Bhajan and kirtan
Devotional song, and the shared call-and-response singing of divine names.
Devotional song, the sound of the bhakti path. Bhajans are sung hymns to a deity, usually in regional languages; kirtan is shared, often call-and-response singing of divine names. Both turn worship into a group event within a tradition whose formal rites are mostly individual, and both travel easily between temple halls, home gatherings and festivals.
Bhajans are sung hymns to a deity, usually in regional languages rather than Sanskrit, which is part of why they travel: a bhajan can be understood by the people singing it without any training in a liturgical language. Kirtan is shared singing of divine names, often call and response, and often long.
Both turn worship into a group event inside a tradition whose formal rites are largely individual. A puja is performed for you or by you; a kirtan is done together, and the length is the point, since the repetition is what carries the singers.
They move easily between settings, and the same songs are sung in temple halls, in living rooms and at festivals, with no change of register required.
Does it have a text?
There is no canonical bhajan or kirtan text. The repertoire is enormous, mostly in regional languages, much of it composed within living memory and under copyright, and a great deal of it transmitted by singing rather than in print.
When it comes up
Other forms of prayer in Hindu
- Puja — Ceremonial Hindu worship offered to a deity at a home shrine or in a temple.
- Darshan — Seeing and being seen by the deity, and the main point of most Hindu temple visits.
- Mantra and japa — Sacred sound as a devotional medium, and counted repetition of a formula or divine name.
- Aarti — The Hindu ceremony of light, in which a flame is circled before the deity.
- Vrata — A vowed Hindu observance, most often a fast kept on days tied to a chosen deity.
This page describes a practice. It does not tell you how to perform it, or whether you should. Practice varies by region, community and household far more than a page like this can carry, and nobody credentialed in the tradition has signed anything here. The full dossier names its sources.