The Episteme And Experience Of Bhakti

Contemporary Hinduism is shaped and moulded by Bhakti. From a Hindu perspective, the bhakti saints are enlightened masters who walked with deities and composed authentic spontaneous verses or even music, considered to be the equivalent to Vedic revelations or the fifth/ Panchama Veda. Bhakti saints have led instructive and exemplary lives, responded to all the key texts of Hinduism (from the Vedas, Vedanta and brahmasutras to the Gita), single-handedly established mathams that have lasted till date and convinced large populations to adopt new methods to quickly access moksha. Bhakti saints have led instructive and exemplary lives, responded to all the key texts of Hinduism (from the Vedas, Vedanta and brahmasutras to the Gita), single-handedly established mathams that have lasted till date and convinced large populations to adopt new methods to quickly access moksha. Their commentaries on a common corpus of texts show a continuity in Hinduism among other things. What is also fascinating from the perspective of shraddha is that the bhakti emerging from diverse Indian regions still resembled each other in spirit while being philosophically different, in a pre-internet era. The multiplicity of philosophical positions in bhakti offers seekers a wide array of concepts and methods to choose from.

At its heart, bhakti aids self-transformation by instilling an attitude of gratitude–something that modern psychology is only now discovering. Bhakti is an effective tool in opposing an unthinking endorsement of materialism.

The modern narratives and theorizations of Bhakti have created many misunderstandings around Bhakti. , it has been quickly secularized by various camps before its inherent potential for modern living in its original form has been fully explored.

Indica is organizing a conference along with a tirtha yatra for the scholars, on Episteme and Experience of Bhakti at Bharachalam , the famous khetra of Sri Rama where a great Bhakti saint Ramadasa built the temple on the banks of Godavari. Scholars will critically engage with both the narratives and theorize Bhakti considering its origins in the Veda articulated through a the massive corpus of bhakti compositions produced by both men and women of all castes and classes, unmistakably and abundantly present in every region of India, spanning only a thousand years.

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