Ancient India · Topic 15 of 17
Bhakti, Tantra, Puranic sects and social change, c. 600-1200 CE
The Basics
By the 7th century, Tamil society was organised around caste and the temple. Vedic Brahmanism, with its Sanskrit sacrifices, remained the religion of a small elite. Ordinary cultivators, artisans and lower castes had little direct share in this formal worship, so a gap was waiting to be filled.
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The Tamil devotional current, once it took hold, found its most vivid expression in two groups of poet-saints: the Vaishnava Alvars, 'those who dive deep' into devotion to Vishnu, and the Shaiva Nayanars or Nayanmars, who called themselves atiyar or tontar, servants or slaves of Shiva. Tradition counts 12 Alvars and 63 Nayanmars, though the historicity of some is uncertain and their lives come to us wrapped in hagiography.
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Temples in early medieval India owned large amounts of land and employed many people.
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Tantra spread widely from about the 5th to 6th centuries.
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Shakti means the female energy or power of a deity, especially Shiva.
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Jainism survived in early medieval India mainly in Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Karnataka.
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By the early medieval period Buddhism had once rivalled Brahmanism across India. It now survived strongly only in eastern India, kept alive mainly by Pala patronage of monasteries such as Nalanda, Vikramashila, Odantapura and Somapuri.
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Hari-Hara is a composite deity, half Vishnu and half Shiva.
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Puranic Hinduism combined assimilation of cults with strong sectarian rivalry.
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Women lost public roles and depended more on male kinsmen in early medieval times.
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