The rabab is a plucked lute of Central Asian and Afghan origin, with a skin-topped, deep body and a warm, dark voice. On its own terms it is a fine instrument. It matters more than any other instrument on these pages for one reason: it is the instrument of Bhai Mardana, the Muslim musician who was Guru Nanak's lifelong companion, who travelled with him for decades. Nanak composed; Mardana played. The first sound of the Sikh tradition was made by a Muslim on a Central Asian lute.
Mardana's descendants and successors — the rababis — were Muslim hereditary musicians who sang kirtan in Sikh shrines, including the Harmandir Sahib itself, for centuries. In 1947, at Partition, the rababis went to Pakistan. The tradition was broken almost overnight. The instrument largely vanished from Sikh devotional practice, its place taken by the harmonium.
The communities of Punjab were not adjacent. They were interwoven — and Partition did not so much divide them as tear them. The rabab is where that fact can be heard. A full article on the rababi tradition is in preparation; it may be the most important page this archive will hold.
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Sources & a note on images and audio
- Reference material on Punjabi and Sikh musical instruments, including — where relevant above — the explicit scholarly notes on contested attributions. Instrument-origin claims are labelled with their confidence throughout.
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