Indian Devotional Music: Its Relation with the Religious Concept of People and Iconography

Abstract

Religion is the driving force behind the evolution of society. Human religious believers have interpreted music as the utterances of gods and lauded it as the purest expression of spirituality. Throughout the majority of human history, religious texts have been sung rather than written, and religious behavior has been expressed through prayer or devotional melodies or music in almost all religious traditions. The values, functions, and genres of religious music are culturally diverse and varied. Religious musical forms can transcend cultural barriers. Some religions, such as Buddhism, use music to prepare the mind for meditation by calming and focusing it. In India, kirtan, also known as Shikh religious music, facilitates connection with one another and with God. Similarly, Vedic hymns in Hinduism were musical. By performing bhajans, devotional songs, Sanskrit mantras, etc. Hindus offer prayers to God. Sufi music, Qawalli, etc., are chanted during prayers in the Muslim faith. In addition, it teaches religious teachings. Religious songs of any faith are characterized as a source of strength and a means of relieving pain, thereby improving one’s mood. The iconography of Indian music contains numerous elements that represent the human religion, culture, traditions, and way of life, thinking, values, customs, costumes, rituals, and behavior throughout the centuries through visual art and symbolism like sculpture, architecture, idol of god etc. Therefore, iconography is a specialized discipline of study that examines images of gods. Indian music and dance are the culmination of one of the world’s finest civilizations’ evolution. The Iconography of Indian music entails the study of figures, images, deities, and pictorial representations of the devotional music’s most prominent deities of music.