HISTORY

Most of the Alvars were not born into the brahmin community. Thiruppana Alvar was from the Panar community. Kulasekara Alvar was a Kshatriya, a Chera king.

Bhakti movement was a revolution started by the Hindu saints to bring religious reforms by adopting the method of devotion to achieve salvation. This movement resulted in various rites by practising rituals of devotion among the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in the Indian subcontinent.

Only overwhelming love for and devotion to God takes centre stage in the bhakta’s entire consciousness. The sole purpose of life now becomes God, and this makes his thought, word and deed an offering to Him.

According to the Bhakti system of belief, if a devotee worships the chosen deity with a pure heart, the deity will appear in the form in which he/she may desire.

Ātman (/ˈɑːtmən/; Sanskrit: आत्मन्) is a Sanskrit word that refers to the (universal) Self or self-existent essence of individuals, as distinct from ego (Ahamkara), mind (Citta) and embodied existence (Prakṛti).

These are, shravana, kirtana, smarana, pada-sevana, archana, vandana, dasya, sakhya and atma-nivedana. Shravana is listening to the divine name, the lila’s or sports of the Lord, the stories of saints, as these may orient one’s mind towards spirituality.

The Alvars (Tamil: ஆழ்வார், romanized: Āḻvār, lit. ‘The Immersed’) were Tamil poet-saints of South India who espoused bhakti (devotion) to the Hindu god Vishnu in their songs of longing, ecstasy, and service. They are venerated in Vaishnavism, which regards Vishnu as the Ultimate Reality.

The Sanskrit word bhakti comes from the root bhaj, which means “to adore or worship God.” Bhakti yoga has been called “love for love’s sake” and “union through love and devotion.” Bhakti yoga, like any other form of yoga, is a path to self-realization, to having an experience of oneness with everything.

bhakti, (Sanskrit: “devotion”) in Hinduism, a movement emphasizing the mutual intense emotional attachment and love of a devotee toward a personal god and of the god for the devotee.

devotion Bhakti, which comes to mean “devotion” or “love” in later literature, is one of the central concepts of Hinduism. It describes that side of Indian religion in which the personal engagement of a devotee with a personally conceived divinity is understood to be the core of the religious life.