Regional Culture

Answer : Kabir was born form a Hindu widow in 1440, who left him immediately after his birth ‘to hide her shame’ by the side of a water tank in Banaras. He was the most popular of all the disciples of Ramananda, occupies a place of pride in the annals of the Bhakti movement in northern India. He was brought up by a muslim weaver named Niru. Kabir married and adopted the profession of his father, but being a man of sober and serious mood, he spent most of his time in solitude and meditation. He was initiated into the bhakti cult by Ramananda.

The entry of Kabir into the fold of the Bhakti movement proved most fruitful in bringing about reconciliation between the Hindus and the muslims. With filial attachment to both the religious communities, Kabir was free from religious prejudices against either. He followed both the path of mysticism, the bhakti and the sufi tradition. Though infamously religions in outlook, he was not a slave of either Hinduism or Islam. He was a man of absolutely independent thoughts and broadly criticised the evils of both the religions. Kabir addressed mixed gatherings consisting of Muslim and Hindus and made disciples from both. He denounced the Brahmins and the mullahas alike to be sole custodian of their religious orders and took them to task for their orthodox and exploitative attitude. He refused to accept the sanctity of Vedas as well as Quran to be the revealed scriptures.

Kabir believed in oneness of God, irrespective of the names by which the human being addressed him. He had full faith in Hindu doctrine at rebirth and Karma and stood for purity of life, complete self-surrender to God and His devotional worship for the attainment of mukti. Kabir vehemently opposed the idol-worship, caste system and untouchability as practised by the Hindus, and simultaneously condemned the orthodoxy and meaningless rituals of the muslims. He exposed the five daily prayers in the mosque without the purity of heart and sincere dedication to God. Kabir laid stress on religious toleration and taught a lesson of brotherhood to Hindus and muslims. Kabir raised his voice against the custom of sati and child marriage, the two evils which were purely social in character.

Kabir was not in favour of renouncing the world and going to forests and hills in search of true knowledge or salvation; instead he advised his followers to earn their livelihood by the sweat of their brow and perform all the duties as householders while leading an honest, noble and dedicated life. Kabir’s teaching were in perfect harmony with the social and religions needs of the times; he identified himself completely with the concept of an integrated Indian society and won the hearts of millions. His dohas and popular saying of revolutionary social import are widely known and have become a part and parole of the medieval Indian cultural heritage. After his death the followers of Kabir, both Hindus and Muslims, became known as Kabirpanthis.

Guru Nanak, a young contemporary of Kabir, who took up the cause of socio-religious reforms in the Pubjab, proved to be the most celebrated of all the bhakti reformers of medieval India. His teachings were identical with those of Kabir, though Nanak was more revolutionary than the latter in his line of approach, and in the long run, his efforts proved much more fruitful than those of all the other bhakti reformers. Born at Talwandi, modern Nankana Sahib (Pakistan) in 1469 at the Meta Khatri (old Kshatriya) parents Kalu Ram and Tripta Devi. Nanak grew up to be a man of contemplative nature, free from all the worldly temptations and common view of the age. Married to Sulakhani, daughter of Mulraj Khatri of Batala, he fathered two sons, Sri Chand and Lakshmi Chand, and was employed in the state granary at Sultanpur Lodhi in 1594 where he received enlightenment.

Nanak turned a Sanyasi, through temporarily, and initiated the Bhakti movement in northwestern India. In five rounds at travels, called udasis, covering a period of more than thirty years, Guru Nanak carried the message of divine worship to every nook and corner of the country besides Ceylon and the muslim places of pilgrimage at Mecca and Medina. His teachings were in conformity with all the positive tenets of the Bhakti movement as mentioned above, with the additional credit that, like Kabir, he advocated householders life for his devotees; this revolutionary concept was taken by him to the logical conclusion when he emphasized that it was possible and also desirable for the men of God, on their way to the attainment of salvation, to live as honest bread earners and householders just as a lotus flowers survives with untainted character in the midst of muddy water.

Towards the fag end of his life he set up his dehra (akin to the Maths of Shankaracharya or Khanqah of Sufi Saints) at Kartarpur on the bank of the Ravi and allowed his family to rejoin him; he took up the plough to set the example of an ideal householder. Guru Nanak adopted universal brotherhood, a concept of sufi saints, to be his own slogan and championed the cause of Hindu-Muslim unity. He introduced community lunch at his dehra as a practical step to eradicate the evils of caste discrimination and untouchability from among his followers. As a crowning victory to the mission of Guru Nanak may be mentioned the institution of Guruship envisaged by him for the continuous propagation of his teachings; during his lifetime he appointed, on spiritual merit, one of his disciples, Bhailehna (Angat), in preference to his own sons, as his successor.

Answer : During Vijayanagar period temples emerged as important and holders. Hundreds of village were granted deities which were worshipped in large temples. Temple officiers managed the deveodana villages to ensure that the grant was utilised properly. The income from devadana villages provided sustenance to the ritual functionaries. It was also utilised to provide food offerings or to purchase goods (monthly armoatic substances and cloth) essential for carrying out the ritual rites. Cash endowments were also made by the state to the temples for providing ritual service. Temples took up irrigational work.

Temples were important centres of economic activity. They were great landholders and also carried on economic activities. They employed a number of persons, purchased local goods, gave loans to individuals, village assemblies. Temples had their trusts which utilized its funds for various purposes. The temple functioned almost as an independent economic system encompassing persons and institutions that were bound by economic links. Temples also played important role in delineating or determining social space of groupings who were participants in the worship of a particular deity. Another significant feature of temple economy was participation of Brahmanas and non-Brahmanas in the management of mathas.

Answer : The regional languages that emerged from Indo-Aryan lan­guages in the medieval period were eight in num­ ber: Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Assamense, Oriya, Marathi and Gujarati. The reformers of the Bhakti cult and the Hindi and gave a great impe­tus to the Hindi literature. In this connection the names of Ramanand, Kabir, Mira Bai deserve a special mention. Chand Bardai, the author of Prithvi Raj Raso, Jagnayak the author of Alahkhand and Amir Kurrau, great lover of Hindi, also flourished during this period. One exponent of the Rama cult was Tulsidas who wrote Ramcharitmanasa. Vidyapati sang of the love of Radha and Krishna in Mathli Hindi. Surdasa’s Sur-Sagara is an ocean of devotional songs. Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khana wrote didactic poetry of high order.

In Bengal various Sanskrit works like the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Bhagvata were translated into Bengali, Great Bengali; sCholars like Chandi Das, Vidya Pati, Kritivas, Kavindra etc., also flourished during this period who gave a great impetus to the Bengali literature. In Maharashtra Namdeva, a Bhakti reformer, preached and largely wrote in Marathi. In the Punjab, the Punjabi literature was also making a great headway under the patronage of Guru Nanak. In the South, a rich variety of literature in Tamil, Telugu and the Kanarese language was produced during this period. The Vijayanagar rulers gave a great impetus of these southern. A bird’s eye view of the regional literary develop­ments in India reveals some common strands like spirituality, mysticism, sensuousness, symbolism, allegory, and very rarely social life. In a way, one could sum up the chief burden of the literatures of this period as romanticism.