Consider the following Bhakti Saints:
1. Dadu Dayal
2. Guru Nanak
3. Tyagaraja
Who among the above was/were preaching when the Lodi dynasty fell and Babur took over?

Question

Question

This question was previously asked in

UPSC Civil Services (Prelims) Official Paper 2013

Answer 1

The correct answer is 2 only.

Key Points

Guru Nanak Dev was born in 1469.
Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi in 1526.
When Babur took over and established the Mughal dynasty Nanak was travelling to different parts of India and preaching Sikhism.
Babur once met Guru Nanak during one of his travel.
Hence option 2 is correct.

Additional Information

Some of the important leaders of the Bhakti movement are:
- Namadeva and Ramananda (Maharashtra and Allahabad) – Both of them taught the concept of bhakti to all the four varnas and disregarded the ban on people of different castes cooking together and sharing meals.
- Sankara and Ramanuja – The propounders of Advaita (non-duality) and vishishta adwaitha (qualified non-duality) respectively. They believed God to be nirguna parabrahma and satguna parabrahma respectively.
- Vallabhacharya – propounder of shuddha adwaitha or pure non-duality.
- Chaitanya (Bengal) – relied on the use of music, dance and bhajans to get in touch with God. ‘love’ was the watchword of the Chaitanya cult.
- Kabir – was a disciple of Ramananda, and was raised by a Muslim weaver. He stood for doing away with all the unnecessary customs and rituals in both religions and bringing union between these religions.
- Guru Nanak.
- Nimbakacharya – founder of the Radha-Krishna cult. He expressed this relation to substantiate the importance of marriage. It was also used as an example of God’s love to the people.