COMPOSITION CULTURE: THE SUFI AND BHAKTI MOVEMENT
Answers
Answer:
The Medieval period is considered as an age of great cultural synthesis in India and during this period a new phase of cultural development was initiated.
• The Turks and Mughals introduced fresh ideas and helped in giving rise to new features in the areas of religion, philosophy and ideas.
• The synthesis between different cultures gave birth to new philosophical and religious traditions, ideas.
SUFISM
• Sufism or tasawuf is the name for various mystical and movements in Islam.
• It aims at establishing direct communion between god and man through personal experience of mystery which lies within Islam.
• Every religion gives rise to mystical tendencies in its fold at a particular stage of its evolution. In this sense, Sufism was a natural development within Islam based on the spirit of Quaranic Piety.
• The Sufis while accepting the Shariat did not confine their religious practice to formal adherence and stressed cultivation of religious experience aimed at a direct perception of god.
• There developed a number of Sufi orders of silsilah in and outside India. All these orders had their specific characteristics. However, there were a number of features which are common to all Sufi orders.
• Sufism stressed the elements of love and devotion as effective means of the realization of God. Love of God meant love of humanity and so the Sufis believed service to humanity was tantamount to service to God.
• In Sufism, self discipline was considered an essential condition to gain knowledge of God by sense of perception.
• While orthodox Muslims emphasise external conduct, the Sufis lay stress on inner purity.
• While the orthodox believe in blind observance of rituals, the Sufis consider love and devotion as the only means of attaining salvation.
• According to Sufis one must have the guidance of a pir or guru, without which spiritual development is impossible.
• Sufism also inculcated a spirit of tolerance among its followers.
• Other ideas emphasised by Sufism are meditation, good actions, repentance for sins, performance of prayers and pilgrimages, fasting, charity and suppression of passions by ascetic practices.
BHAKTI MOVEMENT
• In the ninth century Sankara started a Hindu revivalist movement giving a new orientation to Hinduism.
• His doctrine of Advaita or Monism was too abstract to appeal to the common man.
• Moreover, there was a reaction against the Advaita concept of Nirgunabrahman (God without attributes) with the emergence of the idea of Sagunabrahman (God with attributes).
• In the twelfth century, Ramanuja, who was born at Sriperumbudur near modern Chennai, preached Visishtadvaita.
• According to RamanujaGod is Sagunabrahman. The creative process and all the objects in creation are real but not illusory as was held by Sankaracharya. Therefore, God, soul, matter are real. But God is inner substance and the rest are his attributes. He also advocated prabattimarga or path of self-surrender to God. He invited the downtrodden to Vaishnavism.
• In the thirteenth century, Madhava from Kannada region propagated Dvaita or dualism of Jivatma and Paramatma. According to his philosophy, the world is not an illusion but a reality. God, soul, matter are unique in nature.
• Nimbarka and Vallabhacharya were also other preachers of Vaishnavite Bhakti in the Telangana region.
plz mark as brainiest