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Friedhelm Ernst Hardy (1943 – 4 August 2004), also known as Fred Hardy, was Professor of Indian Religions, teaching at King's College London. He was a linguist familiar with both classical and modern language Indian languages, described in his obituary as "unrivalled in this country and possibly anywhere in the world today". He is the author of two prominent works, The Religious Culture of India: Power, Love and Wisdom and Viraha-Bhakti: The Early History of Kṛṣṇa Devotion in South India.
The resultant thesis was detailed to the point that it had to be abbreviated for its 1983 publication. His book Viraha-bhakti was considered to have contained some major discoveries. His first discovery concerned the emotion displayed towards Krishna as "bhakti", or object of devotion, in the Bhagavad Gita. Hardy demonstrated that this was more of an intellectual type, whereas emotional bhakti is different and expressed in the various connections between records and traditions there is evidence of early "southern Krishnaism", even there was a tendency to allocate this tradition to the Northern traditions. There is a narrative context in which the early writings in Dravidian culture such as Manimekalai and the Cilappatikaram present Krishna, Balarama, and favourite female companions in the similar terms. He argued that the Sanskrit Bhagavata Purana is essentially a Sanskrit "translation" of the bhakti of the Tamil alvars.Norman Cutler (1987) Songs of Experience: The Poetics of Tamil Devotion, p. 13 Accordingly, texts illustrate close parallels to the Sanskrit traditions of Krishna and his gopi companions, so ubiquitous in later North Indian text and imagery.MONIUS, Anne E.: Dance Before Doom. Krishna in the Non-Hindu Literature of Early Medieval South India. In: Beck, Guy L., ed. Alternative Krishnas. Regional and Vernacular Variations on a Hindu Deity. Albany: State University of New York Press 2005; Ch. 8. pp. 139–149. Some consider his work fundamental to the study of how Hinduism developed. He had also theorised in his subsequent publications how Tamil bhakti gradually spread to the North India and laid the ground for the later bhakti of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Vallabhacharya.
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