The power of bhakti

The newcomers and the people of India were very different in belief:

• Islam is monotheistic: one God, one Prophet, one holy book;
• India's own traditions had many schools of thought and no single holy book.

Some invaders, following their own harsh version of their faith, wanted to destroy the 'infidels' (people of other faiths). They plundered and destroyed some of the oldest and most sacred sites and temples.

In other parts of the world, rulers like this had wiped out the local faiths completely. For a time, people may have feared that the same would happen in India.

But it did not. More than a thousand years later, India's own belief systems are still alive, and Islam is also practised in India alongside other religions.

What made that possible? Part of the answer is how deeply culture lived in everyday life.

The Purāṇas and the two great epics (the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata) were everywhere:

• in poetry, drama, puppetry;
• in painting, dance and sculpture;
• in visits to temples and festivals.

Culture was not kept in one building that could be destroyed.

Then there was bhakti. The bhakti mārga is the path of devotion: loving God with your whole heart. It was one of several paths to mokṣha (release from the cycle of birth and death).

Bhakti needed no rituals and no priests. Anyone could follow it, anywhere.

That is the key point. A path that needs no priest and no temple is very hard to destroy.

The bhakti tradition had taken firm shape by the 6th century. In this troubled period it became popular again, with verses and songs in local languages about love, compassion and equality. It gave people strength in hard times.