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Abstract
This paper is part of a wider academic research, which aims to locate the Sikh musical tradition (Gurbānī sangīt)Footnote1 in the context of the medieval and early modern history of Indian music. In particular, this script focuses on kīrtan, a genre of Gurbānī sangīt that entails the singing of the Sikh sacred hymns as a core part of the spiritual practice. Compared with other musical genres in vogue during the Sikh Gurūs’ era (late fifteenth-early eighteenth century CE), Gurbānī kīrtan has been either neglected by past scholars, or, in more recent times, considered a subaltern expression of the better-known classical (darbārī dhrupad and khyāl) forms. Through the analysis of a coherent corpus of compositions set to peculiar rāgas (modal melodies) and tālas (rhythmic cycles), the present contribution explores the idea of an autonomous identity of the Sikh music tradition, suggesting that Gurbānī kīrtan evolved not as a stylistic variation of other coeval forms, but as a distinct genre with peculiar features that fit the Sikh philosophy, literature and devotional context.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Prof. Pashaura Singh for giving me the opportunity to present the outcomes of my research at the 3rd Sikh Studies Conference at University of California Riverside on 10 May 2013.
I have completed the revision of the present article on the 15th day of the month of sāwan 2014, on Bhāī Gurcharan Singh's 99th birthday. I wish to dedicate this work to him, for his invaluable contribution to the preservation of the Gurbānī kīrtan tradition.
Funding
This work was supported by the Hofstra Faculty Research and Development Grant 2013.
Notes
1 The term Gurbānī Sangīt is employed here to define the medieval and early modern Sikh tradition and its musical idiom. The word Gurbānī has been in use since the time of Gurū Nānak (late fifteenth century), and in this script it is intentionally distinguished from Gurmat Sangīt, an expression introduced in the early twentieth century and popularized in the 1990s. The word Gurmat literally means Gurū's wisdom, and refers to the Sikh doctrine, not to the musical practice. Thus, the two terms are radically different, and it seems inappropriate to use the word Gurmat in regard to the musical aspect. According to Bhāī Baldeep Singh, Gurmat Sangīt is an expression better applied to contemporary kīrtan performances that are not based on the medieval idiom. (Personal communication with Bhāī Baldeep Singh, Monterey, January 2015.)
2 In the Srī Gurū Granth Sāhib are included hymns of 15 mystics who predated or lived during Gurū Nānak's era. Among them are the Sufi mystic Sheikh Farīd (1173–1266), Bhagat Nāmdev (1270–1350), Bhagat Kabīr (1440–1518), and Bhagat Ravidās (1399–1528).
3 As also Singh suggests (Citation2006), the establishment of these eight sessions may have been influenced by the ceremonies performed among the Vaiśnava community, in which the “eight orders” of darśanas (the acts of seeing the divine) reflect the subdivision of the day in eight pahars (Indian unit of time equal to three hours).
4 The hymns of the Srī Gurū Granth Sāhib (SGGS) are set to 31 main rāgas and their 31 varieties (mishrat rāgas). The main rāgas are (1) Srī Rāga, (2) Mājh, (3) Gaurī, (4) Āsā, (5) Gūjarī, (6) Devgandhārī, (7) Bihāgrā, (8) Wadhans, (9) Sorath, (10) Dhanāsrī, (11) Jaitsrī, (12) Todī, (13) Bairarī, (14) Tilang, (15) Sūhī, (16) Bilāval, (17) Gond, (18) Rāmkalī, (19) Nat Narāin, (20) Mālī Gaurā, (21) Mārū, (22) Tukhārī, (23) Kedār, (24) Bhāīro, (25) Basant, (26) Sārang, (27) Malhār, (28) Kānrā, (29) Kalyān, (30) Parbhātī, and (31) Jaijāvantī.
5 One of the latest books, Hindustani Music. Thirteenth to Twentieth Century (Bor et al. Citation2010), has a large section dedicated to medieval and devotional repertoires, in which the Sikh kīrtan tradition is not even named.
6 A fundamental impulse in this direction, as well as in the definition of the Sikh musical renaissance, has been given by Bhāī Baldeep Singh, who started a pioneering research with the purpose of identifying and reviving authentic elements of Gurbānī tradition, such as the grammar of the rāgas and tālas, the stylistic rendition of compositions, the peculiar performance techniques, and luthiery. A sincere quest to revive the musical repertoire and the authentic instruments of the Sikh Gurūs’ era in fact led Bhāī Baldeep Singh to extend his activity to musical philology, musicology, and luthiery, bringing about a personal and innovative contribution to the study of Gurbānī Sangīt. Since the end of the 1980s, he traveled in remote areas of Punjab, Pakistan, and Rajasthan, to find and document living masters who had the memory of past musical practice, previous to Bhatkhande's influence. During his fieldwork, Bhāī Baldeep Singh not only documented what in ethnomusicology might be defined a tradition ‘in danger of disappearing’, but also had the rare opportunity to receive talīm (musical education) from old traditional masters, becoming a living recipient of the (vocal, instrumental, and percussion) maryada and an exponent of contemporary musicology.
7 In 2011, the Sardarni Harbans Kaur Chair in Sikh Musicology was established at Hofstra University (New York), with the aim of promoting the study of the Sikh kīrtan tradition according to international academic standards. The author of this article has the honor of serving in this position since the installment of the Chair.
8 In Indian music, the medieval period covers the span of time between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. After the sixteenth century begins the modern period, which scholars have divided into two parts, separated by the second half of the eighteenth century (Powers). Thus, while the Gurbānī kīrtan repertoire, composed and performed during the time of the first five Sikh Gurūs, is part of the so-called medieval music literature, the repertoire after the sixteenth century belongs to the early modern era of Indian music.
9 For a discussion about the role of kīrtanīe (plural of kīrtanīā), see also Singh (Citation2011) and Cassio (Citation2014).
10 In this regard, Singh writes:
[in the SGGS] no tālas are mentioned, though many scholars have attempted unsubstantiated equations of the mystery term ghar with the tāla. Seventeen ghars are mentioned as part of the rāga headings to the hymns in gurbani. The term tāla for rhythmic pattern has been used extensively in gurbani by the authors. There is no reason why they would use a separate term for defining something for which a particular term was already in vogue.
11 According to Kaur,
The guidelines derived above from the śabad-texts and śabad-titles of the Gurū Granth in fact indicate a musical style that is distinct from the contemporary Hindustani genres – dhrupad, khyāl, thūmrī, ghazal, and filmi. [ … ] Genres that did exist then [at Sikh Gurū's time], such as the dhrupad, have, like almost all music, undergone much change over the course of centuries, and the original forms are difficult to know, for they were not notated either. (Citation2011, 308)
12 Hindustani Sangīt Paddhati literally means the system (paddhati) of North Indian music. Between 1910 and 1932, Bhātkhande published a treatise of the same name in six volumes (Bhātkhande Engl. Transl. Citation1999). This book is still considered the fundamental text for the standard practice of North Indian classical music.
13 In Singh's opinion:
A researcher must possess the ability to discriminate or distinguish between a contemporary composer's composition and a vintage śabad-reet composed by the gurūs or other legendary kīrtaniyas, particularly because attempts have been made recently to alter and even corrupt the history of gurbani kīrtan. New musical instruments and even new rāgas have been created and allotted to the gurbani authors posthumously.
14 The term rāgī designates a Sikh musician who is expert in singing the śabads (hymns) from the Sikh Gurūs’ tradition, according to the prescribed rāgas indicated in the SGGS. And in a broader sense, this term is used to indicate a professional singer who serves in the Gurdwārās. The term rabābī literally designates a category of Muslim musicians expert in playing the rabāb. The rabāb is a fretless lute, originally played by Bhāī Mardānā (1459–1534), who accompanied Gurū Nānak (1469–1539) in his spiritual and sonic journeys. It is thus considered the first instrument of the Sikh tradition. Over time, the term rabābī designated not only a category of accompanists, but in general all Muslim musicians (singers and instrumentalists) who performed kīrtan at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, and at other historical Sikh places of worship before Partition (1947). For a reference about the recent history of the rabābī tradition, see Purepal (Citation2011, 365–382).
15 Interview recorded in Sultanpur Lodhi, 22 August 2013.
16 A controversial issue is, for instance, Paintal's recent statement about the rāgas, whose performance, according to the scholar, should follow the rules prescribed in the modern literature of Hindustani classical music. A problematic assessment, if we think that some rāgas and forms peculiar to the SGGS (such as partāl, to be discussed in the conclusion) are not part of the classical Hindustani repertoire.
17 ‘In ethnomusicology, the concept [of authenticity] implies ages and stability in a musical tradition belonging uniquely to one culture’ (New Harvard Dictionary of Music 2003, 66).
18 The term ‘authenticity’ has been used in several senses relating to music. The most common use refers to classes of performance that might synonymously be termed ‘historically informed’ or ‘historically aware’, or employing ‘period’ or ‘original’ instruments and techniques’ (Butt Citation2001). ‘Authenticity’. Grove Music Online. www.grovemusic.com.
19 In this regard, Nattiez affirms that the natives’ discourse on music is not ‘the music’. It is a meta-language and a testimony.
20 The semiology of music is a discipline that examines music as a language, through a heuristic approach to signs and their interpretations. With regard to the ‘strategies of production’ and ‘strategies of perception’, in his Music and Discourse (1990, 67) Nattiez establishes some basic criteria to analyze a music culture and its repertories.
| (1) | Sound is an irreducible given of music. | ||||
| (2) | The ‘musical’ is any sonorous fact constructed, organized or thought by a culture. | ||||
| (3) | There are no a priori limits on the numbers of different interpreters that producers or interpreters might associate with a given sound complex. | ||||
| (4) | No semiology of music is possible without taking into account the cultural environment of the phenomenon being studied. | ||||
| (5) | A semiological analysis ensues from combining categories and articulations proper to the culture, with a description of the immanent characteristics (analysis of the neutral level) in the sound phenomena under consideration. | ||||
21 Quoted in Rowell (Citation1987, 158).
22 ‘By about the fifteenth century, when the prabandhas became too stereotyped and effete and as such lost their popular appeal, a simplified derivation of prabandhas emerged in the form of dhrupad.' (Srivastava Citation1980, 8)
23 The sentence continues as follows: ‘I think that this happened for two reasons: first: that once dhrupada came to the fore, the ragas and the song forms pertaining to the marga style lagged behind. Except for, of course, such ragas which had developed no languidity’.
24 The Talwandī gharānā of the late Mohammed Hafīz Khan has been documented through an extensive fieldwork and analysis by Khalid Baśra (Citation1996) and Bhāī Baldeep Singh.
25 Interview recorded in Rome (Italy), January 2013.
26 Interview video recorded in New Delhi, 8 December 2012. Prof. Saxena passed a few months later, in March 2013.
27 ‘It is notable that even though dhrupad was the dominant genre during the time that the Adi Granth (first version of Gurū Granth) was compiled (1604), it finds no mention in it.’ (Kaur Citation2011, 311)
28 In his 1978s article, Paintal wrote:
It is, therefore, clear that to preserve the Sikh devotional music, particularly the Śabad Reets and the various Dhunis, the Sikh Gurūs employed professional kirtan singers, that is, Rababis, Ragis, and Dhadhis, who received traditional training in the kirtan from their teachers (Ustad) and this traditional method of training of the pupil by the teacher continues to this day. This has enabled them to preserve the traditional Śabad compositions for posterity. [ … ] Mention may also be made of the peculiar style of singing by the Rababis and the Ragis of Amritsar. Their voice is cultivated and trained in a special way. The characteristic features of their style are that they display all the graces with lively combinations of Swaras (notes), rendered in a slightly rounded form, which has a wonderful effect.
29 On this topic also Khalsa (Citation2012).
30 Interview video recorded by the author in New Delhi, 8 August 2012.
31
A rāg is embodied in the form of a dhurpad composition, which is a self-contained entity. An authentic dhurpad composition contains grammatical codes and essential structural features which characterize the rāg in question, and musicians trained in the family music, who possesses nigah (sight, vision, developed musical sensibility), should be able to derive all the rules involved in the structure of the rag from the relevant dhurpad composition. [ … ] Authentic compositions are presented as proof of a rag's structure.
32 For a reference, the example of rāga Malhar is also mentioned by Ustad Vilayat Khan:
I had an opportunity to listen to the kirtan of Bhai Sahib Bhai Avtar Singh and Gurcharan Singh Ragi while attending the marriage ceremony of a friend's son at Chandighar. They recited the PARTALS of RAGAS Suhi and Malhar in the most original and ancient way of classical singing.
33 Part of the repertoire sung by the two legendary kīrtanīe was notated and published in the two-volume Gurbānī Sangīt Prachīn Rīt Ratnāvali (Patiala University, 1979), and was recorded by the two musicians in several sessions, since they believed that Bhatkhande's notation would not be sufficient to show the nuances of the ragas and the peculiarities of the compositions.
34 Interview recorded in Amritsar, 29 August 2013.
35 Amīr Khusrau is also considered the legendary musician who invented tablā and sitār, instruments which actually only appear in iconographical and written sources in a later period. For instance, tablā and sitār are not mentioned in the A’īn-i-Akbarī (c. 1590).
36 Baqir Khan Najm-i Sani was a nobleman who served Akbar's son and grandson, Jahangir (1569–1627) and Shah Jahan (1592–1666). Famous for a book on the etiquette of rulers he wrote for Jahangir, Baqir Khan Najm-i Sani was considered by his contemporary Shaikh Farid Bhakkari a patron of ‘dhrupad and khyal [compositions] in the Hindawi language composed in rāga’ (Brown Citation2010, 161).
37 The first description of khyāl as a deśī (regional, popular) genre is in fact in the musicological treatise written in 1666 by Nawaj Saif Khan, better known as Faqīrullāh, a scholar and a former administrator of the Aurangazeb's empire. Faqīrullāh's work has a central importance for the history of Hindustani music.
His translation (tarjuma) of Rāja Mān Singh Tomar's Mānakutūhala provides important information about the history of dhrupad, and its shift from the devotional genre to the darbari form in the court of Gwalior. But it is through the Risāla-i-Rāgadarapana (Faqīrullāh's original work based on previous treatises and on his firsthand experience) that we have access to crucial data about instruments, genres and repertoires practiced during Aurangazeb's reign. Faqīrullāh dedicates an entire section to the analysis and description of dhrupad, that he regarded as a class by itself in which ‘ the text and song-forms, of Mārga and Deśī varieties, have been made to synthesize with each other and act as one has been a feat of wonder-weaving’ (Faqīrullāh [Engl. transl.] [Citation1666] Citation1996, 99). This section is followed by a description of the other forms and styles less popular than dhrupad. Among them, Faqīrullāh mentions the chautuklā, a song-form in two parts credited to be an invention of the ruler of Jaunpur Sultān Husain Sharqī (d. 1505), which in later sources is considered to be an archaic form of khyāl. Faqīrullāh's list includes also:
Qaul, Tarānah, Khayāl Naqshnigār, Basīt, Tilallāna and Sohila are the popular song-forms of Delhi. Their ravish (style) has been a creation of Amir Khusrau.
38 Ni'māt Khān was employed at the court of two Mughal emperors: Aurangazeb's grandson Moizuddin Jahandar Shah (r. 1712–13), and at the court of Muhammad Shah ‘Rangila’ (r. 1719–1748).
39 In his Tuhfat al-Hind (c. 1675), Mirza Khan attributes the invention of khyāl to Husain Shah Sharqui (Sultan of Jaunpur in the years 1458–1483). In addition, Mirza Khan considers cutkulā (chautukla) a form of khyāl.
Khyāl is an Arabic word. [ … ] (This genre) It is in two tuk; its inventor was Sutan Husain Sharqui, the emperor of Jaunpur, and it is mostly (now) in the language of Khairabad. [ … ] If it has one tuk it is called cutkulā.
40 English translation from http://www.sridasam.org.
41 According to Singh, in the context of this śabad, the word ‘khyāl’ stands for ‘the first thought (khyāl) that Gurū Gobind Singh had upon hearing the news of the martyrdom of his sons – value it, imagine – that moment!’ (recorded during the 24th biannual Gurbānī kīrtan Intensive Retreat held in Espanola, July 2009).
42 In this regard, I would suggest investigating the folk and Sufi tradition, in order to verify whether the musical forms described in the ancient texts are still extant in the region.
43 In regard to the discussion about the adoption of khyāl:
Dr Paintal as well as two other Sikh musicians who served on the RNC, Pandit Tejpal and Surinder Singh Bandhu, were students of renowned Hidustani classical musician and khyal exponent, Ustad Amir Khan (Lucknow gharana). They hold similar beliefs that Sikh ragas should be based on those used in classical Hindustani sangeet. Their shared perspective illustrates the fact that they had not been taught by those Rababi or Kirtaniya-Ragis who remembered how the ragas were rendered by the Gurbani Kirtan parampara, but instead were trained in Hindustani classical music.
44 In Qureshi's words: ‘Through the act of listening –sama’ – the Sufi seeks to activate his link with his spiritual guide, with saints departed, and ultimately with God’ (Citation1986, Citation1).
45 According to Miller (Citation1999, 145) ‘The dobeiti, which is termed chahārbaiti in Afghanisthan as well as some regional areas of Iran such as Khorāsān, is a popular form of the robā’ī used by the dervish poet Bābā Tāher of Hamadān.'
46 Also popularly known as Gharīb Nawāz (the protector of the poor).
47 Amīr Khusrau was the beloved disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya (1238–1325), who was the direct successor of Bābā Farīd.
48 Information reported in the notes of the CD Dhrupadi Rabab. 2004. New Delhi: Anad Records.
49 The instrument is presently preserved at the Srī Gurū Gobind Singh Gurdwārā of Mandi (Himachal Pradesh).
50 For a reference, Miner Citation1997.
51 This interview was taken on 18 August 2012 in New Delhi.
52 In this regard also Kaur affirms: ‘Tāl designations are not given in śabad titles because the tāl for a particular śabad would be determined by the meter of the śabad text.’ (Citation2011, 306)
53 The fifty five partāls are in the following rāgas: five in Āsā; two in Dhanāsrī, Rāmkalī, and Prabhāti-bibhās; three in Sūhī, Bilāval, and Nat; one in Nat Narāyan, Prabhātī, and Bhairao; sixteen in Sārang; ten in Malār; and six in Kānrā.
54 This composition is notated at page 837 of the Gurbānī Sangīt Prachīn Rīt Ratnāvali, and recorded by Avtar Singh in the album Gurbani Kirtan Parampara. Prem Piri, Vol. 2, published by T Series in 2004.
55 Translation, as appears in http://www.searchgurbani.com, except for the last verse, translated by Darshan Singh Citation2005.
56 About the rāga-rasa theory applied to the Gurbānī repertoire, see Lallie/Kaur/Singh (Citation2012).
57 The legendary Swami Haridās (1480–1575) died at the time of Gurū Rām Dās.
58 The first (and only) album of jorī pakhawāj solo was recorded by Bhāī Baldeep Singh in 2004, published by Anad Records Pvt Ltd.
59 An important remark in this regard by Singh:
While over the last century-and-a-half, most North-Indian classical music and Carnatic music exponents and their works have been documented extensively, gurbani kīrtan tradition exponents died in virtual anonymity. While the overblown contribution of Indian classical musicians ensures they enjoy cult-like status, the stories of the legends of gurbani kīrtan are almost totally absent. The silence about the Gur-Sikh music and musicians in the history books ensures that aspirants have no role models, no references and hence, no pride or dignity.