International Journal of Research e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Volume 05 Issue 04 February 2018

Bhakti Movement in Medieval : A Study Rakesh Kumar M.Phil. Scholar Dept. Of History, MDU Rohtak

ABSTRACT Religious Movements in Medieval Development of the movement and India, attempts to explore the Bhakti shown how the ideologies, social bases and movement in Medieval India. Beginning organisational structures in different parts from the 7th century A.D. to the 18th of the country have given a distinct shape to century, Medieval India saw a phenomenal this movement. This paper will be a useful outpouring of religiosity in the vernacular supplement for scholars working in the oral traditions on themes ranging from social and religious history of medieval dilemmas of everyday life to the mysteries of India. Scholars of religious study, sociology the Universe. Scholars have focused on the and women’s studies would find this paper analysis of the texts, philosophic constructs of general interest in order to understand of the social aspects enlightening us with the religious traditions of south Asia in all many readings. While any one cannot be its diversity. reduced to another the study of Bhakti KEY WORDS: Social Criticism, Bhakti demands a holistic an integrated approach drawing analytical tools from many Movement, Saguna And Nirguna Ideology. disciplines. The 19th century saw a INTRODUCTION: rediscovery of many sacred texts that contributed to the construction of The most powerful characteristic of the as a monolith. The process of reducing medieval age in India was the Bhakti orality to textuality saw the whole sale standardization of very vibrant, dynamic movement. Bhakti as a religious concept and diverse religious practices. Historically means devotional surrender to a personally the religious beliefs and practices of the conceived supreme God for attaining Hindus were too divergent to constitute a salvation. The origin of this doctrine has coherent, monolith Religious system. A been traced to both the Brahmanical and historical gaze at Hinduism clearly points Buddhist traditions of ancient India and to out that to view this, as a single religious system is not correct and a distortion of the various scriptures such as the Gita. But it heterogeneous religious practices of its was for the first time in South India between people. Throughout history alternate spaces the 7th and the 10th century that Bhakti have been created and bhakti was one such emerged from a mere religious doctrine into medium. The present paper is an attempt to a popular movement based on religious explore this movement in its different equality and broad-based social dimensions in various regions of India. It participation. The movement which was also highlights the attitude of the male bhaktas towards women and the creation of spearheaded by popular saint-poets reached an alternative space by women. Using a its apex in the 10th century after which it variety of Sources inscriptions and literary began to decline. However, it was revamped texts the author has traced the growth and as a philosophical and ideological

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/IJR/ P a g e | 1277 International Journal of Research e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Volume 05 Issue 04 February 2018

movement by a series of ambulatory HISTORICAL BACKGROUND scholars or acharyas, beginning with The medieval has in the 11th century. The undoubtedly been the most widespread, far ranging and multi-faceted movement to have establishment of the Sultanate of Delhi affected the Indian subcontinent. In its coincided with many widespread socio- genesis, the objective of the movement was religious movements in various parts of the individual salvation and mystical union with country drawing upon the concepts of god, rather than a change in the living bhakti. These movements have been condition of the masses. But it became a perceived as revival of the older South platform for the marginalised sections to Indian bhakti movement. But each one of protest against social inequalities based on the „varna‟ system and vedic scriptures, its these later movements had a historical custodians (the Brahmins who had the sole context of its own and its own peculiarities. right to interpret them) and its benefactors (the kings and the aristocracy). In my paper, I would like to review the Bhakti movement MEANING OF BHAKTI MOVEMENT as a socialist criticismand will be drawing Usaually it is accepted that the most upon the social philosophies of major saints, characteristic feature of the religious and Nanak in particular, who were the development during the medieval period exemplars of social reformation. was the movement which emphasized During the rule of the Gupta dynasty single-minded intense devotion to god. It in Northern India from fourth to sixth was a complete surrender of oneself to God. centuries AD, the Hindu culture came to be The movement which emphasized primarily firmly established. They called themselves these ideas was the Bhakti movement- the bhagvatas- devotees of God – and devotion to God. Bhakti to God was identified themselves with the lineage of accepted as salvation. Lord ; thus establishing the precedent of a royalty blessed by divinity and kingship MAIN FEATURES OF THE BHAKTI by heredity. The language of the gods i.e. MOVEMENT Sanskrit became the official language of the  Unity of God or one God though state. These ideas were instantaneously known by different names. lapped up by the Dravidians, who called  Bhakti, intense love and devotion,the themselvesthe descendants of Lord Brahma only way to salvation. and became the upholders of the Vedic  Repetition of the True Name. tradition.The inception of Bhakti in the sixth  Self-Surrender. century South India was thus the logical  Condemnation of rituals, ceremonies result of its interaction with the North and blind faith. whichled to the emergence of a rigidly caste  Rejections of idols worship by many ridden society with oppressing policies saints. towards the lower caste shudras and  Open-mindedness about deciding mlecchas. The presence of reformative and religious matters. humanitarian religions like Jainism and  No distinction of different castes, , which had provided an higher or low. opportune escape for the oppressed masses, also led to the transformation of Vedic

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/IJR/ P a g e | 1278 International Journal of Research e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Volume 05 Issue 04 February 2018

ideology into sympathetic religions of Ramanuja (11th century) was the first and to dissuade among them. He gave philosophical people from converting. Although Shiva justification for bhakti. He tried to establish bhakti was more popular in the agrarian a careful balance between orthodox setup, it subsumed under its fold the various Brahmanism and popular bhakti which was cults (i.e. primitive local deities) as open to all. Though he did not support the continuing forms of worship. Emerging idea of the lower castes having access to the from Tantriks and Nathpanthi (under , he advocated bhakti as a mode of Gorakhnath) which existed in the northern worship accessible to all including the and western parts of India, these movements Sudras and even the outcastes. While began the protests against caste and gender propagating bhakti, he did not observe caste barriers which prohibited the people from distinctions and even tried to eradicate worshipping their personal gods in their untouchability. Nimbarka, a Telegu vernacular. The temple gates were forced , is believed to have been a younger open and the lower castes were allowed to contemporary of Ramanuja. He spent most join in the worship rituals. This marked a of his time in Vrindavan near Mathura in radical step towards the departure from . He believed in total devotion to institutionalised religion. While the southern and . Another South Indian movement of Bhakti was fundamentally vaishnavite bhakti philosopher was egalitarian in spirit, it hardly denounced the Madhava who belonged to the 13th century. caste system or Brahmanical privileges. Like Ramanuja he did not dispute orthodox Thereafter, it developed in eleventh and Brahmanical restriction of the Vedic study twelfth century Karnataka as the Virashaivas by the Sudras. He believed that bhakti (developed from the Shaiva cult, also known provided alternate avenue of worship to the as Lingayats),the outrightly iconoclastic Sudras. His philosophical system was based sect, questioning the conventions of on the Bhagvat Purana. He is also believed Brahmanical orthodoxy, deconstructing to have toured North India. The last two sacrificial rituals, inducing social reform, prominent vaishnava acharyas were and propagating the Puranic religion. Thus, (late 14th and early 15th both of these movements were “revolts from century) and (late 15th and early within”, i.e. they induced a sense of 16th century). liberality in the social structure and made In the thirteenth and fourteenth use of vernacular forms of Prakrit as more century, the movement swiftly spread acceptable forms of Bhakti hymns. The upwards. In Maharashtra, under the aegis of Bhakti movement began in the sixth-seventh Jyandev and , it took the form of century in south India with the rise of Hindu cult (an offshoot of the Varkari devotional cults, gradually spread group)which preached exemplary standards throughout the country, and lasted till the of castelessness and a non- hierarchical life sixteenth - seventeenth century.1 of fellow humanism, spread the message of love and unity, and urged people to shed When the popularity of the Bhakti their slough of rituals and superstitions. movement in South India was on the wane, Namdev further carried the ethos of Varkari the concept of bhakti was defended at the Panth to North India (Punjab) in the latter philosophical level by some gifted half of fifteenth century. Vaishnava Brahmin scholars (acharyas).

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/IJR/ P a g e | 1279 International Journal of Research e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Volume 05 Issue 04 February 2018

BHAKTI MOVEMENT IN NORTH Bhakti movement was never a single INDIA movement except in the broad doctrinal From 13th to 15th century many popular sense of a movement which laid emphasis socio-religious movements flourished in on bhakti and religious equality. The Bhakti North and East India and Maharashtra. movements of medieval India differed in Emphasis on bhakti and religious equality many significant respects from the older characterized these movements. Almost all South Indian bhakti tradition. Heterogeneity the bhakti movements of the Sultanate could be noticed even among the bhakti period have been related to one South Indian movements which flourished in medieval vaishnava achariya or the other. For these India. Each one of them had its own regional reasons, many scholars believe that the identity and socio-historical and cultural bhakti movements of the Sultanate period contexts. Thus the non-conformist were a continuation or resurgence of the movements based on popular monotheistic older bhakti movement. They argue that bhakti contained features that were there existed philosophical and ideological essentially different from various vaishnava links between the two either due to contact bhakti movements. Kabir‟s notion of bhakti or diffusion. Thus, Kabir and other leaders was not the same as that of the medieval of non-conformist monotheistic movements vaishnava saints such as Chaitanya or in North India are believed to have been the . Within the vaishnava movement disciples of Ramananda who, in turn, is the historical context of Maharashtra bhakti believed to have been connected with was different from that of the Bengal Ramanuj‟s philosophical order. Similar vaishnavisn or North Indian bhakti claims have been put forward that Chaitanya movement of Ramanand, Vallavha, belonged to the philosophical school of and . Later on, when the vaishnava Madhava. This movement is also believed to bhakti movement crystallised into sects, have been connected with Nimbark‟s school there arose frequent disputes between them because of its emphasis on Krishna Bhakti. which sometimes even turned violent. There are many similarities between the Among all the bhakti movements of the older bhakti tradition of South-India and period between the 14th and the 17th various bhakti movements that engulfed the century, the popular monotheistic Sultanate and Mughal periods (If we exclude movements of Kabir, Nanak, Raidas and the popular monotheistic movements of other lower caste saints stand out Kabir, Nanak and other “low” caste saints.). fundamentally different. Like the South Indian bhakti movement the vaishnava bhakti movements of North and SAGUNA AND NIRGUNA IDEOLOGY Eastern India and Maharashtra exhibited To determine what Bhakti was, we should egalitarian trends in the religious sphere. But start with two general divisions of it into the they never denounced the caste system, the Saguna and Nirguna traditions. Saguna authority of Brahmanical scriptures and the means 'having qualities' and possessing a Brahmanical privileges as such. Like the concretized form. Following the general idea South Indian bhakti, most of the vaishnava of a unified Deity, Saguna Bhakti supposed movements of the later period were that God should be worshiped in same ultimately assimilated into the Brahmanical anthropomorphous form of either or religion, though in the process of interaction, Krishna. Among the followers of this the latter itself sailed through many changes. traditions were such humaniries of medieval

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/IJR/ P a g e | 1280 International Journal of Research e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Volume 05 Issue 04 February 2018

Indian culture as Vallabhacharya, the Muslim Occupation'. Similar views on founder of the celebrated 'Pushti Marg' Bhakti were held by Joshi, Krishna Rao and community in Braj Members of this others.3 Such an estimate does not agree community consisted of the poets of the with the facts of history, for if Bhakti was a 'Ashtachap', among whom Surdas was response to the challenge of Islam, then we especially famous, and other great poets like cannot account for the development of , Jais and Rashkhan, Tulsidas, Bhakti in many regions of India especially Mirabai, Narsi Maheta, the galaxy of in the south, much before the Muslim Marathi Varkari saints and the Bengali invasion. luminary Chaitnya. No less a popularity was Bhakti indeed was an answer to a enjoyed by the communities and saints of challenge, but not to the challenge of Islam. Nirguna Bhakti {nirguna means devoid of It owed its development to many important qualities). Among its most celebrated changes in Indian society and culture. These representatives were Kabir, changes occurred very gradually, sometimes (Raidas), Garibdas, Malukdas, Akho , in different directions, and none of them can Charandas, and others. Early be defined as the only important one. of Nanak had many features similar The influence of Bhakti communities to Nirguna Bhakti. The adherents of this was very strong. They played a great role in tradition followed strict monotheism and the development of not only social thought believed that Rama, Krishna and Allah were and religion, but also music, literature and the names of the same God, which was fine arts. Many Bhakti preachers as well as understood by them as an Absolute, devoid Sufis traveled through out India and spread of any visible form or life story, and hence their ideas in different regions. On the one no temples, rituals and priests were needed hand, as Ashraffyan has rightly observed, to worship him. The whole of the Nirguna the spread of the Bhakti ideas to different Bhakti literature objects to 'Pathar Puja' or parts and ethnic groups of India testifies to 2 4 stone worship. their similar social development. One the Both traditions of Bhakti were a other hand, the spread of Bhakti became a challenge to the orthodox religion because part of India's cultural integrity and unity. many moral, social and ethical categories Thus approximately up to the first were critically reviewed by the saints. For half of the seventeenth century the main key instance, the traditional idea of the mundane to the understanding of Bhakti ideas was world being maya (illusion) and God being through the sects and fraternities, peaceful the 'Reality', was re-considered by the gatherings of submissive followers of Bhaktas God, was according to them, Nirguna Bhakti or Saguna Bhakti. Feudal dissolved in the mundane being, hence to authorities both Hindu and Muslim, who know God were sympathetic to these sects, some times there was no need to renounce the world in granted them lands and money.5 the way the ascetics did. According to some Historically the growth of the Bhakti scholars, medieval Bhakti emerged as a movement can be divided into two phases: response to the invasion of Islam. According the first, from its early development in South to K.M. Panikkar, 'Bhakti.... provided calm India to the 13th century; the second, from to the bleeding soul of Hinduism in the thirteenth century to the seventeenth, Northern India during the period of when in north India it came in contact with Islam, was inspired by its monotheism and

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/IJR/ P a g e | 1281 International Journal of Research e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Volume 05 Issue 04 February 2018

stimulated by its challenge, and developed He belonged to a family of weavers (Julaha) against it a system of self-defence and who were indigenous converts to Islam. He selfpreservation for Hindu spirituality by spent greater part of his life in Banaras borrowing Islam's monotheistic (Kashi). The monotheistic saints who egalitarianism. succeeded him either claimed to be his disciples or respectfully mention him. His THE SCHOOL AND SAINTS OF verses were included in the Sikh scripture, BHAKTI MOVEMENT the „Adi-Granth‟ in large numbers than The Varkari panth was an important center those of other monotheists. All this indicate of Bhakti in Maharashtra. This school of his pre-eminent position among the Bhakti worshipped the local deity Vithosa monotheists. Raidas (or Ravidas) most who was supposed to be an incarnation of probably belonged to the generation next to Krishna. The main center of Varkari Kabir‟s. He was a tanner by caste. He also tradition was the city of Pandharpur, to lived in Banaras and was influenced by which the devotees still make annual Kabir‟s ideas. Dhanna was a 15th century pilgrimages. This school of Bhakti gave Jaat peasant from . Other birth to a galaxy of poets like Namder, prominent saints of the same period were Nashari, Bahinabai, Chokha, Mela, and of Sen (a barber) and Pipa. course Eknath and Tukaram.6 In Maharashtra during the 17th DADU DAYAL (1544-1603) century the most influential of Maratha Dadu was a spiritual descendent of Kabir. saints was Tuka Ram (b. 1608) whose He was a contemporary of Akbar. Among conception of God was very much like that Bhakti poets of the eclectic group Dadu 9 of Kabir and who occasionally used Sufi Dayal (1544-1603) came nearest to Sufism. terms in his hymns. Sukaram, who is Like Kabir he rejected the authority of generally believed to have inspired Shivaji Hindu and Muslim scriptures, denounced the as his spiritual guide, does not seem to have priest craft and believed passionately in the shared his dislike of Islam or of the worship of God as Ram. Muslims. Some of his Through out identified with the verses could have been written only by one tradition of Kabir, Gorakhnath and others, who believed not only in one God but also he enter the court under the insignia of Kabir in the mission of the prophet.7 - uttering the names of Ram, Rahim and The Bhakti many, both in the south Allah - further aligning Akbar with that and in the north could not be considered as a same tradition. Akbar, hearing of Dadu and single unified movement; it had many facets impressed by Dadu's pupil, repeatedly asks and its sources were diverse. Bhakti him to come to the court. Since Dadu was a literature is an important part of Tamil preacher who covered a large area literature. It is nonvedic and its traces are in northern India, the language of his verses found in Buddhist and Jain literature as must have varied according to the audience well.8 he was addressing Dadu's verses have been preserved in the traditions - the oral 10 KABIR(1440-1518) (maghazia) and the written (Kaghazia). Kabir was the earliest and undoubtedly the The verses communicated orally have not most powerful figure of the monotheistic yet been compiled. movements that began in the 15th century.

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/IJR/ P a g e | 1282 International Journal of Research e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Volume 05 Issue 04 February 2018

Dadu fully accepts the social nobles he was essentially a scholar of function of all classes and groups in the Sanskrit. His Sundar Vitasa draws purely society of his day. In fact he used the smile from of God for almost every one of them in Sanskrit sources.13 The difference between different verses thus elevating their position the ecletic and the orthodox Ramaite Bhakti in society. The Dadupanthi sect was school is that whereas the former worshiped synergetic in the beginning one of its early God as Ram, the latter worshiped Rama, the exponents being Rajjabdas, a re-convert to son of Dasratha king of Ayodha as God. Hinduism.11 Gradually it transformed itself from an esoteric to a militant orientation TULSIDAS (1532-1623) under the influence of the vairagis and the The great representative of the orthodox Sikhs.12 Ramaite school (Saguna) was Tulsidas (1532-1623) who is said to have enjoyed the NANAK(1469-1539) patronage of Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khanan, Nanak preached his ideas much in the same but wrote exclusively for the Hindus without way as Kabir and other monotheists, but due any attempt at eclecticism. His great to various developments later his teachings contribution was „Ram Carita Manas’, the led to the emergence of a mass religion, religious epic of the life of Rama, and in its Sikhism. The basic similarity of his spiritual significance a work as teachings with those of Kabir and other great in its way as Valmikis Ramayan, and saints and the basic ideological agreement more popular. He regarded all eclecticism between them makes him an integral part of including that of Kabir and Akbar as the monotheistic movement. He belonged to hypocritical. „Kal-Yug‟ (evil time) has a caste of traders called Khatri and was born swallowed the Dharma (religion), scriptures in Nankana village of Punjab (Nankana are lost; hypocrites have established Sahib is the full name). In his later life he religious sects at will.... Brahmins sels the travelled widely to preach his ideas. Vedas; the rulers have no sense of Eventually he settled in a place in Punjab morality.14 Neither the farmers has land nor now known as Dera Baba Nanak. There he the beggar alms, merchants have no income, attracted large number of disciples. The menids no jobs; every one is hungry and hymns composed by him were incorporated distressed This is due to Ravana of poverty. in the „Adi-Granth‟ by the 5th Sikh 'O' Ram kill this demon of poverty as you Arjan Dev in 1604. killed Ravan.15

CHAITANYA (1485-1533) In Bengal Chaitanya (1485-1533) started a Bhakti movement in the form of Krishna BIR BHAN (1543) work ship. He believed firmly in devotion to A contemporary of Dadu founded the God, Krishna in his case, and rejected the Satnami sect which demounced caste ritual and caste system of Hinduism. The system. The followers of the Satnami sect main purpose of religious life was the married within their own sect and believed attainment of an ecstatic feeling in the love in monotheists. In Sundardas the eclectic of God, which was helped by music, this school of Bhakti returned to orthodoxy; feeling could be any men whatever his creed though he enjoyed the patronage of Muslim or caste, provided he devoted himself to the

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/IJR/ P a g e | 1283 International Journal of Research e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Volume 05 Issue 04 February 2018

love of God.16 It has recently been pointed fervour and a thirst for the divine essence out that after becoming a sanyasin, and personal experience. In its initiation, it Chaitanya spend twenty years of his life in had rebelled against the caste ridden system the Hindu Kingdom of Orissa away from of the Brahmanized south. Later as it Muslim Bengal.17 Chaitaniya is also reported reached Maharashtra, it continued its fight to have converted a Muslim theologian Bijli against the Vedicfanatics. Somewhere Khan to Vaishanavism18 and according to midway through the eleventh and twelfth another tradition a group of Pathans.19 But century marked the arrival of Islam and the Kartabhajas, a group among chaitaniya's Sufis. In the oppressing darkness of the followers were monotheists and synergetic medieval ages, the devotional music of Sufis and had contact with Muslim faqirs, they gave birth to the Nirguna School of Santism recruited Muslims and Christian into their as opposed to the existing Saguna School of fold and celebrated their Sabbath on Bhakti of Vaishnava-Shaivite cult. From Friday.20 then on, saints from all over the northern and eastern India, gave a unified social MIRABAI (1498-1546) protest against the inequalities of the A very charming figure in the Krishna cult caste/class system, the practice of of North India is that of the princess Mira untouchability, feudal reforms and achieved Bai, who worshiped Krishna in the name of equal rights to coexist (with Brahmins and Girdhar-Gopal or and though she Muslims) with dignity. denounced Hindu ritual, her devotion was intensely subjective and more and less untouched by the polemical atmosphere that WORK CITED was simultaneously borrowing from Islam and rejecting it. Mira started to worship Sri [1] Ambree, Ainslee T. (ed.), Krishna since her childhood. She has also Encyclopaedia of Ancient History been regarded as an incarnation of Radha. Macmillan, London, 1988 p. 539. Krishna P. Bahadur opines –“Mira did not [2] The Dabistan, Vol. II, p. 189. deliberately choose her words to create an effect” but measured her poetry to be “the [3] Panikkar, K.M., Survey of Indian spontaneous outburst of her heart” which History Bombay, 1954, p. 143; Krishna “achieved perfection because of her artless Rao, M. p. 105; Joshi, T.D., Social and and deep emotions.”21 Political Thought of Ramdas, Bombay, 1970 pp. 5-9.

[4] Ashraffyan, C.Z., Medieval City, p. 140. CONCLUSION The Bhakti movement was essentially the [5] Banarsidas, Ardhakathanka, ed. phenomenal revolt of the marginalised Mukund Lai, , 1981, pp. 214-17. segment (i.e. the lower castes and classes) at decentralising the hierarchy imposed by the [6] Rich literature exists on the marathi Brahmin fraternity. From its very inception, saints and Bhakti poets. Their life stories, the Bhakti ideology was guided by a based on the eighteenth century works by humanising cosmopolitanism, an emotional Mahipati were tr. And pub by Justine E.Abbott (The poet Saints of Maharashtra Series).

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/IJR/ P a g e | 1284 International Journal of Research e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Available at https://edupediapublications.org/journals Volume 05 Issue 04 February 2018

7) E.g. First among the great names is Allah, ever forget to repeat it, Allah is verile one, the prophet is verile unique. Thou art one, 0, Friend, Thou art one, Thou art one, I do not exist but in Thee (Tukaram, Abharga, pp.1-194.)

8) Ambree, Ainslee T. (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Ancient History, Macmillan, London, 1988, p. 539.

9) Orr, W.G., A Sixteenth Century Indian Mystics, London, 1947, p.50-51.

10) Parshi Ram Chaturvedi, ed. Dadu Dayal Granthavali, Nagari Pracharini Sabha, (2023, V.S./1966 A.D.) introduction, p.17.

11) Orr, W.G., A Sixteenth Century Indian Mystics, London, 1947, p.186-187.

12) Ibid. p.202-04.

13) Ibid. p.204.

14) Tara Chand The Influence of Islamic on Indian Culture, Allahabad,1946, p.191.

15) Tulsidas, Ram Charita Manas, Allahabad, 1949, p.542.

16) Tulsidas, Kavitavali, Benaras, 1923,p.225.

17) Lila, Cultural Heritage of India, II, p. 131-152.

18) R.C. Majumdar; The Delhi Sultanate, Bombay, 1960, p. 32.

19) D.C. Sen, Chaitaniya and his Age, p.228-9.

20) Melville. T. Kennedy, The Chaitanya Movement, Calcutta, 1925, p.213-14.

21) Bahadur, Krishna P., Mira Bai and Her Padas, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd. Print, New Delhi, 2002, p.31.

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/IJR/ P a g e | 1285