Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how the Niranjani devotional community of 17th and 18th-century Rajasthan, by embracing literacy, participated in literary and intellectual exchange with nearby bhakti, yogi, and Sikh communities as well as Rajput and Mughal courtly traditions.

Paper long abstract:

The Niranjani Sampraday of Rajasthan, being founded in the late 16th/early 17th century by Haridas 'Niranjani' around the area of modern-day Didvana, developed in the midst of several similar devotional communities in the area, most importantly the Dadu Panth and the Nath ascetic order, not to mention the Ramanandi Sampraday in nearby Galta and the Sikh community to the north in Punjab. Although the Niranjanis are best known for their erudite articulations of nirgun bhakti, it was actually through extensive intellectual exchange with not only other 'nirgun' traditions but also with Vaishnava and Shaiva groups that they developed their heady mix of nirguni Adhyatma literature. Even more interesting, the many types of texts that they composed -- including hymns (bhajan and kirtan), commentaries on Sanskrit works (bhasya and tika), treatises on metaphysics (tatva-mimansa) and poetics (chand and alankar shastra) -- reveal that their thought and practice developed in conversation with not only 'bhakti' and ascetic communities, but also with more 'orthodox' Sanskritic traditions and even with 'courtly' traditions of both religious and 'secular' literature. I argue that this exchange was made possible by the Niranjanis' enthusiastic embracement of literacy and their prolific, multi-lingual literary activity.