Harrison recorded the album between January and August 1996, with sessions taking place in the southern India city of Madras, and at Harrison's English home, Friar Park, in Henley-on-Thames. The majority of the selections consist of Vedic prayers and other Sanskrit-worded, Hindu religious texts that Shankar set to music. He also wrote new pieces in a similarly sacred vein, including "Prabhujee", the only song on the album to contain Hindi lyrics. Among the many musicians and singers on Chants of India were Shankar's daughter Anoushka, tablist Bikram Ghosh and santoor player Tarun Bhattacharya. The album's creation resulted from Shankar and Harrison having renewed their close friendship in recent years; this following a period when, by his own admission, Shankar had partially withdrawal from his Western-musician friends in the late 1970s, stung by persistent criticism from the Indian press that he was "diluting" Indian classical music. Other projects that the pair undertook together in the mid 1990s include Ravi Shankar: In Celebration (1996), a four-disc career retrospective compiled by Harrison, and Raga Mala, Shankar's second autobiography, for which Harrison served as editor. Shankar considered Chants of India to be among his best works, and he praised Harrison's contributions as a musician and producer on the album. Released on Angel Records in May 1997, the album was critically well received. In his book The Dawn of Indian Music in the West, Peter Lavezzoli describes it as "a quiet masterpiece, one of the most uplifting and musically engaging recordings of sacred music", while AllMusic critic Jim Brenholts writes: "Among records of this nature, this one is special." Chants of India was the last official musical collaboration between the two artists, after Harrison was diagnosed with cancer in August that year. Ravi Shankar's Music Festival from India Harrison first got the idea to stage what became the 1974 Music Festival from India during the Bombay sessions for his debut solo album, the 1968 film soundtrack Wonderwall Music, after hearing Shankar's orchestral work Nava Rasa Ranga. While in India in early 1974, Shankar and Harrison planned the venture, which consisted of a European tour by Shankar's hand-picked orchestra of Indian classical musicians, after which the ensemble would tour North America with Harrison and his band of Western musicians. For his orchestra, Shankar selected regular accompanists such as tabla player Alla Rakha and singers Lakshmi Shankar and Kamala Chakravarty; other established players including Shivkumar Sharma (santoor),