bhakti

Then ~500 years ago Bhakti movement that does not recognizes caste but only one's devotion was very popular.

We don't need to reach for Buddhism, Bhakti or the British for postfacto explainations because there's nothing extraordinary here that needs an explanation.

There are many branches of Yoga - Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Hatha Yoga, etc.

Faith belongs to the path of Bhakti Yoga (faith/devotion to God), while Advaita is about the path of Jnana Yoga, the path of knowledge.

Bhajans are an expression of Bhakti and devotion to Hindu Gods.

While Yoga and Bhakti insist that a 'deity' helps you make the progress much faster on path of self realization, Buddha did not explicitly support this.

The Bhakti movement became mainstream after 11th century AD.

Also, Bhakti movement origins are not that clear cut.

Nobody responsible or involved with this process is gonna give a written statement that they did to please the evergrowing hindutva or modi bhakti or whatsapp university.

What do you think the Bhakti movement was?

Yes Sikhism was a result of/was heavily influenced by the Bhakti movement that started in the south of India around 1000 years ago and then rapidly spread through central and northern Indian.

We know more about changes at the elite level because the archaeological and literary evidence favors it and yes there was a significant shift in patronage but the Bhakti movements grew at the popular level too.

I'm actually a practicing, "Hare Krsna Devotee" under Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj in the line of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math.

I personally have been experimenting what basically amounts to a Christian version of Bhakti Yoga [0] basically "wow, thanks God/Jesus, this is wonderful, I love you, you're awesome, thanks for X, Y, Z, etc".

There is one major difference between Buddhism and some schools of thought in Hinduism like Yoga or Bhakti.

Bhakti/Tantra/Hatha etc.) also called Laya Yoga (i.e.

I am sure you would know but for the benfit of those unfamiliar with the details, the 'Bhakti' that the article talks about is very much a post Gita thing, had little to no role in Hinduism prior to it.