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Gitabitan

Collection of songs by Rabindranath Tagore

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 16, 2026
Entity authorityQ13057745
Source-derived summary

Gitabitan (lit. 'Garden of songs') is a book forming a collection of all 2,232 songs (Rabindra Sangeet) written by Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore.

Editions

The first edition of three volumes was published in 1931 and 1932, and contained the songs in chronological order. To make the collection more user-friendly, Tagore revised the book and arranged the songs by theme. The revised edition of the first two volumes was published in 1941, the year when Tagore died. Volume three, which included all of Tagore's dance-dramas, was published in 1950. In 1960 Visva Bharati published the Gitabitan as a single volume.

Themes

The six major parts of this book are Puja (worship), Prem (love), Prakriti (seasons), Swadesh (patriotism), Aanushthanik (occasion-specific), Bichitro (miscellaneous) and Nrityonatya (dance dramas and lyrical plays).

Other collections

The Swarabitan, published in 64 volumes, includes the texts of 1,721 songs and their musical notation. The volumes were first published between 1936 and 1955.

Earlier collections, all arranged chronologically, include Rabi Chhaya (1885), Ganer Bahi o Valmiki Pratibha (1893), Gan (1908), and Dharmashongit (1909).

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Gitabitan” as collection of songs by Rabindranath Tagore. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1931, 1932, 1941, 1950—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Gitabitan, songs and Rabindranath can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as collection of songs by Rabindranath Tagore. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q13057745. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1931, 1932, 1941 and 1950.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Gitabitan”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Gitabitan primary sources, Gitabitan archive and Gitabitan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Gitabitan”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Gitabitan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.