Devotional Paths to the Divine Test - 4

Sant Tukaram : He belonged to Dehu near Pune. His compositions or abhangas are very pleasing and lucid, reaching the greatest poetic heights. His Gatha is a precious treasure of the Marathi language. He criticized the hypocrisy and superstition in the society in very strong terms. He stressed that devotion (Bhakti)should be coupled with morality.

The Mughals had entered Khandesh. Their main objectives was to expand their power in the South. There were settlements of Siddi people, who had come from Africa, along the coastline of Konkan.

• Alavars: These are Tamil poet saints and were devoted to Vishnu and his avatar Krishna. They belong to Vaishnava sect.
  
• Nayanars: These were also Tamil poets devoted to lord Shiva.
  
• Sufis: This is an Islamic mysticism.
  
• Virashaivism:  This is a sect of Hinduism. It is predominantly found in the states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Basavanna, a Kannada poet belonged to this sect and belief is that he founded this sect.
  

 Virashaivism involves worshiping of Lord Shiva. Virashaivas do not worship any God other than Shiva. It was propagated across India by Basavanna who was a 12th-century philosopher and Kannada Poet.

Ramcharitmanas is an epic poem in the Awadhi dialect of Hindi, composed by the 16th-century Indian bhakti poet Goswami Tulsidas. Ramcharitmanas literally means Lake of the deeds of Rama. Ramcharitmanas is considered as one of the greatest works of Hindi literature.

B. Surdas

Surdas was a late 15th-century blind saint, poet and musician, known for his devotional songs dedicated to Lord Krishna. Surdas is said to have written and composed a hundred thousand songs in his magnum opus the Sur Sagar (Ocean of Melody), out of which only about 8,000 are extant. He is considered a saguna bhakti poet and so also known as Sant Surdas, a name which literally means the servant of melody.

The Nayanars and Alvars movement began in South India between the 7th and 10th centuries AD. Nayanars and Alvars of South India believed in Bhakti i.e. devotion to the God with concepts like love and compassion in religion. People joined this newly created movement irrespective of the caste they belonged to and even women participated in the movements. They were against extreme practices and hence, did not accept the concept of austerities. 

Pandharpur is the centre of a bhakti movement that began over eight centuries ago, and gave birth to Marathi literature. For centuries, every year, just before the rains, thousands of pilgrims known as Varkari, followers of Haripath (path of God who is Krishna-Vishnu) travel long distances from rural Maharashtra and Karnataka to Pandharpur.