Vaiyasaki Das

Vaiyasaki Das is a Hare Krishna kirtan singer and teacher, one of the early Western devotees to carry the practice of mantra chanting around the world. He was born in London and grew up in Winnipeg, Canada, and he spent years in the music business before kirtan became his life's work. Event hosts introduce him as "the Godfather of Kirtan".

He received formal initiation from A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna movement. In 1978 he went to Bangladesh, where he discovered raga-kirtan, the old Bengali way of singing devotional mantras in classical ragas. He learned from kirtan masters in Bengal and Bangladesh, and he chose to spread that art outside India.

His own style blends ancient Bengali raga-kirtan with modern, contemporary music. His first album came out in 1982, and he has recorded many more since, including Charana Kamal, Way of Love, Kirtan Explosion and Kirtan Rasa. On Spotify he has nine releases. His YouTube channel carries live kirtans from Rishikesh, Mayapur, Slovenia, Russia and Australia. It has about 1,600 subscribers, and his most-watched upload has been seen 110,000 times.

He teaches as much as he sings. He runs the Kirtan Academy, where students learn the theory of kirtan, how to play harmonium and karatals, and later the advanced ragas. He explains that each melody is a personality with its own service to Krishna, and that it should be sung at the right time of day.

He still leads kirtan in homes and temples. A video of his Kirtan Rasa evening in Brisbane in August 2023 shows him seated at the harmonium in a living room, with guests on the floor around him.

A kirtan with Vaiyasaki Das is led from the harmonium, seated in the middle of the room. He sings a line in a classical Bengali raga and guests sing it back, so even people new to kirtan can follow. His Brisbane evening was filmed in an ordinary living room, with the group on the floor around him. His melodies are chosen with care, and the focus stays on the singing rather than on a stage show. Expect an unhurried, musical evening in which everyone joins the chant.