Bhajan
Devotional songs of praise, sung individually or in community, expressing love for the divine.
Bhajan versus aarti and mantra
A bhajan is a devotional song of praise — distinct from a mantra, which is a fixed, precisely worded formula, and from an aarti, which specifically accompanies the lamp ritual. Bhajans are freer in form: they can be composed in any regional language, not only Sanskrit, and are often set to popular or folk melodies that make them easy for a whole gathering to sing together.
A living, growing tradition
Unlike scripture, whose text is fixed by antiquity, new bhajans continue to be composed even today, alongside centuries-old classics by poet-saints like Tulsidas, Surdas and Meera Bai. This means a bhajan page here might carry either a well-known ancient composition or a widely loved modern one.
Community singing (kirtan)
Bhajans are especially associated with kirtan — communal devotional singing, often with a call-and-response structure, harmonium and tabla — a practice explicitly listed among the nine classical forms of bhakti described in our introduction to Bhakti Yoga.