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The development of the Bhakti movement took place in Tamil Nadu between the seventh and ninth centuries.
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It was reflected in the emotional poems of the Nayanars (devotees of Shiva) and Alvars (devotees of Vishnu).
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These saints looked upon religion not as a cold formal worship but as a loving bond based upon love between the worshipped and worshipper.
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In course of time, the ideas of the South moved up to the North but it was a very slow process.
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A more effective method for spreading the Bhakti ideology was the use of local languages.
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The Bhakti saints composed their verses in local languages.
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They also translated Sanskrit works to make them understandable to a wider audience.
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Examples include Jnanadeva writing in Marathi, Kabir, Surdas and Tulsidas in Hindi, Shankaradeva popularising Assamese, Chaitanya and Chandidas spreading their message in Bengali, Mirabai in Hindi and Rajasthani.