Bhakti means many things to many people. It is private and public, personal and political, silently contemplative and loudly musical. Often it speaks in the marginalized voices of women and the oppressed, yet it has also played a role in perpetuating injustice. What, then, is the power of bhakti? And how does it interact with forms of power other than its own?

Bhakti and Power provides an accessible entry into these issues, presenting voices and vignettes from the sixth century to the present. It asks a range of questions. Is bhakti lower-class, middle-class, or ruler-class? Is its power intrinsically tied to music and the arts? Does it address the earth and ecology, or broker the divides between Hindus, Muslims, and Jains? Does bhakti have gender, and if so, how?

Each chapter is short and pointed, generating a world of its own, but each becomes a piece in a bigger puzzle. Readers will come away with new resources for thinking about bhakti and power in specific and varied situations—and also in broad and general terms. Historians, sociologists, religionists, and students of literature, politics, and the arts will all be enriched by this discussion.