The seeker's impassioned yearning for the Divine, unmediated—here and now—is the essence of bhakti. As old as time, its spirit suffused the outpourings of mystic poets across India from the eighth century onward. Their compositions—passionate, sensuous, intimate, often articulated in regional languages and dialects—spoke to cobbler and priest alike, and have embedded themselves in our collective unconscious. The two-hundred-odd poems in this volume remind us of this rich palette of human longing: from the trenchant irony of Kabir and audacious sensuality of Annamayya and Chandidas to the earthy mysticism of Tukaram and fierce lyricism of Mira and Akka Mahadevi. We travel the emotional arc of bhakti, from wild longing to liberation, through these utterances and many more.
