ABSTRACT
This chapter and the succeeding ones examine, in the broadest sense, different branches of textual sources pertaining to Maijbhandar. The threefold division underlying this presentation distinguishes between theological and hagiological writings, hagiographies and songs. The latter two of these categories render the classification of gān, songs, and jībanī sāhitya, hagiography, which are perceived as different branches or genres in Maijbhandar, and it is only the first category of theological and hagiological writings that may seem problematic. At the very outset, then, it is important to state that there is, in terms of a self-defined entity, no such thing as a specific ‘Maijbhandari theology’. In recent times, it has become customary to speak of a certain Māij'bhāṇḍārī darśan (‘Maij'bhandari philosophy’), but this term is even now mostly used in a very confined sense, as in references to the Maijbhandari ṭarīqa rules, and certainly does not cover all the notions we are going to discuss in the following. Consequently, the heading of the present chapter does not claim to render any indigenous category of writings, but is a descriptive label to accommodate a variety of texts dealing with issues of a theological and hagiological nature.
