RELG 356 Lecture Notes - Disfigurement, Manimekalai, Sacred Tradition

• School: McGill University
• Department: Religious Studies
• Course: RELG 356
• Professor: Davesh Soneji

Document Summary

Can be defined as devotion understood in wider sense. Finds epxresion nearly all dimensions of living hinduism - ritual, myth, arts, philos. Somewhat radical idology that often eschews differences based on caste and gender. Many bahkti saints are untouchables and women. Primary medum for disseminating bhakti ideology was mystical poetry in vernacular or popular local languages. Bhakti poetry is almost always emotionally charged. Poets who compose emotional bhakti texts often revered as saints. Poets themselves are often revered as semi-divine beings who are socially subversive or antinomian mystics. In bhakti traditions devotion is supreme path to god. Often rituals text studies and other forms of religiou action are completely abandoned in bhakti culture. Instead single-minded devotion ecstatic singing and dancing and often the mere recitation of the name of god become the path to moksa. God may be addressed as a child, a parent, friend or lover. Union with the absolute is expressed in emotional or often corporeal terms.