Abhirami Bhattar was a priest of the Thirukadaiyur temple, on the east coast of Tamil Nadu, and preeminent Tamil poet of the goddess Abhirami. He lived during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and his ferocious bhakti led many to consider him mad. The story goes that he irked the King Serfoji with his goddess-intoxicated proclamation that it was a full moon day (when it was actually a new moon). The king ordered that he be beheaded if the moon did not rise that night. Abhirami Bhattar lit a large fire and erected a platform over it, tied with ropes. He sat on the platform, spontaneously singing verses in praise of Goddess Abhirami. With each verse, he cut off one rope. On completing the seventy-ninth hymn, Abhirami appeared and threw her diamond earring skywards so that it shone like the full moon. This was the legendary genesis of the Abhirami Antadi, an inspired collection of a hundred hymns.
Akho (1591—1656) was a medieval Gujarati Bhakti poet and a goldsmith by profession. He is known for his pungent satirical poetry written in a verse pattern he introduced called the chhappa. He migrated from Jetalpur to Ahmedabad, where he lived much of his life. It is held that he accepted Gokulnath, grandson of Vallabhacharya, as his master, but his verse reveals a strong philosophically non-dualist impulse. Although he never renounced the path of bhakti, there is a deep impatience with hypocrisy, ritual and sentiment, and a predisposition towards the path of knowledge and renunciation that asserts itself time and again in his verse.
Akka Mahadevi was a twelfth-century mystic poet and wandering ascetic associated with the Sharana movement of Karnataka. A younger contemporary of Basavanna and Allama Prabhu, she betrothed herself to Lord Shiva as Chennamallikarjuna at an early age, and is said to have renounced family life and worldly attachment, shedding even her clothes in the process. Her 400- odd vachana poems are considered a significant contribution to Kannada Bhakti literature. She found acceptance and refuge in Kalyana at the community founded by Basavanna, but after a time resumed the life of a wandering ascetic. She is believed to have died young, leaving behind a legacy of poetry that speaks lyrically of various psychological and existential states—illicit love, love in union and love in separation—often in the course of a single poem.
Allama Prabhu was a mystic saint and poet of twelfth-century Karnataka, whose suffix Prabhu, Master, suggests the high esteem in which he was held as spiritual preceptor. Dismissive of all form of external ritual and worship, he was the presiding spiritual authority of the Anubhava Mantapa (Mansion of Experience) established by Basavanna for fellow Sharanas. Several of the 1300-odd vachanas attributed to him are characterized by their cryptic, riddle-like language, largely evocative of mystical realization rather than spiritual longing. A vivid legend tells of his encounter with a Siddha or adept who challenged him to sever his body in two. When Allama swung his sword, it encountered a yogically invulnerable body, and not a hair on the adept’s body was touched. But when the Siddha did the same, the sword simply passed through Allama’s form as if it were thin air. The distinction between occult virtuosity and true enlightenment was established.
Annamacharya or Annamayya was a saint-poet of the fifteenth century whose devotional poetry is regarded as one of the finest achievements of classical Telugu literature. He lived at the hilltop shrine of Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, and is said to have composed a song a day for the god of the temple. He spearheaded a new genre of love poetry, the shortpadam, which left its indelible mark on the Carnatic music tradition. His poems addressed to Lord Venkatesha were inscribed on copper plates and stored in the Tirupati temple vault. They reveal two dominant modes of bhakti: adhyatma and shringara, or the metaphysical/ introspective and the erotic.
Andal (‘the one who rules’) was a ninth-century woman mystic, famous for the fierce bridal mysticism of her verse. The only woman among the twelve Alvar or Vaishnava saint-poets, her Tiruppavai and Nachiyar Tirumozhi are considered masterpieces of Tamil literature. According to legend, the young Andal was convinced she was betrothed to Lord Krishna, and adorned herself daily with a garland meant for the temple deity. Her father discovered a strand of her hair in the garland, and was horrified at this act of desecration. That night, the Lord appeared to him in a dream, insisting that the only garland that appealed to him was one made fragrant by Andal’s hair. Eventually, a jubilant procession carried the fifteen-year-old Andal, dressed in bridal finery, to the Srirangam temple where she dissolved into her beloved Lord Ranganatha, attaining immortality as one of the greatest women mystics in history.
Appar (literally ‘father’) or Tirunavukkarasar was one of the most prominent of the sixty-three Nayanmar or Tamil Shaiva poet-saints. He lived in the seventh century and was an elder contemporary of the other great Shaiva devotee, Sambandar, who conferred upon him the epithet ‘father’. Born in Tiruvamur in Tamil Nadu, Appar was drawn to Jainism early in life and joined a Jain monastery. However, when he fell seriously ill, he returned home, at his sister’s behest, and prayed at a local Shiva temple, after which he was miraculously cured. This marked his conversion, and he spent the rest of his life travelling to various southern temples and singing songs of praise. He composed thousands of hymns called the Tevaram, in which he sang of his conversion to a religion of love, and the joy and surprise of being ambushed by Shiva.
Bahinabai (1628-1700) was a poet and devout Vithoba follower. Her autobiographical work, Atmanivedana, discloses an account of her early marriage, her troubled marital life as well as her deepening devotion to Lord Vithoba of Pandharpur. The poet Tukaram apparently appeared to her in visions, and initiated her into a form of mantra worship; thereafter, she considered him her guru. Although her husband never understood her spiritual aspirations, she remained committed to her relationship until the end of her life. Many of her poems or abhangas dwell on the conflict between the demands of her familial life and her love of Vithoba, as well as the challenges of being born a woman in an inegalitarian society.
Basavanna or Basaveshwara was a mystic, teacher, poet, social reformer and statesman ofthe twelfth century. He was a proponent of equality across the barriers of gender, caste, class and religion, and a leading figure of the Virashaiva Sharana movement. Born into a Brahmin family in Bagewadi, he grew disenchanted with the rigidity ofhis socio-religious environment early in life. He found a spiritual guide in Kudalasangama, and forged a deep connect with the deity of Shiva at the local temple. Later, he entered public life, becoming Finance Minister to the Chalukyan king at Kalyana. A charismatic spiritual leader, Basavanna founded a community for fellow-Sharanas, based on egalitarian ideals, which became the nucleus of a remarkable galaxy of saints and mendicant devotees. He left behind a great legacy of vachana poetry, celebrated for its insight and virtuoso command of metaphor and rhythm.
Chandidas was a fifteenth-century poet and mystic considered, in the words of his translator Deben Bhattacharya, to be ‘the father of Bengali poetry’. His Srikrishnakirtan, a body of 1250 poems in praise of the amorous exploits of Radha and Krishna, is considered to be a masterpiece of medieval Bengali literature. The legend of Chandidas—a Brahmin priest who fell in love with a low-caste washerwoman, Rami, and became the scandal of the village—is a well-known one. The forbidden passion and volatile emotional relationship between Radha and Krishna in Chandidas’s poems, as well as his defiant rejection of ‘all laws/ made by man or god’ on the path of love, is in the mode of Sahaja Bhakti—an affirmation of the role of the body and the five senses on the spiritual journey.
Chokhamela was a Maharashtrian Varkari saint-poet who lived during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century. He belonged to the Mahar caste, which was considered untouchable at the time. He lived with his wife, Soyarabai, and his son, Karmamela, in Mangalvedha. His devotion to Lord Vithoba was further fueled by the kirtan and teaching of his contemporary, Namdev. There are legendary tales of Lord Vithoba intervening to help his devotee in his hereditary task of carrying animal carcasses from people’s homes and disposing of them outside town limits. It is said that when Chokhamela died in a construction accident, Namdev rushed to his village and identified his friend’s body because even his bones murmured the name of Vitthal. These were buried near the steps of the Pandharpur temple. Chokhamela is believed to have left behind a legacy of over 200 poems or abhangas.
Chowdaiah, the ferryman, was a Kannada vachana poet of the artisan class. Among these compelling voices from the excluded sections of the caste hierarchy (as scholar H. S. Shivaprakash tells us) were those of woodcutters, washermen, toddy-tappers, cowherds, rice-gatherers, town-criers, and even burglars! The poetry of Ambigara Chowdaiah is infused by the rage and rebellion of one who has a deep first-hand experience of caste humiliation. These voices from areas of traditional caste relegation brought a new variety of form and vitality of tone to the realm of Kannada Bhakti poetry.
Devara Dasimayya was a tenth-century mystic and among the earliest of the vachana poets of the Sharana movement in Karnataka. Born in Mudanaru, he is supposed to have performed austere penance in a dense forest until his beloved god, Shiva, appeared before him and advised him to give up a life of self-flagellation and worship him through a life of engagement with the world. This marked a turning point, and Dasimayya became a weaver, although his devotion did not abate. There are several legends of him initiating diverse groups to the path of Virashaivism, from local tribals and orthodox Vaishnava Brahmins to the queen of the Chalukya kingdom, and eventually the king and his subjects as well. His vachana poems (approximately 150 in number, addressed to Lord Ramanatha or Shiva as the Lord of Rama) are characterized by their homespun metaphors, brevity and aphoristic precision.
Dhoolaiah, the cobbler, was a vachana poet of the Virashaiva tradition and belonged, like many of his poet compatriots, to the artisan class. As a cobbler, he belonged to the lowest echelons of the caste hierarchy. Significantly, however, as his translator H. S. Shivaprakash points out, the medieval Sharana movement emerged from the grassroots, and had its firm basis in the rejection of a caste-based inequality. In one of his poems, the cobbler even dismisses Lord Shiva when he chooses to visit at an inopportune moment, distracting Dhoolaiah from his immersion in sandal-making. ‘Go, go away, ‘ the cobbler declares dismissively in a poem that becomes an assertion of the dignity of his profession, and an affirmation of the meditative absorption that it offered.
Gangambike was a significant woman poet of the Kannada vachana tradition. She also happened to be one of the wives of Basavanna, the legendary mystic reformer of the twelfth century. Along with his other wife, Nilambike, and his elder sister, Nagalambike, she played an active role in furthering the cause of the Virashaiva Sharana movement that he spearheaded. Translator H. S. Shivaprakash points out that the spotlight on the work of Akka Mahadevi, the most celebrated woman mystic of the tradition, often sidelines the work of other important women poets of the time.
Guru Nanak (1469-1539) was the founder of the Sikh faith, the first of the ten Sikh gurus, and one of the major devotional poets of northern India whose sacred revelatory compositions in praise of the formless Absolute is contained in the Adi Granth, the holy text of the Sikhs. Drawing on the mystical legacies of Hinduism and Islam, Guru Nanak elevated reality (sat) to the position of the One Supreme God, and emphasized the importance of bhakti through the worship of the name of God (Nama Marga). After a mystical experience at the age of thirty, he spent the rest of his years travelling widely, singing and composing hymns and preaching the oneness of the divine across dogmatic boundaries of creed.
Janabai was a Marathi bhakti poet of the thirteenth century, who is believed to have composed over three hundred poems in praise of Vithoba. Born into a Shudra family, she lost her mother early, after which her father took her to Pandharpur where she worked as a maidservant in the house of Damsheti and Gonai, the parents of the saint-poet, Namdev. Janabai attended to Namdev for many years, and regarded him not merely as an employer but as a guru. Despite being unlettered, she composed verse of a high calibre, many of her abhangas visualizing Vithoba not just as mother, but as maidservant (affectionately termed Vitthalabai). In her verse, Vitthala often favours his ardent devotee by performing her household chores.
Jayadeva was the twelfth-century author of the Gita Govinda, a celebrated dramatic-lyrical poem in Sanskrit, and a highly influential work in Vaishnava mystical literature, inspiring Bhakti poets for centuries thereafter. Focusing on Krishna’s love ofRadha in a series of twelve cantos, these erotic-spiritual songs constitute an important part of the devotional literature of Orissa, Bengal and South India. While there are varied versions of his biography, most sources agree that Jayadeva was born in eastern India in a Brahmin family; he was a poet and a brilliant student of Sanskrit, but soon turned to the life of a wandering mendicant. Legend has it that his relationship with the temple dancer Padmavati, who shared his devotion towards Lord Jagannatha of Puri, was one of the inspirations for the Gita Govinda.
Jnaneshwar was a thirteenth-century poet, mystic, yogi of the Nath tradition, and founder of the Varkari movement. His major literary works, BhavarthDeepika orJnaneshwari (a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita composed in the ovimetre) andAmrutanubhav, are considered landmarks of Marathi literature. He also composed several abhangas in praise of Krishna. He and his siblings were orphaned early when their ostracized parents committed suicide. According to a wonderful legend, he stunned an orthodox Brahmin community by miraculously getting a buffalo to recite the Vedas! That incident, which effortlessly established his point that god existed in the seemingly lowliest creature, marked the end of the family’s ostracism. He is said to have shed his body, taking sanjeevan samadhi, at the age of twenty-one. His shrine in the town of Alandi draws thousands of pilgrims to this day.
Kabir (a weaver by profession) was a North Indian mystic poet of the fifteenth century whose poems—with their emphasis on a direct relationship with the divine and impatience with orthodoxy—have been sung and recited by millions down the centuries. Born in Varanasi to a weaver class recently converted to Islam, he seems to have had a Hindu guru, and is celebrated for his abrasive social comment and stout opposition to dogmatic strains in both Hinduism and Islam. Popular legend has it that both Hindu and Muslim followers quarrelled over who should take charge of his body after his death, but their combat was interrupted by the discovery that the shroud contained not a body, but a heap of flowers. The fragrance lives on.
Kanhopatra was a fifteenth-century Marathi mystic poet in the Varkari movement or Vitthal tradition of Pandharpur. She is believed to have been a courtesan or dancer of considerable beauty who chose eventually to surrender her life at the feet of her beloved Lord Vithoba, the deity of Pandharpur, rather than become a concubine of the king of Bidar. Around thirty of her abhangas have survived. She is believed to be the only female Varkari saint without a guru; her strength of devotion alone is believed to have granted her mukti or liberation. She is also the only saint whose samadhi shrine lies within the precincts of the temple of Pandharpur.
Karaikal Ammaiyar was one of the three women mystics among the sixty-three Nayanmar or Tamil Shaiva saints and a significant figure in Tamil literature. Born in Karaikal in Tamil Nadu, she evinced a passionate devotion towards Shiva at an early age, which later deepened, turning apparently even her husband into her devotee. Legend has it that she made a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash (and later to Thiruvalangadu) in response to summons from her beloved Lord. But unwilling to taint the holy terrain with her feet, she preferred to walk on her hands rather than her feet—an image treasured by bhaktas down the ages as proof of a fierce and fiery devotion.
Kshetrajna or Kshetrayya was a prolific Telugu poet and composer of the seventeenth century. His erotic love poetry, in the padam tradition, expresses his devotion to Lord Krishna as Muvva Gopala (Muvva was the name of his native village). Unlike the padams of Annamacharya which were addressed to Lord Venkatesha of Tirupati, Kshetrayya’s songs were probably invocations to god as well as to the royal patrons of his time, marking an important transitional moment in Telugu literary culture, where the king was identified with the deity (as A. K. Ramanujan, V. Narayana Rao and David Shulman explain). His padams constitute an integral part of the classical dance and music of South India to this very day.
Lal Ded is the best-known spiritual and literary figure of Kashmir, venerated for over seven centuries, as Lallesvari or Lalla Yogini by Hindus and Lal-’arifa by Muslims. Her 258 poems or vakhs mark the beginnings of modern Kashmiri literature. She lived in the fourteenth century, and is believed to have died in 1373. Born into a Brahmin family, she married at the age of twelve and led a difficult domestic life, facing incomprehension for her spiritual inclinations, and abused by her husband and mother-in-law. At the age of twenty-six, she renounced her home, became the disciple of a Shaiva guru, before taking to the life of a wandering mendicant—’not an easy choice for a Brahmin woman in fourteenth-century Kashmir’, as her translator Ranjit Hoskote writes. Her vakhs remain her living legacy, still loved by Kashmiris across affiliations of faith and creed.
Lalon Fakir (1774-1890) was a mystic poet and the most celebrated figure in the Bengali Baul tradition of sacred troubadours or ‘god’s vagabonds’. A combination of Tantra, Sufism, yoga and Vaishnava devotion seems to have fuelled the mysticism of these self-professed ‘madmen’ who sing so hauntingly of the ‘moner manush’, the man of the heart. Little is known of Lalon Fakir’s life other than the fact that he lived in Cheouria village in the Kushtia district of modern- day Bangladesh where he founded his group of like-minded minstrels. The scornful repudiation of narrow creedal affiliation, religious and communal intolerance, caste and class inequity, evinced in his poems, have made him a counter-cultural icon, whose influence can be seen in modern writers ranging from Tagore to Kazi Nazrul Islam and Allen Ginsberg.
Manikkavacakar was a ninth-century Tamil poet, considered one of the most significant Shiva saints, although he is not included among the sixty-three Nayanmars. Born to Brahmin parents, he travelled from one southern temple to another, and eventually settled in Chidambaram. Legend has it that when he was minister to the Pandya king, he was given money to purchase horses for the king’s cavalry, but the god-crazed devotee built a temple in Tirupperunturai instead! Thankfully, Shiva intervened, and the king had a timely change of heart. Manikkavacakar’s still-popular devotional poems are collected in the Tiruvacakam. A traditional proverb proclaims: ‘He whose heart is not melted by the Tiruvacakam must have a stone for a heart.’
Mirabai (1498-1547) is one of the most significant figures of the Vaishnava Bhakti movement. Born into a Rajput family in Merta, Rajasthan, her passionate love for her Lord started early. Legends of her fraught familial life after her marriage are legion; it is believed that her beloved ‘Dark One’ stepped in miraculously to foil more than one attempt by her in-laws to murder her. She eventually abandoned her life of privilege, defied a conservative establishment and took to the streets, joining her true community of fellow bhaktas. Her bhajans of despair and ecstatic union with Giridhara Gopala (Krishna) have been translated worldwide and continue to be among the most popular bhajans sung in India.
Muktabai was a revered mystic and adept. Born in Maharashtra into a clan of spiritual luminaries, she was the youngest sibling of Nivrutti, Jnaneshwar and Sopan, a family responsible for establishing the Varkari tradition. A highly intelligent and accomplished yogini, she composed deeply philosophical, dense, esoteric verse, remarkably devoid of allusion to her personal life. She was revered in her time, becoming the spiritual guide of the Tantric yogi, Changdev, who was clearly much older than she was. She was also supposedly responsible for instructing the potter Gora Kumbhar to ‘test’ Namdev for his spiritual maturity; when he was proved ‘half-baked’, he sought refuge in Lord Vithoba who directed him to a guru under whom he became fully enlightened. She attained mahasamadhi at the incredibly young age of eighteen.
Namdev was one of the foremost poets of the Varkari tradition, and a contemporary of the saint Jnaneshwar. Born to a low-caste family in the thirteenth century, he was the son of Damsheti, a tailor, and Gonai. His fervent devotion to Vithoba started early, and his unworldly bent of mind made him the despair of his parents, wife and relatives. His Marathi sankirtanas, many of which asserted the irrelevance of caste on the spiritual path, won him a wide following among women, ‘low’ castes, and all those traditionally excluded from the religious life. He is considered a bhagat or holy man in the Sikh tradition as well. According to legend, he took a vow that he would compose a billion poems for Lord Vitthal—an impossible task that made him appear in the poet Tukaram’s dream three centuries later and instruct him to complete the unfinished project!
Nammalvar (literally ‘our own alvar’) was regarded as the greatest of the twelve alvar or Tamil poets in the Vaishnava tradition, and his images are to be found in many South Indian temples. Born into a peasant caste, he lived between the ninth and tenth centuries, and composed four major literary works, of which the 1102 verses of the Tiruvaymoli are considered the most important. According to legend, he was mute from the time of his birth, and burst into speech when he encountered a poet and scholar from North India, Maturakavi (who followed a light in the southern sky until he reached Kurukur where Nammalvar lived). A. K. Ramanujan describes his poems as ‘philosophic and poetic, direct in feeling yet intricate in design’—important in laying the foundations of later Vaishnava poetry.
Narsinh Mehta was a fifteenth-century Vaishnava poet-saint, considered to be the Adi Kavi or first poet of Gujarati literature. Born to a Nagar Brahmin family, Narsinh Mehta grew up in straitened circumstances. According to legend, an insult directed at him by his cousin’s wife drove him to a nearby forest where he fasted and meditated for seven days. Lord Shiva appeared before him, and at the poet’s request, took him to Vrindavan where he witnessed the grandeur of the raas leela of Krishna and the gopis. He spent the rest of his life singing Lord Krishna’s praises, and left behind a legacy of kirtans that are sung even today. His early works are primarily richly erotic poems about Radha and Krishna, while his later literature turned more metaphysical.
Nivruttinath was a thirteenth-century saint-poet in the Varkari tradition. He was the eldest sibling in a spiritually exceptional family that comprised Jnaneshwar, Sopan and Muktabai—all acknowledged as celebrated mystics in their own right. Initiated into the Nath tradition, he was a guru to his siblings, and was responsible for instructing his younger brother, Jnaneshwar, to translate the Bhagavad Gita from Sanskrit into Marathi; the result was theJnaneshwari, one of the greatest sacred works in Marathi literature. Nivruttinath voluntarily shed his body, attaining mahasamadhi in the holy town of Tryambakeshwar.
Puntanam Namboodiri (1547-1640) was a devotee of the Lord of Guruvayur and the author of a much-loved Malayalam work, Jnanappana (Song ofWisdom), sung by millions in Kerala even today. He lived in the area around Malappuram Kerala. Legend has it that he invited everyone in the village to a ritual to celebrate the birth of his son, but lost his infant on that very day. Heartbroken, he turned to Lord Guruvayurappan for consolation; the result was a moving collection of verses that became theJnanappana. He was a contemporary of the other great devotee and author of the Narayaneeyam, Melpathur Narayana Bhattatiri. But it is said that Lord Guruvayurappan preferred Puntanam’s simple, heartfelt verse to the former’s scholarly Sanskrit and actually made his opinion known from the sanctum, asserting that bhakti was dearer to him than vibhakti!
Rahim (1556-1626) or Abdul Rahim Khan-e-Khana was a poet and one of the nine gems or luminaries in the court of Emperor Akbar. His name derives from the village of Khankhana, located in the Nawanshah district of Punjab. Although a Muslim by birth, he was a devotee of Lord Krishna—testimony to the tremendous spirit of cultural integration of the times—and is well known for his superbly crafted couplets dedicated to him. Well-versed in Sanskrit, he is famed for his couplets and books on astrology; he also translated the Baburnama into Persian.
Rajai was a woman poet in the Varkari tradition of Maharashtra who lived during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. She was the wife of Namdev, the major mystic poet, and several of her abhangas (as also those of his mother, Gonai) reveal her frustration at living with an unworldly householder. Born into the Shudra caste, she and Namdev had four sons, Nara, Vitha, Gonda and Mahada and a daughter, Limbai. The tradition abounds with stories of Lord Vithoba intervening to save her family from penury at crucial moments in her life.
Ramprasad Sen was a Shakta poet, saint and Tantric adept of eighteenth-century Bengal whose widely translated poems to goddess Kali, known as Ramprasadi, continue to be sung in Bengal. Born in the village of Halisar, he revealed an early poetic and spiritual inclination, and his discipleship under a Tantric yogi intensified his bhakti, producing a compositional form that integrated the Bengali folk style with classical melody and devotional kirtan. Many of these poems are in the mode of ‘nindastuti’—an intimate praise poem or prayer through complaint and criticism, truculence and tantrum. An account of him scribbling love poems to Kali in the account books during his stint as a clerk with a Calcutta merchant offers an evocative image of his devotion. He eventually submerged himself in the river near Halisar on Kali Puja and became one with his beloved goddess.
Ravidas was a North Indian mystic, a contemporary of Kabir, who lived on the outskirts of Varanasi in the fifteenth century. Born into the chamar caste of tanners and leather workers, his songs defiantly proclaim his low caste and assert that spiritual progress alone confers true status. The idealized city of ‘Begumpura’—a land without sorrow—is invoked in his work as one free of caste prejudice and impoverishment. The oral tradition records his meetings with fellow saints: Kabir, Mirabai, Nanak, Gorakhnath and Ramanand. His poetry, collected largely in the Adi Granth and scriptures of the Dadu Panth, invokes the names of fellow bhaktas like Kabir and Namdev, suggesting the proud sense of Bhakti fellowship that existed among the disadvantaged sections of society of the time.
Salabega was an Oriya Bhakti poet, born in the early seventeenth century. His father was a Mughal nobleman and his mother a Brahmin widow. When Salabega was wounded in battle, his mother instructed him to pray to Lord Jagannath of Puri. He did and was evidently healed—an event that turned him into a devout Vaishnavite. Although, as a Muslim, he was denied entry into the Puri temple, it is said that the ratha or chariot of Lord Jagannath actually paused on one occasion when he was away on a Vrindavan pilgrimage, and waited for him to return before continuing its yatra. The chariot pauses at his samadhi shrine to this very day, in honour of a poet who composed hundreds of well-loved devotional lyrics (with their signature couplets called bhanita) in praise of his beloved deity.
Sambandar (or Tirujnanasambandar) was a seventh-century poet, and an important figure among the sixty-three Nayanmar or Shaiva saints. His hymns to Shiva were collected to form the first three volumes of the Tirumurai, the twelve-volume canon of Tamil Shaiva devotional poetry. He is believed to have composed his first poem at the age of three when breast-fed by the goddess Parvati herself. He spent the rest of his short life as a wandering minstrel, worshipping at Shiva shrines all over Tamil Nadu. He is believed to have played a major role in re-establishing the Shaiva faith, and checking the expansion of the Jaina and Buddhist movements. According to legend, he attained liberation at the age of sixteen on the day of his wedding.
Sami (1743—1850) was an important figure in Sindhi Bhakti literature and the last of what has come to be known as the Trinity of the Golden Age of Sindhi poetry, alongside the Sufi poets Shah Abdul Latif and Sachal Sarmast. Although his name was Bhai Chainrai Bachomal Dataramani, he seems to have taken on the name Sami after his meeting with his master or ‘real friend’, Sami Meghraj. Translator Menka. Shivdasani has written of his unique habit of writing his verse on slips of paper and storing them in earthen pitchers. His poetry, Sami Ja Shlok, reveals the influence of Vedantic as well as Sufi thought and Sanskrit poetic traditions.
Sankaradeva (1449-1568) was an Assamese polymath: mystic, poet, scholar, playwright and religious and social reformer. He inspired the Bhakti movement in Assam, and his legacy of neo- Vaishnavism (Eka Sarana Hari Nama Dharma) and the Sattras or monastic institutions he established, continue to flourish as living traditions even today. His literary output was prodigious, encompassing prose, verse, translations, compilations and doctrinal treatises in three languages: Assamese, Assamese Brajabuli and Sanskrit. He is credited with having devised new forms of music (Borgeet), theatrical performance (Ankia Nat/ Bhaona), Sattriya dance and a literary language (Assamese Brajabuli).
Soyarabai was a fourteenth-century Marathi woman saint- poet and a historic figure in the Varkari cult. She was also the wife of Chokhamela, a popular poet devoted to Lord Vithoba of Pandharpur. She belonged to the Mahar caste, historically identified as untouchable. In her sixty-odd extant abhangas, she asserts her love of Vithoba and denounces Brahmin orthodoxy and caste discrimination on the spiritual path with fiery eloquence. She is said to have made the annual pilgrimage to Pandharpur with her husband for several years.
Sundarar or Sundaramurti (the Handsome One), also known as Tampizhan Tozhan (Comrade of the Master), was a Shaiva poet during the eighth and ninth centuries, and an important figure in the sacred trio of saints in Tamil Shaivism, along with Appar and Sambandar. Born into a Brahmin family, he lived in Tiruvarur and like the other Nayanmar, travelled to other temples in Tamil Nadu to sing the praises of Shiva. He married twice, and his courtly life contrasts with the more austere lives of Appar and Sambandar. His devotional poems are collected in a work called the Thiruthondathogai. The seventh volume of the Tirumurai, the twelve-volume anthology of the poetry of Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta, comprises his poems. An unusual tone of friendship and familiarity with the Divine characterizes Sundarar’s bhakti poetry. A celebrated poem by him begins by describing Shiva as ‘pitta’, madman.
Surdas was a sixteenth-century poet-saint, popularly believed to have been blind since birth. As the scholar John Hawley writes, ‘By common consent, the poet regarded as the epitome of literary artistry in Brajbhasha is Surdas. ‘ There are several popular legends about this contemporary of Mirabai, including tales of childhood deprivation, unsympathetic parents and congenital blindness (which may actually have been a figurative reference to spiritual condition rather than a physical one). His encounter with the great Vaishnava guru, Vallabhacharya, is believed to have had a lasting impact on his life, altering his approach to poetry and spirituality. Regarded as one of the foremost poets of Krishna, he left behind a considerable oeuvre of poems in a work called the Sur Sagar, which continue to be widely sung on concert stages even today.
Tukaram was a poet and mystic of the seventeenth century, and is one of the most influential poets in the Marathi language. He disappeared at the age of forty-one, leaving behind nearly 5000 poems or abhangas. A Shudra by birth, Tukaram wrote a colloquial Marathi verse in praise of Lord Vitthal (Vishnu)— his choice of language and his low caste constituting ‘a double encroachment on brahmin monopoly’, as his translator Dilip Chitre points out. The manuscript of his poems on display in the Vithoba temple in his native village, Dehu, is the same one that is believed to have miraculously surfaced, absolutely intact, thirteen days after orthodox Brahmins forced him to sink it in the local river Indrayani.
Tulsidas is one of India’s best-known Bhakti poets. He lived in the sixteenth century, and spent most of his life in the city of Varanasi. Renowned for his devotion to Rama (and often considered an incarnation of Valmiki), his celebrated works are the Ramcharitmanas, his retelling of the Ramayana in the Avadhi dialect of medieval Hindi, and the Vinaya Patrika in Brajbhasha. A supposed pivotal moment in his life was when, unable to contain his ardour, he is said to have swum across the river Yamuna by night and climbed up to his wife’s bedroom when she was visiting her parental home. She chided him saying that if he were as devoted to Lord Rama as he was to her body, he would already have attained liberation. Chastened by the rebuke, he renounced the life of the householder, and devoted himself to a life of austerity and devotion.
Vatsara was a woman poet of the Varkari tradition of Maharashtra, who probably belonged to the Mahar caste. Little is known about her life.
Vidyapati (1352-1448) was a Maithili poet and Sanskrit writer of the fourteenth century whose work has been widely influential in the literary traditions of Eastern India. While he wrote poetry to Shiva as well, his love songs, which number more than 500, are in the lineage of Vaishnava Bhakti. Informed by his intimate knowledge of secular Sanskrit love poetry and of Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda, these describe the love of Radha and Krishna, the metaphor of their physical union working on the level of the sensuous and spiritual all at once. Born in the Madhubani district of the Mithila region of modern-day Bihar, he was a well-known Sanskrit scholar and writer of his time, but it is his shift from Sanskrit to Maithili that made him a path-breaking figure in the history of a new literature.