History · Ch 6 — Bhakti–Sufi Traditions — Changes in Religious Beliefs and Devotional Texts
A Mosaic of Religious Beliefs and Practices
A Mosaic of Religious Beliefs and Practices
Perhaps the most striking feature of religious life in this period (roughly the eighth to eighteenth centuries) is how visible a whole range of gods and goddesses becomes — not just in temple sculpture, but across a wide body of texts as well.
At one level, this visibility reflects something familiar: the continued, even expanded, worship of the three major deities of the period — Vishnu, Shiva, and the goddess. What changes is the sheer variety of forms in which each of these deities came to be worshipped. A single deity like Vishnu or Shiva was no longer understood or represented in just one way; distinct regional cults, local images, and separate traditions of worship multiplied around each of them.
This growing multiplicity was not simply a matter of new gods being added to an existing list. It points to a much deeper process — of different regional and social traditions being drawn into, and in turn reshaping, the wider religious landscape. That process of integration, and the tensions it sometimes produced, is what the sections that follow explore in detail.
“Great” and “little” traditions. The terms great and little traditions were coined by a sociologist named Robert Redfield in the twentieth century to describe the cultural practices of peasant societies. He found that peasants observed rituals and customs that emanated from dominant social categories, including priests and rulers; these he classified as part of a great tradition. At the same time, peasants also followed local practices that did not necessarily correspond with those of the great tradition; these he included within the category of little tradition. He also noticed that both great and little traditions changed over time, through a process of interaction. While scholars accept the significance of these categories and processes, they are often uncomfortable with the hierarchy suggested by the terms great and little — the quotation marks are one way of indicating this.
The opening image of the chapter is a twelfth-century bronze sculpture of Manikkavachakar, a Tamil Shaiva saint. He was a devotee of Shiva who composed some of the most moving devotional hymns in the Tamil language, later collected in the Tiruvachakam ("Sacred Utterances"). The sculpture shows him standing in a posture of worship, with his hands folded in anjali mudra (the gesture of reverence). He wears a simple dhoti and sacred thread, and his expression is one of serene devotion.
This figure is placed at the very start of the chapter to signal that the Bhakti movement was not just about grand temples or Sanskrit texts — it was also about individual saints who expressed intense personal love for God in regional languages. Manikkavachakar lived in the ninth century CE (the sculpture itself is from the twelfth century, indicating his lasting importance), and his hymns were sung in temples and homes across the Tamil country. The bronze itself is a masterpiece of Chola metalwork, showing how devotional traditions were supported by royal patronage and skilled artisans.
The sculpture is not just an artwork — it is a historical source. It tells us that by the twelfth century, Shaiva devotional saints were being venerated as holy figures, their images cast in bronze for temple processions and private worship. This reflects the "integration of cults" described in the textbook: local Tamil traditions of ecstatic devotion were being absorbed into the broader Puranic framework, while also retaining their distinct regional character.
The figure thus introduces the central theme of the chapter: the mosaic of religious beliefs and practices in medieval India, where devotion (bhakti) cut across caste, language, and ritual hierarchies. Manikkavachakar himself was a Brahmana who renounced his privileged position to become a wandering singer of Shiva's praise — a living example of how bhakti could challenge social boundaries.