Daily History Challenge · No. 66 · Wednesday 2 September 2026 · When?
Puzzle No. 66: When?
The event was Bhakti devotional movement emerges in Tamil South India, in c. 6th to 7th century CE.
The answer
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.