Gurmat Sangeet: kirtan in the ragas

When Guru Nanak travelled, he travelled with a Muslim musician, Bhai Mardana, who played the rabab while the Guru sang. From that beginning the Sikh scripture took its shape: the Guru Granth Sahib is divided not by author or theme but into thirty-one ragas, the melodic modes of Indian music, each with its season, time of day and mood. Siri raga opens the book; the sombre Sorath, the morning Asa, the rain-raga Malhar and the wedding Suhi follow.

In the Gurus' time the professional rababis, descendants of Mardana, and the singers Satta and Balvand sang in the Gurus' court, and the Gurus themselves trained the sangat to sing. The tradition of kirtan, sung praise, became the centre of Sikh worship: at Harmandir Sahib it has been sung almost without a break, from before dawn to late at night, for four hundred years, accompanied by stringed instruments such as the rabab, saranda, taus and dilruba, and by the jori, a pair of drums.

In the twentieth century the harmonium largely replaced the old strings and the strict ragas gave way to lighter tunes. Since the 1990s a revival led by musicians at Punjabi University, the Anandpur Sahib Raag Darbar and teachers such as Bhai Avtar Singh and Bhai Gurcharan Singh has brought the classical ragas and the tanti saaz, the string instruments, back into the gurdwara.