Split in bhakti, United in bhakti

Abstract

Jaimini’s Book of the Horse Sacrifice (Jaiminīya Āśvamēdhikaparvan) is a late mediaeval Vaiṣṇava text that is unusual for several reasons. In this article we examine the interplay of violence, devotion and ritual in the Sanskrit vorlage and its Kannada transfiguration—the Jaiminibhārata of Lakṣmīśa (ca. 1500 CE). Violent emotions or extreme feelings are deeply imbricated in South Asia religious discourse. Extreme feeling is entangled with the history of texts that emerged as a result of interreligious and intra- religious debate. Our article puts forth the idea of violence as a mode of bhakti devotion, and we historicize the emergence of violence-as-bhakti in the Vaiṣṇava context, using the tale of Mayūradhvaja from Jaimini’s Book.