Devotional Religions in South Asia

Catalog description

This course stages a series of encounters with the concept of devotion, or "bhakti," a theological framework whose varied, vivid, and heartfelt expressions form an integral part of how religion is experienced in South Asia. Though most commonly identified with one particular literary genre, devotional lyric poetry written in north Indian vernaculars, and one particular religion, Hinduism, bhakti comes in many guises. We will examine bhakti as part of a phenomenology of authentic and personal religious experience but also as an emblem of legitimacy that empowers specific communities and values at the expense of others. We will explore the vital role that bhakti has played in Jain, Buddhist, Sikh, Muslim and even South Asian Christian religious imaginations. We will look at how bhakti is inscribed within Indian history, in the context of ephemeral performance, as well as within colonial and contemporary South Asian politics and political theology. As the course unfolds, we will trace the multi-dimensional impact of devotional religion within literate and non-literate media, through languages and regions, among different castes, classes, traditions, even across and beyond the category of religion itself. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.