The art of Kartal making. (Album of photos)
I always wondered how Kartals are made, to me it’s such a beautiful instrument that shouldn’t be taken for granted. While in Mayapur i decided to go deeper and find out about the process, i asked different people until I found this person who took me to a village in Navadwip were they make them.
I took the liberty to call the place Kartaldwip, they specialize in making pure bell metal Kartals, when I got there I was introduced to the main person who runs the small village, a village of masters. They call him Kngshabanik baba, he worships Laddu Gopal and all his work is dedicated to Him. I was amazed, this people who has mastered their skills produce things from their hearts, it’s such a pleasure to see that the kartals they produce have an actual soul, as they make them with such a love and knowledge dedicated to Laddu Gopal. However, even the making of this instruments are meant to help propagate Mahaprabhu’s message, as Kngshabanik baba mentioned, so don’t take this cheaply, don’t just make noise and try to look pretty, as Aindra Prabhu would say.
Kartal Pranam Mantra:
Patron Saint of cymbals is the gopi Sudevi. She needed to pray to learn to play this wonderful instrument. Before start playing them, favorably pronounced this pranama mantra:
“I will defeat death, I will defeat Yamaraja, and I happily will win over all his servants (yamadutas). Hearing the sound of cymbals from afar neither death, nor any of his servants of Yamaraja, certainly will get close to someone who engages in kirtan. ”
Prabhupada stressed that for the devotees there is no need to learn any oter musical instruments to lead kirtan. Lord Chaitanya gave us the easiest method, and all you need for chanting.
“I think that we have no need to use different musical talents to spread Krishna Consciousness. It is better that people strictly follow the path of Lord Caitanya and His sankirtana devotees. We use mrdanga and karatalas, and that’s enough. We are not musicians. We are Krishna bhaktas. Therefore, we are not interested about all these different musical talents. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is God Himself. If He believed that it would be better to spread the Krishna Consciousness in an other way, He would have done it. No, our process – it’s just play on mrdanga and kartalas, travel and chant Hare Krishna and ask everyone to chant Hare Krsna and just preach the philosophy of “Srimad Bhagavatam”. We do not need to try to add anything to this simple method.“
Srila Prabhupada, letter to Jagadisha, 28.12.1974
Find them here: https://goo.gl/7xZX75