How Annamacharya Makes It Easier To Understand Bhakti 

In The Phenomenology of the Mind (or Spirit), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel paints a picture of an ‘unhappy soul’. An unhappy soul is one who prays to a God, who she/he believes to be all-powerful, all-knowing and all good. In contrast, the person sees herself/himself as powerless, ignorant and helpless sinner. This person, Hegel argues, is unhappy because she/he demeans herself/himself and projects all the qualities she/he desires onto a ‘being’ that is separate from herself/himself. Hegel declares this to be wrong. The unhappy soul is projecting what are her/his qualities onto God. To take those qualities back, to recognize one’s agency in the world, he argues is the process to achieving freedom and less apathy towards the world.

As powerful as these ideas were when I came across them, this led me to wonder, how then do we understand bhakti? The Hindu conception of bhakti in its most traditional form is understood as devotion, loyalty and unwavering faith in God, often absolving one’s own desires and needs. The most devout bhakts are often known for making personal sacrifices in favour of devotion to God.

Does this description of bhakti fit Hegel’s description of the unhappy soul? Does it not involve the forgoing of one’s agency (or freedom) for the sake of religious accomplishment? Ambedkar in his famous speech, warned against bhakti:

He seems to suggest that bhakti is almost antithetical to the idea of individual liberty.

But there is another aspect to bhakti that needs to be reconciled with this view. Bhakti saints, poets, singers, often expressed a sense of individual liberty. Names like Kabir, Meera, Narsinh Mehta, Kanaka Das, Purandara Das, Andal, Rama Das, Tulsidas, to name a few, are all seen as advocates of a free-spirited approach to life.

How is it that such champions of free spirit are also proponents of Bhakti? Is Bhakti also a medium to achieve the freedom and individual liberty?

I am going to pick one example here to illustrate my point- Tallapaka Annamacharya (or Annamayya). While I am no scholar of any kind, just from his most popular songs it is evident that Annamayya was an intellectual. His ideas, I am sure, would have been not only regarded as profound but also radical for his otherwise conservative time in history and his pious background.

I am going to describe below three specific aspects of his poetry (not meant to be an exhaustive list) suggest that bhakti could also be a medium to achieve individual liberty. Consider three ideas that come through his songs:

Creative expression through bhakti

I can only quote what A K Ramanujan had to say about Annamayya’s songs in this respect:

Annamayya, seems to have devised a new way of expressing eroticism such that it is not confined to either the more familiar devotion, nor the overtly erotic courtesan music that someone like Kshetreyya is often associated with. Annamayya’s expression of sensuality through his love poems is a case of exercising creative liberty in the area of temple music – which is otherwise a regimental space.

What motivates him to do so? His own poetry suggests it’s his resolute faith in God – or bhakti.

Philosophy through bhakti

The first two lines of his composition ‘Nanati Bhatuku’ are as follows:

“Nanati bhatuku natakamu

Kanaka kannati kaivalyamu”

“Daily life is just a play

It is what is not visible to the eye, that will liberate you”

Echoing Shakespeare’s “All the worlds a stage”, Annamayya talks about the need to take time out in our daily grind and reflect on our existence. In the following stanzas he further describes the importance we place on food, clothing, sins and good deeds, lose them when we recognise our reality. It is this recognition that he describes as salvation.

It is not hard to imagine that to write about such deeply philosophical ideas must have been difficult for the poets and singers of his time. Most poets, including great ones like Kakarla Tyagabrahmam (or Tygaraja) who came a few centuries after Annamayya, confined their subjects to deity and devotion. But Annamayya was not bound by such social mores of his time. As is clear from his own writing, bhakti leads him to write poetry about intellectual ideas he felt strongly – as any great artist would.

Social reform through bhakti

In “Bhramam okate”, Annamayya writes:

“Kandhuvagu hinadi kamulindu levu

Andhariki srihare anteratma”

“There are no differences of high and low in society,

God is the soul in each of us”

Annamayya’s bhakti drives him to believe that God is the spirit or the soul in every human being – regardless of their caste or class. In the following lines, he further states that there are no differences between the ground on which a Brahmin or a Dalit stand – equating the two castes as just people with the same spirit.

Not only are the lyrics clearly stating the ideas of social reform at a time when caste system was rampant(an issue that remains contentious even today), but he also uses a style of music that is closer to folk than it is to temple music by having expressions like “tandanana” in the song. This bold move would have upset many people within his own social circles and especially the royalty of his time. But if we are to go by his own words, his commitment to bhakti makes him embark on such a trajectory- asserting his sense of individual liberty over what is socially acceptable.

In each of the above cases, Annamayya was pushing the envelope. He was challenging the status quo and charting a new path for himself. It is clear that each of these actions was a deliberate expression of individual liberty. If we are to go by the legend, it came at a heavy personal cost – many of his written songs and works were burnt by his contemporaries during his own lifetime. This act was meant to warn him to not cross the rigid confines of what is socially acceptable, which only further reiterates the commitment that Annamayya had to his own personal liberty.

How then can we reconcile such contrasting views on bhakti? As I pondered about this question I came across the work of the American pragmatist philosophers. Without going into the details, I will leave you with the upshot. What if we are to judge a given philosophical idea not by its essential meaning, but by the role it plays in the life of the person who is considering it? What if we are to ask, not what the idea is, but how it impacts the life of the person?

Consider for a moment a person in depression, whose belief in God helps her/him deal with it. Consider another person, who may have taken up social service as a result of his/her faith in God. If their holding factual incorrect ideas allows them to lead better lives, who are we to judge? This would suggest that there is a possibility that the subjective inner phenomenon of bhakti plays a different role in the life of one person as opposed to another. While it could limit one’s notion of empowerment and freedom, it could provide another with exactly those qualities.

We tend to underestimate the variety of the human experience, but rarely do we know what is happening in the inner-lives of people. How then can I judge one idea against another? Why should I or anyone else presume we know what is right for another? Shifting the focus from the idea itself to studying the impact it has had on a person’s life, allows us to avoid judging ideas and allow us to consider their consequences.

Such an approach to reconciling what seem like conflicting views of bhakti, appealed to me immensely. Not just because, it put my general curiosity on the subject to rest, but also because it made me look at my own opinions in humility. I realised that my views of rationality and atheism were not a superior perspective of life, but ideas that I found useful. Just the way someone else may have found bhakti, dharma or some other religious idea useful to them. At the same time, I realised I could empathise with and respect the personal struggle, the intellectual ingenuity and conviction of Annamayya, even without actually concurring with his ideas. Allowing each to pursue their own conception of good - is this then what we mean by ‘Liberty’?

(Image credits: Tallapragada Sriram/Wikimedia Commons)