Viraha means “separation” in classical Sanskrit poetry . Much of vernacular devotional ( bhakti ) poetry, has Viraha as a well-established...

  The term yatri refers to a novitiate Bairagi, a renunciant ascetic society made up of worshippers of the deity Vishnu (bhakta). As a c...

  Krishna's foster mother in Hindu mythology, who welcomes him the night he is born and raises him until he is old enough to return ...

  Hindu devotion may be described using two different terms, each with two different sets of assumptions. Darshan ("seeing") is ...

  Visarjana means  "dismissing" in Sanskrit. The sixteenth and last upacharas ("offerings") offered to a god as part o...

    Vinaya Patrika or a petition letter is a collection of 280 short poems written in the Braj Bhasha dialect by poet-saint Tulsidas (1...

  Vibhishana is the younger brother of Ravana , the demon king of Lanka, in the Ramayana, the earlier of the two major Indian epics. V...

  Vibhuti is a Sanskrit word that means “power”.  Sacred ash with which worshippers of the deity Shiva ( bhakta ) brand their bodies, genera...

    ("bamboo") In Indian classical music, the bamboo flute is an essential instrument. It is the signature instrument of the d...

  Vatsalya ("calf-like") is a Sanskrit word that means to be or behave like a calf.  Bhava Rupa Goswami , a devotee ( bhakta ) o...

    One of the most convincing legends in colonialist mythology about the ferocity of the East and the demonic aspects of Hinduism is that...

  The practice of Sahajananda Swami (1781–1830), who was born near the holy city of Ayodhya in eastern India but lived most of his life in...

      (early sixteenth century) One of the ashtachap , a group of eight bhakti (devotional) poets from northern India. The Pushti Marg, ...

      (8th century) The last of the Nayanars, a group of sixty-three poet-saints from southern India who were Shiva worshippers (bhakta). ...

  ("Rudra's eye") The dried seed of the Elaeocarpus ganitrus tree, which is revered as Shiva's holy tree. Shiva's ...

Someone who is intellectual and intelligent who can appreciate a developed artistic mood (rasa). The term refers to a person who has tra...

  (late 16th c.) Saiyid Ibrahim was a poet-saint and Krishna follower (bhakta) who was born a Muslim, especially a Pathan (Afghan), and wh...

  Radhashtami  ("Radha's eighth") is a Hindu festival. The festival takes place on the eighth day of the bright (waxing) hal...

  Vallabhacharya (1479–1531) formed a religious community whose teachings have remained the sect's primary impact. Vallabhacharya...

  An austere society of devo monks (bhakta) of the deity Shiva in his guise as Pashupati, "Lord of Beasts," that has vanished. A...