bhakti poets | Blogging South Asian Publications

A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement, by John Stratton Hawley, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015, pp. 438 + xiv

Bhakti (devotion) has come to be recognized as a central concept in Hindu traditions and practices. This was a rather late discovery in the history of ideas, as nineteenth century Indologists (encouraged by mostly Brahman informants) tended to focus on philosophy.[1] Now one of the pioneers of academic study of bhakti traditions, John Stratton Hawley of Columbia University, has written a history of the idea of the bhakti movement. This is a landmark study worthy of wide reading and deep discussion.

Hawley begins with an explanation of his “storm of songs” title, a phrase from Rabindranath Tagore. He then moves into an important discussion of bhakti:

“Bhakti” is usually translated as devotion, but if that word connotes something entirely private and quiet, we are in need of other words. Bhakti is heart religion, sometimes cool and quiescent but sometimes hot—the religion of participation, community, enthusiasm, song, and often personal challenge, the sort of thing that coursed through the Protestant Great Awakenings in the history of the United States. It evokes a widely shared religiosity for which institutional superstructures weren’t all that relevant, and which, once activated, could be historically contagious—a glorious disease of the collective heart. (2)

The focus on a community of bhaktas is important as it contrasts with sterile traditional Christian analyses of Hindu traditions. Hawley specifically rebukes an aspect of this once-popular misrepresentation:

Outsiders like the great linguist George Grierson sometimes confused it [bhakti] for personal monotheism, and modern-day Hindus have often followed suit, but in the idea of the bhakti movement we have the affirmation that the nature or number of the deity/deities concerned is secondary. What matters is the heartfelt, intrinsically social sense of connectedness that emerges in the worshipper. That socially divine sense of connectedness traces a pulmonary system that makes the nation throb with life. (4)

But “the idea of the bhakti movement” is the focus of this book, and Hawley finds the idea lacking in historical validity. In the process of examining this idea and its historical roots, far too many interesting insights are developed for mention in this review. This is truly a book that must be read by anyone interested in the idea of bhakti.

Hawley’s alternative history to the idea of the bhakti movement is rather nuanced; he proposes a “bhakti network” (295-312, referred to as a “crazy quilt,” 310) comprised of numerous bhakti movements rather than a single bhakti movement. This might seem rather trivial, but it represents a significant shift in thinking, and some of Hawley’s suggested reasons (see later in this review) for the widespread acceptance of the standard construct of “the bhakti movement” are certainly not trivial.

Hawley presents the case that the idea of a singular bhakti movement can be traced to Hazariprasad Dvivedi (1907-1979).[2] The standard form of the story is increasingly well known from the Bhagavata Mahatmya (a short poem of praise for the Bhagavata Purana), how bhakti was born in south India and grew up in Karnataka before migrating to Maharashtra and Gujarat. Then after a weakening phase there was renewal in Brindavan (Krishna’s holy land, in what is now the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh). Chapter two of this book is a fascinating discussion and deconstruction of this presentation, particularly pointing out that the idea of a single bhakti movement regardless of the focus of devotion (i.e. one movement whether the focus is on Krishna, Ram, Shiva or nirguna brahman) is very far from the intent of the Bhagavata Mahatmya, which is a distinctly Vaishnava text (89).

Hawley shows that the great omission in the Mahatmya’s account of bhakti moving from south to north is the centrality of the Muslim role in the development of Brindavan itself (74ff.) This writing of the Muslim period out of Indian history helped motivate the embracing of the idea of a bhakti movement that united India. The British had developed a rather simplistic pattern of history whereby ancient Hindu empires were taken over by Muslim rulers and the British came in to restore proper rule after the decline of the Muslim period. The bhakti movement idea tied together ancient and modern India while also providing a unifying basis for the movement towards independence. Such nationalistic concerns continue to be important in sustaining the idea of a bhakti movement, and these broader concerns are indeed of interest and importance.

Yet the focus on many aspects of many bhakti movements provides the true treasures of this book. Central to the history, as Hawley sees it, are Surdas and Kabir. (Ramanand, esteemed by tradition as the main link between south and north Indian bhakti traditions, is investigated and the traditions of his centrality are shown to be without historical foundation.) The followers of Surdas and Kabir were so many and so prolific that Hawley concludes “the poets we know as Sur or Kabir are actually bhakti movements in themselves” (274).

There is no evidence that northern poets knew of the earlier southern bhakti poets (307) but there was much borrowing of ideas, styles and even whole poems across the various bhakti movements (297-305). Even these are important ideas that leave one far from the heart of the bhakti network. Throughout the book, stimulating comments appear like the following on the centrality of music to the bhakti idiom.

Consider, too, the musical idiom. Isn’t it striking that the principal nodes in bhakti’s remembered network—the bhaktas of this world—are communicators who operated in a universe where ordinary words ride frequencies of sound that set them apart from their quotidian existence? Here is a mode of interpersonal connection whose very existence depends upon auditory frameworks that set it apart from conversational speech. In this realm of heightened feedback antiphons are frequent, refrains are repeated, and audiences are not only implied but participate in the work of the singer. The way we know who Mirabai or Namdev “is” is to enter into the world they are believed to have created. We pipe into the patterns of vibration—songs—that end with the announcing of their names. Because we do so, this musical network is never really past; it is always present. The fact that these bhakti songs are so often addressed to God, giving plot to divine actions or otherwise relating the bhakta to bhagavan through a process of “puranic” recycling, creates a shortcut for memory. It invites the hearer to act as a character in the story—to reenter it, absorb it, and in a way become the story itself. Thereby, as Christian Novetzke has pointed out, the singer-saint in question turns out to be, on closer inspection, a public. (296-7, referencing Novetzke, Religion and Public Memory: A Cultural History of Saint Namdev in India, New York: Columbia University Press, 2008; Indian edition History, Bhakti and Public Memory: Namdev in Religious and Secular Traditions, Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2009)

In his closing chapter, almost necessarily, Hawley raises crucial issues in modern India like the Hindutva and Dalit movements. His book is deconstructing a paradigm of “Hindu history,” and it undermines the Hindutva effort to homogenize Hindu traditions. He clearly feels empathy for Dalits who share the low caste status of Ravidas (333); but this is not a book denigrating the marvel of the bhakti movements that arose and still thrive across India. The standard historical paradigm of a single bhakti movement may be too simplistic and contrived to withstand scrutiny, but Hawley’s closing words reveal his true sentiment about bhakti:

Every nation requires a narrative of itself. This one, incubated in a nation, pushes well beyond that nation. It touches and tests every heart. (341)

[1] Geoffrey Oddie wrote that “There was, indeed, comparatively little discussion of bhakti among European scholars for the greater part of the nineteenth century and it was only in the 1880s and 1890s that Ramanuja’s philosophy, ‘dualism’, and the ideas implicit in the bhakti movement appear to have received much more systematic attention” (Imagined Hinduism: British Protestant Missionary Constructions of Hinduism, 1793-1900, New Delhi: Sage, 2006, pg. 270).

[2] Hawley uses a rather pedantic transliteration/spelling; more common is “Dwivedi.”

Narasinha Mehta of Gujarat: A Legacy of Bhakti in Songs and Stories by Neelima Shukla-Bhatt, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. 325 + xxi

This outstanding book reviews the work of Narsi Mehta (c. 1414-1480), considered the original poet of the Gujarati language, and his legacy to the present time in the songs and stories (and the way they are told) about him.

As a work of modern scholarship, there is concern for who Narasinha Mehta was and what compositions that are in his name were actually composed by him. But there is little hope to answer such questions with modern historiographical tools, so the influence of what is claimed about Mehta and claimed to be written and sung by Mehta is mostly what is studied, in so far as even that can be traced out.

Mehta was a great influence on Mahatma Gandhi, and the Gandhi chapter is an important part of this study. Gandhi’s favorite song was Mehta’s Vaisnavajana to (call only that one a Vaishnava who…), and this song is also subject to very helpful analysis. The author grew up hearing and singing the songs of Narsi Mehta, so the book has a deep personal touch as well.

The book is in seven chapters in two parts, with an introduction. A preface outlines the goals of the book; “One goal is to introduce the Narasinha tradition in all its richness to readers in the English language, since no comprehensive work on this tradition is yet available in this language” (pg. xiii). This aim is admirably achieved. “The second aim of the book is to explore the implications of the interweaving of the devotional and moral messages with the aesthetic appeal of songs and stories in performances for the legacy of a saint-poet tradition such as Narasinha’s” (pg. xiv). This purpose will be discussed further below. “The third aim of the book is to consider whether Narasinha’s songs and hagiography have the potential to serve as cultural resources for a constructive social agenda in contemporary Gujarat” (pg. xv). The author concludes that yes, as in the case of Gandhi, the bhakti traditions in general have great potential related to contemporary social crises in India.

A lengthy introduction (30 pages) introduces Mehta, bhakti traditions, Gujarat and Gujarati, and the Narasinha tradition, along with Indian aesthetics and the concept of rasa (“juice” or enjoyment) as a complement to bhakti (devotion). Part one, four chapters, is on Devotion and Aesthetics in the Narasinha Tradition. The first chapters focuses on the Narasinha songs focused on Krishna. Chapter two looks at the more broadly spiritual and moral songs in the tradition, including Vaisnavajana to. The numerous songs translated in these chapters provide a rich encounter with the tradition. The third chapter spells out the traditional stories about Narasinha, tracing sources for the historical and hagiographical and highlighting the popular exemplary incidents that are central to the tradition. The final chapter of the first section is “Singing as Bhakti: Narasinha’s Lyrics in Musical Performances.” There is some technical analysis of songs here along with discussion of modern meanings of the songs and performances.

The second section of three chapters looks at The Narasinha Legacy in Religious and Popular Culture. The first chapter considers Mehta’s influence in Gujarat and beyond, and how modernity has helped to shape the tradition as it changed from oral to print-based and then as electronic distribution made an even greater impact. An important section of this chapter considers Mehta in the sectarian bhakti traditions of Gujarat, and how he his legacy has impacted various bhakti sects. The concept of Mehta as the first Gujarati poet moves him out of the devotional realm, and the secular or aesthetic appeal of Narsi’s songs is helpfully pointed out throughout this second section of the book.

The second chapter of the second section focuses on Mahatma Gandhi.

While Narasinha’s biography was a great source of personal inspiration for Gandhi, it was in the area of social reform that he found it to be an invaluable cultural resource. He was the saint’s association with the “untouchables,” at the price of being excommunicated, as the centerpiece of his sacred biography and strove to emulate it in one of the most important battles of his life – the one against the practice of untouchability in Hindu society. (182)

Gandhi’s term for untouchables, still in use by some to this day, was Harijan, which is directly taken from Narsi Mehta (Shukla-Bhatt shows that in Mehta it was a broader term for “people of Hari/God/Krishna, not particularly about “untouchables,” although they were included). Vaisnavajana to as a “Gandhi anthem” is again discussed in insightful detail. This chapter contains this insightful summary of Gandhi’s approach to Hindu traditions:

But Gandhi’s convictions were such that, despite – somewhat perversely – calling himself a sanatani (an orthodox Hindu), he was very sceptical of the idea that there was a higher canonical Hinduism. The appeal of Hinduism for him was precisely that there was no such thing, by way of neither doctrine nor authoritative institutions, allowing him to make of it what his temperament wished, while allowing others to embrace it in quite other forms deriving from the many influences available in a diverse land and its history. (193, quoted from Akeel Bilgrami, “Gandhi’s Religion and Its Relation to His Politics,” in The Cambridge Companion to Gandhi, eds. Judith M. Brown and Anthony Parel, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 93-116, quotation from pp. 93-94)

The final chapter focuses on the Narasinha tradition in modern media. A 1940 film, Narsi Bhagat in Hindi and Narsi Mehta in Gujarati, is discussed in relation to the Gandhian and traditional interpretations of Narasinha. The transformations from that presentation to the 1991 Gujarati television 27-part serial, Narsaiyo, are striking. A final section of this chapter looks at Narasinha songs and performances available on YouTube, including a Christian interpretation of the song Vaisnavajana to by a Roman Catholic priest. This is rich material for understanding modern Indian devotional spirituality.

Some concluding remarks summarize the main findings of the book. This is highly recommended reading for anyone who wants to probe into bhakti traditions and their development from medieval to modern times. It is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand Gujarat and Gujaratis. All lovers of the bhakti traditions will be grateful for this outstanding study of one of the giants of the genre.