Kirtan
An important role for music in South Asian culture is in the worship of deities, as seen in the Rg Veda (the "praise" veda). The most common form of religious musical praise in modern India is kīrtan [Sanskrit kīrti "to praise"] and those who perform kīrtan function as preacherswho incorporate music and spoken exegesis into their storytelling.
These kīrtankārs [Sanskrit kīrtan + kārnā vt "to do"] take a great number of performative forms and appear in a diverse array of musical and dramatic configurations. All attempt to explain the fundamentals of Hinduism in ways that will make the philosophic intricacies comprehensible to the layperson. The relationship between the national cosmopolitan culture and regional or even village culture has been described by anthropologists Robert Redfield and Milton Singer as that of "great" and "little" traditions. The kīrtankār is an interlocutor in this dialogue.

Selected Performances
  Maharashtrian kītankār
  Manbhatt Dharmiklal Pandya
  Havelisangitkar M. H. Khambolja
 

Sources of Indian Music
31 January, 2013