Introduction

This chapter presents the concept of Ram bhakti and traces its evolution to contextualize the emergence of the Ramanandi sampradaya. It shows its various ascetic groups and discusses some practical and theoretical matters. The chapter focuses on the very contemporary history of the order, analyses those power relationships that arose inside the sampradaya after the election of the Jagadguru Ramnaresacarya. It also focuses on the city of Varanasi since, according to Sinha and Saraswati, it has a high percentage of Ramanandi centers, and particularly because the Sri Math, the seat of the Jagadguru Ramanandacarya. Modern Hindu Traditionalism is composed of sampradayas that support the concept of Sanatan Dharma as "a pure interpretation of Hinduism, drawn from a plurality of texts, inclusive of the Vedas, Puranas, Upanishads and Tantras". The chapter describes the idea of "invention of tradition" used to interpret "new" events occurring in the sampradaya that referred to a tradition.