Shared Food, Shared Devotion: Equality and the Bhakti-Caste Question in Western India
On the relationship between bhakti and caste, Bhimrao Ambedkar was of two minds. On the one hand, the preeminent twentieth-century critic of caste proffered a categorical judgement of poet-saints in the vernacular devotional traditions popularly known as the bhakti movement. "The saints have ne...
| Published in: | Nidān |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Published: |
Univ.
2022
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| In: |
Nidān
Year: 2022, Volume: 7, Issue: 1, Pages: 84-93 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | On the relationship between bhakti and caste, Bhimrao Ambedkar was of two minds. On the one hand, the preeminent twentieth-century critic of caste proffered a categorical judgement of poet-saints in the vernacular devotional traditions popularly known as the bhakti movement. "The saints have never, according to my study, carried on a campaign against Caste and Untouchability," he wrote. "They did not preach that all men were equal. They preached that all men were equal in the eyes of God—a very different and a very innocuous proposition, which nobody can find difficult to preach or dangerous to believe in" (Ambedkar 2014: 336). Yet on the other hand, Ambedkar chose to dedicate his landmark treatise The Untouchables to saints in that very tradition: "Inscribed to the memory of Nandnar, Ravidas, Chokhamela, three renowned saints who were born among the Untouchables and who by their piety and virtue won the esteem of all" (Ambedkar 2008: 3). Unconditional in his assessment of bhakti’s failure to challenge structures of oppression, the anti-caste theorist nonetheless found himself drawn to saints at the heart of the bhakti canon. What was it about saints and their stories—about the narrative universe of medieval and early modern bhakti—that somehow appealed to Ambedkar, even as he remained fundamentally sceptical of the social value of bhakti traditions? |
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| ISSN: | 2414-8636 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Nidān
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.58125/nidan.2022.1 |