ABSTRACT
Bhakti is a devotional element in the religious life of a people expressed as an intimate relationship between man and a personal God based on love and it also implies the idea of a God who feels intense love for man. This is the kind of bhakti that comes across from the later scriptures and religious literature of India, and it is not generally considered as playing any decisive role in the Vedas, let alone in the RV. The Vedas are usually studied for their mythological, liturgical, sacrificial, or even social and ethical content, but not for their devotional side, if it exists in them at all. The focus is usually on the ritualistic aspect of the Vedic religion, because the Vedas are seen as the composition of the sacerdotal class. Any personal devotional outpouring that the priests may have given vent to is usually either minimized or ignored altogether. Only seldom do we find an admission that the hymns to Varuna border on bhakti.
