Borgeet

Borgeets ( as, বৰগীত, lit=songs celestial, translit=Borgeet) are a collection of lyrical songs that are set to specific ragas but not necessarily to any tala. These songs, composed by Srimanta Sankardeva and Madhavdeva in the 15th-16th centuries, are used to begin prayer services in monasteries, e.g. Satra and Namghar associated with the Ekasarana Dharma; and they also belong to the repertoire of Music of Meghalaya outside the religious context. They are a lyrical strain that express the religious sentiments of the poets reacting to different situations, and differ from other lyrics associated with the Ekasarana Dharma. Similar songs composed by others are not generally considered .

The first Borgeet was composed by Srimanta Sankardeva during his first pilgrimage at Badrikashram in c1488, which is contemporaneous to the birth of Dhrupad in the court of Man Singh Tomar (1486-1518) of Gwalior.
Brajavali dialect is a language native to the Braj region of Uttar Pradesh, a state in India. Nowadays these areas are dominated by the identity of Bhojpuri (another important language covering mainly Uttar Pradesh and Bihar), mainly because of cinematic influence of the language over other local languages such as Maithili, Awadhi, Brajavali, Bundelkhandi, Angika, Bajjika, etc. Brajaavali is also the language of the creations of Shankardev and Madhabdev in the form of scriptures which play as the base for today's religious bases of Assam, i.e. the Satras where the prime deities are Rama and Krishna who again have their origins in Awadh, Gokul, Vrindaavan, Mathura areas of today's Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Lyrics

The are written in the form of verse. The first pada, marked , works as a refrain and is repeated over the course of singing of the succeeding verses. In the last couplet, the name of the poet is generally mentioned. The structure of is said to model the songs of 8-10th century Charyapada.

The first borgeet, ''mana meri rama-caranahi lagu'', was composed by the Sankardeva at Badrikashrama during his first pilgrimage. The language he used for all his is Brajavali, an artificial Maithili-Assamese mix; though Madhavdeva used Brajavali very sparingly. Brajavali, with its preponderance of vowels and alliterative expressions, as considered ideal for lyrical compositions, and Sankardeva used it for and Ankia Naats. Sankardeva composed about two hundred and forty , but a fire destroyed them all and only about thirty four of them could be retrieved from memory. Sankardeva, much saddened by this loss, gave up writing and asked Madhavdeva to write them instead.

Madhavdeva composed more than two hundred , which focus mainly on the child-Krishna.

Music

The music of are based on ragas, which are clearly mentioned; and '' raginis'', the female counterparts of ragas, are emphatically not used. The rhythm (''tala''), on the other hand, are not mentioned; and need not be set to rhythm. Nevertheless, by convention tala is used when a borgeet is performed for an audience, or in a congregation, and in general specific ragas are associated with specific talas (e.g., ''Ashowari''-raga with ''yati-maan''; ''Kalyana''-raga with ''khar-maan'', etc.). The lightness that is associated with the khyal type of Indian classical music is absent, instead the music is closer to the Dhrupad style. The singing of a borgeet is preceded by ''raga diya'' or ''raga tana'', the local term for alap, but unlike the syllables used in Khyal or Dhrupad, words like ''Rama'', ''Hari'', ''Govinda'', etc. are used. Furthermore, ''raga diya'' is fixed as opposed to ''alap'' which is improvised.

The technique of Borgeet follows the ''Prabandhan Gana'' tradition which is contemporary to Dhrupad and Kriti of Hindustani and Carnatic music. In , there are Talas from eight ''matra''s to thirty-two ''matra''s, all comprising three parts of proportionate length, viz., ''Ga-man, Ghat'' and ''Cok''. These ''Talas'' are different in structure, rhythmic pattern as well as playing style from the ''tala''s now played with Hindustani and Carnatic music. A few like ''Rupaka, Ektali, Yati, Bisam,'' etc. are mentioned not only in the ''Sangita Sastra''s like Sangita Ratnakara but also in Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda''.''

Style

It is regarded that have been forming an indispensable part of from the days of Sankardeva. The regular performance of in Satra and Namghars is done by a single person called , where the first sings only the outline of a raga suitable for that time of the day, and sings a Borgeet or an set in that raga without maintaining any beat, repeating the or after every couplet of the (subsequent verses). Such renderings of Borgeet are considered as a singing in (sheer voice-manipulation) or (freedom from rhythmic restriction). The performance of in early morning accompanied by the Khuti Taal is called a . The performance which is accompanied by Bortaal can be rendered in both morning and dusk. Both the ''Manjira-prasanga'' and ''Tal-kobowa prasanga'' are played with . On occasions like Krishna Janmashtami, Doul, Bihu, death anniversaries (''tithi)'' of religious preceptors including Sankardeva and Madhavdeva and during the whole month of Bhadra the performance of Borgeet is preceded by an orchestral recital of Khol