Context:
Bangladesh celebrated the 250th birth anniversary of the mystic saint and humanist bard Fakir Lalan Shah.
More on the news
- To commemorate this significant event, a three-day music festival celebrating Indo-Bangla music was held in Sherpur, Bangladesh.
- This event is organised in collaboration with the High Commission of India in Bangladesh and the Ministry of Cultural Affairs of Bangladesh.
Fakir Lalon Shah (1774-1890)
- Fakir Lalon Shah, also known as Lalon Shah, Lalon Fakir, or Mahatma Lalon, was a prominent Bengali philosopher, Baul saint, mystic, song composer, social reformer and thinker from the Indian subcontinent.
- He had no formal education and came from the poor peasant class.
- He was regarded as a preceptor of Baul asceticism, composer and singer of Baul songs.
- Lalon initiated Baul doctrine with Siraj Sanyi and devoted himself to austere ascetic practice.
- He composed nearly two thousand five hundred devotional songs, all written in a simple yet profound language.
- His songs address themes of human life, humanism, and a non-sectarian attitude, making them both significant and enduring.
About Baul tradition
- The Bauls are mystic minstrels living in rural Bangladesh and West Bengal, India.
- Bauls live either near a village or travel from place to place and earn their living from singing to the accompaniment of the ektara, the lute dotara, a simple one-stringed instrument, and a drum called dubki.
- Bauls belong to an unorthodox devotional tradition, influenced by Hinduism, Buddhism, Bengali, Vasinavism and Sufi Islam, expressing their spiritual yearning through music and dance.
- Bauls neither identify with any organized religion nor with the caste system, special deities, temples or sacred places.
- Baul songs were inscribed in 2008 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.