A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement

455 Pages·2015·7.906 MB·English

by  John Stratton Hawley

A Storm of Songs

A S T o R M o f S o n g S
90
India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement
John STRATTon hAwlEy
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
2015
Copyright © 2015 by the President and fellows of harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
first Printing
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
hawley, John Stratton, 1941– author.
A storm of songs : India and the idea of the bhakti movement / John Stratton hawley.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBn 978-0-674-18746-7
1. Bhakti—Social aspects—history. I. Title.
Bl1214.32.B53h42 2015
294.509—dc23
2014026466
To my academic patit- pbvan, who have rescued me when fallen:
Aditya Behl
Shrivatsa Goswami
Monika Horstmann
Rachel McDermott
Rupert Snell

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Transliteration and Pronunciation xiii
Introduction 1
1. The Bhakti Movement and Its Discontents 13
2. The Transit of Bhakti 59
3. The Four Sampradbys and the Commonwealth of Love 99
4. The View from Brindavan 148
5. Victory in the Cities of Victory 190
6. A Nation of Bhaktas 230
7. What Should the Bhakti Movement Be? 285
Notes 343
Bibliography 381
Index 423

Acknowledgments
And the last shall be first. As I come to the end of the decade- long project
that has resulted in the book before you, I have the pleasure of thanking
some of the people and institutions who have made it possible. not all, by
any means: how could I possibly record the full extent of the kindnesses
and conversations that have gone into the making of this book? If you
remember such a conversation and do not find your name in the list below
or in the text and its notes, please accept my silent thanks.
I am grateful to the national Endowment for the humanities, the
American Institute of Indian Studies, the Andrew w. Mellon foundation,
and Barnard College for grants that made it possible for me to travel to
India, and to Barnard for the leaves that allowed me to accept them. I am
also indebted to the leonard hastings Schoff fund of The University
Seminars at Columbia University, which has provided support for aspects
of the book’s publication. Members of the University Seminar on South
Asia discussed the final chapter with me on September 15, 2014.
In India I have been the recipient of many kindnesses from the India
International Centre, the Sri Caitanya Prema Samsthana, the Indira gandhi
national Centre for the Arts, the nehru Memorial library, the Indira
gandhi Center for the Arts, the national Museum, Prof. Seniruddha Dash
and the staff of the new Catalogus Catalogorum, the Indian Institute for
Advanced Study, the oriental Institute of Baroda, the Rajasthan oriental
Research Institute, the Vrindaban Research Institute, the City Palace
library and museum in Jaipur, Rabindra Bhavan and the hindi Bhavan at
Shantiniketan, Vrajesh Kumarji Maharaj and his staff at the Sarasvati
Vibhag library in Kankroli, and numerous other manuscript collections