Research

The area of research selected by Winand Callewaert in 1972 is the 'Bhakti' literature in Northwest India, between the 13th and 17th centuries AD. The main reason for this option was the importance of the hymns of these mystics written down from 1600 onwards and passed on during longer or shorter periods of oral transmission. These hymns exerted a great influence on the life of the masses and are still very influential today. In their hymns and aphorisms the mystics preached their reaction against the brahmanical ritual beliefs and the caste-system, and advocated a pure, monotheistic faith. The language they used was no longer Sanskrit, but the vernacular.

Little of this literature has been critically edited and much is only accessible in manuscripts. The language in which these hymns were sung has been studied only imperfectly, although a lot of progress has been made in the last 20 years. It is important that the tools needed to make the texts available to a wider readership should be made available.

Consequently, attention has been given to the following areas: searching for manuscripts and copying them on microfilm, creating computer facilities to prepare critical editions in the original Hindi script and thus to help in the creation of a huge data-bank of Bhakti literature in order to facilitate comparative studies, preparing critical editions and English translations.

Contacts with scholars in other countries working in the same field have been established. The result of this research has not only been the preservation of decaying manuscripts and the critical editions. This study has also made possible an innovation in the handling of texts preserved in manuscripts. It has done this by emphasizing the oral aspect of the variants found in manuscripts.