This article discusses the exchanges between “worldly” oral tradition and vernacular religious poetry in north India, especially from the Sant poets. It deals with the link between literature and bhakti on the basis of the nirguṇ, emphasising the oral and sung nature of bhakti poetry, and it shows how songs and poems in the nirguṇ mode share elements with gaunā songs which belong to the rites of marriage. The article further describes how these themes appear in bhakti traditions in the Hindu diaspora communities of Mauritius and Fiji. Looking at the links between nirguṇ and gaunā songs highlights the fluid frontiers between poetry and oral tradition and suggests a blurring of gender/genre lines, which offers an escape from the gendered perspective of marriage rites.