Kirtan is call-and-response devotional singing — a leader sings a line, the gathering answers, the tempo builds, and it can run for hours. Chaitanya made public street kirtan the center of Gaudiya Vaishnava practice in the sixteenth century, deliberately taking worship out of the temple and past the gatekeepers. Its most globally visible descendant is the Hare Krishna movement, whose street chanting is the same practice in an unbroken line.