Bhakti yoga

[Vidyasankar]

>1)  Could you direct me to where/ which text Sankara discussed bhakti yoga
>(If he did)?

Check his commentary on the Gita, chapter 18 particularly.


>2)  If bhakti only refers to devotion towards a personal god, then what is
>the Sanskrit term to describe devotion to Brahman (Ultimate Reality)?

It is the same word, bhakti. Except that in this mode of talking, bhakti is
more or less synonymous with jnAna.


>3)  If we show devotion towards family or plants or whatever temporal
>object, even though we are ultimately seeing Brahman in those objects, is
>there also a different term used to describe this type of devotion?

Not really. The noun bhakti is derived from the verbal root bhaj, and there
is no constraint on the object towards which bhakti is expressed.

Specifically in the advaita vedAnta context, the word pratimA or pratIka is
used to denote the object that serves as a symbol of brahman.

Vidyasankar