6. Listening to Vrindavan: Chanting and Musical Experience as Embodying a Devotional Soundscape

Abstract

After the intense summer and monsoon, from October all the way through February villagers all over rural Bengal attend devotional musical sessions (kirtans) organized by Vaishnavas. Kirtan singers are invited to temples, devotees’ homes, and village street corners, to do kirtan continuously for 24, 72, or 96 hours, or a week or a fortnight. These collective occasions are of two types: nam-kirtan, when musician groups sing Radha-Krishna’s names in different melodies following the repeated chanting cycle of sixteen names (mahamantra/sholo nam), Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare; and lila-kirtan, when musician groups describe the deities’ divine activities and love-play in celestial Vrindavan by singing songs composed by medieval Vaishnava practitioners who were also poets, and who are highly revered by Bengal-Vaishnavas. One of the evocative memories from my fieldwork is of a typical week-long nam-kirtan session organized in Navadvip’s Radharani temple in November 2009. Situated in a bustling area of the town, the temple was built in memory of Radharani, disciple of a babaji and a famous woman kirtan singer of Navadvip. Kirtans are organized on large scales by temple authorities and attract large numbers of devotees.