Religious Hindu Poems
Posted in Uncategorized on 07/19/2011 09:57 pm by admin
All devout Hindus give a lot of significance to religious Hindu hymns and poems in their everyday lives. Most of these chants are chanted on particular events or as a daily routine while there are others that can be recited or heard according to the wishes of the followers. The first poem that strikes your mind when talking about the religious Hindu music is Tulsidas’ ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ that is a religious poem devoted to the god Hanuman.
Hanuman chalisa text is a well known sacred poem that is frequently sung by the Hindus across the globe. Every Tuesday and sometimes on other days of the week, many Hindus sing it in praise of Hanuman.
Mirabai’s bhajans also have a great reverence in holy Hindu poetry. Dedication and devotion are evident in these bhajans which are similar to poems. These bhajans in the bhakti tradition are sung in praise of Lord Krishna.
Mirabai’s poetry puts love for Krishna above everything else in life. In her bhajans, she talks about Krishna as her husband and a romantic partner. They are depiction of Mirabai’s intense longing for union with her Lord. Thus, Mirabai’s music has a religious as well as a loving quality and tone.
The popular songs of Surdas, ‘Sur Sagar’ or Ocean of Melody can not be forgone mention here. Surdas is renowned for this great piece of work, which is a compendium of 100,000 poetic song compositions. However only around eight thousand of them can be found these days.
These poems mainly deal with the life and adventures of Lord Krishna, and reflect the poet’s adherence to the Bhakti movement. They often depict the sacred union of the lovers Radha and Krishna and the heavenly dances they indulged in called Lilas. Any discussion of Hindu spiritual poetry would be incomplete without including Kabir’s composition Bijak or Seedling that contains many songs that deal with a secular approach towards god and philosophy.
The poems are full of ideas of atman, brahman and karma, and have a strong bhakti undertone. They suggest that each of us must look beyond their religious texts and scriptures so as to achieve the unity or ekatwa with the God. Om Jai Jagdish Aarti is also popular Hindu hymn.