Statue of Saint Dnyaneshwar located in Chakur, Maharashtra. Saint Dnyaneshwar is considered an important saint of the path of Bhakti.
In the thirteenth century, Dnyaneshwar in Maharashtra translated the Bhagavad Gita into Marathi. This was a revolutionary event from a cultural point of view. He encouraged people to connect emotionally with divinity. This was the devotional path of Hindu religion. Here Dnyaneshwar or the God of Knowledge is addressed as a saint.
According to legends, Dnyaneshwar was once challenged by a tantric yogi named Changa Nath. Changa Nath came to his village riding on a tiger to scare this young poet-saint. At that time Dnyaneshwar and his siblings were sitting on a wall. Seeing Changa Nath, Dnyaneshwar blew that wall into the sky with his power. Seeing Dnyaneshwar and his siblings flying in the sky, Changa Nath was stunned and his pride was shattered. Such stories of rivalry between Tantric Nath-Jogis and saints of the Bhakti path have been repeated at many places in the religious literature of India.
In the last 500 years, and especially since the Mughal period, the Bhakti path began to emerge and left behind the earlier sects based on Tantric rituals and gurus. The fame of Nath-Jogis continued to grow from the 10th century onwards. We come to know this from the stories of the founders of this sect, Matsyendranath and Gorakhnath.
There is a fundamental difference between the Tantric path and the Bhakti path. The objective of the Tantric path is to build power (siddhi) within the body through various religious rituals. It is believed in this path that a powerful Tantrik Yogi is more important than all the Gods and Goddesses. He has powers like flying, walking on water and changing his shape and he can even control life and death. On the contrary, in the path of devotion, God resides outside the body. Incarnations of Vishnu like Rama and Krishna are worshipped. Through this devotion, saints become powerful and earn fame.
People usually express their devotion through music and dance. They sing bhajans and kirtans in groups and dance engrossed in their devotion. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu of Puri, Annamacharya of Tirupati, Haridas of Karnataka and Panch Sakha poets of Odisha were some of the important Bhakti saints.
But Tantric rituals have little to do with music and emotions. In Tantra, the techniques and mystical knowledge of various religious rituals, architectural practices, astrology and even mystical sexual rituals are more important. The purpose of these rituals is to become more powerful. On the contrary, the purpose of the path of Bhakti is to make us realize that the world of illusion makes us attached to power. After understanding this we try to attain salvation at the feet of God.
From Tantric literature we come to know how the Gods and Goddesses were subdued. For example, in the story of Dattatreya, his mother Anasuya subdued Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva through her devotion to her husband. There are also stories of yogis who resisted the power of Hanuman and Bhairava. Thus, it is believed that they are almost more powerful than the Hindu pantheon.
Exactly the opposite is seen in the path of devotion. In it the Gods enable their devotees to fight the Tantrik Yogis riding on tigers. According to a story found in Rajasthan, a yogi named Taranath tried to attack a devotee named Payahari by taking the form of a tiger. When Payahari prayed to God, God changed Yogi from a tiger to a donkey. In the end Yogi had to apologize for his pride.
Kabir's couplets also mention the conflict between Naths and saints. But people hardly discuss this rivalry. This is because they generally want to ignore the long history and diversity of Hinduism, in order to show that Hinduism is one-sided and homogeneous.
Graphics Source: NavJivanIndia | VaskarAssets
