Bhakti devotional movement emerges in Tamil South India

Date

c. 6th–7th century CE

Category

Religion & ideology

Region

Tamil Nadu, South India

Era

Post-Classical / Medieval

Significance

Around the 6th and 7th centuries CE, a powerful new mode of Hindu devotion known as bhakti crystallised in the Tamil country (Tamilakam) of South India, articulated through the ecstatic vernacular hymns of two groups of poet-saints: the twelve Vaishnava Alvars, devotees of Vishnu, and the sixty-three Shaiva Nayanars, devotees of Shiva.

Rejecting elaborate Brahmanical ritual and the exclusivity of Sanskrit, these saints expressed an intense, personal, and emotional love for a chosen deity in accessible Tamil verse, and they drew adherents from across the social spectrum, including artisans, cultivators, women, and people of low caste. Their pilgrimages between temple shrines wove sacred geography across the Tamil landscape and helped revitalise temple-centred worship while challenging the appeal of Jainism and Buddhism in the region. Their compositions were later gathered into canonical anthologies, the Vaishnava Nalayira Divya Prabandham (compiled by Nathamuni around the 10th century) and the Shaiva Tirumurai, which became foundational scriptures for the Sri Vaishnava and Shaiva Siddhanta traditions. Over subsequent centuries this Tamil bhakti impulse spread northward across the subcontinent, making it one of the most consequential and enduring currents in the history of South Asian religion.

Empires active in c. 6th–7th century CE

• Sassanid Empire
  224 CE – 651 CE
• Byzantine Empire
  330 CE – 1453 CE
• Classic Maya Civilization
  250 CE – 900 CE
• Kingdom of Aksum
  100 CE – 940 CE
• Pyu City-States
  200 BCE – 1050 CE
• Dvaravati
  575 CE – 1100 CE

Related religion & ideology events

• Muhammad's first revelation in the Cave of Hira
  c. 610 CE
• The Hijra: Muhammad's migration to Medina
  622 CE
• Official Introduction of Buddhism to Japan
  552 CE (traditional date; 538 CE in some sources)
• Adi Shankara and the Revival of Advaita Vedanta
  c. 700-750 CE
• Pope Gregory the Great and the Gregorian mission to England
  590–604 CE (mission 596–597)
• Church of the East Reaches Tang China (Alopen Mission)
  635 CE

Further reading

A Little History of Religion

The wider story

A Little History of Religion

Richard Holloway

Accessible sweep of humanity's faiths and belief systems from prehistory to the present.

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