Bhai Mardana Ji, a Muslim rabab player from Talwandi, travelled with Guru Nanak Dev Ji for most of his life. The line he founded, the rababis, played kirtan in the Sikh tradition for four centuries. His descendants served all ten Gurus: Sajada, Sadu, Badu, Balvand, Satta, Babak.
The rababi families were Muslim. In 1947 they left for Pakistan.
What replaced the rabab in gurdwara kirtan was the harmonium, which is a European instrument, does not bend a note, and cannot do what the string instruments it displaced could do. The tradition was partitioned along with the province, and the sound of Sikh devotional music changed as a direct result.
The revival work runs through tanti saaz, the string instruments, at the Bhai Veer Singh Gurmat College inside the Central Khalsa Orphanage at Amritsar, where rabab, taus, dilruba and sarinda are taught and built again.
The rababi families held the hereditary right to perform kirtan at the Darbar Sahib and at other shrines, and their descent within that tradition was recognised in the arrangement.
The line did not end in 1947. Rababi families continued to perform in Pakistan, some at shrines and some privately, and a few of their descendants have been recorded in recent decades.
Bringing the rabab, the saranda and the taus back into gurdwara kirtan has been under way for about twenty years, taught at a small number of institutions and still rare in practice.