Bhakti yoga has been by far the most common form of yoga practiced in India for more than two millennia. Although The Yoga Sutras of Patarijali has become the canonical text for yoga philosophy and practice in the West, few in India either presently or historically have actually read or even know about it. Most Hindus across the centuries have gained their yoga philosophy from the stories of great yogi exemplars found in the bhakti literature of the subcontinent.
In simplest terms, bhakti is the heart-felt practice of love and devotion to God. In Western yoga circles, the term is often associated with the increasingly popular practice of kirtana, or chanting in a group or at large gatherings. But bhakti yoga is far more complex and ancient, and embraces many strands and practices. Edwin F. Bryant focuses on one important school of bhakti as a way into understanding this practice in general. He explores a Krsna tradition in depth to show what bhakti is and how it is expressed.
He supplies his own trans-lations of central texts from that tradition in the form of tales and teachings drawn from arguably the most influential text on Bhakti, called the Bhagavata Purana, or the Beautiful Legend of God: And he com-pares and, contrasts them with the bhakti practices outlined in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
This clarifying study establishes a baseline for understanding bhakti yoga, and will be welcomed by students and devotees of the spiritual heritage of India.
