Brahman

===Bhakti movement===
{{main|Bhakti movement}}

The Bhakti movement of Hinduism built its theosophy around two concepts of Brahman—''Nirguna'' and ''Saguna''.<ref name=karen21>Karen Pechilis Prentiss (2014), ''The Embodiment of Bhakti'', Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|978-0195351903}}, page 21</ref> ''Nirguna'' Brahman was the concept of the Ultimate Reality as formless, without attributes or quality.<ref name=jeaneanefxxvii>Jeaneane D. Fowler (2012), ''The Bhagavad Gita'', Sussex Academic Press, {{ISBN|978-1845193461}}, pages xxvii–xxxiv</ref> ''Saguna'' Brahman, in contrast, was envisioned and developed as with form, attributes and quality.<ref name=jeaneanefxxvii/> The two had parallels in the ancient pantheistic unmanifest and theistic manifest traditions, respectively, and traceable to Arjuna-Krishna dialogue in the [[Bhagavad Gita]].<ref name=karen21/><ref name=fowlernirgunasaguna>Jeaneane D. Fowler (2012), ''The Bhagavad Gita'', Sussex Academic Press, {{ISBN|978-1845193461}}, pages 207–211</ref> It is the same Brahman, but viewed from two perspectives, one from ''Nirguni'' knowledge-focus and other from ''Saguni'' love-focus, united as Krishna (an 8th [[Avatar|incarnation]] of [[Vishnu|Lord Vishnu]]) in the Gita.<ref name=fowlernirgunasaguna/> ''Nirguna'' bhakta's poetry were ''Jnana-shrayi'', or had roots in knowledge.<ref name=karen21/> ''Saguna'' bhakta's poetry were ''Prema-shrayi'', or with roots in love.<ref name=karen21/> In Bhakti, the emphasis is reciprocal love and devotion, where the devotee loves God, and God loves the devotee.<ref name=fowlernirgunasaguna/>

Jeaneane Fowler states that the concepts of Nirguna and Saguna Brahman, at the root of Bhakti movement [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|theosophy]], underwent more profound development with the ideas of [[Vedanta]] school of Hinduism, particularly those of [[Adi Shankara]]'s Advaita Vedanta, [[Ramanuja]]'s Vishishtadvaita Vedanta, and [[Madhvacharya]]'s Dvaita Vedanta.<ref name=jeaneanefxxvii/> Two 12th-century influential treatises on bhakti were ''Sandilya Bhakti Sutra''—a treatise resonating with Nirguna-bhakti, and ''Narada Bhakti Sutra''—a treatise that leans towards Saguna-bhakti.<ref>Jessica Frazier and Gavin Flood (2011), ''The Continuum Companion to Hindu Studies'', Bloomsbury Academic, {{ISBN|978-0826499660}}, pages 113–115</ref>

''Nirguna'' and ''Saguna'' Brahman concepts of the Bhakti movement has been a baffling one to scholars, particularly the ''Nirguni'' tradition because it offers, states David Lorenzen, "heart-felt devotion to a God without attributes, without even any definable personality".<ref name=davidlorenzenns/> Yet given the "mountains of ''Nirguni'' bhakti literature", adds Lorenzen, bhakti for ''Nirguna Brahman'' has been a part of the reality of the Hindu tradition along with the bhakti for ''Saguna Brahman''.<ref name=davidlorenzenns>David Lorenzen (1996), ''Praises to a Formless God: Nirguni Texts from North India'', State University of New York Press, {{ISBN|978-0791428054}}, page 2</ref> These were two alternate ways of imagining God during the bhakti movement.<ref name=karen21/>