The Online Program of events for the SEM 2025 Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early October.
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This panel offers an introduction to and discussion of the new edited volume Yogic Traditions and Sacred Sound Practices in the United States (forthcoming in 2025 from SUNY Press). Several chapters will be introduced by their authors, and a discussant will comment on the volume as a whole. This book brings together diverse but related disciplines that have long remained exclusive – Sanskrit studies and Ethnomusicology– to illuminate yogic lineages, thought, and philosophies underlying sacred sound practices in the American context. In addition, this volume helps to define the emerging scholarly domain of sacred sound studies, as well as music, religion, and spirituality.Many chapters exhibit an ethnomusicological bent, utilizing participant observation to document the devotional practices of different yogic lineages to better understand the meanings they offer to modern practitioners. The volume examines a broadrange of yogic communities from local groups to global networks, spanning cloistered communities to yogic lineages and societies that have become highly revered and widely recognized in the American landscape over the last century. This volume examines how Indian yogic concepts of sound and musical devotion are translated into contemporary sacred sound practices in distinct ethnographic communities in the United States. While previous studies have been published on the theme of sacred sound in the context of established religious traditions, none of the prior publications deal extensively with the sacred sound practices of a wide array of Indian yogic traditions disseminated within the United States.
Presentations in the Session
Yoga, Sacred Sound, and Indian Music in the North American Context
Guy Beck Tulane University
The 1960s exposed young American seekers to Hindu religion and culture brought directly from India, including Yoga and Indian classical music. While visiting Gurus and Yoga teachers taught simple chants and songs in the form of Mantra and Kīrtan to disciples, celebrated maestros taught Rāgas (melodic patterns) on musical instruments such as the sitar and sarod. By the 1990s the close connections between these two lines of endeavor, namely Yoga and Sangīta (classical music), were established with the aid of Sanskrit texts and advanced vocal music training. As such, the philosophical concepts of sacred sound (Śabda-Brahman and Nāda-Brahman) that were discussed in the Upanishads and Yoga literature were seen to permeate the musicological literature. The ancient practices of OM recitation and Mantra chant became the object of meditation as well as a focus of sacred music practices. Drawing upon relevant textual sources and music examples, this chapter presentation will establish a direct historical line of continuity between ancient and medieval notions of sacred sound and the current Indian classical and devotional music: from Vedic chant, to Yoga philosophy, to Indian music. It will also demonstrate how this knowledge contributes to a deeper understanding of the music and chant encountered in present-day Yoga organizations, such as Shivananda Ashram, Ramakrishna Mission, and ISKCON, in the United States.
Archaeologies of Sacred Sound: Exploring the Sound Body of God
Brita Heimarck Boston University
Mirroring a deepening historical lens, this chapter reverses a chronological time frame to move from present ethnographic insights to medieval Indian yogic philosophies. Utilizing in-depth interviews with sacred sound practitioners in the Siddha Yoga lineage, this chapter identifies several key concepts within the sacred sound practices of yogic traditions in the North American context. The practices include inner and outer mantra repetition, chanting of the Name in namasankirtana, and long-text chants known as svadhyaya. Sound concepts described by practitioners include an area or force field of sacred sound, and sound energy or vibration experienced within the body. Ethnographic interviews provide stories about sound based on individual experiences; these experiential concepts of sound are then related to published teachings within the same or related traditions. Finally, these sacred sound practices and overarching sound concepts are connected to philosophies of yoga as documented by Surendranath Dasgupta (1924/70) and Bina Gupta (2003) in several important studies. This methodology of tracing backwards from ethnographic experiences and contemporary views to ancient sacred sound concepts draws upon Appadurai’s interest in “genealogies of the present” (1996, 209), reframed here as archaeologies of sacred sound.
Contemporary Musical Expressions of Bhakti: The Kirtan Rabbi and the Changing Kirtan Culture of Los Angeles
Meghan Hynson University of San Diego
The past several decades have seen a dramatic rise in the popularity of yoga and kirtan in the United States and internationally, revealing an evolution far beyond the call-and-response singing of Sanskrit chants to a popular and eclectic practice. Kirtan sung in English and accompanied by drum set and guitar or played in the style of rock, reggae, bluegrass, or techno is a departure from traditional practice, yet has drawn considerable attention for its musical innovation. This new flexibility has transferred over to creative artists such as the Kirtan Rabbi, an international performer who sings Hebrew kirtan in Jewish synagogues, and indicates how kirtan is no longer contained by denominational boundaries. The popularity of kirtan and its dissemination through CDs, television, YouTube, and large-scale festivals such as Bhaktifest (the “Woodstock of Devotion”) testify to a commodification of spirituality, which capitalizes on the universalist narratives pervading contemporary spiritual culture. This chapter provides a case study of the musical creativity and fervor of the kirtan culture of Los Angeles. Citing interviews with international and Los Angeles-based kirtan performers, and through analyzing events at some of Los Angeles’ most popular kirtan venues, this chapter untangles the intricacies behind these contemporary musical expressions of Bhakti.
