Bhakti means a schoold of thoughts that stree an emotional bond between the devotee and his personal god. It is a Sanskrit word which means devotion. Bhakti as a process of Yoga is described in detail within the Bhagavad Gita wherein it is given as the ultimate form of religious expression for which all other dharmas should be abandoned. It is the expression of love and adoration centred upon the Supreme Person rather than the Supreme Abstraction.

There are six popular traditions which embrace bhakti as a process of worship to a particular deity:Vishnu, belonging to the classic Trinity and His concrete manifestations in the forms of Rama, Krishna and other avatars; maheshvara or Shiva, the third God of the classic Trinity ; devi, the Mother Goddess, in her three forms of Durga or Parvati, Lakshmi and Saraswati.Ganesha, the elephant-faced deity who is said to remove obstacles on the path of devotion. Suryadev, the Sun-God, Subrahmanya, the six-faced deity known also as Murugan or Kumaran to the Tamil world.

The scripture known as the Narad Bhakti Sutra, believed to be spoken by the sage Narada distinguishes eleven forms of bhakti, based on the different relationship to God that the devotee can assume.The devotee Prahlada, as explained in Srimad Bhagavatam, enunciates Nine Expressions of Bhakti.According to Adi Shankara, bhakti is seeking after one`s real nature.

One of the major themes of bhakti is that of avatar, God manifesting himself on earth in some form (even animal as well as human) in order to benefit humankind in time of troubles; Krishna is often cited as the supreme example of an avatar, so too by many, the Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi.Within Vaishnavism bhakti is only used in conjunction with Vishnu or one of his associated incarnations. Similarly in Shaivism devotion is shown to Lord Shiva.

Bhakti sharply differs with some Hindu basic beliefs especially that of Karma .The Bhakti belief of Karma differs with the ordinary karmic conception of working off,eliminating good or evil Karma that the individual has developed or earned in previous lives.In the Bhakti concept Karma is set aside ,the devotee expects that the lord will return love for love .

By the early centuries AD, bhakti was apparent in variuos forms of religious expression, particularly during the `Golden Age" of the Gupta Dynasty and the reign of the Pallavas and the Pandyas in South Asia.