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The Bhakti movement of Hinduism saw two ways of imaging the nature of the divine : Nirguna and Saguna. [98] Nirguna Brahman was the concept of the ultimate reality as formless and without attributes or quality. [99] Saguna Brahman, in contrast, was envisioned and developed as with form, attributes and quality. [99]
The Alvars (Tamil: ஆழ்வார், romanized: Āḻvār, lit. 'The Immersed') were the Tamil poet-saints of South India who espoused bhakti (devotion) to the Hindu preserver deity Vishnu, in their songs of longing, ecstasy, and service. [2] They are venerated in Vaishnavism, which regards Vishnu as the Ultimate Reality.
The Bhakti movement was a theistic devotional trend that originated in the seventh-century Tamil south India (now parts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala), and spread northwards. [131] It swept over east and north India from the fifteenth-century onwards, reaching its zenith between the 15th and 17th century CE.
It contrasts with Saguna Brahman which is a state of loving awareness (Bhakti yoga). [12] Advaita Vedanta non-dualistically holds that Brahman is divine, the Divine is Brahman, and this is identical to that which is Atman (one's soul, innermost self) and nirguna (attribute-less), infinite, love, truth, knowledge, "being-consciousness-bliss". [13]
Ezhuthachan introduced a movement of domesticated religious textuality in Kerala. [3] He was a significant voice of the Bhakti movement in south India. [3] The Bhakti movement was a collective opposition to Brahmanical excesses and the moral and political decadence of the then-Kerala society. [3]
The bhakti literature that sprang from Alvars has contributed to the establishment and sustenance of a culture that deviated from the Vedic religion and rooted itself in devotion as the only path for salvation. In addition, they contributed to Tamil devotional verses independent of a knowledge of Sanskrit.
Many Hindu sects such as Bhakti movement and Lingayatism originated in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka respectively. In addition to literary sources, folk festivals, village deities, shamanism, ritual theater and traditions, which are unique to the region, are also good indicators of what early Dravidian people believed/practiced.
Saguna brahman (lit. 'The Absolute with qualities'; [ 1 ] from Sanskrit saguṇa 'with qualities', guṇa 'quality', and Brahman 'the Absolute ') is a concept of ultimate reality in Hinduism , close to the concept of immanence , the manifested divine presence .