Kirtan is a special sort of music which is soothing to human ears. We all know that music makes our life happy and helps us to relive some stress. Kirtan are special chantings performed in India's devotional traditions. Chantings can be of two types, one which is performed by an individual which is known as Jap and one which is congregationally with musical instruments with some retious dance is called as Kirtan or sankirtan.
Kirtan is said to be a more than 500 years old word which was derived from the Hinduism community. Kirtan is a word which mostly goes along with the word bhajans. The two are said to have a combination with each other. Kirtan helps in making mood happy and some people use some cd's and cassette to play them every morning as well as ever evening. It is a belief in India that listening to these kirtans makes ones soul pure, which is the main reason of popularity of this term.
If we move back to the history of kirtans, Vaiyasaki is the guru of kirtans, he spent years and years in learning various styles of kirtan from musicians and singers who travel broadly performing kirtan in almost every town and village. Kirtans are sung in front of god depending upon different occasions their lyrics changes. Kirtans are generally sung in groups with one person leading and others following him singing in chorus. Kirtans are known to be in touching tone expressing the devotee's hearties thankfulness to God. Indians believe that kirtans are the way by which they can surrender themselves and their soul to their lovely God. Since their birth they have merged into the hearts of human and so their impact on people is really amazing. Kirtans have seen their rise along with the humanity a lot. Tulsidas, Kabirdas, Meera Bai, Surdas are some of the illustrious devotees that the medieval period saw. They have numerous harmonious bhajans to their name and who have contributed a lot to make this word not mere a word but a word of sprituality, kindness and peacefullness. In modern world we have many great composers like Pt. VN Bhatkhande and Pt. VD Paluskar who have tried their best to blend different Indian classical music with Raga Sangeet to produce melodious Kirtans which are purely Divine catering to a larger audience.
Kirtans are known to be great stress busters with their soothing tone and old people sung them in their home because because they believe that if they sung these kirtans at this age, god will give them place in heaven. Kirtans are also sung during the Havans (the fire has been put of and lots of ghee and other religious ingredients are being beloved in flame and being done by brahimins most of the time) which makes a complete puja. Kirtans are generally sung with closed eyes facing the god or maybe sitting alone and sung in our own heart while concentrating on the words and thereby feeling a transitory independence of mind, heart, soul and something each one of us is searching for.