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Evidence of Indian music and musical instruments can be traced to the beginnings of recorded history on the subcontinent, both in the Indus Valley and among the Indo-Aryans who settled into the region by approximately 1500 BCE. Throughout India’s long history, musical instruments have been intertwined with Hindu religious traditions to such an extent that to isolate the purely musicological features would be a disservice. And while there are traditions that regard musical instruments as human in…

Kīrtan and bhajan, viewed collectively, are the most important and most widely prevalent forms of Hindu devotional musical expression in India, South Asia, and in the diasporas. Appearing in ancient scriptures as simply “praise or worship of a deity,” they were later affixed to musical performance, and for the past thousand years or more have been primarily associated with a musical event comprising songs of glorification and worship of god or the chanting of names of a deity. They are thus nearly synonymous with “ bhakti saṅgīt,” devotional music that became central to the grow…

The Rādhāvallabha Sampradāya is a Vaiṣṇava lineage and community existing for nearly five hundred years in the Braj area of northern India. It was founded in 1535 CE by Hit Harivaṃś (1502–1552 CE) in Vrindavan. Vrindavan (Vṛndāvana) is a famous pilgrimage town in Braj that is believed to be the geographic location of many childhood activities of the god Kṛṣṇa who was born, according to pious tradition, in roughly 3000 BCE in the nearby town of Mathura. Hit Harivaṃś is a key figure in the …

Hit Harivaṃś (1502–1552 CE) was a Vaiṣṇava poet and saint associated with Vrindavan and the medieval bhakti movement in North India. Hit Harivaṃś - together with Caitanya and the six gosvāmīs of the Gauḍīya Sampradāya, Vallabha and the aṣṭachāp poets, Śrī Bhaṭṭa and Harivyāsadevācārya of the Nimbārka Sampradāya, and Svāmī Haridās of the Haridāsī Sampradāya - are recognized by historians as pioneers in establishing Vrindavan as a major pilgrimage destination and center of the bhakti tradition. Vrindavan is believed to be the geographical location of the childhood activ…

The Haridāsī Sampradāya is a Vaiṣṇava lineage that has flourished for nearly five hundred years within the Braj area of northern India, and should not be confused with the Haridāsa movement of western and southern India (see Smārta). It was inaugurated in Vrindavan in the 16th century by Svāmī Haridās (c. 1480–1575 CE), a poet-saint and musician who discovered and established the worship of the Kṛṣṇa deity Śrī Bāṅke Bihārī. Vrindavan (Vṛndāvana), a popular pilgrimage town in Braj, is consi…