Hatha yoga Bhakti movement. It eliminated the need for "either ascetic renunciation or priestly intermediaries, ritual paraphernalia and sectarian initiations". This led to its broad historic popularity in India. Later in the 20th-century, states Mallinson, this disconnect of Hatha yoga from religious aspects and the democratic access of Hatha yoga enabled it to spread worldwide. Between the 17th and 19th-century, however, the various urban Hindu and Muslim elites and ruling classes viewed Yogis with derision. They were persecuted during the rule of Aurangzeb, who ended a long period of religious tolerance that had defined the rule of his predecessors beginning with Akbar,
Bhakti movement concept of the Ultimate Reality as formless, without attributes or quality. "Saguna" Brahman, in contrast, was envisioned and developed as with form, attributes and quality. The two had parallels in the ancient pantheistic unmanifest and theistic manifest traditions, respectively, and traceable to Arjuna-Krishna dialogue in the Bhagavad Gita. It is the same Brahman, but viewed from two perspectives, one from "Nirguni" knowledge-focus and other from "Saguni" love-focus, united as Krishna in the Gita. "Nirguna" bhakta's poetry were "Jnana-shrayi", or had roots in knowledge. "Saguna" bhakta's poetry were "Prema-shrayi", or with roots in love. In Bhakti, the emphasis is reciprocal love