The sonic pilgrimage. Exploring kīrtan and sacred journeying in Sikh culture

ABSTRACT

Through a comparative analysis of sound and pilgrimage in Bhakti, Sufi and Sikh cultures, this paper examines their musical repertoires and divergent views from the standpoint of sacred journeying. While the Gurū Granth Sāhib is critically inclusive of Bhakti and Sufi voices, the musical setting and the performance of the hymns incorporated into the Sikh scripture suggest a distinct function of the gurbānī kīrtan practice, associated with the process of inner transmutation from a self-willed being (manmukh) into a Gurū-oriented realized self (gurmukh). The gurbānī repertoire also includes various types of ancient songs-forms (like chhants, prabandhs, dhur-pads and partāls) of historical and musicological importance. This article focuses on two of them which, developed during the Sikh Gurūs era, reveal a unique construction that seems to translate into music the Sikh literary and philosophical stances on sacred journeying. Applying Turner’s concepts of communitas and liminality, Sikh kīrtan is here interpreted as a shared experience for a potential transformation, a sonic form of ‘introverted pilgrimage’ leading to a state of blissful equanimity (sahaj).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Acknowledgements

The first draft of this essay was presented at the 43rd ICTM⁶⁴ World Conference in Astana (Kazakhstan) in July 2015, for a panel session on ‘sonic journeys’ organized by Alessandra Ciucci, to whom I owe the idea of delving into the notion of music and sacred journeying in Sikhi.

Nearly a year later, in February 2016, that essay took the shape of the longer paper that I presented at the conference ‘The Music and Poetics of Devotion in the Jain and Sikh Traditions’, organized by Nirinjan Kaur Khalsa at Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles).

Most of the gurbānī repertoire discussed in that lecture was showcased in a concert I performed on the first evening of the conference, accompanied by Nirvair Kaur Khalsa (on taūs), Parminder Singh Bhamra (on pakhāwaj) and Nirinjan Kaur Khalsa (on jorī-pakhāwaj).

I am grateful to Nirinjan Kaur Khalsa for inviting me to contribute to this conference, as presenter and performer. I would also like to express my gratitude to: Balbinder Singh Bhogal for the precious critiques that allowed me to expand my views in a more inclusive way; to Bhai Baldeep Singh for the several interviews and teachings; to Manjit Kaur Singh for her support and patient reading of the draft; to Michael Braudy for the editing work; and to Amelia Cuni for searching into her personal archive in Berlin to find a rare picture of Pandit Vidur Mallik.

I was able to pursue the ethnographic research and travels for conferences, thanks to the Hofstra Faculty Research Development Grant (2015–2016).

While working on the final version of this manuscript in Fall 2017, I suffered the loss of two dear masters with whom I had studied and worked over the past years: Padma Vibhushan Girija Devi (1929–2017), and the Hazurī Rāgī Bhāī Gurcharan Singh (1915–2017). Although they were experts in different genres of music (thumrī and gurbānī kīrtan respectively), they both embodied Pre-Partition musical knowledge. It is also through their narrations and with their voices that I was able to discern the nuances that distinguish traditional forms and aesthetics from modern models. To the memory of these legendary masters and teachers, I wish to dedicate this essay.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. From the Greek root ‘leitourgia’ (public service), the term liturgical chants in this context refers to the rendition of the hymns performed as ‘seva’ (public service) to the community.

2. For further discussion on the use of the term ‘scripture’ in relation to the Ādi Granth (and the Gurū Granth Sāhib), see Pashaura Singh ‘The Guru Granth Sahib’(2000).

3. This edition of the Granth is also known as the Kartarpur Pothī, and most scholars considered it as the first attempt to collect the sacred hymns in one volume. But according to Mann (2001) there are two manuscripts associated with Gurū Nānak (1530s?) and Gurū Amardas (1570s?) that predate the Kartarpur Pothī.

4. The main 31 rāgas in the GGS are: SrīRāg, Mājh, Gaurī, Āsā, Gūjrī, Devgandharī, Bihāgrā, Vadhans, Sorath, Dhanāsrī, Jaitsrī, Todī, Bairarī, Tilang, Sūhī, Bilāval, Gond, Rāmkalī, Nat Narāin, Mālī Gaurā, Mārū, Tukhārī, Kedār, Bhāīro, Basant, Sarang, Malhār, Kānrā, Kalyān, Parbhātī, Jaijāvantī. Some rāgas present variants that should be acknowledged as separate modes.

5. The bānī, or ‘utterance’, of the enlightened gurū or bhagat embodies this divine Word, and the term used for the Word itself thus came to be applied to the composition which gave it expression. (Mc Leod 1999, 288).

6. In the GGS is included the bānī of fifteen Bhakti and Sufi mystics who predated or lived during Gurū Nānak’s time. Among them are the Sufi mystic Sheikh Farīd (1173–1266), Bhagat Nāmdev (1270-1350), Bhagat Kabīr (1440-1518), and Bhagat Ravidās (1399–1528).

7. According to Shackle (2014) śabads are lyrical hymns consisting of short rhymed verses connected by a refrain. Also, Mc Leod notes that ‘Any individual hymn from the Ādi Granth (chaupad, asthpadi or chant) is invariably called śabad, literally ‘word’. (1999, 288).

8. I owe this definition to Balbinder Singh Bhogal, in a personal communication.

9. The number of rāgas attributed to Gurū Nānak are actually thirty-two. The variants of some musical modes should be in fact considered as separate rāgas. This information was shared by Bhai Baldeep’s Singh at a concert performed and recorded in Washington on January 12, 2019.

10. Interview with Bhāī Baldeep Singh, held in Albuquerque on 01/20/2018.

11. Pashaura Singh 2006.

12. The role of the rabābīs was redefined apparently in response to their overarching authority. According to popular accounts the two rabābīs Bhāī Satta and Bhāī Balwand, by order of Gurū Arjan, were removed from their duties at the Srī Harmandir Sāhib after showing greed and pride. Eventually, when they realized their faults, they were readmitted to sing at the Srī Harmandir Sāhib, and composed the Vār in rāg Rāmkalī, later included in the GGS. For a reference see also Purewal 2011, 374.

13. ‘Sikhs themselves use the term Sikhi which, like the word Sikh, is derived from the Punjabi verb sikhna: to learn. Unlike Sikhism, the word Sikhi does not denote an object or a thing. Rather it has a temporal and refers to a path of learning as a lived experience.’ (Mandair 2013, 3)

14. ਰਾਮਕਲੀ ਮਹਲਾ ੫ ॥ ਓਅੰਕਾਿਰ ੲੇਕ ਧੁਿਨ ੲੇਕੈ ੲੇਕੈ ਰਾਗੁ ਅਲਾਪੈ ॥ ੲੇਕਾ ਦੇਸੀ ੲੇਕੁ ਿਦਖਾਵੈ ੲੇਕੋ ਰਿਹਅਾ ਿਬਅਾਪੈ ॥ ੲੇਕਾ ਸੁਰਿਤ ੲੇਕਾ ਹੀ ਸੇਵਾ ੲੇਕੋ ਗੁਰ ਤੇ ਜਾਪੈ ॥੧॥ ਭਲੋ ਭਲੋ ਰੇ ਕੀਰਤਨੀਅਾ ॥ ਰਾਮ ਰਮਾ ਰਾਮਾ ਗੁਨ ਗਾੳੁ ॥ ਛੋਿਡ ਮਾਿੲਅਾ ਕੇ ਧੰਧ ਸੁਅਾੳੁ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾੳੁ ॥ (Engl. Tr. Rāga Rāmkalī, Mahlā 5: The Lord’s eulogist imbibes love for the One and sings the melody of but One God. He abides in the country of One God, shows the way to One God, and sees the One God pervading all. He visualizes One God, serves only the One Lord, who is known through the Guru. (1). O praise-worthy, praise-worthy is such a eulogist (kīrtanīā). He sings the praise of the Omnipresent Lord Master, shedding all the relishes of the worldly pursuits. (1) Pause, Rahāo).

15. I have discussed this śabad in another article (Cassio 2014).

16. For further discussion, see also Cassio and Khalsa’s book chapter ‘Singing Dharam: Transmission of Knowledge in the Sikh Sonic Path’ (forthcoming).

17. From an interview with Bhai Baldeep Singh, recorded in NY on January 19 2019.

18. ‘Over the centuries these eight chaunkīs, turned into fifteen sessions performed by eight groups of Sikh musicians (rāgīs) and seven groups of Muslim musicians (rabābīs). […] After the (Partition and the) migration of these rabābīs to Pakistan, all fifteen kīrtan sessions are being performed by Sikhs.’(Gurnam Singh 2014, 404)

19. Tablā is composed by pair of tuned kettledrums: a high-pitched cylindrical drum made of wood, and a larger bass-drum made of metal. Attributed to the Sufi saint, poet and scholar, Amir Khusrau, tablā have been popularly used in classical and semi-classical North Indian Music, as well as in qawwālī.

20. The harmonium is a hand-pumped keyboard of European origin. According to Bhāī Gurcharan Singh, the harmonium was introduced at the Srī Harmandir Sāhib only in the 1920’s, but it was not used at that time to play the old shabad rīts repertoire.

21. Pakhāwaj, is a barrel drum with a larger membrane on the left (for the bass) and a high-pitched skin is on the right. The membrane that plays the bass is tuned applying a fresh dough made of water and flour. This drum was also used in dhrupad (temple and court music) in the 15th-18th century.

22. Jorī-pakhāwaj, is an instrument composed by a pair of vertical wooden drums. Like in the pakhāwaj, the larger membrane on the left plays the bass and the high-pitched skin is on the right. The larger skin is tuned applying a fresh dough made of water and flour (see fig.11).

23. Tānpūrā is a fretless lute playing a fixed drone sound. It is also used in South and North Indian classical music to accompany vocal performances.

24. The sarandā is a heart-shaped fiddle, with three strings. Popular also in Punjābi folk music, and similar to an instrument from Central Asia, according to oral accounts sarandā is attributed to Gurū Arjan.

25. The taūs is a fretted string instrument with a peacock-shaped resonator (see fig.11.).

26. Over the past three decades, Bhāi Baldeep Singh has done impressive research to revive the instruments, and their playing techniques.

27. The use of term gharānā would not be appropriate in this context, as this specifically refers to the history of Hindustani classical (court) music. Gurnam Singh uses the term taksal (lit. mint) to refers to ‘school for traditionally imparting the knowledge of Sikh music. […] After the Guru period, some taksāls developed at Sikh schools of music such as the Damdami Taksal, Taran Taran Taksal, Dhaudar Taksal, Mastuana Taksal, Hargna Taksal, Buddha Jawhar Taksal, Jawaddi Taksal, etc … ’(Singh 2014, 405–406). Opposed to this narrative, Bhāī Baldeep Singh (who collected the information from his great grand uncles Bhāī Avtar Singh and Bhāī Gurcharan Singh) maintains that is only one mint, and that is the Gurū’s taksāl.

28. Mandair 2013, 31–35.

29. ‘The word kīrtan is the nominative form of the Sanskrit verb root kīrt (‘to mention, tell, name, recite, praise, glorify etc.’). […] In the strict sense, kīrtan means glorifying someone or something by reciting or discoursing upon his attributes. This sense of the meaning is still current; but, more commonly, kīrtan is associated with a musical setting of a text that glorifies a deity.’ (Slawek 1996, 2).

30. Fenech and McLeod describe sahaj as the condition of ineffable eternal bliss in union with the Akal Purakh. (Fenech and Mc Leod 2014, 269). According to Shackle and Mandair, sahaj is ‘an ecstatic and purely spontaneous form of existence’ that is reached by a realized being who no longer experiences a distinction between self and other, I and not-I, lover and beloved. (Shackle and Mandair 2005, xxix).

31. Treccani online, http://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/ricerca/pellegrinaggio/.

32. Slawek (1996) reports that according to the musicologist Harold Powers, kīrtans are based on folk melodies, and bhajans may be set either on folk melodies or to classical rāgas. Similarly, the khyāl singer Kashinath Borus maintained that kīrtan is a congregational performance of any devotional song, while bhajan is a solo performance.

33. In kīrtan context, for dhrupad is intended a fourfold structure, laid on ‘big rhythmic structures’ that allowed the chanting of long liturgical texts. Another important example of dhrupad-based kīrtan is the padāvalī kīrtan studied by Eben Graves. In November 2017, I organized and presented at the SEM annual meeting a panel session on a comparative study of dhrupad-based kīrtans. In this panel session, Eben Graves presented on padāvalī kīrtan in Bengal, Meilu-Ho on the dhrupad of the Pusti Mārg, and I discussed the dhrupad based gurbānī kīrtan. Richard Widdess was invited as discussant, providing insightful remarks on the dhrupad forms practiced in the courts and temples of North India and Nepal.

34. The so-called five pillars are: shahada (profession of faith), salat (prayer five times a day), zakat (charity), sawm (fasting during the month of Ramadan) and hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).

35. ‘Ultimately, the veneration of holy persons and pilgrimage is rooted in the memory of the holy person by the individual and the nation. Memoria is at the heart of the veneration of holy persons’. (Meri 2015, 514)

36. ‘Qawwals like all musicians, fall into the category of producers in the wider sense of producing a service. At the shrine of their affiliation they have a hereditary right to the performance opportunities for Qawwals generated and controlled by their patron, but they are in turn obligated to provide their performing services whenever needed, otherwise their patrons can admit outside performers into the hereditary performer group (as may happen if the group cannot fulfill its ritual singing obligations)’. (Qureshi 1986, 97).

37. Qureshi maintains that in contemporary qawwālī, ‘the musical form may be strophic or cyclic, depending upon the presence of a refrain, but it always represents the formal structure of the text – as opposed to the extended cyclical forms of raga music’. (Qureshi 1986, 47).

38. ‘Take for instance rubāb. Its kāsa is covered with nothing inside and outside except a patch of dried skin and a few dried veins (gut-strings). But when we ‘cup our hands’ before its ‘patched-up’ kāsa, we pour ‘food for our soul’ in every heart endowed with taste. Do not please take us like those Rubābīyas who ‘cup their hands’ like a begging bowl before everyone till the same refuses to ‘be cupped’ on the face of their own rubābs.’ (In Sarmadee 2003, 451)

39. For a discussion on the use of the term see Mandair, Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed, 2013. The word refers to the precolonial practice and experience of Sikhi, and at the same time the ‘ism’ acknowledges the impact of the colonial matrix that transformed it into a ‘world religion’.

40. The town founded by Gurū Nānak, associated with the first Sikh community.

41. ‘Ramdaspur was most likely envisaged as a pilgrimage centre since it was built around the sacred tank which gave the city its later name, Amritsar – the pool of nectar’ maintains Fenech (2008, 60).

42. At Ramdaspur, the meditation on the divine name, charity and purity, of the Kartapur era took the concrete form of a pilgrimage to the city of the Gurū, a bath in the holy pool, an audience with the Gurū (darshan), and the offering of the tithe (daswandh) that the Sikhs have brought with them. (Mann 2001, 14)

43. I owe this suggestion to Professor Balbinder Singh Bhogal, in a personal communication.

44. All translations from Gurmukhī are in the English version of Prof. Sahib Singh.

45. Rāg comes from the Sanskrit root -rānj, to color.

46. In contemporary Pakistan, the rabābīs have been forced -out of economic necessity - to find other means of earning a living, thus largely abandoning the tradition in order to go into other professions or to perform in other musical styles such as qawālī or other popular music forms with audiences in contemporary Pakistan. (Purewal 2011, 376).

47. The two brothers Bhāī Avtar Singh and Bhāī Gurcharan Singh, sons of the legendary rāgī Bhāī Jwālā Singh, told Bhāī Baldeep Singh that in the 1960’s the management of the gurdwārā in Delhi where they were employed, requested them to ‘simplify’ their repertoire in way that it would be more appealing to the sangat. (Information recorded in June 2017, during Bhāī Baldeep Singh’s 43rd Gurbanī Kīrtan retreat in Albuquerque).

48. Under the aegis of Patiala University, 497 compositions have been transcribed by the two kīrtanīās and have been published in the two-volume Gurbānī Sangīt Prachīn Rīt Ratnāvali. These compositions have also been recorded, in several sessions, since the two rāgis believed that Bhatkhande’s notation alone would not be sufficient to show the nuances of the rāgas and the peculiarities of the compositions. These two volumes now constitutes an essential reference and testimony of the richness of the old generation kīrtan compositions, rāgas and tālas.

49. Singh, Bhāī Avtar and Bhāī Gurcharan 1979, xii; and Singh 2011a, 281.

50. There is an interesting similarity between the dhrupads of the Gurbānī kīrtan tradition and those composed by Rabindranath Tagore. As Radice points out: ‘in the Sancari section the song moves beyond the surface, to a deeper (or other) layer of realm of reality’. The meaning of sancārī, is yet debated. According to Radice, it is associated in Tagore with the idea of ‘wandering’, and ‘it is not as intense or outgoing as the antarā, and often there is a sense of meditation and reflection’. (Radice 2008, 1103). Notably, for both Radice and Bhāī Baldeep Singh, the understanding of the progression of the (dhrupad) structure of the song is an essential key to its interpretation, respectively in Rabindra and Gurbānī sangīt.

51. In order to explain the concept, in a personal interview Bhāī Baldeep Singh mentioned the following verse from a hymn composed by Gurū Arjan in rāga Sorath (SGGS: 628): ਧੁਰ ਕੀ ਬਾਣੀ ਆਈ ॥ ਿਤਨ ਸਗਲੀ ਿਚੰਤ ਿਮਟਾਈ ॥ (Dhur kī bānī āī, Tīn sagli chint mitāī) This could be translated as: ‘The divine Word of the Creator came, it eradicated all the anxiety’. (Cassio 2015, 34).

52. ‘The words dhrupad and dhur-pad are not used in the bānī, whereas dhur-kī-bānī (which may also be read as dhur-ke –pade or simply dhurpad) is used to refer to the whole of Gurbānī. The term pade is used to refer to the singing form, which is distinct from the ancient system of chantt singing. Unlike chantt singing, pade singing had a refrain’. (Singh, B. B. 2011, 293)

53. Based on the length of the pada, Bhāī Baldeep Singh considers the Sukhmaṇī Sāhib a prabandh of 24 aśṭapadē, which comprises verses originally composed by the fifth Sikh master, Gurū Arjan, in rāga gauṛī. In his analysis of the Sukhmaṇī Gauṛī, Bhai Baldeep Singh emphasizes that each one of the 24 aśṭa (eight) padē (literally, verses) comprises 10 tukē or lines. Interview with Bhāī Baldeep Singh, NY, January 19 2019.

54. I dedicated an extensive article (Cassio 2015) to the history and distinctive musical features of the Gurbānī dhur-pad compositions, while the present essay offers a reflection on the structure of the Gurbānī dhur-pad and partāl śabad rīts as a functional means to the spiritual experience.

55. With regard to rhythm, the array of tālas recalled by Bhāī Avtar Singh and Bhāī Gurcharan Singh is particularly rich. It includes 24 different rhythmic cycles, whose construction is based on the ‘grammar’ of medieval percussions such as the pakhāwaj and the jorī- pakhāwaj.

56. This recording is included in the Vol 4 of Gurbānī Kīrtan Parampara Wirsa (T-Series), and it is also available on the Internet.

57. Video interview with Bhāī Baldeep Singh, Sultanpur Lodhi, August 2012.

58. Video interview with Prof. S. K. Saxena (1920–2013), New Delhi, July 2012.

59. The term is used by the decolonial scholar Mignolo as opposed to universality (intended here as the assimilative force that homogenizes differences among cultures).

60. The new generation of rāgīs (including the accompanists) employed at the Golden Temple must possess a degree in Gurmat Sangīt, after attending at least a one-year course at one of the credited Gurmat Sangīt schools.

61. Regularly monitoring the kīrtan sessions at the Srī Harmandir Sāhib, I noticed that the rāgīs on duty have the tendency to sing only the first śabad set to rāga, while the rest of the performance consists of (three – four) compositions that have a modern or folk flair, often non rāga-based. This was also confirmed by several rāgīs I interviewed at the Golden Temple over the past years.

62. Much of the responsibility for this change rests on contemporary rāgis who, on the one hand, do not come from lineages of temple musicians, and hence do not have the repertoire, the memory and the profound knowledge that the parampara entails, and on the other hand, shape their performances on the ‘modern’ easy-listening taste of the community.

63. For instance, a recent fashion is the use of a second voice harmonizing the lead singer’s line. This is a practice clearly derived from the use of harmonium, as well as influenced by Bollywood and pop music, both based on the Western tonal system.

64. International Council for Traditional Music, Astana (Kazakhstan), July 16–22, 2015. The title of the panel was ‘Pilgrimage, Migration, and Procession: Sonic Journeys and Moral Meaning’.