Bhakti

Bhakti, from a root meaning to share or partake, is devotion: the loving participation of the self in God. The Bhagavad Gītā presents it as the most direct path, in which the devotee offers every action to Kṛṣṇa and is received by him. From the sixth century onward the Tamil poet-saints, the Āḻvārs devoted to Viṣṇu and the Nāyaṉmārs devoted to Śiva, made devotion a movement that crossed caste and language, and later devotional movements spread across India.

For the theistic schools of Vedānta, devotion is the heart of the way to liberation. Rāmānuja teaches that the knowledge the Upaniṣads enjoin is devotion: a steady, loving remembrance of the Lord. His successors gave a central place to surrender (prapatti), the self’s complete reliance on the Lord’s grace. Madhva holds that liberation is given by Viṣṇu’s grace to those who know and love him, and that devotion continues in liberation itself.

Advaita does not reject devotion, and Śaṅkara’s tradition has produced devotional hymns. But it treats devotion to a personal Lord as a preparation that purifies the mind for knowledge, not as the final means.