Bhakti
Bhakti
(Skr. division, share) Fervent, loving devotion to the object of contemplation or the divine being itself, the almost universally recognized feeling approach to the highest reality, in contrast to vidya (s.v.) or jnana (s.v.), sanctioned by Indian philosophy and productive of a voluminous literature in which the names of Ramamanda, Vallabha, Nanak, Caitanya, and Tulsi Das are outstanding. It is distinguished as apara (lower) and para (higher) bhakti, the former theistic piety, the latter philosophic meditation on the unmanifest brahman (cf. avyakta). — K.F.L.