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Maharashtra is a Midwestern state in India, perhaps best known for being the home of Bollywood - the all-singing, all-dancing film industry that churns out over 1000 movies per year. Bollywood music, with its playback singers, swathes of violin strings and endless romantic poetry, is arguably more globally famous than the films themselves.

But outside the sprawling capital city of Mumbai, Maharashtra has a deep and rich music heritage and can boast some of the greatest classical singers in modern times - Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Srimati Kishori Amonkar, Lata Mangeshkar, Aruna Sairam, Bombay Jayashri and Dr. Prabha Atre.

Maharashtra is well known for producing many superb Hindustani vocalists in the Kirana gharana. Even though the gharana originated in northern Uttar Pradesh in the 19th century, its founder, Abdul Karim Khan, frequently visited the royal court of Mysore, Karnataka. Ever since, the border area between Maharashtra and Karnataka has been well known for its highly developed Kirana gharana forms. On one of Khan’s tours of Karnataka, he overheard a young boy singing and after discovering he wanted to learn music, he took him on as his student. This boy grew up to become Pandit Sawai Gandharva - perhaps Maharashtra’s most famous classical vocalist.

The culture of classical music performance in Maharashtra shifted greatly after the fall of the British Raj. From the time of the Mughal empire in the 16th century, Indian musicians were traditionally supported through patronage of monarchs and aristocrats. However, post-independence, this system was dissolved, and musicians suddenly needed to find other ways of maintaining themselves and their art. Many musicians migrated to Mumbai as well as other parts of Maharashtra.

Public performance was an obvious progression. A significant moment in India’s music history took place in 1953 in Pune, the second largest city in Maharashtra, when the Sawai Gandharva Music festival was first held. It was established to commemorate the first death anniversary of the legendary singer, and provided a vital platform for artists to perform as well as establishing strong regional audiences. Under the curation of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi it grew to become well known for being the most musically diverse festival in all of India. Today, it is one of the biggest Indian music festivals in the world.

Apart from fostering the popularity of classical music, in recent times, thanks to artists like Aruna Sairam, Lata Mangeshkar and Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, a traditional Marathi folk form - the abhang - has become more and more popular.

Abhang translates literally to ‘unbroken’ or ‘uninterrupted’ and is a type of flowing devotional poem traditionally sung by pilgrims as they travelled by foot to the temple of Lord Vittala in Pandharpur, Maharashtra. The meaning also refers both to the unbroken, continuous process of loving service to God, as well as the lasting power of the devotional poems themselves.

The songs are written in the local Marathi language and composed by the great saints of the Varkari tradition - Dhyaneshwara, Namadeva, Eknath and the most commonly known - Sant Tukaram. These saints were most active from the 14th century onwards and sought to put the emphasis back on devotion and love towards God amongst ordinary people, in contrast to blind obedience of rituals and religious practices.

Sant Tukaram was a simple farmer and family man from the Maharashtran village of Dehu. He became exhausted with the struggle for material happiness and began to pray intensely to the local deity of Panduranga (a form of Lord Krishna). In his devotional meditation, he began to regularly compose poems rich in everyday imagery and down to earth expression.

As word of his poems spread, jealous competitors forced him to throw his entire collection of hand scribed palm leaves into the river Chandrabindu. The story goes that Lord Panduranga personally appeared and assured him the poems would reappear from the water. Later, the poems got washed up on many banks and his words spread even further than before, from village to village.

During Mahatma Gandhi’s 1930 imprisonment, he spent time in his cell translating Tukaram's poems into English. he translated Je ka ranjale ganjale in October of that year: “Know him to be a true man who takes to his bosom those who are in distress. Know that God resides in the heart of such a one. His heart is saturated with gentleness through and through”. Hear Pandit Bhimsen Joshi singing the poem here.

Another way that Maharashtran classical music has connected with a mass audience is through the traditional art of Natya Sangeet - literally ‘dramatic music’ and popularly known as pad. This form of musical theatre originated around 1880 when Balwant Pandurang (alias Annasaheb Kirloskar) staged his musical play, Shakuntal.

At first the music for Natya Sangeet was very diverse, encompassing Marathi folk music forms like lavani as well as classical Hindustani and Carnatic repertoire. The main emphasis was on choosing music that would connect with and delight the audience.

As the form evolved, Kirloskar wrote more plays, and became influenced by the growing popularity of khayal music in Bombay (now Mumbai) and wider Maharashtra. Employing highly talented actor-singers helped to further popularise the music amongst a broad audience. Even through the emergence of the medium of film (and therefore film music) from the 1930s onward, Natya Sangeet retained its audience and the compositions became so well-loved that it has been said no classical music concert in Maharashtra is complete without a few Marathi pads being sung. One of the most famed Marathi actor singers was Pandit Sawai Gandharva, who in his youth, was famous for playing female roles.

Listen to the music

A rare recording of Pandit Sawai Gandharva (1886-1952) singing Raag Tilang.

Kumar Mardur, a third-generation student of Pandit Sawai Gandharva's lineage, singing Raag Multani.

Aruna Sairam sings Teertha Vitthala Kshetra Vitthala, an abhang recounting a myth where Pundalik, a devotee of Krishna, was visited by the god at his family home. Busy serving his parents food when Krishna arrived, he was torn between respecting his family or turning his attention to the deity. As a mark of respect he placed a brick outside the house for the god to stand on until he had finished attending to his parents. He then went outside to greet Krishna, terrified at the prospect of facing his divine anger. But Krishna was impressed by Pundalik’s loyalty to his parents, and stayed on earth with him to meet his fellow devotees. The word vitthala derives from the Marathi for ‘brick’.

Dr. Prabha Atre sings Raag Bhairavi at Darbar Festival 2014.

Carnatic singers Ranjani-Gayatri tackle a fiery Marathi abhang, live at Darbar Festival 2015. 

Jahnavi Harrison is a multi-disciplinary artist, specialising in vocal music, Kirtan meditation, and Indian devotional dance.

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