Gujarati literature traditionally begins its devotional history with Narsinh Mehta, the fifteenth century Vaishnava poet of Junagadh revered as the language's adi kavi, its first poet. His padas, songs of Krishna devotion, and his prabhatiyan, morning hymns still sung at dawn, established Gujarati as a language of bhakti, and his Vaishnava Jana To, the song defining the true devotee as one who feels the pain of others, became its most famous single text. After him the line runs through the woman saint poet Mirabai, whose songs circulate in Gujarati versions, the seventeenth century Akha's sharp philosophical verse, and the eighteenth century poets Premanand and Dayaram, whose garbi songs joined devotion to the round dances of Gujarat.
The garba dance songs of the Navratri festival, sung to the Goddess in autumn across Gujarat and its diaspora, keep this devotional song culture in vigorous public performance. Gujarati religious literature is not only Hindu. The Jain community of Gujarat, among the language's most diligent patrons, produced centuries of Gujarati commentary, hymnody and didactic literature, and the Parsi Zoroastrians of Gujarat made the language their own, translating prayers and composing religious texts in Parsi Gujarati, so that three religions share the language's classical devotional shelf.