The Bhakti Sect of Valiabhacarya

One of the foremost leaders of the devotional revolution which swept through Hindu society in the 15th and 16th centuries was Vallabhacarya. In terms of religion, Vallabhacarya’s main contribution was his demonstration of the way in which a human being can shed his or her limited, mortal ego in order to rediscover an eternal individual participation in an unlimited divine being. With regard to literature, some of the earliest prose writing in any form of Hindi was produced by Vallabhacarya’s followers in the Caurasi Vaisnavan ki Varta, a collection of accounts of personal efforts to apply the teachings of Vallabhacarya to everyday life. The first part of the Bhakti Sect of Vallabhacarya deals with Vallabhacarya’s life and with his establishment of an organisation for his followers, a philosophical system to explain his view of the world and a spiritual method for putting his teachings into practice. The second part of the book is made up of an English translation of the sections of the Caurasi Vaisnavan ki Varta describing the lives of four early disciples of Vallabhacarya, one of whom was the poet Suradasa.