Kiirtan: The Supra Aesthetic Science

What is Kiirtan?

Kiirtan or hymn singing is a part of the majority of religions and spiritual paths in the world.

Kiirtan is ‘praise of the divine’ through samgiita – instrumental music, dance and song. It is a music genre in its own right, (2010, La Trobe PhD, SOAS).  

Some of its Major Characteristics are:

1. Kiirtan is an inclusive genre, that makes no distinction between caste, class, gender, background, sexual orientation, etc.
2. Kiirtan has a rich history in both the western and eastern musical traditions.
3. The homeland of the Kiirtan tradition in India (with Jayadeva 11th century), is a region of north eastern India called Rárh.
4. It is an oral tradition as well as literary tradition with songs (pada kiirtan), singing of the name of the divine only (nama kiirtan) as well as story-telling (katha kiirtan). It follows a traditional disciple/master or guru/shisha system of teaching.  
5. Similar to Christian gospel singing, Rárhi Kiirtan has a central corpus of traditional kiirtan songs and melodies and khol drum and cymbal patterns. It also includes choreography (called laliita marmika ‘opening of the deepest inner feelings’) and these three components all collaborate with each other to build rising intensity of musical and devotional expression.
6. The use of a traditional infrastructure in Rárhi kiirtan includes the la section ‘introductory melody’, the matan or ‘climax’ and the katan or ‘drum composition’, as well various rhythmic patterns such as duni and chhau duni or ‘double time’ and ‘quadruple time’ into the composition.
7. The goal of kiirtan is to arouse devotion, and the means by which this is achieved is a unified ‘solid’ musical performance that incorporates traditional melodies and infrastructure with rang or contemporary tunes.  

In the west, the practice of chanting Sanskrit mantras was first introduced by the Hare Krishna movement in the US and then popularized by George Harrison from the Beatles throughout the west.

Today kiirtan is a popular music genre worldwide, highly appreciated within the yogic tradition, but yet to be recognized as a music genre in its own right.