Kashmir Valley · Western Himalaya & Trans-Himalaya
The four-line utterances attributed to Lal Ded in the fourteenth century — compressed, argumentative and unsparing about ritual. They are the earliest substantial body of Kashmiri verse and were preserved for centuries by being memorised and sung rather than written.
Sung at: Recited and sung year-round, at shrines and in ordinary speech. Quoted by Muslims and Pandits alike, which is why the language's founding poet belongs to neither claim exclusively.
The sayings of Sheikh Nooruddin Noorani, Nund Rishi, founder of the Rishi order — plain-spoken verses about labour, forest, food and restraint, in the same metre-and-idiom world as the vaakh.
Sung at: Shrine gatherings and Rishi observances.
Unaccompanied women's chorus marking each stage of the marriage — the bath, the henna, the departure — with a long held final syllable that lets the next line be pitched off it.
Sung at: The days of a wedding.
Sung by two facing rows of women as they rock forward and back; texts run from spring and the almond blossom to teasing and to separation.
Sung at: Eid nights and the spring.
Long narrative and devotional sequences that accelerate across a sitting, driven by tumbaknari and noet. A single chakri can run past an hour.
Sung at: Night gatherings, shrine fairs, weddings.
Satire on the year — prices, officials, weather, scandal — improvised in rhymed couplets to the rattle of a dhukar.
Sung at: Village visits by an itinerant singer, historically after the harvest.
The short Kashmiri love lyric, the form associated above all with Habba Khatoon in the sixteenth century. Lol is built for one voice and a small compass, which is why it survived without any ensemble to carry it.
Sung at: Sung solo, often by women at work.
Sung on the move between the Jammu foothills and the valley's high pastures — separation, livestock, and the passes. Gojri is a different language from Kashmiri and its song repertoire moves with the flocks rather than with the villages.
Sung at: The spring and autumn migrations.
The folk songs of Kashmir Valley — what they are about, who sings them and when. (8)