Question

why did the bhakti movement become popular by the 7th century ce

Answer 1

hey there friend. I hope this answer will help you. The world over, the image of the singer-songwriter has been a powerful one. Bards, who functioned as chroniclers and satirists mocking the meaningless conventions of their times, and who sometimes wrote and sang their verses, have featured in most world civilizations.

In India, the image of the singer-songwriter manifested itself in its fullest in what came to be known later as the Bhakti movement. The rigid caste system, the complicated ritualism that constituted the practice of worship and the inherent need to move to a more fulfilling method of worship and salvation perhaps spurred this movement.

Bhakti poets emphasized surrender to god. Equally, many of the Bhakti saints were rebels who chose to defy the currents of their time through their writings. The Bhakti tradition continues in a modified version even in the present day.

The movement probably began in the Tamil region around the 6th and 7th century AD and achieved a great deal of popularity through the poems of the Alvars and Nayanars, the Vaishnavite and Shaivite poets. Hailing from both high and low castes, these poets created a formidable body of literature that firmly established itself in the popular canon.

In the Kannada region, the movement begun by Basavanna (1105-68) in the 12th century for a time threatened the caste hierarchy and stretched the fabric of local society. While the orthodoxy managed to resist, the Bhakti movement in this region produced a rich vein of literature that came to be known as Vachana sahitya composed by Basava himself as well as his disciples (Akkamahadevi, Allama Prabhu, Devara Dasimayya and others). Consisting of pithy aphorisms, these Vachanas conveyed in unambiguous terms certain astute observations on spiritual and social matters.

As a social movement, the Bhakti movement in Karnataka, and indeed everywhere in India, challenged caste hierarchy, emphasized the individual's direct connection to god and the possibility of salvation for all through good deeds and simple living. As a literary movement, it liberated poetry from singing the praises of kings and introduced spiritual themes. From a style point of view, it introduced simple and accessible styles like vachanas (in Kannada) and other forms in various languages to literature and ended the hegemony of Sanskrit metrical forms.
Tukaram was a rebel in more ways than one. A Shudra by caste, he became a merchant. Later, defying the injunctions of the Brahmins, Tukaram chose to write on religious matters, and that too in Marathi, the language of the people.

That a Shudra chose to write was itself unacceptable to the Brahmins. Writing on religious matters in Marathi and not in Sanskrit was yet another issue. Forced by the orthodoxy to throw his manuscripts into the river, legend has it that Tukaram undertook a fast unto death and after the 13th day, his sunken notebooks appeared from the river, undamaged.

The story itself is probably apocryphal, but nevertheless illustrates the extent to which society is prepared to go to silence the rebel.

In northern India, from the 13th to the 17th centuries, a large number of poets flourished who were all Bhakti figures of considerable importance. At times, speaking of a formless god, sometimes centring their devotion on a preferred god (ishtdevata), these poets have left behind a considerable body of literature in Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Maithili and a number of other languages.

Kabir, the renowned saint of northern India, falls squarely in this tradition of singer-songwriter-critic. Living in the 13th and 14th centuries (the exact dates are disputed, but fall between 1398 and 1518), Kabir upturned the religious notions and social conventions of his time.

Kabir preached a monotheism that appealed directly to the poor and assured them of their access to god without an intermediary. He rejected both Hinduism and Islam, as well as empty religious rituals, and denounced hypocrisy. This outraged the orthodox gentry.

The Bhakti movement empowered the underbelly of Indian society in fundamental ways and also provided the required impetus for the growth of vernacular literature. This tradition of those deemed “low” singing and writing did not, however, end with the Bhakti movement comingling into the mainstream.

In 2011 in Pune, Sheetal Sathe and her husband Sachin Mali, along with two others—all with the Kabir Kala Manch—were arrested for Naxal links and also had charges of sedition slapped on them. The group had been formed in the wake of the Gujarat riots in 2002 and had performed songs and plays about social inequality, the exploitation of the labour class, farmer suicides, female infanticide, Dalit killings and corruption.

Answer 2

bhakti is the total surrender of self to God it is the expression of extreme love for God without expecting anything in return