History · Ch 6 — Bhakti–Sufi Traditions — Changes in Religious Beliefs and Devotional Texts
Religious Ferment in North India
Religious Ferment in North India
The religious landscape of north India between the eighth and fourteenth centuries was very different from the south. While temples to Vishnu and Shiva were built, often with royal support, historians have found no evidence of anything like the passionate, personal poetry of the Alvars and Nayanars until the fourteenth century. The question is: why did this difference exist?
Part of the answer lies in the political and social structure of the time. This was the period when several Rajput states were emerging. In these kingdoms, Brahmanas held a powerful position, performing both secular (administrative, advisory) and ritual functions. There was little or no direct challenge to their authority from within the established order.
However, outside the orthodox Brahmanical framework, other religious leaders were gaining ground. These included the Naths, Jogis, and Siddhas. Many of these figures came from artisanal groups — especially weavers — who were becoming more important as organised craft production grew. This growth was fuelled by the emergence of new urban centres and long-distance trade with Central and West Asia.
These new religious leaders shared some important features:
- They questioned the authority of the Vedas.
- They expressed themselves in the languages spoken by ordinary people — languages that over centuries developed into the ones used today.
- Despite their popularity among common people, they were not able to win the support of the ruling elites. …
This figure shows a fragment of an early Qur’an manuscript page, written in Arabic script and dated to the eighth or ninth century. It is not a map, a diagram, or a scene — it is a physical piece of a handwritten book, likely on parchment or paper. The visible text is from the Qur’an, the central religious text of Islam, and the script is an early form of Arabic calligraphy, probably Kufic, which was used in the first few centuries of Islam.
The fragment is significant because it represents the arrival of Islamic textual traditions in the Indian subcontinent. The eighth or ninth century is the period when Arab traders and early Muslim communities began to establish a presence in coastal regions of western India, particularly in Sindh (conquered in 712 CE) and along the Malabar coast. A Qur’an manuscript from this era is one of the oldest physical traces of Islam’s entry into the region — it shows that the written word, not just oral transmission, accompanied the spread of the faith. …