N. Muthu Mohan

Introduction

A study of Guru Granth Sahib in the context of the long course of Bhakti traditions in India invokes a large set of problems that demands fundamental scrutiny. The present paper does not pretend to exhaust all such problems. However it poses and tries to analyze some of them that seem to us important and interesting. Guru Granth Sahib in the context of Bhakti thought is the latest comprehensive text and this means that it brings to memory the earlier Bhakti texts and their historical setting. This compels us to certain extent identify the historical phases of the Bhakti movement in various regions of Indian subcontinent.

We locate Guru Granth Sahib towards the end of Bhakti age, even as denoting the post-Bhakti age, and this means that the question of returning to the emotional, musical and spontaneous form of Bhakti needs its explanation. We know that in between the early Bhakti and its late form there were many considerable intrusions namely the Siddha Yogis, the Sufis and Islam, and the Sants. The Bhakti thought of Guru Granth Sahib somehow inherits the divine experiences of the early Bhakti, assimilates the historical intrusions and consummates itself into Sikh devotion. Going through such interesting cultural phases, Guru Granth Sahib could exhibit the very complex dialectics of devotional, ethical and social philosophical streams of thought. These are some of the issues we identify when we start probing into Guru Granth Sahib in the context of Bhakti traditions.

Historical Phases of Bhakti movement

As a student of religious studies hailing from South India, I cannot avoid the references available in literature regarding the origin of Bhakti movement from the Tamil country. A learned scholar of Bengal Vaishnavism says, “There is a fairly old tradition of the fervor of faith in God originating in the Dravida country and growing in intensity in the Karnataka region (Utpannaa Draavide Vrittim Karnatake gataa).”¹ Without rejecting the possible sources of origin of Bhakti in the North Indian region, however, we can state that the Tamil country produced a few of the earliest texts of Bhakti literature. The Aalwaars of Vaishnavite thought and the Naayanmaars of Saivite religion became the first bearers of devotional mode of thinking in the Tamil country.

Chronologically, researchers place them from the 5 c A.D to the 9 c A.D. Contextually, the Aalwaars and Naayanmaars replaced the influence of Jainism and Buddhism, and the rich didactic literature in Tamilnadu. The context we have brought to focus informs us that the ethical was substituted by the devotional, thus making the interaction and repulsion between the two trends as real problems. Historians assert that Jainism and Buddhism were active in the urban centers of coastal Tamilnadu, whereas after their fall, spread of agriculture along the riverbeds of interior Tamilnadu accompanied the birth of Bhakti movement in the region.²

It may be true that the influence of Jainism and Buddhism was pushed backwards due to the rigidity of the elite oriented ethical principles of the philosophical movements. The people needed a popular movement that gave space for their simplest emotions and hopes. The devotional hymns of Aalwaars and Naayamaars were simple, emotional and musical. The Saivite and Vaishnavite saints were particular to inherit the spontaneous love poetry of the Sangam period of the Tamils and they claimed that the movement had nothing to do or very less to do with the North Indian traditions. It means that the devotional movement claimed its origination in the Tamil country itself.

Till date the Tamil Saivites and the Thenkalai (southern) Vaishnavites maintain that they stand to assert the Tamil identity distinct from the Sanskrit tradition. This fact opens up an interesting problem namely the non-Sanskrit origin of Bhakti on the one hand and the contribution of Bhakti to the making of regional cultures of India on the other hand. Both the problems are important and they cannot be silenced. We find so much evidence to show that Bhakti originated in the non-Aryan cultural space of India. The Sanskrit tradition first condemned Bhakti, and after finding that it is highly influential, compromised with it.

The second issue of Bhakti movements contributing to the formation of regional cultural centers too is significant. It happened not only in Tamil country, it happened so in Maharashtra, Bengal, Punjab, Assam, and in various other regions of Indian subcontinent. Although some scholars take pleasure in stating that the Bhakti movement stands to represent the pan-Indian culture, the fact remains that the regional cultures of India came into existence through articulating their specific religious experiences in their own languages and cultural paradigms, that is, out of the pale of the domination of the Sanskrit culture. This was the first phase of Bhakti culture.

The second stage in the history of Bhakti movements starts when the devotional culture began to get institutionalized. Institutionalization of Bhakti is complex and multidirectional. K.Kailasapathy, a Srilankan Tamil scholar in his work titled “The Feet and the Crown” (Adiyum Mudiyum) has studied the process of institutionalization of Bhakti movement in the Tamil context.³ Epistemologically, the spontaneous and emotional setting of the devotional feelings was put back and the atmosphere of Bhakti was taken hold by the philosophizing tendencies. In the case of Vaishnavism, the Visitadvaita philosophy of Ramanuja and in the case of Saivism, the Saiva Siddhanta philosophy represented the mentioned process. The temple culture with its very complex rituals and temple economy marked the second symptom of the institutionalization. Political patronization soon added itself to this process.

The third important mark of the feudalization of Bhakti culture was the spread and consolidation of caste system within the Bhakti culture. If the early Bhakti spontaneously repudiated the caste order and stood for formation of coherent religious communities, now it had reestablished the caste into its fold. And finally, the institutionalization of Bhakti movement was marked by the processes of Sanskritization and Vedantization. This completes the annihilation of all democratic potentials of the Bhakti movement and makes it a thorough feudal ideology.

The third phase in the course of development of Bhakti ideology is denoted by the intrusion of the Siddhas, the Sufis and the Sants. It was a period of reaction to the feudalized Bhakti ideology. The Siddhas were mostly of Saivite fold because the dominant ideology of Indian medieval age was Vaishnavite. The Siddhas vehemently opposed the Brahmanic moments of Bhakti culture. They criticized the externalism, rituals, the temple culture and casteism that came to be associated with the Bhakti system.

The Sufis too originated within the fold of Islam when the Islamic ruling classes took hold of the religion and made it their political tool. The Sufis criticized the economic luxury and political arrogance of the Islamic rulers. They too stood for an internalized religiosity. The Sants of North India followed suit with the Siddhas and the Sufis. The Sants had the additional problem of Hindu- Muslim sectarianisms. The Sants represented a universal type of religion bringing close the Hindus and Muslims.

In the last or fourth phase of the evolution of Bhakti traditions one finds the Sikh religiosity represented by Guru Granth Sahib consummating and assimilating the entire course of the Bhakti traditions. Guru Granth Sahib represents a very unique phenomenon in Indian history, and contains in itself the complexities of the Bhakti movement and its historical experiences.

Guru Granth Sahib- A Grand Return to the Roots of Bhakti

Return to the spontaneous, emotional and musical mode of Bhakti is the characteristic feature of Sikh religiosity. The Sikh Gurus did not engage themselves in constructing a system of philosophy. Nietzshe, who vehemently criticizes the system-builders in the history of philosophy, indicates how the system-builders become dishonest to their initial quest to find the presupposition-less truth. It has to be noted that at all moments of crisis of cultures, the greatest men/women of thought returned to the roots of existence. It happened towards the end of Greek philosophy when it resorted to deep skepticism and pure abstractions. Christianity appeared in the scene as expressing the popular interests and expectations. It happened again during the end of European medieval period. The natural philosophers appeared and addressed the un-assumed facts of life by pure naked observation.

Even in recent times, philosophers returning to existence (Existentialists) or to language (Post-modernists) is symptomatic of the crisis as well as the way how thinkers try to get rid of the crisis. The place of Guru Granth Sahib could be appropriately understood if we locate the Sikh scripture at the end of a social crisis and Guru Granth Sahib massively addresses the roots of human existence within the religious paradigm.

The structure and composition of Guru Granth Sahib evidence this fact. Guru Granth Sahib as it has been installed at the Harmandir Sahib truly depicts the impulsive devotional spirit of the authors of the hymns. Guru Granth Sahib is above all the recited text, the Gurbani, the Shabad, organized in the order of the 31 raagaas. Guru Granth Sahib consciously avoids the narrative mode that was very popular in the north Indian Vaishnavite tradition. It prefers the most spontaneous that is the emotional. The most spontaneous is reached because it is the truest. It is not mere coincidence that the Gurus repeatedly and fundamentally address the theme of Sat, Sachcha or Truth in Guru Granth Sahib. The emotional mode of appraising God in Guru Granth Sahib stands against the other known modes of reaching God or the ultimate reality. Guru Arjun says,

Abandoning all the devices and endeavors,
I have sought the Guru’s sanctuary. (GGS-71)