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7 - Dissenting Voices

from Introduction: Locating Devotion in Dissent and Dissent in Devotion A Thematic Overview

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2014

Rohini Mokashi-Punekar
Affiliation:
Indian Institute of Technology
Vijaya Ramaswamy
Affiliation:
Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
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Summary

Varkari Tradition

A continuous religio-socio-literary phenomenon, such as the Varkari tradition, which can be traced back to the late thirteenth century at least, may be seen in categories that have been termed as ‘a history of cultural memory’ or ‘mnemohistory’. The public memory of traditional societies is constructed from a dynamic version of the past that cares not so much for historical accuracy or fact, as for the continuing significance that the past holds for the present. The relationship of the present to the past is dynamic and is constantly shaped by the interpretations of several texts and narratives, written and oral, which live on in a kind of a living debate, extending over centuries. Chronicles of pre-colonial Indian figures, especially those from the domains of religious and devotional sects, and the literary works attributed to them, are not recorded in ways that are amenable to biographical reconstruction, but live in the collective memory of communities. Sanctified and mythologized in hagiographies, these lives may be said to be socially constructed. The contours of the life of a proto-historical figure take shape from the values and norms that constitute that community. In a sense then, if one were to trace the lives of two poet saints from the Varkari sampradaya, separated from each other by a couple of centuries, yet connected in ways that this essay hopes to explore, the narrative would also be a reconstruction of the culture of the community that had kept the memories of these lives alive.

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Publisher: Foundation Books
Print publication year: 2014

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  • Dissenting Voices
  • Edited by Vijaya Ramaswamy, Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
  • Book: Devotion and Dissent in Indian History
  • Online publication: 05 October 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9789384463090.011
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  • Dissenting Voices
  • Edited by Vijaya Ramaswamy, Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
  • Book: Devotion and Dissent in Indian History
  • Online publication: 05 October 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9789384463090.011
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

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  • Dissenting Voices
  • Edited by Vijaya Ramaswamy, Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
  • Book: Devotion and Dissent in Indian History
  • Online publication: 05 October 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9789384463090.011
Available formats
×