Biography of bhakti saints images
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15 Popular Saints of Bhakti Movement | Medieval India
The following points highlight the fifteen popular saints of bhakti movement. The chief saints are: 1. Ramanuja 2. Nimbarka 3. Madhva 4. Vallabhacharya 5. Ramananda 6. Chaitanya (1486—1533) 7. Kabir 8. Guru Nanak 9. Dadu Dayal (1554—1603 A D.) 10. Mira Bai (1498—1546) 11. Tulsidas (1532—1623) 12. Sur Das 13. Maluk Das (1574—1682) 14. Sundardas (1596—1689) 15. Birbhan.
Saint # 1. Ramanuja:
The earliest exponent of the Bhakti movement was Ramanuja, who was born at Sri Perumbudur in Southern India in the year 1017 A.D. He received his education at Canjeevaram and Shrirangam. On account of his scholarship he was appointed as the successor of his teacher Yamunamuni, the well- known Vaishnava saint. Thus Ramanuja acquired a position of authority.
Ramanuja gave a philosophic basis to the teachings of Vaishnavism. He wrote a commentary on the Brahma sutras, refuted Shari Kara and offered his own interpretation based on the theistic ideas. His commentaries on Brahma sutras are popularly known as Sri Bhasya.
According to Prof. K. A. Nilikanta Sastri, Ramanuja “refuted Mayavada of Sankara, demonstrated that the Upanishads did not teach a strict monism, and built up the philosophy of Visishtadvaita which
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South India’s Bhakti Saints
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Insight: Seven Bhakti Saints Of North India
From uncounted spiritual poets, we examine the life, language and works of a few
By Lakshmi Chandrashekar Subramanian
Before we speak of the great bhakta poets, we should acknowledge the primary language that was the tool for many of them. Hindi is the treasured national language of India, with 615 million speakers worldwide. Hindu devotees from all regional and language backgrounds engage with Hindi through popular devotional songs (bhajans), scriptures such as Ramcharitmanas (the famed story of Lord Rama), the poems of Kabir, religious stories (katha), and in other ways big and small. Hindi is written in Devanagari script, which it shares with Sanskrit, Marathi, Nepali, Rajasthani, Kashmiri, and dialects such as Brajbhasha and Awadhi which can both be classified linguistically as Hindi. This family of tongues is the medium of a vast body of literature, with every dialect carrying unique nuances.
Brajbhasha, meaning “language of Braj,” was one of North India’s most notable literary languages from the 16th to the early 20th century. Braj is a region in India on both sides of the Yamuna river with its center at Mathura-Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh state. Brajbhasha was also a major court language, in addition to being the poeti