The Bhakti movement was a significant religious current in medieval Hinduism that emphasised personal devotion (bhakti) to a chosen deity as the path to spiritual liberation. It sought to communicate religious teachings across all sections of society, often through the medium of regional languages, making the message accessible to ordinary people.
The movement originated in Tamilakam during the 6th century CE, gaining prominence through the hymns and teachings of the Vaishnava Alvars and the Shaiva Nayanars in early medieval South India. From there, devotional currents spread northwards over the following centuries, sweeping across east and north India from the 15th century onwards and reaching their zenith between the 15th and 17th centuries CE.
Regionally, the Bhakti movement developed around different Hindu deities, giving rise to traditions associated with Vaishnavism (centred on Vishnu and his avatars), Shaivism (Shiva), Shaktism (the goddess), and Smartism. It was shaped by numerous poet-saints whose compositions reflected a wide range of philosophical positions, from the theistic dualism of Dvaita to the absolute monism of Advaita Vedanta. By using vernacular languages such as Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, Hindi, Bengali and others, the saint-poets brought devotional literature into the everyday life of communities across the subcontinent.
The Bhakti movement has traditionally been viewed as an influential social reformation within Hinduism, since it offered an individual-focused path to spirituality that was, in principle, open regardless of birth or gender. More recent scholarship has questioned whether the movement constituted a reform or rebellion in a strict sense, suggesting instead that it represented a revival, reworking and recontextualisation of older Vedic traditions in new social and linguistic settings.
Adapted from the English Wikipedia article on the Bhakti movement.