Public Worship
We have still to consider the wider uses of the most characteristic feature of the sect, namely the Sankirtan.
We have seen that it forms a part of the worship in large temples, but this is by no means its natural habitat. It did not have its origin in the temple, but in the open:
It was not the product of priestcraft for the adornment of ritual, but sprang into being as the expression of group emotion.
So today it is most natural and at its best in the open, and is to be found wherever Vaishnavas congregate. It is essentially a mode of public or group worship, because it is a natural expression of the aroused religious feelings of the crowd.
This is true, whether the sankirtan is conducted by a famous singer with trained chorus about him, or whether it is more of the nature of a village sing-song, with everyone joining in according to his vocal capacity.
We have noticed in a previous chapter how the popularity of the kirtan has kept alive a class of professional singers, who do nothing but conduct kīrtans for a livelihood.
Their services are in demand on public occasions, at large gatherings of Vaishnavas, and for smaller parties in private houses. Their power over an Indian audience is remarkable.
This form of the kirtan is still a very real feature of Vaishnavism in Bengal.
Let us turn for a description of it to the pen of one, oft quoted already, who loves to linger on the ravishing cadences of his country's singers:
The Gaurachandrikā (the singing of songs about Chaitanya) prepares a spiritual atmosphere for the audience. The emotions of one who was mad after God are emphasized, so that they might serve as a keynote to Rādhā-Krishna songs...
When the kīrtaniyā, or head singer of the kirtan songs, takes up a subject for his night's performance, he selects as many songs of a group as he can sing, within six or seven,
and commences with a Gaurachandrikā descriptive of the particular emotion which is the subject of the night.
The clang of kartāla (cymbals) and the dull beat of khole, which has, however, a heart-moving effect, is continued for some time.
The deafening noise drives away all other thoughts, and the audience expectantly looks for some higher music. Gaurachandrikā is next introduced.
The singer does not consider his task finished by singing the songs:
Each line - each word of them - he explains by rhymed commentaries made by some earlier master, which was also learnt by rote by the singer when he committed the songs to memory.
The poetical import of each word is analysed, with its bearing on Chaitanya's life, till history, theology and poetry are mingled together, and the musical flow of the whole makes the audience rapt.
Kīrtana is unlike all other musk. It is a continual source of inspiration in Bengal, owing to the great life of Chaitanya, which nourishes it with idealistic poetry...
The music around the Gaurachandrikā swells and grows in volume, till, like the sea, it surrounds the audience, separating themselves from the visible world.
It leads them to a superior plane, creating pathos which draws from their eyes silent tears of exalted emotions.
It often happens that someone amongst the audience, unable to support his emotion, silently joins the singers and dances for joy. I have seen good scholars do so.
In fact, the attention of the audience is captivated to such an extent that they are often found to forget their dinner bg-sky-hour and the most urgent business.
But true and important a feature as this is, the phase of the kirtan more truly characteristic of the sect is the humbler but more general community chorus, to whose resounding peals everyone contributes his share.
Doubtless this feature of Vaishnava life in Bengal has lost something of its early fervour and the remarkable power that made it so effective a revival agency in Chaitanya's hands. But it still remains central in the communal life of the sect.
The sankirtan is the heart of any gathering of Vaishnavas.
It needs to be seen to be understood, but even then it is difficult for a Westerner to fully appreciate its immense influence upon the feelings of a crowd.
The following is a description of the saṅkīrtana, by one well qualified by sympathy and understanding to write of it:
To outsiders kirtan may seem to be a noisy and artificial affair. It is so when there is no bhakti in the heart. But when there is bhakti the kirtan is a celestial enjoyment with power of purification.
Men sit together with musical instruments for the purpose of chanting the praise of the lord, who is good, kind and disinterestedly affectionate.
The music in the beginning soothes the soul, and prepares it to receive the pious sentiments which the hymn contains. Nay, it also has the power of evoking such sentiments in the heart.
The music and sentiments in the song move the heart:
When one of the party is moved, others are also moved, by the mysterious law of sympathy. The whole party is then saturated with pious feelings.
In this manner the individuals of the party help one another, for when one is thus influenced by bhakti, he imparts the feeling to others.
Gradually the members are filled with joy, and they cannot resist the impulse to express it by dancing. To make this dance in every way agreeable the performers wear musical anklets.
To describe the kirtan in this manner is, however, to do scant justice to it, for words can never convey the wonderful effect it produces upon the human mind.
Strong-minded saints go into the wilderness and live in caves, with a view to learn how to concentrate the mind and direct it on God:
A kirtan enables a man to do the same thing in spite of himself, and that without undergoing mortification, nay, by merely singing and dancing.
People feel it an impossible task to subdue their passions, they weep and beat their breasts to deliver themselves from the sins that they have committed, but a kirtan enables them to do both the one and the other.
And thus says Vāsudeva, a chronicler of the lord's doings: "My lord Gaurāṅga purifies men by making them sing and dance."
Yes, it is good to join a kirtan party, it is also good to witness it:
For who can look at the faces of the bhaktas beaming with bhakti, their bodies gracefully waving to and fro under its influence, their fearful eyes red with love, and not be affected by the sight?
I have quoted thus at length, because these passages so ingenuously reveal the reason why the saṅkīrtana is so valued and why it maintains its attraction.
Emotional intoxication is the end sought after, and it is the tremendous powers of group stimulus, contagion and suggestion in the saṅkīrtana that makes it popular.
The sankirtan is resorted to on many different occasions. It forms the main item in the programme of any festival. It is a familiar feature of a Vaishnava mela.
It is the natural expression of community feeling on special puja days. It is a vital part of the Mahotsava, the special celebration which is a common feature of Vaishnava communities.
It is the one means, perhaps, by which the inhabitants of many village ākhrās come into communal touch with their fellow villagers.
The vairāgīs often are specialists in sankirtan, and their evenings devoted to this art draw the community together in what might almost be called village "choral unions" in the West.
In the home also the sankirtan may take a prominent place:
A music-loving man will gather the neighbourhood into his courtyard at frequent intervals, and there devote long hours of the night to the singing of the familiar songs of the Chaitanya poets.
During such a community sankirtan, custom forbids the passing of the doorway without entering and joining in the service of common praise.
The capacity of Vaishnava folk for this form of worship is amazing:
We read of the sankirtan, among the villages of the Bankura district, as being the chief amusement of the people; ''sometimes continued without intermission for several days and nights, and is called, according to its duration, ahorātra (1 day and night), chobbisprahar (3 days and nights), Pāñcharātra (5 days and nights), and Navarātra (9 days and nights).”
We hear even of a Nadia village where the sankirtan has been kept up every night for 400 years.
The reason of this is that Chaitanya had once paid a visit to that village before taking sannyāsa. The little village resounded with kīrtana songs, proclaiming its gladness at the event.
When he was about to leave the place the villagers begged him to pay them a visit again, and Chaitanya, it is said, promised that he would do so at some future time.
They formed from amongst themselves two bands of kīrtana singers to keep up the continuity of songs till he returned.
That blessed day never came.
But they have kept up an unceasing flow of music night after night, during these long generations, believing that he will come once more and visit their village.
For the word of one whom they knew to be God himself could not but be fulfilled.
I have heard of a 10 years continuous sankirtan in Sylhet, still going on, but I have never verified this.
Such uses of the saṅkīrtana, although this particular instance is an extreme case, are not altogether unknown.
A man vows a sankirtan for a certain time, as a work of merit, and then enlists his friends and neighbours in carrying out the performance. All-day Saṅkīrtanas are common enough on festival days.
In times of epidemic it seems that Saṅkīrtanas are resorted to in some parts.
In Dhamrāi, near Dacca, whenever the place is visited or threatened by an epidemic of any kind, it is the custom to hold an all-day-and-night sankirtan, together with a Mahotsava, the general feast.
The Mahotsava is of quite frequent occurrence, especially during the cold season, and this is always the occasion for a sankirtan.
These occasions are neither altogether optional nor spontaneous as to participation in them. They are organised by the Gosvāmīs of the community, and all vairāgīs thereabouts are expected to attend.
On special occasions the sankirtan easily takes the form of the nagarkīrtan, the processional kirtan, in which bands of singers with their instruments, accompanied by waving banners, parade the streets.
This method is employed at the annual celebration of Chaitanya's birthday in Calcutta:
Sankirtan parties start from various sections of the northern part of the city and converge in a selected public square, where they unite in a big sankirtan.
On a smaller scale the same thing may be seen in many villages on pūjā days.