through the normal process of language
learning. In a religious context Sanskrit
has primarily been the province of
brahmins, serving both as a sacred
language and a common language
through which the brahmins from vari-
ous areas could communicate with each
other. Its place of pride as the religious
language par excellencehas been some-
what undercut by the influence of the
devotional (bhakti) religious movement.
One of this movement’s pervasive fea-
tures was poetry composed in vernacular
languages, which reflected the conscious
choice to speak in a language that every-
one could understand.
Sant
Literally, someone who has found the
truth, or who is searching for it. The
word is derived from the Sanskritword
sat(“truth”). More generally it refers to
two major groups of devotional (bhakti)
poet-saints. One group was centered
around the temple of Vithoba at
Pandharpurin the state of Maharashtra,
and includes saints from the Varkari
Panth community such as Namdev,
Tukaram, Chokamela, and Eknath.
The other group included later poet-
saints from various places in northern
India, among them Kabir, Ravidas,
Dadu, and Guru Nanak, the founder of
the Sikh community.
As a group the sants shared certain
general tendencies rather than an
explicit body of doctrine. Sant religion
was inclined to stress an individual-
ized, interior religion leading to a per-
sonal experience of the divine, rather
than participation in established cults.
One of the most common sant themes
was their disdain for external ritual,
and the general rejection of any wor-
ship using images. The northern
Indian sants are the most uncompro-
mising advocates of nirgunadevotion,
in which the divine is seen as beyond
conception; but even among the
Pandharpur devotees (bhakta) the
stress was on devotion to the god
Vithoba, rather than actual worship.
The sants stressed the power of the
divine Name and its ability to remove
all obstacles. They disregarded caste
distinctions, viewing them as an arbi-
trary barrier dividing the human com-
munity. They stressed instead the value
of satsang, and the transforming
effects that such “good company”
could bring. Satsang thus formed an
egalitarian community through the
common bonds of faith and devotion,
as an alternative to the hierarchical
society established by birth.
It is sometimes suggested that all of
these themes can be traced to the sants’
social background, since many of themSant
An illustrated page of Sanskrit from the first chapter of the Devimahatmya.
The illustration depicts the opening episode, in which a king and a merchant visit a hermit.