Big picture
From about the eighth century, a wave of devotional (bhakti) movements spread across the subcontinent. Saint-poets sang of a personal, loving relationship with God, often in regional languages, and many questioned caste and ritual. At the same time, Sufis, Islamic mystics, built a following through compassion, music and simple living.
These traditions mixed and influenced each other, creating a rich religious culture. Historians study them through compositions (poems, songs) passed down orally and later written, and through hagiographies (biographies of saints written by followers).
Learning goals
Explain the integration of cults and the idea of great and little traditions.
Describe the Alvars and Nayanars, their attitudes to caste, women devotees, and relations with the state.
Explain the Virashaiva tradition of Karnataka.
Describe Islamic traditions and the growth of Sufism, including the Chishti silsila and dargahs.
Explain the teachings of Kabir, Guru Nanak and Mirabai.
Explain how historians use compositions and hagiographies.
Core ideas
1. A mosaic of religious beliefs
Integration of cults: Brahmanical ideas spread through Sanskrit texts such as the Puranas, while local beliefs and practices were also absorbed. For example, the worship of Jagannatha at Puri, Odisha, a local deity, came to be identified with Vishnu.
Great and little traditions: sociologist Robert Redfield used "great tradition" for practices of dominant social groups (priests, rulers) based on texts, and "little tradition" for local practices of peasants. Both influenced each other.
Tantric practices were widespread, open to women and men, often ignoring caste differences.
Goddess worship, often in the form of a stone smeared with ochre, was integrated into Brahmanical traditions.
2. The Alvars and Nayanars (Tamil Nadu)
Some of the earliest bhakti movements (c. sixth century) were led by the Alvars ("those who are immersed in devotion to Vishnu") and the Nayanars ("leaders who were devotees of Shiva").
They travelled from place to place, singing hymns in Tamil, and identified certain shrines as abodes of their deities, which later became important pilgrimage centres.
Texts: the Alvars' compositions were compiled in the Nalayira Divyaprabandham ("four thousand sacred compositions"), often described as the Tamil Veda, showing it was considered as important as the Sanskrit Vedas. The Nayanars' hymns were compiled in the Tevaram.
Attitude to caste: many saints came from diverse backgrounds, including artisans, cultivators and even castes considered "untouchable", and some of them criticised the caste system and Brahmanical dominance.
Women devotees: Andal, a woman Alvar, composed devotional songs expressing love for Vishnu as his beloved. Karaikkal Ammaiyar, a Nayanar devotee, adopted extreme asceticism, renouncing social obligations. Their lives challenged patriarchal norms.
3. Relations with the state
Early Tamil chiefdoms and later the Pallavas, Pandyas and especially the Cholas (ninth to thirteenth centuries) supported Brahmanical and bhakti traditions, granting land and building temples.
Chola rulers built magnificent Shiva temples at Chidambaram, Thanjavur and Gangaikondacholapuram. Remarkable bronze sculptures of Shiva, such as Nataraja, were produced.
Chola kings presented themselves as divinely supported and claimed connection with the saints' traditions; for example, they had Nayanar songs sung in temples.
4. The Virashaivas of Karnataka
In the twelfth century, a new movement emerged in Karnataka, led by Basavanna, a Brahmana minister at a Kalachuri court. His followers were called Virashaivas (heroes of Shiva) or Lingayats (wearers of the linga).
Beliefs and practices:
They worship Shiva in the form of a linga; men wear a small linga in a silver case on a loop slung over the left shoulder.
They believed that on death a devotee would be united with Shiva and not return to this world, so they didn't practise funerary rites like cremation but buried their dead.
They challenged the caste system and the idea of pollution, and questioned the theory of rebirth.
They encouraged practices disapproved of by Dharmashastras, such as post-puberty marriage and remarriage of widows.
Their ideas are expressed in vachanas (sayings) composed in Kannada by women and men who joined the movement.
5. Islamic traditions
From the seventh century, Arab merchants settled along the western coast, and later Turkish and Afghan rulers established states in the north.
Rulers (such as the Delhi Sultans) were expected to follow the sharia (Islamic law), but in practice they often followed flexible policies. Non-Muslim subjects (zimmis, "protected people") paid a tax called jizya and received protection.
Local communities developed their own practices: for example, Khojahs in Gujarat and the Mappilas of Malabar (Arab Muslim traders who married local women and adopted Malayalam).
Names for communities: in contemporary texts, the term "Muslim" was rarely used. People were often identified by place of origin: Turushka (Turks), Tajika (people from Tajikistan), Parashika (Persians); the term mlechchha was used for those who didn't follow caste norms and spoke non-Sanskritic languages.
6. The growth of Sufism
Sufis were Islamic mystics who rejected rigid interpretations of the Quran and the worldliness of rulers. They emphasised love and devotion to God and compassion towards all humanity.
Organisation: by the eleventh century, Sufism evolved into a well-developed movement. Sufis organised communities around a hospice called the khanqah, controlled by a master known as the shaikh, pir or murshid, who enrolled disciples (murids) and appointed a successor (khalifa).
Silsilas were chains (orders) of spiritual succession, linking master and disciple back to the Prophet.
Dargahs: when a shaikh died, his tomb-shrine (dargah, Persian for "court") became a centre of devotion. Pilgrims undertook ziyarat (visits), especially on his death anniversary, called urs (marriage, signifying the union of his soul with God).
Sama (spiritual music, including qawwali) was used to evoke divine ecstasy.
7. The Chishtis
The Chishti silsila was the most influential order in north India.
Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti's dargah at Ajmer became the most popular; Mughal emperor Akbar visited it fourteen times.
Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya's hospice in Delhi (fourteenth century) was a centre of community life, with a langar (open kitchen) that served all visitors regardless of background. His disciples included the poet Amir Khusrau, who developed the qawwali.
Relations with the state: Sufis often kept their distance from political power, but rulers sought their blessings and gave them grants of land and gifts, which Sufis often used for langars and charity. Chishti shaikhs sometimes refused to meet the Sultan.
8. Kabir, Guru Nanak and Mirabai
Kabir (c. fourteenth–fifteenth century)
His verses were compiled in three traditions: the Kabir Bijak (preserved by the Kabirpanth in Varanasi and Uttar Pradesh), the Kabir Granthavali (Rajasthan) and many verses in the Guru Granth Sahib.
He described the Ultimate Reality using terms from both Hindu and Islamic traditions: Allah, Khuda, Hazrat, Pir, Alakh, Nirakar, Brahman, Atman. He emphasised a formless (nirguna) God and rejected idol worship, rituals and caste divisions.
Debate continues about his background: one legend says he was born to a Brahmana widow and raised by a Muslim weaver family. His poetry uses ulatbansi (upside-down sayings) to convey paradoxes.
Guru Nanak (1469–1539)
Born in Talwandi (Nankana Sahib, Pakistan), he travelled widely and established a centre at Kartarpur on the Ravi.
He advocated worship of a formless, one God (nirguna bhakti) and rejected sacrifices, ritual baths, idol worship, austerities and scriptures of both Hindus and Muslims. He emphasised remembering and repeating the Divine Name and honest living.
His hymns, called shabads, were sung in various ragas. Guru Arjan compiled them in the Adi Granth Sahib (1604), with compositions of Kabir, Baba Farid and others. Guru Gobind Singh added his father Guru Tegh Bahadur's compositions; the scripture became the Guru Granth Sahib. Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa Panth in 1699.
Mirabai (c. fifteenth–sixteenth century)
A Rajput princess from Merta in Marwar, married into the Sisodia clan of Mewar. She defied her husband's family to devote herself to Krishna, whom she considered her lover.
According to traditions, her in-laws tried to poison her; she left the palace to live as a wandering singer. Her guru is said to have been Raidas, a leather worker, defying caste norms.
Her songs are still sung in Gujarat and Rajasthan.
Shankaradeva (late fifteenth century) in Assam emphasised devotion to Vishnu; his teachings, based on the Bhagavata Purana, led to the setting up of namghar (houses of recitation and prayer).
9. How historians use these sources
Compositions (poems, songs, sayings) were transmitted orally, sung and recited, and later written down, so versions vary and some were added later.
Hagiographies (sacred biographies written by followers) may not be historically accurate in every detail, but reveal how followers saw the saints.
Sufi texts include treatises, malfuzat (conversations of Sufi saints), maktubat (letters) and tazkiras (biographies of saints).
Historians compare these sources and study regional traditions to understand the variety of beliefs and practices.
A reliable approach to questions
For the Alvars and Nayanars, name the deity, the texts, attitudes to caste, women devotees and state relations.
For the Virashaivas, explain Basavanna's challenges to caste, rebirth and Dharmashastra norms.
For Sufism, explain the khanqah, silsila, pir, murid, dargah, ziyarat, urs and sama.
For Kabir, Nanak and Mirabai, give their main ideas and where their compositions are preserved.
For sources, distinguish compositions, hagiographies and Sufi texts and their limits.
Connections that matter
Thinkers, beliefs and buildings described earlier devotional trends and temples.
An imperial capital: Vijayanagara shows temples' links with royal power.
Kinship, caste and class explained the caste norms many saints questioned.
Common mistakes
Swapping the deities of the Alvars (Vishnu) and the Nayanars (Shiva).
Saying the Virashaivas cremated their dead. They buried them.
Confusing the khanqah (hospice) with the dargah (tomb-shrine).
Saying Guru Nanak compiled the Adi Granth. Guru Arjan compiled it.
Revision checklist
I can explain integration of cults and great and little traditions.
I can describe the Alvars, Nayanars, Andal and Karaikkal Ammaiyar.
I can explain the Virashaiva movement.
I can explain Islamic traditions, Sufism and the Chishtis.
I can explain the teachings of Kabir, Guru Nanak, Mirabai and Shankaradeva.
I can explain how historians use devotional sources.