ਰਬਾਬ

Rabab (ਰਬਾਬ) is a plucked lute and the first instrument of Sikh kirtan. Its player was Bhai Mardana, the lifelong companion of Guru Nanak: as the Guru sang the newly revealed shabad, Mardana accompanied him on the rabab. A rabab player is still called a rababi in his honour.

What does rabab mean in Punjabi?

Rabab names a family of plucked lutes found across West, Central and South Asia, and its ancestor is thought to be the Persian instrument of the same name. The rababs used in the classical music of northern India are plucked, not bowed. In Punjab, though, the word carries a second weight: it is inseparable from kirtan, the singing of Gurbani, because the rabab was present at its very beginning.

Tradition gives the Sikh rabab a maker and a name of its own. Raj Academy's account of the Gurmat instruments describes the Firandia rabab, crafted around 1500 by Bhai Firanda near Sultanpur to Guru Nanak's specifications: tunn wood, about three feet long, gut strings over a hollow base covered with skin, and a gift from the Guru's elder sister, Bebe Nanaki. Scholars debate parts of this account, but the rabab's place beside Guru Nanak is shown again and again in texts and paintings of Mardana playing as the Guru sang.

Who played the rabab for Guru Nanak?

Bhai Mardana played it. When a shabad came to Guru Nanak, tradition records his call: 'Mardaneya, rabab chhed, bani aayee hai', Mardana, play the rabab, the bani has come. Mardana's descendants then served as rababis to all ten Gurus, and Muslim rababi families performed kirtan at the Golden Temple into the early twentieth century. After Partition in 1947 many of those families moved to Pakistan, and the rababi tradition faded with them.

Is the rabab still played today?

Yes, though far less than before. During the twentieth century the rabab was eclipsed in gurdwaras by the harmonium, and in Sikh musical circles it was gradually replaced in places by the sarod, until it was rarely heard. In recent years teachers, instrument makers and kirtan groups have worked to revive the stringed instruments of the Gurus, and the rabab is heard again in some gurdwaras and concerts, its deep and unhurried sound a reminder of how kirtan began.