---
type: Concept
bundle: bhakti-marga
bundle_version: "0.4.0"
id: kirtana
title: "Kīrtana — Participatory Sonic Devotion"
iast: "kīrtana"
devanagari: "कीर्तन"
description: "The communal singing and proclaiming of the Divine's names, forms, and deeds as devotional practice. Not hymn singing, not generic chanting, not a concert, not worship music."
darshana:
  - Bhakti (Vaiṣṇava Vedānta)
  - Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava
school_scope: "The second limb of navadhā bhakti; given supreme emphasis in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism as the yuga-dharma (the recommended practice for the present age)."
text_source: "Bhāgavata Purāṇa 7.5.23 (kīrtana as a limb); 12.3.51 (kīrtana as the dharma of Kali-yuga)"
tags:
  - kirtana
  - sankirtana
  - nama
  - sound
  - tier-3
not:
  - term: "hymn singing"
    why: "hymn singing is the performance of set devotional songs, often by a choir for a congregation; kīrtana is participatory call-and-response in which all present sing the Name together, the act of collective utterance itself being the practice, not a performed repertoire"
    instead: "Render kīrtana as participatory sacred singing or congregational chanting of the Name; not as hymn singing."
  - term: "chanting (generic)"
    why: "'chanting' flattens many practices into one; kīrtana specifically proclaims the Lord's names, forms, and deeds with melody and rhythm, in community, as an act of love and remembrance, not undifferentiated repetition"
  - term: "concert / performance"
    why: "a concert centers a performer and an audience who receive; kīrtana dissolves that divide, everyone is a participant, and its aim is shared devotional absorption and the awakening of prema, not aesthetic delivery to listeners"
  - term: "worship music"
    why: "'worship music' is a genre accompanying worship; kīrtana is itself a complete limb of devotion (the second of nine) and, on the doctrine of nāda-brahman, direct contact with the Lord through His Name, not a soundtrack to some other act of worship"
related:
  - /concepts/nada-brahman.md
  - /concepts/bhakti.md
  - /concepts/prema.md
  - /concepts/bhava.md
timestamp: "2026-06-25"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Kīrtana — कीर्तन

**Not:** hymn singing, chanting (generic), concert / performance, worship music

Kīrtana is the communal singing and proclaiming of the Divine's names, forms, qualities, and deeds. It is the second limb of navadhā bhakti and, in its congregational form (*saṅkīrtana*), the central recommended practice of the Vaiṣṇava devotional movements. Resting on the doctrine that the Name is non-different from the Named, kīrtana is not music *about* God but sonic contact *with* God, undertaken together.

## Etymology

From the root √*kīrt* — to mention, to proclaim, to celebrate, to make famous. *Kīrtana* is "the act of proclaiming / celebrating." The word does not primarily mean "to sing" but "to *declare the glory of*." Kīrtana is the public, jubilant proclamation of who the Lord is — His names and deeds sung out so that they fill the singer, the community, and the air.

## What It Actually Means

Kīrtana is built on call-and-response: a leader sings a Name or a line, and the gathering answers, the cycle repeating and intensifying. There is no audience. Everyone present is a participant, and the practice belongs as much to the unschooled voice as to the trained one, because its value is in the loving utterance, not the performance. Accompanied by simple rhythm and melody, kīrtana carries the community into shared *bhāva*, and is held to be among the most direct means of awakening prema, since it engages hearing (śravaṇa) and proclaiming (kīrtana) at once and floods the mind with the Name.

The Bhāgavata declares saṅkīrtana the *yuga-dharma* of Kali-yuga (12.3.51): "what was attained in earlier ages by meditation, sacrifice, and temple worship is attained in this age by saṅkīrtana of Hari." The reasoning is the doctrine of nāda-brahman: where access to the Divine through other means has grown difficult, the Name remains fully potent and freely available to all, requiring no qualification but love.

## Why the Substitutes Fail

"Hymn singing" and "worship music" make kīrtana a performed accompaniment to worship; it is itself a complete limb of devotion and, on its own theology, direct contact with the Lord. "Chanting (generic)" erases what is being uttered — the Name, held to be the Lord present in sound. "Concert" imports the performer-audience divide that kīrtana exists to dissolve: in kīrtana the singing is done *by* the community *to* the Lord, with no one merely listening.

## Cross-References
- [Nāda Brahman](nada-brahman.md) — the doctrine kīrtana enacts: sound, and supremely the Name, as the Divine's presence
- [Bhakti](bhakti.md) — kīrtana is the second of the nine limbs and, in saṅkīrtana, the age's central practice
- [Prema](prema.md) — kīrtana is held to be the readiest awakener of selfless divine love
- [Bhāva](bhava.md) — communal singing carries participants into shared devotional mood

## Audience Metaphor

Think of the difference between watching a choir perform an anthem and a whole crowd singing together at a moment of overwhelming shared joy, where no one is performing and no one is watching, everyone is simply swept up in singing the same thing with one heart. The first has a stage; the second has no audience, only participants, and the singing itself is the experience. Kīrtana is the second, turned toward the Divine: not a beautiful anthem delivered to listeners, but a community lifting the Name together until the Name fills them. The voices need not be trained, because the point was never the sound's polish, it was the love carried in the proclaiming.

## Citations

1. [Bhāgavata Purāṇa](/references/bhagavata-purana.md) 7.5.23 — kīrtana as the second limb of navadhā bhakti
2. [Bhāgavata Purāṇa](/references/bhagavata-purana.md) 12.3.51 — saṅkīrtana of Hari as the yuga-dharma, the means proper to Kali-yuga
3. [Nārada Bhakti Sūtra](/references/narada-bhakti-sutra.md) — the constant singing and hearing of the Lord's names and qualities as the devotee's life
