Kirtan at Sacred Waters

Chanting is found in many of the world’s religious traditions: the Gregorian mode of Catholics, the Zikr of Islamic mystics, the Judaic chant of the Qur’an, the Mahayana sutras of Buddhist monks, the Bhajans of India, and in the rituals of indigenous traditions of African, Hawaiian, Aboriginal, and Native American shamans. But chanting was usually reserved for the realm of monastics, cantors, priests, monks,sannyasins or shamans. Often the vocal or melodic structure of chants took years of study, training, and apprenticeship for chant leaders. From the ancient Byzantine octoechos modal structure to the overtone throat singing of Tibetan Buddhists, these devotional rituals were not accessible to the masses of religious followers. But what is unique about kirtan in the history of chant is that what began as an Indian non-violent social reform movement brought about devotional singing in a simplified version across caste lines to everyone. We see a Christian counterpart in the Taize movement in Europe which flowered in the 1940’s.