Bhajan

For centuries, the songs of devotional poet-saints have been an integral part of Indian religious life. Countless regional traditions of bhajans (devotional songs) have been able to maintain their existence by adapting to serve the contemporary social needs of their participants. This dissertation draws on fieldwork conducted over 2014-2015 with contemporary bhajan performers from many different genres and styles throughout India. It highlights a specific tradition in the Central Indian region of Malwa based on poetry by Kabir and other Sants (anti-establishment poet-saints) performed by lower-caste singers. This tradition was largely unheard-of half a century ago, but is now a major part of Malwa’s cultural life that has facilitated the creation of lower-caste spiritual networks and created a space for those networks to engage in discourse about social issues. Malwa’s bhajan singers have also become part of India’s popular religious and musical life as certain performers have attai...

For centuries, the songs of devotional poet-saints have been an integral part of Indian religious life. Countless regional traditions of bhajans (devotional songs) have been able to maintain their existence by adapting to serve the contemporary social needs of their participants. This dissertation draws on fieldwork conducted over 2014-2015 with contemporary bhajan performers from many different genres and styles throughout India. It highlights a specific tradition in the Central Indian region of Malwa based on poetry by Kabir and other Sants (anti-establishment poet-saints) performed by lower-caste singers. This tradition was largely unheard-of half a century ago, but is now a major part of Malwa’s cultural life that has facilitated the creation of lower-caste spiritual networks and created a space for those networks to engage in discourse about social issues. Malwa’s bhajan singers have also become part of India’s popular religious and musical life as certain performers have attained celebrity status and been recognized at the national level as living bearers of the Sant tradition.

This dissertation follows performers and songs from Malwa into new contexts and explores the processes by which performers and audiences in diverse styles and contexts use Sant bhajans to construct understandings of the self. It further addresses the role of Sant bhajans in the formation of new communities comprising members from previously disparate social groups. It interrogates why Sant bhajans might be relevant and appealing to Indians from so many backgrounds and how these bhajans and their performers are relevant to major cultural, religious, and social discourses in India today. It describes and analyzes the various processes by which Sant bhajans are creating new arenas for artistic, spiritual, and social dialogue, and allowing previously marginalized voices to contribute to the formation of Indian culture.

RADHEKRISHNA RadhekrishnaSir I would like to introduce myself as KumbakonamAnanthanarayanaBhagavathar, a renowned singer of Namasankeerthanam in PracheenaBhajanaSampradayam, grandson of BhagavathaPadapamsu, Late Sri. T.V.NarayanaSastri of Kumbakonam who was responsible for spreading Abhangs in Tamilnadu in early 60s and founder of M/s. PandurangaBhajanMandali, Ch-5 and son of Sri.T.N. Vaidyanathan(chellibhagavathar)), a renowned singer of Namasankeerthanam& founder of M/s. BhakthaswaraBhajanMandali, Chennai.Being the gifted grandson of the Late Sri T.V.NarayanaSastri, a doyen of DivyanamaSankeerthanaBhajans, Abhangs& Shiva BhajanaiSampradyam, Iam carrying out the divine tradition of my ancestors in the propagation of Namasankeerthanam among young and old alike. Amongst participating in hundreds of Bhajanprogrammes since childhood, I have performed DivyanamaSankeerthanam&RadhakalayanaUtsavams individually at various places, Started Performing Individually at the age of 18.

When American missionaries from the Methodist Episcopal Church arrived in India in the middle of the nineteenth century, they very soon published hymn-books to aid the Christian church in worship. But these publications were not solely the product of American Methodists nor simply the collection of foreign songs and music translated into Urdu. Rather, successive editions demonstrate the increasing participation of both foreigners and Indians, of missionaries from various denominations, of both men and women, and of even those not yet baptised as Christians. The tunes and poetry included were in both European and Indian forms. This hybrid nature is particularly apparent by the end of the century when the Methodist press published a hymn-book containing ghazals and bhajans in addition to hymns and Sunday school songs. The inclusion of a separate section of ghazals was evidence of the influence of the Muslim culture on the worship of Christians in North India. This mixing of cultures w...

Despite the fact that it was a Portuguese colony until late 1961, having since then acquired the status of a union territory, the Indian island of Diu was culturally and religiously influenced and marked by its proximity to the neighbouring territory of Kathiawar (also known as the peninsular region of Saurashtra) located in the south of Gujarat state and forming part of the Arabian Sea coast. This circumstance helps to explain the reason why the Gujarati language was the dominant idiom on the island and Hinduism the prevalent religion. To this extent, the reproduction of cultural and religious practices among the Hindu population of the island include the use of various stylistic typologies of bhajan (devotional songs), with particular emphasis on the Kathiyawadi bhajan – a category of bhajan associated with expressive practices globally connoted with the territory of Gujarat, but particularly with the Kathiawar region. In addition to religious connotations, Kathiyawadi bhajan are also identified with lok geet (folk music) practices and envisions a dense interaction between devotional singing intercalated (in the beginning or in the middle of the performance) by poetic-musical forms, such as sakhi, doha, and chaand, traditionally composed and transmitted by bards and jati (caste/castes) of Gujarat musicians (e.g. Gadhvi, Charan, Bharot). Perhaps because of the lack of migratory history on the part of these jati of musicians, in the Hindu-Gujarati diaspora in Mozambique and in Portugal, Kathiyawadi bhajan are particularly practised and transmitted by musicians from Diu jati (although not limited to these). Based on archival research (including audio-visual archives) and on participant observation during multi-sited fieldwork in Lisbon, the state of Gujarat, and Diu island, this article explores the ambiguities related to the practices of representing the Kathiyawadi bhajan: on some occasions perceived as an archaic and potentially transgressive practice by some urban Gujarati groups, on other occasions discursively valued and praised when it comes to performing and representing the ‘authenticity’ and ancestrality of Gujarati culture in which the Diu jati represent the connection to the ‘true’ Gujarati folk, rural, and ancestral traditions.

Keywords: Hindu-Gujarati diaspora, Diu castes, Hinduism, bhajan

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02666030.2018.1440061