Kirtan as the Guru's Voice

Sikh theology treats the sung performance of the Guru Granth Sahib's hymns not as a musical setting added to a separately complete text but as integral to receiving the text at all. This goes back to the tradition's founder: Guru Nanak is recorded as having traveled and taught accompanied by Bhai Mardana, a rabab player, the two of them singing hymns together rather than Guru Nanak simply reciting or preaching them, establishing sung devotion as central to Sikh practice from its earliest period.

The scripture was composed by its Gurus and by the devotional poets included alongside them as sacred song from the outset, and its hymns are grouped in the Guru Granth Sahib by raga rather than by author or chronology, a structural choice that only makes sense if singing the hymns was always intended as their primary mode of transmission. A Sikh service, whether in a large gurdwara or a small home gathering, is built substantially around continuous shabad kirtan, performed by ragis, professional or trained lay singers, typically accompanied by harmonium and tabla, with the congregation often joining in the more familiar refrains. This is why shabad kirtan is documented here as a religious practice rather than as devotional music adjacent to Sikh worship; within Sikh doctrine, singing the shabad correctly is understood as the intended way of engaging with the Guru's teaching in the moment of worship itself.