BAULS

The music of the Bauls, Baul Sangeet, could be an explicit sort of people song. Its lyrics carry influences of the Hindu devotion movements and also the suphi, a kind of Sufi song exemplified by the songs of Kabir. Their music represents an extended heritage of preaching mysticism through songs in geographic area, as within the Shahebdhoni or Bolahadi sects.

Bauls pour out their feelings in their songs however ne'er trouble to jot down them down. Theirs is actually AN oral tradition. It is same that Lalon  faquir (1774 -1890), the best of all Bauls, continued  to compose and sing songs for many years while not ever stopping to correct them or place them on paper. it had been solely once his death that individuals thought of grouping and compilation his repertoire.

History of Bauls

The origin of Bauls isn't famous specifically, however the word "Baul" has appeared in Bengali texts as previous because the fifteenth century. The word is found within the Chaitanya Bhagavata of Vrindavana Dasa Thakura additionally as within the Chaitanya Charitamrita of Krishnadasa Kaviraja. Some students maintain that it's not clear once the word took its sectarian significance, as against being a word for the word madcap, agitated. The start of the Baul movement was attributed to Birbhadra, the son of the Vaishnavite saint Nityananda, or else to the eighth century Persian minstrels known as Ba'al. Bauls area unit a region of the culture of rural geographic area. No matter their origin, Baul thought has mixed components of Tantra, Sufi Islam, Vaishnavism and Buddhism. They are thought to possess been influenced by the Hindu Buddhism sect of the Kartabhajas, additionally as Buddhism Hindu faculties just like the Vaishnava-Sahajiya. Some students realize traces of those thoughts within the ancient practices of Yoga additionally because the Charyapadas, that area unit Buddhist hymns that area unit the primary famous example of written Bengali. The Bauls themselves attribute their lack of historical records to their reluctance to go away traces behind. Dr. Jeanne Openshaw writes that the music of the Bauls seems to possess been passed down entirely in oral kind till the tip of the nineteenth century, once it had been 1st transcribed by outside observers.

Records of Bauls

The Bauls were recorded as a serious sect as early as middle eighteenth century. Regarding the origins of the sect, one recent theory suggests that Bauls area unit descendants of a branch of mysticism known as ba'al. Votaries of this sect of mysticism in Asian country, chemical analysis back to the 8th-9th centuries, were keen on music and took part on the QT pious practices. They won’t to drift regarding the desert singing. Like alternative Sufis, they additionally entered the South Asian landmass and opened up in numerous directions. It is additionally advised that the term derives from the Indo-Aryan words vatul (mad, innocent of senses) and vyakul (wild, bewildered) that Bauls area unit usually thought-about.

Like the ba'al United Nations agency rejects family life and every one ties and roams the desert, singing in search of his beloved, the Baul too wanders regarding checking out his maner mitt (the ideal being). The madness of the Baul is also compared to the manic disorder or intoxication of the Sufi diwana. just like the Sufi, the Baul searches for the divine beloved and finds him housed within the shape. Bauls decision the beloved sain (lord), murshid (guide), or guru (preceptor), and it's in his search that they are going 'mad'.

Classes of Bauls

There are a unit 2 categories of Bauls: ascetic Bauls United Nations agency reject family life and Bauls United Nations agency stand their families. Ascetic Bauls renounce family life and society and survive on alms-giving. They need no mounted dwelling house place, however move from one akhda to a different. Men wear white lungis and long, white tunics; ladies wear white saris. They carry a jhola or bag for alms-giving. they are doing not sire or rear kids. They are treated as jyante mara or outcastes. Women, dedicated to the service of ascetics, area unit referred to as sevadasis (seva, service+dasi, maidservant). A male Baul will have one or additional sevadasis, United Nations agency area unit related to him within the act of devotion. Till 1976 the district of Kushtia had 252 ascetic Bauls. In 1982-83 the quantity rose to 905; in 2000, they numbered regarding five thousand.

Those who opt for family life stand their wives, kids and relations during a secluded a part of a village. They are doing not combine freely with alternative members of the community. in contrast to ascetic Bauls, their rituals area unit less strict. so as to become Bauls, they recite some mystic verses and observe sure rituals.

Bauls Use Musical Instruments

Bauls use variety of musical instruments: the foremost common is that the ektara, a one-stringed “plucked drum” drone instrument, graven from the exocarp of a gourd, and manufactured from bamboo and fell. Others embrace the dotara, a long-necked fretless lute (while the name virtually means that “two stringed” it always has four metal strings) manufactured from the wood of a jackfruit or tree. Drums just like the duggi, alittle hand-held material drum, and dhol and khol; little cymbals known as khartal and manjira, and also the bamboo flute are used. Ghungur and nupur area unit anklets with bells that ring whereas the person carrying them dances.

A Baul family contend on stage in London for The Rolling Stones' Hyde Park concerts in 1971, '72 and '78 in before of thousands.