Patton Burchett offers a path-breaking genealogical study of devotional (bhakti) Hinduism that traces its understudied historical relationships with tantra, yoga, and Sufism. He focuses his analysis on the early modern period, when the rise of bhakti communities in North India transformed the religious landscape.

Burchett Patton E. :

Patton Burchett (PhD, South Asian Religions, Columbia) is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the College of William and Mary. He has published articles in a number of peer-reviewed journals, including International Journal of Hindu Studies, Journal of Hindu Studies, and Journal of the American Academy of Religion; this is his first book.Patton E. Burchett is assistant professor of religious studies at the College of William and Mary.

Cynthia Talbot, author of The Last Hindu Emperor: Prithviraj Chauhan and the Indian Past, 1200-2000:
By situating Vaiṣṇava bhakti traditions within larger religious and political contexts, this ambitious and innovative work offers a refreshingly broad perspective on North Indian culture, along with a better appreciation of bhakti's message and appeal in the early modern era. Changing trends in religious patronage, the impact of Sufism, the varieties of religious practice, how bhakti poets disparaged tantra and yoga—these are among the fascinating historical issues explored in Burchett's path-breaking study.

Philip Lutgendorf, author of Hanuman’s Tale: The Messages of a Divine Monkey and translator of The Epic of Ram:
Burchett's provocative study adeptly traces the transformation of popular religion in early modern North India from an age dominated by Śaiva, tantric, and yogic traditions to one permeated by Vaiṣṇava bhakti piety. His well-argued thesis is that a crucial element in this shift was the interaction with and influence of Persianate and Sufi religiosity and cultural practices.

David Gordon White, author of The Yoga Sutra of Patañjali: A Biography:
Kudos to Patton E. Burchett for this rich, fine-grained historical analysis of the multifaceted relationships between the human agents of bhakti, tantra, yoga, and Sufism in Sultanate and Mughal India. Religious nationalists and other simpletons will find little comfort here.

John Stratton Hawley, author of A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement:
So wide-ranging in importance and so carefully and broadly researched, this is a book people will turn to for many, many years to come—both for its own special contribution and for a basic orientation to the field.

Christian Lee Novetzke, author of The Quotidian Revolution: Vernacularization, Religion, and the Premodern Public Sphere in India:
Vibrant, lyrical, and elegantly crafted, A Genealogy of Devotion is a scholarly opera on the history of bhakti (devotion) in India. Burchett fundamentally changes the way we think about bhakti, leaving readers with a book that is truly inspired.