Devalok
How a tradition frames it · 2 tellings · Northeast India, Pan-India

Krishna alone: Sankardev's Assam

Sankardev's Ekasarana keeps only Krishna as an object of worship and drops Shiva and Brahma from the cult, sung through the Kirtan Ghosha.

Who is in it

Texts: Kirtan Ghosha

The story, beat by beat

  1. Sankardev, born in 15th-century Assam, teaches surrender to one god, Krishna, and nothing else.
  2. He rejects Vedic sacrifice, image worship of many gods and caste barriers.
  3. Worship is by singing and listening together in prayer halls.
  4. His Kirtan Ghosha in Brajavali, 26 sections, becomes the community's scripture.
  5. Shiva and Brahma are not worshipped in the tradition at all.

monotheism kirtan reform

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Encyclopedia

Ekasarana Dharma (Assamese)

Northeast India · Assam; Majuli sattras Vaishnava Assamese Ekasarana Vaishnava

Sankardev, who lived from about 1449 to 1568, built an Assamese Vaishnavism on the principle of ekasarana, taking shelter in one alone. The one is Krishna, and the tradition refuses to place any other god beside him: there is no Shiva worship and no Brahma worship in the sattras, no Vedic ritual and no priestly hierarchy, and the practice is congregational singing of the name and listening to the stories. His Kirtan Ghosha, composed in the Brajavali literary language and arranged in twenty-six sections, is what the congregations sing. His birth year is still argued by scholars.

Sankardev — Wikipedia; Kirtan Ghosha — Wikipedia; Srimanta Sankardeva

Encyclopedia

Puranic Trimurti

Pan-India Smarta

The Puranic scheme keeps Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva together as creator, preserver and destroyer, and the Smarta practice worships all three among the five household gods.

What is different here:

Ekasarana removes two of the three from worship altogether; there is no triad in the Assamese cult, only Krishna.

Sankardev — Wikipedia

Sources: Sankardev — Wikipedia; Kirtan Ghosha — Wikipedia; Srimanta Sankardeva

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