audiobook Theology and Society in the Second and Third Centuries of the Hijra. Volume 1 (Handbook of Oriental Studies: Section 1; The Near and Middle East) by van Josef Ess in History

Description

Approaching the Divine: The Integration of v r Bhakti in r vai avism is situated in the context of the ongoing scholarly debate regarding the historical evolution of Tamil r vai avism. This study spans the period from the second half of the first millennium; i.e. the bhakti period to the period of consolidation of the scriptural and sectarian tradition in the first half of the second millennium. Traditionally; the lives of the bhakti saints have been used to understand their hymns. Examination of these hagiographies through the lenses of theology; caste; sectarian conflict and popular legends; however; suggests that these life stories might themselves be constructs of the latter period; and are governed by socio-economic and political impulses as much as by spiritual ones. This work attempts to trace the process whereby a Sanskritic brahmanical tradition and a devotional Tamil folk tradition were knit together; arguing that the ways in which the saint-poets hymns were interpreted and integrated contained elements of both continuity and change.