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Ektara
Ektara ( bn, একতারা, hi, एकतारा, ur, اِک تارا, ne, एकतारे, pa, ਇਕ ਤਾਰਾ, ta, எக்டரா; literally 'one-string', also called actara, iktar, ektar, yaktaro, gopichand, gopichant, golki ne, गोल्, gopijiantra, tun tuna) is a one-stringed musical instrument used in the traditional music of South Asia, and used in modern-day music of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Two-stringed versions are called dotara (two string), a name which also applies to other instruments. In origin the ''ektara'' was a regular string instrument of wandering bards and minstrels from India and is plucked with one finger. The ''ektara'' is a drone lute consisting of a gourd resonator covered with skin, through which a bamboo neck is inserted. It is used in parts of India and Nepal today by Yogis and wandering holy men to accompany their singing and prayers. In Nepal, the instrument accompanies the singing of the Ramayana and ...
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Baul
The Baul ( bn, বাউল) are a group of mystic minstrels of mixed elements of Sufism, Vaishnavism and Tantra from Bangladesh and the neighboring Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and Assam's Barak Valley and Meghalaya. Bauls constitute both a syncretic religious sect of troubadours and a musical tradition. Bauls are a very heterogeneous group, with many sects, but their membership mainly consists of Vaishnava Hindus and Sufi Muslims. They can often be identified by their distinctive clothes and musical instruments. Lalon Shah is regarded as the most celebrated Baul saint in history. Although Bauls constitute only a small fraction of the Bengali population, their influence on the culture of Bengal is considerable. In 2005, the Baul tradition of Bangladesh was included in the list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
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Parvathy Baul
Parvathy Baul is a Baul folk singer, musician and storyteller from Bengal and one of the leading Baul musicians in India. Trained under Baul gurus, Sanatan Das Baul, Shashanko Goshai Baul in Bengal, she has been performing both in India and other countries since 1995. She is married to Ravi Gopalan Nair, a noted ''Pava Kathakali'' glove puppet artist, and is based in Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, since 1997, where she also runs, "Ektara Baul Sangeetha Kalari" a school for Baul music. Early life and background Parvathy Baul was born in 1975 or 1976 as Mousumi Parial, in a traditional Bengali Brahmin family in West Bengal. Her family was originally from East Bengal, and migrated to West Bengal after the partition of India. Her father, an engineer with the Indian Railways, was keen on Indian classical music and often took his daughter to concerts. Her mother, a housewife, was a devotee of mystic saint Ramakrishna. Due to her father's posting at various locations in the region, s ...
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Eka-tantri Vina
The ''eka-tantrī vīṇā'' was a medieval tube-zither veena in India, with a single string and one or more gourd resonators. The instrument became prominent in Indian music in about the 10th century C.E. as instruments of court music. Alongside the alapini vina and kinnari vina it replaced the harp-style veenas and lute-style veenas in sculpture. It was possibly a forerunner of the rudra vina. It shares its name with the modern single-string drone lute, the ektara. The instrument is very closely related to the one-stringed alapini vina, an instrument which started out a stick zither but became a tube zither like the eka-tantri vina. Although the tube zithers and stick zithers are very similar, it is possible that they have different origins. Early paintings of stick zithers in India date back at least to the 5th century C.E. The earliest currently known stick zither is in the Caves of Ajanta at the end of the 5th century. After a period of assuming that tube zithers sprea ...
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Bengal
Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predominantly covering present-day Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. Geographically, it consists of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta system, the largest river delta in the world and a section of the Himalayas up to Nepal and Bhutan. Dense woodlands, including hilly rainforests, cover Bengal's northern and eastern areas, while an elevated forested plateau covers its central area; the highest point is at Sandakphu. In the littoral southwest are the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest. The region has a monsoon climate, which the Bengali calendar divides into six seasons. Bengal, then known as Gangaridai, was a leading power in ancient South Asia, with extensive trade networks forming connections to as far away as Roman Egypt. ...
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Kirtan
Kirtana ( sa, कीर्तन; ), also rendered as Kirtan, is a Sanskrit word that means "narrating, reciting, telling, describing" of an idea or story, specifically in Indian religions. It also refers to a genre of religious performance arts, connoting a musical form of narration or shared recitation, particularly of spiritual or religious ideas, native to the Indian subcontinent. With roots in the Vedic ''anukirtana'' tradition, a kirtan is a call-and-response style song or chant, set to music, wherein multiple singers recite or describe a legend, or express loving devotion to a deity, or discuss spiritual ideas. It may include dancing or direct expression of ''bhavas'' (emotive states) by the singer. Many kirtan performances are structured to engage the audience where they either repeat the chant,Sara Brown (2012), ''Every Word Is a Song, Every Step Is a Dance'', PhD Thesis, Florida State University (Advisor: Michael Bakan), pages 25-26, 87-88, 277 or reply to the call ...
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Warli
The Warli or ''Varli'' are an indigenous tribe (Adivasi) of western India, living in mountainous as well as coastal areas along the Maharashtra-Gujarat border and surrounding areas. They are considered by some to be a sub-caste of the Bhil tribe. The Warli have their own animistic beliefs, life, customs and traditions, and as a result of acculturation they have adopted many Hindu beliefs. The Warli speak the unwritten Varli language which belongs to the southern zone of the Indo-Aryan languages. Waralis have sub castes such as Murde varli, Davar varali. Demographics Warlis are found in Jawhar, Vikramgad, Mokhada, Dahanu and Talasari talukas of the northern Palghar district, parts of Nashik and Dhule as well as Navapur taluka of Nandurbar of Maharashtra, Valsad, Dangs, Navsari and Surat districts of Gujarat, and the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Language The Warli speak the Varli language, classified as Marathi, with some degree of influence fro ...
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Agastya
Agastya ( kn, ಅಗಸ್ತ್ಯ, ta, அகத்தியர், sa, अगस्त्य, te, అగస్త్యుడు, ml, അഗസ്ത്യൻ, hi, अगस्त्य) was a revered Indian sage of Hinduism. In the Indian tradition, he is a noted recluse and an influential scholar in diverse languages of the Indian subcontinent. He and his wife Lopamudra are the celebrated authors of hymns 1.165 to 1.191 in the Sanskrit text ''Rigveda'' and other Vedic literature. Agastya is considered to be the father of Siddha medicine. Agastya appears in numerous itihasas and Puranas including the major ''Ramayana'' and ''Mahabharata''. He is one of the seven most revered rishis (the Saptarishi) in the Vedic texts, and is revered as one of the Tamil Siddhar in the Shaivism tradition, who invented an early grammar of the Old Tamil language, Agattiyam, playing a pioneering role in the development of Tampraparniyan medicine and spirituality at Saiva centres i ...
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Punjab
Punjab (; Punjabi Language, Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also Romanization, romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of eastern Geography of Pakistan, Pakistan and northwestern Geography of India, India. Punjab's capital and largest city and historical and cultural centre is Lahore. The other major cities include Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Multan, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Sialkot, Chandigarh, Jalandhar, and Bahawalpur. Punjab grew out of the settlements along the five rivers, which served as an important route to the Near East as early as the ancient Indus Valley civilisation, Indus Valley civilization, dating back to 3000 BCE, and had numerous Indo-Aryan migration, migrations by the Indo-Aryan peoples. Agriculture has been the major economic feature of the Punjab and has therefore formed the foundation of Punjabi ...
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Alghoza
Alghoza is a paired woodwind instrument. It is traditionally used by Baloch, Saraiki, Sindhi, Kutchi, Punjabi and Rajasthani folk musicians. It consists of two joined beak flutes, one for melody, the second for drone. The flutes are either tied together or may be held together loosely with the hands. A continuous flow of air is necessary as the player blows into the two flutes simultaneously. The quick recapturing of breath on each beat creates a bouncing, swinging rhythm. The wooden instrument initially comprised two flute pipes of the same length but over time, one of them was shortened for sound purposes. In the world of Alghoza playing, the two flute pipes are a couple — the longer one is the male and the shorter one the female instrument. With the use of beeswax, the instrument can be scaled to any tune. Origin It originated at around 7500 BC in Mesopotamia, it then reached Iran and eventually Pakistan with some modifications. Some Mesopotamian archaic paintings c ...
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Tumbi
The tumbi or toombi ( pa, ਤੂੰਬੀ, pronunciation: ''tūmbī''), also called a tumba or toomba, is a traditional musical instrument from the Punjab region of the northern Indian subcontinent. The high-pitched, single- string plucking instrument is associated with folk music of Punjab and presently very popular in Western Bhangra music. The tumbi was popularized in the modern era by the Punjabi folksinger Lal Chand Yamla Jatt (1914-1991). In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s many Punjabi singers adopted the tumbi, notably Kuldeep Manak, Mohammed Sadiq, Didar Sandhu, Amar Singh Chamkila, and Kartar Ramla. Other users include Punjabi Sufi singers such as Kanwar Grewal and Saeen Zahoor. The instrument is made of a wooden stick mounted with a gourd shell resonator. A single metallic string passes across the resonator over a bridge and is tied to a tuning key at the end of the stick. Players strike the string with a continuous flick and retraction of the first finger to prod ...
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Purana Qila
Purana Qila () is one of the oldest forts in Delhi, India. Built by the second Mughal Emperor Humayun and Surid Sultan Sher Shah Suri, it is thought by many to be located on the site of the ancient city of Indraprastha. The fort formed the inner citadel of the city of Dinpanah. It is located near the expansive Pragati Maidan exhibition ground and is separated from the Dhyanchand Stadium by the Mathura Road, Delhi. History Pre-Islamic origins and Indraprastha theory Excavations point to traces from the 3rd century BC, the pre-Mauryan period. The first two rounds of excavations – in 1954–55 and 1969–72 – by B. B. Lal, then director of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), had unearthed traces of Painted Grey Ware culture. Historian Alexander Cunningham identified the fort with that of Indraprastha, though he referred to the present structure as built by Muslim rulers. Dinpanah The origins of the Purana Qila lie in the walls of Dinpanah, the new city of Delhi was ...
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Ruhaniyat – The All India Sufi & Mystic Music Festival
Ruhaniyat – The All India Sufi & Mystic Music Festival is a music festival held in across India. It is organised by Mumbai-based cultural organisation Banyan Tree Events between November and March every year. This Sufi festival is one of the biggest of its kind, and is held in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune and Hyderabad. Musicians from various parts of India — sufi qawwals, mystic musicians, Kabir panthis, and Bauls — perform at the festival. History The Ruhaniyat festival started in 2001, the brainchild of Mahesh Babu and Nandini Mahesh, the Directors of Banyan Tree Events, to promote sufi and mystic music has evolved into a prestigious event. The festival Ruhaniyat means ''Soulfulness''. The festival features the best of maestros in classical, folk and sufi music, discovered from the interiors of remote Indian villages, Turkey, Egypt, Syria etc. Performers Parvathy Baul, Warsi Brothers, Ateeq Hussain Khan, Jari Sufi compositions of Azan Fa ...
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