SIKH SACRED MUSIC, EMPIRE AND WORLD MUSIC

Abstract

This article explores the moral language around Sikh sacred music (kīrtan) that emerged as a result of the imperial encounter in the wake of the Singh Sabha movement. In addition, it investigates the possibilities for the study of Sikh kīrtan as ‘world music’. On the whole, it aims to find answers to questions such as: What is cultural and what is universal in the study of the practice of Sikh sacred music, and what is part of the Sikh identity politics of ‘difference’?; To what extent do identity politics and ancient Sanskrit music theories hinder the study of kīrtan as world music, and how is this related to the Sikh resistance to the translation of the Sikh sacred scripture? Above all, it finds orthodox Sikh ideas about authenticity and aesthetics in kīrtan problematic in the light of historical change, recording and new media technologies as well as diasporan influence.

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