https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3850-264X
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ABSTRACT
In 1989, I began an undertaking to revive the nearly-extinct Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta tradition, the centuries-old Gur-Sikh heritage. I located vidyādhārīs (knowledgeable memory bearers) who remembered original rāga forms and śabadrītas (Gurbāṇī compositions), knew how to play or make musical instruments that had all but vanished, and were versed in the exegetical attendance of Srī Gurū Granth Sāhib, the scriptural Gurū of the GurSikh Panth. Carefully sifting through the memory of the last remaining elders I could track, I started by harnessing everything that I could – irrespective of their familial or musical lineages. In this paper, I take stock of and analyse the kalāmī (written), tantrī (audio-visual) and, zubānī (memorised) assets that I was able to recover through my fieldwork across South Asia and beyond, including compositions, notations, stories, and pedagogical processes. In my judgement, it is impossible to understand the music of early modern India, including dhurpada and mridaṅga/pakhāwaj, without careful study of the Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta tradition and the riches it has transmitted to the present.
Acknowledgements
I am entertaining the possibility of suing my student, Nirinjan Kaur Khalsa, Clinical Professor of Sikh and Jain Studies, for coaxing me into writing this never-ending paper. But in the process of researching, analysing, and writing, I made some invaluable discoveries and acquaintances, so I suppose I should grudgingly thank her, particularly for her countless hours editing this paper and for inviting me to the Music and Poetics conference, where I presented my work and sang several heritage śabadrītas. I am also grateful to the host institution, Loyola Marymount University and the donors, Dr Harvinder Sahota, Dr Sulekh Jain, and the Uberoi Foundation for supporting this meaningful interfaith convocation. I cannot thank Professor N Ramanathan enough for his patience and resourcefulness in sharing scanned copies of several out of print books listed at “http://www.musicresearchlibrary.net/omeka/” that were critical in the writing of this paper. Professor Urmila Sharma for introducing me to Dr Sitā Bimbrahw when I was searching for the original manuscript of Gītasutrasār in Bangla, who inadvertently opened up the whole world of Paṇḍit Dilip Chandra Vedi for me, also merits a thankful mention. Finally, I am grateful for the careful linguistic scrutiny of Luigi Hari Tehel Siṅgh, my elder son and student, who polished the diacritics and Indian grammar, and for the thoughtful suggestions of my student, Nihal Siṅgh regarding conceptual coherence and stylistic felicity. The gracious invitation from the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Pañjāb, Captain Amarinder Siṅgh, to restart Anād Khaṇḍ at the Qila Sarai, Sultanpur Lodhi, came during the course of writing this paper. I would like to thank him for bearing with the tugs on my attention as I continued work on this paper. The destruction by the local police of Sultanpur Lodhi of almost all of the tangible and intangible assets stored at the Qila Sarai that were vital to the ongoing conservation work and revival of the historical and geographical Paṅjāb's socio-cultural heritage was perpetrated on Sunday, May 13, 2018, that is, also during the course of writing this paper. An attempt to illegally arrest me was also made by the local Pañjāb policemen upon my arrival at the Qila Sarai that very day. Calligraphic ink flowed on without a ripple, as I wrote on unperturbed; my heart went on beating, unfazed, in resilience. I would like to thank all my mentors for all peace and contentment within, for the gift of being able to drink the poison which the times ironically served, as if it were nectar.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
ORCID
Bhāī Baldeep Siṅgh http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3850-264X
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
* Inspired by the Udāsīs (travels) of Sāhib Srī Gurū Nānak Dēv, the use of the term Udāsī (literally sadness, melancholy, disenchantment) here recalls the worried elders that first motivated me to become a conservator of memories and assets after renouncing my flying career. The term Udāsī here also reflects the sorry state of affairs with regards to the intangible and tangible cultural heritage of the GurSikh Panth. Particularly, the callous leaders of the GurSikh Panth led the community to sheer aesthetic and spiritual bankruptcy, for though many intangible assets endowed by the Gurūs existed for a quarter of a century following the formation of Shiromaṇī Gurūdwārā Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) in 1920, this premier body allowed many of these assets to die on their watch.
1 The paper is divided into sections under headings given in Romanized Gurmukhī script alphabets namely, Ūṛā (ū), Aiṛā (a), Īṛī (i), Sassā (s), Hāhā (h), Kakkā (k), Khakkhā (Kh) and so on.
2 Also, Farīduddin Ganjshakar.
3 Contrary to popular theory, there not 36 but actually 38 authors of Gurbāṇī, including the tenth Sikh gurū, Gurū Gobind Siṅgh, who is said to have contributed at least one sloka, Bhāī Mardana, and Bhaṭṭ Ṭal, who is said to be the same as Bhāī Kalshar or Bhāī Kal – in fact, more research is needed to confirm or deny the assertion that Bhāī Kalshar and Bhāī Kal are the same person either. Proponents of this theory maintain that the mention of the word ‘Ṭal’ in the line, ‘so kahu ṭal gur sevīai … ’ (SGGS 1392) is a spelling error. On the contrary, I reject the baseless theory that since the preceding nine out of ten sawaiyyās are by Bhaṭṭ Kal, that ‘Ṭal’ must be a spelling error where ‘Kal’ was intended. As the compilation of this bānī took place when the Bhatts of Mathura were under the tutelage of Gurū Rām Dās and as they were present when the Ādi Granth manuscript was being readied, it is not plausible that Gurū Arjan Dēv, the immensely diligent editor and a contemporary of the Bhaṭṭs would allow this orthographic error – which counterfactually signifies the existence of an extra Gurbāṇī author, where as per the popular theory the converse error prevails – to go uncorrected. It is also worth noting that given the nature of the printing process at the time, individual pages were calligraphed, richly embellished, and proofread thoroughly prior to their binding, thereby furnishing further opportunities for the needful correction to be made. In the handwritten manuscript of SGGS at Mahanth Miniari, Bihar, the dohrā, ‘bal hoā bandhan chuṭe … ’ is credited to Mahalā 10, signifying Gurū Gobind Siṅgh. In light of these considerations, I argue that there is no error, which means that Bhatts Kal and Ṭal are each author of Gurbāṇī. Accordingly, I take the following to be the three main categories of authors and their names in order of the number of compositions (included in Gurbāṇī), or alphabetically if the number of their composition is the same, in parenthesis:
Sikh Gurūs
Gurū Arjan Dēv (2218)
Gurū Nānak (974)
Gurū Amardās (907)
Gurū Rāmdās (679)
Gurū Tēg Bahādur (116)
Gurū Aṅgad Dēv (62)
Gurū Gobiṅd Siṅgh (1)
Bhagats and Sufis
Bhagat Kabīr (541)
Sheikh Farīd (134)
Bhagat Nāmdev (62)
Bhagat Ravidās (41)
Bhagat Tilochan (Also Trilochan) (5)
Bhagat Dhannā (4)
Bhagat Bēni (3)
Bhagat Bhikhan (2)
Bhagat Jaidēv (2)
Bhagat Surdās (2)
Bhagat Parmānand (1)
Bhagat Pipā (1)
Bhagat Ramānand (1)
Bhagat Sadhnā (1)
Bhagat Sain (1)
Sikhs – Rabābīs and Bhaṭṭs
Bhaṭṭ Kalshar and/or Kal (53)
Bhaṭṭ Nall (16)
Bhaṭṭ Mathurā (14)
Bhaṭṭ Gayand (13)
Bhaṭṭ Kirat (8)
Bābā Sundar (6)
Bhaṭṭ Bal (5)
Bhaṭṭ Jalap (5)
Bhaṭṭ Sall (3)
Bhaṭṭ Bhikā (2)
Bhaṭṭ Harbans (2)
Bhāī Mardānā (2)
Bhāī Balwanḍ (1) (co-author of Bhāī Sattā)
Bhaṭṭ Bhall (1)
Bhāī Sattā (1) (co-author of Bhāī Balwanḍ)
Bhaṭṭ Tall (1)
4 As ‘Sikhism’ has been misconstrued by even the biggest names in scholarship as ‘A Crucible Between Upanishadic and Islamic Thought,’ (the title of a paper I was asked to deliver at the ‘From Om to Bismillah’ seminar organised at the India Habitat Center around 2002 by the New Delhi based Dalai Lama Foundation,) Gurbāṇī Kīrtana’s dhurpadī repertoire is perceived to have been derived from the music traditions patronised by the erstwhile Hindu and Mughal royal courts. Scholars of the stature of Khushwant Siṅgh, in his A History of the Sikhs (Vol. 1. 2nd ed. Citation2004. Twentieth impression. Oxford India Paperbacks. Page 16.) also used misleading formulations such as Sikhism being ‘born out of a wedlock between Hinduism and Islam’ where GurSikhi can more appropriately be said to be born out of the wedlock between a ‘nānak sadā suhāgini’ (rāga gauṛī bairāgaṇi, SGGS, page 157. Gurū Nānak Dēv) and One Kartāra (Creator) that Gurū Nānak referred to using the numeric ‘1’. Even though postcolonial and decolonizing methodologies have since been deployed to comb the Sikh Studies’ field (Mandair 2009), which I welcome, I have had to push back against the same methodology being enforced to look at the field of Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta by the unassuming postcolonial scholars. In short, I argue that as the Gurbāṇī Kīrtana tradition remained uncolonised, which is to say it never subjected itself to colonial rule, including through the acceptance of British patronage, it does not need to be decolonised. Instead, it needs to be responsibly located on the musicological map as one of the most important testimonies of South Asiatic music.
At an event (I Sikh: Storia, Fede e Valore Nella Grande Guerra. November 21, 2015, Biblioteca Angelica, Rome) organised by the Istituto Internazionale di Studi Sud Asiatici (ISAS) marking the WWI contribution by Sikh Regiments, I had said, ‘It’s ironic that I, who represent Gur-Sikhs who fought against the British, am invited to sing at an event commemorating those “Sikhs” who fought for the British!’ The Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta tradition that I have been at the forefront of reviving since 1987 is the music of the persecuted GurSikh community. It is neither an offshoot of a much later Darbārī or Hiṅdustānī Saṅgīta nor the music of the colonised Sikh community. As a representative of the oldest pre-darbāri and pre-colonial Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta tradition’s emic knowledge stream, I shall bear witness through this autoethnograhic udāsī that all hasn’t been lost, that much has survived.
5 Translation by Bhāī Baldeep Siṅgh.
6 For example, Agra gharāṇā had two doyens, Ustād Fayyāz Khān and Ustād Vilāyat Hussein Khān, at the same time. Likewise, the Talwaṇḍī, Śām Caurāsī and Rabābī gharāṇās of Pañjāb, Betiāh and Dumrāoṃ gharāṇās of Bihar are now near-extinct. The Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta tradition is also one such example with almost all of its vocal, percussion, string instrument and luthiery heritage near-extinct.
7 See entry Javālā Siṅgh, Bhāī Sāhib (1872–1952) by Bhai Sāhib Bhai Ardaman Siṅgh Bagrian in the The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, Punjabi University, Patiala. Volume 2, Page 367.
Javālā Siṅgh, Bhāī Sāhib (1872–1952), a renowned exponent of the Sikh devotional music, was born in 1872 at the village of Saidpur in Kapūrthalā district of the Pañjāb. His father, Bhāī Dēvā Siṅgh and grandfather, Paṅjāb Siṅgh were in their day celebrated rāgis or musicians who recited Sikh kīrtan to the accompaniment of sarandā, a stringed instrument. Javālā Siṅgh excelled at tāūs, another stringed instrument, and at harmonium. He had at his command such an abundance of traditional and classical tunes, composition of some of which was traced back to the times of the Gurūs themselves, that he did not have to repeat a tune even when singing for weeks on end. He possessed a vast treasure of dhunīs or tunes, paṛtāls, rītīs or musical styles and traditional compositions.
Bhāī Javālā Siṅgh learnt to read Pañjābī from Bābā Pālā Siṅgh, a granthī, or scripture reader, in his own village. Then he was sent to the Nirmalā derā or monastery at the village of Sekhvāṅ, in Firozpur district, and put under the charge of Bābā Sardhā Siṅgh, who taught him music. At the derā, he also studied the religious texts. For further training in music, Bābā Sardhā Siṅgh sent him to Amritsar to be under the tutelage of another maestro, Bābā Vasāvā Siṅgh, popularly known as Bābā Raṅgi Rām Siṅgh. After completing his course at Amritsar, Javālā Siṅgh returned to his village, Saidpur. Gradually he made his mark as a leading Sikh musician who was much in demand for performing kīrtan at congregations at far flung places. He subscribed to the Siṅgh Sabhā ideology which he zealously preached and, when the Akālī movement for the reformation of Gurdwara management got underway, he jumped into it with equal enthusiasm. He courted arrest in the agitation for recovering the keys of the Golden Temple treasury taken away by the British deputy commissioner of Amritsar and in the Jaito morchā as a member of the first jathā or band of protesting volunteers as well as of the last. He was present at the cremation of the Nankāṇā Sāhib martyrs (1921) and, with the holy precincts reeking of blood, he most movingly recited, sitting by the side of the heap of corpses, Gurū Nānak`s hymn: ‘khūn ke sohile gāvīahi Nānak ratu kā kuṅgū pāi ve lālo — Paens to blood are being sung, says Nānak (such are the times), and the saffron of blood is now the adornment, O Lalo!’ Javālā Siṅgh presided over the first all-India Rāgis Conference held at Amritsar in 1942. He died on 29 May 1952 at his village Saidpur.
8 A close scrutiny of several notation styles developed (and used) by various musicians and/or musicologists over the last couple of centuries exposes their lack of unanimity for at least two reasons. The first is due to technical limitations and mechanical handicaps, and the second, due to the limited musical knowledge of the respective authors. For example, a knowledgeable exponent such as Subbarāma Dīkṣitar creates a very evolved notation system, while Paṇḍit Viśnū Nārāyan Bhātkhaṅḍē, a lawyer by profession who wasn’t an expert musician created a minimalist notation system that arguably disconnected the students of music from its finer nuances.
Yet, from a musico-anthropological perspective, I cannot emphasise enough the importance of the availability of even a Bhatkhande-type skeletal sketch of a composition. In order to attain exactitude (milat), though, an enlightened student requires much more information, namely the application of alaṅkāras/vākalaṅkāras as provided either of the following:
Subbarāma Dīkṣitar (1904)
Proposed by Sangeet Natak Akademi (1957)
The formula proposed by Avtar Siṅgh and Gurcharan Siṅgh to supplement basic notations with audio recordings
As proposed by the author, wherein the notations are as detailed as technically possible informing the student of the vākalaṅkāras unique to the concerned tradition and taking advantage of the technological options provided by the audio-visual and even AI mediums.
9 A majority of performers with huge egos only allowed for themselves to be celebrated instead of celebrating the musical systems that produced them. They spent their entire lifetimes on concert tours thereby failing to produce the next generation of maestros. Their own name, fame, accumulation of wealth and privilege were paramount, longevity of their respective traditions was not.
10 Many star performers and teachers invested their energies on their favourite students who were either their own children or close relatives.
11 Students who happened to be more talented than a maestro’s own favourites and preferred choices were denied audience, study time, and access to knowledge.
12 Many familial traditions such as the Dāgar family and Talwaṇḍī gharāṇā disallow women from their family to train and perform publicly irrespective of the talent they possessed (Personal communications: Ustād Rahīm Fahimuddīn Khān of Ḍāgurvāṇī dhrupada. 1992; and Malikzādā Ustād Mohammad Hafīz Khān Khānḍehrē Tālwaṇḍīwālē. 1997).
Socio-religious and socio-cultural traditions such as the Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta of Darbār Sāhib, Amritsar, have also barred women, transgenders, traditional Muslim Rabābī’s and Hindu ascetics and musicians from performing inside the inner sanctum. Sikh Rehat Maryada (SRM/Sikh Code of Conduct. 1931) allows only for ‘Sikhs’ to sing Gurbāṇī. Even though there is no mention of women being barred in the SRM, they continue to be disallowed to perform Gurbāṇī Kīrtan at the inner sanctum.
13 Students offer dakṣiṇā (generous offerings, gifts, fees, donations; power and privileges especially if the student holds a position of power and influence) to their respective gurūs. Teachers tend to hold onto students rather than teaching them all that that they have and sending them to other knowledgeable contemporaries. Stories like that of Jwālā Siṅgh being taught by his father, Bābā Dewā Siṅgh (Bhāī Diwān Siṅgh) and elder brother, Bhāī Narain Siṅgh, and then by Bābā Sharda Siṅgh, who in turn took the young Jwālā Siṅgh to Bābā Vasāvā Siṅgh of Darbār Sāhib, Amritsar, for additional education, are sadly not common but fortunate rare occurrences.
14 For fear of losing importance and privilege, the teachers often engage in, what I call, a slow-teach. In slow-teach, a maestro basically attempts to hold on to a student for as long as he/she can by rationing knowledge over a stretched period of time. The teacher ensures two basic things: one, that the student does not walk away by getting frustrated and feeling that he/she was being denied knowledge, and two, that the student does not learn everything in a short span of time that he/she walks away elsewhere seeking knowledge or simply, become a famous performer himself/herself. This slow-teach formula can at best produce clones and not phenomenal custodians and exhaustive memory bearers.
15 It is common to see maestros lack a sense of urgency as they take life expectancy, of their own selves and that of their students, for granted and do not attempt to pass on privileged heritage assets and information to their students. Much heritage, both tangible and intangible, has been lost due to this most irritable of all shortcomings of the self-serving maestros.
16 Gyāni Gyān Siṅgh Abbottabad. SGPC, Amritsar. Gurbani Sangeet, Volume I, page 200.
17 In response to the generation loss that occurs in the process – of a song notated by a maestro, and deciphered by another person after, be it a maestro or a student, I wrote the following couplet:
In the beginning, there was a song
then, it was written
then, it was deciphered
and there was, just another song
18 I am sharing an image from one of the termite-eaten handwritten diaries of an ancestor of Fahimuddīn Khān with a composition in rāga sūhā tāla cautāl that I finally photo-archived in 2004. I learnt this composition, albeit a seven-beat gīta tāla version of this dhrupada, from Malikzādā Ustād Mohammad Hafīz Khān Khanḍehrē Tālwaṇḍīwālē during my second trip to Lahore in the year 2000. The text of Tālwaṅḍī Gharāṇā composition is as follows:
asthāī: raṅg jhar lāēō jalāluddīn akbar tāṃ pur racēō kartār
antarā: khaṭ darsana kō niwās śāhē nā mana śāhē kañcana
barkata kīnō tatta bētata lōka jas gāvat karata saedarīā pāra
The words that the termites savoured are not legible, but the ones that survived their wrath have a few extra words. The following text sourced from the image (below) is perhaps a more authentic version of this dhrupada:
asthāī: (raṅg) jhar lāēō akbar jalāluddīn kō tumkō rāḳhē (kartār)
antarā: khaṭ darśana kō niwās śāhēmāna śāhē jalāla (barsat) …
Photo courtesy of Bhai Baldeep Siṅgh and the Anād Foundation, New Delhi. 2004.
19 I made the telephone call on 1 April 2018, at 2:25 PM.
20 It may be fair to surmise that it would be difficult to forget a composition that one had learnt with ease. For example, my teachers noted my ability to learn a composition very quickly. After all these years, I am still able to recall a composition by merely looking at a Gurbāṇī text even if I may not have sung it in decades.
21 A seminar on Curriculum Dēvelopment & Design for Evaluation of Post-Graduate Studies in Music held at College of Indian Music, Dance & Dramatics, Vadodara, Gujarat from 31 October to 2 November 1977. Page 1. Courtesy MusicResearchLibrary.net
22 Ibid., page 3.
23 Page 252, Siṅgh (Citation2011).
24 The original śabadrīta (rāga kānṛā, in 12-beats cārtāla), ‘man jāpahu rām gopāl’, composed by the Gurū Rām Dās is notated by Avtār Siṅgh and Gurcharan Siṅgh in Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta: Prācīna Rīta Ratnāvalī, Punjabi University (1979), Volume II, Page 832, as sung and taught by Jwālā Siṅgh of Ṭhaṭṭā Ṭibbā. One may note, from a musico-anthropological perspective, the composition’s complex musical structure and use of vākalaṅkāras that were in vogue during the times of Gurū Rām Dās (sixteenth century). The derived version, as sung and taught by the Rabābī Bhāī Tabba, has been notated by Gyāni Gyān Siṅgh in his book, Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta published by Shiromaṇī Gurūdwārā Management Committee, Amritsar, (1961), Volume I, Page 317. This version has simplified structure and is easy to learn while the original notated by Avtār Siṅgh and Gurcharan Siṅgh requires higher level of proficiency to render.
25 In their second volume, Avtār Siṅgh and Gurcharan Siṅgh notate the original rāga basant tāla sūlphāk composition by Bhagat Kabīr (fifteenth century), ‘maolī dhartī mauleyā akās’, page 675. On page 693, they notate a slow tempo cārtāla composition in the same rāga from the tradition of Darbār Sāhib, Amritsar. The author of this particular composition was not remembered by the co-author duo.
In Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta, Gyān Siṅgh notated a tāla sūlphāk composition in rāga gauṛī chetī, of a rāga gauṛī dupadā by Gurū Arjan Dēv while Avtār Siṅgh and Gurcharan Siṅgh notate a tāla dhamāra composition of the same dupadā. I must make a mention that a slightly different sūlphāk tāla version was taught to me by Jaswant Kaur, another student of Tabbā. Now, both of these compositions in sūlphāk and dhamāra are inspired versions with a similar musical structure. The original rāga gauṛī composition that was composed by the fifth Sikh gurū, Gurū Arjan Dēv is not known.
26 My questions in this regard were, ‘Baṛe vidvān kaisē hote the? Unse sīkhanā kaisā hotā thā? Uṅ saṅg māhaul kaisā hotā thā yāṇe ek hī paramparā meiṃ aur dūsarī paramparā waloṃ meiṅ?’
What were the elders like?
What was it like to study with them?
What was the environment or culture like around them?
What about the relationship among the elders, both inter-traditions and intra-tradition?
27 As narrated to the author by his granduncles, Avtār Siṅgh and Gurcharan Siṅgh on several occasions since 1988.
28 Compositions such as ‘ant na pāvat dev’ (rāga devgandhārī, tāla dhamāra), ‘bāpār gobiṅd nāye’ (rāga āsā), ‘alāhaṇīāṃ’ (rāga vaḍhaṅs), ‘prīt prīt gūrīā’ (rāga sūhī), ‘sājan des vadesiaṛē’ (rāga tukhārī).
29 Page 588, Volume II, Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta: Prācīna Rīta Ratnāvalī, Avtār Siṅgh and Gurcharan Siṅgh.
30 Siṅgh, Bhāī Avtār Siṅgh Bhāī Gurcharan. 1979. Gurbānī Saṅgīta: Prācīna Rīta Ratnāvalī, Volume 2. Punjabi University, Patiala. 588.
31 I would not have inferred about the derived compositions by Bhāī Balbīr Siṅgh if it not had been for him asking me to teach him rāgas sūhī especially the ‘prīta prīta gurīā’ paṛtāla, mājh, vaḍhaṅs, and tukhārī in anticipation before his recording sessions for T-Series. Not just in trying to amend his relationship with Avtār Siṅgh and Gurcharan Siṅgh but to emphasise the fact that as my granduncles, both of whom Balbīr Siṅgh respectfully addressed as ‘Cāccā jī’ (uncle), were still around, it would be only proper for him to study the rāgas and śabadrītas directly from them. He told me that he will (connect with them) but which he never did. After his albums were recorded and published, I asked him if he ever made it a point to meet the duo for the rāga forms weren’t so accurate. Balbīr Siṅgh told me he preferred to hear the recordings and look at the volumes of Avtār Siṅgh and Gurcharan Siṅgh instead! I had taken notes while listening to his rendition of paṛtālas and hope to publish my musico-aesthetic analysis in the near future.
32 It is interesting to note that Rājā Saurēṅdra Nāth Tagōre’s notations were cited by Max Arthur Macauliffe (Citation1909) in The Sikh Religion: Its Gurūs, Sacred Writings and Authors, Volume 5 (Page 333-351) for eight rāgas. Instead of researching with some of the legendary protagonists of Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta such as Bhāī Sāhib Jwālā Siṅgh, Rabābī Bhāī Motī, Mahaṅt Gajjā Siṅgh and Rabābī Bhāī Kālū of the time, Macauliffe sourced rāga forms from Saurendra Nāth’s work. Max’s lack of contact with the actual exponents of Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta is very revealing and needs to be explored. See Appendix I a–b for Saurēṅdra’s and Max’s notations.
33 See Appendix II a–d.
34 See Appendix III.
35 See Appendix IV a–h.
36 See Appendix V a–b.
37 In Gurmat Saṅgīta par huṇ takk milī khōj: Ratan Saṅgīta Bhaṇḍār, Bhai Prēm Siṅgh is perhaps the first kīrtaniyā to make an attempt to aesthetically describe rāga forms, tāla structures and layas. He had received patronage from the Kingdom of Patiala and later lived at Dera Sri Maharaj Siṅgh Ji, Chhāvanī Nihaṅgāṅ, Amritsar. To see a specimen of his notation system, see Appendix VI a–b.
38 Paluskar (Citation1923). Page 35. See Appendix VII.
39 Śāstrī, Paṇḍit Bhīmrāo. 1927. Sangeeta Geetanjali by Rabindranath Tagōre Arranged With Musical Notation in Hindi Characters by Paṇḍit Bhīmrāo Śāstrī. Vishwabharati, Shantiniketan. Pages 89–91. See Appendix XIV a–c.
40 See Appendix VIII.
41 We may know of extraordinary maestros
who wrote volumes
but know not of the masters
their volumes minted thereafter
By the author. 3 September 2018.
42 A seminar on Curriculum Dēvelopment & Design for Evaluation of Post-Graduate Studies in Music held at College of Indian Music, Dance & Dramatics, Vadodara, Gujarat from 31 October to 2 November 1977. Page 6. Courtesy www.MusicResearchLibrary.net
43 Personal communication (2018) with joṛī exponent Bhāī Swaran Siṅgh Rāgī, who accompanied Avtār Siṅgh and Gurcharan Siṅgh continuously starting from 1952 till 2006.
44 Siṅgh, Bhāī Avtār Siṅgh Bhāī Gurcharan. 1979. Gurbānī Saṅgīta: Prācīna Rīta Ratnāvalī, Volume 1. Punjabi University, Patiala. Page xiii – 5, Foreword by Professor Tāran Siṅgh.
45 See Appendix IX a–b.
46 By the author, 8 March 2018. Delhi. Upcoming.
47 Siṅgh (Citation2011).
48 SGGS, page 982, rāga nat, ‘bānī gurū gurū hai bānī … ’
49 Gam (pronounced as in chewing ‘gum’) has the same root as the musical embellishment ‘gamak’ or ‘gamaka’ (going from one musical note to another and/or back in myriad ways) as well as ‘gaman’ in the phrase ‘āvā-gaman’ (coming and going). It is a near-extinct term. As far as I can remember, I have come across only two viva voce references: Taraṅgaṛ and Dr. Rājā Mrigendra Siṅgh of the erstwhile Sikh State of Patiala.
‘saṅt kā māraga dharam kī pauṛī ko vaḍbhāgī pāē’ (Gurū Arjan Dēv, SGGS, rāga sōrath, page 621)
rāga āsā mahlā 5. hamārī piārī aṁrit dhārī guri nimakh na man tē ṭārī rē. 1. rahāō.
darsan parsan sarsan harsan raṅgi raṅgī kartārī rē. 1.
khinu rām gurgam hari dam nah jam hari kaṁthi nānak uri hārī re. 2.
50 Personal communications with various exponents including Avtār Siṅgh, Gurcharan Siṅgh, Balbīr Siṅgh, Dilbāgh Siṅgh and Thākur Siṅgh.
51 During the interview I conducted on July 26, 2018, at his residence in Bloemendaal, Netherlands, Professor Wim van der Meer remarked that he and Vedi had counted the number of rāgas and compositions that the latter remembered. The count was a remarkable 6000 compositions in nearly 200 rāgas. In the years he studied with Vedi, Meer was able to learn (zubānī) and document (kalāmī) approximately 600 compositions in 80 rāgas. That is, the rest of 5400 plus compositions remained Vedi’s zubānī and now, after his passing, it may not be possible to connect with that undocumented knowledge. According to Meer though, there are more compositions out there with Paṇḍit D C Vedi’s other students and grand disciples as he (Vedi) was known to teach a different set of compositions to his students depending upon their genre-based preferences and/or research focus.
Avtār Siṅgh and Gurcharan Siṅgh notated nearly 492 compositions in 105 rāgas in their 2 volumes, Gurbānī Saṅgīta: Prācīna Rīta Ratnāvalī. I am working on a third volume which contains 320 compositions in 78 rāgas, 40 (rāgas) out of which were not included in the first 2 volumes, which were centred on the rāgas mentioned in Gurbāṇī. In 1997, Avtār Siṅgh and I were having an evening walk in which we ended up counting the number of compositions (4000) and rāgas (nearly 300) that he remembered. After the count, he remarked on a touching note, ‘ainnī vidyā hōṇ tōṃ bād huṇ mehsūs hundaē kē mēi (bāpu jī kōlōṃ) baithkē sikkhaṇ joggā hōēāṃ’ (after having learnt and practiced this much knowledge, I think I am finally ready to study from my father). That is, in the first two volumes of Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta and the third volume that I am in the process of writing after having studied from Gurcharan Siṅgh and others affiliated to Jwālā Siṅgh in one way or another, only about 800 compositions out of the 4000 or so that he remembered have been harnessed in about 145 rāgas. The rest is now marked as lost intangible heritage of Gur-Sikh mārga.
52 I had a faint memory of this dhurpada, thanks to Ratan Siṅgh who sang it at my residence sometime in 1997, but once I found it online by sheer chance, the composition just boomeranged back into my active memory. Like Fayyāz Khān of the Agra Gharāṇā, Samund Siṅgh was one of the last maestros who were adept at singing all the classical music genres ranging from dhurpade, baṛā and choṭā khayāl, ṭhumrī, ṭappā, dādarā to horī and dhamāra – Ustād Bade Ghulam Ali Khān being among his admirers and friends. Given some of the textual omissions, misspellings in the recording, and arrangement of words with melody, it is evident that Samund Siṅgh is having a recall of this composition and does not seem to have prepared to sing it beforehand. He leaves a trace of the sañcārī while improvising the composition in duguṇa laya (double speed), which I have since interpreted and added to the notation.
53 I counted every single one of the rāgas and bandiśas notated in 380 pages of Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta, Volume I, 6th edition, by Gyān Siṅgh and found major editing errors. In the index, 67 rāgas are listed but I actually found 76 rāgas with 12 more compositions in rāgas sāmant sāraṅga, laṅkdahan sāraṅga, nūr sāraṅga, nāyaki kānṛā, revaṛī kānṛā, jaita kalyāna, lakṣmī kalyāna, śrī kalyāna, and durgā that were not even listed. It is shocking that not one of the 6 editions of the book were actually edited. If no one was there to check the count of rāgas, then what about the musical notes, were they ever edited or are there mistakes within?
54 The composition posted on Arijit Bose’s YouTube channel: starts at the 18:21 min marker.
55 See the notation by Bhāī Prēm Siṅgh (Appendix VI) done in the year 1922 for use of vowels and semi-vowels such as a, ā, i, ī, ū, o, ē and ϵ where the word-syllables like bī+ta and jϵ+h ϵ, two beats each, are stretched across three beats by extending respective/corresponding vowels bī+ī+ta and jϵ+hϵ+a. It is worthy of note that Prēm Siṅgh and Jwālā Siṅgh, Bhagat Siṅgh's uncle and teacher, are classmates and that this notation style seems to be done by the student lineage of the legendary Bābā Vasāwā Siṅgh of Darbār Sāhib, Amritsar.
56 See Appendix X.
57 Two particular comparisons from Gurbāṇī that come to mind are as follows:
Example 1
On SGGS aṅgas (page), 6 – as the 27th pauṛī (verse, step or section) of Gurū Nānak Dēv’s japa, 8 – as part of rehrās, and 347 – as part of rāga āsā compilation, the ikpadā with twenty-two tukas titled ‘sō dar’ is listed below with different emphasis (not to be mistaken as changes) in bold. In japa, the rāga name (āsā) and the title (sō dar) do not find a mention perhaps because japa has been recited since the times of Gurū Nānak Dēv and not sung.
Example 2
On SGGS aṅgas (page) 12 and 157, Gurū Nānak Dēv’s caupadā ‘jai ghari kīrti ākhīai kartē kā hōi bīcārō’ is listed in two rāgas namely, rāga gauṛī dīpakī and rāga gauṛī pūrbī dīpakī albeit with three minor changes (in bold below). In the gauṛī dīpakī version, syllable ‘r’ in sivarihu has an added semivowel ‘i’ while the syllable ‘a’ in asīsaṛīā is without the double vowel ‘ā’. The gauṛī pūrbī dīpakī version has an extra triphthong ornate word, jāou, as part of its rahāo tuka.
58 Sargam is a musical composition in which the names of the musical notes as content are used.
59 15th beat in V3 of the Rāga Megha Sargama above.
60 In the third part, sañcārī, of his dhrupada in rāga multānī, ‘vidyā teū bhalī’, Nāyak Baijū addresses Nāyak Gōpāl, ‘sāta pragaṭa tīna gupat racēō gopāla lāla’ which translates as ‘Hey Gōpāl, seven (notes are) revealed, three (are) hidden’. None of the dhrupada musicians I have interviewed and studied from knew the concept of hidden notes and obviously, weren’t able to answer. The fact that my questions (in this regard) surprised them, showed me that the discussion on the matter had not been a part of their learning process.
61 Both of Bandhopādhyāy’s versions, his original work published in 1885 as well as the second edition published in 1941, carry the same textual mistakes which are akin to the ones (mistakes/omissions) made by even the most famous Gurbāṇī kīrtankāras. For example, the pronunciation of the word 
(pria) has been pronounced as 
(pirīā) and 
(prīā) by none other than Avtār Siṅgh. Another instance is Samund Siṅgh’s rendition of a pauṛī in rāga hamīr kalyān set in 12-beat cārtāla, ‘tū datā datār terā dittā khāvaṇā’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc23sdVAmj4&t=934s) in which he forgets to sing the second line of the pauṛī, jīa jant sarbat nāō tērā dhiāvaṇā’, altogether. The author’s notation of this śabadrīta has been provided in Aiṛā section (See footnote 50 for quick reference).
62 For examples of Gur-Sikh repertoire in Bandhopādhyāy’s book, see Appendix III a to III d.
63 See Appendix II a–d.
64 See Appendix V a and V b.
65 See Appendix III.
66 See ‘Vākalaṅkāra: A comparative study’ on page 19 for a detailed analysis on alaṅkāras.
67 The bold and italiques emphasis is by the author.
68 Annual Report of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1958. See List of Participants, Appendix XII.
69 Ibid., Page 13. See Appendix XII b.
70 Ibid., Page 14.
71 Ibid., Page 18. See Appendix XII c.
72 See Appendix XII f–h. I have preferred to share the scan copy of the original journal instead of the Annual Report of 1953–58 which did not have proper notation markings.
73 In this event, papers were presented by R S Jayalakshmi (Subbarāma Dīkṣitar’s signs), K G Vijayakrishnan (Raṅgarāmanuja Iyengar's Notation), Sriram Parasuram (T Viswanathan and Further), Akella Mallikarjuna Sharma (Self designed Kampitas and Gamakas), Ramesh Vinayakam (Self Designed Gamaka Box) and S Srikumar. It is important to note that all of these scholars belonged to the Karnāṭic Saṅgīta traditions.
74 I am yet again reminded of a gentleman, who was speaking passionately to several people gathered around him about a rāga śrī version that had both the R notes, that is, flat and sharp. It was during the lunch break at a seminar held at the India International Centre, New Delhi. I joined in as my curiosity surged. One of the listeners who was clearly excited at the unique discovery made by the story teller, asked him about the source of the rāga version. To my utter surprise, he named my granduncles, Avtār Siṅgh and Gurcharan Siṅgh as the authors of the two volumes, but that he couldn’t recall the names of the publication. I had pitched in by sharing the name of the two volumes as Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta: Prācīna Rīta Ratnāvalī, and stating that this composition did not use both, tīvra and kōmal rikhabs (musical note R). The gentleman then insisted that I should check the volumes before arguing with him. I then told him that the authors he was speaking about were not only my granduncles, but also my teachers, and that I had studied the composition directly from both of them. Even after I told him that the absence of kōmal (Flat) symbol from beneath the first mention of musical note rikhab in the notation was a printing error, he actually asked me to try and sing the composition as notated (with both rikhabs) for it produced an ‘extraordinary rasa’! An image of Page 7, Volume I, PRR by Avtār Siṅgh and Gurcharan Siṅgh, with the typing/printing error (manually encircled) is provided in .
75 See Appendix XIII a–b.
76 Ramanathan’s email exchange with the author. 22 March 2018.
77 See Appendix XIV a–c.
78 It is interesting to note that the compositions by Tagōre are based on the dhrupada format with most compositions following the format asthāī, antarā, ābhōga and sancārī, exactly as Rahīmuddīn Khān and his son, Fahimuddīn Khān, would insist it should be instead of the asthāī, antarā, sancārī and ābhōga format which is the norm followed by every other tradition including members of their own family.
79 See Appendix XV a–c.
80 Sanyal (Citation2015). See Appendix XV a–c to see Pages 11 and 12 as a specimen of Sanyal’s newly devised notation system.
81 See Appendix XVII, for the handwritten notation by Paṇḍit Yeshwant Mahale.
82 Over the last 31 years, I have researched about 92 vākalaṅkāras that exist in the repertoire dating back to the times of the gurūs, especially in their original musical works and conversed with the heads and/or the most important exponents of their respective traditions in India, of both Hindustani and Karnāṭic Saṅgīta, as well as in Pakistan. My personal take is that there was a commonality with regards to these vākalaṅkāras and only in the last couple of hundred years the common fabric was somehow ripped apart. After all, if different traditions or knowledge streams sang a rāga bhairao, then it simply means they were all versed with the nuances of this particular rāga.
83 Siṅgh (Citation2011). Page 248. See discussion on ‘revealed song’.
84 Personal communications. 1987–2016.
85 Siṅgh (Citation2011). Page 264.
86 kūq (calling): In the singing of maṅglācharan, for example, calling upon the Kartār (Creator) by using words such as hē prabhū, hē nimāṇēyāṃ dē māṇ, etc. In singing the Padē, the moment to render the kūq is in the abhōg stage of the composition or whenever the author of a text supplicates as in ‘kahē nānak’, ‘kahu kabīr’ and ‘kahat nāmdēō’ are few different examples (in emphasis) of kūq that literally translate as has said or is saying (
), will say (
). It is a state where a kīrtaniyā’s total being is involved in the call – when simran (contemplation), japa (recitation), dhyāna (meditation) are done with no prayer in mind, or with any desire, in a state of total contentment.
87 pukār (invocation): Invoking with a purpose; the invocation is mostly in the prayer ‘rākhō’ used either as a prefix or a suffix in formulations such as ‘rākhō prabhū’ or ‘prabhū rākhō’ and ‘shēikh farīdē khâir dījē’. In Gur-Sikh thought, this is the most used vākalaṅkāra when one is on the gurgam mārga until the philosopher cum seeker’s to do list exhausts, that is, from pukārs such as ‘remove all vices within’ and ‘adorn me with virtues that there are’, one reaches a state to be able to sing ‘dhāvatō asthir thīā’ (an incessantly restless mind that was, now no longer wanders).
88 Gurū Rām Dās, the fourth Sikh gurū, rāga bairāṛī. SGGS, page 719:
‘suna mana akath kathā hari nāma’.
89 Gurū Arjan Dēv, the fifth Sikh gurū, rāga sūhī. SGGS, page 760:
‘man bach kram prabhu ēku dhiāē, sarab falā sōī janu pāē’.
90 Personal communication with master luthier Gyāni Harbhajan Siṅgh Mistrī (1920–2005), a student of Ustād Bhāī Batan Siṅgh of Village Mehli. October 1995. This was one of the many experiences he shared with me when I was doing my research with him on the extinct musical instruments of Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta.
91 Ritwik Sanyal and Richard Widdess: Dhrupad: tradition and performance in Indian music. SOAS Musicology Series by Ashgate, 2004. Page 161. In their book, Widdess and Sanyal quote, what Fahimuddīn Khān of Ḍāgurvāṇī dhrupad would call a nāda yōga dhrupad (whose musical structure, I can faintly recall), Adāraṅga’s dhrupad which has a list of various alaṅkāras: ‘(rāg Rūpāvati) [sthāyi]: nāda grāma sura pada vidhi guṇa varagāla asthāna/ ālāpa gamaka surati tāla racanā gāna/ [antarā]: sāja sahaja gahana jhurata phurata lāga dānṭa tīkha cokha surasangata sõ/ yāhī vidhī gaye bajāye kaha hai purakhāna ke mata/ [sañcārī]: ākāra gamaka lahaka ḍagara dhurana murana kaṁpita āndola/ sphurti huḍaka udāta anudāta svarita vedana ko yaha tata/ [abhog]: adāraṅga gāna mūla cāra varṇa alaṃkāra sāra/ Kṛpā gurujana kī ālāp āye vāye tata //’
92 See Appendix XVIII a.
93 See Appendix XVIII b.
94 On page 449, Kahan Siṅgh Nabha in his Mahan Kosh defines caoḳī or 
as a group of singers comprising four kīrtaniyē. On page 463, he mentions that the fifth gurū, Sāhib Srī Gurū Arjan Dēv, established the tradition of four caōṅkīāṃ or 
at the Darbār Sāhib namely:
(pre-dawn singing of āsā dī vār)
(post-dawn singing of carana kavala dī caōṅkī derived from the singing of the śabad ‘carana kavala hari kē nit dhiāē’ in rāga bilāval).
(Singing of sō-dar dī caōṅkī before sunset. The name of this caōṅkī is derived from Gurū Nānak’s composition titled ‘sō dar’ or ‘That Door’).
(Night time singing of kalyāna dī caōṅkī in which Gurbāṇī compositions in rāga kalyāna are sung).
Here I must add that in my paper, ‘What Is Kīrtan’ (Routledge, 2011), I have wrongly mentioned that five caōṅkī-s were sung at the Darbār Sāhib, Amritsar, for which I sincerely apologise. The exact quote from my paper is as follows:
Originally, there were five chaunkis, subsequently increased to 15. When there were five chaunkis, it must have meant that people carried out other tasks during the day. One wonders whether the original five chaunkis had any correlation with the Muslim practice of namaz, also offered five times each day.
95 It needs to be researched whether there is a technical reason for some of these traditions to have the same number (12) of alaṅkāras.
96 Miśra gamakam would be an eclectic use of all aforementioned gamakas.
97 To check various gamaka symbols used by Subbarāma Dīkṣita in Saṅgīta Saṁpradāya Pradarśini, see Appendix IV a–h.
98 I have highlighted a section in bold to emphasise the fact that it is rare to be introduced in this manner. Most musicians spend their lifetimes enamoured by what they could achieve and do, musically, without realising that compositions too had their own set of requirements.
99 23:23 min marker; AIR Tribute 1 of 2, Bundū Khān: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psKU8YxH5_U
Published by Badoi on 26 January 2015.
100 At the 5:30 min marker.
101 Page 9. Aesthetic Theory and Hindustani Rhythm, S. K. Saxena. The Winged Form, 2012.
102 Page 464, column 2; Mahānkosh: Encyclopaedia of Sikhism (1930). Kahan Siṅgh Nabha. 1999, 6th edition.
103 The Winged Form: Aesthetical Essays on Hindustani Rhythm’ by Sushil Kumar Saxena. Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi and Printworld, New Delhi, 2012. First published in 1979, it was after listening to my accompaniment on joṛī-pakhāwaj with the performance of Fahimuddīn Khān in an event he organised, Saxena was inspired to rewrite the essay he had written over 35 years ago (from the date of the concert).
104 Saxena, 1976.
105 Jori, World Music Heritage Series, 2004. Anad Records Private Limited, New Delhi. Artist: Bhāī Baldeep Siṅgh. Writing a review of this album in Nishaan magazine (Issue IV/2005. Page 16), Allyn Miner wrote:
Bhai Baldeep Siṅgh’s research has led him to believe that Sikh devotional music preserved the sounds and structures of early, Pre-Mughal, dhrupad music. Dhrupad itself had devotional roots, but while later dhrupad music changed and developed stylistically to please its courtly patrons, Sikh keertan remained centered on spiritual goals and retained the structures, embellishments, and aesthetics of the older style. Thus the Amritsari baaj is a rare and invaluable repository of musical and spiritual history.
Over the last 50 years the tabla (which came into usage in the 18th century, i.e. in the post-Gurūs’ times, and in the non-devotional context of the Mughal court music) has all but replaced the jori as the accompanying percussion in shabad keertan. In fact, in the Sikh sangat, the tabla is mistakenly referred to as the jori, even though the two are distinct instruments with different form, bols and accompaniment styles.
106 Page 8, Winged Forms: Aesthetical Essays on Hindustani Rhythm’ by Sushil Kumar Saxena. Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi and Printworld, New Delhi, 2012. From the very beginning, most musicians thought my questions and queries were a waste but Saxena encouraged me to keep on compiling all intangible assets that I could find and would endorse the inferences I would draw. Saxena and I had even written the chapter titles for a book on rhythm that we had hoped to write together, but never got the chance.
107 For the purposes of this paper, I am only sharing the names of the vākalaṅkāras. I plan to explain their uniqueness and usage in the near future.
108 Imagining and rendering a musical thought weaving one or many vākalaṅkāras using one or more musical notes.
109 Literally residence, it is not to be mistaken with the term ghar from Gurbani. I have come across at least two understandings from the elders. One, the setting of kharaj especially in the ages when there were no set markers or measures (440) for the setting up of the main tonic. Different masters would have their own note and then different rāgas would be sung from a different chord or base note given the utrāng-pūrvāng attribute of the rāga; Two, the base note would also be chosen given the spread of notes across the three octaves in a given composition. In other words, the maestros would prefer to sing at a higher pitch solely for the reasons of being audible to an audience often gathered outdoor with a lot of organic noise all around – children, animals, people – when there were no microphones and public address systems available. For example, compositions like ghōṛīā, lavāṃ and various vintage chaṅt are all composed spread across one octave scale length. These compositions would then be sung from the fourth or the fifth note instead of the base note. This would also serve a few added benefits: these compositions were remembered by the women sitting in the audience and the change of scale would make it possible for them to sing along; the first string of staple instruments such as the rabāb and tāus would be tuned to the fourth or the fifth note making it very simple to shift the scale with minor tuning adjustments and without spending time to retune the whole instrument within a concert. In case of instruments such as the vintage sarandā whose first string is tuned to the first or the base note, one would simply make the second string as the kharaj reversing the process as applicable when using rabāb and tāus.
110 Essence, extract, the take away, summation, for example, sārānsh.
111 To pierce, the elders will associate it with the attaining of tunefulness, especially the higher kharaj or Sa’.
112 As told to Gurmit Siṅgh of Bristol, who studied from Taraṅgaṛ between 1975 and 1976. I specially travelled to Bristol to interview him on Saturday, 4 August 2018. The original conversation was in Pañjābī; here, I have summed up the anecdote in English.
113 Gurū Amar Dās, rāga rāmkalī anand. (SGGS 917, pauṛī 20): jīahu nirmal bāhrhu nirmal.
114 Ibid. Pauṛī 19: jīahu mâēlē bāhrhu nirmal.
115 In Gurbāṇī, there are several vices that have been named including kāma, krōdha, lōbha, mōha, ahaṅkāra, haṭṭha, nindyā, cuglī.
116 A lot of effort has been made since the times of the gurūs to sift from among the people, the finest minds and engage them with tasks that eventually brought phenomenal changes to the society and ended discrimination, segregation and profiling on the basis of religion, caste, class, and race. As Gurū Arjan Dēv, the fifth Sikh gurū, sang in rāga srī (SGGS 73):
As long as the institutions ideated and curated by the gurūs were running, a certain music and musicianship also lived on. The moment alien interventions began quietly dismantling the institutions that ensured sovereignty for the people, the quality of music and scholarship very quickly dwindled.
117
118 Taraṅgaṛ is the son of Bhāī Rām Siṅgh, a classmate of Jwālā Siṅgh of Ṭhaṭṭā Ṭibbā.
119 To hear this recording of Kultār Siṅgh, Song title: ‘Kou Bikham Gaar Tore’. (Duration 4:09 min) visit http://www.gurmatsangeetpup.com/santsuchsingharchievesofmusic/index.html. This composition is part of paṛtāl compositions listed on the external website of Punjabi University’s Gurmat Sangeet Chair. The university has also published the collection in CDs. Note the sections ‘ … gun gobiṅd gāvao’ at 2:48 min marker, and how he repeats the rendition of ‘ … gāvao’ at 3:00 min marker. At 3:30 min marker, the bypassed region or the rendition of ‘ … nidhi nāmu nānak … ’ was so prominent that startled, I had looked at him, as he had looked at me.
120 Unfortunately, it seems as though Kultār Siṅgh didn’t understand that every recorded composition or aired opinion attracts scrutiny. Any prematurely released audio-video publication by a student (for sheer lack of patience or perseverance) can falsely and unfairly implicate even the finest of traditions.
121 A paṛtāla is a padā containing eclectic poetic metres, which when musically composed as śabadrīta, ordinarily employs multiple rhythm cycles.
122 Bhāī Avtār Siṅgh, Song title: Kou Bikham Gaar Torai. Duration – 4:34 min. Published by Music Today. 1999.
123 By the author. 10 March 2018, Delhi.
124 For all those who have wondered about the term dhurpada (singular) and dhurpade (plural) versus the more commonly used dhrupada, here is the text from Harī Narāyan Mukhopādhyāy's Dhrupad Swarlipi (1929), page 111–2 (See Appendix XIX):
bājat jhāñjh mridaṅg tān dhūn ravāv khaṭ tārī kānan bīn. 1.karat paran bhēd tāditt thūṃ nā takk thaḍāṅg takk-kā thūṅgā tagg di takk dhidhikiṭ dhumkiṭ gadi ghin nag ditt-dhā kiṭgadīghin nagditt-dhā kiṭ gadīghin nagditt-dhā. 2.dharan mukh mudrā nirkhat sab guni jan āhat anāhat kō vaēvarē na pāvē gurū vin. 3.gīt saṅgīta dharat dharū dhurpada dhūā karat vichar ati prvīn. 4.
125 Personal communication with Avtār Siṅgh.
126 At the time, Sumati Mutatkar was residing at the Asiad Games Village, New Delhi. During one of the meetings in 1990, she had asked me to sing a few compositions from the Gurbāṇī Kīrtana tradition. I remember having sung two paṛtāl compositions, namely, ‘bapār gobind nāe’ in rāga āsā set in madhya-gatī tāla ḍhāīyā (medium tempo 7 beat rhythmic cycle) and drut cārtāla (fast 12 beat cycle) as well as ‘jap man narhare narhar soāmi’ in rāga śudha sāraṅg set in madhya-gatī tāla paṅcham savāri (medium tempo 15 beat cycle) and drut cārtāla. Then I had sung ‘rajā rām maoleā anat bhāe’ in rāga shudh basant, an original composition of Bhagat Kabīr set in madhya-gatī tāla sūlfākta (10 beats).
127 Then, Professor of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning, University of California, Berkeley, USA and member of Anād Foundation’s Anād Scientific Advisory Committee (ASAC). I had met him over lunch at UC, Berkeley, for the first time on 22 January 2009. Professor Paolo Ceccarelli had very kindly consented to chair the committee and my meeting with Randy Hester and his wife, Marcia McNally was arranged by him.
128 The author is sharing his recollections of the meeting and expressing in his own words.
129 Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta: Prācīna Rīta Ratnāvali, 1979. Panjabi University, Patiala.
130 Siṅgh (Citation2011). Page 277:
Notations in India.
There were attempts to notate Indian music before the Bhatkhande and Paluskar efforts … … and it is simply not true that these were the first Indian attempts to write down music, although, when the two brothers, Bhāī Avtār Siṅgh and Bhāī Gurcharan Siṅgh, began their notation work in the early 1970s, they addressed the inadequacy of the current notation system. The remedy they chose was to record all the compositions and give their notations to the Department of Gurū Granth Studies, so that they could be made available to any gurbani kīrtan enthusiast wanting to sing any particular shabad-reet. The brothers felt that it was not possible for an independent musician to fully learn a composition without listening to the intonations that are rāga-specific and shabad-reet-specific, the pace of the tāla, and the numerous ornamentations traditionally rendered.
131 See Appendix V a–b.
132 Just about every musician on the block is a composer and claims to have evolved his or her own style, which is a euphemism for not having studied enough and/or studied properly. My comments are not intended to undermine the contribution and vision of all those who have made attempts to record traditional music in their own respective ways, for South Asian music would have only been poorer in the absence of all of these works. Instead, the purpose is to initiate a constructive dialogue that will hopefully lead to better methods and to update the modes we use to record music for the benefit of generations to come. Musical heritage, among the most precious intangible heritage assets, needs consistent effort to conserve and sustain.
133 Page 115, Volume I, Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta: Prācīna Rīta Ratnāvalī, 1979. Panjabi University, Patiala.
134 Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta: Prācīna Rīta Ratnāvalī, Volumes 1 & 2 (1979) by Avtār Siṅgh and Gurcharan Siṅgh. Punjabi University, Patiala.
135 The notation was placed on two different pages, but I have tried to join both the sections.
136 Siṅgh (Citation2011). Page 247.
137 Prototype name.
138 Maestros including Gurcharan Siṅgh, Taraṅgaṛ, Thākur Siṅgh, Jaswant Kaur, Bīr Siṅgh, Balbīr Siṅgh, Karam Siṅgh Kulār (See Appendix XX), Raṅjīt Siṅgh (See Appendix XXI).
139 Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta: Prācīṅa Kīrtī Mālā, Gurū Nānak Dēv University, Amritsar, and Anad Records Private Limited, New Delhi. 2018.
I am in the process of writing the third volume containing 320 compositions in 78 rāgas that were taught by Jwālā Siṅgh of Ṭhaṭṭā Ṭibbā to some of his students and compositions I learnt from various Kīrtana maestros over the years during my field work. This volume is being published by the Gurū Nānak Dēv University, Amritsar, with Anad Records Private Limited, New Delhi. Although an advance copy of the book was dedicated by the former Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Siṅgh and the Chief Minister of Pañjāb, Captain Amarinder Siṅgh on 24 December 2017 at the state level function held at Anandpur Sāhib, India, and dedicated to the 350th birth anniversary of Sāhib Sri Gurū Gobind Siṅgh, the tenth Gur-Sikh gurū, the book is in the last stages of production.
140 Pages 222–225.
141 Percussionist Rabābī of Khadoor Sāhib, Bhāī Gām, during an interview conducted by the author in Lahore, Pakistan, in the year 2000 for his documentary ‘The Sacred Music of the Sikhs’. (Hari Dhyan Films. 2004. Duration: 43 mins).
142 Ibid., pages 47–48.
143 Keertan Pranali Ke Pad. 2015(?). Goswami, Brajbhūśan Lāl Ji. A compilation of 1210 dhamāra compositions for every day and basanta (spring) season rituals.
144 Personal communication via Whatsapp.
145 Siṅgh, Bhāī Avtār and Bhāī Gurcharan Siṅgh. Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta: Prācīna Rīta Ratnāvalī. 1979. P 207–9.
146 Personal communication. 1993. Village Ṭhaṭhiāṅ Mahaṅtāṅ, Pañjāb. ‘Cāccā Jwālā Siṅgh jad ēh śabadrīta taūs nāl vajā ke gaōnde sī; maōṇ aḳkhāṃ hoīyyāṃ nīrō-nīr, tē mâi joṛī te laya nahīṃ – sannāṭṭā vajaoṇā!’
147 Gurbānī Saṅgīta: Prācīna Kīrtī Māla. 2019. Gurū Nānak Dēv University, Amritsar, and Anad Records Private Limited, New Delhi. Forthcoming. Rāga kalaṅgaṛā, tāla ḍāīyyā (7 beats).
148 Retrieved from The Times: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/page/1950-01-27/4.html?region=global
149 ‘The Mind And Art Of Allābandē Rahīmuddīn Khān Dagur’. 6-CD album. World Music Heritage Series by Anad Records Pvt. Ltd., 2011.
150 As told to the author by both of the brothers.
151 Jawaddi Taksal.org: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1DEjptn5z4
152 The Adutti Gurmat Sangeet Sammelan recordings from the year 1996 have been posted by the Gurūdwārā on their Jawaddi Taksal YouTube Channel. I hadn’t planned to sing and hadn’t practiced a śabad for the Adutti Gurmat Sangeet Sammelan.
153 Translation by the author. 10 March 2018.
154 By the author. 10 March 2018, Delhi. 2115 Hrs.
155 I must make a mention that the joy that Avtār Siṅgh felt with regards to my playing the joṛī-pakhāwaj is there to be seen on his face in numerous videos out there. In 1994, he even invited me to play the joṛī-pakhāwaj in a recording which was later published (1999). The point I make is with regards to his measured dissatisfaction with regards to my singing ability, which was certainly a few years behind my percussive skills and achievements.
156 By the author. 10 March 2018, Delhi.
157 See Appendix XXII.
158 Personal communication. Professor Satya Paul Gautam (1951–2018), Founder, Centre of Philosophy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and former Vice-chancellor, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Rohilkhand University, Bareilly.
159 Taraṅgaṛ hailed form Village Bhullar, District Tarn Tāran, Pañjāb, India. Not actually related, at age 5, he was offered for adoption by his father, Rām Siṅgh, to Jwālā Siṅgh. The first year, he was cared for by Bhāī Sāhib Narāin Siṅgh (d. 1906), eldest brother of Jwālā Siṅgh and great-grandfather of the author, himself a maestro dhrupadiya, tāus player and philanthropist. Narāin Siṅgh died in the year 1906 about 5 miles from 'Nankāṇā Sāhib, the birth place of Gurū Nānak, now in Pakistan where he had been serving people suffering from plague at the time. Then after, Jwālā Siṅgh, a classmate of Rām Siṅgh, took charge of Taraṅgaṛ’s tutelage. Taraṅgaṛ went on to become one of the finest percussionists of South Asia but lived in anonymity post-1947 until the author discovered him in 1990 at Gurcharan Siṅgh’s recommendation. The families remained very close and Taraṅgaṛ, considered a part of the family very much, addressed as ‘uncle’, grand-uncle’, etc.
Gurcharan Siṅgh had refused to accept my pagṛi, a custom when becoming a disciple of the Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta tradition. He had said that as his elder brother and teacher, Taraṅgaṛ still lived, he did not have the authority to accept anyone’s pagṛi. This was a unique gesture and showed the deep bond between the two. Both Taraṅgaṛ and Gurcharan Siṅgh had a fall out in early 1940s and did not speak to each other for decades after that. Taraṅgaṛ was an extraordinary maestro who not only remembered percussion, but also thousands of ancient śabadrītās along with being an exegete.
160 See Appendix XXIII a.
161 See Appendix XXIII b.
162 Personal communication. March 2018.
163 Interview with Bhāī Gaam, a Rabābi from Khadoor Sāhib who migrated to Pakistan, by the author. Lahore, 2000. A short clip of his playing was posted on the author’s YouTube channel on 31 August 2008, with the introduction, ‘One of my research trips to Lahore, when I interviewed many people. This is Bhāī Gaam, a descendent of the Rabābis of Gurū Angad Dēv, born in Khadur Sāhib. He had not played joṛī or pakhāwaj for more than 50 years when I got him to play my own drums’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSIAEqP2v9I
164 I was one of the speakers at a workshop organised by the Pañjāb Arts Council at their Sector 16 auditorium in Chandigarh on June 7, 2019. Columnist and journalist Harjāp Siṅgh Aujlā joined us for a cup of tea at the office of the council's chairman, Dr Surjīt Pātar. After the event he recalled:
‘Tufail Niāzī nē ikk vārī zikar kītā kē jehṛī gayakī maiṃ Bhāī Jwālā Siṅgh dī suṇī ā, ōs tarāṃh dī gāyakī maiṃ zindagī 'c hōr kadē suṇī nahīṃ' (Tufail Niāzī told me that he never ever heard anyone else sing like the way Bhāī Jwālā Siṅgh did').
165 Posted by Ektara India: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNurlU0GoL0
166 Personal communication with his student Bīr Siṅgh of Nāmdhārī Darbār. 1997.
167 This important historical account was to be added by the late author Patwant Siṅgh in his final book, which he coauthored with Jyoti M. Rai, titled Empire of the Sikhs: The life and times of Maharaja Ranjit Siṅgh (Peter Owen Brothers, London. 2008). His wife Meher and I were planning my concert at their residence when I got caught up with my own research projects, and sadly Patwant passed away. It was an honour for me to light his pyre – as if I were his child – at his cremation ceremony at Lodhi Road Crematorium. For he was so moved to learn of the Lion of Pañjāb's hitherto unknown seminal contribution in the field of conservation of intangible heritage, I dedicate this section to Patwant Siṅgh.
168 See Appendix XXIV.
169 See Appendix XXV.
170 See Appendix XXVI a.
171 See Appendix XXVI b.
172 Courtesy AGSS archives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxpXa7z9wvA
173 Courtesy Harbans Siṅgh Kinot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfptbNl6VQQ. I could not fail but notice that the gentleman who has posted the recording has copied the introduction of Bhāī Balbīr Siṅgh I wrote without providing any credit. Nevertheless!
174 See Appendix XXVII.
175 See Appendix XXVIII.
176 See Appendix XXIX.
177 See Appendix XXX.
178 Including Professor Kartar Siṅgh (Gurmat Sangeet Academy, Anandpur Sāhib), Dr. Gurnam Siṅgh, (Gurmat Sangeet Department, Punjabi University, Patiala) and Surinder Siṅgh (Raj Academy, London).
179 The Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta paramparā has never been under the purview of one family alone. Throughout this paper I have demonstrated the multiple paths from which the knowledge has survived, being taught by Rabābī and Gur-Sikh musicians, in and between family lineages and disciples.
180 While there is more work to be done, the research that has been conducted is either my own, from late 1980s up to present, which I made into a film titled ‘The Sacred Music of the Sikhs’ (1999) and published in the 2011 article ‘What is Kīrtan?’ Sikh Formations, 7:3, 245–295. My student Nirinjan Kaur Khalsa has also conducted extensive research beginning in 2005 and documented in her dissertation The Renaissance of Sikh Dēvotional Music: Memory, Identity, Orthopraxy. University of Michigan. 2014, and publication ‘Gurbāṇī Kīrtana Renaissance: Reviving Musical Memory, Reforming Sikh Identity’. Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory. Vol. 8, Issue 2. Routledge.
181 For more information on Bhāī Sadhāraṇ, see mentions and several entries made in Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth by Kavi Santokh Siṅgh and Mahān Kosh by Bhāī Kahan Siṅgh Nabha.
182 Personal communication. 1990–1. Mohali, Pañjāb.
183 Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta: Prācīna Rīta Ratnāvalī, 1979. 2 Volumes. Panjabi University, Patiala.
184 Personal communication with Bhāī Swaran Siṅgh. September 2018.
185 Ibid., page (xii).
186 Ibid., Mukh Bandh, Section 3, page (xii).
187 Ibid.
188 Ibid., Section 4, page (xiii)
Bhāī Sāhib Ardaman Siṅgh of Bagrian
Professor Sohan Siṅgh Ji, Head, Department of Music, Punjabi University, Patiala
Dr Ajīt Siṅgh Paintal, Lecturer, Department of Music, Delhi University
Bhāī Jodh Siṅgh
Dr Tāran Siṅgh
189 Ibid.:
190 Ibid.:
191 Ibid.:
192 Personal communication with Balbīr Siṅgh, Shiromaṇī Rāgī and former Hazuri Rāgī. 1991.
193 I
After a Kirtan Darbār held at Gurūdwārā Siṅgh Sabha, Sector 34, Chandigarh, in 1991, where he had sung ‘man(u) jāpahu rām gopāl’, a paṛtāl by the fourth Sikh Gurū composed by (Professor) Tārā Siṅgh in rāga darbāri kāṅaṛā, Dr. Jagir Siṅgh told me, 
(We sing simplified compositions of your ancestors). I remember querying Jagir Siṅgh with, ‘why does not this fact find a mention in the foreword of these new publications?’ He had no answer, but a shy smile. On June 19, 2019, when I called Dr Jagir Siṅgh to know about his association with Tārā Siṅgh, he informed me that his younger brother, Bachitar Siṅgh had actually studied this composition. After they had practiced together, Jagir Siṅgh and Bachitar Siṅgh sang this paṛtāl in the year 1985 at Bridgewater Gurūdwara, New Jersey with Professor Narinder Siṅgh on the tablā. The audio-recording of their performance made by Sardar Harjap Siṅgh Aujla has been made available by ‘Kirtan Sewa’ YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHAY2dLipPQ&feature=youtu.be. In Paṛtāl Gāyakī, the compilation of paṛtāls composed by Professor Tārā Siṅgh and posthumously edited by his widow, Surjit Kaur, published by Gurmat Prakashan, Patiala in 1991, the paṛtāl that Jagir Siṅgh sang is notated from Page 75-78 (images, courtesy of Alankar Siṅgh, have been edited by me to combine each section otherwise separated due to page breaks) as follows, beginning with the asthāī set to tīntāla:
This paṛtāla’s first tuḳa (line) of the first aṅtarā is set in three cycles of the 12-beat ēktāla, while the last tuḳa of the first padā is set in three cycles of the 14-beat tāla dīpacandī, albeit with additional seven beats to sing the latter part ‘hāla’ of its (the first pada’s) last word ‘nihāla’ to re-enter the 16 beat tīntāla thus cueing up the asthāī:
This first tuḳa (line) of the second aṅtarā has 18 words – 1hamrē 2hari 3prān 4sakhā 5soāmī 6hari 7mītā | 8mērē 9mani 10tani 11jīha 12hari 13harē 14harē 15rāma 16nāma 17dhanu | 18māla, which the composer splits in three (shown as segregated) clusters of 7, 11, and 1 word respectively. Tārā Siṅgh has composed the first 7 words in two cycles of the 12-beat cārtāla, the following 11 words in two cycles of the 14-beat tāla āḍḍā-cautāla, and the last word ‘māla’ to re-enter the 16 beat tīntāla, thus cueing up the asthāī as follows:
The first and the second tuka of the second stanza has a bēmānī (meaningless) interjection of the asthāī with the second tuka set in fast paced 16-beats tintāla, as in the image below, perhaps solely for musical reasons (perhaps trying to use five tālas). A fine example of a composed song limited to the musico-spiritual ambit of the composer, here is the last section, or the second tuka of the paṛtāl:
I can understand the enthusiasm revolving around the phenomenon of changing tālas, to which the singing of paṛtāl has been relegated, almost per the whim of the composer, who is not a maestro of percussion. Merely changing tālas is no phenomenon, spiritually speaking; perhaps it is one from a musical point of view, but when the standard of musicianship is evolved and elevated, the gamaka (as in movement) from one note to another is rendered only if there is a reason. It is not a musical necessity to use all the notes that a rāga possesses. For example, if one were a billionaire, it would not be necessary to spend it all at once. In fact the whole or a part of the billion can be used to make another billion. When a rāga subsumes or indulges a virtuoso in its vādī swara, the japa (recitation), dhyāna (meditation/contemplation) or kathana (speech or song) of a akkhara (syllable), sabada (w/Word) or a pada (poem), the exit from the vādī swara to the samvādī, anuvādī or a vivādī swara only happens for a literary or a spiritual emphasis or purpose and not for a musical compulsion. Almost all contemporary musicians and composers have been smitten with the idea that just because the length of each line or tuka of a paṛtāl is crooked, that is, asymmetrical, at least two tālas must be used. The composers need to realize that even if a tāla arsā (rhythmic cycle) is determined – by way of choosing the number and pace of each beat – and therefore bound, the number of tāla arsās (cycles) that can be used to sing even a single tuka and/or a padā remains unlimited. Let me illustrate this by borrowing the word nihāl from this paṛtāl padā and rendering, both in notation form as well as by demonstrating it vocally, in an audio track. Before I demonstrate the layātmaka (rhythmical) use of kāla (time) to pronounce nihāl, let me show how the word is structured.
Each vowel (ā, ī, ē, ϵ, ū, ò, ɔ, etc.) and a full syllable (ḳ, l, m, p, etc.) has a value called laghū, measured as one full beat, while a sandhī (combining or conjoining) of two laghus such as lā (l+ā) meaning bring and jā (j+ā) meaning go are called gurū. A half syllable and/or semivowel is called pulita, which when added to a laghu does not make it gurū. So, the linguistic structure of the word nihāl is one laghu ni (one beat) + one gurū hā (two beats) + one laghu l (one beat) that is, a total of four bhākhāvī mātrē (linguistic beats). The word ni.hāl is a saṅdhī of two words, a pulita or semivowel ni + hāl, a rising or ascending monophthong, with a syllable break or hiatus between the two syllables in which the first syllable ‘ni’ has a pulita ‘i’ while the second syllable ‘hāl’ uses a laghu vowel ‘ā’. The point I want to make here is that linguistically the word nihāl has four beats, but musically there is no such limit as the length of every vowel can be extended to the length of a singer’s breath. (There is a rare nāda-yōgic technique to extend it to multiple breath lengths,) In the image below, I have notated a few examples of the rendition of the word nihāl (Please refer to Supplemental Material online for audio):
Essentially, I would like to state that multiple tālas can be used to sing any tukā, padā, chhaṅt, vār, sloka and/or sawaiyyā of any linguistic metre for tāla changes are not slave only to the singing of paṛtāls, or a single word, or ik akkharī chhaṅt – one worded metre, as demonstrated here.
II
The complex original paṛtāl śabadrītas notated by Bhai Avtār Siṅgh Gurcharan Siṅgh in their two PRR (1979) volumes inspired the prolific composer in Professor Tārā Siṅgh so much that he began composing a series of paṛtāls with a simpler musical arrangement that could easily be sung by students. In his doctoral thesis titled ‘Gurmat Saṅgītācāryā Pro. Tārā Siṅgh dā Saṅgīta nũ Yōgdān: Viślēṣaṇātamak Adhiyain’ (Ph.D. Diss. 2012. Punjabi University, Patiala. Page 180), Dr Alankar Siṅgh states that the above mentioned darbārī kānaṛā paṛtāl was the first one composed by Tārā Siṅgh. According to Alankar, Tārā Siṅgh played dilrubā along in 1980 with his students Gurnam Siṅgh, Bachittar Siṅgh, and Jabarjang Siṅgh:
sabh tõ pehilī paṛtāla jis dī sur racnā prō. sāhib nē kītī ōh rāga kānaṛā vic mahlā 4 dī ūcārī hōī ‘man jāpahu rāma gōpāla’ hai. is paṛtāla dā gāyan prō. tārā siṅgh jī dē śiśã ḍā. gurnām siṅgh, ḍā. bacittar siṅgh atē s. jabarjaṅg siṅgh nē sann 1980 vic srī darbār sāhib, amritsar vikhē gurū rāmdās jī dē prakāś divas tē mañjī sāhib dīvān hāl vic āyōjit ‘rāga darbār’ vic kītā. prō. sāhib nē āp ihanā dē nāl taṅtī sāz dilrubā tē sāth dittā.
It is apparent that the sudden surge in the interest of composers in paṛtāl repertoire within weeks and months of the publication of Bhai Avtār Siṅgh Gurcharan Siṅgh’s two volumes is a testimony to the impact of the duo’s work in the revival of Gurbāṇī music and in the vision of Bhai Sāhib Ardaman Siṅgh Bagrian. Ardaman Siṅgh was the person who inspired the whole project at the Punjabi University that led to the publication of the two PRR volumes. While Tārā Siṅgh was inspired by the notation in 1979-80, I was inspired by its rendition by the duo at the Sector 34 Gurudwara, Chandigarh, in 1982. I was so attracted to my granduncles that I would be glued to the radio and television during their broadcasts, eventually travelling to Delhi to meet them in the summer of 1987. The intricacies of the rare composition unbeknownst, I deciphered the rāga naṭ narāyan paṛtāl – mērē man sēva safala hari ghāla – from their volumes that summer in the residence of Bhai Gurcharan Siṅgh. He overheard me and walked into the room asking if I had learnt it from someone before. I told him I had not. He then sat down beside me and taught the prān rūpa of the rāga, corrected the asthāī, and then taught me the rest of the composition. I returned to Chandigarh, singing the paṃtāl hundreds of times. I was yet to realise that it had changed the course of my life.
It is noteworthy that the work done by the prolific composer Professor Tārā Siṅgh and the seminal work logged by me with regards to the revival of the entire gamut of what is original form of Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta are intimately connected with the works of Bhai Avtār Siṅgh Gurcharan Siṅgh. I think the connect, howsoever much understated it may have been thus far, of the contemporary compositions by Tārā Siṅgh with the heritage music notated in the PRR is indeed worthy of being celebrated.
III
After my return from Lahore in October 2000, Principal Dayāl Siṅgh visited my residence. He showed interest in listening to the research I had done with Mallikzādā Ustād Mohammed Hafīz Khān Khānḍehrē Tālwaṇḍīwālē. After I sang a few compositions, Dayāl Siṅgh suggested that I replace the text of the Khaṅḍārvāṇī texts with Gurbāṇī padē so that these precious compositions would become part of Gurbāṇī Kīrtan repertoire. In politely declining his offer, I sang a few Gurbāṇī compositions of my own without telling him that they were mine. When he had asked about the composer, I told him (to his surprise) that the compositions were mine and made the point that the GurSikh soil was still fertile as we, the tradition bearers, do not need to copy the music of other traditions. Apart from writing compositions he learnt from Gyāni Gyān Siṅgh Abbottabad, but especially from Gyānī Hardit Siṅgh, Dayāl Siṅgh was known in the Delhi music circles as someone who copied music from published works of Paluskar, Bhātkhaṅḍē and Bhai Avtār Siṅgh Gurcharan Siṅgh, and notating newer compositions in his series titled Gurmat Sangeet Sagar. On March 3, 1994, Dayāl Siṅgh gifted me his first volume in which he identified a composition including the ‘sānta pāī gur satigur pūrē’ dhurpada in rāga bilāwal (text - page 33, notation - page 40) that was inspired from the notation of the same text as notated by Bhai Avtār Siṅgh Gurcharan Siṅgh in PRR (Vol. 2, p. 482).
194 Sourced from the website of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi: http://sangeetnatak.gov.in/sna/citation_popup.php?id=305&at=2
195 Rāgas Bahār and Vedī-Kī-Lalit.
196 Although Dr. Sita Bimrahw received her PhD degree in March 1967 for her research work titled Hindi Ke Nirguṇ Santkāvya Meiṅ Sangeet Tatva from Kurukshetra University, Haryana, her thesis was published in 2014 by Radha Publications, New Delhi, in 2014.
197 Hindustani Music in the Twentieth Century (published 1980).
198 Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta: Prācīna Rīta Ratnāvalī. 1979. Volume II. Page 482. Avtār Siṅgh and Gurcharan Siṅgh.
199 Srī Gurū Granth Sāhib (SGGS), Aṅg (page) 856.
200 I look forward to furthering interactions with Meer and his classmate Joep Bor in the near future and look forward to learning compositions taught by Vedi from them.
201 ‘There Is Too Much Noise’. Economic Times. November 1992. Rajiv Vora with Vedi.
202 I have chosen to include this mention of Vedi in the concluding section of this paper simply because this interview presents the concluding remarks of Vedi, as if. Vedi had passed away shortly after.
203 See section Vākalaṅkāra: A comparative study on Page 25.
204 Personal communication. Fahimuddīn Khān. 1991. ‘Rāga surōṃ ke jōṛ-tōṛ ḳā nām nahīṃ hâi’.
205 Personal communication. Bhāī Arjan Siṅgh Taraṅgaṛ. 1993. ‘Ālāpa, rāga dī baḍat nū kēhendē ne, surāṃ dī (baḍat) nū nahīṃ’.
206 See Appendix XXXII for a snapshot of the poster presentation titled Imagining Revival and Restoration of the Lost Tradition and Discipline of Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta that was presented by the author at the XXIX ESEM, on 5 September 2013, at the European Seminar in Ethnomusicology (ESEM 2013) held at the University of Bern, Switzerland.
208 Appendix XXXIII.
209 Title of the author’s ESEM 2013 poster presentation.
210 I learnt about the two brothers from a joṛī-pakhāwaj enthusiast and entrepreneur, Jasdeep Siṅgh, a resident of Birmingham.
211 Sawaiyyē Mehlē Chauthē Kē, SGGS, page 1402, by Bhaṭṭ Gayand:
212 SGGS, page 797, M.3: The takeaway from the following caupadā is that this world is a play of the One Doer, in which the Doer and the Doing are one and the same, as are both, the virtuous maestro and the disciple – both servant (sevak) and servitude (sevā), as well as the one who is entrapped (bhavahi) in illusionary (bharami) pride (abhimānā).
213 When speaking of ‘Conservators and Revivalists’ it may be important to note the similarities and differences between the unique contributions made by Bābā Jagjīt Siṅgh and my relentless pursuit of recovering the original forms of Gurbāṇī Kīrtana, musical instruments and their playing techniques, based on conversations and discussions I had the privilege of having with his younger brother, Bīr Siṅgh.
Both of us had studied the original dhrupada traditions of Pañjāb, namely, dhurpade as sung in the Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta as well as the khaṇdārvāṇī style sung by Talwaṇḍī and Śām Caurāsī Gharāṇās, respectively.
We also share one more stream of learning, both being related to the legendary Bābā Vasāvā Siṅgh (reverently called ‘Bābā Raṅgī Rām’) of Darbār Sāhib, Amritsar. While he studied with Rangi Rām’s youngest disciple, Harnām Siṅgh Chawandewale, I studied with four students of Jwālā Siṅgh, who was the prime student of Raṅgī Rām. Harnām Siṅgh, an uncle of Jagjīt Siṅgh, was said to be the first one to standardise Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta rāga forms by altering them to match the Hindustānī Saṅgīta Padhatī, while Jwālā Siṅgh was known for his steadfast adherence to the original paramparā. One can see the complexity of compositions as taught by Jwālā Siṅgh to his students, versus simplified versions taught by his other contemporaries, both, Rabābī as well as Gur-Sikh exponents.
Jagjīt Siṅgh studied with Tabbā and Bhāī Moti, Rabābīs of Darbār Sāhib and Anandpur Sāhib, respectively. Jaswant Kaur, Tabbā’s student, taught me several śabarītas she had studied. Likewise, Avtār Siṅgh, passed on to me a few compositions that he had received from Tabbā while Bīr Siṅgh taught me a few that he had studied with Moti.
With regards to musical instruments, both of us had a comprehensive understanding of the original pakhāwaj playing of Darbār Sāhib and both played tāus and dilrubā.
Perhaps, influenced by the qawwāli style of Rabābī music, Jagjīt Siṅgh did not draw lines between the musical genres. Almost all of his students were eventually taught by Indian classical musicians such as Vilayat Khān (sitār), Samta Prasad (tablā), Krishan Maharaj (tablā), Rajan Sajan Misra (khayāl), Amjad Ali Khān (sarod), Mohinder Siṅgh ‘Ṭhumrī (ṭhumrī) all of whom sang and played in the khayāl and ṭhumrī styles. This coloured the aesthetic sense of Nāmdhārī students who began treating the original dhurpade of Gurbāṇī in the khayāl and ṭhumrī styles. I was the first one to object to it, in fact, when I visited Bhaini Sāhib in 1993 and met with Ustād Harbhajan Siṅgh, I had asked him, ‘why are the original Gurbāṇī Kīrtana compositions being sung in the khayāl style?’ He had asked me, ‘You mean, these should not be sung like this?’ I am personally glad by way of my interventions, the singing of vintage Gurbāṇī Kīrtana compositions and their improvisations is now being done in the dhurpada style while the playing of joṛī, an instrument that I revived, is being done with khullē hatth (open hands). While, the Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta exponents under my tutelage have to study the pāramparik (traditional) genres such as chanta, vāra and dhurpade in the original way only.
According to Gurbāṇī Saṅgīta exponent, Baljit Siṅgh Nāmdhārī, dilrubā exponent, Pyara Siṅgh was invited to perform in the spring of 1963 at the annual Holla Mohalla festival. In 1970, the first batch of students including Harbhajan Siṅgh and Gurdev Siṅgh began to study dilrubā but then, both of them became of students of sitār and sarod respectively with Amjad Ali Khān. Both the sons of Bīr Siṅgh, Dalip Siṅgh and Uday Siṅgh studied dilrubā from 1972 or so while Surjit Siṅgh Aulakh began studying dilrubā in 1974–5. Surjit went on to focus on the sārangi while Baljit Siṅgh began studying with Pyarā Siṅgh in 1979.
Starting in 1987, I ended up reviving the entire gamut of lost musical instruments used in the Gur-Sikh tradition such as the rabāb, sarandā, pakhāwaj and tāus after having discovered the last remaining luthier, Gyāni Harbhajan Siṅgh, in the winter of 1991–2. The first tāus and an old style dilrubā was handcrafted by me with Harbhajan Siṅgh in October 1995. I was able to learn the unique playing techniques in detail from Harbhajan Siṅgh as well as Avtār Siṅgh. I am in the process of teaching the first generation of string players.
214 To speak of some of those who have attended to the field of Gurbāṇī Kīrtana (vocal only) can be categorised in the following manner:
Tradition Bearing Authors – zubānī, kalāmī and/or tantrī
Bhāī Prēm Siṅgh
Bhāī Samuṅd Siṅgh
Bhāī Saṅtā Siṅgh
Gyāni Gyān Siṅgh Abottabad
Bhāī Avtār Siṅgh and Bhāī Gurcharan Siṅgh
Ustād Kehar Siṅgh Nānaksarwāle
Bābā Bīr Siṅgh of Nāmdhārī Darbār
Saṅt Sarwan Siṅgh ‘Gandharv’
Bhāī Jaswaṅt Siṅgh Kulār
Bībī Jaswaṅt Kaur
Bhāī Pratāp Siṅgh and his son, Bhāī Davinder Pratāp Siṅgh
Bhāī Baldeep Siṅgh
Tradition Bearing Contemporary Composers
Bhāī Surjan Siṅgh
Bābā Jagjīt Siṅgh of Nāmdhārī Darbār
Professor Darśan Siṅgh Komal
Bhāī Harcaṅd Siṅgh of Śām Caurāsī Gharāṇā
Bhāī Dharam Siṅgh Shamsher Siṅgh Zakhmī
Bhāī Mohinder Siṅgh ‘Paoṅṭā Sāhibwālē’
Ustād Jaswaṅt Siṅgh ‘Bhanwra’
Professor Darshan Siṅgh
Principal Dyāl Siṅgh
Rabābi Bhāī Ghulam Mohammad ‘Chānd’
Bhāī Balbīr Siṅgh
Bhāī Bakshīsh Siṅgh
Bhāī Dilbāgh Siṅgh Gulbāgh Siṅgh
Bhāī Baldeep Siṅgh
Contemporary Composers
Ustād Sohan Siṅgh of Agra Gharāṇā
Paṇḍit Tējpāl Siṅgh and Paṇḍit Surinder Siṅgh (Siṅgh Bandhū)
Professor Tārā Siṅgh
Professor Ajīt Siṅgh Paintal
Professor Kartār Siṅgh
Principal Shamsher Siṅgh Kareer
Ustād Avtār Siṅgh ‘Naj’
(Professor) Karminder Siṅgh
Bhāī Narinder Siṅgh ‘Banāraswāle’
Professor Gurnam Siṅgh
(Professor) Surinder Siṅgh
Principal Jaswaṅt Siṅgh (Jawadhi)
Dr. Gurinder Siṅgh BDS (Batala)
Conservators and Revivalists
Bābā Jagjīt Siṅgh of Nāmdhārī Darbār
Bhāī Baldeep Siṅgh
Event Organisers and Patrons (Individuals and Organisations)
Chief Khalsa Diwan
Shiromaṇī Gurūdwārā Prabandhak Committee (SGPC)
Sardar Inderjit Siṅgh, Founder, Pañjāb and Siṅgh Bank, and Bank of Pañjāb
Rājā Siṅgh, Texla TV
Bābā Suchā Siṅgh, Gurūdwārā Gur Gyān Prakash, Jawadhi Kalan
Bībī Jasbīr Kaur
Professor Gurnam Siṅgh
Sarabpreet Siṅgh, Gurmat Sangeet Project, Massachusetts
215 Ibid., page 488, rāga āsā, Sheikh Farīd Jio Kī Bāṇī: ‘dilhu muhabbat jiṅh sēī saciā, jinh man hōr mukh hōr sē kāṅḍē kaciā’.
216 Dasam Granth (DG), page 732. Gurū Gobind Siṅgh, caōpaī: ‘mâi n ganēsahi pritham manāūṃ, kisan bisan kabahūṃ nahi dhiāūṃ, kān sunē pahicān n tina sō, liv lāgī mōrī pag in sō’.
217 SGGS, page 335, rāga gauṛī, Bhagat Kabīr Ji: ‘lōgu jānâi ihu gītu hâi, ihu taū braham bīcār’.
218 SGGS, page 1193, rāga basant ki vār mahalu 5, Gurū Arjun Dēv: ‘kithahu upajâi kah rahâi kah māhi samāvâi … ’
219 Ibid., page 1271, rāgu malār mahlā 5 paṛtāl gharu 3: ‘gur manāri pria daiār seō raṅgu kīā, kīnō rī sagal sīṅgār, tajiō rī sagal bīkār, dhāvatō asthiru thīā’.
220 Ibid., page 483, rāga āsā, ti-padā ikk-tuḳā, Bhagat Kabīr: ‘kīō siṅgāru milan kē tāī … … hari mērō piru hau hari kī bahurīā … … dhan pir ēkâi saṅgi basērā … ’.
221 Ibid., page 633, rāga sōrath mahla 9, Gurū Teg Bahādur.
222 I visited him at his Chandigarh residence on Monday, 27 August 2018. I had requested him to handwrite at least one composition for me as a specimen. He finished writing the second stanza of the composition in my presence. Visit Appendix XXXIV to see the notation he wrote for me to carry in this paper.
223 Ibid., page 722, rāga tilaṅg, Gurū Nānak: ‘jaisī mai āvai khasam kī bāṇī taisaṛā karī gyānu ve lālō’.
224 Ibid., page 627, Gurū Arjan Dēv: ‘dhur ki bāṇī āī … ’ [The Word from the ‘One In The Beginning’ (has) Arrived …]
225 Ibid. Gurū Arjan Dēv, the fifth Sikh gurū sang the above-mentioned verse in rāga tilaṅg.
226 Ibid.: SGGS, page 73, rāga srī, ‘suṇi galā gur pahi āeā. nāmu dānu isnānu diṛāeā. sabhu muktu hoā saisārṛā nānak sacī beṛī cāṛi jīū.11’.
227 The authors’ lineage has been honoured to be associated the pedagogical processes initiated by the first Sikh gurū, Sāhib Srī Gurū Nānak Dēv, at his Dharamsāl (Bhāī Sadhāraṇ, sixteenth century) at Kartarpur, and also with the Girwaṛī and Sekhwāṃ Taksāls instituted (Bhāī Sāhib Siṅgh, 1709 AD) by Bhāī Dharam Siṅgh at per the instructions of the tenth Sikh gurū, Sāhib Srī Gurū Gobind Siṅgh.
228 Individual disciplines of Kīrtana, musicological research, luthiery, playing of musical instruments, exegetical attendance, archiving and documentation.
229 See the not-so-accurate summation by Ritwik Sanyal and Richard Widdess, ‘Thus music of ultimately Hindu origins was adapted by Muslims for use in Sikh rituals’. Dhrupad (2004). P 33.
230 In the 1960s, Paintal had travelled across Pañjāb for his field work especially researching with my mentor, Bhāī Arjan Siṅgh Taraṅgaṛ. He had also been associated with the publication of the two PRR volumes of my granduncles as a member part of the committee set up by Professor Tāran Siṅgh and interacted closely with both Bhāī Avtār Siṅgh and Bhāī Gurcharan Siṅgh. Paintal ends his preface that he signed forty-eight years ago on April 14, 1971 [Paintal 1971, Page (vii)] with a summary of his own contribution in the nascent field and a call to action:
I have rendered my humble homage to Sikh devotional music in all humility with a consciousness of my own deficiencies for the task. But I have done my best and believe and hope that perhaps this attempt might prove to be the beginning of an end that is yet to be achieved for a real understanding and appreciation of the Sikh devotional music as a gift and legacy of the Sikh religion and culture. This heritage of devotional music has to be preserved and jealously guarded by all irrespective of caste and creed, for it is one of the precious treasures of our nation's cultural glory.
231 See Appendix XXXV.
232 I remember yet another legend of Pañjāb, pakhāwaj exponent, Bhāī Malang of Hoshiarpur. A close associate and admirer of Jwālā Siṅgh, he also owned a musical instrument shop before immigrating to Lahore in 1947. Bhāī Malang used to supply puṛā and dhāṃmā tops for the percussion instruments played with the Jwālā Siṅgh. Amongst his prime disciples were his son, Ustād Faiyyaz Khān (1908-1978) and nephew, Ustād Tālib Hussain (1931-1993). During my visit to Lahore in 2000, I had been introduced to the latter’s daughter, Naheed, whom I called a few days ago to see if she possessed anything handwritten from her father. After some searching and sifting, she was able to share a few pages with tablā bols written in her father’s hand. Dr Samrath Kaur and Saqib Razzaq have kindly helped me decipher the mnemonic syllables calligraphed in Urdu on the page that I am sharing, courtesy of Naheed Tālib. See Appendix XXXVI.
