Longest officially released song
Who
Dr. Jagadeesh Pillai, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
What
138:41:20 hour(s), minute(s), second(s)
Where
Indien (Varanasi)
When

The longest officially released song is 138 hr 41 min 20 sec, and was achieved by Dr. Jagadeesh Pillai (India) in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India, on 12 April 2023.

Dr Pillai is a writer, researcher and motivational speaker. He took over four years to record, edit and mix the record-breaking track.

He sung the entire book of the poetic work “Shri Ram Charit Manas”, composed by the 16th-century Indian bhakti poet Goswami Tulsidas.

The epic poem is written in the Awadhi language (a folk form of Hindi) and consists of more than 15,000 verses.

Revolving around three separate conversations, the poem consists of seven Kānds (episodes) with the first two Kānds comprising over half the total length.

The poem is itself based on the Ramayana, one of Hinduism's two fundamental epic texts alongside the Mahābhārata.

The Ramayana recounts the deeds of Prince Rama, the seventh avatar of Vishnu.

Goswami Tulsidas was renowned for his devotion to the legendary deity Rama, and he spent most of his life between Varanasi – the same city where Dr Pillai created the song – and Ayodhya.

Varanasi boasts a reputation as one of the world's oldest continually inhabited cities and is often mentioned in the epic sagas.

Dr Pillai said: "This city is called the spiritual capital of India because of the holy river Ganges, house to thousands of temples, and also because of Sarnath, where Lord Buddha has given his first sermon to his five disciples after the illumination. This city has lots and lots to say and spread."

Read more about how Dr Pillai created the song here