Three Bhakti Voices (Mirabai, Surdas, and Kabir in Their Time and Ours)

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Item Code: IDE125
Author: John Stratton Hawley
Publisher: Oxford University Press, New Delhi
Language: English
Edition: 2023
ISBN: 9780198085393
Pages: 462 (B & W Figures: 14)
Cover: Paperback
Other Details 8.5 inch X 5.5 inch
Weight 470 gm
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Book Description

From the Jacket:

The landscape of North Indian religion was dramatically transformed in the 15th and 16th centuries by a remarkable family of post-saints. Among the most famous and beloved of these figures - in India and throughout the world - are Mirabai, Surdas, and Kabir. In this book, John Stratton Hawley takes a probing look at all three, finding that many of the beliefs and legends surrounding them - even central motifs - emerged long after their deaths.

Analyzing the oldest manuscripts in libraries and collections across North India, Hawley describes how these poets were heard and perceived in their own day. The results of this exploration are quite startling. Surdas was probably not blind until very late in life, and he was never a pupil of Vallabhacharya. The finty Kabir was early on celebrated as a poet of Krishna. And poems that would tie Mirabai to her own century do not seem to exist.

Who then are these great bhakti poets? Hawley shows that to a surprising degree they are creations of those who have loved them through the centuries. Weaving in some sixty-five English verse translations, most of them based on early manuscripts, Hawley tells this fascinating story of change and transmission.

Three Bhakti Voices brings together more than two decades of scholarly work. A number of chapters are new, while others situate previously published essay in a context designed to draw out the connections between Mira, Sur, and Kabir. Hawley begins the volume with a section on 'The Bhakti Poet-Saint' that ranges over the literature of North Indian bhakti as a whole. He ends with a meditation on what bhakti studies like this mean in the world today.

This book will appeal to anyone interested in bhakti or in the history of how major North Indian cultural motifs and institutions evolve. It is also relevant to the comparative study of saints and exemplars. Students of Hinduism, Indian and Asian religions, and Indian history will find this volume engaging.

About the Author:

John Stratton Hawley is Ann Whitney Olin Professor, Department of Religion, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York. He has published some dozen books - among them Songs of the Saints of India (with Mark Juergensmeyar); Sur Das: Poet, Singer, Saint and Krishna, the Butter Thief - and contributed to various journals and encyclopaedias. His forthcoming works include Sur's Ocean and The Life of Hinduism (coedited with Vasudha Narayanan).

 

CONTENTS

 

  Preface ix
  Transliteration and Abbreviation xii
  Poems Translated, by English Title xvi
  Poems Translated, by Hindi Title xix
  Illustrations xxii
  Introduction

 

1
THE BHAKTI POET-SAINT
1. Author and Authority 21
2. Morality beyond Morality 48
3. The Nirgun/Sagun Distinction

 

70
MIRABAI
4. Mirabai in Manuscript 89
5. Mirabai as Wife and Yogi 117
6. The Saints Subdued in Amar Chitra Katha 139
7. Krishna and the Gender of Longing

 

165
SURDAS
8. Last Seen with Akbar 181
9. The Early Sursagar and the Growth of the Sur Tradition 194
10. The Verbal Icon - How Literal? 208
11. Sur's Sudama 217
12. Creative Enumeration in Sur's Vinaya Poetry 235
13. Why Surdas Went Blind

 

248
KABIR
14. The Received Kabir: Beginnings to Bly 267
15. Kabir in His Oldest Dated Manuscript 279
16. Vinaya Crossovers: Kabir and Sur 305
17. Bhakti, Democracy, and the Study of Religion 318
  Notes 337
  Bibliography of Works Cited 399
  Index 417

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