The beautiful truth about kirtan (devotional chanting from the heart) is that it is a practice for all people irrespective of their religion, background or culture. It transports us directly to the pages of the greatest scripture of all time, residing in our very own body, the book of the heart. Kirtan is the Sanskrit word for ‘praise’ or ‘to glorify’ the divine consciousness within. Each chanter has their own unique relationship to the divine.
The origin of kirtan stems from the Bhakti tradition in the 7-10th century AD in southern India. At that time the common lower caste people were uneducated and therefore unable to read sacred texts like the Brahmin priests, scholars and upper castes. In effect, the Brahmin priests deprived the common people of a spiritual education. It was during that time that the first Bhakti (which means devotion worship or longing for god) saints appeared namely, Shaiva Nayanar and V aisnava Alvar, who travelled widely to bring the practice of mystical devotion to the ordinary working people. They inspired a culture among common people of finding mystical union with the beloved by simply chanting to glorify and praise god. This practice transcended the intellect and people felt mystical experiences of the divine in their own hearts. As the Bhakti movement developed between the 11th -15th centuries there were two pathways to experience divine grace: one was through Nirgunabhakti, the formless divine principle, and Saguna, through worshiping a specific form by chanting Nama kirtan which mean to chant the name praising a specific incarnation of the lord, such as Lord Krishna.