The Mahanubhavs

The ascetic devotional sect known as the Mahanubhavs – ‘Those of the Great Experience’ – arose in thirteenth-century Maharashtra and initially experienced a fairly rapid expansion across the northern and eastern areas of the region. However, by the end of the fourteenth century the sect had moved underground, having withdrawn to remote areas and villages in order to achieve defensive isolation from the larger Hindu context. Although the prominent leaders of the early Mahanubhavs were Brahmans (o