Baul music: soul music

By Sabrina F. Ahmad - Daily Star - Bangladesh
Tuesday, May 23, 2006

This week, we're making a spiritual journey through music. Since everyone's talking about Sufi music, we feel that the coverage will be incomplete without a more localised off-shoot of this genre: baul music.

The Bauls are members of a mystical group in Bangladesh, and in West Bengal, India. Some are Muslims, some are Hindus, and each sub-group celebrates its own religious festivals, but come together on certain occasions. They live together in "akhras" or monasteries; a Muslim baul may have a Hindu guru, or a Hindu baul may have a Muslim spiritual guide. Bauls believe that the human body is a miniature world, with the Sain, the Master, dwelling within.

The cult of baulism draws its beliefs from ancient tribal faiths, Hindu and Buddhist philosophy and cults, from the mystical form of Islam (Sufism). Baulism, like faqirism was developed as a composite mysticism incorporating sexo-yogic practices taken from Buddhist and Hindu Shahajiya cults. The practitioners see no contradiction between their baulism and Islam or Hinduism.

Lalon Shah [1774-1890] was a Baul faqir (ascetic, mendicant), considered the greatest and most prolific composer amongst Bauls. His compositions are richly layered with metaphors and underlying meanings, and are largely symbolic.

1) Ham'd and Naat: Songs of praise and devotion. The boat theme regularly features in this type of songs, where the boat signifies the human soul, with God/Allah as the helmsman, the river being life, and the shore being the ultimate destination.

2)Murshid Totto: Knowledge of the murshid, or spiritual guide. Bauls maintain a spiritual guide/guru/prophet according to their respective religions, who acts as a sort of intermediary between Man and God. Lalon's songs refer to the Islamic Prophet Muhammad as the murshid, and calls him the 'messenger of love'.

3)Atma-totto: Spiritual and metaphysical knowledge. These songs deal with self-discovery; finding love i.e. God, within oneself.

4)Deho-totto: The ruling philosophy behind these songs is that the human body is the seat of knowledge; it is a microcosm, and the Master (God) or Sain, is refered to here as the Elusive Bird, which sits within a cage that is the heart. To find Him is to open one's heart to the Truth and to Love.

5)Param-totto: Knowledge of the ultimate. Devotional songs that ask the devotee to look beyond texts and seek Truth/Love within oneself. These songs maintain that total devotion ultimately leads to the Maker.

6)Jiggasha: The question. This is where Lalon speaks in the voice of the new devotee seeking guidance from his guru.