: 15. Jaya Tyagi describes how the inclusion of goddesses (and certain vratas) in
purāṇic and tantric literature of the period had much to do with a realization that women
were important patrons and promoters of religious cults (Tyagi 2014: 89–­136).
141. Yokochi 2004, 16.
142. Sanderson 1988, 660; White 2003, 127.
143. See especially Chakrabarti 2001.
144. Chakrabarti 2001, 190.
145. Sanderson 2013, 217.
146. Sanderson 2006b, 15. Sanderson also states, “In Purāṇic texts such as the Uttarabhāga of the
Liṅgapurāṇa, the Kālikāpurāṇa, the Devīpurāṇa, and the Agnipurāṇa, the boundary between
Smārta and Tantric domains has almost completely dissolved” (2009, 250).
147. Kafle 2015, 33, 61. The dating of this text was proposed by Anil Kumar Acharya. Kafle’s
research shows that the Śivadharmasaṅgraha has significant parallels with the Skanda Purāṇa
and Vāyu Purāṇa, contains five full chapters that closely parallel the Niśvāsamukha (the
introductory text of the canonical Śaiva Tantra, the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā), and two chapters
identical to, or corresponding closely with, parts of the Guhyasūtra, the fifth and final sūtra
of the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā.
148. Schwartz 2018; Davis 2005.
149. Schwartz 2018, 7.
150. Schwartz 2018, 16–­17.
151. R. S. Sharma argues that, in the context of early medieval agrarian expansion, śūdras who
had been enlisted by brahmans as cultivators (karśakas) of newly settled lands “naturally
came to have some rights” in those lands and “this became inconsistent with the tradi-
tional ritual status of the śūdras which had to be raised by providing initiation for them in
the tantric sects” (1974, 179–­80).
152. Mirnig 2013, 292, 298. Mirnig’s research on the different modes of śrāddha (postmortu-
ary ancestor worship) rites offered to householders by the Śaiva Siddhānta tradition in
pre-­t welfth-­century sources shows how tantric communities reached out to the broader
populace of Hindu householders while suggesting that modes of worship prescribed for
 330 9 1. The Tantric Age

entry-­level (samayin) tantric initiates were at times the same as those prescribed for lay
devotees.
153. Sanderson 2013, 237–­39. On mass tantric initiation ceremonies, see also Nandi 1973, 81.
154. Sanderson 2013, 239.
155. Indrani Chatterjee 2013, 6. The “payments” or “gifts” made to a guru (and his monastic
order) ranged from labor services or foodstuffs (grain, wine, meat) to artisanal bronze, sil-
ver, or gold items to tax-­exempt land grants. On the topic of tantric initiates’ surrendering
portions of their wealth (to the guru) for use by the community they have just joined, see
Schwartz 2018, 19–­20.
156. Travis Smith 2012, 173.
157. Gavin Flood 2006, 73.
158. Gavin Flood 2006, 28.
159. Frederick Smith 2006, 376.
160. Frederick Smith 2006, 369.
161. Frederick Smith 2006, 383.
162. Frederick Smith 2006, 385.
163. Slouber 2017a.
164. Slouber 2017a, 16. Diwakar Acharya (2016, 157–­58) notes that the Gāruḍa Tantras are usually
paired with the Bhūta Tantras, probably because both are concerned with healing. The
Bhūta Tantras incorporated (into tantric scripture and ritual systems) and expanded upon
the branch of Āyurveda known as bhūtavidyā, which deals with rituals of appeasement to
various semidivine and demonic beings to pacify these possessing spirits and to heal and
free people from their grip.
165. Slouber 2012, 153.
166. Slouber 2012, 152.
167. Slouber 2012, 50. The Bhūta Tantras describe the same basic procedure for the exorcist,
though he is to visualize himself not as Garuḍa but as Bhairava (or Skanda) in order to
pacify or banish the demon/spirit possessing the patient. For details of the gāruḍika’s tant-
ric ritual procedure, see especially Slouber 2017a, 67–­74.
168. Indeed, in other work, Slouber (2017b) has suggested that tantric exorcists probably drew
on the practices of tribal shamans and sought to spread these practices in an altered form,
merging them with Sanskritic tantric ritual and developing them “in conjunction with the
idiom of Śaiva mantra-­śāstra.”
169. Slouber 2012, 51; Slouber 2017a, 127–­28.
170. Slouber 2017a, 127–­28. Kṣemendra’s eleventh-­century satirical poem Narmamālā (2.142.145)
describes an untouchable leather worker who raises his status by, at one point, “landing a
job as a protector of crops because he knew the Gāruḍa Tantras” (128).
171. Babb 1975, 178–­79.
172. In emphasizing that the tantric ritual process and pattern were relatively constant and
shared, I do not mean to imply that sect-­and text-­specific doctrinal, theological, and meta-
physical content (the specific deities, mantras, descriptions of the levels of the cosmos, etc.)
were not important. Indeed, they were absolutely central in teaching practitioners to
“inhabit a tradition-­specific subjectivity”; however, what I wish to emphasize instead is a
shared pan-­Indian tantric culture of ritual forms/methods and cosmological assumptions,
“a shared substrate of ritual and cosmology in spite of divergent metaphysical claims” (Gavin
Flood 2006, ix, 28). Specific sectarian philosophical commitments certainly influenced how
 1. The Tantric Age = 331

these shared ritual technologies were used and understood, thus we might imagine a reli-
gious world characterized by the multinodal interaction of reinterpretations of a stable
core of tantric ritual procedures, with each sectarian reinterpretation inspiring further
competition and development.
173. Sanderson 2001, 38–­39n50. Dominic Goodall’s (2011) study of the enthronement of a central
deity (in visualization meditation) as a central practice in nearly all tantric cults provides
further evidence for this notion of “a single ‘Tantric’ language.” In other work, Goodall and
Harunaga Isaacson (2016) have offered a detailed identification and discussion of the spe-
cific elements of a “shared ritual syntax” among tantric traditions.
174. Slouber 2012, 153.
175. White 2003, 150.
176. At the scholastic level, the rise of Vedānta centered on competing interpretations of
Bādarāyaṇa’s Brahmasūtras (a.k.a. the Vedānta Sūtra), a summary and systemization of the
Upaniṣads’ ideas regarding the nature of the universe and the path to liberating knowl-
edge. Unfortunately, a proper analysis of the pivotal role Vedānta played in late medieval
and early modern religious developments (including especially developments in the
bhakti and yoga traditions) in both North and South India is a topic beyond the scope of
this book.
177. On Advaita Vedānta and yoga, see Schwartz 2017 and Mallinson 2014a; and on Advaita
Vedānta and bhakti, see, for example, Venkatkrishnan 2015 and Barua 2017.
178. Nicholson 2010, 2, 200–­201. Andrew Nicholson has argued that “the perceived threat of
Islam” motivated Sanskrit intellectuals in the twelfth century to create, for the first time,
“a strictly defined category of āstika philosophical systems, systems that professed belief in
the authority of the Veda.” Before this the category of āstika had been an indistinct one
potentially admitting Buddhists and Jains, but between the twelfth and fourteenth centu-
ries Advaita Vedāntins came to permanently classify Buddhists and Jains as “deniers”
(nāstikas), while simultaneously the category of nāstika underwent “a subtle blurring with
categories like ‘barbarian’ (mleccha), allowing foreigners to be classed together with Bud-
dhists and Jainas” (200). Drawing on the earlier arguments of David Lorenzen (2005) and
Sheldon Pollock (1993), Nicholson thus suggests that it was the presence of Islam that
sparked these intellectual efforts to conceive a distinct, unified Hindu identity.
179. Fisher 2017, 38–­48. While pre-­t welfth-­century tantric Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava traditions had
positioned themselves as independent religious systems whose basis of authority in tantric
revelation required no reference to the Veda, with the influential works of Rāmānuja and
Śrīkaṇṭha—­which utilized Vedāntic exegesis to present their respective Vaiṣṇava and Śaiva
traditions as emblematic of Vedic orthodoxy—­this began to change. Sectarian theistic
communities in South India that had until then relied solely on tantric scriptural authority
now increasingly deferred to norms and doctrines grounded in the authority of Vedic rev-
elation; see Clark 2006, 215, 221–­22. Using the philosophy of Vedānta, theologians were able
to variously meld bhakti and yoga (including the techniques of tantric yoga) with jñāna,
thereby constructing a host of new, competing sectarian Vaiṣṇava and Śaiva forms of
orthodox brahmanical religiosity.
180. Allen 2014, 883; Minkowski 2011, 218. Michael Allen (2014) argues that “the late medieval
developments discussed by Nicholson [2010]” (­i.e., intellectual efforts to conceive a distinct,
unitary Hindu philosophical tradition) “might arguably be seen as a natural unfolding
of scholastic commentarial traditions—­with their commitments to systematizing ideas,
 332 9 1. The Tantric Age

refining terms and categories, and resolving apparent contradictions—­rather than as a

direct response to Islam” (883). Though Allen does not establish a meaningful intellectual
trend prior to the twelfth century, he complicates Nicholson’s argument (see n. 178) by
offering some examples of pre-­t welfth-­century scholars (e.g., Vācaspati Miśra, tenth cen-
tury) who drew a sharp line between schools that accept the Vedas and those that openly
rejected them (Buddhists, Jains, Kāpālikas) and even associated the non-­Vedic schools with
mlecchas. Relatedly, Christopher Minkowski (2011) has suggested that the key shift of the
powerful Śṛngerī and Kāñcīpuram maṭhas from tantric Śaivism to a brahmanical Advaita
Vedāntic Śaivism in the late medieval and early modern periods (see Clark 2006, 177–­226)
was not any sort of reaction to Islam but rather was “probably in response to the growth of
the Śrī Vaiṣṇava institutions” (218).
181. Indian intellectuals and social elites, unlike much of the Indian populace at large, do seem
to have perceived Turko-­A fghan invasions and the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate as
a threat—­specifically a threat to the traditional brahmanical social and political order (i.e.,
to brahmanical privilege)—­though they generally did not conceive them or the threat they
posed in religious terms. See, for instance, Talbot 2003 and Ernst 1992, 29–­37.
182. White 2011, 577.
183. White 2011.

2. Sultans, Saints, and Songs

1. It was Marshall Hodgson (1974, 59) who coined the term “Islamicate” to distinguish “the
social and cultural complex historically associated with Islam and the Muslims” from the
religion of Islam (e.g., its doctrines, rituals, etc.) itself. Hodgson also coined and elaborated
the term “Persianate” (1977, 293–­314).
2. Eaton 2003a, 9.
3. Eaton 2003a, 9.
4. Eaton and Wagoner 2014, xxii.
5. Eaton and Wagoner 2014, xxv.
6. Pollock 2006.
7. Eaton and Wagoner 2014, 21.
8. Eaton and Wagoner 2014, 24.
9. Digby (1986) 2003, 235.
10. Eaton 2003a, 11.
11. O’Hanlon 2007a, 364.
12. Richard Eaton (2000b) has shown that the Turks’ destruction and desecration of temple
sites was generally not done for religious motives but out of strategic political consider-
ations. Since temples were important symbols of political power for Hindu kings, violence
to temple sites was intended to delegitimate the previous royal authority in newly con-
quered realms. For these same reasons, competing Hindu kings engaged in desecration of
each other’s temples well before the Sultanate period. Thus, the temple destruction/dese-
cration of the Sultanate period was a continuation of an established Indian military-­
political practice and was not based in anti-­Hindu religious sentiment but rather was a way
to seize resources/wealth and to undermine the authority of enemy kings (whose power
was considered to be embodied in the temples). Nevertheless, it is true that destructions of
 2. Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 333

Hindu monuments were sometimes celebrated in Afghan documents as a religious achieve-

ment as part of the rhetoric of Islamic rule; see also Davis 1993.
13. See Talbot 2003, 90–­93.
14. Ernst 1992, 31.
15. See Chandra 1996, 122–­30.
16. Willis 1993, 51.
17. Wink 1997, 294. Wink explains, “It was only in South India that the building of large temple
complexes remained embedded in a Hindu polity and continued to be organically linked to
the other institutions of kingship and social organization in a variety of complex ways. . . . ​
Nowhere in the North did the Hindu temple building tradition perpetuate itself without
hindrance” (324, 327).
18. Davis 1991, 17–­18.
19. Davis 1991, 17–­18.
20. Sears 2009, 27.
21. Sears 2009, 8.
22. Sears 2009, 10, 24.
23. Satish Chandra remarks, in the context of the changes wrought by Sultanate power, “it
would appear that the first beneficiaries of the diminished influence of the brahmans were
the Nathpanthi yogis. This sect seems to have reached the height of its prestige and influ-
ence during the 13th and 14th centuries” (1996, 124).
24. Eaton and Wagoner 2014, 25.
25. Alam 2004, 118.
26. Eaton and Wagoner 2014, 26.
27. See Wagoner 1996. It seems that in many cases, the “Islamicate” (Wagoner’s term of choice
in the article cited here) was, in fact, mediated by the “Persianate.”
28. Sheikh 2017, 38–­39.
29. Eaton 2005, 25–­26. Eaton explains how the Sultanate was able to use the iqtā‘ system to pen-
etrate “the grass roots of local politics by co-­opting and redefining local revenue systems
and personnel.” In some cases, the sultans in Delhi recognized lands held by entrenched
local chiefs as iqtā‘ and designated those chiefs as the overseers (iqtā‘ holders) of that land,
thus seeking to transform potential enemies into servants of the state.
30. Behl 2012a, 16.
31. Emblematic of this process is the great Persianate Indian poet and musician Amīr Khusrau
Dihlavī (1253–­1325), patronized by both Khalji and Tughlaq sultans. Born of an Indian
mother, he proudly modeled a distinctly Indic tradition of Persian poetry, was a disciple of
the Chishti shaikh Nizām al-­Dīn Awliyā’ and is famous for his influence on Indian musical
traditions, credited with begetting the South Asian Sufi musical form of qawwālī.
32. Stewart and McGregor 2018; emphasis in original.
33. Stewart and McGregor 2018.
34. Richards 1998b, 10.
35. Ernst 1992, 25.
36. Ernst 1992, 25–­26.
37. Hawley 2015b, 90.
38. Ernst 1992, 38.
39. Lorenzen 2005, 53; Nicholson 2010, 2–­3, 200–­201.
40. Moin 2012a, 33–­34.
 334 9 2. Sultans, Saints, and Songs

41. Eaton 2005, 45.

42. Digby 1975, 17–­18.
43. On the spread of Sufi khānqāhs in lineage-­based networks across India, see Nizami 1961,
175–­77.
44. Digby 2004, 302–­5.
45. The Chishti order began in central Afghanistan but became the largest and most popular of
South Asian Sufi traditions. It was established in India by Mu’in ud-­Din Chishti (d. 1236),
who settled in Ajmer, Rajasthan, in the wake of the Ghurid conquest of North India.
46. Digby (1986) 2003, 242–­52. A key factor in the success of Nizām al-­Din and the Chishtis was
also the popularity and impact of Nizām al-­Dīn’s master, Bābā Farīd (d. 1265), in the Punjab.
On Bābā Farīd, see Eaton 2003b.
47. For a historical introduction to the Chishti, Suhrwardi, Naqshbandi, and Kubrawi Sufi
orders in India, see Rizvi 1978, 114–­300.
48. Bulliet 2004, 36.
49. Moin 2012a, 7–­8.
50. Eaton 2003b, 263.
51. Eaton 2003b, 264.
52. Moin 2012a, 100.
53. Sears 2009.
54. Ernst 2005, 23.
55. Quoted in White 2009, 232.
56. Joel Bordeaux, email message to author, July 4, 2014.
57. Behl 2012a: 155.
58. Behl 2012a, 261–­62.
59. Digby 1975, 51.
60. Hatley 2007b, 367.
61. Shaikh Ghawth’s Baḥr al-­ḥayāt (ca. 1550) is a Persian translation, revision, and expansion of
the most important Islamic work on yoga, the Hawd al-­ḥayāt (The pool of life), which was
itself an Arabic translation (composed in Bengal in 1210) of a nonextant Sanskrit work on
tantric yoga known as the Amṛtakunda (The pool of nectar). The history of this text and its
uses attest to a long-­r unning Indian Sufi interest in, and Islamization of, tantric yoga prac-
tice. See Ernst 2003.
62. Ernst 1996, 13.
63. Accardi 2015.
64. Dobe 2015, 33.
65. As Christopher Shackle has explained, Sufis understand “divine love as the core organizing
principle of the universe” and conceive of “a hierarchy extending upwards from the inter-
personal loves of the phenomenal world to the transpersonal connection with the Divine
which is perceived as their real exemplar.” Sufis defined “the twin force of love as ‘phenom-
enal love’ (‘ishq-­e majāzī) and ‘real love’ (‘ishq-­e ḥaqīqī) in which the human is seen as the
mirror of the divine” (2006, 88).
66. Pinch 2006, 65–­66.
67. See White 2001; Digby 2000, 140–­220.
68. Stewart 2000, 47.
69. Stewart 2004, 14. Satya Pīr is prominent among middle-­and low-­class Hindus and Muslims
in West Bengal, Orissa, and Bangladesh; he has more Bengali texts dedicated to him than
anyone except Caitanya.
 2. Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 335

70. Stewart 2004, 15.

71. Hawley 2015b, 4.
72. See, for instance, Tara Chand’s Influence of Islam on Indian Culture (1936) and Muhammad Heday-
tullah’s Kabir: The Apostle of Hindu-­Muslim Unity (1977), in addition to the works cited hereafter
by Diana Eck, Shahabuddin Iraqi, Satish Chandra, and Aziz Ahmad. These authors rarely ana-
lyze specific instances of the “historical influence” they assert, do not provide explanations of
the actual dynamics of the “symbiotic/syncretic” relationship they suggest, and too often
posit bhakti and Islam as firmly bounded, discrete entities, the one responding to and reacting
against the other. For a useful discussion of some of this scholarship, see Hawley 2015b, 89–­94.
73. Eck 2012, 90.
74. Iraqi 2009, 253, 258.
75. Chandra 1996, 127–­28.
76. Ahmad 1964, 136, 140.
77. As Samira Sheikh (2017, 35–­36) has argued—­drawing on Simon Digby’s important essay
“Before Timur Came” (2004)—­contrary to its common scholarly portrayal, Timur’s invasion
was more of a tipping point than a transformative cataclysm. The decentralization, increased
mobility, extension of trade routes, sprouting of new towns, and linguistic experimentation
usually associated with the (post-­Timur) fifteenth century were already well under way in
the (pre-­Timur) second half of the fourteenth century but were given a great deal of further
impetus by the devastation (and population dispersal) caused in Delhi by Timur’s invasion.
78. Moin 2012a, 25–­26, 28–­29.
79. Moin 2016, 127.
80. Occult practices such as lettrism, astrology, geomancy, divination, and spirit communica-
tion and subjugation were not unusual among medieval and early modern Muslims, and
post-­Mongol Persianate rulers often seized upon the occult sciences to harness sacred
power for political purposes; see Melvin-­Koushki 2016, 143. In the many manuscripts of
occult texts that circulated throughout the Islamic world at this time, Neoplatonic theories
are used to frame all occult powers as deriving from the one God and all occult operations
as “sanctioned and even effected by the power of God acting through his angels and the
spirits . . . ​of the celestial sphere,” conceived as the highest beings (divine ministers) with
whom men could be in contact; see Pingree 1980, 3–­4.
81. As Carl Ernst (2009, 199–­200) has clearly shown, Indian tantric teachings were circulating
within Islamic occultist circles in the Persianate world of Timur. Ernst explains that most
Persianate Muslims would have understood occult aspects of tantric practice—­e.g., man-
tras and yogic practices for summoning yoginīs and acquiring their powers—­in terms of the
familiar and largely accepted tradition of the Islamic occult sciences (al-­‘ulūm al-­gharība).
He posits that Persianate Muslim rulers probably engaged more with the occult dimensions
of tantric yogic practices than did any other sector of society because of the political-­
military use to which these occult arts could be put.
82. Digby 2004, 301–­2. The historical shift away from a more centralized Sultanate and toward
the development of a set of distinctive regional centers was not, of course, the result of any
single political event. Rather, Timur’s invasion was one crucial event precipitating—­a nd
serving as a convenient historical marker for—­the rise of these vernacular political-­
cultural nexuses and a broader Indo-­Islamicate “shared local” culture.
83. In fact, the Bahmani sultanate in the Deccan had declared independence from the Tughlaqs
in 1349, beginning the decline and fracturing of the Tughlaq dynasty into multiple smaller
regional sultanates.
 336 9 2. Sultans, Saints, and Songs

84. Sreenivasan 2014b, 243–­47.

85. Ramya Sreenivasan (2014b, 243–­47) has demonstrated that some of the earliest literary
works in (local forms of) the North Indian vernacular of Hindavi—­Dā’ūd’s Cāndāyan (ca.
1379), Nārāyaṇdās’s Chitāī-­carita (ca. 1526), and Jāyasī’s Padmāvat (ca. 1540)—­were patronized
by and addressed specifically to the particular political concerns of rural gentry and local
warlords in the hinterland; see also Behl 2012a, 48.
86. Orsini 2012, 227.
87. Orsini 2012, 228–­29.
88. Orsini quite rightly suggests that in understanding the use of language in Sultanate and
Mughal India we should not think “purely in terms of High and Low but rather in terms of a
continuum, something that makes us more aware of the importance of recognizing regis-
ters both within High and Low: ‘ornate Persian’ versus ‘simple Persian’; ‘Persian-­near’ or
‘Persian-­far’ and ‘Sanskrit-­near’ versus ‘Sanskrit-­far’ vernaculars” (2014c, 407).
89. Orsini and Sheikh 2014, 14–­15; Orsini 2005, 395.
90. Bangha 2014, 395–­96.
91. Orsini and Sheikh 2014, 14–­16.
92. Orsini 2014c, 404.
93. Though Nāmdev was not from North India and seems to have lived well before its great
bhakti saints, his memory—­a nd Hindavi poetry attributed to him—­became crucial features
of North India’s emerging bhakti public. Indeed, according to most sources, while Nāmdev
flourished in the early fourteenth century in Maharashtra, he traveled north and was a
founding figure of North India’s bhakti movement.
94. Hawley and Juergensmeyer 2004, 7.
95. Novetzke 2015, 176.
96. Novetzke 2015, 180.
97. Orsini 2014a, 199.
98. Orsini 2014a, 201–­2.
99. Behl 2012a, 286.
100. Ernst 1992, 166–­67; Orsini 2014c, 409, 415.
101. Orsini 2014b, 223; emphasis in original.
102. Behl 2007, 321.
103. Behl 2012a, 16–­22, 328–­29.
104. Digby 2004, 351.
105. Williams 2014, 88; Behl 2012a, 324.
106. Behl 2012a, 13.
107. Behl 2012b, 36.
108. Orsini 2014b, 228, 232.
109. Sheikh 2010, 168.
110. Green 2015, 13. Green uses this language to refer to nineteenth-­century religious econo-
mies, but I think it is certainly apt here as well.
111. Hawley 1984, 245.
112. Gāyā bin pāyā nahi, anagāvan se dūr / jin gāyā vishvās se, sahib hāl hazūr; Hess 2015, 32.
113. Hawley 1984, 249.
114. Hawley 1984, 247. Hawley explains that Sūrdās commonly concludes his compositions with
the following expression: sur dās bhagavant bhajan binu; that is, “Sūrdās says, unless one sings
to the Lord . . .” (246).
 2. Sultans, Saints, and Songs = 337

115. Williams 2014, 110–­11.

116. Hawley 1984, 258.
117. Hawley 1984.
118. Hirschkind 2005, 30. As Tyler Williams (email message to author, August, 26, 2016) has
pointed out to me, many bhakti hagiographies express ideal forms of community interac-
tion and ethical behavior that “model the performance contexts, and consequently the
social contexts” in which they are performed. In this sense, the singing of bhakti stories
in a community “simultaneously reproduces both the community and ethical behavior
within it.”
119. Hawley 1984, 251.
120. Mallison 2000, 292.
121. Geertz 1973, 129.
122. Geertz 1973, 127. While his essay “Religion as a Cultural System” has received far more
attention (and its fair share of criticism), I find Geertz’s “Ethos, World View, and the Analy-
sis of Sacred Symbols” (from which the preceding quotes come) considerably more useful in
thinking about religion and, particularly, the interrelated roles of aesthetics, emotion, and
ethics in religious life.
123. Mallison 2000, 291–­92.
124. Lawrence 1992.
125. Nizami 1992, 10–­15. Importantly, Nizām al-­Dīn also stressed that miracle mongering has no
place in spiritual life and is, in fact, a sign of spiritual imperfection.
126. Digby 1975, 24.
127. Schofield 2015, 408.
128. Schofield 2015, 416; Brown 2006, 62.
129. Schofield 2015, 410.
130. Behl 2012b, 34.
131. In technical terms, Sheldon Pollock explains, “Rasa—­a nd here is the common under-
standing—­is produced when certain ‘stable’ or primary emotions (sthāyibhāva) of ours
are fully developed by stimulation from a suitable object (ālambanavibhāva) under appro-
priate external conditions (uddīpanavibhāva), and nuanced by more evanescent feelings
(vyabhicāribhāva) that are themselves made manifest by physical reactions (anubhāva). All
this activates our own latent dispositions (vāsanās, saṃskāras) to respond sympatheti-
cally” (2001, 208–­9).
132. Miller 1977, 14–­17; Behl 2012a, 66–­68.
133. Pollock 2016, 285–­86.
134. Classically, sṛṅgāra usually refers to an embodied, romantic, sexual passion between two
comparable beings; e.g., a noble hero and heroine. The love between child and parent, dis-
ciple and guru, or, most certainly, devotee and God would not typically have been classified
as sṛṅgāra since these are loves between beings quite unlike (incomparable to) each other;
Hamsa Stainton, email messages to author, June 15, 2016. Bhakti rasa, then, was quite differ-
ent from sṛṅgāra rasa.
135. Pollock 2016. 302–­3.
136. Behl 2012b, 35–­36; Behl 2007, 322; Behl 2012a, 74.
137. Behl 2012a, 81.
138. Behl 2012a, 64.
139. Behl 2012a, 64–­65.
 338 9 2. Sultans, Saints, and Songs

140. The circulation of Kabīr’s poems clearly illustrates the complexities involved in distinguish-
ing a general bhakti public from a general Sufi public (and in determining the boundaries of
any given public). Poems attributed to Kabīr circulated among Sufi, Sikh, nirguṇ Sant, and
saguṇ Vaiṣṇava communities (as well as in nonsectarian devotional and entertainment con-
texts). As Thomas de Bruijn has demonstrated, these poems shared images, semantics, and
cultural references that could be decontextualized and relocated into contexts of meaning
specific to particular religious communities, a fact instrumental to the circulation of such
poems “in a field where the boundaries between religious communities were fluid and where
culture was being transmitted and valorized in a dialogic exchange . . . [​ that] was not
intended to bridge the differences between religions” (2014, 157).
141. Rosenwein 2006, 2.
142. Rosenwein 2006, 25–­26.
143. Cf. Finbarr Flood 2009, 5.
144. Cf. Lincoln 1989, 18.

3. Akbar’s New World

1. O’Hanlon 2007b, 889.

2. The term “Rajput” is a status title/category to which a variety of local groups, of differing
ethnicity but often with warrior backgrounds, assimilated themselves over time. While entry
of clans into the Rajput status group seems to have been relatively open at first (ca. eleventh
to twelfth centuries), over time genealogical purity was increasingly stressed and by the sev-
enteenth century Rajputs had essentially become a caste. See Tambs-­Lyche 1997, 86–­87; Kolff
1990, 71–­116.
3. Moin 2012a, 21.
4. Moin 2012a, 93.
5. Alam 2000, 229.
6. Alam 2000, 239. Far from a fixed Islamic “orthodoxy,” Islamic legal prescriptions in Mughal
India were subject to considerable interpretation in their application, and judicial deci-
sions were usually made according to local custom, not the injunctions of sharī‘a. See Eaton
2003a, 23.
7. Moin 2012a, 99, 103. This quote comes from the Tarikh-­i-­Rashidi (1540s), the chronicle of
Babur’s cousin, Mirza Haydar Dughlat, which also says, “Shaikh Pul had donned the guise of
a Sufi master and taught that spells and invocations were the best means to obtain one’s
true desire, and even that one’s true desire should be the attainment of these means. Since
[Humāyūn] had a temperament for such things, he soon became a disciple.”
8. We have clear evidence that the Mughal emperors Akbar, Jahāngīr, and Aurangzeb (and
probably Shāh Jahān as well) were interested in yogīs (and vice versa). We know that Akbar
visited and patronized certain Nāth yogī sites, summoned yogīs to court for lengthy private
conversations, and even took up some of their practices and customs (e.g., performing
alchemy with them and shaving the hair at the crown of his head); Jahāngīr regularly vis-
ited a gosain named Jadrūp; and Aurangzeb corresponded with yogīs and purchased quick-
silver from them in the 1660s; see Pinch 2006, 33, 51–­52, 55. These Mughal interactions with
yogīs should not be understood as instances of some sort of “interreligious dialogue,” for
they were driven by a curiosity and a pragmatic interest in supernormal power and esoteric
 3. Akbar’s New World = 339

knowledge that were natural features of the shared (transreligious) culture of the occult in
Mughal India.
9. Melvin-­Koushki 2016, 143; Moin 2012a, 125.
10. Moin 2012a, 126.
11. Until 1560, when Akbar took charge of his empire, ruling on his behalf was Bairām Khān
(1501–­1561), who had served under Babur when he conquered North India, accompanied
Humāyūn in his exile in Persia, and led Humāyūn’s army in defeating the Suris and reestab-
lishing Mughal rule. Bairām Khān’s military skill and leadership were vital to the consolida-
tion of Mughal control in Panjab, Delhi, Agra, and the Gangetic Plain during the contested
early years of Akbar’s reign.
12. Moin 2012a, 167.
13. Richards 1995, 31.
14. Faruqui 2005, 514.
15. Faruqui 2005, 508.
16. Faruqui 2005, 516.
17. Faruqui 2005, 515.
18. Faruqui 2005, 488.
19. Moin 2012b, 518.
20. Moin 2012a, 137.
21. Among the works attributed to Suhrawardī are several that praise and invoke the
angelic powers associated with (and occult properties of) the moon, planets, and stars.
As John Walbridge notes, this sort of occult devotional concern with celestial spirits
“makes perfect sense given the structure of his philosophical system, in which mystical
apprehension of the celestial lights is a tool for understanding the metaphysical struc-
ture of the universe” (2011, 93). It is important to distinguish the Suhrawardī of our
concern—­the Persian mystical philosopher Shihāb al-­Dīn Yaḥyā al-­Suhrawardī (d. 1191)—­
from his contemporary Shihāb al-­Dīn ‘Umar al-­Suhrawardī, the founder of the Suhrawardiya
Sufi order.
22. Melvin-­Koushki 2016, 147. Regarding the occult elements in his rule, it is noteworthy that
Akbar had his own Islamicate court geomancer, Hidāyat Allāh Muanjjim-­i Shīrāzī (fl. 1593),
who, upon Akbar’s request, composed a comprehensive manual of geomancy called Methods
of Guidance (Qavā’id al-­Hidāya) (146).
23. Kinra 2013, 261.
24. Sheffield 2014, 165.
25. Sheffield 2014, 165.
26. Sheffield 2014, 172. Dabistān 300–­01. As the Dabistān was itself composed by an Āzarī, the
historical veracity of its specific claims about Akbar’s and Abu al-­Fazl’s writing letters to
Āzar Kayvān and inviting him to India, and his sending them a book of his writings, must
be regarded with some suspicion. Nevertheless, Sheffield’s case for the influence (whether
direct or indirect) of Āzarī thought upon Akbar and his ṣulḥ-­i kull policy seems strong.
27. Alam 2003, 158.
28. Alam 2003, 159.
29. Lefèvre 2014, 87.
30. Alam 2003, 159.
31. Alam 2003, 162.
32. Truschke 2015, 252.
 340 9 3. Akbar’s New World

33. Truschke 2016, 234. Truschke’s book demonstrates how “the Mughal kings expended con-
siderable energy toward incorporating Sanskrit intellectuals, stories, and knowledge sys-
tems into their court culture” (231).
34. Truschke 2016, 246.
35. Lefèvre 2014, 79.
36. Busch 2014, 194.
37. Busch 2014, 194–­95.
38. The celebrated centralization of the Mughal state can give the false impression that the
Mughal Empire was a stable, reified structure, when in fact it was more a process, a constant
negotiation with a continuum of local actors and power centers whose fortunes constantly
waxed and waned. As Ramya Sreenivasan explains, when we talk about the administrative
centralization of the Mughal Empire and other early modern states, what we are really talk-
ing about is “the variable success of a ‘state’ in persuading local actors, both elite and non-­
elite, in accepting its writ for their own interests,” and since this persuasion “is perforce
ongoing and contested” then “the writ of the state is therefore typically contingent and
circumscribed” (2011, 987).
39. Habib 2002, 370–­85; Habib 1963. Habib’s basic argument has been disputed, and there is no
doubt he considerably overemphasized the centralization, uniformity, and pervasiveness
of the “Mughal agrarian system” (see Alam and Subrahmanyam 1998, 12–­16; Asher and Tal-
bot 2006, 270–­72), but a general conclusion that many (though not all) peasant populations
were impoverished and disempowered by exploitative agrarian revenue policies is attested
by the reports of European travelers to Mughal India and, in my view, seems sound. For a
useful analysis, qualification, and complication of Habib’s original argument (1963), attend-
ing to differences in types of peasantry (those in khalisa lands versus those in jagir lands)
and types of villages (zamindari versus raiyati villages) and to the impact and extent of the
monetization of the Mughal economy, yet confirming how the Mughal agrarian system
(and its revenue demands) furthered urbanization and commerce while depriving many
peasants of the vast majority of the agrarian surplus they produced, see Raychaudhuri
(1965) 1998.
40. For a summary (and critique) of Habib’s speculations on how the Sultanate-­Mughal eco-
nomic system affected North India’s bhakti movement, see Krishna Sharma 1987, 31–­34. For
some fascinating insights on seemingly parallel developments in the Deccan at roughly the
same time, where the rising presence of bhakti institutions and soldiering groups (often
linked to monasteries) seems to have been linked to the dispossession of the peasantry by
the political economy developing in the Deccan in the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, see
Devadevan 2016, 111–­60. Drawing on a combination of the work by Habib (1963, 2002), Dirk
Kolff (1990), William Pinch (1996, 2006), and Devadevan (2016), one might speculate that the
phenomenon of warrior monks (i.e., organized sectarian ascetic militias) in early modern
North India, which peaked in the unsettled political landscape of the Mughal eighteenth
century, was intimately linked to the desperate economic situation of peasants who sought
food and employment at or through sectarian monasteries. These monasteries’ rising
economic-­political power and interests (as landholders and major players in transregional
networks of commerce) increasingly required the support of military labor, which peas-
ants and organized ascetic militias could provide.
41. Dalmia and Faruqui 2014, xii–­x iv.
42. Moin 2014, 263.
 3. Akbar’s New World = 341

43. Dalmia and Faruqui 2014, xiv.

44. Asher and Talbot 2006, 108.
45. Pinch 2009.
46. Sheikh 2010, 130–­75.
47. Sheikh 2010, 135.
48. Orsini and Sheikh 2014, 42–­43.
49. Vaudeville 1976, 204–­8.
50. Eck 1991.
51. Pauwels 2009, 210–­11, 223.
52. Erndl 1993, 43.
53. Ghosh 2005.
54. Dold 2009.
55. McDermott 2001, 8.
56. Gold and Gold 1984; Gold and Nath 1992.
57. Pinch 2006, 195–­211. See also, on the Śaktism of Rajput martial culture, Tambs-­Lyche 1997,
96–­120. On the expanding military labor market of Sultanate and Mughal India, see Kolff
1990; Sunil Sharma 2014. Tambs-­Lyche stresses how indispensable the Goddess ( Śākti) is in
the martial culture of the Rajputs, in particular as “the power behind the foundation of each
Rajput lineage” (111).
58. As the work of Rachel McDermott (2001) (on Bengali goddess traditions) and Ann and Daniel
Gold (1984) (on the Nāths in Rajasthan) attests, in some cases tantric Śaivism and Śāktism
were not supplanted or demoted and actually maintained a central place, but often in
modified, “devotionalized” forms reflecting the rise and influence of bhakti attitudes and
approaches.
59. Moran 2013, 22–­24.
60. Vaudeville 1976, 204–­13; Vaudeville 1980, 12, 15n36; Rana 2006, 127–­28, 131–­34.
61. Rana 2006, 125. Rana argues as follows: “Vaishnavism in the Braj country was primarily the
religious universe of high-­caste Hindus. It could even be termed an official religion, for it
was closely aligned to the Mughal empire and the Amber state during the seventeenth cen-
tury. Its patrons and practitioners lived off the surplus product of the peasants, who largely
belonged to the lower castes. These peasants and the peers of their caste had their own
views on religion” (131–­32).
62. Guha 1997, 47–­50. Following a Marxist line of interpretation seemingly originating with D.
D. Kosambi, Guha says the bhakti mode of religion is “an ideology of subordination par excel-
lence” that has been used throughout Indian history as a means to “spiritualiz[e] the efforts
and frustrations experienced by the lower classes in the labor they provided to the elite”
and thus make submission “appear self-­induced, voluntary, and collaborative.”
63. Sangari 1990. David Lorenzen (1995b, 189–­92) has also written eloquently on this paradoxical
bhakti sociology in which bhakti can support (especially in its saguṇī forms) or challenge/
subvert (especially in its nirguṇī forms) traditional hierarchical varṇāśramadharma ideology.
Krishna Sharma (1987, 29–­34) has usefully shown how the Marxist historical approach to
bhakti can be and has been used to present bhakti in completely contradictory fashions, as
either “a corollary of the feudal order” (justifying servitude) or as “a revolt of the lower
classes,” depending on the orientation of the particular scholar.
64. In its first century of existence, the Dādū Panth comprised Hindus, Muslims, and castes
ranging from brahman to artisan to Jāṭ; Horstmann 2017, 2.
 342 9 3. Akbar’s New World

65. Lorenzen argues, importantly, that North India’s nirguṇ bhakti communities tended to orig-
inate among artisan and other lower-­middle-­class groups and then to have spread among
peasants in the countryside, and that their nirguṇ devotion should be seen as “an ideologi-
cal and religious contestation to saguṇ bhakti (at the same time that it appropriates many of
the latter’s basic beliefs and practices)” (1995a, 21). Undoubtedly, there are major differ-
ences in the social ideologies of saguṇ and nirguṇ bhakti traditions, which Lorenzen’s essay
clearly highlights; however, in this book I deliberately highlight aspects of bhakti sensibili-
ties that were shared across class and caste, nirguṇ and saguṇ, boundaries.
66. As Hawley states, “the garment we call Vaishnavism was never a one-­size-­fits-­a ll affair.”
Hawley has argued that in late Sultanate and Mughal India, despite differences (even con-
flicts) of perspective within it (e.g., Kabīr versus Tulsīdās), there was a common, nonsectar-
ian “vulgate Vaishnavism” that was both broad and strong in its shared use of specifically
Vaiṣṇava names of God and, I would add, in its shared ethical, aesthetic, and emotional
sensibilities; see Hawley 2016, 155–­56, 160–­61. The loose Vaiṣnavism of nirguṇ bhakti tradi-
tions is also illustrated by their use of the word “Vaiṣṇava” as a synonym for bhakta and
their active, fond remembering of the stories of ideal bhaktas (e.g., Dhruva, Prahlād), all
drawn from Vaiṣṇava Purāṇas, especially the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. See Lath 1999, 102–­3.
67. Mahesh Sharma 2009, 72–­76, 135–­37.
68. Śīlā-­devī was the tutelary deity of the Bengali king Pratāpāditya (1561–­1611), but Mān Singh
Kacchvāhā, trusted general to the Mughal emperor Akbar, took the śakti-­filled murti of Śilā-­
devī upon defeating Kedār Rājā (who served Pratāpāditya) in Jessore, bringing it (along
with its hereditary priests) from Bengal to Rajasthan, where he installed it (and where it is
still worshipped today) in the Kacchvāhā family fortress at Amer.
69. Schwartz 2012b.
70. Cf. White 2003, 147–­50; see also Tambs-­Lyche 1997, 96–­170.
71. The sixteenth-­century poet and Kṛṣṇa devotee Harirām Vyās, for instance, is, in a number
of poems, quite critical of warlords and rulers who see bhakti as a “trendy status symbol for
the socially upwardly mobile,” even advising bhaktas to give up the company of kings, since
they are lechers who will make you forget God; Pauwels 2009, 221–­22, 217–­18.
72. Pinch 2006, 19.
73. Orsini and Sheikh 2014, 43.
74. Davidson 2002.
75. O’Hanlon 2007b, 889.
76. Alam and Subrahmanyam 1998, 21; Richards 1995, 56.
77. Kumkum Chatterjee 2009, 157–­58.
78. Kumkum Chatterjee 2009, 157–­58.
79. Richards 1998a, 128–­29.
80. Richards 1998a, 129. While Richards presents the Mughal imperial system of Akbar as the
agent responsible for a change in Rajput values, the work of Norman Ziegler suggests a
more complicated picture in which Rajput kingdoms were centralizing and, relatedly,
Rajput values were shifting prior to Akbar’s reign. Ziegler shows that in the early sixteenth
century, prior to Akbar’s accession to the throne, a strong centralization of authority
occurred in the various Rajput kingdoms of Rajasthan based on the exercise of “prebendal
domain,” a system in which land was not inherited through membership in a kinship group,
as it long had been, but was given by a ruler to his officials in return for loyalty and military
service to the state. By the time of Akbar’s rule, these “new patterns of authority and control
 3. Akbar’s New World = 343

had become established norms in Rajasthan and did much to shape the Rajput response to
and eventual incorporation into the Mughal empire” (1994, 198–­200, 210).
81. Ziegler 1998, 276.
82. Ziegler 1998, 268.
83. Richards 1998a, 129.
84. Rajputs had little difficulty accepting Mughal authority because the Mughals appeared like
them in assigning status and rank primarily “in terms of power to protect and to give sus-
tenance and rewards” (Ziegler 1976, 241).
85. Alam 2004, 139.
86. Truschke 2016, 40.
87. Bhagavati Singh 1957, 110–­11.
88. Truschke 2016, 204–­5.
89. Truschke 2016, 39.
90. Famous for ecstatic public dancing and the singing of the names of God, Kṛṣṇa Caitanya
based himself in Puri but wandered the Indian subcontinent, supposedly meeting Rūpa and
Sanātana on his way from Braj to Bengal. The corpus of literature dedicated to his life—­nine
biographies within less than one hundred years of his death—­attests to the enthusiastic fol-
lowing he generated (Hawley 2015b, 166–­68). He is considered by many Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas to
have been a divine incarnation of Kṛṣṇa Caitanya himself in inseparable union with Rādhā.
91. Haberman 1994, 32.
92. The other four members of the Six Gosvāmīs are Gopāl Bhaṭṭ, the supposed author of the
Haribhaktivilāsa; Raghunāthdās; Raghunāth Bhaṭṭ; and Jīva Gosvāmi, the nephew of Rūp and
Sanātan who succeeded them as the highest authority on matters of doctrine.
93. Entwistle 1987, 146–­47.
94. Haberman 1994, 33, 48.
95. Hawley 2015b, 162.
96. Asher and Talbot 2006, 116.
97. Asher and Talbot 2006, 34–­35.
98. In the sixteenth century, “the collection of principalities in the region of Rajasthan was
culturally homogeneous with the adjacent regions of Gujarat and Sindh, and had no dis-
tinctive collective identity that distinguished it from them. Only later, at the close of the
eighteenth century, did they become identified with the unifying force of the ruling caste
and referred to as ‘Rajasthan’ or ‘Rajputana’ ” (Hastings 2002, 48–­49).
99. Hastings 2002, 52.
100. When Rāja Bhārmal’s eldest daughter, Hira Kunwar (a.k.a. Harkah), became the first Rajput
wife of Akbar, she was given the title Mariam-­u z-­Zamānī, but today she is often popularly
known as Jodhā Bāī. There is, however, no evidence that the name Jodhā Bāī was ever used
during her lifetime; rather, it seems to have been first used in eighteenth-­century histori-
cal writings. Confusion and controversy have resulted—­particularly in the wake of the
release of the Bollywood film Jodhaa Akbar in 2008—­f rom the fact that the wife of Jahāngīr,
Princess Manmati of Jodhpur, has also been addressed as Jodha Bai. See Ashley D’Mello,
“Fact, myth blend in re-­look at Akbar-­Jodhabai,” Times of India, December 10, 2005, https:​­//
timesofindia​­. indiatimes​­. com​­/city​­/mumbai​­/ Fact​­- ­m yth​­- b
­ lend​­- ­i n​­- ­r e​­- ­l ook​­- ­a t​­- ­A kbar​
­-­Jodhabai​­/articleshow​­/1326242​­.cms​­?.
101. Sarkar 1984, 37.
102. Sarkar 1984, 36.
 344 9 3. Akbar’s New World

103. Hastings 2002, 63.

104. Keay 2000, 313.
105. O’Hanlon 2007a, 365.
106. The power of the Kacchvāhās of Amer in Rajasthan itself, particularly in terms of territo-
rial control, was far more limited than their imperial position and influence might suggest.
In her research on Mān Singh, Ramya Sreenivasan (2014a, 554–­56) shows how their regional
power and control were actively contested by other Kacchvāhā clan segments in other
parts of Rajasthan, such as the Shekhavats.
107. Chandra 1993, 23, 32. Research by Omkar Nath Upadhyay indicates that at Akbar’s death
in 1605 nearly 70 percent of the Rajputs within the nobility of the Mughal court were
Kacchvāhās (Hastings 2002, 64n74). Regarding “hiccups” in Kacchvāhā influence at the
Mughal court, Mān Singh’s relationship with Jahāngīr was somewhat fraught because Mān
Singh had supported Akbar’s younger son Khusrau’s claim to the throne over Jahāngīr. On
the key role of Mīrzā Rāja Jai Singh I in Mughal rule and the decline of Kacchvāhā influence
at the Mughal court after his death, see Kling 1993, 61–­181.
108. Richards 1995, 38.
109. Bilgrami 1984, xix.
110. Haberman 1994, 35.
111. Horstmann 1999, 2.
112. Kumkum Chatterjee 2009, 156. For a look at the specific contents of these Mughal docu-
ments related to the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas in Vrindavan (ca. 1560–­1730), collected by Tarapada
Mukherji, see Habib 1996.
113. Richardson 1979, 32, 35–­37.
114. Asher and Talbot 2006, 137–­38.
115. Haberman 1994, 35.
116. On how “the dynamics of a healthy pilgrimage center bound together the mutual interests
of king, temple, and merchants,” see Peabody 1991, 750–­51.
117. Kumkum Chatterjee 2009, 157.
118. Rana 2006, 126–­29; Habib 1963, 319–­46.
119. Eaton 1978, 217.
120. Novetzke 2016, 97–­101. Novetzke discusses Yadava patronage of the Viṭṭhal temple in Pand-
harpur, Maharashtra (ca. 1189–­1317), as an indication of the state acknowledging the bhakti
public as a political force and seeing the value in supporting the quotidian world of bhakti.
121. Mughal patronage of Vaiṣṇavas in Braj, as elsewhere, also served to appease and gain the
trust of Hindus, who from time to time came into conflict with Muslims. Edwin Richardson
cites a specific incident in Mathura in 1577 in which a brahman was executed by the local
qazi for cursing the Prophet and building an “idol temple” using materials intended for the
construction of a mosque; he asserts that it was no coincidence that Akbar’s first grant to
the nearby Vallabha sampradāy occurred just a few months after this potentially rebellion-­
inciting event. This incident is recorded in al-­Badāunī’s Munktakhab al-­Tawārīkh and dis-
cussed in Richardson 1979, 40–­42.
122. In 1608, Jahāngīr married another Kacchvāhā princess, Mān Singh’s granddaughter Kolia
Kumārī. See Glynn 2000, 231.
123. There is no doubt the Mughals were in Mān Singh’s debt, for as perhaps their greatest mili-
tary commander, “No less than one half of the conquests of Akbar’s reign were [made] pos-
sible mainly due to [his] matchless valour,” and at great sacrifice, for nine out of ten of Mān
Singh’s sons gave their lives in imperial military operations; Tikkiwal 1974, 5–­6.
 3. Akbar’s New World = 345

124. Entwistle 1987, 160.

125. Horstmann 1999, 2.
126. Asher and Talbot 2006, 149.
127. Haberman 1994, 36.
128. Horstmann 1999, 7. In 1633, Shāh Jahān put the Kacchvāhās in direct charge of Govindadev
(after which the administration of grants to the temple became vested in the Kacchvāhā
chancery), and their close link with that divine image endures today. Housed in Vrindavan
until the reign of Aurangzeb, at that time fear of the image’s destruction led devotees to
remove it to the safety of Rajasthan, where it was eventually housed by Savāī Jai Singh II in
the Govindadev temple of Jaipur’s royal palace, where it presently stands.
129. Entwistle 1987, 160. The Shekhavat Kacchvāhās were based to the northwest of the Rajavat
Kacchvāhas of Amer, were independent of their control, and “achieved a measure of impe-
rial recognition in their own right from the Mughal emperors,” thus “limit[ing] their
Amber cousins’ territorial expansion to the north” (Sreenivasan 2014a, 556).
130. Haberman 1994, 36.
131. Horstmann 1999, 7.
132. Hawley 2015b, 115.
133. Horstmann 2002, 156. This evidence, a confirmation of Akbar’s grants dated 1640, unfortu-
nately does not list the precise date of the grant to the Galta Rāmānandīs.
134. Pinch 1999, 392–­93.
135. That the earliest two temples in Galta were dedicated to Hanumān specifically is a signifi-
cant fact that I discuss in detail in chapter 4.
136. Horstmann 2002, 155–­57.
137. The honorific title of mīrzā was usually reserved for male members of the Timurid royal
line. That Shāh Jahān bestowed this title upon the Hindu Rajput Jai Singh I speaks volumes
about the importance of, and respect allotted to, this Kacchvāhā king in the Mughal Empire.
See Glynn 2000, 233–­34.
138. Horstmann 2002, 157.
139. Asher and Talbot 2006, 225–­26.
140. Kinra 2013, 263.
141. Asher and Talbot 2006, 227.
142. Asher 1996, 215.
143. Asher notes that Mān Singh built temples for personal reasons (e.g., to honor deceased fam-
ily members) and political reasons, and that “local lore or cult images frequently played a
role in the rājā’s patronage, in particular when associated with a military or political vic-
tory” (1996, 220).
144. Asher and Talbot 2006, 148–­49.
145. As Catherine Asher shows, “Rāja Mān Singh can be considered an innovator of Mughal
taste, not simply an imitator” (1992, 185).
146. Asher 1992, 183.
147. Hastings 2002, 64–­65.
148. Williams 2014, 93.
149. Williams 2008.
150. Williams 2014, 252.
151. Williams 2014, 249–­50.
152. Williams 2014, 250.
153. Busch 2015, 255.
 346 9 3. Akbar’s New World

154. See, for instance, Bangha 2015, 359–­60.

155. Hastings 2002, 16; Williams 2014, 64–­65n123. Despite this new and massive production of
written texts among bhakti communities, in early modern India knowledge continued to be
“located primarily in persons” rather than in written texts, which “were not considered
independent sources of knowledge, but were appendages to the personal pedagogical rela-
tionships through which knowledge was transferred. . . . ​Correspondingly, those in search
of knowledge looked for a master rather than a bookshop or library” (Green 2009, 3, 24).
156. The introduction of paper to India occurred in the fourteenth century and does not explain
the sudden growth of vernacular writing and manuscripts in North India in the late six-
teenth century. Despite the availability of paper beginning circa 1400, many Hindu artists
and craftsmen continued to use the traditional, but far more restrictive, medium of palm
leaves, only slowly shifting to the use of paper, which even then they seldom bound but
rather kept in loose stacks that were wrapped in cloth and tied in bundles. See Beach 1992,
1–­2.
157. Williams 2008.
158. Williams 2014, 277.
159. As James Hastings writes, “From the time of Akbar, there was no attempt by the Emperor or
his administration to meddle in internal affairs of the loyal Rajput states, with the excep-
tion of succession disputes, as long as they provided no threat to Mughal hegemony. . . . ​
There was no political turmoil and no war to contend with, for the wars were always fought
somewhere else; and succession, supervised by the Mughal Emperors, was for the most part
orderly. . . . ​For religious communities in Amer in the late sixteenth and most of the seven-
teenth century, there was relatively more freedom to experiment and to express their spir-
ituality, a good deal of patronage, and not much need for a high degree of organization”
(2002, 66–­67).
160. Williams 2014, 102, 281.
161. Busch 2011, 167.
162. Pauwels 2009, 210–­11.
163. Pauwels 2009, 223.

4. Between Bhakti and Śakti

1. Bhairava Śiva is typically represented as a fearsome ascetic, standing nearly naked with
gaping fanged mouth, rage-­filled eyes, disheveled matted dreadlocks, a garland of skulls
around his neck, and live serpents coiled around his arms and ankles. Accompanied by a
dog, Bhairava usually holds a skull, a trident, a sword, and a noose.
2. Lutgendorf (2007, 238–­39) notes that both Hanumān and Bhairava are commonly found on
the outskirts of rural villages, where they are worshipped as protective deities guarding
against the entry of malevolent spiritual forces.
3. The version of the legend that follows was related to me by several sādhūs and devotee pil-
grims during visits to Galta in 2007–­2008 and has been confirmed and slightly supple-
mented with accounts from several Hindi sources, including an 1889 account by Sukhsāraṇ
and the account given by Rūpkalā in his early twentieth-­century commentary on Nābhādās’s
Bhaktamāl. See Sant Sukhsāraṇjī 2000; Nābhājī 2009, 305. For another scholarly narration of
this popular story, see Pinch 2006, 18–­19.
 4. Between Bhakti and Śakti = 347

4. Some scholars discuss Payahārī’s feeding the tiger from the flesh of his own leg as a sepa-
rate incident from his encounter with Tārānāth meant to show the extent of his self-­
effacing generosity and hospitality to guests.
5. In the Indian popular imagination, the donkey (gadhā) is known for its constant grazing,
seemingly eating all the time and never getting full. Like the English “jackass,” the word
gadhā is also a term of derision for a fool or idiot.
6. Nāth yogīs are often called Kānphaṭas because of their split (phaṭa) ears (kān) and huge
earrings. In the final stage of their initiation ceremony, the guru splits the central hol-
lows/cartilage of both ears with a knife or razor; the slits are plugged with nīm wood, and,
after they have healed, large rings (mudrā) are inserted. These earrings are a marker of
full initiation and major symbol of faith and power for Nāths. Some explain that splitting
the ears opens a nadi (mystic channel) that assists in their acquisition of yogic power
(Briggs 1938, 6). One Nāth yogī explained to Ann and Daniel Gold that “the [ear] cartilages
were the site of a nexus of bodily senses; thus, boring holes through the cartilages would
bring the senses under control and give inner peace” and that there was constant tension
in wearing the earrings, for if they “should ever tear through the ear and fall to the
ground” the yogī would lose all his power (1984, 127). In some versions of the Galta legend,
Payahārī causes the earrings of all the Nāth yogīs at Galta to fall out and gather into a pile
before him. James Mallinson notes that while many kinds of ascetics wore earrings, only
the Nāths came to be known for wearing them through the cartilages (not the lobes) of
their ears, though there is some debate about when they adopted this distinctive sectar-
ian identity marker. He also points out that the label “Kānphaṭa Yogī” is considered derog-
atory and eschewed by Nāths themselves, who prefer the designation “Darśanī Yogī”
(2011b, 418–­19).
7. Still today one can visit the cave in Galta to see Payahārī’s continuously burning dhūnī and
the place where he is said to have meditated and performed tapas.
8. G. N. Bahura, for instance, writes that Tārānāth “had a discussion with Kṛṣṇdāsa Payohārī to
preach the supremacy of his sect but was ultimately defeated by the Rāmānandī sage” and
then left Galta (1976, 25). Similarly, Motīlāl Menāriyā (2006, 49) states that Payahārī defeated
Pṛthvīrāj’s Nāth guru—­whom he identifies as Caturnāth, not Tārānāth—­in śāstrārth, i.e.,
doctrinal debate, and thus obtained the gaddī of Galta. Menāriya is one of several scholars to
identify Pṛthvīrāj’s Nāth guru as Caturnāth. Ghurye ([1953] 1964, 166) and Bahura (1976, 25)
state this Caturnāth was in fact the disciple of Tārānāth but supply no evidence.
9. Horstmann 2002, 145–­46.
10. Chappay 116; Nābhājī 2009, 724.
11. While their social influence is beyond doubt, whether the Nāths exercised widespread or
significant political influence is a matter of debate. Scholars such as David Gordon White
and Véronique Bouillier argue that they were important political players, while scholars
such as James Mallinson point out that the reliable historical evidence we have at hand
speaks to only a few isolated incidents of Nāths exercising political power in Rajasthan and
the Himalayas. Datable evidence aside, a host of oral traditions in Rajasthan, Nepal, and Kullu
do suggest—­at least in memory and in these specific areas—­a close relationship between
yogīs and kings.
12. Davidson 2002, 234.
13. White 1996, 7.
14. Pinch 2006, 20.
 348 9 4. Between Bhakti and Śakti

15. Against the grain of the larger trend toward Vaiṣṇavization, Nāth yogīs maintained a close
relationship with royal power in Nepal and in some places in Rajasthan. On the Nāths in
Nepal, see Bouillier 1997; Bouillier 1992. In Rajasthan, particularly noteworthy is the case of
Mahārāja Mān Singh (r. 1803–­1842) of Marwar, who obtained the Jodhpur throne with the
help of a Nāth yogī, Ayas Dev Nāth, and thereafter resolved to rule Marwar in accordance with
the advice of the Nāths, who consequently enjoyed nearly forty years of unprecedented
wealth and power in his kingdom. See Gold 1995; Diamond 2000.
16. Tobdan 2000, 18.
17. Tobdan 2000, 51.
18. Part 2, sect. 38 of Hardayal Singh, Majmua Tawarikh Riyaste Kohistan-­Panjab, Part III, Kullu
(1885), translated in Tobdan 2000, 83. On the potential agenda/bias in the Pahari adminis-
trator Hardayal Singh’s late nineteenth-­century history, see Moran 2013, 3–­4.
19. Conversation with Kamal Kishore Sharma “Kaushik,” a Kullu rājpurohit, scholar, and family
member of the overseers of Raghunāth Mandir (Kullu, July 15, 2011).
20. Tobdan 2000, 51–­52. Tobdan gives a more detailed telling that relies upon two versions of a
no longer extant text, the Kullu royal family genealogy, the Vaṃśāvalī, which records the
history of Kullu and its rulers’ lives.
21. Tobdan 2000, 52.
22. Conversation with Danvender Singh, priest in Kullu’s Raghunāth Temple (Kullu, July 15,
2011).
23. Kavitt 199–­220; Nābhājī 2009, 303–­4.
24. Jyāī 1968, 17.
25. Goswamy and Grewal 1969, 7.
26. Goswamy and Grewal 1969, 7–­8; Goswamy 1997, 552.
27. Jyāī 1968, 18; Goswamy and Grewal 1969, 1, 6.
28. Pindori tradition is firm in claiming Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī as Bhagvān-­jī’s guru, but in a number
of Rāmānandī written sources (including Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl) and at all the Rāmānandī
sites I have visited in Rajasthan, Bhagvān-­jī is remembered as a disciple of Agradās’s (who was
Payahārī’s direct disciple), a scenario that fits far better with the chronology of the available
evidence.
29. Goswamy and Grewal 1969, 5.
30. Burghart 1978, 127.
31. Jyāī 1968, 11.
32. Goswamy and Grewal 1969, 10; Jyāī 1968, 31–­34.
33. Goswamy and Grewal 1969, 5–­6.
34. Goswamy and Grewal 1969, 6.
35. Tales that specifically construct themselves as being about “Rāmānandīs” and “Nāths”
very likely cannot date before the eighteenth century because it was probably not until
then that these labels were used as community designators. The term “Rāmānandī” does
not seem to have been used as a self-­designation prior to the 1730s. Similarly, Mallinson has
argued that the term “Nāth” does not refer to an organized sampradāy until the early eigh-
teenth century. See Horstmann 2002, 145; Mallinson 2011c, 331n20.
36. Pauwels 2002, 15. For an in-­depth study of the Bhaktamāl and its commentarial tradition,
see Hare 2011a.
37. There are debates surrounding the dating of Rāghav’s Bhaktamāl, with 1713 and 1720 also
having been posited, but the weight of the evidence is heavily on the side of the 1660 date,
 4. Between Bhakti and Śakti = 349

since, as Monika Horstmann (2000, 515n9) has astutely pointed out, only this year corre-
lates with the weekday and lunar timing in Rāghav’s colophon. See also Rāghavdās 1965.
38. Of the fifty-­t wo Vaiṣṇava dvārās (initiatory lineages, or “gateways to the Lord”) established—­
reputedly at an early eighteenth-­century conference held in Galta—­thirty-­six were founded
by Rāmānandīs, and of those thirty-­six clans founded by the supposed disciples of Rāmānand,
twenty-­seven came from Anantānand and his lineage.
39. Chappay 38; translated in Horstmann 2002, 150–­51. Horstmann follows the verse numbers in
the Rūpkalā edition of the Bhaktamāl (i.e., Nābhājī 2009).
40. In chappay 39, Nābhādās lists Payahārī’s twenty-­three disciples, all of whom “crossed the
ocean of existence” by his grace: Kīlha, Agar, Keval, Caraṇ, Nārāyaṇ, Sūraj, Puruṣoṃ, Pṛthu,
Tipur, Padmanābh, Gopāl, Ṭek, Ṭīlā, Gadādharī, Devā, Hem, Kalyān, Gaṇgā, Vishnudās, Kan-
har, Raṇgā, Cāndan, and Sabīrī. Our next oldest source, the Dādūpanthī Rāghavdās’s
Bhaktamāl, lists twenty-­one of these disciples but fails to mention Gadādharī and Ṭek as
Payahārī’s disciples (chappay 154); Rāghavdās 1965, 69.
41. Kuṇḍaliyā 213; translated in Horstmann 2002, 151.
42. Chappay 116; translated in Horstmann 2002, 153.
43. McGregor 1983, 237. In my own research in the manuscript archives of Rajasthan and
Uttar Pradesh, the only texts I have been able to find attributed to Payahārī are the
Dānlīlā (which seems to be incorrectly attributed to him rather than Kṛṣṇadās of the
Puṣti Mārg’s aṣtachāp) and the Sahasranāmāvalī, a text that seems to be essentially a list
of names of God. I found two manuscripts of this latter text attributed to Payahārī, one
in Udaipur from the nineteenth century and another, older one in Jodhpur, dated v.s.
1808 (1751 CE).
44. Chand 152a; translation mine. When not otherwise indicated, translations are my own.
45. Horstmann 2002, 152.
46. The very fact of a Rāmānandī—­not a Gauḍiya, a Puṣṭi Margi, or Rādhā Vallabhī—­w riting in
Vrindavan, that great center of Kṛṣṇa devotion, and writing on haṭha yoga (not bhakti), is
itself noteworthy and speaks to the diversity, shared spaces, and porousness of boundaries
in the Hindu religious world of even early eighteenth-­century North India.
47. Mallinson 2005, 112.
48. Mallinson 2005, 112.
49. Payahārī did present Rājā Pṛthvīrāj with the deity Sītārām-­jī, in the form of a śālagrām
stone, and the deity’s name could possibly allude to an amorous unity of Sītā and Rām sug-
gestive of a rasik sensibility. Yugalpriyā’s Rasik-­P rakāś-­Bhaktamāl (v. 12) clearly describes
Payahārī as a rasik, calling him a “worshipper of the tradition [rītī] of ras” and a “pledge
holder [vratdhari] of Sītā”; however, this late (1839) sectarian text can hardly be trusted to
give us an accurate historical depiction of the sixteenth-­century Payahārī’s actual religios-
ity. See Yugalpriyā-­śaraṇjī 1961 (v.s. 2018).
50. The word bhajan has come to take on the limited meaning of “devotional song” and is often
translated in this way, but the word is actually a verbal noun indicating the doing of bhakti,
which includes but exceeds devotional songs and chanting. Some scholars have translated
bhajan as “worship,” but the connotations of that word are also not sufficient. While the per-
formance of bhakti certainly involves devotional singing as one of its key components, it goes
well beyond both that practice and those normally associated with pūjā (the word that “wor-
ship” usually translates), thus in most cases, as here, I have chosen to translate bhajan as
“doing bhakti.”
 350 9 4. Between Bhakti and Śakti

51. The word sumiraṇ, translated here as “remembrance,” in the early modern bhakti context
usually refers to remembering the Lord either in chanting the divine Name or in rasik visu-
alization meditation practice.
52. Chappay 40. In this and all other of my translations of Nābhā’s Bhaktamāl, I use the numbering
and text of the oldest extant version of the work, that available in Jhā’s edition (Nābhājī 1978).
53. Dohā 4. śrī guru agradev ājñā daī bhaktan kau jasu gāy / bhavsāgar ke taran kau nāhin ān upāy //
54. Pinch 1999; Hare 2011b, chap. 2.
55. Dohā 1a. bhakta bhakti bhagvant guru catur nām vapu ek /
56. Chappay 180:5. agar anug gun baranate sītāpati tihi hoī bas /
57. Chappay 39 (Nābhājī 1978). Translation based on Horstmann 2002, 155, but with a few revi-
sions of my own. I am grateful to Dalpat Rajpurohit for his assistance with this verse. The
chief alteration I have made to Horstmann’s translation comes in 39:4, brahmarandhra kari
gaun bhaye hari tan karnī bal, which she renders, “He proceeded to the brahmarandhra, by the
grace of Hari subduing his body.” The difficulty comes in adequately translating the second
half of the verse—­hari tan karnī bal—­which, among many possibilities, could also be “by the
power [bal] of [his] practice/deeds [karnī], he removed [hari] [himself] [from his] body [tan]”;
or, “through the power [bal] of Hari [God] acting [karnī] within/upon his body [tan].”
58. In the context of bhakti literature, the “recollection” that is smaraṇa refers especially to
recalling the narratives of Kṛṣṇa or Rām in ritual retelling, recitation, or visualization.
59. Mallinson states that the brahmarandra “usually refers to either the region at the top of the
Suṣumṇā nāḍī or the nāḍī itself” and that it corresponds to the area on the top of the skull
called the daśamadvāra, or “tenth door,” noting that it is also often identified with the
sahasrāra cakra (2007, 205n240).
60. Fitzgerald 2012, 48.
61. Ghurye (1953) 1964, 175.
62. The Fatehpur manuscript consists mainly of the pads of Surdās (262 in total) but also con-
tains 149 pads by other bhakti poets, including Nāmdev (11), Kabīr (15), Raidās (8), and others
such as Kīlha. It was most likely commissioned by a Kacchvāhā ṭhākur residing in Fatehpur
(Śekhāvaṭī) in eastern Rajasthan. See Bahura 1983, 21–­22.
63. Or, “I am not this body, I am no one, and I do not do anything.”
64. Bahura 1982, 192–­93. I am indebted to Dalpat Rajpurohit for his crucial assistance in tran-
scribing and translating both these Kīlha poems from the manuscripts.
65. Kīlha jī kā Pad (Vidya Bhuṣan Sangrah—­Jaipur RORI), MSS no. 34 (102).
66. Chappay 155.
67. Bhāgavata Purāṇa XI.15.1–­36.
68. Rāthaur 2003, 24; emphasis added.
69. In some bhakti communities (the Sikh P­ anth, Dādu ­Panth, and Kabīr Panth, for instance)
definitive forms and compilations of this literature would become the focal point of devo-
tional activities.
70. Chand 160. The use of the word pativrat may suggest a rasik sensibility; i.e., Nābhā’s devo-
tional practice may have involved visualizations in which he took on a feminine role in
serving Rām and Sītā.
71. Chappay 165.
72. Chappay 174. aṣṭāṅg jog tan tyagiyau dvārikadās jānai dunī / . . . b​ al bhajan ke jñān khaḍag māyā
hanī /
73. Dohā 193. kāhū ke bal jagya jog kau kul karnī kī ās / bhaktanām mālā agar ur basau narāyandās //
 4. Between Bhakti and Śakti = 351

74. Hare 2011b, 43. Nābhādās’s authorship of two aṣṭayāms is more evidence of a rasik orienta-
tion, since these texts describe in detail the activities of Rām and Sītā during the eight
periods of the day, information vital to rasik smaraṇa (“recollection” practices).
75. Moran 2013, 6–­7.
76. Matthew Clark’s work on the origins of the Daśanāmi sampradāy supports this general pic-
ture, for he suggests that in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Daśanāmi order
brought together ascetic lineages of quite disparate backgrounds, including more orthodox,
brahmanical, sedentary monastic lineages and more heterodox, peripatetic, low-­caste, and
(sometimes) militant lineages (2006, 227).
77. Bouillier 2018, 322.
78. Bouillier 2018, 82–­83, 322.
79. Bouillier 2018, 322.
80. Chappays 166 and 167.
81. Rāghavdās names Kīlha’s and Agra’s disciples in chappays 158 and 159.
82. Rāghavdās, chappay 169.
83. Though the compound bhakti yoga is used only once in the entire text (14.26), in the Bhaga-
vad Gītā, bhakti is presented primarily as a devotional type of yoga—­that is, as a disciplined
concentration of all one’s mental faculties on Kṛṣṇa. Bhakti is integrated with yoga as a sort
of nonattached, God-­focused, everyday orientation toward social duties (karma) and as a
theistic meditational technique to achieve liberating divine gnosis ( jñāna) without social
renunciation (saṃnyāsa). Having redefined the true saṃnyāsi (renouncer) as a yogī-­in-­the-­
world—­one who “renounces” selfish intention and thus performs necessary actions with-
out attachment to their fruits (6.1–­2)—­K ṛṣṇa goes on in the text to place the yogī above all
other religious practitioners (6.46) and to state furthermore that, “Of all the yogīs, the one
most yoked to Me is he who does bhakti to Me with faith [śraddhāvān bhajate] and whose
inner self is absorbed in Me” (6.47). Kṛṣṇa remarks that it is “by devotion [bhakti] alone” that
He, as He really is, can be “known and seen and entered into” (11.54; echoed in 18.55) and
then, importantly, proclaims that the devotees (bhaktas) who are wisest about yoga are
those who “fix their mind [man] on Me” (12.2), who “worship Me by meditating [dhyāyanta]
on Me with undistracted yoga [ananyenaiva yogena]” (12.6), “whose consciousness [cetas] is
absorbed in Me” (12.7), who “make [their] intellect [buddhi] dwell in Me” (12.8), and who
“concentrate the mind [citta] firmly on Me” (12.9). Clearly, bhakti—­in its highest form
(though not its only form)—­is here synonymous with the mental concentration of yogic
meditation. Several verses (12.9–­12; 7.16–­22) rank different types of bhakta, while other
verses (9.26–­32) stress the benefits of bhakti—­in its simplest forms—­for all devotees regard-
less of caste, class, gender, past sins, or yogic capacities, but the Gītā clearly presents the yogic
form of bhakti as is its ideal form. On this point, see Malinar 2007, 189–­91. In 18.50–­55, the Gītā
seems to present bhakti as paradoxically both the experiential result of realizing the Absolute
through moderate asceticism, meditation (dhyāna-­yoga), and dispassion (vairāgya) and as the
means to that ultimate knowledge ( jñāna) of God. In the Gītā, Friedhelm Hardy explains, “Yoga
remains the technique, and jñāna the goal, of bhakti, which in turn brings to both medita-
tional technique and its goal a theistic modification” (1983, 29). Similarly, Krishna Sharma
states, “Bhakti, jñāna and yoga stand interwoven in the Bhagavad Gītā. In the discourse on the
Bhakti-­yoga, not only bhakti is clearly connected with jñāna and yoga, but both the bhakta
and jñānī are described in similar terms. The virtues attributed to the bhakta are the same as
those attributed to the yogī, and the true yogī is also called a bhakta” (1987, 115).
 352 9 4. Between Bhakti and Śakti

84. Skanda Purāṇa 27.38–­40, 46; Travis Smith 2007, 111–­12.

85. Colas 2003, 233.
86. While most scholars agree that the Bhāgavata Purāṇa was composed around the tenth cen-
tury in South India (a position laid out especially by Friedhelm Hardy and D. Dennis Hud-
son), Edwin Bryant has thoughtfully questioned this view, positing that much of the text
may have been composed considerably earlier and actually have influenced the Tamil Āḷvār
saints, rather than the other way around. Anand Venkatkrishnan highlights the fact that,
regardless of these debates about the provenance of the BhP, it is clear that there was virtu-
ally no intellectual engagement with the text until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
and that this engagement occurred not in the Tamil South but in Maharashtra and Orissa.
See Venkatkrishnan 2015; 30–­32; Bryant 2002; Hudson 2010, 125–­40.
87. Hopkins 1962, 13.
88. Hardy 1983 argues that it was through the influence of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, which imbibed
the attitudes of the Tamil Āḷvār poet-­saints, that the conception of bhakti in North India
transformed from an intellectual bhakti of reverence and loyal service (seen in the Bhaga-
vad Gītā) to an ecstatic, emotional, and intoxicating bhakti. Hardy emphasizes that the BhP
expresses an emotional viraha-­bhakti, for the first time in Sanskrit, that is rooted in the
earlier emotional bhakti of the Tamil Āḷvārs, but Tracey Coleman has argued that, in fact,
“viraha-­bhakti is found in Sanskrit and Pāli literature much earlier than the Āḻvārs” and
actually “originates in the heterodox traditions of Buddhism and Jainism, when the beloved
saviour, embodied in human form, departs or dies, and devotees subsequently suffer and
long for the saviour’s return—­thus embracing relics, creating stūpas, recalling discourses,
and remembering in elaborate and loving detail the biography of their beloved guru, whose
carita then becomes central to various cults of bhakti” (2014, 58).
89. Haberman 2003, xxx. In Barbara Holdrege’s words, the BhP “adopts the canonical form of a
Purāṇa and incorporates the South Indian devotional traditions of the Ālvārs within a
brahmanical Sanskritic framework that reflects North Indian ideologies” (2015, 25).
90. BhP XI.15.24. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa are my
adaptations of the translations in C. L. Goswami 1971.
91. BhP II.2.19–­21.
92. BhP II.2.22–­23.
93. Bryant 2017, xiii. For Bryant, the BhP’s bhakti is a particular method of yoga that contrasts
with the classical yoga of Patañjali in that it “involves immersing the mind and senses in
God,” not withdrawing them from sense objects or stilling the mind (as in Patañjali’s Yoga
Sutras); this bhakti yoga “is a process that transforms the focus of the mind and senses,
rather than attempting to shut them down” (xxix).
94. Holdrege 2015, 273.
95. BhP XI.14.20–­22.
96. BhP XI.14.24.
97. BhP XI.14.27–­29.
98. BhP XI.14.31–­46.
99. BhP XI.15.1–­32. This section concludes by remarking that these siddhis are obstacles that
delay the one seeking the ultimate goal of union with the Divine.
100. BhP III.32.28–­30.
101. Guy Beck highlights the importance of congregational singing and chanting of God’s name
in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, suggesting that its scriptural/theological support helped propel
 4. Between Bhakti and Śakti = 353

vernacular singing into “prominence in the liturgical and devotional contexts of the
emerging Bhakti traditions throughout various regions” (2012, 133).
102. This continues to be the case in present-­day India. See DeNapoli 2014 on the crucial rela-
tionship between bhakti (particularly bhajan singing) and asceticism among female Hindu
sādhus in modern-­day Rajasthan.
103. According to Nābhādās, it was Rāghavānand who brought the Śrī Vaiṣṇava tradition from the
south to the north, settling in Banaras, where he initiated Rāmānand (Bhaktamāl, stanza 34).
Richard Burghart and Peter van der Veer discuss various stories intended to explain how the
Rāmānandīs are linked to yet separate from the Śrī Vaiṣṇavas. In these, it is said that (depend-
ing on the version) Rāmānand or his guru, Rāghavānand, either (a) left the Śrī Vaiṣṇava fold
when denied commensality after breaking caste rules or (b) was excommunicated for follow-
ing tantric practices and doctrines; Burghart 1978, 123–­24; van der Veer 1989, 87–­89.
104. Chappay 30:5, 29:6 (Nābhājī 1978); Hare 2011b, 54–­55.
105. Pinch 1999, 380–­81.
106. The Agastya Saṃhitā demonstrates the institutional presence of Rām devotion in Banaras as
early as the twelfth century; however, this text appears to have no relationship with the Śrī
sampraday. On the basis of oral tradition, Hans Bakker (1986, 139) suggests that the Śrī Vaiṣṇavas
may have been present in North India—­in Ayodhyā—­by the sixteenth century.
107. Burghart 1978.
108. Assuming an actual link between the Rāmānandīs and Śrī Vaiṣṇavas, Burghart states that
“it was more advantageous for the Ramanandis to profit from the established reputation of
the Sri sect . . . ​than to abrogate this link and to fend for themselves in the competition with
other ascetic sects,” adding that the community’s liberal social attitudes and initiation
practices reveal “the broadening of criteria for recruitment into a Vaishnavite sect thereby
enabling the sect to compete more effectively for devotees and disciples” (1978, 133).
109. Bakker 1986, 70.
110. Vaudeville notes that “the Rāmānujīyas castigate the Rāmānandīs as a ‘non-­Vedic’ sect
since they use a formula [mantra] which excludes the praṇava [OṂ]” (1974, 114–­15). Further-
more, these two communities differ in the basic fact that Rāmānandīs worship Rām and
Sītā, whereas Śrī Vaiṣṇavas tend to worship Viṣṇu Nārāyaṇ and Lakṣmī.
111. Śiva is second (initiated by Brahmā) in the Agastya Saṃhitā’s lineage of great Rām bhaktas,
while in Nābhā’s Bhaktamāl he is third, after Brahmā and Nārada. See Paramasivan 2010, 43.
112. Paramasivan 2010, 104; Bakker 1986, 98–­99. This tree-­lotus-­throne image is not altogether
uncommon and admittedly could have made its way into the Dhyān Mañjarī via other means.
113. Bakker 1986, 72.
114. Bakker 1986, 73.
115. Bakker 1986, 77.
116. Bakker 1986, 73.
117. Bakker 1986, 78.
118. Bakker 1986, 78. The text also devotes an entire chapter (6) to the greatness of tulasī leaves,
which can be offered in worship to Rām by men and women of all castes without a guru or
initiation.
119. In chapter 7 of the text, the AgSaṃ cleverly uses the name of Rām to explain and appropriate
the ancient tradition that Śiva grants liberation to those who die in the precincts of Banaras.
The text explains that many worshippers were coming to Banaras seeking liberation and
continuously repeating, “Śiva, Śiva, Śiva.” Hearing them, but unable to help, Śiva wondered,
 354 9 4. Between Bhakti and Śakti

“How can I grant liberation to these devotees?” He then approached Brahmā, who told him
the way, initiating Śiva in the ṣaḍakṣara mantra of Rām. Śiva then practiced devotion and japa
of this mantra until eventually Rām appeared before him. At this point, says the AgSaṃ, Rām
told Śiva that (a) when anyone worships with this ṣaḍakṣara mantra, he (Rām) will make him-
self present, and (b) if he (Śiva) should whisper the name of Rām into the right ear of anyone
who longs for liberation, that person will be released (Bakker 2009, 69–­70). Interestingly, the
great sixteenth-­century bhakti saint Tulsīdās’s views on Śiva and the holy Name (Rāma) pre-
cisely mirror those of the AgSaṃ. In his Rāmcaritmānas, Tulsīdās depicts Śiva as Rām’s most
devout bhakta and states that he continually repeats the mahāmantra of the divine Name
Rāma, compassionately bestowing it upon those dying in Banaras in order to grant them lib-
eration. Just as much as the early Galta Rāmānandīs, Tulsīdās seems to have followed in the
tradition of the AgSaṃ, for his conception of Rām as both nirguṇ and saguṇ, and of the Name as
the bridge between these two dimensions, also matches the AgSaṃ’s conception of Rām and
the Name. Furthermore, Tulsīdās is said to have settled in Banaras at a location (now called
Tulsī Ghāṭ) adjacent to the temple of Lolārka, a Vaiṣṇava temple that dates back to at least the
twelfth century and was likely the center for the community that composed the AgSaṃ (see
Bakker 2009, 69–­71). While Tulsīdās was not a member of the Rāmānandī community, he is
closely associated with it. Nābhādās (a contemporary of Tulsī’s) praises him as the poet
Valmiki himself, taken birth in the Kali Age, and Priyādās’s commentary on the Bhaktamāl
mentions a meeting between the two. Furthermore, Tulsī’s Rāmcaritmānas and the Hanumān-­
cālīsā (universally attributed to Tulsī, though probably not authored by him) became so
central to the religious life of the Rāmānandī sampradāy that later sectarian hagiographies
(e.g., the Rasik-­prakāś-­bhaktamāl of 1839) invented ways to co-­opt him into the community
(Paramasivan 2010, 12). Tulsīdās was a brahman who maintained a concern with propriety,
orthodoxy, and caste that would have placed him in tension with aspects of the socially lib-
eral early Rāmānandīs and the heterodox views of the Sant poets, like Kabīr, whom they
claimed as their own. In verse 554 of his Dohāvalī, Tulsīdās “condemns the heterodoxy repre-
sented by the Sants,” writing, “By means of sākhīs, śabdīs, dohās, tales and stories, these vile
poets expound bhakti, while scorning the Vedas and the Purāṇas” (Schomer 1987a, 73–­74).
120. Bakker 1987, 23.
121. Pollock 1993, 266. Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya (2004) has offered a probing critique of many
aspects of Pollock’s essay. In particular, he criticizes Pollock’s suggestion that Rām’s story
had new appeal because its depiction of the villain Rāvana and his demon cohort resonated
with hostile Hindu attitudes toward the Muslim Turks. While this dimension of Pollock’s
argument may indeed be flawed, there is nevertheless solid evidence of a clear rise in devo-
tion to Rām as a deity-­k ing in this period, a rise that was probably related in some way to the
transformed social and political order instituted by the Sultanate.
122. Bakker 1987, 21. Bakker suggests that the figure of Rāma “lent itself perfectly to the role of
principal deity, a symbol of the desperate Hindu struggle against a new and uncompromis-
ing power that threatened to subvert its traditional patterns and values” (20).
123. Pollock 1993, 279.
124. Bakker 1987, 22.
125. Bakker 1986, 123.
126. McGregor 2003, 932.
127. Nāmdev and the other nonsectarian (or “vulgate Vaiṣṇava”) bhakti poet-­saints in Maha-
rashtra are also referred to as Sants. For a discussion of the major similarities and key
 4. Between Bhakti and Śakti = 355

differences between these “southern” (Maharashtrian) Sants and the “northern” Sants
(who are the focus here), see Vaudeville 1987a; 1987b.
128. Callewaert 2011, 532.
129. Schomer 1987a, 76–­82.
130. Callewaert 2011, 532.
131. Alam 2004, 82.
132. Bakker 1986, 121.
133. Nābhādās seems to have conceived all the bhaktas he praised in his Bhaktamāl to have been
Vaiṣṇavas in some sense. In dohā 184 (Nābhājī 1978), he states, “All you Vaiṣṇavas, all you
sacred images, great and small, all of your virtues are boundless / Some are mentioned ear-
lier and others later, please do not think it a crime” (śrī mūrti sab vaiṣṇava laghu dīragh gunani
agādh / āge pīche baran te jinni mānau aparādh //). Thanks to Tyler Williams for drawing my
attention to this verse.
134. Agrawal 2008. Agrawal shows indisputably that the Sanskrit texts attributed to Rāmānand
are actually products of the early twentieth century.
135. Historically speaking, Rāmānand remains shrouded in mystery, and while some scholars
(e.g., William Pinch, John Stratton Hawley) have suggested he may be a pious invention, in
my mind there is little doubt that he did in fact exist. Beyond references to him in sectarian
Rāmānandī sources, as just mentioned, poetry attributed to him is found in the anthologies
of the Sikhs and the Dādū ­Panth. Perhaps most interesting of all, he is praised by the non-
sectarian bhakti poet Harirām Vyās (fl. 1535–­1570), whose compositions seem to precede all
Rāmānandī writings. In one of his poems (pad 46), Vyās writes, “Truly a holy man [sādhu]
was Rāmānand, who knew how to love the Lord, having realized that all else is sorrow and
duality.” In the next line, he describes Kabīr as Rāmānand’s sevak (servant). While a number
of scholars have been interested in this poem insofar as it relates to the ongoing scholarly
debate over whether or not Kabīr was actually the disciple of Rāmānand, perhaps more
significant is the simple fact that among the bhaktas that Vyās praised—­w ith no sectarian
allegiance—­was none other than Rāmānand. This powerfully suggests that he was no
invented figure but a real person who was worthy of note in the North Indian bhakti milieu.
See Pauwels 2002, 105, 264–­68.
136. Agrawal 2008, 158–­59. For a brief summary of an in-­depth study of the Hindi verses attributed
to Rāmānand, see Caracchi 2002. Caracchi discovered that many of the songs attributed to
Rāmānand are very similar or identical to passages in Nāth and Sant literary works. She gives
no persuasive reasons why Rāmānand could not have composed these verses himself but—­
reasonably, perhaps—­concludes they were most likely composed by a poet of the Rāmānandī
ascetic-­yogic stream.
137. It is worth noting that while Rāmānand and many of his supposed disciples (Kabīr, Raidās,
Pīpā, Dhanā, Sen) seem to have been Sants, we know virtually nothing about Anantānand,
the disciple of Rāmānand who was Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī’s guru and is thus the critical link
between Rāmānand and the Rāmānandī community at Galta. In the course of my research,
I have not encountered any poetry attributed to Anantānand or any hagiographical refer-
ences that might give a clear sense of his life or religious practice.
138. Agrawal 2011, 11.
139. Agrawal 2011, 11–­12. We might reasonably be suspicious of Barthwal’s claims for the influence
of the Nāths specifically on Hindi literature, considering that (a) the earliest manuscript evi-
dence we have of Nāth yogī writings in “Hindi” comes from the seventeenth century and (b)
 356 9 4. Between Bhakti and Śakti

Barthwal’s assertions may have been motivated by a nationalist agenda that sought to give
Hindi literature an ancient (and Hindu religious) pedigree. See Barthwal 1936.
140. Schomer 1987b, 8.
141. Vaudeville 1987a, 36.
142. Gadon 1987.
143. Leonard Wolcott’s (1978) ethnographic research (in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh) suggests that
in the popular religiosity of village India, Hanumān is far more important to devotees for
his extraordinary strength and power (bal/śakti) and his ability to protect from or gain
power over enemies and malicious spirits (bhūt, pret, etc.) than for his devotion, service,
and loyalty to Rām.
144. Horstmann 2002, 155–­56. Horstmann actually states that “these oldest shrines, either
dated or connected with the first two generations of Rāmānandīs in Galta, are dedicated
to Śiva and Hanumān,” but in Galta itself I am not aware of any Śiva temples or shrines.
Nearby in Jāmṛolī there is a Hanumān temple with a very old Śiva shrine (its inscrip-
tion dates to v.s. 1212), but it is not in the gorge that was and still is the heart of the Galta
community.
145. Horstmann 2002, 156. Specifically, we have a revenue grant dated 1640 that confirms a
grant originally issued by Akbar (and thus no later than 1605, his last year as emperor) in
which the Galta Rāmānandīs are granted the revenue of 2,592 bīghās in Raṇthambhor in the
ṣūba of Ajmer.
146. Horstmann 2002, 155–­56.
147. Horstmann 2002, 156.
148. Lutgendorf 2007, 389.
149. Lutgendorf 2007, 287.
150. Agrawal 2008, 137, 157–­58; Śukla (1929) 2009, 133.
151. McGregor 1984, 109. In 1610, Prāṇcand Cauhān composed a Brajbhasha version of this retell-
ing of the Rām story emphasizing the deeds of Hanumān, and, in 1623, Hṛdayrām (a.k.a. Kavi
Rām) wrote another Brajbhasha rendering of the tale. Rāmcandra Śukla ([1929] 2009, 152–­54)
also discusses both these figures.
152. Lutgendorf 1994, 232–­33.
153. Lutgendorf 2007, 84.
154. Lutgendorf 1994, 240.
155. Lutgendorf (1994, 227) notes that scholars who have ventured to make historical claims
about Nāth veneration of Hanumān, such as Peter van der Veer and Charlotte Vaudeville,
seem to have based their remarks solely on the early twentieth-­century ethnographic
research of George W. Briggs (1938), who offers no evidence that this practice has any his-
toric pedigree. The modern-­day Nāths’ worship of Hanumān is likely part of a general
Vaiṣṇavization and devotionalization that occurred within various Śaiva and Śākta tantric
communities as a result of the success of North India’s bhakti movement and the pervasive
spread of its religious attitudes and modes of expression. Ann Gold states that while “the
relation between Nath and Sant traditions is usually seen in terms of Nathism’s influence
on the iconoclastic teachings of the fourteenth-­and fifteenth-­century Sants,” the situation
is curiously reversed in the rural Rajasthani village where she did fieldwork, where the
Nāths “seem to have appropriated and become the purveyors of a somewhat altered Sant
tradition” (Gold and Nath 1992, 43).
156. Lutgendorf 2007, 390.
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5. Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas

1. Caracchi 2002, 36.

2. Mallinson 2011b, 411.
3. Mallinson 2012, 263. The Nāth tradition and most scholarship place Gorakhnāth in the
north (usually either in Panjab or Bengal) and claim that he was a celibate ascetic, but
James Mallinson (2011b, 413, 417; 2014a, 233n28) has argued compellingly that Gorakh was
most likely from the Deccan region, perhaps Maharashtra or Karnataka, and was probably
a married householder whose tantric practice involved tantric laya yoga (not haṭha yoga).
4. Jālandharnāth—­sometimes also known as Hāḍipā, Bālnāth, or Bālgundāī—­is a tantric ascetic
mentioned in texts dating back to the thirteenth century and is often said to be the disciple of
Matsyendranāth and the guru of Kānhapā and Gopīcand. See Mallinson 2011b, 410, 425.
5. The wearing of the horn and earrings—­worn in the lobes, not the cartilage of the ear—­
seems to have represented distinct external markers of a Nāth Siddha affiliation since
at least the thirteenth century, and perhaps earlier. At some later point, the Nāths also
become associated with the use of the greeting “Ādeś” ([please give me your] order), the
wearing of their distinctive hooped earrings in the cartilage (not the lobe) of the ear, and
the wearing of a distinctive (often heavy, patchwork) cloak (kanthā). Many of the other
external features often associated with the Nāth yogīs (e.g., those described in bhakti poetry
and the Sufi premakhyāns) are, in fact, not exclusive to the Nāths but common to ascetics in
many traditions. These include the wearing of ash (vibhūti), dreadlocks ( jatā), the rosary
( japa-­mālā), the use of a staff (daṇḍā), the begging bowl (khappara), the meditation crutch
(adhārī), the water pot (udapātra), and an antelope or tiger skin for meditation. For a detailed
consideration of the various insignia associated with the Nāths and other ascetics, see
Mallinson forthcoming (a).
6. A couple of northwestern lineages did not claim allegiance to Gorakhnāth until the nine-
teenth century, and even today not all Nāths recognize Gorakh’s authority. See Mallinson
2011b, 410–­11.
7. Mallinson 2011b, 425.
8. A manuscript of the Nujūm al-­‘ulūm, completed in Bijapur in 1570, lists twelve yogī panths; see
Flatt 2011, 242. Slightly later (early seventeenth century) Sikh sources also refer to the
twelve panths of the yogīs and the ten names of the saṃnyāsīs; namely, Gurū Granth Sāhib 9.2,
34.2, and Vārāṅ Bhāī Gurdās 8.13.
9. Van der Veer 1989, 95.
10. Van der Veer 1989, 89.
11. Van der Veer 1989, 95
12. Horstmann 2002, 152.
13. Fitzgerald 2012, 46.
14. Kaṭha Upaniṣad 6:10–­11.
15. Brockington 2003, 17.
16. Brockington 2005, 132; Fitzgerald 2012, 45–­46.
17. Fitzgerald 2012, 50; Malinar 2011, 41–­42.
18. For a brief discussion of the varying meanings of the word yoga in the Bhagavad Gītā, for
instance, see Malinar 2012, 58–­59.
19. Kaelber 1989, 52–­55.
20. Kaelber 1989, 29.
 358 9 5. Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas

21. According to Johnannes Bronkhorst (1998, 3, 76), early textual evidence shows that Indian
asceticism—­defined as “the whole range of physical and mental exercises from extreme
mortification to certain forms of ‘gentle’ meditation”—­had two separate sources, one Vedic,
the other non-­Vedic (śramaṇa), and that these two currents influenced each other and
became increasingly indistinguishable over time. He sees the Vedic stream as an extension
of ascetic acts performed in connection with the Vedic sacrifice that typically aimed at
heaven, siddhis, and achievement of worldly desires. Non-­Vedic asceticism, on the other
hand, “aim[ed] primarily at inaction, with the ultimate goal of liberation from the effects of
one’s actions” (karma); i.e., disciplining the body and its desires and stilling the mind com-
pletely in order to attain a state of consciousness or insight leading to liberation.
22. In ancient India, semen was associated with the energy of life; the loss of this vital energy—­
via ejaculation—­was thought to lead to morbidity and death. The ascetic who retained his
seed (retas, bīja) was a model of virility who not only enjoyed robust physical health, strength,
and mental acumen but also accrued godlike powers. Indeed, “sages who remain[ed] chaste
for long periods and who combine[d] this with advanced level of meditation [could] even chal-
lenge the gods in terms of power and wisdom” (Powers 2009, 79).
23. On the relationship of meditation and asceticism in early Hindu scriptures, see Bronkhorst
1993, 20–­28. By and large, it seems that in the ascetic yoga of the early Hindu and Jain tradi-
tions, the ascetic conquering of the body and breath was deemed necessary for the medita-
tional goal of stilling the mind’s activity completely.
24. The eight limbs of Pātañjala yoga are (1) yama—­ethics/restraint (nonviolence, telling the
truth, not stealing, celibacy, not being greedy); (2) niyama—­discipline (cleanliness, serenity,
asceticism, study, devotion to the Lord); (3) āsana—­posture; (4) prāṇāyāma—­breath control; (5)
pratyahāra—­withdrawal of the senses; (6) dhāraṇā—­concentration; (7) dhyāna—­meditation;
and (8) samādhi—­objectless (nondual) meditative absorption.
25. Chapple 2012, 118.
26. Maas 2013, 57–­58. For a good summary of Maas’s key arguments and several prominent
alternatives to his theory current among scholars of the Yoga Sūtra, see White 2014,
226–­34.
27. Maas 2013, 66.
28. Michel Angot makes the intriguing argument that the Yoga Sūtra’s first three chapters were
a Buddhist work composed by Patañjali, ca. 0–­100, but that the final chapter was composed
by a Hindu named Vyāsa several centuries later. This theory would explain why the first
three chapters of the Yoga Sūtra are so very Buddhist in orientation and language (i.e., why
they are best understood as a composition of Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit—­using Buddhism-­
specific terminological meanings—­a nd not one of classical Sanskrit) while the fourth chap-
ter and the commentary attributed to Vyāsa have an orthodox brahmanical orientation
and are overtly critical of Buddhism and thus appear to be an intentional “translation” of
the Yoga Sūtra into a Hindu idiom. See White 2014, 232–­33; Angot 2008.
29. Patañjali’s famous definition of yoga, in the second verse of his text—­as “the cessation
[nirodha] of the fluctuations [vṛtti] of the mind [citta]”—­is, in fact, somewhat misleading in
that it suggests the more ascetic goal of complete motionlessness of mind, whereas the
entirety of the text clearly shows a more gnostic orientation in which knowledge of (insight
into) the true nature of reality/the Self is the liberating end goal. While samādhi is the final
limb of this yoga system, the Pātañjala Yogaśāstra actually describes eight levels of samādhi,
the highest/deepest of which is egoless, objectless, “seedless” (nirbīja), pure witnessing con-
sciousness. See Bronkhorst 1993, 46–­52; Larson 2012, 81–­88.
 5. Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas = 359

30. Nicholson 2014, 9.

31. White 2014, 168.
32. Early tantric texts all speak of raising the prāṇa. Only later, in conjunction with developing
theories about the feminine divine energy of śakti, did certain tantric traditions conceive
kuṇḍalinī, the serpent power coiled at the base of the spine, as that which the yogī was to raise
along his spine. The circa tenth-­century Kubjikāmata Tantra, composed in the Paścimāmnāya
Kaula tradition, is the first text to present a fully developed notion of kuṇḍalinī, and it also
presents one of the most historically influential models of the subtle body and its cakras and
nāḍīs. See Mallinson and Singleton 2017, xix.
33. For a very helpful chart of the various articulations and orderings of the limbs (or ancillar-
ies) of yoga in a wide variety of scriptures, see Vasudeva 2004, 380–­81. Six-­limbed yoga sys-
tems typically did not include yama and niyama, and, in most cases, they also removed āsana
and added the limb of tarka (defined as transcendental contemplation, insight, or perfected
reason) or sometimes japa (recitation of mantras).
34. Realizing one’s equality or identity with God was often associated with gnosis (especially in
nondual tantric systems), thus knowledge ( jñāna) could play a central role in both medita-
tional and tantric forms of yoga.
35. Jason Birch argues that in the texts of haṭha yoga, the word haṭha is never used to refer to
forceful effort required by haṭha practices but rather to their forceful effect. The “force” of
haṭha yoga has to do with the fact that its techniques have a forceful effect “in forcing what
normally moves down (i.e., apāna, bindu) and what is usually dormant (kuṇḍalinī) to move
upwards” (2011, 531, 537–­38). The Yogabīja (ca. fourteenth century) would later provide a
folk etymology, often repeated in subsequent texts, in which haṭha does not mean “force” at
all but is broken up into ha, meaning “sun,” and ṭha, meaning “moon,” suggesting that the
primary aim of haṭha yoga is the union (yoga) of sun and moon; e.g., the union of fiery Śakti
(kuṇḍalinī/rajas) with the cooling Śiva (amṛta/bindu). This “union of sun and moon” can also
refer to the uniting of upper and lower breaths (prāṇa and apāna), or the piṅgalā and iḍā
nāḍīs. See Mallinson 2011a, 772.
36. Birch 2015, 8. On this point, see also Mallinson 2014a, 238; 2012, 257.
37. Mallinson forthcoming (a). The Amṛtasiddhi does not call its yogic method haṭha yoga; how-
ever, its teachings are foundational to (and borrowed directly by) later (non-­Buddhist)
haṭha-­yoga texts. A twelfth-­century manuscript of the text exists and clearly indicates
Vajrayāna authorship; however, in later manuscripts of the text its Buddhist features are
altered or omitted. Interestingly, this text states that the core method of tantric yoga—­
visualization of oneself as a deity—­is, in fact, entirely ineffective for realizing the yogī’s
spiritual goals. Instead, it recommends practices involving bodily postures and breath
control as means to raise the breath along the central channel to arrest the fall of the life
essence (bindu) and to raise and unite the feminine principle (rajas) with the masculine
principle (bindu/bīja) at the top of the yogī’s head.
38. Cf. Mallinson 2016, 122.
39. These ten distinctive haṭha-­yoga techniques are mahāmudrā, mahābandha, khecarīmudrā, the
three bandhas ( jālandharabandha, uḍḍiyāṇabandha, and mūlabandha), viparītakaraṇī, vajrolī,
amarolī, and sahajolī. See Mallinson 2011a, 771 (and 778 for brief descriptions of each).
40. Mallinson 2012.
41. Sanskrit texts on yoga composed in the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries identify
and discuss especially four types of yoga: mantra yoga, laya yoga, haṭha yoga, and rāja yoga. In
the majority of these texts, the term rāja yoga does not refer to a particular yogic method
 360 9 5. Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas

but to the yogic goal—­i.e., it is a synonym for samādhi (the “no-­m ind” state, nondual
consciousness)—­and mantra yoga, laya yoga, and haṭha yoga are different (variously ranked but
potentially complementary) ways to reach that goal. See Birch 2013, 406. With Svātmārāma’s
mid-­fifteenth-­century Haṭhapradīpikā, considered the authoritative synthesis and codifica-
tion of haṭha-­yoga practice, mantra yoga is completely eliminated and laya yoga and haṭha
yoga are fully integrated (under the name of haṭha yoga, whose physical techniques are to
serve the purpose of raising the kuṇḍalinī) as the necessary means for achieving the end
goal of rāja yoga (samādhi). See Mallinson 2016, 110.
42. There came about a proliferation of different Vedāntic philosophical systems beginning in
the twelfth century, often integrated with new sectarian bhakti theologies; see Fisher 2017,
38–­46. The influence of Vedāntic thought—­especially Advaita Vedānta—­in the early mod-
ern period seems to have manifested in the popular sphere particularly in the growth of
nirguṇ bhakti and simplified forms of yoga with Vedāntic (brahman-­g nosis-­focused) soterio-
logical orientations. Vedānta’s rise in the Sultanate and Mughal periods must also have had
something to do with the fact that, on the one hand, it could be adapted to give diverse
sectarian religious systems an orthodox, brahmanical Hindu standing, while, on the other
hand, it could serve as a key philosophical basis for various forms of Hindu-­Muslim dia-
logue and hybridity. On the social history of Advaita Vedānta in the early modern period,
see Minkowski 2011.
43. Krishna Sharma 1987, 152–­56.
44. Schwartz 2017, 341. Classical Advaita Vedānta viewed knowledge as the only path to libera-
tion and consistently criticized yoga practice as a form of action binding living beings in
saṃsāra.
45. Schwartz 2017, 386.
46. Mallinson 2014a, 238.
47. Mallinson 2014a, 231–­39.
48. We might consider many of these late medieval and early modern (mostly haṭha) yoga texts
as part of what Michael Allen (2017, 277, 291) has called the “Greater Advaita Vedānta” tra-
dition. Allen makes the point that the narrow realm of scholastic, Sanskrit, classical
Advaita Vedānta should not be considered synonymous with the Advaita Vedānta tradition
as a whole. He coins the term “Greater Advaita Vedānta” to refer to a more expansive and
less clearly defined tradition that expressed core Advaita Vedānta teachings through the
medium of vernacular, nonphilosophical, and syncretic works (blending Vedāntic teach-
ings with bhakti, yoga, tantra, etc.).
49. Birch 2015, 8.
50. Kiss 2011, 162.
51. While earlier forms of tantric yoga required initiation and typically involved a progression of
meditations upon increasingly subtle elements (tattvas) specific to a given sectarian tradi-
tion’s particular ontology/cosmology, in this period texts on yoga typically removed complex
sect-­specific ontological systems, “restrict[ing] such practices to dhāraṇās on the five elements
accepted by all Indic metaphysical systems or laya, dissolution, into those five elements, often
in the course of Kuṇḍalinī’s rise up the central channel” (Mallinson 2014a, 230).
52. For example, in earlier forms of tantric practice, some traditions had called for an external
sexual ritual and female consort in order to produce and combine the power-­laden human
sexual fluids, but now these power substances (the male bindu and female rajas) were to be
located within the yogin’s own body and could be united through his yogic practice. See
Mallinson 2012, 272.
 5. Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas = 361

53. For example, instead of (or in addition) to the use of mantras and visualization meditation,
one might sit cross-­legged with the heel under the perineum, then raise the body and gen-
tly drop it in order to press the heel against the perineum to force the prāṇa or kuṇḍalinī up
the suṣumnā. See Mallinson 2007, 26–­28.
54. While haṭha yoga was, in some sense, open to anyone willing to put in the necessary work—­
some texts suggested that householders and even women can practice it—­most haṭha-­yoga
texts are clearly aimed at male renouncers.
55. Véronique Bouillier, email message to author, September 13, 2013.
56. Mallinson 2014b, 173. It would not be accurate to understand all Nāth lineages as primarily
siddhi-­seeking “magicians,” but as a widely applicable feature of the broad Nāth yogī com-
munity, this characterization does hit the mark.
57. Mallinson 2014b, 167–­68.
58. Mallinson 2014b.
59. Mallinson 2005, 112.
60. The definitive text of classical haṭha yoga, Svātmārāma’s Haṭhapradīpikā (ca. 1450)—­which
made the raising of kuṇḍalinī (as opposed to the preservation of bindu) into the primary goal
of haṭha yoga’s distinctive physical techniques and breathing practices—­was actually com-
posed by a lineage of ascetics claiming descent from Matsyendranāth and Gorakhnāth.
However, the various yogī lineages that would coalesce into the Nāth panth by the early
seventeenth century seem to have gone in a direction entirely different from that of the
Haṭhapradīpikā, for since the time of that text’s composition (ca. 1450) there have been no
new texts on haṭha yoga composed by Nāths and not a single one of the many modern
schools of yoga comes from a Nāth milieu. In the Haṭhapradīpikā, we see a move toward
orthodoxy and brahmanical respectability and away from tantric mantra practice and the
acquisition of siddhis, which are certainly not indicative of the overall direction pursued by
the slowly coalescing Nāth yogī community. See Mallinson 2011a, 775.
61. McGregor explains, “The language of the received texts is very mixed. This may be due to
their former wide circulation or to vicissitudes of transmission. Some forms are eastern, oth-
ers of Rajasthan, while the general character of the language is that of the mixed speech of
the Delhi region (Old Khaṛī bolī) with additional admixture of Brajbhasha” (1984, 23). The
poems of the Gorakhbāṇī frequently include both (a) sandhyābhāṣā, or “twilight language,”
which hints at esoteric content through language and metaphors of ordinary life, and (b)
ulṭabāmsī, or “upside-­down language,” which uses paradox to mirror (in its form) the process
of reversal involved in yogic practice. For a good discussion of the difference between these
two forms of expression and how each is used in the Gorakhbāṇī, see Djurdjevic 2008, 101–­10.
62. The poems of the Gorakhbāṇī were collected and edited as such by P. Barthwal. The oldest of
the manuscripts he used dates to 1658. While it is quite possible that some poems of the
Gorakhbāṇī could date back to as early as the mid-­fourteenth century, at this point we have no
way to know this, and the situation is complicated by the fact that a number of the Gorakhbāṇī’s
poems contain references clearly borrowed from the literature of the Sants. See McGregor
1984, 22. As Mariola Offredi (2002, 136n19) notes, “The oldest surviving manuscripts of the
[vernacular] works attributed to Gorakh were written in a period when ideals and practice of
bhakti had become widespread,” and several of the verses attributed to Gorakh have been
found as works attributed to Dādū, Kabīr, and Nānak, while others have taken on the form of
popular sayings.
63. Sabdī 141b states, “Those who, in making love, preserve the bindu, they are Gorakh’s broth-
ers.” This verse stands in contrast to the majority of the Gorakhbāṇī, which express a clearly
 362 9 5. Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas

negative attitude toward sex and women; e.g., pad 48, which proclaims, “The vagina is a vam-
pire; without teeth, she devoured the whole world. . . . [​ Man] does not understand the nature
of sexual lust, so he keeps and nurtures the tigress in his own home.” The haṭha-­yogic practice
of vajrolī-­mudrā has typically been understood as the reabsorption of ejaculated semen during
intercourse (i.e., the physical ability to draw semen back into the urethra); however, Mallin-
son (2018) has shown that this feat is, in fact, physiologically impossible, and that the practice
of vajrolī-­mudrā actually involved inserting a thin pipe/catheter into the urethra in order to
suck fluids into (and thus to cleanse) the bladder. This practice has the side effect of desensi-
tizing the verumontanum (a part of the male anatomy near the bladder that is key to ejacula-
tion) and thus, over time, can allow one to have control over the ejaculatory impulse. In other
words, through repeated practice of inserting a catheter in the urethra as far as the bladder
(as part of vajrolī-­mudrā), a yogī could acquire control over ejaculation and could, theoretically,
have intercourse without “releasing his seed.”
64. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of the Gorakhbāṇī are from Djurdjevic and Singh
2005.
65. While the Nāth yogīs’ siddha roots and tantric tendencies are clear in the Gorakhbāṇī, the
diversity (and sometimes incompatibility) of teachings in the text also make it clear that
the various yogī lineages who linked themselves to Gorakhnāth did not have a uniform
practice.
66. The Haṭhapradīpikā (IV.65–­66) actually attributes the teaching of the laya-­yoga method of
concentration (meditation) upon the nāda (internal sound) to Gorakhnāth and calls it the
most important of the lāya methods.
67. Ondračka 2015, 219.
68. Mallinson 2016, 119.
69. Mallinson 2016, 119.
70. Chappay 38.
71. Mallinson 2011a, 779.
72. Chappay 40.
73. As noted in the preceding chapter, the reference to bal (power) in Kīlha’s yogic practice
seems to further link Kīlha to Bhīṣma and Bhīṣma’s style of yoga. In Mahābhārata
12:289.11–­56, Bhīṣma expounds on the practice of yoga, placing great emphasis on its bal
and the bal of its practitioners. See Fitzgerald 2012, 48.
74. Chappay 165.
75. Larson 2008, 28–­29.
76. Mallinson 2014b, 165; White 2009, xii–­x iv, 37–­42.
77. White 2009, 37.
78. McDaniel 2011, 540.
79. Brockington 2005, 136.
80. Yoga Sūtra III.37, 50–­51.
81. White 2009, 39, 42.
82. Mallinson 2014b, 167. As Mallinson says, “The powers are not the practice.”
83. Nābhā calls Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī a “paragon [avadhi] of renunciation” in two separate verses
but uses the words nirved and udāsīntā for “renunciation” (rather than saṃnyās).
84. Callewaert 1996, 939, 941.
85. Mallinson (2013) makes the fascinating argument that the Rāmānandī ascetics were origi-
nally a lineage that was a part of a larger saṃnyāsi collective that eventually became the
 5. Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas = 363

Daśanāmī order and acquired a Śaiva orientation but previously included a significant
number of Vaiṣṇava lineages. At some point, possibly in the early sixteenth century with
Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī, the proto-­Rāmānandī lineage broke off from this confederation of
saṃnyāsīs, perhaps because of the saṃnyāsīs’ growing Śaiva orientation (likely a function of
the dominance of the Śaiva-­oriented Śṛṇgeri maṭha) or their own turn toward a bhakti-­
centered Vaiṣṇava asceticism. Mallinson points out that the organization and initiation
procedures of the Daśanāmīs and Rāmānandīs are very close, they both worship Hanumān
and gods and sages associated with the ancient ascetic yoga tradition (e.g., Dattātreya and
Kapila), they share a secret vocabulary, and both have a military unit (akhāṛā) called (Mahā)
Nirvāṇi. Also, “the nominal suffix -­ānanda found in the names of early Rāmānandī gurus
prior to the adoption of the suffix -­dāsa is still used by certain subdivisions of the Daśanāmīs.”
Indeed, Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī, the grand-­d isciple of Rāmānand who founded the community
at Galta in the early sixteenth century, is the first to adopt the -­dās suffix, and this change
within the lineage to a nominal suffix with Vaiṣṇava and lower-­caste associations may speak
to the moment when the proto-­Rāmānandīs seceded from the proto-­Daśanāmī confedera-
tion of saṃnyāsīs.
86. Mallinson 2011b, 411.
87. Mallinson 2014b, 174.
88. A brief overview of the confusing situation surrounding the term yogī: In some tantric texts,
the yogī, intent upon liberation (mukti), is contrasted with the sādhaka, who seeks enjoy-
ments (bhukti) and siddhis. In other tantric texts, it is the yogī who is considered the seeker of
bhukti, in contrast with the jñānī, who seeks knowledge and liberation. In a wide range of
texts, the yogī is synonymous with the siddha, with their tantric, kuṇḍalinī-­based practice
and power-­oriented perspective considered separate from the tapas-­based practice and
mokṣa-­oriented perspective of munis and ṛṣis. In early modern texts, the term yogī often
refers to members of the ascetic lineages that were coalescing into the Nāth order, but there
are still plenty of instances when the term also refers to Rāmānandīs, Daśanāmīs, and their
forerunners. In modern times, the yogī is often considered the respected practitioner of
orthodox yoga in contrast to the jogī, a term tending to connote a seedy, tantric magician but
also often referring to a specific caste group of snake charmers or bards.
89. Bouillier 2018, 1.
90. In haṭha yoga’s early phase, Nāth and Siddha lineages clearly adopted and experimented with
its physical techniques, contributing to the growth of the haṭha-­yoga tradition in vital ways
(even introducing certain of its physical techniques and breath-­restraint practices), as dem-
onstrated by multiple texts (composed in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries)
out of lineages linking themselves to Gorakhnāth: the Sanskrit Gorakṣaśataka, Vivkeamārtaṇḍa,
Amaraughaprabodha, and the authoritative Haṭhapradīpikā, as well as the vernacular (Marathi)
Jñānesvarī. These texts tended to use haṭha-­yogic physical techniques in the context of a
stripped-­down kuṇḍalinī-­style laya-­yoga practice. Perhaps the Nāth lineages interested in
haṭha yoga were absorbed into the coalescing Daśanāmī order in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, or perhaps they simply lost interest in its physical practices, but in any case, by the
sixteenth century, the evidence indicates that Nāth yogīs had for the most part abandoned
the practice of haṭha yoga.
91. Bouillier 2011, 347–­48.
92. Dasgupta 1962, 211.
93. Eliade 1970, 306.
 364 9 5. Nāth Yogīs and Rāmānandī Bhaktas

94. Briggs (1938) 2007, 186–­91, 199.

95. Djurdjevic 2008, 26.
96. Djurdjevic 2008, 26.
97. Djurdjevic 2008, 39; emphasis in original.
98. Callewaert 2013, 12–­13.
99. Sabdī 200.
100. The irreverent attitude of the Nāth yogīs was not reserved for Hindu deities but was also
sometimes directed at holy figures of Islam. Sabad 10 states, “The whole world was enslaved
by saying ‘Lord.’ / By saying ‘Gorakh’ it disappeared. / Muhammad was a master of kalima
[holy words; profession of faith] / But he still died nonetheless.” Most Indian Muslims would
not have appreciated this lack of respect and humility toward the holy Prophet.
101. Ajap-­jap is meditation on the mantra of the (sound of) the in and out breaths.
102. The “fire of Brahman,” or brahmāgni, is equivalent to the fire of kuṇḍalinī śakti, the concen-
trated divine energy within the human body.
103. The nād is the primal “sound,” often referred to in Nāth literature as the “unstruck sound”
(anāhat nād), and refers, in sonic terms, to the spiritual experience arrived at when, through
yogic practice, Śiva (bindu, moon) and Śakti (bīj, rajas, sun) are united in the uppermost
cakra (“the circle of the sky”).
104. Gorakhbānī, sabdī 17–­19.
105. Gorakhbāṇī, sabdī 147–­48.
106. As Djurdjevic notes, to the bhaktas “it appears as if the yogis are obsessed with the self-­
empowerment. But for the yogis, to obtain and experience the siddhis means to gain access
to the sacred as power” (2008, 41).
107. Jñāndev’s guru was Nivṛttināth, whose guru was Gahinīnāth, whose guru was Gorakhnāth.
At one point the Jñāneśvarī (18.1127) equates realization of śakti, knowledge of the ātman,
and the highest devotion (bhakti) as one and the same thing, effectively synthesizing (Śaiva)
Tantra, Vedānta, and (Vaiṣṇava) Bhakti. Nāmdev and other members of the devotional
Vārkarī community of Maharashtra are also remembered to have been, or to have had
important links with, Nāths.
108. On the synthesis of Śaivism, Vaiṣṇavism, tantra, and bhakti in Maharashtra’s Vārkarī (Sant)
tradition, see Vaudeville 1996, 241–­58; Dhere 2011. On the Jñāneśvarī’s teaching on kuṇḍalinī
yoga, see Kiehnle 2005. On the message, intent, and social impact of the Jñāneśvarī, see
Novetzke 2016, 213–­84.
109. Horstmann 2017, 2, 14, 16.
110. Horstmann 2017, 2–­3. In chapter 8 I discuss the Dādū ­Panth’s relationship with the Nāths
and its implications for my larger argument about the attitude of early modern North
Indian bhaktas toward tantric yogīs.
111. Prithīnāth lived after Kabīr, whom he mentions, but before 1615, the date of the manuscript
in which his works appear and which is copied from an earlier source. Other relevant if far
less historically reliable information also places him in the sixteenth century: Rāghavdās’s
Bhaktamāl (1660) includes an entry on Prithīnāth referring to a debate he had with Akbar
(r. 1556–­1605) in Agra. See Horstmann 2017, 15–­16.
112. Horstmann 2017, 17–­24. On these pages Horstmann translates and comments on
Prithīnāth’s Jaina-­vāra-­dharma-­s īla-­samādhi-­g rantha, as well as (in n. 50) a verse from his
Nakṣatra-​joga-­g rantha.
113. White forthcoming.
114. Pinch 2006, 195.
 6. Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 365

6. Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti

1. Cf. Green 2015, 12.

2. Several Hindi scholars say Agradās established fourteen initiatory lineages, Ghurye says
twelve, and Lutgendorf says eleven. I have been unable to ascertain which of these is cor-
rect, but regardless, within the North Indian rubric of the four Vaiṣṇava sampradāys,
Agradās clearly established more initiatory lineages than any other figure.
3. At the time of writing, to my knowledge the only Western-­language scholarship engaging
with any of the works of Agradās is that of R. S. McGregor. In a short essay, McGregor gives
a brief but useful description of the contents of Agra’s Dhyān Mañjarī but does not trans-
late any of the verses; see McGregor 1983. He also briefly discusses Agradās and the Dhyān
Mañjarī in McGregor 2003, 936–­37. In my research, I also have not come across any Hindi-­
language scholarship that seriously engages the manuscript archive of Agradās’s work or
considers his historical influence in North India’s bhakti movement.
4. Rām-­rasik tradition holds that Agradās was born in 1496 in Pīkasī village and traveled to
Galta and became a disciple of Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī in 1513 or 1514; however, in my estima-
tion, these dates seem a bit too early. Indian scholar Ratanlāl Mishra states that the
Kacchvāhā king Āskaraṇ, who ruled but a single year, 1548, wrote pads while in power in
which he identified himself as a devotee of Kīlha, and that by virtue of this fact Kṛṣṇadās
Payahārī must have died by this time and Kīlha taken over as mahant of the Galta com-
munity, which means that Agradās would have gone to Raivasa by this time as well (if he
went there at all). I have not been able to view these pads myself but have met with
Mr. Mishra, who claims to have seen them with his own eyes. Corroborating his claim,
Rāghavdās’s Bhaktamāl (chappay 192) dedicates a passage to Āskaraṇ that describes him as
a disciple of Kīlha. According to the Miśrabandhu Vinod, one of Agradās’s works can be
dated to 1603 (v.s. 1660), suggesting that he must have lived at least that long; Miśrabandhu
Vinod 1980, 1631 (#242).
5. Regarding Agradās’s departure from Galta, according to one popular Rām-­rasik story, Kīlha
and Agra were bathing together there and Agra accidentally put on Kīlha’s laṅgoṭī (loin-
cloth). Kīlha became extremely angry about this, to the point that Agra left Galta, unable to
understand why he would get so angry about such a trivial thing. Agra’s name means
“first,” and in informal conversations with Rāmānandī rasiks and Indian scholars, I have
heard several people speculate that he—­not Kīlha—­was actually the first (senior) disciple of
Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī and the rightful successor to the seat at Galta. Some with this view
maintain that Agra was so virakt (passionless) that he had no interest in the prestige, lead-
ership, or administration of this position and declined it in order to focus on his devotional
practice and writing. Others have suggested that Kīlha was elevated to the seat of Galta
because of his social status and connections—­his father was the governor of Gujarat—­while
Agra was not seen as the appropriate choice for the seat because he was of low caste. In this
context, it is interesting to note that Nābhādās explicitly states the caste status of both
Payahārī and Kīlha but never mentions the social status of his own guru, Agra. Tradition
maintains he was a brahman. These are fascinating claims, but I have found no evidence to
either validate or invalidate them.
6. Chand 159.
7. It was especially Rūpa Gosvāmī (fl. ca. 1500–­1550) who systematized emotional bhakti reli-
gion in terms of aesthetic theory. Rūpa met Caitanya in 1514, settled permanently in Vrinda-
van in 1516, completed his Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu (Ocean of nectar of the essence of devotion)
 366 9 6. Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti

in 1541, and died around 1557. He saw bhakti rasa as the only true rasa, conceiving it not as a
temporary aesthetic experience but as the spiritual experience that is the core and culmi-
nation of the genuine religious life, one based on devotion. See Haberman 2003, 385, 73.
8. Lutgendorf 1991, 311; 1992, 219. For more detailed discussions of rasik practice in the (espe-
cially Gauḍiya) Kṛṣṇa-­centered bhakti tradition, see Haberman 1988; Stewart 2005.
9. Lutgendorf 1991, 310.
10. For a study and translation of these verses in the Bhaktamāl, see Lutgendorf 1981.
11. Kumkum Chatterjee 2009, 155, 158.
12. Bhagavati Prasad Singh 1957, 88. As noted, Payahārī presented Rājā Pṛthvīrāj with the deity
Sītārām-­jī in the form of a śālagrām stone, and the deity’s name could allude to an amorous
unity of Sītā and Rām suggestive of a rasik sensibility; however, Nābhā’s descriptions of
Payahārī indicate a far more ascetic, yogic, Sant sensibility than that of a rasik.
13. The only full-­length study of the Rām-­rasik tradition is in Hindi, Bhagavati Prasad Singh’s
Rām bhakti mem rasik sampradāya (Balarampur: Avadha Sahitya Mandira, 1957). For the his-
torical development of Rām-­rasik bhakti, in addition to Singh’s study, see Paramasivan 2010;
Lutgendorf 1992.
14. Because mādhurya and śṛṅgār, or erotic love/passion, have long played central roles in rasik
visualization practice, rasik texts and gurus have often advocated strict secrecy and
warned against revealing their teachings to the uninitiated. Rasik literature cautions fur-
ther that its meditative practices should not be externalized. While the tradition has had
much historical success and influence, it also received criticism from British colonialists,
nationalist Hindu reformers, and even some segments of the broader public attached to the
image of Rām as maryādā-­puruṣottam. I was once told by a Jaipur resident that there is a local
saying about Galta, where Rām-­rasik bhakti flourished (and may have originated): Galtā meṃ
galtī bhayī; rām karat hai rās; that is, “In Galta, a mistake was made; that Rām does rās līlās.”
15. Lutgendorf 1992, 220–­21.
16. Stewart 2013, 55. This is not to suggest, as some scholars have, that the interiorized practice
of rasik bhakti was a retreat from—­or the establishment of a world of meaning beyond—­the
“Muslim-­controlled” sociopolitical sphere. See, for example, Haberman 1988, 43–­44. As Lut-
gendorf has rightly pointed out, “The practice of visualization and of the fabrication of
inner bodies has a very old pedigree in the subcontinent, extending back long before the
establishment of the Delhi Sultanate,” and rasik practice “came to prominence precisely
during a period of generally amicable relations between Hindus and Muslims . . . w ​ hen
Hindu nobles occupied powerful positions in the imperial administration and large tem-
ples were again being constructed in North India under princely patronage” (1992, 229).
17. The fact that this signature (chāp), Agra-­ali, does not occur in any of the seventeenth-­century
manuscripts of his work and tends to occur only in sectarian Rām-­rasik collections makes me
skeptical that Agra ever identified himself in this way. The presence of this chāp is probably
linked to hagiographical accretions and new works attributed to Agradās that occurred in
conjunction with the later (eighteenth to nineteenth century) rise of Rām-­rasik bhakti.
18. Chappay 40. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations in this chapter are mine.
19. In this important set of verses, Anantadās states (Pīpā-­parcāī 35:25–­28), “If a person stays in
one of the four sampradāyas, he will be loved by Hari. He will be called pure, and if he does
not find liberation, he will at least not be unfortunate. / If Hari maintains the respect for
your appearance, even death cannot touch you. Anantānand, the disciple of Rāmānanda,
was pure, appearing like the full moon. His disciple was Krishnadās Adhikārī, known to all
 6. Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 367

as dūdhādhārī or ‘having only milk as food.’ His disciple was Agra who excelled in love [prem]
and strictly observed the rules of meditation [sumiran]. / Vinod received the teachings of
Agra, and I Ananta came as his disciple. By his grace I completed this parcaī, listen, saints,
to my true testimony (sākhī)” (Callewaert 2000a, 225).
20. Sumiran is also commonly seen as simraṇ, sumaraṇ, sumiraṇ, and smaraṇ. The very first word
of Agra’s Dhyān Mañjarī is the imperative form of this verb: sumirau śrī raghuvīr—­“Remember
[meditate on] Rām!”
21. Among rasik bhaktas, it seems that remembrance (sumiran, smaran) of the Name came to be
thought of as purifying and preparing the rasik practitioner for the more difficult remem-
brance of meditation on (visualization of) the līlās of God.
22. Chappay 157:1–­3. bahut bāg sūṃ prīti rīti hari kī jin jāṇīṃ / nīndai gaundai āp āp parvāhai pāṇī / jo
upajai phal phūl soī prabhujī kauṃ arapai /
23. Lutgendorf 1991, 315.
24. Jhā 1978, 34.
25. Kavitt 123. Nābhājī, Śrī Bhaktamāl, with the Bhaktirasabodhinī commentary of Priyā Dās, 314. See
also Pinch 1999, 393.
26. The tradition at Raivasa adds further details to Priyādās’s account. When Agradās emerged
from meditation, Mān Singh gave him pranām, and, accepting his respectful greeting,
Agradās ordered Nābhā to distribute ten bananas apiece as prasād to all of Mān Singh’s
assembled men. According to this oral tradition, Mān Singh was on his way to war and
had with him an army of ten thousand men. When Agra ordered Nābhā to distribute ten
bananas to each soldier, Mān Singh noticed that Nābhā held a single bunch of ten bananas
in his hands. Nevertheless, Nābhā went around and gave ten bananas each to everyone
present, arriving back before Agra and Mān Singh holding the same ten bananas he had
begun with. Amazed by this miracle in which God had seemingly provided an inexhaustible
abundance of bananas to his devoted servants, it is said that the seed of Vaiṣṇava bhakti was
then firmly planted in Mān Singh’s mind, and thereafter he became a great patron of the
Vaiṣṇavas. See Rāthaur 2003, 22–­23.
27. McGregor 1983, 237–­38.
28. Rāthaur 2003, 21.
29. For the full argument with detailed evidence for why the Rāmānandī community at Raivasa
may not have existed until the early eighteenth century, see Burchett 2018.
30. It is important to note that the word for servant here is the feminine sevikā, indicating that
in his rasik visualization practice, Agra served the divine couple in the role of a female
mañjarī, or “handmaiden,” of Sītā, a fact made even clearer in Yugalpriyā’s next stanza.
31. Of the twenty-­four Dhyān Mañjarī manuscripts I have found, fourteen come from the nine-
teenth century, nine are undated, and one comes from the eighteenth century (1761). See
the appendix.
32. For a discussion of the role that Agradās (and his authority as a rasik saint) has played in
modern-­day debates within the Rāmānandī community, and the ways his memory has
been constructed over time, see Burchett 2018.
33. See the appendix for a list of all the manuscripts of works attributed to Agradās that I found
during my research. In addition to the thirteen titles I have found (all of which are in addi-
tion to the many scattered pads of his found in manuscripts of bhakti poetry anthologies), if
we include the names of texts that the Miśrabandhu Vinod and various Hindi scholars attri-
bute to Agradās, we can add at least four (and perhaps more) to that list. Of the thirteen
 368 9 6. Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti

compositions I have seen, I found at least five manuscripts of the following: the Dhyān
Mañjarī (24), the Kuṇḍaliyā, also called the Hitopadeśa-­bāvanī (10), the Prahlād Caritra (6), and
the Nām Pratāp (5). A number of Hindi scholars mention a collection of Agra’s verses called
the Agrasāgar that they regret is no longer extant. In the Jaipur City Palace I found a manu-
script dated 1685 and titled Bhāgavat pad prasaṅg that (though incomplete and partially
damaged) contains more than three hundred poems of Agra’s and may be this seemingly
lost Agrasāgar.
34. Pad Sangrah, v.s. 1670, Jodhpur RORI #13498 (2). This collection includes ten continuous man-
uscript pages of poetry with the chāp (signature) of Agradās. The scribe’s handwriting is not
always entirely legible, thus I am still analyzing and attempting to transcribe and translate
these verses.
35. These ten poems attributed to Agradās were found in the 1707 manuscript used by Brajen-
dra Kumar Siṃhal in his published edition of Rajjab’s anthology. For more information on
the Sarvāṅgī literature of the Dādū ­Panth, see Rajpurohit 2012. Rajpurohit convincingly
establishes the circa 1600 date of composition of Rajjab’s Sarvāṅgī (49–­55).
36. Whereas these translations are mine, I am grateful for Dalpat Rajpurohit’s expert assis-
tance in editing and polishing them. All translations are based on the Devanāgarī text
found in Rajjab kī Sarvāṅgī, ed. B. Siṃhal (2010).
37. Ang 20 (nām mahīmā kau ang), pad 9.
38. Ang 22 (bhajan pratāp kau ang), pad 14.
39. Ang 41 (bhaki pasāv kau ang), pad 6. Another of Agradās’s poems in Rajjab’s Sarvāṅgī—­Ang 39,
pad 10—­similarly emphasizes his lowness and powerlessness and begs for the mercy and
compassion of the Lord (Mādhav), “the crest-­jewel of benevolence.”
40. Alternatively, this final verse could be rendered, “Agradās begs Hari to hear the stories
[of the saints], those who rest in the ocean of nectar.”
41. Ang 73 (upadeś citāvaṇī kau ang), pad 36.
42. Ang 43, pad 14.
43. Legend has it that the kasturi mṛg (musk deer) was roaming around in the forests when it
suddenly became aware of a beautiful scent that stirred it so profoundly it resolved to find
its source. Day and night, it desperately searched all over for the source of the sweet scent,
eventually falling off a cliff to its death. As it lay there taking its last breaths, the deer real-
ized that the scent that had inspired all its searching actually came from its very own navel
and thus it found inexpressible peace and happiness in its last moment. Presumably, the
pervasiveness of the invisible, intangible scent and its ultimate source within the deer
itself symbolize, respectively, the brahman and ātman. Agradās follows tradition in likening
the determined searching of the musk deer to the noble pursuits and efforts of the genuine
spiritual seeker.
44. agra svāmi ānan ānand nidhi vṛndāban ke cand kau// 14d. Agradās, Bhāgavat Pad Prasaṅg, Ms
1616 (3), Jaipur City Palace, v.s. 1742 (1685 CE).
45. A devotion to Kṛṣṇa, as well as Rām, characterized the Galta community of Rāmānandīs
even into the mid-­eighteenth century, as indicated by a Sanskrit text titled the Gālavgītam.
This text was written in the mid-­1700s by a figure named Dwārkānāth, who was the son of
Jaisingh II’s court poet, Śrī Kṛṣṇa Bhaṭṭ. The Gālavgītam praises the natural beauty and
sacredness of Galta while singing the praises of a Kṛṣṇaized Rām (who wears yellow, has a
peacock-­feather crown, and plays the flute) and a Rāmaized Kṛṣṇa (carrying a bow and
arrow), referring to them both as being eternal residents of Galta. The last line of the poem
 6. Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 369

stresses that there are only two vessels for crossing the ocean of existence and achieving
contentment, Rām and Kṛṣṇa. The Sanskrit text (consisting of fifteen three-­line stanzas),
with a Hindi commentary, can be found in Bhatt 2007, 246–­53.
46. In the Bhaktamāl, Nābhādās’s verses on the Kacchvāhā king Pṛthvīrāj (chappay 116) make it
clear that, through his guru, Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī, he became acquainted with the Truth and
had a vision, not of Rām but of Kṛṣṇa, in his form as Lord of Dvārka (Dvārkanāth).
47. Horstmann 2002, 148.
48. Chappays 5, 6, and 28; see Horstmann 2002, 152.
49. Paramasivan 2010, 37.
50. Translated in Paramasivan 2010, 38.
51. Rāmcaritmānas 1.21.4b; my translation. aguṇa saguṇa bica nāma susākhī / ubhaya prabodhaka
catura dubhāṣī //
52. Nām Pratāp, v.s. 1758, Jaipur City Palace, Ms 1541(2).
53. rasnā nām kyauṃ hauṃ jau āvai / jam jātnā kabhū nahi pāvai // 43.
54. ulṭi bhūp tahā prasan ju kīnī / nām mātra kaisai gati dīnī // 50.
55. In Raidās Vānī 32.1 (AG), Raidās states, kali keval nām adhār.
56. In Rāmcaritmānas, Uttarkāṇḍ (VII) 102:2b–­4a, Tulsīdās says the following (in addition to the
meaning of this passage, which closely parallels Agra’s verses, note also that Tulsī here
makes use of the phrase that would become the title of Agra’s work): kalijug keval hari gun
gāhā / gāvat nar pāvahi bhav thāhā // kalijug jog na jai na jñānā / ek adhār rām gun gānā // sab bha-
ros taji jo bhaj rāmhi / prem samet gāv gun grāmhi // soi bhav tar kachu sansay nāhīṃ nām pratāp
pragaṭ kali māhīṃ //
57. Busch 2011, 26.
58. Caturviśati-­avatāranāmāni, Jaipur City Palace, Ms 3090 (2), undated.
59. In my research, I have found five manuscripts of Agradās’s Prahlād Caritra and two manu-
scripts of his Dhruv Caritra (see the appendix). For translations of these famous bhaktas
stories in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, see Bryant 2017.
60. Venkatkrishnan 2015, 70.
61. Hawley 2015a, 218.
62. Orsini 2015, 331–­32.
63. Meyer 2009, 9.
64. Some verses in Agradās’s larger corpus contain Rajasthani language mixed with Braj.
65. The rolā meter consists of eleven plus thirteen mātrās per line. A mātrā is a metrical instance;
short vowels are of one mātrā, and long vowels are of two.
66. McGregor 1983.
67. The Brajbhasha text of the following translations of the Dhyān Mañjarī is based on my tran-
scription of the earliest manuscript of the Dhyān Mañjarī I have found, which comes from
the Nāgarī Pracāriṇī Sabhā (#772) in Banaras and is dated v.s. 1818 (1761 CE). I compared this
manuscript against the second oldest Dhyān Mañjarī manuscript I have found, Ms 25307
from the Jodhpur RORI, dated v.s. 1872 (1815 CE), and found for the most part only minor
differences in spelling (e.g., dhare versus dharaiṃ). I also checked these manuscripts against
the two printed versions of the text I have been able to obtain. To my knowledge there are
only two published sources available of works attributed to Agradās (beyond those verses
found in published versions of Rajjab’s Sarvāṇgī). The first is the Agradās Granthāvalī (which
includes the Kuṇḍaliyā, Dhyān Mañjarī, and Sādhan Gītāvalī), ed. Balbhadra Tivārī (Ilāhābād:
Saryendra Prakāśan, 1985). Tivārī’s edition of the Dhyān Mañjarī relies solely on a manuscript
 370 9 6. Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti

from the Pune Vidyāpīṭh dated v.s. 1911 (1854 CE). His edition is littered with misprints and
errors in transcription from the manuscript. The second available published source is the
Agra-­Granthāvalī printed (in 1994) and distributed by Raivasa Dhām itself, which consists of
two parts (each a small pamphlet without proper binding). The text of this edition of the
Dhyān Mañjarī has far fewer errors and misprints and matches more closely the manuscripts
of the Dhyān Mañjarī I have in my possession; however, the manuscript source(s) for the text
is not identified.
68. For more on this subject, see Haberman 1988, 108–­14.
69. Stewart 2005, 266.
70. Stewart 2005, 266.
71. avadhpūrin ko avadhi yahi śruti samṛti varanī / dhyān dhare such karani nam ucarat agh haranī // 12.
72. Paramasivan 2010, 104–­5.
73. bhumi rahe lagi bhār ḍār phal phūlan bhārī / pāthik janan phal den man hu yeh bhujā pasārī // 17.
74. For a similar analysis of Kṛṣṇa rasik practice, see Stewart 2005, 267.
75. rām rūp ko nirakhi vibhākar koṭik lāje // 47b.
76. atulit jugal svarūp kavan as upamā jinkī / jetik upamā dīpti sakti kari bhāsit tinhkī // 65.
77. Lutgendorf 1992, 222.
78. Bhagavati Prasad Singh 1957, 94. The Sadāśiva Saṃhitā seems to have been a canonical text for
rasiks, and parts of it survive as quotations in rasik literature, especially in the work of
Rāmcarandās (1760–­1831). R. S. McGregor (1983, 240–­41) points out that the tree-­throne-­lotus
theme was, however, well known and thus Agra’s source need not have been the Sadāśiva
Saṃhitā. While a number of scholars, including McGregor, have considered the Bhuśuṇḍi
Rāmāyaṇa—­a Rāmaite adaptation of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa published in three volumes
by Bhagavati Prasad Singh—­a likely source for Agradās’s Dhyān Mañjarī (and Tulsīdās’s
Rāmcaritmānas), Alan M. Keislar (1998) has argued that the version of the Bhuśuṇḍi Rāmāyaṇa
used by Singh was actually composed in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century and
thus could not have been a source text used by Agra (or Tulsī).
79. McGregor 2003, 936–­37.
80. Jhā 1978, 243.
81. McGregor 2003, 923, 925. Nandadās (fl. 1570) sought to make Sanskrit texts and aesthetic con-
ventions available to a growing Brajbhasha reading community and composed vernacular
versions of several important Sanskrit texts, often significantly altering the originals to fit
his own purposes. His works included Brajbhasha renderings of Bhānudatta’s Rasamañjarī and
Kṛṣṇa Miśra’s Prabodhacandrodaya, the Rāsapañcādhyāyī (Five chapters on the round dance,
from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa), and two oft-­referenced Braj dictionaries—­the Mānamañjarī (a the-
saurus) and Anekārthamañjarī (a versified vocabulary of difficult Sanskrit words)—­based on
the Amarakośa. See Busch 2011, 116.
82. “Rīti poetry” generally refers to a refined genre of Brajbhasha poetry and literature pro-
duced, usually in and for royal courts, according to a distinct method or way (rīti) based on
time-­honored Sanskrit literary-­aesthetic codes and concepts regarding rasa, nāyikābheda
(catalogues of female characters), alaṅkāra (figures of speech), etc.
83. Busch 2011, 62.
84. Busch 2011, 46.
85. Busch 2011, 173.
86. Tyler Williams, email message to author, November 24, 2011. Williams’s research on the
Nirañjanī sampradāy suggests that they, like the Rāmānandīs, had a rather “hard-­core”
 6. Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 371

ascetic, yogic first generation but that in the second and third generations they started
producing rasik and rasik-­like texts.
87. Busch 2011, 163.
88. A proper analysis of Agra’s Kuṇḍaliyā and translation of its sixty-­six stanzas (seventy-­six in
some manuscripts) is beyond the scope of the present monograph, although I hope to carry
out this important work in a future publication.
89. I have kept dhyān untranslated in these verses so that a greater depth and breadth of mean-
ing might speak forth, but if this rich term must be translated, perhaps the best sense of the
word here is “meditative vision.”
90. The cātak (cātṛk), or “pied cuckoo” (papīhā), is a bird believed to survive on only falling rain-
drops it catches with its beak.
91. Busch 2011, 110.
92. Busch 2011, 110, 271n36.
93. Busch 2011, 128.
94. Busch 2011, 116. Agradās was probably not a rīti poet if by “rīti poet” we mean one who
designed his poetry for more courtly, literary, and “secular” contexts or whose attentions
were primarily on producing works in tune with refined Sanskrit literary codes. Of course,
the line between bhakti poetry and rīti poetry is regularly so blurry as to be meaningless.
95. Katherine Butler Schofield explains that “in the person of the rasika, connoisseurship is
overtly privileged in Indic aesthetic theory. . . . ​In Sanskrit and Brajbhasha literature of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, rasika was the generic term most often used to denote
connoisseurs of poetry and music” (2015, 409–­10).
96. Lutgendorf 1991, 314.
97. Kiss 2009, 57.
98. Kiss 2009, 58.
99. Kiss 2009, 59.
100. Holdrege 2015, 304.
101. Holdrege 2015, 307–­8.
102. Not just tantric methods and ritual technologies but also tantric theology was sometimes
employed by early modern bhaktas. The six Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Gosvāmīs in Braj were influ-
enced by tantric and āgamic works and utilized tantric theological and metaphysical
notions (within a bhakti paradigm) to describe the ultimate meaning of Rādhā’s union with
Kṛṣṇa. Rūp Gosvāmī’s Ujjvalanīlamaṇi (Rādhāprakaraṇa, v. 6) boldly states that the śakti
of the tantric tradition is, in fact, Rādhā herself (hlādinī yā mahāśaktī-­varīyasī / tatsāra-­
bhāvarūpayamiti tantre pratiṣṭhitā). See Shrivatsa Goswami 1996, 275.
103. The caste of Nābhādās (who was also called Nārāyandās) is not entirely certain, but the
available evidence suggests that he was of low status, probably the Ḍom caste of untouch-
able bards. His initiation into the order would thus have been emblematic of the early
Rāmānandīs’ liberal social views and heterodox caste practices. On the question of Nābhā’s
caste, see Pinch 1999, 384–­88; Hare 2011b, 32–­33.
104. Dohā 4. śrī guru agradev ājñā daī bhaktan kau jasu gāy / bhavsāgar ke taran kau nāhin ān upāy// 4.
105. Chappay 180:5. agar anug gun baranate sītāpati tihi hoī bas/ I have found this entire chappay
(180) of the Bhaktamāl in some manuscripts of Agradās’s Kuṇḍaliyā, begging the question of
whether it may be a direct quotation (by Nābhā) of a poem actually composed by Agradās.
106. What has long perplexed me is the fact that Anantadās, despite the importance of his
parcāīs in bhakti scholarship, does not seem to be remembered by the Rāmānandī tradition
 372 9 6. Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti

today in any significant way. Nābhā’s samādhi is at Galta and he is a focal point of worship
and remembrance at Raivasa, but in neither place is there any living memory of Anantadās.
Anantadās clearly saw himself as a Rāmānandī and a member of one of the prestigious cār-­
sampradāya. In Pīpā-­parcāī 35:25–­28, he traces his genealogy from Rāmānand to Anantānand
to Kṛṣṇadās Payahārī to Agradās to his guru, Vinod. Yet his parcāīs seem to have been influ-
ential and remembered only among the nirguṇ-­oriented Rajasthani communities of the
Nirañjanīs and Dādū ­Panth, in whose manuscript collections his parcāīs are most often
found (perhaps because they focus on nirguṇ-­oriented devotee-­saints).
107. Burghart 1978, 126, 133.
108. Pinch 1999, 369, 379, 399.
109. One South Indian precedent to Nābhādās’s hagiography is the mid-­t welfth-­century Periya
Purāṇam (or Tiruttoṇṭar Purāṇam), Cēkkiḷār’s accounts of the sixty-­three canonical nāyanmārs,
poet-­saints of the Tamil Śaiva tradition. Another is the Basava Purāṇa, Somanātha
Pālkuriki’s account of the life of Basava and (approximately one hundred) other key mem-
bers of the Vīraśaiva tradition in Karnataka. Others include the twelfth-­century Sanskrit
Divyasūricaritam, about the twelve Tamil Vaiṣṇava Āḷvārs, and the fourteenth-­century
Tamil Guruparamparāprabhāvam. As James Hare points out, Nābhā’s Bhaktamāl “is not the first
Hindu text to celebrate the lives of devotees in order to assemble a canonical community. It
differs from its earlier, southern predecessors, though, in that its community is far more
expansive in its boundaries than the community imagined by these earlier collective hagiog-
raphers” (2011b, 6).
110. Hawley (2012) has offered some thought-­provoking observations and speculations on this
topic. Considering that Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl was “a work of astonishing novelty so far as
Hindu writings were concerned” and considering Nābhā’s complete ignorance of earlier
(South Indian) collective bhakti hagiographies, Hawley remarks, “I wonder whether Nābhādās
or his teacher Agradās got the Bhaktamāl idea from the historiographical writings of Mus-
lims. Was Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl meant to be, in effect, ‘our tazkirā?’ ” Even though there are
hardly any Persian-­derived words used in the Bhaktamāl and Nābhādās does not include a
single Muslim (unless you count Kabīr) in his hagiography, still Hawley gives reasons why
“it may not be unreasonable to think that Nābhādās may in some way have been influenced
by Islamic hagiographical practices that were current in his day and region.” See also Her-
mansen and Lawrence 2000 and de Bruijn 2014.
111. Heidi Pauwels (2002, 264–­68) convincingly establishes these dates in her excellent book on
Harirām Vyās and early modern North Indian bhakti.
112. Pauwels 2002, 162.
113. Vyās often grouped them based on their low caste, writing in one poem, “A barber (Sen), a
farmer (Dhanā), a leather worker (Raidās), a weaver (Kabīr), a cotton carder (Nāmdev) . . . ​
That’s whom God cherished” (pad 41b) (Pauwels 2002, 101). Nāmdev simply lived too much
earlier than the other devotees to have possibly been considered a disciple of Rāmānand.
114. On the topic of why and how early modern North Indian bhakti communities (which had
little to do with the south) claimed links to South Indian Vaiṣṇavism, see Hawley 2015b,
99–­147.
115. Hare 2011a, 153.
116. Hare 2011a, 154.
117. Hare 2011a, 155.
 6. Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti = 373

118. Hawley (2015b, 136–­39) has also—­in a different context and with different conclusions—­
briefly addressed the omission of Dādū, Nānak, and any Sufis in Nābhādās’s Bhaktamāl.
119. Dādū frequently references Nāmdev and Kabīr by name in his poetry. Jan Gopāl, in his bio­
graphy of Dādū, the Janmā Līlā (ca. 1620), states, “He continually sang Kabīr’s poems and
verses and became his equal in word and deed” (2:4a) (Callewaert 1988, 37).
120. Thiel-­Horstmann 1983, 3.
121. If any vision of bhakti community deserves to be called radically and wildly inclusive, it is
not that of Nābhādās but that of Rāghavdās, whose anthology of bhaktas, composed in 1660
(see Rāghavdās 1965), includes virtually everyone in Nābhā’s work while also devoting hagi-
ographical passages to Nāths, Śaiva saṃnyāsīs, Nirañjanīs, Nānak and his successors, and, of
course, Dādū and his followers. Rāghavdās relied heavily on Nābhādās’s text and worked
with its rubric of the “four sampradāys” but also articulated a new quartet, the “four panths”
of Nānak, Dādū, Kabīr, and Haridās (Nirañjanī), which he presented (in contrast to the cār-­
sampradāys) as a foursome united by nirguṇ bhakti.
122. One of Islam’s most foundational and passionately held principles is that God is One,
­absolutely indivisible without form or qualities, thus it seems reasonable to assume that
(whether via their family backgrounds or interactions with Sufis) the influence of Islam
had a significant role to play in the strict nirguṇ perspectives of Dādū and Nānak. We should
also note here that Dādū’s followers (Rajjab, Rāghav, et al.) did not necessarily share all his
theological views and were not all as exclusively nirguṇ as he was.
123. Chappay 116; translated in Horstmann 2002, 153–­54.
124. G. N. Bahura’s (1976, 25–­27) translation of four pads attributed to Pṛthvīrāj during “the time
of his adherence to the Nātha-­pantha” supports this view, as they articulate a thoroughly
nirguṇ devotional vision with allusions to Nāth kuṇḍalinī yoga.
125. It seems that the nirguṇ understanding of the Divine was not an obstacle in theory or prac-
tice for devotees of Rām and Kṛṣṇa, as long as—­a nd this was crucial—­one’s notion of a
nirguṇ Divine also made room for saguṇ conceptions. To the contrary, for many Sufis, Sikhs,
Dādū-panthīs, and Nāths who worshipped God as absolutely unqualified, saguṇ conceptions
of the Divine constituted an error, even an affront.
126. It is important to keep in mind that the early Dādupanthī community may not have been
organizationally unified or held an entirely consistent theological position, and that
Agradās was criticizing and satirizing Dādū, not his followers. Some of Dādū’s early follow-
ers, as their works would suggest, were considerably more open to saguṇ devotional options
than he was, even if they maintained a primarily nirguṇ orientation. As Thiel-­Horstmann
(1983, 3) explains, it was not Dādū but his first-­generation disciples who incorporated their
community into the system of sagūn Vaiṣṇavism.
127. Kuṇḍaliyā, Jaipur City Palace, Ms 1489 (15), v.s. 1692 (1635 CE). The translated poem is no. 65
in a manuscript of the Kuṇḍaliyā consisting of sixty-­six poems. Later manuscripts include as
many as seventy-­six poems. I am grateful for the expert insights of Tyler Williams and Dal-
pat Rajpurohit in making sense of this challenging poem.
128. I have not translated the second line of the poem, which is an exact repetition of the first
line. Ordinarily, a kuṇḍaliyā stanza consists of a dohā couplet (thirteen plus eleven mātrās)
followed by a rolā (eleven plus thirteen mātrās) quatrain, with the first pāda of the rolā
repeating the last pāda of the dohā (and the last line of the poem returning to the phrase
with which it started). It appears that Agradās has altered that standard metric structure
 374 9 6. Agradās and the Circulation of Mughal Bhakti

here, imitating the kuṇḍaliyā’s repetitive aspects but seemingly in a poem consisting of
seven lines (not six), with the second and third lines in rolā and all others in the meter of
a dohā.
129. Ṭek could also be translated as either “shelter” or “stubbornness,” substantially altering
this line’s meaning. Other possible renderings are “Dādū held to his stubborn ways and
without proper dress he corrupted his body,” or “Dādū took the shelter [of Rām], but with-
out proper dress he ruined his body.”
130. I have chosen to translate this line in a manner that makes its meaning in tune with an
alternative version of the line given in two other manuscript sources: kahanī karanī ek ras
man hiyau na cālan—­“In his words and deeds, not a single rasa moved in his heart and mind.”
The line in the manuscript I have relied upon could also be translated as “All his words were
excellent and he would not let his mind be distracted (moved),” i.e., he was a master at both
meditation and composing poetry. In any case, the overall meaning is not much changed,
for the next line clearly implies that whatever his virtues, Dādū’s practice was missing
something essential; it lacked the all-­important taste, or rasa, of the Divine. The other two
versions of this poem I consulted come from the Agradās Granthāvalī edited by Balbhadra
Tivārī (1985), which relies on a manuscript from the Pune Vidyāpīṭh dated v.s. 1911 (1854 CE)
and the Agra-­Granthāvalī printed in 1994 as a small pamphlet and distributed by Raivasa
Dhām itself (the manuscript source or sources for this text are not identified).
131. This line might also be translated, “Without the taste of a bit of salt all the sauce is ruined
[wasted].” Either way, here Agradās clearly advocates an aesthetically based experience of
the Divine. It was common for poets to talk about the sweet essence (rasa) of God in terms of
flavors, food, and eating. As Tyler Williams (email message to author, July 6, 2012) has sug-
gested to me, this line may be “a reference to the ontology prevalent at that time: God is the
salt in the sauce, or the water—­he permeates it, and gives it its flavor (i.e., joy), although you
can not see Him or separate Him from this sauce (the phenomenal world). The one who
recognizes God/salt in the sauce has bliss; the one who perceives no salt misses out on God
and the joy of existence.”
132. This is perhaps the most difficult and most crucial line of the poem. It is not clear whom
svām (svāmī) refers to in the verse. Agradās sometimes used “Agra Svāmī” as his chāp,
though the word here seems more likely to refer to God, or to mean “religious leader.” The
word svāṅg in this line is equally troublesome and can be variously translated as “garb,”
“disguise/guise,” “pretense,” “sham/farce,” “show/drama,” “role in a play,” or “pretender.”
Here it is probably meant to refer back in some way to the word bheṣ (dress) in the third line,
thus I have rendered it as “garb.” Alternative translations might be, “Agra says, without the
garb of a svāmī [religious leader], he [Dādū] just looks like a ghoul.” It seems most likely that
the use of bhūt is meant to parallel the use of ḍāyan; i.e., that Dādū sees the “garb” of Rām as
an evil spirit and thus he calls his own mother (the feminine, immanent dimension of the
Divine) a demon.
133. Callewaert 1988, 41. Janma Līlā 2:5a states that Dādū “ignored all Muslim customs and aban-
doned Hindu practices”; turkī rāh ṣodi sab gaḍī arū hīnduni kī karnī chāḍī/
134. Callewaert 1988, 52. dhyān manaū sukhdev sarīra jog jugati gorakh thai nīrā/
135. Dādū’s inappropriate attention to dress mirrors his inappropriate understanding and per-
ception of the “garb” of the Divine, the feminine māyā/śakti that is his very own mother but
that he calls a witch. Dādū did not acknowledge either the saguṇ Rām or, crucially, Rām’s
wife—­in the rasik sense, his śakti—­Sītā.
 7. Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 375

136. My translation. Janma Līlā 2.6: svāṅg bheṣ paṣ panth na mānai pūranbrahm sati kari jānai / devī
dev na pūjā pātī tirath brat na sevā jātī // I have deliberately left svāṅg and bheṣ untranslated in
order to highlight this verse’s resonance with the specific words and criticisms in Agradās’s
poem.
137. Callewaert 1988, 82. jo nirguṇ mat maiṃ rahasī bhāī tākī abagati karai sahāī/ iṣṭ bhiṣṭ kauṃ ṭhāhar
nāhīṃ samajhi dekhau apaṇaiṃ man māhīṃ// 15:18.13. Along the same lines, in his rules of
conduct for Dādūpanthī monks (Panth-­parakhyā), Dās (a grand-­d isciple of Dādū’s) warned
against the “singing of love songs” and “saguṇa songs” and advocated nirguṇ “songs of salva-
tion” as the only appropriate type of bhajan. See Horstmann 2012, 111.
138. Behl 2012a, 65.
139. Behl 2012a, 65; Cāndāyan v. 173. These verses come from the mouth of the nurse Biraspati in
response to the heroine Cāndā’s request to hear a tale “full of love’s savor” to ease the pain
of yearning for her absent beloved.
140. Dhyān Mañjarī, v. 72; Nām Pratāp, v. 69.
141. See Krishna Sharma 1987, x, 6n1.

7. Yogīs and Tantra-­Mantra in the Poetry of the Bhakti Saints

1. Pauwels 2010.
2. Since Nāth yogīs have roots in the Kaula tradition of tantric Śāktism, they would seem to be
a bridge between yogīs and Śāktas, but, as noted, with the passage of time most (though not
all) of the followers of Gorakhnāth took on a more celibate, misogynistic, and theologically
nirguṇ stance, abandoning or internalizing (within the yogic subtle body) tantric practices
widely considered morally depraved (e.g., sexual rites).
3. Callewaert 2013, 81.
4. Bryant and Hawley 2015, xxvi. Bryant’s comments refer specifically to the corpus of Sūrdās
poems, though they can certainly be applied far more broadly.
5. Bryant and Hawley 2015, xxvii.
6. Hess 2015, 75.
7. As Hess remarks, “It may be futile to search for the ‘authentic’ or original version of a par-
ticular poem that has come down to us embedded in the broad current of a living tradition
borne for centuries by predominantly oral and performative presentations that involve a
significant degree of improvisation” (2015, 119).
8. To my knowledge, a sustained analysis of early modern bhakti materials focused on repre-
sentations and criticisms of tantric and yogic religiosity has yet to be conducted. I discuss
the key factors of social and geographic location in representations of yogīs and tāntrikas,
showing distinctive emphases in poetry from particular regions, but it is beyond the scope
of this chapter to analyze the specific period, region, and sectarian environment in which
each poem (or the manuscript from which each poem comes) was composed.
9. Dvivedi (1942) 2000, 22–­24; quoted and translated in Agrawal 2011, 15.
10. Vaudeville 1974, 120.
11. Vaudeville 1974, 121.
12. Hawley 2005, 273.
13. Offredi 2002, 133.
14. Hawley 2005, 274.
 376 9 7. Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra

15. Hawley 2005, 304.

16. Lorenzen 2011, 43.
17. Vaudeville 1974, 120.
18. Bījak, sākhi 42; Hess and Singh 1983, 94.
19. Bījak, sākhi 43; Hess and Singh 1983, 94.
20. Bījak, śabda 90; Hess and Singh 1983, 71–­72.
21. Hess and Singh (1983, 183) explain this comparison of the Nāth to a crane: “Though white
on the outside, the crane or heron is cunning and violent. It stands still as if in meditation,
but is only waiting for its chance to grab fish. Bak dhyān (crane’s or heron’s meditation) is
proverbial for hypocritical meditation.”
22. Bījak, śabda 104.1–­3; Hess and Singh 1983, 76. I have not quoted the entire śabda.
23. Mallinson 2011b, 411, 426.
24. Granthāvalī pad 128; translated in Vaudeville 1974, 88.
25. Bījak śabda 74; Hess and Singh 1983, 66. In the last line of this quotation, Kabīr contrasts the
“true yogī” with the herb-­carrying tantric healer.
26. Granthāvalī pad 174; Hawley 2005, 275.
27. Bījak śabda 38; Hess and Singh 1983, 53–­54.
28. Callewaert 2000b, 420; Lorenzen 2011, 33–­34.
29. Callewaert 2000b, 420; Lorenzen 2011, 34–­35.
30. Lorenzen 2011, 29. Lorenzen uses the word index of Callewaert and Op de Beeck’s Kabīr-­bījak
and that of P. N. Tiwari’s edition of the Kabīr-­granthāvalī to analyze the frequency of these
key terms in Kabīr’s poetry. Here are some of the numbers of occurrences: yogī/jogī—­52,
Gorakh—­15, śākta—­17, brahman—­37, pīr—­23, shaykh—­7, mullah—­7.
31. Yatī (or jatī) is another word for an ascetic. This verse actually comes from a poem praising
the “true devotion” of Kabīr; translated in Pauwels 2002, 95.
32. Callewaert 2000a, 138–­39.
33. Callewaert 2000a, 139n99.
34. Trilochan parcaī 16–­17. My translation from original text in Callewaert 2000a, 128–­29.
35. The text is attributed to Guru Nānak, and tradition holds it was composed in the latter
years of his life, ca. 1524–­1539. See Nayar and Sandhu 2007, 59–­61.
36. Piar Singh (1996, 20) argues that the Siddh Goṣṭ represents the product of a number of actual
discussions between Nānak and the Nāth yogīs that occurred at different places and times.
37. Siddh Goṣṭ 7 and 9.
38. Siddh Goṣṭ 10:1–­3. All translations from the Siddh Goṣṭ are mine but come from the Devanagārī
transliteration of the original Panjabi text provided in Piar Singh 1996 and draw on Singh’s
own useful but inadequate English translation.
39. Siddh Goṣṭ 11.
40. Piar Singh 1996, 87.
41. Siddh Goṣṭ 34.3–­4.
42. Nāth yogīs could, of course (and clearly did) also call out one another for just this sort of
false spirituality. A bani attributed to Charapat Nāth states, “In their ears the earrings and
around their necks the rudraksha beads. / Roaming around they recite meaningless verses; /
Gorakha says, Listen O people! / This is a livelihood but it is not Yoga” (Digby 1975, 64).
43. Śrīnāmdev Gāthā, abhanga 1797; translation in Hawley 1983, 463.
44. Dohāvalī 550. All translations of the Dohāvalī are mine from original text in Chhawchharia
2006a.
 7. Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 377

45. Granthāvalī sākhī 25.5; translated in Vaudeville 1974, 281.

46. Granthāvalī sākhī 25.12; translated in Vaudeville 1974, 282.
47. This poem’s reference to yogīs probably does not refer to the Nāths but to militarized Śaiva
Daśanāmī saṃnyāsīs.
48. Bījak ramainī 69; translated in Pinch 2006, 194.
49. Pinch 2006, 195.
50. Gītāvalī, Uttarakāṇḍ 15.4. All translations of the Gītāvalī are mine from original text in
Chhawchharia 2006b.
51. Vinay Patrikā 173.3. All translations of the Vinay Patrikā are mine from original text in
Chhawchharia 2006d.
52. Vinay Patrikā 173.6.
53. Rāmcaritmānas, Araṇyakāṇḍ 6 (so.). Unless otherwise noted, all translations of the
Rāmcaritmānas are mine from original text in Prasad 1988.
54. Kavitāvalī, Uttarakāṇḍa 7.105. All translations of the Kavitāvalī are mine from original text
in Chhawchharia 2006c.
55. Rāmcaritmānas, Araṇyakāṇḍ 46.
56. Pīpā parcaī 35.31. My translation from original text in Callewaert 2000a, 276.
57. Redington 2000, 160. For analysis and interpretation of this passage, see also Horstmann
1997, 230.
58. Redington 2000, 160; Horstmann 1997, 230; see also Hawley 1983, 471–­72.
59. Raidās Vānī 17; Callewaert and Friedlander 1992, 114.
60. Raidās Vānī 38.1; Callewaert and Friedlander 1992, 127.
61. Raidās Vānī 13.2–­3; Callewaert and Friedlander 1992, 112.
62. Kavitāvalī, Uttarkāṇḍa 7.109.
63. KB 387, NPS 59; translated in Bryant and Hawley 2015, 696. (KB = Kenneth Bryant’s edition
of the Sūrsāgar, published in Hawley and Bryant 2015; NPS = Nāgarīpracāriṇī Sabhā edition
of Sūrsāgar).
64. Bryant and Hawley 2015, 696–­97.
65. Flying from flower to flower, gathering sweet nectar, the bee personifies the seemingly
fickle Kṛṣṇa. At the same time, Ūddho, because he is dark like Kṛṣṇa and serves as his mes-
senger, is also the bee. The bhramargīt poems—­most famously composed by Sūrdās but also
by other poets such as Nanddās—­have their origin as elaborations on a minor vignette in
Bhāgavata Purāṇa X.47, in which the gopīs see a passing bee and address it as Ūddho, reproach-
ing the bee for Kṛṣṇa’s faithless and hard-­hearted ways.
66. KB 248, NPS 4107; Hawley 2009, 129.
67. KB 278, NPS 4282; Hawley 2009, 134.
68. KB 253, NPS 4132; Hawley 2009, 130.
69. KB 266, NPS 4208; Hawley 2009, 132.
70. Nancy Martin 1999.
71. James Mallinson, email message to author, January 10, 2012.
72. Kavitāvalī, Uttarakāṇḍa 7.84.
73. While Tulsī is most often thought of as a poet with a saguṇ perspective, and while most of
his work focuses on God in form (especially as Rāmcandra but also Kṛṣṇa and Śiva), he also
acknowledged the nirguṇ (qualityless) perspective, seeing the saguṇ and nirguṇ aspects of
the Divine as inextricably linked and viewing their distinction as an artificial one that
should be transcended.
 378 9 7. Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra

74. Digby 1970b, 307.

75. Vaudeville 1976, 208.
76. Śrīnāmdev Gāthā, abhanga 1801; translation in Hawley 1983, 463.
77. Śrīnāmdev Gāthā, abhanga 2300; translation mine. See also the translation in Machwe
1990, 89.
78. Chitre 1991, 71.
79. Dimock 1999; Caitanya-­caritāmṛta 2:22.14–­15.
80. Stewart 2010, 74; LCM 2:1 [10]381–­403.
81. Stewart 2010, 174–­75; Caitanyacandrodaya 7.13.
82. Granoff 2005, 156.
83. Granoff 2005, 158.
84. Kabīr parcaī 1.1.
85. Kavitt 472–­73; Nābhājī 2009, 715–­17.
86. Pauwels 2010, 510.
87. KG 21:10; Vaudeville 1974, 266.
88. KG 21:12; Vaudeville 1974, 267. It should be noted that anti-­Śākta poems can be found in all
three of the major manuscript traditions of poetry attributed to Kabīr.
89. As Pauwels (2010, 530) explains, earthenware pots are often worshipped as manifestations
of the Goddess on the eighth and fourteenth days of the lunar month.
90. Pauwels 2010, 530.
91. Translated in Pauwels 1994, 37–­38.
92. Complicating stereotypical descriptions of a stock Śākta are figures such as the Bengali
Baṛu Caṇḍīdāsa (servant of Caṇḍī), who, as his name (along with other evidence) suggests,
was likely a Śākta, yet tells the story of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa in his Śrīkṛṣṇakīrtana (ca. 1350–­
1600?). Similarly, the fourteenth-­to-­fifteenth-­century Maithili poet Vidyāpati, though
often remembered as a Vaiṣṇava for his poetry depicting Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa as ideal lovers,
was actually not a Vaiṣṇava at all (he certainly did not worship Kṛṣṇa as a prime means to
salvation), and much of his work lavishes attention on Śiva and the goddess Durga. The
point is that both these figures seem to have been Śāktas who also made space, in some
form, for the praise of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā. In fact, these Śākta “exceptions”—­i f they were
that—­a re even today quite fondly remembered by adherents of Caitanya’s Vaiṣṇava bhakti
tradition.
93. Rachel McDermott has studied this tradition in depth, translating, contextualizing, and
analyzing the work of major Bengali Śākta poets such as Rāmprasād Sen and Kamalākānta
Bhattācārya. She writes, “This new vernacular genre expressed an unprecedented love and
intimacy toward Kālī and Umā, and marked a radical change in Bengali Śākta worship;
after a fifteen-­hundred year career in the Sanskrit religious texts as a dangerous and
blood-­lusting battle queen and as a Tantric deity incorporated into esoteric rituals and
philosophical speculations, Kālī started to develop in the eighteenth-­century Bengali
poetry an additional dimension—­that of a compassionate divine mother” (2001, 3).
94. Caitanya’s biographers report that on at least one occasion, Śāktas in Bengal protested
against Caitanya’s followers by dumping blood from their animal sacrifice on the doors of a
prominent Vaiṣṇava devotee. See Stewart 2010, 51. In Assam, Śaṅkaradeva’s Vaiṣṇava devo-
tional movement “drew intense hostility from the brāhmaṇs of the region, who complained
to the Ahom kings. Mādhva [Śaṅkaradeva’s closest disciple] was imprisoned and another
disciple was beheaded, while Śaṅkaradeva returned to the Koch kingdom, where he was
 7. Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 379

initially met with hostility by king Naranārāyaṇa, who arrested and tortured two of his
disciples” (Urban 2010, 150).
95. Caitanya-­Bhāgavata Ādi II, 86; quoted and translated in Dimock (1966) 1989, 112.
96. Quoted and translated in Dimock (1966) 1989, 112.
97. Quoted in Neog (1965) 1985, 81.
98. Urban 2010, 149.
99. Urban 2010, 151. Urban cites Śaṅkaradeva, Kīrttana-­ghoṣa 3.23.
100. Urban 2010, 151. Urban cites Śaṅkaradeva, Kīrttana-­ghoṣa 3.52.
101. Zysk 1991, 16.
102. Slouber 2016, 74. The gāruḍī, a snake charmer and tantric healer, derives his title from
Garuḍ, the legendary eagle and “king of the birds,” who is the enemy and devourer of
snakes.
103. White 2003, 265.
104. For a detailed investigation of the theme of snakes, snakebites, and tantra-­mantra in North
Indian bhakti literature, see Burchett 2013.
105. Madhumālatī 158–­59; Manjhan 2000, 67.
106. Madhumālatī 167; Manjhan 2000, 70.
107. Madhumālatī 166; Manjhan 2000, 70.
108. Padmāvat 11.1–­2; Jāyasī 1944, 83–­84.
109. Fascicle IV, Assembly 22; Lawrence 1992, 251.
110. Lawrence 1992, 251.
111. Rajab Vāṇī 10.14; Callewaert 2013, 15.
112. KG 2.2; translation adapted from Vaudeville 1974, 160.
113. KG 2.11; Vaudeville 1974, 163.
114. Dimock 1999; Caitanya-­caritāmṛta, Antya Līlā 15.66.
115. KB 315 (NPS 1367); translated in Hawley 2009, 142.
116. KB 314 (NPS 1365); Bryant and Hawley 2015, 545. Hawley notes that the snake in this poem is
described as dark or syām, one of the more common titles of Kṛṣṇa, making it clear that
Kṛṣṇa is both cause and cure of the pain of viraha.
117. Bryant and Hawley 2015, 546.
118. Translation slightly adapted from Hawley 2005, 105.
119. KG 2.1; my translation, adapted from Vaudeville 1974, 160.
120. My translation; original text in Hawley 2005, 111.
121. Pīpā parcaī 1.5; Callewaert 2000a, 142.
122. Pīpā parcaī 2.4–­5; Callewaert 2000a, 145.
123. Pīpā parcaī 3.7; Callewaert 2000a, 147.
124. Pīpā parcaī 3.8–­12; Callewaert 2000a, 147.
125. Pīpā parcaī 3.17–­18; Callewaert 2000a, 148.
126. Raidās parcaī 1.5–­6; Callewaert 2000a, 307.
127. Raidās parcaī 1.8; Callewaert 2000a, 307–­8.
128. Raidās paricaī 1.13; Callewaert 2000a, 308.
129. Raidās paricaī 1.15; Callewaert 2000a, 308.
130. Raidās Vāṇī 23; translation adapted from Callewaert and Friedlander 1992, 116–­17, 190–­91.
According to Callewaert and Friedlander, nāgadamanī is “a flowering shrub found in the
Himalayas which is believed to have the power to drive out the fever caused by snake
bites” (117).
 380 9 7. Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra

131. Particularly for celibate ascetic yogīs like the Nāths (and those influenced by them, like
Kabīr), the snake is also commonly used as a metaphor specifically for woman, or for lust
(engendered by women). Kabīr says (KG 30.18), “A beautiful woman is like a snake: those
who touch it get bitten! But it dares not come near those enamoured of the feet of Rām”
(Vaudeville 1974, 298).
132. Coming from a Kṛṣṇaite perspective, Rūpa Gosvāmin makes a similar point in his sixteenth-­
century work, the Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu. Citing the Garuḍa Purāna, Rūpa writes, “A person
becomes free after hearing the Vaiṣṇava mantra ‘Kṛṣṇa,’ which is the sole remedy for a life
destroyed by the bite of this snake-­like world” (1.2.171) (Haberman 2003, 57).
133. Guru Nānak expresses a parallel sentiment in verse 38 of his Siddh Goṣṭ (a sixteenth-­century
hymn included in the Ādi Granth): “Without the Guru, one is stung by the poisonous snake of
māyā, and dies. O Nanak without the Guru, all is lost.” See http:​­//www​­.unp​­.me​­/f15​­/siddh​
­-­gosht​­-­conversations​­-­w ith​­-­the​­-­siddhas​­-­159235​­/​­#ixzz1fgFhy8eG. In a more saguṇ vein,
Tulsīdās states in his Dohāvalī (v. 180) that the only healing herb (auṣadhi) for the confusion
brought on by māyā’s snakebite is devotional meditation on Rām.
134. Fatehpur manuscript, poem 11; Hawley 2005, 299.
135. Fatehpur manuscript, poem 7; Hawley 2005, 288.
136. I am grateful to Jack Hawley (communication to author, December 23, 2011) for this clever
insight.
137. Hawley 1985, 125.
138. Vaudeville 1968–­1969, 404. Vaudeville notes that Kabīr, for instance, ignores Viṣṇu as a deity
but uses the term “Vaiṣṇava” to refer to those who practice singing and remembrance of the
divine Name. Similarly, O’Hanlon et al. discuss a circa fifteenth-­century conservative Smārta
Śaiva brahman, Gopīnātha, who labels and criticizes “Vaiṣṇavas” as those “delud[ing] them-
selves that repeating the name of God was the summit of virtue and a substitute for following
their own prescribed place in the social order” (O’Hanlon, Hidas, and Kiss 2015, 111).
139. As Wilke and Moebus note, “Even though in Northern India, Tantra and bhakti were poten-
tial antitypes, the bhakti traditions absorbed the fundamental Tantric intuition of deity
and mantra being one, by regarding their supreme deity’s name(s) as powerful mantra(s)”
(2011, 668).
140. Machwe 1990, 83.
141. Urban 2010, 151.
142. Many early modern bhaktas believed the divine Name to have a power above not only that
of tantric mantras but also all other traditional forms of sacred sound in the Hindu tradi-
tion. As one Nāmdev pad states, “Foolish are the speakers and foolish the listeners who do
not cherish the Name of the Lord of Life. Mere noise: the Vedas; putrid: the Purāṇas; They
do not know the secret of the name Rām” (Callewaert 2013, 135).
143. Fatehpur manuscript, poem 7; Hawley 2005, 288.
144. Raidās Vāṇī 23; translation adapted from Callewaert and Friedlander 1992, 116–­17, 190–­91.
145. McLeod 1995, 129–­30. McLeod posits that the Sukhmanī, a lengthy hymn included in the Ādi
Granth, was most likely composed shortly before 1604 CE.
146. McLeod 1995, 129–­30.
147. Callewaert 2013, 131.
148. Stewart 2010, 214–­15.
149. Tony Stewart (forthcoming) has written insightfully on the key structural parallels and
differences between Sufi dhikr and Vaiṣṇava devotional repetition of the divine Name. He
 7. Yogīs and Tantra-­M antra = 381

points out that while singing/chanting the Name establishes the presence of God’s very
being for the Hindu devotee, dhikr works differently, gradually elevating the Sufi practitio-
ner’s consciousness to a communion with God.
150. Stewart 2010, 215. Haridāsa has long been understood as a converted Muslim who became
a Vaisnava, but Stewart argues that, in fact, no “conversion” is implied in any textual
evidence: he seems to be simply a kīrtana-­practicing Sufi; See Stewart forthcoming.
151. Holdrege 2015, 174–­75; see, for example, BhP XII.13.23.
152. Venkatkrishnan (2015, 30) highlights the fact that, while the Bhāgavata Purāṇa seems to
have been completed in South India around the tenth century (though portions of it may be
considerably earlier), we find no intellectual engagement with the text until three to four
centuries later, in regions to the north (Maharashtra and Orissa).
153. At the same time that bhakti poets writing in vernacular languages were championing
nāmakīrtana in the late Sultanate and Mughal periods, authors writing in Sanskrit—­a nd in
considerably more scholarly, philosophical forms of discourse—­were doing the same. Nota-
ble in this respect is Lakṣmīdhara’s fifteenth-­century work, the Bhagavannāmakaumudī
(Moonlight of God’s Name), which devoted itself to systematically developing and defend-
ing the all-­purifying power of this practice of singing God’s name, as proclaimed in the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa. See Venkatkrishnan 2015, 88, 125. Guy Beck suggests that the Bhāgavata
Purāṇa provided the scriptural and theological support that propelled vernacular singing
into “prominence in the liturgical and devotional contexts of the emerging Bhakti tradi-
tions throughout various regions” (2012, 133).
154. Granoff 2005, 156.
155. See Dimock (1966) 1989 for an excellent study of the Vaiṣṇava sahajiyās.
156. For more information on the historical development, literature, and religious practices of
the Nirañjanīs, see Williams 2014, 137–­95.
157. Callewaert and Friedlander 1992, 99.
158. Thiel-­Horstmann 1983, 3.
159. Schuhmann 2006, 273–­80.
160. Thiel-­Horstmann 1983, 15. In his Sarvāṅgayogapradīpikā, Sundardās once again discusses the
paths of bhakti yoga, haṭha yoga, and sāṃkhya yoga, praising his guru, Dādū, along with the
line of great Nāth yogīs—­Ādināth (Śiva), Matsyendra, Gorakh, Carpaṭ, Mīn, Kāṇerī, and
Cauraṅg—­a nd then also offering praise to Sāmkhya teachers such as Kapila, Dattātreya,
and Vaśiṣṭha. See Horstmann 2012, 100.
161. Horstmann 2012, 100; Thiel-­Horstmann 1983, 147.
162. For a translation and discussion of some fascinating passages in which Sundardās criti-
cizes a long list of deluded and worthless religious forms, including tantric and occult
practices, astrology, and a variety of specific austerities and ascetic practices, see Horst-
mann 2012, 103–­7.
163. Callewaert 2013, 85.
164. In addition to the Dādū ­Panth and the Nirañjanīs, in certain respects we might also con-
sider the ascetic branch of the Rāmānandīs an exception to the trend I have identified in
early modern North India. As noted, they had a complicated relationship with tantric-­
yogic practice and were far less hostile to it than what the increasingly more mainstream
devotion articulated by their rasik Rāmānandī counterparts showed. Indeed, the ascetic
Rāmānandīs have been major practitioners of and contributors to the classical haṭha yoga
tradition.
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8. The Triumphs of Devotion

1. Behl 2007, 320.

2. Padmāvat 12.1; Jāyasī 1944, 87–­89.
3. Madhumālatī 172–­73; Manjhan 2000, 72–­73.
4. Sreenivasan 2007, 42.
5. Behl 2012a, 176.
6. Weightman 2000, 233–­34. Weightman notes that the hero (Manohar) and heroine
(Madhumālatī) are described as the sun and the moon, which in kunḍalinī yoga represent mas-
culine and feminine essences/energies with the body that are to be united through yogic
practice. He provides a fascinating diagram in which verses from the text of the Madhumālatī
are correlated with different cakras (energy centers along the spine) and nāḍīs (energy chan-
nels) of the yogic subtle body.
7. Weightman 2000, 234.
8. Sreenivasan 2014b, 267–­68.
9. Pauwels 2012, 37.
10. Padmāvat 25.1; Jāyasī 1944, 158.
11. Padmāvat 25.13; Jāyasī 1944, 163.
12. Padmāvat 27.2; my translation from original text in Devanāgarī edition Jāyasī 1961 (v.s.
2018).
13. Padmāvat 27.3; Jāyasī 1944, 180. The Nāths were closely associated with the practice of
alchemy; see White 1996.
14. Padmāvat 27.5; Jāyasī 1944, 181.
15. Padmāvat 27.6; translation mine.
16. Padmāvat 27.14; Jāyasī 1944, 186.
17. Padmāvat 27.15; Jāyasī 1944, 186.
18. Padmāvat 27.16, 27.20; Jāyasī 1944, 186, 188.
19. Padmāvat 27.17, 27.21; Jāyasī 1944, 187–­88.
20. From this angle, Ratansen’s yogic-­ascetic quest is the purifying ordeal he must undergo to
pass the ultimate “test of love” and to unite with Padmāvatī, who represents none other
than the Divine.
21. Along these lines, Tony Stewart has remarked that often “religious and moral issues are
most eloquently adjudicated in parody,” especially of the generic holy man (pīr, yogī, ascetic,
renouncer) (2004, 11). It is important to note that not all the early modern North Indian
social world was so “dialogical,” and this pluralistic atmosphere of shared symbols and idi-
oms is one we find more often in vernacular texts. In the texts of religious elites and con-
servatives of this period, whether brahmans writing in Sanskrit or Muslim clerics writing
in Persian (or Arabic), there is sometimes a clear lack of dialogue, whether expressed in
blissful ignorance or pointed criticism of the other.
22. A brief note about dating: Unlike the poetry of Sūrdās, a great deal of which we can confi-
dently place in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, fewer than twenty-­five of the
poems attributed to Mīrābāī can be dated to the seventeenth century; see Hawley 2005, 99,
197–­99. While a great many Mīrā poems, largely from the nineteenth century, thus cannot
be used to support the chronological dimensions of my argument, the poems of many other
bhakti poets serve that purpose more than adequately, and her poems nevertheless express
 8. The Triumphs of Devotion = 383

key features of bhakti rhetoric and sensibility (in relation to tantra and yoga) that I want to
highlight here.
23. The genre of the bārahmāsā, or “twelve-­month” songs, express the woman’s longing for her
partner against the backdrop of the seasonal changes and ritual events that occurred with
the passing of the months. See Orsini 2010.
24. Kolff 1990, 74–­75.
25. PC 44 (PC = Paraśurām Caturvedī’s edition of Mīrābāī poems published in Caturvedī [1932]
1973). See Hawley 2005, 119–­20. I have included here only the second and fourth verses of
the poem.
26. See KB 248, NPS 4107 (vv. 2–­3) (KB = Kenneth Bryant’s edition of the Sūrsāgar, published in
Bryant and Hawley 2015; NPS = Nāgarīpracāriṇī Sabhā edition of Sūrsāgar).
27. One precedent for this sort of yogic metaphor comes in Baṛu Caṇḍīdāsa’s Śrīkṛṣṇakīrtana
(ca. 1350–­1550), “the only surviving pre-­Caitanya Vaishnava text in the Bengali language”
(Baṛu Caṇḍīdāsa 1984, 11), which makes use of yogic imagery at multiple points as it tells
the story of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. In one poem, Rādhā exclaims, “Like an ascetic intent upon
yoga, I am aware of no other than Krishna” (272, Song 10). In another, she tells him, “If, for-
saking everything, you turn into a yogi, I’ll become a yogi too, attending on you, Krishna!”
(286, Song 32), and later she cries, “What is my life? What are my home and possessions? As
an ascetic, I’ll roam every land if I’m deprived of my Krishna!” (296, Song 47).
28. PC 94; Hawley 2005, 123.
29. PC 117; Hawley 2005, 124.
30. Burger 2000, 429. It is worth noting here that in the popular Rajasthani folk song tradition
known as the Mīrā Janma Patrī, Mīrā actually becomes the disciple of a Nāth yogī. In this
episode, Mīrā’s guru is none other than Raidās, who is depicted not only as a camār
(untouchable leatherworker) but also as a Nāth yogī. This is an oral tradition and cannot be
accurately dated, but, like most of the poems attributed to Mīrā, probably comes from the
nineteenth century, a time when the Nāth tradition had been thoroughly “devotionalized”
and taken on many aspects of nirguṇ bhakti traditions (in fact, neither Raidās nor Mīrā does
or says anything particularly yogic or tantric in this tale). Moreover, it comes out of a spe-
cific Rajasthani folk context in which Mīrā “does not belong to any particular sectarian
lineage” but “fits easily into the religious world of low-­caste groups in Rajasthan whose
devotion often takes an inclusive and noninstitutional form, blending devotion to Rāmdev
with Vaiṣṇava and Nāth influences” (Nancy Martin 1999, 237).
31. Bryant and Hawley 2015, 289.
32. Hawley 1992, 234–­35.
33. KB 201, NPS 3844; translated in Hawley 2009, 115.
34. Hawley 2009, 229–­30n201.6.
35. PC 188; translation mine, adapted from Hawley 2005, 121.
36. Pauwels 2012, 38–­42, 58–­62.
37. Orsini, unpublished paper.
38. Kanhāvat 349. All translations from this text are from Pauwels 2012. She relies on two
editions of the text (both of which make use of a manuscript dated to 1657): Parmeśvarī
Lāl Gupta, ed., Malik Muhammad Jāyasī kṛt Kanhāvat (Banaras: Annapūrṇā Prakāśan, 1981),
and Śiv Sahāy Pāṭhak, ed., Kanhāvat (malik Muhammad Jāyasī kṛt) (Allahabad: Sāhitya Bha-
van, 1981).
 384 9 8. The Triumphs of Devotion

39. Kanhāvat 350.

40. Kanhāvat 352.
41. Kanhāvat 354.9.
42. Pauwels 2012, 59.
43. Pinch 2006, 19.
44. Digby (1986) 2003, 241.
45. Pinch 2006, 211.
46. Lawrence 1987, 371–­72.
47. Digby (1986) 2003, 238.
48. Śukla (1929) 2009, 63.
49. Green 2004, 222.
50. Davis 1998, 6.
51. Rizvi 1970, 127.
52. I am grateful to Pasha Mohammad Khan for his generous assistance with several of the
Persian sources referenced in this chapter.
53. Digby 1970a, 4–­5.
54. Rizvi 1970, 126.
55. Digby 1970a, 9–­10. Regarding this story, see also Lawrence 1984, 116–­18.
56. The word istidrāj typically refers to abilities, good fortune, etc., bestowed by God upon a
sinner (nonbeliever), who, despite these divine gifts, continues to live sinfully, ignorant of
the error of his or her ways. God is thought to give these gifts (istidrāj) in accordance with
his own plans, commonly interpreted as deliberately increasing the sinners’ arrogance and
pride in order to destroy them.
57. Digby 1970a, 4; Rizvi 1970, 128. Islamic tradition distinguishes karāmāt (miracles of saints)
not only from istidrāj but also from mu’jizat, the miracles of prophets.
58. Cf. Mohammad Ishaq Khan 1994, 206.
59. Fawa’īd al-­Fu’ād, Fascicle IV, Assembly 3; Lawrence 1992, 216.
60. Fawa’īd al-­Fu’ād, Fascicle IV, Assembly 36; Lawrence 1992, 278.
61. Lawrence 1992, 278. Even as Nizām al-­Dīn saw little value in miracles and criticized their
public display, he was well aware of the need for Sufi shaikhs to occasionally perform mira-
cles as proof of their spiritual power and insight. In Fawa’īd al-­Fu’ād, Fascicle IV, Assembly 11,
he tells a story about a Sufi who explains the situation to a ruler (who was seeking a show of
miracles): “If a man claims that he has the ability to perform miracles, he is equivalent to
that ass, but if he doesn’t make that claim and doesn’t perform any miracle, someone might
suppose that he doesn’t possess spiritual insight.”
62. Digby 1970a, 5–­6.
63. Eaton 1978, 167.
64. Digby 1970a, 12–­13.
65. Novetzke 2008, 66–­67.
66. In recounting the narrative, I rely on an unpublished translation of the Tīrthāvalī by Chris-
tian Novetzke, based on a 1631 manuscript. This Tīrthāvalī—­w ritten in the third person and
involving Nāmdev as one character among many—­is the best known of two very different
versions of the text. For details about these two versions and how they differ, see Novetzke
2008, 42–­43, 147–­49.
67. Tīrthāvalī (B) 919:5–­922:11. I am grateful to Christian Novetzke for allowing me to use his
unpublished translation of this text.
 8. The Triumphs of Devotion = 385

68. Abbott and Godbole (1933) 1982, 187–­90; Bhaktavijaya 12:8–­40.

69. Novetzke 2008, 62.
70. For more information on Mahīpati and his first hagiographical work, the Bhaktavijay (1762),
see Keune 2007.
71. Keune (2007, 184–­85) also points out that, despite Maharashtra’s lack of distinctive geo-
graphical boundaries with Karnataka to the south, Mahīpati and the Marathi bhaktas
remain rather oblivious to South India and seem to have been somewhat disconnected to
(or uninterested in) southern religious happenings. See also Novetzke 2008, 37.
72. Kiehnle 2000, 256.
73. In what we might construe as evidence of Vaiṣṇava bhakti’s enduring and pervasive success,
the Nāth side of memories about Jñāndev are significantly downplayed among the broader
populace in Maharashtra today, while the memory of him as founder of the Vārkarī
(Viṭṭhal-­K ṛṣṇa) bhakti tradition (a memory with very little historical grounding) is empha-
sized. Vārkarī devotees remember him to have been a Nāth, but usually with no other
related information beyond the word itself. While the Nāths are not demonized by the
Marathi bhaktas, they are thoroughly (and seemingly intentionally) neglected (in conver­
sation with Jon Keune, December 2009).
74. Abbott, Godbole, and Edwards 1935, 51; III:183.
75. Abbott, Godbole, and Edwards 1935, 67–­68; IV:153–­59.
76. Abbott, Godbole, and Edwards 1935, 69–­70; IV:173–­76, 182–­83.
77. Christian Novetzke, email message to author, May 9, 2017.
78. Abbott, Godbole, and Edwards 1935, 70–­71; IV:188–­96.
79. Abbott (1927) 1981, 128–­34; v. 19:19–­99.
80. McLeod 1980b, 145.
81. McLeod 1980b, 145.
82. Vārāṅ Bhāī Gurdās 1.41; Jodh Singh 1998, 71. This text’s author, Bhāī Gurdās, was the nephew
of Guru Amar Dās, the third Sikh Guru.
83. Vārāṅ Bhāī Gurdās 1.42; Jodh Singh 1998, 72.
84. McLeod 1980a, 137–­38.
85. McLeod 1980a, 139.
86. Gilbert Pollet’s extensive analysis of the Bhaktamāl of Nābhādās confirms this same bhakti
conception of the miraculous. Pollet states that Nābhādās mentions fifty-­three miracles in
his text and that “in 42 of [those] 53 instances, the deity itself is at the origin of the miracu-
lous event,” while in the other eleven instances it is implied that the miracle is done (by a
devout bhakta) through the power of devotion to God (1967, 476, 478).
87. On the relationship between Nābhā’s mūl text and the commentary by Priyādās that nearly
always accompanies it, see Hare 2007.
88. Nābhājī 2009, 768–­69. The line is jhūṭh bāt ek rām pahicāniyai (ka. 515), which William Pinch
translates as, “It’s a lie, all I know is Ram” (2006, 218).
89. Nābhājī 2009, 769–­70 (ka. 516); Pinch 2006: 218.
90. Nābhājī 2009, 771. The line is karāmāt neku lījiyai (ka. 517).
91. Nābhājī 2009, 771 (ka. 517). The ending of this Brajbhasha kavitt is extremely difficult to
interpret, and neither Pinch’s nor Rūpkalā’s explanation/translation—­which posit that
the emperor prays to Rām for protection—­seems justifiable to me based on Prīyadās’s
text.
92. Pinch 2006, 218–­19.
 386 9 8. The Triumphs of Devotion

93. Pinch 2006, 218–­19. In this way, Pinch interprets the tale as “a Vaishnava bhakti response to
the legacy of Akbar’s fascination with esoteric yogis and the mysteries of hathayoga.”
94. Pauwels 2010, 522.
95. Kabīr parcaī, sects. 11–­12; Lorenzen 1991a, 119–­24.
96. Kabīr parcaī sects. 7–­9; Lorenzen 1991a, 107–­15.
97. It is important to note that there are also miracle stories that present famous early modern
North Indian bhaktas as being clearly more powerful than their opponents but that do not
necessarily explicitly locate that superiority in the practice of devotion, as opposed to some
other unnamed spiritual power. For instance, in a story from oral tradition, Gorakhnāth
invites Kabīr to a miracle contest where he plants his iron trident in the ground, rises, and
sits on one of its prongs, and then challenges Kabīr to come up and sit on one of the other
prongs. Kabīr responds by taking out a ball of thread and, holding one end, throwing it up
into the air. He then ascends and takes a seat on the other end of the thread, far above
Gorakh on his trident. This sort of anecdote shows Kabīr to be more powerful than
Gorakhnāth, but unlike the stories (found in sectarian written sources) that are the focal
point of this chapter, these oral traditions offer no indication that Kabīr’s superiority
results from his selfless devotion to and humble reliance on God, nor do we find any sugges-
tion in them that Kabīr’s powers are understood as inconsequential. This story and others
like it are briefly discussed in Lorenzen 1991a, 54–­55.

Conclusion

1. Douglas R. Brooks states that “the word ‘Tantra’ in contemporary vernacular Indian lan-
guages, such as Tamil or Hindi, is frequently used to conjure notions of effective black
magic, illicit sexuality, and immoral behavior” (1990, 5). Echoing this, Hugh Urban remarks,
“In most vernacular languages [in India] today, the term tantra is typically associated with
a whole range of intense associations, usually relating to the darker realms of the magical,
the immoral (sometimes the illegal), and the occult” (2003, 38). David G. White similarly
says that “many Hindus in India today deny the relevance of Tantra to their tradition, past
or present, identifying what they call ‘tantra-­mantra’ as so much mumbo-­jumbo” (2003, 262).
In another work, White remarks that “the great majority of modern-­day Hindus over-
whelmingly reject—­or dissemble with regard to—­the tantric legacy of their own traditions,
generally identifying tāntrikas (a modern usage) with evil charlatans practicing the dark
arts” (2011, 577). Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus assert much the same: “The word ‘Tan-
tra’ in common use up and down the country often has a completely negative meaning. The
average decent Hindu thinks of a ‘Tantrist’ as a highly suspect and dangerous figure, prob-
ably a wicked, unscrupulous and power-­hungry practitioner of black magic” (2011, 684).
Travis Smith adds his voice to the chorus: “Modern Indian languages frequently use tantra
in a sense more or less equivalent to the concept of black magic. Tantrics are marginal and
mysterious supposed practitioners of the dark arts, and as such they are regarded with
suspicion by the mainstream culture, be it in a traditional village or modern urban con-
text” (2012, 168). David Gray also notes that “the tantric traditions have, over the past few
centuries at least, been associated with black magic in India” (2016).
2. To cite one telling example, in the preface to The Language of Disenchantment: Protestant Liter-
alism and Colonial Discourse in British India (2013), Robert Yelle asks, “What has happened to
 Conclusion = 387

the worldview or cosmology represented by [the Tantras]?” (xi). Having studied the man-
tras and linguistic ideology of the medieval Hindu Tantras in depth, all while living in mod-
ern India, Yelle notes that while the tantric perspective and its “magical cosmologies” have
not disappeared entirely in modern India, its marginal continuations clearly do “not
amount to a coherent worldview.” Something, he says, seems to have “intervened to disrupt
the worldview of the Tantras and the practices that these texts recorded.” “That,” Yelle
remarks, “was the beginning of my study of the impact of British colonialism on India”
(xii). Yelle’s book is a brilliant study of the ways in which British colonial discourses of dis-
enchanted rationality and “secular” critiques and reforms of Hinduism were fundamen-
tally informed by Protestant theological and linguistic understandings. My interest in it
here, however, is simply to highlight the odd fact that, in seeking a cause for the disrup-
tion and decline of tantric perspectives, Yelle leaps entirely over the early modern period
(and the impact of Central Asian Turks and Afghans), moving straight to the period of
British colonialism. This appears symptomatic of a tendency in postcolonial scholarship
to neglect the study of premodern India as a result of a focus on demonstrating how most
forms of Indian modernity today—­i ncluding its dominant conceptual frameworks and
ways of thinking—­a re deeply influenced by, and even a direct result of, the British colonial
presence.
3. Krishna Sharma 1987. Sharma discusses M. Monier-­Williams, H. H. Wilson, Albrecht Weber,
Franz Lorinser, and George Grierson as influential scholars of this period whose work pre-
sented bhakti in this very particular (and biased) fashion, identifying it first with Kṛṣṇa
worship and later with the larger category of Vaiṣṇavism.
4. Urban 2003, 3.
5. Monier-­Williams 1891, 96.
6. Monier-­Williams 1882, 295–­96.
7. Urban 2003, 51.
8. Monier-­Williams 1890, 123, 129.
9. Eaton 2000a, 74; quoted in Pinch 2006, 17.
10. Padoux 2017, 154.
11. Gray 2016; Padoux 2017, 155.
12. Padoux 2017, 153.
13. Even those modern Indians not predisposed against tantric practitioners will still typically
understand tantra (quite apart from bhakti) as a tradition of “complex ritual secrets that
are intrinsically powerful, ancient, and dangerous in the wrong hands” (Glucklich 1997,
148). In other words, while tantra does not equate to disapproved black magic for many
modern Indians, it is nevertheless nearly always the case that, “To call an image or ritual
‘Tantric’ suggests that it is charged with ambivalent occult energy or that it offers a secret
shortcut to esoteric knowledge and powers” (Lutgendorf 2001, 272).
14. Padoux 2017, 162.
15. Khanna 2008, 7.
16. Khanna 2008, 5–­7, 20.
17. Dinnell 2017, 3, 6. Darry Dinnell’s ethnographic research on Jogaṇī Mātā sites in Gujarat
shows how “tantra, as a sāttvik, Sanskritic power, can aid in an ongoing effort amongst
members of relatively non-­elite groups . . . ​to cultivate and perform perceived hallmarks of
high status such that their social rank can parallel their desired—­or, in some cases,
actualized—­economic ascendancy” (3–­4).
 388 9 Conclusion

18. Lutgendorf 2001, 287.

19. Lutgendorf 2001, 287–­88.
20. Lutgendorf 2001, 286–­87.
21. Lutgendorf 1994, 240–­41.
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 Index

Locators in italics signify illustrations.

Ādi Granth, 162, 165, 245, 247, 248, 380n145 Rām-­rasik tradition, 86, 142, 197–­198, 203,
Abu al-­Fazl ibn Mubārak, 102–­105, 220 204; as gardener, 143, 147, 200–­201; and
ācaryās, 38, 52. See also gurus; professional Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, 197–­198, 216; and
ascetics Hitopadeśa, 219–­220; importance of, 196,
Accardi, Dean, 80 365n2; and Kṛṣṇa devotion, 208, 209, 210,
Acyutānanda Dāsa, 272 216–­217, 218; life of, 196–­197, 365nn4–­5; and
Advaita Vedānta, 61, 179, 319n31, 332n180, Mān Singh, 200–­201, 367n26; on musk deer,
360nn42, 44, 48 209, 368n43; Nābhādās on, 143–­144,
aesthetic theory. See rasa 199–­201, 226, 227, 365n5; and nirguṇ-­saguṇ
affect, 18–­19, 320nn67–­68. See also emotion distinction, 205, 208, 210–­211, 232–­234,
Āgamas: and Agradās, 221, 222–­223, 224; bhakti 373nn125–­26; and Rām devotion, 158, 209,
in, 37, 323–­324n40; defined, 30, 321n4, 216, 353n112; and Raivāsā community,
324n60; on initiate classes, 31; and 201–­202, 367nn26; and rasik practice, 142,
mainstream integration, 39, 53 199, 206, 216, 220–­222, 223–­224, 235,
Agastya Saṃhitā, 158–­160; and Agradās, 158, 366n17, 367n30, 371n89; and religious
217–­218, 223, 353n112; on initiation, 159, marketplace environment, 195–­196, 204,
353n118; and Sants, 161; on Śiva, 353n111; 228, 235; and Sants, 195, 203, 204, 207–­208,
and Śrī Vaiṣṇava tradition, 353n106 211; scholarship on, 196, 365n3; and
agency, 7 tantra, 215, 222–­225; and two bhakti
Agradās, 137; and Agastya Saṃhitā, 158, practice streams, 151; and Vaiṣṇava bhakti
217–­218, 223, 353n112; Anantadās on, 200, early modern rise, 225–­226; and
366–­367n19; and Bhagvān-­jī, 348n28; and vernacular literature/culture, 86, 148, 204,
Dādū Panth, 205, 368n35; and divine Name 214–­215, 218–­219, 226–­227; written
recitation, 141, 144, 200, 203, 205–­207, compositions of, 142–­143, 148, 204–­211,
211–­215, 350n58, 367n20; as founder of 367–­368nn33, 35, 39
 414 9 index

Agrawal, Purushottam, 161–­162, 355n134 and Vaiṣṇava bhakti, 140, 171; warrior
Ahmad, Aziz, 82–­83, 335n72 monks, 107, 340n40. See also ascetic
Ahmed, Sara, 17, 320n67 (tapasvī) yoga ; Nāth yogīs; professional
Akbar the Great (Mughal emperor), 101–­107; ascetics
accession of, 101, 116, 339n11; dynastic “Asceticism Denounced and Embraced”
ideology of, 99, 102–­105, 112–­114, 339n22, (Hawley), 9
342–­343nn80, 84; and Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, ascetic (tapasvī) yoga: and Agradās, 144;
198; and Hitopadeśa, 219–­220; and and divinization of the body, 190; and
Kacchvāhā clan, 108, 116–­117, 118, 119; Dvārkādās, 148, 150; and Kīlhadev,
manuscript culture under, 123–­124; and 145–­146, 169, 362n73; Mahābhārata on,
Mīrzā Muhammad Hakīm, 103; and 172–­173; and meditation, 358n23; and
Persianate culture, 105; and Rāmānandi Nāth yogī-­Vaiṣṇava bhakti distinctions,
community, 165, 356n145; and Sufism, 102, 184, 185, 188; overview, 173–­174,
103; wife of, 116, 343n100; and yogīs, 101, 358n22; and Payahārī, 140; and
338n8, 386n93 Rāmānand, 355n136; and Vedic tradition,
Akbarnāmā (Abu al-­Fazl ibn Mubārak), 173, 358n21
103–­104 Asher, Catherine, 108, 121–­122, 345n145
Alam, Muzaffar, 70, 100, 105 āstika philosophies, 331n178
alchemy, 382n13 Aurangzeb (Mughal emperor), 101, 338n8
Ali, Daud, 317n1 Ayas Dev Nāth, 348n15
Allen, Michael, 331–­332n180, 360n48 Āyurveda, 330n164
Āḻvārs, 38, 39, 153, 156, 327n95, 352n88 Āzarī thought, 104–­105, 339n26
Ammaiyār, Kāraikkāl, 38, 324n45
Amṛtasiddhi, 178, 359n37 Bābā Farīd, 334n46
Anantadās: on Agradās, 200; critique of tantra Babb, Lawrence A., 58–­59
and yoga, 248, 251, 258, 260, 265–­266, 302; Babur (Mughal emperor), 100, 115
on divine Name recitation, 366–­367n19; on Bādarāyaṇa, 331n176
Rāmānand, 157; and Rāmānandi Badāʾūnī, 113–­114
community, 371–­372n106; and vernacular Baḥr al-­ḥayāt (Ghawth Gwāliyārī), 80, 334n61
literature/culture, 226–­227 Bahura, G. N., 347n8, 373n124
Ananta Dāsa, 272 Bairām Khān, 339n11
Anantānand, 140, 349n38, 355n137 Bakker, Hans, 50, 159–­160, 353n106, 354n122
Angot, Michel, 358n28 Balarāma Dāsa, 272
Āṇṭāḷ (Āḻvār saint), 39 bārahmāsā genre, 283, 383n23
Appar (Nāyanār saint), 39 Barthwal, Pitambar Datta, 162, 243,
Arjan, 269–­270, 380n145 355–­356n139
asceticism, 9–­11; contemporary practices, Barua, Ankur, 319n31
353n102; and Hanumān, 165; Kāpālikas, 12, bazaari tantra, 307–­308
319n42; in modern bhakti, 353n102; and Beck, Guy, 352–­353n101
monasticism, 10–­11; North Indian Behl, Aditya, 13, 14, 79, 87, 88, 95, 279
archetype of, 170–­171; professional Bengal, 319n35
ascetics, 9–­10, 44, 49, 50, 51–­52, 53; and Bhāgavad Gītā, 152, 185, 351n83
religious marketplace environment, 80; Bhagavannāmakaumudī (Lakṣmīdhara), 214
scholarship on, 9; and siddhis, 33, 34; and Bhāgavatamuktāphala (Vopadeva), 94–­95
Sufism, 80; and tantra, 34; and Bhāgavata Purāṇa: and Agradās, 211–­215, 222,
transsectarian medieval culture, 170–­171; 224, 226; on bhakti, 47–­48, 153–­156, 327n95,
 index = 415

352n88, 93; and bhramargit genre, 377n65; Bhaktavijay (Mahīpati), 295, 296
on divine Name recitation, 49, 270; and lay bhakti: classifications of, 46, 327n95;
Śaiva religion, 49; origins of, 270n152, definitions of, 2–­3, 5–­8, 152–­156, 351n83,
352nn86, 89; on performance/song, 156, 352n88, 93; diversity within, 7–­8, 13,
352–­353n101; scholarship on, 319n35; on 319n31; embodiment in, 5–­6, 7, 18, 19,
siddhis, 146, 154, 155, 289, 352n99; on 320–­321nn68, 71; etymology of, 6–­7; as
tantric yoga, 154–­155; and transsectarian ideology of subordination, 110, 341n62;
Vaiṣṇava bhakti, 342n66 inclusivity of, 110, 157, 159, 228, 341n63,
Bhāgavatas, 46 342n65; in medieval tantra, 36–­40,
Bhāgavat Pad Prasaṅg (Agradās), 209 323–­324nn40, 45; modern, 353n102;
Bhagvān-­jī, 135–­137, 151, 348n28 performance/song as intrinsic to,
Bhagvantdās, 117, 119, 120 89–­92, 336n114; scholarship on, 5–­8, 9,
Bhairava Śiva, 129, 164, 346nn1–­2 13, 48, 319nn31, 35; as sensibility, 17,
bhajan, 144, 349n50, 353n102 18, 19–­20, 91, 320n57; as social
bhaktajana, 38, 48, 327n102 movement, 5, 110, 318n12, 341n63;
Bhaktalīlāmṛt (Mahīpati), 297–­299 women in, 110
Bhaktamāl (Nābhādās), 227–­232; on Agradās, bhakti defined in opposition to tantric-­yogic
143–­144, 199–­201, 226, 227, 365n5; on religiosity, 3, 4–­5, 11–­12, 81–­82, 156–­157,
Bhagvān-­jī, 348n28; on disciples of 239–­275; in bhakti hagiographies, 295–­303,
Payahārī, 140, 349n40; exclusions in, 385nn71, 73, 86; vs. British colonial
229–­234; on Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, 198; impact, 12, 305–­307, 386–­387n2; and caste,
inclusivity of, 227, 228; and Islam, 372n110; 254; contemporary attitudes, 305, 386n1;
on Kacchvāhā patronage of Vaiṣṇava dialogical spirit of, 282, 382n21; and
bhakti, 132; on Kīlhadev, 146; and Mahīpati, diversity among Nāth yogīs, 192, 193; and
297; on miracles, 385n86; and Nandadās, divine Name recitation, 250, 267, 268, 269,
218; on Payahārī, 138, 140–­141, 362n83, 271, 380nn132, 142; and divinization of the
366n12; precedents for, 227–­228, body, 36, 208; exceptions to, 271–­274; and
372nn109–­10; Priyādās’ commentary on, false spirituality, 246–­250; and
121, 135, 146, 226, 258, 301, 385n91; on geographical location, 255–­258; and hatha
Pṛthvīrāj, 369n46; on Rāmānand, 157; yoga, 180–­181, 361n54; in Kanhāvat,
on Śiva, 158, 353n111; on Śrī Vaiṣṇava 287–­288; and metaphoric yogic imagery,
tradition, 157, 353n103; on Tulsīdās, 280, 281, 285–­287; Payahārī-­Tārānāth
354n119; and Vaiṣṇava bhakti early modern encounter legend, 131–­132, 288–­291,
rise, 229; on Vaiṣṇavism, 355n133; and 347nn4–­8; and performance/song, 92, 268;
vernacular literature/culture, 214, 226; and power of bhakti, 193, 250–­253,
on yoga, 152, 156, 182, 185; and yogi term, 298–­299, 386n97; and Śāktism, 240, 256,
187, 188 258–­260, 378nn89, 92; scholarship on,
Bhaktamāl (Rāghavdās): on Agradās, 139, 197, 239–­240, 375n8; and Sikhs, 255, 299–­301;
200, 365n4; dating of, 348–­349n37; on sources for, 241–­243, 375n4; and Sufism,
disciples of Payahārī, 349n40; inclusivity 81–­82, 254, 276, 277–­278, 280, 291–­295,
of, 373n121; on Kīlhadev, 139, 146; on 384n61; and tantric healing, 261, 264–­268;
Nābhādās, 148–­149; and Nāth yogīs, 230, and two practice streams, 147; and
231, 272; on Payahārī, 138, 141–­142; on written bhakti compositions, 130; and yogi
Puraṇ, 151; and two practice streams term, 187, 245–­246. See also Kabīr’s
within Rāmānandi community, 166; on critiques of tantra and yoga; yogic
yoga, 182, 185; and yogi term, 187 imagery, metaphoric
 416 9 index

bhakti poet-­saints: and bhakti inclusivity, Śaiva Siddhānta tradition, 42; Sultanate
85–­86; caste of, 157, 254, 372n113; on divine period, 68, 332n181; and tantra as medieval
Name recitation, 268; and healing mainstream, 43, 326n86; and temples, 44;
metaphor, 262–­264; importance of, 3; and and Vaiṣṇavism, 327n103; and Vedānta, 61,
nirguṇ-­saguṇ distinction, 210, 377n73; vs. 331n179, 332n180, 360n42. See also
Sants, 354–­355n127; and Sufism, 277; and Pāśupatas; Vedic tradition
vernacular literature/culture, 85–­86, brahmarandhra, 144, 350n59
336n93. See also bhakti defined in Brahmasūtras (Bādarāyaṇa), 331n176
opposition to tantric-­yogic religiosity; Braj, 114, 119–­120, 256
specific poets Brajbhasha language, 86; and Agradās, 204,
bhakti public, 320n57; and Agradās, 196, 214–­215, 218, 226; Mughal support for, 106;
235–­236; and bhakti defined in opposition rīti-­granth genre, 218, 370n82. See also
to tantric-­yogic religiosity, 181; and vernacular literature/culture
definitions of bhakti, 6; and ethical values, Briggs, George W., 188–­189, 356n155
19, 91–­92; inclusivity of, 157, 159, 228; British colonial impact, 12, 14–­15, 305–­307,
and lay Śaiva religion, 327n102; and 366n14, 386–­387n2
performance/song, 16–­18, 91; and Sufi Bronkhorst, Johannes, 358n21
influences, 96–­97, 338n140; and Vaiṣṇava Brooks, Douglas, 33, 386n1
bhakti early modern rise, 119, 344n120; and Brooks, Douglas Renfrew, 8
written bhakti compositions, 125, 147–­148, Bryant, Edwin, 154, 352n86
196, 350n69. See also community Bryant, Kenneth, 217, 241, 375n4
bhakti rasa, 95, 366n7. See also Rām-­rasik bhakti Buddhism: divine power in, 322n18; mainstream
tradition integration of, 40, 41; and Pāśupatas, 50;
Bhaktirasabodhinī (Priyādās), 121, 135, 146, 226, professional ascetics in, 51–­52; and śanti
258, 301, 385n91 rituals, 323n22; and tantra, 40, 41, 272; and
Bhaktiratnakāra (Śaṅkaradeva), 257–­258, 269 yoga, 52, 172, 175, 178, 358n28, 359n37
Bhārmal Bihārīmal (Kacchvāhā ruler), Burger, Maya, 284
115–­116, 118 Burghart, Richard, 136, 157, 227, 353nn103, 108
Bhattacharyya, Benoytosh, 321n1 Busch, Allison, 106, 124, 125, 218, 222
Bhīm (Kacchvāhā ruler), 115
Bhīṣma, 185, 362n73 Caitanyacandrodaya (Kavikarṇapūra), 257
bhramargit genre, 252–­253, 377n65 Caitanya-­caritāmṛta (Kavirāj), 257, 263
Bhūta Tantras, 330nn164, 167 Caitanya-­caritāmṛta (Kṛṣṇadāsa), 270
Bihārīlāl, 124 Caitanya Maṅgala (Locanadāsa), 257
Bījak, 245 Caitanya movement. See Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism
Bilgrami, 88 Callewaert, Winand, 189, 241, 248, 272
Birch, Jason, 359n35 Caṇḍīdāsa, Baṛu, 383n27
Bisschop, Peter, 50, 328n118 Cāndāyan (Dāʿūd), 71, 87, 95–­96, 170, 234, 278,
body. See divinization of the body; 280, 336n85, 375n139
embodiment Caracchi, Pinuccia, 169, 355n136
Bouillier, Véronique, 151, 188, 347n11 Carman, John, 9
brahmanism: diversity within, 329n139; caste: and bhakti defined in opposition to
expansion of, 53–­54, 56–­57, 60, 329n138; tantric-­yogic religiosity, 254; of bhakti
and folk practices, 57–­58; and hatha yoga, poet-­saints, 157, 254, 372n113; of Nābhādās,
361n60; and Hindu religious identity, 73; 371n103; and nirguṇ-­saguṇ distinction, 110,
and Rāmānandi community, 354n119; and 341n61
 index = 417

Caturnāth, 347n8 Daityāri, 257

Cauhān, Prāṇcand, 356n151 Dalmia, Vasudha, 13, 107
celibacy, 174, 176, 358n22 dāna (giving): content of, 330n155; and
Chakrabarti, Kunal, 54, 329n139 inclusivity, 55–­56; in lay Śaiva religion, 49,
Champakalakshmi, Radha, 38 51, 52, 328n123; and tantra as medieval
Chandra, Satish, 82, 333n23, 335n72 mainstream, 53
Chand, Tara, 335n72 Daśanāmīs: and ascetic yoga, 184, 185;
Chatterjee, Indrani, 10, 56 divisions of, 187; and hatha yoga, 182, 188,
Chatterjee, Kumkum, 112–­113, 119, 198 363n90; and Nāth yogīs, 172, 184, 363n90;
Chattopadhyaya, B. D., 53, 354n121 and Rāmānandi community, 362–­363n85;
Chinggis Khan, 83, 100 two practice streams in, 150, 351n76; and
Chishtī, Salīm, 102 yogi term, 363n88
Chishti Sufism: and cultural hybridity, 333n31; Dasgupta, S. N., 47, 188
influences on bhakti, 14; Mughal period Dattātreyayogaśāstra, 178–­179, 359n39
mainstream integration of, 102, 103; and Dāʿūd, Maulānā, 71, 87, 95–­96, 170, 234, 278,
Nāth yogīs, 79; origins of, 334n45; Sultanate 280, 336n85, 375n139
period growth of, 75–­76, 334n46 Davidson, Ronald, 42, 112, 323n22, 328n124,
Chitāī-­carita (Nārāyaṇdās), 280, 336n85 329n138
Clark, Matthew, 351n76 Davis, Donald, 54
Colas, Gerard, 153 Davis, Richard, 291
Coleman, Tracey, 352n88 de Bruijn, Thomas, 14, 338n140
colonialism. See British colonial impact Delhi Sultanate: decline of, 72, 83, 84, 335n77,
community. See bhakti public 335nn82–­83; establishment of, 66–­67; iqtāʾ
Cort, John, 7 system, 71, 333n29; and Mongol invasions,
critical animal studies, 320n68 70; and Sufism, 74–­75. See also Sultanate
Cuntarar (Nāyanār saint), 39 period
Czerniak-­Droẓdẓowicz, Marzenna, 36 demonology, 322–­323n21
De Simini, Florinda, 49
Dabistān-­i Mazāhib, 104–­105, 339n26 Devīpurāṇa, 327n98
Dādū: Agradās on, 205; and divine Name Dhanā, 161, 230
recitation, 159; and Kabīr, 231, 373n119; dharma, 49
Nābhādās’ exclusion of, 229, 230–­234; and Dharmakīrti, 43
Nāth yogīs, 272; and nirguṇ-­saguṇ dhikr, 270, 380–­381n149
distinction, 232–­234, 373n122, 374nn133, Dhruv Caritra (Agradās), 214, 222, 226
135; and vernacular literature/culture, 86. Dhyān Mañjarī (Agradās), 215–­225; and Agastya
See also Dādū Panth Saṃhitā, 217–­218; on divine Name
Dādū Panth: and Agradās, 205, 368n35; and recitation, 367n20; and Kṛṣṇa devotion,
bhakti defined in opposition to tantric-­ 216–­217, 218; manuscripts of, 367n31; and
yogic religiosity, 245; healing metaphor in, Nandadās, 218; on Rām devotion, 158, 216,
263; inclusivity of, 110, 341n64; and 353n112; and Rām-­rasik bhakti tradition,
Nābhādās, 229, 230; and Nāth yogīs, 192, 199, 203, 204, 215; on rasik practice,
231, 245, 272, 273; and nirguṇ-­saguṇ 219–­222, 371n89; and rīti poetry, 222; and
distinction, 165, 272, 373n126; and Sanskrit literary authority, 214; and
Rāghavdās, 373n121; and Rāmānand, tantra, 222–­225
355n135; and yoga, 272–­273, 381n160. See Digby, Simon, 67, 79, 93, 291, 293, 335n77
also Rāghavdās Dihlavī, Amīr Khusrau, 333n31
 418 9 index

Dihlawī, Amīr Ḥasan Sijzī, 93 Erndl, Kathleen, 109

Dinnell, Darry, 387n17 Ernst, Carl, 68, 79, 80, 335n81
divine Name recitation: Agastya Saṃhitā on, ethical values, 19, 91–­93, 337nn118, 125
158, 159–­160, 353–­354n119; and Agradās, exorcism, 330nn164, 167–­68
141, 144, 200, 203, 205–­207, 211–­215, 350n58,
367n20; Anantadās on, 366–­367n19; Farquhar, J. N., 47
Bhāgavata Purāṇa on, 49, 270; and bhakti Faruqui, Munis, 13, 103, 107
defined in opposition to tantric-­yogic Fatehpur Manuscript, 145, 245, 350n62
religiosity, 250, 267, 268, 269, 271, 380nn132, Fawāʾid al-­Fuʾād (Dihlawī), 93, 292, 294, 384n61
142; and mantras, 269, 380n139; in rasik Ferrario, Alberta, 36, 37
practice, 200, 350n51, 366–­367nn19–­21; and Fisher, Elaine, 31, 61
Sants, 159, 161, 162, 213; in Sufism, 76, 270, Flood, Finbarr Barry, 15
271, 380–­381nn149–­50; and transsectarian Flood, Gavin, 29, 32, 56, 57, 59, 321n1, 330n172
Vaiṣṇava bhakti, 110; in Vaiṣṇava bhakti, 92, folk practices, 53, 56, 57–­58, 329n138
141, 144, 162, 198, 200, 203, 213, 350n51, Frazier, Jessica, 9
354n119, 358n58; in Vaiṣṇavism, 158, Friedlander, Peter, 272
159–­160, 269, 353–­354n119, 380n138
divinization of the body, 32; Agastya Saṃhitā Gahinīnāth, 364n107
on, 159; and bhakti defined in opposition to Gālavgītam (Dwārkānāth), 368–­369n45
tantric-­yogic religiosity, 36, 208; and folk Galta. See Rāmānandi community
practices, 57; and Nāth yogīs, 80, 81, Gangohī, 88
190–­191, 208; vs. rasik practice, 224; and Gangohī, ʿAbd al-­Quddūs, 79, 88
tantric healing, 58; in Vedic tradition, Gāruḍa Tantras, 57–­58, 330nn164, 170
322n14 gāruḍikas, 57–­58, 261, 330n170, 379n102
Djurdjevic, Gordan, 189, 364n106 Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism: and Agradās, 197–­198,
Dobe, Timothy, 9 216; on divine Name recitation, 213;
Dohāvalī (Tulsīdās), 249 mainstream integration of, 118–­119, 120,
Dold, Patricia, 109 198; origins of, 114–­115, 343n90; and
Dvārkādās, 148, 149, 150, 166, 171, 181, 185 Rām-­rasik bhakti tradition, 197–­198; and
Dvija, Rāmānanda, 260 Śāktism, 109, 378nn92, 94; scholarship on,
Dvivedi, Hazariprasad, 243–­244 319n35; Six Gosvāmis, 115, 120, 343n92,
Dwārkānāth, 368–­369n45 371n102; and tantra, 224, 371n102
Geertz, Clifford, 92, 337n122
early modern period, 317n1 Geslani, Marko, 323n22
Eaton, Richard, 13, 14, 65, 74–­75, 76, 119, Gesūdarāz, Sayyid Muhammad, 294
306–­307, 320n49, 332n12, 333n29 Ghawth Gwāliyārī, Muhammad, 80, 101,
Eck, Diana, 82, 109, 335n72 334n61
Eknāth, 298–­299 Ghaznavid dynasty, 66
Eliade, Mircea, 188 Ghosh, Pika, 109
embodiment: Bhāgavata Purāṇa on, 47–­48; in Ghurid dynasty, 66, 334n45
bhakti, 5–­6, 7, 18, 19, 320–­321nn68, 71; in lay Ghūri, Muhammad, 66
Śaiva religion, 46; and music, 19. See also Ghurye, G. S., 144, 347n8
divinization of the body Gītagovinda (Jayadeva), 94
emotion, 18–­19, 94–­95, 153, 154, 320nn67–­68 Glucklich, Ariel, 387n13
emotional community, 17–­18, 96. See also goddess worship, 54, 111, 329n140, 342n68,
bhakti public; community 378n89. See also Śāktism
 index = 419

Gold, Ann, 109, 347n6, 356n155 129–­130, 167, 356n155; and pragmatic
Gold, Daniel, 109, 347n6 religiosity, 356n143; and Rāmānandi
Gonda, Jan, 47 community, 121, 164–­166, 345n135, 356n151
Goodall, Dominic, 41, 331n173 Hanumāncālīsā (Tulsīdās), 354n119
Gopāl, Jan, 233, 373n119, 374n133 Haqāʾiq-­i Hindi (Bilgrami), 88
Gopāldās, 162, 230 Hardy, Friedhelm, 38, 47, 153, 351n83, 352nn86,
Gopicand, 357n4 88
Gopinātha, 380n138 Hare, James, 228, 372n109
Gorakhbāṇī, 182–­183, 189–­190, 273, Haridās, 272
361–­362nn61–­3, 65, 364n100 Haridāsa, 270, 381n150
Gorakhnāth, 163; background of, 170, 357n3; Hasan, Amir, 262, 292
and bhakti defined in opposition to Hastings, James, 346n159
tantric-­yogic religiosity, 287–­288, 386n97; Haṭhapradīpikā (Svātmārāma), 273, 361n60,
and diversity among Nāth yogīs, 357n6; and 362n66, 363n90
hatha yoga, 363n90; and Jñāndev, 364n107; hatha yoga: and bhakti defined in opposition to
and laya yoga, 362n66; Nābhādās’ exclusion tantric-­yogic religiosity, 180–­181, 361n54;
of, 229, 230; and Nāth yogīs, 299; and and Buddhism, 359n37; and Dādū Panth,
Nirañjanīs, 272; and origins of Nāth yogīs, 272–­273; etymology of, 359n35; and Nāth
181; and siddhis, 188–­190; and yogi term, yogīs, 182–­183, 361–­362nn60, 63; and
246. See also Gorakhbāṇī; Nāth yogīs Rāmānandi community, 140, 142, 148–­149,
Gorakṣaśataka, 179, 363n90 181, 182, 188, 349n46, 381n164; Sultanate
Gosvāmi, Rūpa, 114–­115, 365–­366n7, 371n102, period, 178; and tantra, 176; and Vedānta,
380n132. See also Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism 179
Gosvāmi, Sanātana, 114–­115 Hatley, Shaman, 32, 41, 79–­80, 326n86
Goswamy, B. N., 135–­136 Hawd al-­ḥayāt, 334n61
Gottschalk, Peter, 22 Hawley, John Stratton, 2, 6, 9, 82, 86, 90–­91,
Govindadev temple (Vrindavan), 120, 345n128 121, 244, 269, 284–­286, 318n8, 336n114,
Granoff, Phyllis, 257 342n66, 355n135, 372n110, 379n116
Green, Nile, 291, 336n110, 346n155 healing. See pragmatic religiosity; tantric
Grewal, J. S., 135–­136 healing
Guha, Ranajit, 341n62 Hedaytullah, Muhammad, 335n72
Gupta, Sanjukta, 36 Hemādri, 94
Guru Caritra (Dvija), 260 Hess, Linda, 18, 241–­242, 375n7
Guru Granth Sahib (Dhanā), 228 Hiltebeitel, Alf, 48–­49
gurus, 31, 44, 55, 322n11. See also ācaryās; dāna; Hindavi language, 71, 85, 86–­87, 336n85;
yogīs premākhyāns, 87–­88. See also vernacular
literature/culture
Haberman, David, 120, 153 Hindu religious identity, 73
Habib, Irfan, 106–­107, 340n39 Hīra Kunwar (Joshābāī) (wife of Akbar), 116,
Hacker, Paul, 47 343n100
Hamida Banu Begum, 118 Hirschkind, Charles, 19, 91
Hanumān, 164–­168; and Bhairava, 129, 346n2; historiography of bhakti, 1–­2, 21–­22, 82,
and bhakti defined in opposition to 317nn5–­6; Marxist approaches, 341nn62–­
tantric-­yogic religiosity, 301; 63; and period designations, 317n1, 318n7;
contemporary worship of, 308; and and Sufi influences, 82–­83, 335n72
Daśanāmīs, 363n85; and Nāth yogīs, Hitopadeśa, 219–­220
 420 9 index

Hodgson, Marshall, 332n1 Jainism, 40, 358n23

Holdrege, Barbara, 5–­6, 47, 154, 155, 224, 35289 Jālandharnāth, 170, 357n4
Horstmann, Monika, 120, 142, 165, 171, 192, Janma Līlā (Gopāl), 233, 374n133
349n37, 356n144 Jawāmiʿ al-­Kalīm (Ḥusaynī), 294
Hṛdayrām, 356n151 Jayadeva, 94
Hudson, Dennis, 39, 352n86 Jayadrathayāmala, 58
Humāyūn (Mughal emperor), 100, 101, 116, Jayākhya Saṃhitā, 35
339n11 Jāyasī: and bhakti defined in opposition to
Ḥusaynī, Sayyid Muhammad Akbar, 294 tantric-­yogic religiosity, 287–­288; on
divine love, 382n20; and healing metaphor,
imagined community, 17 262, 264; and Indo-­Persian cultural
inclusivity: bhakti, 110, 157, 159, 228, 341n63, hybridity, 87; and metaphoric yogic
342n65; lay Śaiva religion, 46, 48, 327n103; imagery, 278, 279, 280–­281, 284; and
Nāth yogīs, 79; Rāmānandi community, 110, vernacular literature/culture, 336n85
157, 158, 159, 371n103; Sikhs, 110; and Śrī Jayatrāma, 142
Vaiṣṇava tradition, 158, 353n103; Sufism, Jhā, Narendra, 200
79; tantra, 31, 52, 55–­56, 329n151, jñāna (knowledge): in Kashmiri tantra, 38; in
329–­330n152 lay Śaiva religion, 51, 328n128; and origins
Indian nationalism, 82, 317n5, 355–­356n139, of bhakti, 7, 319n31; and Pañca Sakhā,
366n14 271–­272; and Vedānta, 331n179; in yoga,
Indo-­Persian cultural hybridity, 13, 15, 65, 359n34, 363n88
70–­72, 77, 87, 333nn27, 31, 360n42 Jñānasamudra (Sundardās), 272
initiation: Agastya Saṃhitā on, 159, 353n118; in Jñāndeśvarī, 191–­192, 364n107
tantra, 31, 43, 223, 322n11; and written Jñāndev, 191, 273, 296, 297–­298, 364n107,
bhakti compositions, 223; in yoga, 360n51 385n73
iqtāʾ system, 71, 333n29 jogīs, 363n88
Iraqi, Shahabuddin, 82, 335n72 Jogpradīpakā, 142, 182
Isaacson, Harunaga, 331n173
Islām Shāh Surī, 101, 116 Kāli, 378n93
Islam: Akbar’s attitudes toward orthodox, Kabīr: and Agradās, 205; and bhakti public,
102–­103; and divine Name recitation, 270; 338n140; and caste, 254, 255; and Dādū, 231,
and Mongol invasions, 83–­84; and Nābhādās, 373n119; on divine Name recitation, 213,
372n110; and Nāth yogīs, 191, 364n100; and 268, 269; and divine Name recitation, 159;
nirguṇ-­saguṇ distinction, 231, 373n122; and and healing metaphor, 263; and Kṛṣṇa
occultism, 335nn80–­81; role in Sultanate devotion, 209; and Nāth yogīs, 162, 163,
period cultural change, 65, 67, 68, 72–­74, 243–­244, 272, 274; on performance/song,
332–­333n12; and Vedānta, 331–­332nn178, 90; and Rāmānand, 157; and Rāmānandi
180; and yoga, 334n61. See also Sufism community, 161, 355n135; and Sikhs, 230;
Islamicate culture, 332n1 sources for, 241–­242; and vernacular
istidrāj, 293, 384n56 literature/culture, 85, 86; and yogi term,
Īśvara Gitā, 51, 328n121 246. See also Kabīr’s critiques of tantra and
yoga
Jagannātha Dāsa, 272 Kabīr-­parcaī (Anantadās), 258, 302
Jagat Singh (Kullu ruler), 134–­135 Kabīr’s critiques of tantra and yoga:
Jahāngīr (Mughal emperor), 101, 105, 118, 119, Anantadās on, 302–­303; and divine Name
121–­122, 338n8, 344n107 recitation, 269; and false spirituality,
 index = 421

246–­250; and Nāth yogīs, 244–­245, 376n21; and Hanumān, 165; and Kacchvāhā clan,
and Śāktism, 240, 258–­259, 378n88; and 121; life of, 142; and Sants, 162; and yoga,
tantric healing, 264, 267–­268, 376n25; and 144, 169, 171, 182, 185, 362n73
unspecified power of bhakti, 386n97; and Kinra, Rajeev, 104, 122
yogīs, 247, 376n30 Kirttana-­ghoṣa (Śaṅkaradeva), 261
Kacchvāhā clan: and Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, 120; Kiss, Csaba, 223–­224
and Govindadev temple, 120, 345n128; and Kosambi, D. D., 341n62
manuscript culture, 124; Mughal alliance Kṛṣṇadāsa (Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism), 270
with, 107–­108, 115–­117, 121–­122, 198, Kṛṣṇadās (Vallabha sampradāy), 205
343n100, 345n137; and Mughal Kṛṣṇa devotion: and Agradās, 208, 209, 210,
multiculturalism, 117–­118; Payahārī-­ 216–­217, 218; and bhakti defined in
Tārānāth encounter legend, 131–­132, opposition to tantric-­yogic religiosity,
288–­291, 347nn4–­8; Rajasthan, 116, 343n98, 287–­288, 296; and definitions of bhakti,
344n106; Shekkavat lineage, 120, 345n129; 351n83; and metaphoric yogic imagery,
and social stability, 124, 346n159; and 283–­285, 380n132; and Rām-­rasik tradition,
tantra, 111, 342n68; Vaiṣṇava bhakti 197, 199; Rāmānandi community, 209, 229,
patronage, 108, 115, 119–­121, 132, 198, 289, 368–­369nn45–­46; and Śāktism, 260; and
345nn133, 135, 349n49; and written bhakti Sufism, 88; and Vaiṣṇava bhakti early
compositions, 124–­125 modern rise, 110, 134; and Vrindavan,
Kaelber, Walter, 322n14 216–­217. See also Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism
Kafle, Nirajan, 54, 329n147 Kṛṣṇa Gitāvalī (Tulsīdās), 209
Kaivalyadīpikā (Hemādri), 94 Kṣemendra, 330n170
Kalhaṇa, 326n86 kuṇḍalinī: and hatha yoga, 179, 180, 361nn53, 60;
Kānhapā, 357n4 and metaphoric yogic imagery, 382n6; and
Kanhāvat (Jāyasī), 287–­291 Nāth yogīs, 184, 363n90; in tantric yoga,
Kāpālikas, 12, 319n42 175, 176, 181, 359n32, 360n51, 382n6
Kapila, 184 Kuṇḍaliyā (Agradās), 203, 214, 219, 232–­233
karāmāt, 293, 384n57
Kaṭha Upaniṣad, 172 Lakṣmīdhara, 214
Kaula tradition, 133, 170, 176, 181, 325n63, Larson, Gerald, 185
359n32 Latāʾif-­e-­Ashrafī (Nizām Gharib), 293
Kauṇḍinya, 50 Lawrence, Bruce, 291
Kavikarṇapūra, 257 laya yoga, 39, 176, 179, 181, 183–­184, 188, 362n66.
Kavirāj, Kṛṣṇadās, 257, 263 See also kuṇḍalinī; tantric yoga
Kavitāvalī (Tulsīdās), 251 lay Śaiva religion, 45–­50; bhakti in, 46, 48–­49,
Kāyābelī (Dādū), 272 50, 328nn98–­99; and bhakti public, 327n102;
Kayvān, Āẕar, 104–­105 community in, 46, 48, 49, 327n102; dāna
Keśavdās, 113, 222 (giving) in, 49, 51, 52, 328n123; inclusivity
Keune, Jon, 4, 7–­8, 297 of, 46, 48, 327n103; and Pāśupatas, 47, 50,
Khalji dynasty, 67 51; and Purāṇas, 46–­47; scriptures
Khanna, Madhu, 307 overview, 45–­46, 49, 326n90; and tantra as
Khem, 151 medieval mainstream, 38, 45, 52; yogīs in,
Khusrau (Mughal prince), 119, 344n107 50, 51–­52, 328nn127–­28
Kiehnle, Catharina, 297 Lefèvre, Corinne, 106
Kīlhadev, 137, 144–­148; and Agradās, 144, 197, legal practices: Mughal period, 100, 338n6; and
365n5; and asceticism, 145–­146, 169, 362n73; tantra, 54–­55
 422 9 index

Lincoln, Bruce, 18 mantras: and divine Name recitation, 269,

Locanadāsa, 257 380n139; and divinization of the body, 57;
Lodi dynasty, 67, 101, 115 and gāruḍikas, 58; in lay Śaiva religion, 49;
Lofton, Kathryn, 21 in Śrī Vaiṣṇava tradition, 158, 353n110; in
Lorenzen, David, 71, 244, 317n6, 327n114, tantra, 32–­33, 35, 154–­155, 261, 264–­265,
331n178, 341n63, 342n65 322n17, 323n26; in Vaiṣṇava bhakti, 158; in
Lubin, Timothy, 48, 327n103 yoga, 173. See also divine Name recitation
Lutgendorf, Philip, 165, 167, 200, 217, 308, Marathi bhakti hagiographies, 295–­299,
366n16, 387n13 385nn71, 73
Marxist approaches, 341nn62–­63
Maas, Phillipp, 174 Massumi, Brian, 320n67
McDermott, Rachel, 109, 378n93 Mataṇgapārameśvara, 37, 323–­324n40
McGregor, Richard S., 72, 160, 166, 215, 218, maṭhas. See monasticism
361n61, 365n3 Matsyendranāth, 162, 163, 170, 181, 357n4
McLeod, W. H., 299, 380n145 Mattamayūra order, 325–­326n81, 328n134
Madhukar Shāh (Bundelā ruler), 125 meditational (gnosis-­centered) yoga, 172,
Madhumālatī (Manjhan), 87, 261–­262, 264, 174–­175, 185, 192, 351n83, 358nn24, 28–­29
278–­279, 284, 382n6 Mehtā, Narasi, 92–­93
mādhurya rasa, 199, 217–­218, 366n14 Melvin-­Koushki, Matthew, 104
Mahābhārata, 49, 144, 172–­173, 174, 185, 186, Menāriyā, Motīlāl, 347n8
362n73 metaphoric yogic imagery, 280, 281, 285–­287
Mahdavi Sufism, 76 methodology, 20–­22; terminology, 317n1,
Maheśdās, 137 318nn7, 11
Māheśvara community, 50 Meyer, Birgit, 17
Mahīpati, 295, 296–­299, 385n71 Minkowski, Christopher, 332n180
Maḥmūd of Ghazna, 66 Mīrābāī: and Agradās, 205; and caste
mainstream integration of religious groups. differences, 254; dating of, 382–­383n22; on
See religiopolitical integration mantras, 264–­265; and metaphoric yogic
Mallinson, James, 142, 178, 179, 181, 182, imagery, 282–­284, 286, 383nn27, 30; and
184–­185, 187, 347nn6, 11, 348n35, 350n59, Nāth yogīs, 383n30; and Śāktism, 258; and
357n3, 360n51, 362n63, 362–­363n85 vernacular literature/culture, 85, 86
Mallison, Françoise, 92 miracles, 292–­303, 337n125, 384n61
Mamluk dynasty, 66, 67 Mirigāvatī (Qutban), 87, 278
Mān Bhawati (wife of Jahāngīr), 119 Mirnig, Nina, 55, 329–­330n152
mañjarīs, 216 Mīrzā Jai Singh I (Kacchvāhā ruler), 121, 124,
Manjhan, 87, 261–­262, 264, 278–­279, 284 345n137
Mān Singh (Marwar ruler), 348n15 Mīrzā Muhammad Hakīm, 103
Mān Singh (Mughal general): and Agradās, Mishra, Ratanlāl, 365n4
200–­201, 367n26; importance of, 122, Misra, R. N., 325–­326n81
344n123; and Jahāngīr, 344n107; and Miśra, Vācaspati, 332n180
Kacchvāhā-­Mughal alliance, 117; and Moebus, Oliver, 380n139, 386n1
manuscript culture, 123, 124; and tantra, Moin, Azfar, 74, 76, 100
342n68; Vaiṣṇava bhakti patronage, 119, monasticism: and asceticism, 10–­11; military
120, 121, 122–­123, 201, 345nn143, 145, functions of, 44, 69, 78, 325–­326n81;
367n26 Mughal period warrior monks, 107,
Mantrapīṭha, 42 340n40; and Pāśupatas, 51; Rāmānandi
 index = 423

community, 4–­5, 11; in Śaiva Siddhānta Nām Pratāp (Agradās), 204, 211–­215, 222, 226
tradition, 44, 69, 325–­326n81, 328n134; and Nābhādās: background of, 139, 371n103; and
Sufism, 78; Sultanate period, 69, 78; in rasik practice, 148–­149, 350n70, 351n74;
tantra, 39, 43–­44, 55, 78, 325–­326n81; and veneration of, 372n106; and Viṣṇu
two bhakti practice streams, 150–­151, devotion, 210. See also Bhaktamāl
351n76 (Nābhādās)
Mongol invasions, 70, 73, 74, 78, 83–­84 Nāmdev: critique of tantra and yoga, 249,
Monier-­Williams, Monier, 306 256–­257, 269, 295–­296, 380n142; and Dādū,
Monika, Thiel-­Horstmann, 373n126 373n119; dating of, 336n93; and Nāth yogīs,
Moran, Arik, 150 163, 274, 364n107; and vernacular
Mughal Empire: agrarian exploitation under, literature/culture, 85
106–­107, 340n39; centralization of, 106, 107, NammĀḻvār (Āḻvār saint), 39, 327n95
270, 340n38; and Kacchvāhā clan, 115–­117; Nānak: critique of tantra and yoga, 248–­249,
Mān Singh’s role in, 122, 344n123; and 299–­301, 380n133; and divine Name
Timurid kingship, 84, 100, 102 recitation, 159; Nābhādās’ exclusion of,
Mughal period, 318n7; Akbar’s dynastic 229, 230; and Nāth yogīs, 299; and
ideology, 102–­105, 112–­114, 339n22, nirguṇ-­saguṇ distinction, 373n122; Siddh
342–­343nn80, 84; Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, Goṣṭ, 248–­249, 376nn35–­36, 380n133; and
114–­115, 319n35, 343nn90, 92; Islam, 13; vernacular literature/culture, 85, 86
Kacchvāhā-­Mughal alliance, 107–­108, Nandadās, 205, 214, 218, 222, 377n65
115–­118, 121–­122, 198, 343n100, 345n137; Naqshbandi Sufism, 76
languages, 105; legal practices, 100, 338n6; Narahari-­d āsa, 260
manuscript culture, 123–­124, 219; Narasī Mehtā, 85
multiculturalism, 105–­106, 117–­118, 122, Nārāyaṇ Bhaṭṭ, 115
340n33; Nāth yogīs, 109, 162, 163; Nārāyaṇdās, 121, 280, 336n85
occultism, 100–­101, 104, 339nn21–­22; Narmamālā (Kṣemendra), 330n170
Rām-­rasik bhakti tradition, 199; Rajasthan, Narottama-­vilāsa (Narahari-­dāsa), 260
109, 116, 343n98, 344n106, 348n15; nāstika philosophies, 331n178
religious marketplace environment Nāth, Charapat, 276n42
during, 195–­196, 204, 228, 235, 349n46; Nāth yogīs: and alchemy, 382n13; and Dādū
Sants, 162, 163; scholarship on, 13; Sufi Panth, 192, 231, 245, 272, 273; diversity
mainstream integration, 100–­101, 102, among, 183, 191–­194, 273–­274, 357n6,
103, 119; tantra marginalization during, 362n65, 364n111; and divinization of the
109–­110, 341nn58; vernacular literature/ body, 80, 81, 190–­191, 208; Gorakhbāṇī,
culture, 105, 106, 124, 214, 218–­219, 182–­183, 189–­190, 273, 361–­362nn61–­3, 65,
225–­226; warrior monks, 107, 340n40; 364n100; and Hanumān, 129–­130, 167,
yogīs, 338–­339n8. See also Vaiṣṇava bhakti 356n155; and hatha yoga, 182–­183, 361n60,
early modern rise 363n90; inclusivity of, 79; insignia of, 132,
Mughal-­Rajput court culture: and Agradās, 170, 249, 347n6, 357n5, 376n42; and Islam,
199, 204; and Akbar’s dynastic ideology, 99, 191, 364n100; and Kabīr, 162, 163, 243–­245,
113, 343n84; and Mān Singh, 123, 345n145; 272, 274; and laya yoga, 183–­184, 362n66;
and manuscript culture, 123–­124; and Maharashtra, 297, 385n73; mainstream
Vaiṣṇava bhakti early modern rise, 114, integration of, 133, 134, 338n8, 347n11,
125–­126 348n15; and metaphoric yogic imagery,
munis, 184–­185, 363n88 278–­282, 285–­286, 382n21; Mughal period,
music. See performance and song 109, 162, 163; and Nirañjanīs, 272; and
 424 9 index

Nāth yogīs (continued) inclusivity, 341n63, 342n65; and bhakti

nirguṇ-­saguṇ distinction, 141; origins of, 69, poet-­saints, 210, 377n73; and caste
133, 181; overview, 169–­171; panths, 171, differences, 110, 318n13; and Dādū,
187, 357n8; Rāmānandi community 232–­234, 373n122, 374nn133, 135; and
connections to, 4, 129–­130, 142, 171, Dādū Panth, 165, 272, 373n126; defined, 5;
355n136; and religious marketplace and Hanumān, 165, 166; and Islam,
environment, 88; and Śāktism, 375n2; and 231, 373n122; and Nābhādās, 231–­232;
Sants, 161, 162, 164, 356n155; scholarship and Rāmānandi community, 139–­140,
on, 319n35, 355–­356n139; self-­designation 141, 157–­158, 162, 231–­234; and
of, 348n35; and Sufism, 78–­82, 88, 278–­282, Vaiṣṇavism, 92
382n21; Sultanate period growth of, 69, 78, Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā, 30–­31, 329n147
133, 333n23; and transsectarian medieval Nivṛttināth, 364n107
culture, 170–­171; and vernacular Nizām al-­Dīn Awliyā, 75, 93, 262, 292, 294,
literature/culture, 361n61; on women, 334n46, 337n125, 384n61
380n131; and yogi term, 187, 188, 363n88. Nizām Gharib Yamanī, 293
See also bhakti defined in opposition to non-­Saiddāntika tantra, 42, 325n65, 326n86
tantric-­yogic religiosity; Gorakhnāth; Novetzke, Christian, 6, 16, 86, 296, 297, 320n53,
Nāth yogī-­Vaiṣṇava bhakti distinctions; 327n102, 344n120
Nāth yogī-­Vaiṣṇava bhakti encounters; yogīs nyāsa. See divinization of the body
Nāth yogī-­Vaiṣṇava bhakti distinctions,
181–­185, 193–­194; and Agradās, 207, 208; Oberhammer, Gerhard, 36
and Dādū, 231; and diversity among Nāth occultism, 84, 100–­101, 104, 335nn80–­81,
yogīs, 192–­193; and divinization of the 339n21
body, 208; and Hanumān, 167; and Offredi, Mariola, 244, 361n62
Nābhādās, 229, 231; and nirguṇ-­saguṇ O’Hanlon, Rosalind, 67, 380n138
distinction, 232; and siddhis, 172, 181, 182, Orchha, 125
186, 188–­191, 289, 361n56, 364n106; and Orientalism, 5, 8, 12, 13
yoga, 171–­172, 173, 177, 184 Orsini, Francesca, 14, 84, 85, 86, 87, 108–­109,
Nāth yogī-­Vaiṣṇava bhakti encounters: and 287, 336n88
Bhagvān-­jī, 135–­137; documentation of,
138–­139, 348n35; Jagat Singh conversion Padmāvat (Jāyasī), 87, 262, 264, 278, 279,
legend, 134–­135; Payahārī-­Tārānāth 280–­281, 284, 336n85, 382n20
encounter legend, 131–­132, 288–­291, Padoux, André, 33, 36, 307
347nn4–­8. See also bhakti defined in Pāñcarātra tradition: and Agastya Saṃhitā, 159;
opposition to tantric-­yogic religiosity bhakti in, 39; and brahmanism, 42; early
nationalism, 82, 317n5, 355–­356n139, 366n14 form of, 324n59; mainstream integration
Nāyaṉārs, 38, 39, 156, 327n95 of, 40, 41, 325n68; and Purāṇas, 46;
Neoplatonism, 335n80 scriptures in, 321n4, 324n60; and yoga, 36,
Nepal, Nāth yogīs, 348n15 154–­155
Nicholson, Andrew, 73, 331–­332nn178, 180 Pañca Sakhā, 271–­272
Nirañjanīs, 272, 370–­371n86 Paramānand, 205
nirguṇ bhakti, 85, 162, 192, 204. See also Pāśupatas, 50–­51; dating of, 327n114;
nirguṇ-­saguṇ distinction; Sants geographical spread of, 51, 328n124; and
nirguṇ-­saguṇ distinction: and Agastya Saṃhitā, lay Śaiva religion, 47, 50, 51; mainstream
158–­159; and Agradās, 205, 208, 210–­211, integration of, 51, 53, 328nn123–­24; and
232–­234, 373nn125–­26; and bhakti Purāṇas, 46, 47, 51; scriptures, 51, 328n121;
 index = 425

and temples, 328n118; and yoga, 328n127; dynasties, 65–­67; term for, 332n1; and
yogīs, 49, 51–­53 transcultural hybridity, 13, 15, 70–­72, 77,
Pāśupata Sūtra, 50 87, 333nn27, 31, 360n42; and vernacular
Pātañjala Yogaśāstra, 174–­175, 272, 358nn24, literature/culture, 85. See also Sufism;
28–­29 Sultanate period
Patañjali, 34, 174, 185, 186, 358nn28–­29 Peterson, Indira, 38–­39
Pauwels, Heidi, 109, 125, 139, 228, 240, 258, Phul, Shaikh, 101, 338n7
259–­260, 280, 287, 378n89 Pinch, William, 81, 108, 112, 157, 194, 227, 250,
Payahārī, Kṛṣṇadās, 137; and Agradās, 197, 288–­289, 290, 301, 355n135, 385n91, 386n93
198, 365n4; and Bhagvān-­jī, 135–­136, Pīpā, 85, 161, 162, 163, 228, 265
348n28; characteristics of, 140–­141; and Pīpā-­parcāī (Anantadās), 157, 200, 251
Daśanāmīs, 363n85; and definitions of Pollet, Gilbert, 385
yogīs, 362n83; disciples of, 140, 349n40; Pollock, Sheldon, 65, 95, 160, 331n178, 337n131,
Jagat Singh conversion legend, 134–­135; 354n121
and Kacchvāhā clan, 108, 121; and Kṛṣṇa practical magic. See pragmatic religiosity
devotion, 209, 369n46; as muni, 184–­185; pragmatic religiosity: defined, 41–­42, 325n64;
and nirguṇ-­saguṇ distinction, 141, 231–­232; and Hanumān, 356n143; and Sufism, 77–­78,
and Rām-­rasik bhakti tradition, 198, 79. See also pragmatic religiosity in tantra
366n12; and rasik practice, 142, 349n49; pragmatic religiosity in tantra: contemporary,
and Sants, 162; sources on, 139, 348–­ 307–­308, 387nn13, 17; and divine power, 33;
349n37; Tārānāth encounter legend, and esoteric practice, 58–­60; and Gāruḍa
131–­132, 288–­291, 347nn4–­8; and two Tantras, 57–­58, 330nn164, 170; importance
bhakti practice streams, 150; works of, 41–­42; and sādhaka authority, 35;
attributed to, 141, 349n43; and yoga, 142, scriptures on, 30; and Sufism, 77, 79. See
171, 182, 349n49 also tantric healing
Pechilis, Karen, 5, 7, 38, 324n45 Prahlād Caritra (Agradās), 214, 222, 226
pedagogical other. See bhakti defined in prāṇāyāma, 79, 159, 173, 174, 183
opposition to tantric-­yogic religiosity premākhyāns, 87–­88, 95–­96, 277–­282, 336n85,
Pellegrini, Ann, 18 382n6
performance and song, 89–­97; and affect, prema rasa, 95
18–­19; Bhāgavata Purāṇa on, 156, 352–­ Prithīnāth, 192, 364n111
353n101; and bhakti defined in opposition Priyādās, 121, 135, 138, 146, 226, 258, 301,
to tantric-­yogic religiosity, 92, 268; and 385n91
community, 16–­18, 90–­91, 268, 337n118; in professional ascetics, 9–­10, 44, 49, 50, 51–­52, 53.
contemporary bhakti, 353n102; diversity in, See also Pāśupatas; yogis
321n76; and embodiment, 320–­321n71; and protection. See pragmatic religiosity
ethical values, 19–­20, 91–­93, 337n118; as Protestant biases, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 305, 387n3
intrinsic to bhakti, 89–­92, 336n114; in Pṛthvīrāj (Kacchvāhā ruler), 137; and Kṛṣṇa
Sufism, 76; and vernacular literature/ devotion, 209, 369n46; and nirguṇ-­saguṇ
culture, 86, 87–­88; vs. written distinction, 141, 231–­232, 373n124;
compositions, 124, 346n155 Payahārī-­Tārānāth encounter legend,
Persianate culture: and decline of mainstream 131–­132, 288–­291, 347nn4–­8; and
tantra, 67; and Islam, 72–­74; and Mongol Rāmānandi patronage, 108, 115, 121, 132,
invasions, 70; and Mughal manuscript 349n49
culture, 123; Mughal period, 105–­106, publics, 16, 320n53. See also bhakti public
123–­124; and pre-­Sultanate Turkic Puraṇ, 182
 426 9 index

Purāṇas: on ascetic yoga, 174; on bhakti, 152, Rajab, 263

327n98; and brahmanical expansion, 54; Rajasthan, 116, 192, 219, 273–­274, 343n98,
and lay Śaiva religion, 46–­47; and 344n106, 348n15, 383n30. See also Rajputs
Pāśupatas, 46, 47, 51; and Śaiva Siddhānta Rājataraṅgiṇī (Kalhaṇa), 326n86
tradition, 52; and Śaiva tantra, 52, 54, Rajjab, 162, 165, 205, 230, 231, 368nn35, 39
329n146; and Vaiṣṇava bhakti, 342n66. See Rajputs: and Akbar’s dynastic ideology, 113,
also Bhāgavata Purāṇa; specific works 342–­343nn80, 84; and Babur, 115; and
Pūraṇmal (Kacchvāhā ruler), 115 decline of Śaivism, 108–­109; definition of,
Puṣṭi Mārg community, 118. See also Vallabha 338n2; and manuscript culture, 123–­124,
219; martial culture, 341n57; and Mughal
Qadiri Sufism, 76 court culture, 98, 99, 113, 114, 199, 204,
Qutban, 87, 278 343n84; and Vaiṣṇava bhakti early modern
Quṭbund-­d in-­A ibak, 66 rise, 113, 114–­115, 118–­119. See also
Kacchvāhā clan; Mughal-­Rajput court
Rām devotion: Agastya Saṃhitā on, 158, culture
353–­354n119; and Agradās, 158, 209, 216, Rāj-­yog (Payahārī), 141
353n112; and bhakti defined in opposition Rāmānand, 140, 157, 161–­162, 165, 349n38,
to tantric-­yogic religiosity, 267, 269; and 353n103, 355nn134–­37
nirguṇ-­saguṇ distinction, 210; and Rāmānandi community: and Bhagvān-­jī, 136;
Rāmānandi community, 141, 353n110, Bhairava shrine, 129, 164; and bhakti
368–­369n45; Sultanate period, 160, defined in opposition to tantric-­yogic
354nn121–­22; and Vaiṣṇava bhakti early religiosity, 156–­157; and Daśanāmīs,
modern rise, 134. See also divine Name 362–­363n85; as emotional community, 17;
recitation; Rām-­rasik bhakti tradition; rasik establishment of, 114; and Hanumān, 121,
practice 164–­166, 345n135, 356n151; inclusivity of,
Rām-­rasik bhakti tradition: Agradās as founder 110, 157, 158, 159, 371n103; and Kacchvāhā
of, 86, 142, 197–­198, 203, 204; and bhakti clan, 108, 115, 121, 289, 345nn133, 135;
critique of tantra, 147; content of, 198–­199, Kṛṣṇa devotion, 209, 229, 368–­369nn45–­46;
366n14; and Dhyān Mañjarī, 199, 203, 204, lineages (dvārās) in, 349n38; mainstream
215; and gardening, 200; on life of Agradās, integration of, 120–­121, 132, 165, 219, 220,
365n4; origins of, 142, 197–­198, 204, 366n12; 225–­226, 229, 356nn144–­45; Nāth yogī
Raivāsā community, 201–­203, 367nn26 connections to, 4, 129–­130, 142, 171,
Rāghavānand, 353n103 355n136; and nirguṇ-­saguṇ distinction,
Rāghavdās, 139. See also Bhaktamāl 139–­140, 141, 157–­158, 162, 231–­234;
(Rāghavdās) Payahārī-­Tārānāth encounter legend,
Raidās: and caste, 254; critique of tantra and 131–­132, 288–­291, 347nn4–­8; and religious
yoga, 239, 251–­252, 267, 269; on divine marketplace environment, 80, 89, 195–­196,
Name recitation, 159, 213; and Kṛṣṇa 204, 228, 235, 349n46; roots of, 157–­163, 164;
devotion, 209; and Mīrābāī, 383n30; and and Sants, 157–­158, 161–­162, 214, 229,
Nāth yogīs, 162, 163, 272, 274; and 355nn134–­36; self-­designation of, 348n35;
Rāmānand, 157; and Rāmānandi and Sikhs, 230; and Śrī Vaiṣṇava tradition,
community, 161; and Sikhs, 230; and 157, 158, 353nn103, 106, 108; and Sufism,
vernacular literature/culture, 85 234–­235; two practice streams within,
Raisal Darbari (Kacchvāhā chief), 120 139–­140, 147, 148–­152, 156, 158, 165, 166–­167.
Raivāsā Rām-­rasik community, 201–­203, See also Agradās; Kīlhadev; Nāth yogī-­
367nn26 Vaiṣṇava bhakti distinctions
 index = 427

Rāmānandis as yoga practitioners: and hatha Richards, John, 113, 317n1, 342n80
yoga, 140, 142, 148–­149, 181, 182, 188, 349n46, Richardson, Edwin, 344n121
381n164; Kīlhadev, 144, 145–­146, 169, 362n73; rīti poetry, 124, 218, 222, 370n82, 371n94
Payahārī, 140, 141–­142; and yogi term, 185, Rizvi, Saiyid Athar Abbas, 293
187, 363n88. See also ascetic (tapasvī) yoga Rosenwein, Barbara, 17–­18, 96, 320n67
Rāmānuja, 157, 228 royal patronage. See religiopolitical
Ramanujan, A. K., 1, 320n57 integration
Rāmāyaṇa, 49, 114, 174, 198 ṛṣis, 184
Rāmcandra, 160, 199 Rushd-­nāma (Gangohī), 79, 88
Rāmcaritmānas (Tulsīdās), 86, 87, 210, 251,
354n119, 369n56 Sāṃkhya school of philosophy, 172, 175
Rana, R. P., 119, 341n61 Sadāśiva Saṃhitā, 218
Rānā Saṅga, 115 Safavid Sufism, 101, 102
rasa: and Agradās’s Dhyān Mañjarī, 195, 217; saguṇ bhakti, 5. See also nirguṇ-­saguṇ
defined, 337n131; and nirguṇ-­saguṇ distinction
distinction, 232, 234; Rūpa Gosvāmi on, Sahajiyā Vaiṣṇavas, 272
365–­366n7; and Sufism, 87, 93–­96, 234–­235, Saiddāntika Śaiva tantra, 43, 54
375n139. See also rasik practice Śaiva Siddhānta tradition: and Agradās, 222;
rasik practice: Agradās, 142, 199, 206, 216, bhakti in, 36–­38, 323–­324n40; and
220–­222, 223–­224, 235, 366n17, 367n30, brahmanism, 42; gurus in, 44, 322n11;
371n89; divine Name recitation in, 200, inclusivity of, 52, 55–­56, 329–­330n152;
350n51, 366–­367nn19–­21; exclusivity in, monasticism in, 44, 69, 325–­326n81,
223, 371n95; and Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, 197; 328n134; and Pāśupatas, 52, 53; scriptures
and Hanumān, 165; and Nābhādās, in, 321n4, 324n60; Sultanate period decline
148–­149, 350n70, 351n74; and Payahārī, 142, of, 68–­69; and tantra as medieval
349n49; and Rāmānandi community, 148; mainstream, 40, 44, 52–­53, 326n86, 328n134
and Sultanate period, 366n16; and tantra, Śaiva tantra: bhakti in, 37–­38; divine power in,
222–­225; and Vaiṣṇava bhakti, 142, 147, 148, 322n18; and goddess worship, 54, 329n140;
349n49, 351n74. See also Rām-­rasik bhakti initiation in, 31; Kaula tradition, 133, 170;
tradition Mughal period decline of, 341n58;
Rasik-­P rakāś-­Bhaktamāl (Yugalpriyā), 202–­203, non-­Saiddāntika cults, 42, 325n65, 326n86;
354n119 and Purāṇas, 52, 54, 329n146; Saiddāntika,
Rasikpriyā (Keśavdās), 222 43, 325n65; scholarship on, 324–­325n61;
Rasmañjarī (Nandadās), 218 scriptures in, 30–­31; Tamil, 38–­39, 324n45;
Rāspañcādhyāyī (Nandadās), 218 and tantra as medieval mainstream, 40.
Rastelli, Marion, 35 See also Nāth yogīs; Śaiva Siddhānta
Ratan Singh (Kacchvāhā ruler), 115 tradition
Ravidās, 86 Śaivism: and hatha yoga, 179; lay religion,
religiopolitical integration: brahmanical 45–­50, 326n90, 327nn94, 98–­99, 102–­103;
expansion, 53–­54, 56–­57, 60, 329n138; Nāth mainstream integration of, 40; Mughal
yogīs, 133, 134, 338n8, 347n11, 348n15; period decline of, 108–­109, 341n58; and
Pāśupatas, 51, 53, 328nn123–­24; śanti Nābhādās, 158, 353n111; Purāṇas, 47; and
rituals, 323n22; Sufism, 74–­75, 78, 161, Rāmānandi community, 363n85; and
289–­290; yogīs, 29, 30, 52, 338–­339n8. See also Vedānta, 61, 331n179. See also Pāśupatas;
tantra as medieval mainstream; Vaiṣṇava Śaiva Siddhānta tradition; Śaiva tantra
bhakti early modern rise śakti, 33, 322n18
 428 9 index

Śāktism: and bhakti defined in opposition to Schomer, Karine, 162

tantric-­yogic religiosity, 240, 256, 258–­260, Schwartz, Jason, 37, 54–­55, 111, 179,
378nn89, 92; bhakti tradition in, 260, 323–­324n40
378n93; divine power in, 33; and Gauḍīya scriptures: in lay Śaiva religion, 45–­46, 49,
Vaiṣṇavism, 109, 378nn92, 94; Mughal 326n90; Pāśupatas, 51, 328n121; and Śaiva
period decline of, 108–­109, 111, 341n58; and Siddhānta tradition, 52; in tantra, 30–­31,
Nāth yogīs, 375n2; and Rajput martial 54, 56–­58, 321nn2–­4, 324n60, 330n164. See
culture, 341n57. See also tantra also Purāṇas
samāʾ, 76, 270 Sears, Tamara, 10, 44, 69, 78
samādhi, 172, 175, 358n29, 360n41 Sen, 161, 162, 163, 230
Samanid dynasty, 65–­66 Shackle, Christopher, 334n65
Saṃhitās, 30, 321n4, 324n60 Shāh Jahān (Mughal emperor), 122, 345nn128,
Saṃnyāsanirṇaya (Vallabha), 251 137
Sanderson, Alexis, 32, 36, 40, 41, 43, 44, 53, 54, Shajarat al-­Atqiyā, 294–­295
55, 321n1, 322n8, 327n99, 329n146 Sharma, Krishna, 5, 7, 219n31, 341n63, 351n83,
Sangari, Kumkum, 7, 110 387n3
sanguinary practices, 325n62 Sharma, Mahesh, 111
Śaṅkaradeva, 109, 257–­258, 261, 269, Sharma, R. S., 329n151
378–­379n94 Shattari Sufism, 76, 79, 100–­101
Sanskrit culture. See Indo-­Persian cultural Sheffield, Daniel, 104, 339n26
hybridity Sheikh, Samira, 88, 108–­109, 335n77
śanti rituals, 323n22 Sher Shāh Surī, 116
Sants: and Agradās, 195, 203, 204, 207–­208, 211; Shīrāzī, Hidāyat Allāh Muanjjim-­i, 339n22
vs. bhakti poet-­saints, 354–­355n127; caste Shukla, Ramchandra, 13
of, 372n113; and divine Name recitation, siddhas, 170
159, 161, 162, 213; Nābhādās on, 227; and Siddh Goṣṭ (Nānak), 248–­249, 376nn35–­36,
Nāth yogīs, 161, 162, 164, 356n155; origins 380n133
of, 160–­161; and Rāmānandi community, siddhis: Bhāgavata Purāṇa on, 146, 154, 155, 289,
157–­158, 161–­162, 214, 229, 355nn134–­36; 352n99; and bhakti defined in opposition to
and religious marketplace environment, tantric-­yogic religiosity, 193, 289; as
88; scholarship on, 319n35; and Sikhs, 162, common to all forms of yoga, 173, 177; and
355n135; and Sufism, 88, 161; Tulsīdās on, definitions of yoga, 186–­187; and divine
354n119; and Vaiṣṇava bhakti, 161–­162, power, 34–­35; and Nāth yogī-­Vaiṣṇava
354n127; and Vaiṣṇavism, 92; Vyās on, 228, bhakti distinctions, 172, 181, 182, 186,
372n113. See also bhakti poet-­saints; specific 188–­191, 289, 361n56, 364n106; tantric focus
people on, 33–­34
Sarvāṅgayogapradīpikā (Sundardās), 273 śikh-­nakh, 217
Sarvāṅgī (Gopāldās), 162, 165, 230, 272 Sikhs: and bhakti defined in opposition to
Sarvāṅgī (Rajjab), 162, 165, 230, 272, 368nn35, tantric-­yogic religiosity, 255, 299–­301; on
39; Agradās’ poetry in, 205, 207–­208, 213, divine Name recitation, 213; and
231 Hanumān, 165; inclusivity of, 110;
Satya Pir, 81, 334n69 Nābhādās’ exclusion of, 229, 230; and Nāth
Savāī Jai Singh II (Kacchvāhā ruler), 121 yogīs, 245, 299; and Sants, 162, 355n135
Sayyid dynasty, 67 Śilā-­devī, 111, 342n68
Schaefer, Donovan, 18 Singh, B. P., 218
Schofield, Katherine Butler, 93–­94, 371n95 Singh, Piar, 249
 index = 429

Sītārām, 132, 142, 349n49, 366n12 recitation in, 76, 270, 271,
Śiva. See Śaivism 380–­381nn149–­50; ethical values in, 92–­93,
Śivadharma, 46, 47–­49, 51, 327nn95, 103, 328n128 337n125; growth of mass-­based, 74, 76–­77;
Śivadharma corpus, 45–­50, 51, 54, 326–­ hagiographies, 292–­295, 384nn56–­57;
327nn90, 94, 329n147. See also specific texts healing metaphor in, 262; holy places in,
Śivadharmasaṇgraha, 54, 329n147 75, 76; inclusivity of, 79; and Indo-­Persian
Śivadharmottara, 46, 47, 49, 51, 327n99, 328n128 cultural hybridity, 77, 87, 333n31; and iqtāʾ
Śivastotrāvalī (Utpaladeva), 37 system, 71; and metaphoric yogic imagery,
Six Gosvāmis, 115, 120, 343n92, 371n102. See 278–­282, 382nn6, 21; and Mongol invasions,
also Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism 74, 79; Mughal period mainstream
Siyar al-­Aqtāb, 295 integration of, 100–­101, 102, 103, 119; and
Skanda Purāṇa, 51, 152, 328n127, 329n147 Nābhādās, 227, 231; and Nāth yogīs, 78–­82,
Slouber, Michael, 57–­58, 330n168 88, 278–­282, 382n21; and occultism, 101,
smaraṇa. See divine Name recitation 338n7; and pragmatic religiosity, 77–­78, 79;
Smith, Frederick, 57, 58 premākhyāns, 87–­88, 95–­96, 277–­282, 336n85,
Smith, Jonathan Z., 22 382n6; and Rāmānandi community,
Smith, Travis, 46–­47, 51, 52, 53, 56, 386n1 234–­235; and rasa, 93–­94, 234–­235, 375n139;
song. See performance and song and religious marketplace environment,
śraddhā, 49 88; and Sants, 88, 161; similarities to
Sreenivasan, Ramya, 279, 280, 336n85, 340n38, tantra, 77–­78, 334n61; Sultanate period
344n106 mainstream integration, 74–­75, 78, 161,
Śrī Vaiṣṇava tradition, 157, 158, 332n180, 289–­290; and vernacular literature/
353nn103, 106, 110 culture, 84, 85, 86–­88
śṛṅgāra rasa, 95, 198, 204, 219, 337n134, 366n14 Suhrawardī, Shihāb al-­Dīn Yaḥyā al-­, 104,
state power. See religiopolitical integration 339n21
Stewart, Tony, 14, 72, 81, 216, 380–­381nn149–­50, Suhrawardiya Sufism, 76, 339n21
382n21 Sukhmanī (Arjan), 269–­270, 380n145
Stoker, Valerie, 10 Śukla, Rāmcandra, 166
A Storm of Songs (Hawley), 2 ṣulḥ-­i kull, 104
śūdras. See caste; inclusivity Sultanate period, 15, 64–­97; brahmanism, 68,
Sufi influences on bhakti, 3, 303–­304; and 332n181; Chishti Sufism growth, 75–­76,
bhakti public, 96–­97, 338n140; and ethical 334n46; decline of mainstream tantra,
values, 92–­93; and historiography of bhakti, 60–­62, 65, 67–­70, 177, 332–­333n12;
82–­83, 335n72; and mainstream democratized yoga, 177–­179, 180,
integration, 290; and metaphoric yogic 359–­360nn37, 39, 41, 51–­52, 361n53; early
imagery, 279, 280; and rasa, 93–­96; bhakti poet-­saints, 85–­86, 336n93; growth
scholarship on, 13–­14; and vernacular of mass-­based Sufism, 74, 76–­77; and Hindu
literature/culture, 86–­87; and written religious identity, 73; languages, 85, 87,
compositions, 88, 291 336n88; late, 83, 84–­89, 115, 335n77,
Sufism, 163; and bhakti defined in opposition to 335nn82–­83, 336n110; Mongol invasions, 70,
tantric-­yogic religiosity, 81–­82, 254, 276, 73, 74, 78, 83–­84; Nāth yogīs, 69, 78, 133,
277–­278, 280, 291–­295, 384n61; Chishti 333n23; occultism, 84, 335nn80–­81;
order, 14, 75–­76, 79, 102, 103, 333n31, pre-­Sultanate Turkic dynasties, 65–­67;
334nn45–­46; commonalities with bhakti, Rām worship, 160, 354nn121–­22; and rasik
276–­277; diversity within, 14, 320n49; on practice, 366n16; religious marketplace
divine love, 81, 94, 334n65; divine Name environment during, 88–­89, 336n110; role
 430 9 index

Sultanate period (continued) 341nn58; and Nāth yogīs, 183–­184, 362n66;

of Islam in cultural change, 65, 67, 68, and Purāṇas, 54; and rasik practice,
72–­74, 332–­333n12; Sants, 160; scholarship 222–­225; rise of, 29; sādhaka authority in,
on, 13; Sufi mainstream integration, 74–­75, 34, 35, 323n26; and śanti rituals, 323n22;
78, 161, 289–­290; temple destruction, 67, scholarship on, 41, 42, 324–­325n61;
332–­333n12; Timur invasion, 72, 83, 84, scriptures in, 30–­31, 54, 56–­58, 321nn2–­4,
335nn77, 82; transcultural hybridity in, 13, 324n60, 330n164; and siddhis, 33–­35;
15, 65, 70–­72, 77, 87, 333nn27, 31, 360n42; similarities to Sufism, 77–­78, 334n61;
vernacular literature/culture, 71, 84–­85, transgressive practices in, 29, 41, 42,
86–­87, 335n82, 336n85 325nn62–­63, 326n86; and Vedic tradition,
sumiran. See divine Name recitation 31, 322n7; women in, 31, 322n8, 380n131;
Sundardās, 272–­273, 381n160 and yogīs, 11–­12, 38. See also bhakti defined
Sūrdās: and Agradās, 205; and bhramargit in opposition to tantric-­yogic religiosity;
genre, 377n65; critique of tantra, 252–­253; Nāth yogīs; pragmatic religiosity in tantra;
dating of, 382n22; and healing metaphor, Śaiva Siddhānta tradition; tantric healing;
263; and Kṛṣṇa devotion, 209; and tantric yoga
metaphoric yogic imagery, 284–­285; on tantra as medieval mainstream, 40–­45, 61–­62,
performance/song, 90, 336n114; and 68–­69, 134; and initiation, 43; and lay Śaiva
vernacular literature/culture, 85, 86 religion, 38, 45, 52; and legal pluralism,
Surī, Sher Shāh, 101 54–­55; and medieval transsectarian
Svātmārāma, 273, 361n60, 362n66, 363n90 culture, 40–­42; and monasticism, 43–­44,
325–­326n81; non-­Saiddāntika cults, 325n65,
Ṭahmāsb, Shāh, 101 326n86; Pāñcarātra tradition, 40, 41,
Talbot, Cynthia, 108, 121–­122 325n68; and Pāśupatas, 52, 53; Śaiva
Tamil: bhakti traditions, 36, 38–­39, 324n45, Siddhānta tradition, 40, 44, 52–­53, 326n86,
327n95; tantra, 38–­39, 324n45, 327n95. See 328n134; Sultanate period decline of,
also Āḻvārs 60–­62, 65, 67–­70, 177, 332–­333n12; and
tantra, 29–­63; and Agastya Saṃhitā, 159; bhakti temple-­based religious life, 39; vs.
incorporation of, 215, 222–­225, 371n102; transgressive practices, 41, 42, 325nn62–­63,
bhakti in medieval, 36–­40, 323–­324nn40, 45; 326n86; and warlords, 42–­43, 325n68
and brahmanical expansion, 53–­54, 56–­57, Tantras: and brahmanical expansion, 54;
60; contemporary attitudes toward, 12, defined, 30, 321n4, 324n60; Gāruḍa Tantras,
305, 307–­308, 386n1, 387nn13, 17; definition 57–­58, 330nn164, 170; on healing, 58,
of, 35–­36; diversity within, 36; divine 330n164; vs. Vedas, 31
power in, 33, 34, 322–­323nn18, 21–­22; folk tantric healing: and bhakti defined in
practices in, 53, 56, 57–­58, 329n138; opposition to tantric-­yogic religiosity,
inclusivity of, 31, 52, 55–­56, 329n151, 261, 264–­268; Bhūta Tantras on, 330nn164,
329–­330n152; initiate classes in, 31, 322n11; 167; and esoteric practice, 59; and folk
initiation in, 31, 43, 223, 322n11; mantras practices, 57–­58, 330n168; Gāruḍa Tantras
in, 32–­33, 35, 154–­155, 261, 264–­265, 322n17, on, 57–­58, 330n164; gāruḍikas, 57–­58, 261,
323n26; and medieval transsectarian 330n170, 379n102; and healing metaphor,
culture, 40–­42, 59–­60, 170–­171, 330–­ 261–­262. See also pragmatic religiosity in
331n172; monastic orders (maṭhas) in, 39, tantra
43–­44, 55, 78, 325–­326n81; Mughal period tantric Śaivism. See Śaiva tantra
mainstream integration of, 111; Mughal tantric yoga: and Āḻvārs, 39; Bhāgavata Purāṇa
period marginalization of, 109–­110, on, 154–­155; laya yoga, 39, 176, 179, 181,
 index = 431

183–­184, 188, 362n66; overview, 175–­177, inclusivity of, 110, 341n63; lineages (dvārās)
359nn32–­34; six-­limbed, 176, 359n33; and in, 349n38; Nābhādās on, 355n133; and rasa,
Sufism, 279, 382n6; and yogīs, 363n88. See 95; and rasik practice, 142, 147, 148, 349n49,
also Nāth yogīs 351n74; and Sants, 161–­162, 354n127; and
tapas. See ascetic (tapasvī) yoga Sufism, 92–­93; and tantra, 39;
Tārānāth, 131–­132, 134, 136, 137, 288–­291, transsectarian, 110–­111, 161, 342n66,
347nn4–­6, 8 349n46, 354n127; two practice streams
tazkirā, 227 within, 139–­140, 147, 148–­152, 156, 158, 165,
temple-­based religion: lay Śaiva, 47, 49–­50; 166–­167, 351n76; and warrior monks, 110,
Mughal period, 118, 122–­123, 345nn143, 145; 341n57; and written bhakti compositions,
and Pāśupatas, 328n118; Sultanate period, 147–­148. See also Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism; Nāth
66, 67, 68, 332–­333nn12, 17; in tantra, 43–­44 yogī-­Vaiṣṇava bhakti distinctions;
Tēvārum, 39 Rāmānandi community
Timur invasion, 72, 83, 84, 335nn77, 82 Vaiṣṇava bhakti early modern rise, 108–­113;
Tīrthāvalī (Nāmdev), 295–­296 and Agradās, 225–­226; and Akbar’s
Tiruvāymoḻi, 39 dynastic ideology, 112–­113, 114; as
Törzsök, Judit, 326n86 appeasement of Hindus, 344n121; and
transgressive practices: marginalization of, bhakti public, 119, 344n120; and caste
12, 319n42; in tantra, 29, 41, 42, 325nn62–­63, differences, 110, 341n61; criticisms of, 111,
326n86 342n71; and decline of Śaivism, 108–­109;
Trilochan, 230, 247–­248 Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, 114, 118–­120, 198;
Truschke, Audrey, 105–­106, 114, 340n33 Jagat Singh conversion legend, 134–­135;
Tughlaq dynasty, 67, 71–­72, 83, 335n83 and Kacchvāhā clan, 108, 115, 119–­121, 132,
Tukarām, 257 198, 289, 345nn133, 135, 349n49; and Kṛṣṇa
Tulsīdās: and Agradās, 205; background of, devotion, 110, 134; and Mān Singh, 119,
354n119; and bhakti defined in opposition 120, 121, 122–­123, 201, 345nn143, 145,
to tantric-­yogic religiosity, 239, 240, 249, 367n26; and Mughal-­Rajput court culture,
250–­251, 252, 254–­255, 301; on divine Name 114, 125–­126; and Payahārī-­Tārānāth
recitation, 213, 369n56; and Kṛṣṇa encounter legend, 133–­134; and Rajputs,
devotion, 209; and nirguṇ-­saguṇ 113, 114–­115, 118–­119; Rāmānandi
distinction, 210, 377n73; and vernacular community, 120–­121, 132, 165, 219, 220,
literature/culture, 86, 87 225–­226, 229, 356nn144–­45; and Sufi
Turkic conquests. See Sultanate period mainstream integration, 289–­290; and
Tūsī, Nasīr al-­Dīn, 100 transsectarian ethos, 110–­111; and two
Tyagi, Jaya, 329n140 bhakti practice streams, 150–­151; and
vernacular literature/culture, 219, 226;
Upadhyay, Omkar Nath, 344n107 and written bhakti compositions, 124
Urban, Hugh, 386n1 Vaiṣṇava tantra, 38, 39, 327n95. See also
Utpaladeva, 37 Pāñcarātra tradition
Vaiṣṇavism: Agastya Saṃhitā, 158–­160, 161,
Vaiṣṇava bhakti: Āḻvārs, 38, 39, 153, 156, 217–­218, 223, 353nn106, 111–­12, 118; and
327n95, 352n88; connections with Nāth diversity within bhakti, 319n31; divine
yogīs, 4, 129–­130, 142, 162, 171, 355n136; Name recitation in, 158, 159–­160, 269,
diversity within, 138; divine Name 353–­354n119, 380n138; ethical values in, 92;
recitation in, 92, 141, 144, 162, 198, 200, 203, and inclusivity, 327n103; and Nābhādās,
213, 350n51, 350n58, 354n119, 369n56; 228; and nirguṇ-­saguṇ distinction, 92;
 432 9 index

Vaiṣṇavism (continued) Viṣṇudharma, 327n103

Pañca Sakhā, 271–­272; professional Viṭṭhalnāth (Śrī Gusainjī), 118
ascetics in, 51–­52; and Rāmānandi Vopadeva, 94–­95
community, 157–­158; and religious Vrindavan, 108, 114, 118–­119, 120, 216–­217,
marketplace environment, 88; and Sufism, 345n128. See also Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism
81, 88; and Vedānta, 61, 331n179; and Vyāsa, 174, 358n28
vernacular literature/culture, 88; vulgate, Vyās, Harirām, 227–­228, 240, 247, 256, 259,
3, 92, 269, 318n8, 342n66, 354n127; and 342n71, 355n135, 372n113
yoga, 153
Vajrayāna Buddhism, 40, 41 Wagoner, Phillip, 13, 65, 71
Vākarī tradition, 385n73 Walbridge, John, 339n21
Vallabha, 114, 118, 251, 344n121 Wallis, Glen, 322n18
van der Veer, Peter, 171, 353n103, 356n155 Warner, Michael, 16, 17, 19, 320n53
Vārāṅ Bhāī Gurdās, 299–­300 Wedemeyer, Christian, 21, 40, 321n1
Vasudeva, S. D., 328n127 Weightman, Simon, 279, 382n6
Vaudeville, Charlotte, 79, 109, 162, 171, 244, White, David Gordon, 35–­36, 59, 62, 133,
256, 353n110, 356n155, 380n138 185–­187, 193, 322–­323n21, 347n11, 386n1
Vāyu Purāṇa, 329n147 wilāyat, 74
Vedānta: and Islam, 331–­332nn178, 180; and Wilke, Annette, 322n17, 380n139, 386n1
origins of bhakti, 153, 319n31; origins of, Williams, Tyler, 18–­19, 90, 123, 337n118,
179, 331n176, 360n42; and tantra, 61; and 370–­371n86, 374n131
yoga, 179–­180, 331n179, 360nn44, 48 Wink, Andre, 68, 333n17
Vedic tradition: and ascetic yoga, 173, 358n21; Wolcott, Leonard, 356n143
divinization of the body in, 322n14; and women: and goddess worship, 329n140; in
tantra, 31, 322n7. See also brahmanism tantra, 31, 322n8, 380n131; in yoga, 176,
Venkatkrishnan, Anand, 352n86 361–­362n63. See also inclusivity
vernacular literature/culture: and Agradās, worldview, 15–­16
86, 148, 204, 214–­215, 218–­219, 226–­227; and written bhakti compositions: of Agradās,
Anantadās, 226–­227; and bhakti poet-­saints, 142–­143, 148, 204–­211, 367–­368nn33, 35, 39;
85–­86, 336n93; Hanumān in, 166, 356n151; and authenticity, 241–­242, 375n7; and
and lay Śaiva religion, 47, 327n99; Mughal bhakti defined in opposition to tantric-­
period, 105, 106, 124, 214, 218–­219, 225–­226; yogic religiosity, 130; and bhakti public,
and Nāth yogīs, 361n61; premākhyāns, 87–­88, 125, 147–­148, 196, 350n69; and initiation,
95–­96, 277–­282, 336n85, 382n6; rīti-­granth 223; and Mughal manuscript culture,
genre, 218, 370n82; and Sufism, 84, 85, 124–­125, 219; and paper technology,
86–­88; Sultanate period development of, 71, 346n156; vs. performance, 124, 346n155;
84–­85, 86–­87, 335n82, 336n85; and Vaiṣṇava and Sufism, 88
bhakti early modern rise, 219, 226. See also
written bhakti compositions Yaśovanta Dāsa, 272
Vidyāpati, 378n92 Yelle, Robert, 386–­387n2
Vidyāpīṭha, 42, 325n63 yoga: and Agastya Saṃhitā, 159; and
Vinay Patrikā (Tulsīdās), 250 brahmarandhra, 144, 350n59; and Dādū Panth,
Vinodī, 197 272–­273, 381n160; and definitions of bhakti,
viraha, 262, 263–­264, 277, 282–­285 152, 153–­156, 351n83, 352n93; definitions of,
Viṣṇu devotion, 113–­114, 210. See also 173, 185–­187; etymology of, 172, 185; and
Vaiṣṇavism Islam, 334n61; and lay Śaiva religion, 50, 51,
 index = 433

238n127; Mahābhārata on, 172–­173, 185, 186, Yoga Sūtra (Patañjali), 34, 174, 185, 186, 358n28
362n73; meditational (gnosis-­centered), yogic imagery, metaphoric, 277–­287; and
172, 174–­175, 185, 192, 351n83, 358nn24, Kṛṣṇa devotion, 283–­285, 380n132; in
28–­29; and Nāth yogī-­Vaiṣṇava bhakti Mīrābāī’s poetry, 282–­284, 286, 383nn27, 30;
distinctions, 171–­172, 173, 177, 184; and and Sufism, 278–­282, 382nn6, 21; in Sūrdās’
Pāñcarātra tradition, 36, 154–­155; and poetry, 284–­285
Pāśupatas, 328n127; Pātañjala Yogaśāstra yoginīs, 326n86
on, 174–­175, 272, 358nn24, 28–­29; and yogīs: definitions of, 186–­187, 245–­246, 362n83,
professional ascetics, 52; Sultanate period 363n88; in lay Śaiva religion, 50, 51–­52,
democratization, 177–­179, 180, 359–­ 328n127; mainstream integration of, 29, 30,
360nn37, 39, 41, 51–­52, 361n53; and Vedānta, 52, 338–­339n8; Pāśupata, 49, 51–­53;
179–­180, 331n179, 360nn44, 48; Yoga Sūtra on, siddhi-­seeking, 34, 181, 186–­187, 361n56; as
34, 174, 185, 186, 358n28. See also ascetic sinister, 186; and tantra, 11–­12, 38, 363n88.
(tapasvī) yoga; bhakti defined in opposition See also Nāth yogīs
to tantric-­yogic religiosity; hatha yoga; Yugalpriyā, Jivārām, 202–­203
Nāth yogīs; siddhis; tantric yoga; yogīs
Yoga Bhāṣya, 174 Ziegler, Norman, 113, 342–­343n80