Exploring women’s voices and their writings in Bhakti Movement

Bhakti movement was a literary and social movement that was started around the eighth century
from South India and soon spread all over the India. This movement flooded down the
Sanskritized literary hierarchy of Hindu Philosophy and the knowledge of Vedas and Puranas,
and built an another form of literary cannon free from Brahminical hierarchy where regional
languages entered as a mode of writing and became a voice of the common people’s expressions.
Andrew Schelling in his book Anthology of Bhakti Literature says that “At the root of bhakti
coils the formidable old hunger for human freedom, a sense of world’s inexplicable mystery, and
the convention that each of us forms some personal relationship to that mystery”. This can be
seen in the period of Bhakti movement in India, where various bhakts refused any intervention
between him/her and his/her lord by priest and created a direct connection between “Bhakt and
Bhagwaan”.

“Bhakti”, means devotion and a path leads to Moksha. What does word “Bhakti” mean?

“The word Bhakti was first surfaced in Svetasvatara Upanishad and in the Bhagavatgita around
2500 years ago, which means devotion or love for the deity or god”. (introduction, Anthology of
Bhakti Literature). This word reformed from time to time and due to personal coloring by many
saints it took abstract meanings which means, to enjoy, to love, to adore, to participate, to serve,
worship, honour, etc. there is a noun for the person who does bhakti known as “Bhakta”.

Mukti, “freedom is the center around where the word Bhakti revolves. It’s the Mukti from all
torments, from death and birth, pain and pleasure, from differences, hierarchies. Bhakti
movement was developed with all these ideas in it, and this movement was also acted as a
weapon by the poets and saints to attack Sanskritization and Brahmanism in India. This trend
was expanded in the medieval Hinduism and followed till the late Sikhism. In this movement
peoples from all strata, irrespective of caste and class come together and denounced the
Brahmanical Patriarchy that controls and creates hegemonical inequality. Many poets from lower
caste and women, who followed the path of Bhakti wrote poems and verses criticizing caste
division and other kinds of inequality among male and female. Poets like Ravidas, Kabir, Jandev
attacked the oppressions on the basis of caste, race and purity through their poems and verses
and created a space for the marginalized in the society. These poets disowned religious customs
and practices and made their own direct connection with their lord through their poems as “Deen
and Deendayal” (Poor and Savior). Women created their space in their own personalized way.
They denoted all the possible relationships with their lord whether it is of wife and husband,
lovers, servant and master, etc. Women actively took part in the bhakti tradition, poets like
Meerabai, Janabai, Akkamahadevi, Lal Ded, Antal and other saints openly wrote down poems
praising lord, whom they treat like their lover. Bhakti movement helped women to come out of
their house and express themselves openly. This movement acts as a way for women poets to
counter the oppressive society and in finding their own identity. Many saints-poets denounced
the path of strict acetic for the liberation and showed that a Bhakt can also achieve liberation
even living in family and household.

Women poets and saints played a very important role in the period of Bhakti Movement.
Women- poets who struggled for their acceptance in the patriarchal society got acknowledged
and accepted only through showing their utter devotion to the supreme lord. Through their
poems they showed continuing practices of patriarchy in the society and religious movements.
They attempt to create a non hierarchical and equal access of an individual to the divine. Poets
like Meerabai and Lal Ded are raised their voices from their household and soon left their homes
which was a very bold step for a woman of that time. Their encouragement was from nowhere
but from the Bhakti movement that gave them strength to counter the patriarchal world through
their divine poetries. Both Meerabai and Lal Ded have some common background which is like
unsatisfied (failed) marital life and the kind of cruel treatment they had from In-laws family.
Both of these poets used the local dialects as the language of their poetry. We can also find the
Sanskrit terms in their poetry which was used to define philosophical terms but the major
portions of their poems are in local or we can say the language of the subalterns. Like other
bhakti poets Lalla and Meera set a new trend of poetry and new idioms for the people who don’t
use Sanskrit language. Lal Ded and Meerabai moved out of their houses and challenged the male
dominated society.

Lal Ded who was a Kashmiri poet was ill treated by her mother-in-law and she left her home due
to constant torments and cruel behavior of her in-laws. Her first step was of leaving in-laws and
rejecting marriage and the gender role associated with it. She chose the path of Shaivism and a
solitary life. Through her Vakhs she directly communicated and address the people openly
without any fear and openly expressed her views and philosophy through her vachans. She also
does intellectual discussions through her Vakhs.

O Blue-Throated God
I have the same six constituents as you,
Yet separate from you
I’m miserable.
Here’s the difference---
You have mastered the six
I’ve been robbed by them. ----------(Translation by Jayalal Kaul)

Lal Ded belongs to the family of Brahman caste but she preferred vernacular Kashmiri language
as a medium for the writings and through the use of colloquial dialect she created her own
personal space without getting diluted in the common Sanskritized language of mainstream. Her
feminist flavor was developed from the way she used the local dialect which was done by her
around early 14th century.

Lal [D]ed was a Kashmiri girl and though she came of a Brahman family and very
probably, was a lettered person, yet her language, its diction and forms would be more
colloquial and less learned (than other scholarly texts). Lal Ded‟s vaakh has been a
significant landmark in the linguistic transition from old to modern Kashmiri… As poet,
in her own genre, vaakh, as well as generally, she remains unsurpassed.

(Kaul, 1973, p. 61)

Her use of common language (people’s language) gave the strength to her vachans and she
became more prominent among people. Her use of local language was itself a gave the strength
to the non Sanskritized form of literature and knowledge which was majorly composed and
developed during the period of Bhakti Movement.

According to Luce Irigaray, a French feminist:

The mystic discourse has provided the only space for women where they can express
themselves so publicly. They break out of the self-contained enclosure where hierarchies
and dualities rule, and find themselves in a space where the distinction between the
inside/outside is transgressed…the experience is like an abyss that swallows up all
persons, all names, even proper names…
 (quoted in Kak, 1999, p. 88)

Lal Ded denounced all the material possessions after leaving home. She saw all these things as
boundation that binds the person to this worldly life. She after finding the uselessness of the
materialistic things refuse to carry it any longer and left everything even her cloths too. This act
is understood by scholars from different perspectives. Scholars like Nil Kanth Kotru, symbolized
her nakedness as the union with divine and dissociation from the world and feminist scholars
found it a challenge she posed to the society.

Meerabai developed a very personal relationship with her God where she defined her god in
multiple meanings like as master, lover, husband, slave, and much more. She openly expressed
here love and devotion for Krishna to the people and many times she was judged appropriately
by the people of her society. In the following poem of she is openly expressing herself and her
love for her lord. But she is also pointing towards the people’s reaction towards her and her
actions. But she is paying no heed to them and enjoying the divinity of her lord.

Binding My Ankles with silver

I danced----
people in town called me crazy.
She’ll ruin the clan
said my mother-in-law,
and the prince
had a cup of venom delivered.
I laughed as I drank it.
Can’t they see?
Body and mind aren’t something to lose,
the Dark One’s already seized them.
Mira’s lord can lift mountains,
he is her refuge.

-----------translated by Andrew Schelling

The above poem is of Meerabai translated
into English by Andrew Schelling. In this
poem Meerabai is challenging her Rajputana tradition and customs, as according to Rajput
tradition women are not supposed to come out of veil in public place. But, these lines suggest
that Meera used to dance in public for his Giridhar and people calls her crazy. Through these
lines she is showing people response to her actions which is a problematic thing in patriarchal
society. Through her poem she also draws attention to the kind of treatment she faces at her in-
law’s house. Ill treatment by her in-laws is clearly highlighted in the act of bringing cup of
venom. However, her family members tried numbers of times to kill her but Meera survived
miraculously. She left her home due to humiliation and disturbances by her in-laws’ family and
joined the community or groups of Sadhus. Her entering into the groups of Sadhus is itself
entering a male dominated community. Ravidas is said to be her guru at that time, this is again a
problematic instance according to that time as Ravidas belongs to lower caste (Chamaar)
community. And one higher caste Rajput women admitting lower caste person as her guru is
again a challenge she posed to male dominated society of her times. Through her poems Meera is
not only creating a space for women and challenging feminism but also practicing and
challenging the orthodox caste systems created by Hindu philosophy.

He has stained me,

the color of raven he’s stained me.
Beating a clay
Two-headed drum at both ends
Like a nautch girl I dance
Before sadhus.
Back in town I’m called crazy,
drunkard, a love slut----

---------translated by Andrew Schelling

Meera emerged as a powerful woman voice from the bhakti tradition who openly and directly
challenged the customs, tradition and cultural values that tried to control her. She refused to bow
in front of the family god of her in-laws and refused to follow to all the rituals and norms of the
family. He refusal to the rituals can be seen as her refusal to follow the role of a woman decided
the patriarchal society and by now bowing down can be sees as her rebellion to the male
dominated society. Meera denied the earthly marriage and earthly relations to her husband
Bhoraj. He always claims that she is married to lord Krishna and no one else. That’s why she
refused all the customs pressurized over her by her family. She refused to get Sati and the life of
widow after her husband got died in a battle.

She adamantly denied any earthly marriage or bond, thereby, disavowing her husband and her
family including her in-laws. She ignored the claims of suhaag (husband) declaring the marriage
with a mortal as complete mithya (illusive) and herself already wedded to Krishna. “As an
errant, disobliging wife, Meera acquires not only an active freedom from an expected role, but
also the preconditions for access to wisdom, authority, self-sufficiency, spiritual growth, and
most of all, marriage to Krishna” (Sangari, 1990, p. 1467). In the following pada, she says:

I know only Girdhar

He is my father, husband, kin and none besides

(Behari, 1971, p. 106)

In many of her poems it can be found that she is constantly using addressing to her and her
friends like Sakhi, Saheli, and using personal and possessive pronouns like I, mine, my his, etc.
These words show her inner strength and her address to the other women. Her writings contain
many dialects from Rajasthan and these local dialects is what brings them more close to the
hearts of their audiences. The strategy of suing local dialects by both Lalla and Meera is to make
it more readily available to the peoples. Both of them do not prefer to write down their poems it
was mainly singing and idioms which were later collected by scholars. Meera courageously
spoke about all kind of oppressions that one woman faces in a society and not only at personal
level she also raised her voice at social level.

The rejection of earthly marriage, alongside the honour of the family, of kul, and the
bonds of kinship, is in effect a rejection not only of their educative and organizing
functions but of the whole social order within which they are enmeshed. Further, the
break with domesticity is a rejection of the primary domain where sexuality is
customarily regulated.

(Sangari, 1990, p. 1467)

Both Meerabai and Lal Ded used spirituality and divinity as a medium for self-expression and
strengthened their voice against male dominated society. As the religious scriptures, culture,
customs and traditions binds the woman, like veil system and Sati practices and obedience to
male. Through their works they challenge the society and their tradition and carve their own
space in the society and society failed to provide them.
 Bibliography

1. Behari, B. (1971). Bhakti Mira. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan.

2. Schelling, Andrew. The Oxford Anthology of Bhakti Literature. Oxford University Press,
2011.
3. Sangari, K. (1990). Mirabai and the Spiritual Economy of Bhakti.Economic and Political
Weekly, 25, 1464-
1475, 1537-1552.
4. Kak, J. (1999). To the Other Shore: Lalla’s Life and Poetry. New Delhi: Vitasta
5. Kaul, J. (1973). Lal Ded. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. (Wasia)
6. Wasia, Dr. "LAL DED and Meerabai: A Feminist Perspective." NCCW-17 (2017).