Triveni Journal

1927 | 11,233,916 words

Triveni is a journal dedicated to ancient Indian culture, history, philosophy, art, spirituality, music and all sorts of literature. Triveni was founded at Madras in 1927 and since that time various authors have donated their creativity in the form of articles, covering many aspects of public life....

The Musical Heritage to Tyagaraja

T. S. Parthasarathy

The Musical Heritage of Tyagaraja

India was known for centuries not merely as a land of poets, seers and philosophers but also as a nation which can look on a rich musical heritage. It had a magnificent system of music at a time when, in the other parts of the world the art was still in the stage of folk song and chant. Strabo (circa 63 B. C.), the Greek geographer and historian, has recorded that the Greeks owed their musical modes entirely to India. The Indian musical system is very old and has had a continuous development from the beginning of the Christian era. Music with the people of India was a resource to which they always turned in joy or grief, for prayer and praise.

The most ancient musical system in India was that of the Tamils, references pertaining to which are available from old Tamil works like the Silappadhikaaram(2nd century), Tolkaappiyamand Kalladam. These references show that the Tamils of that period were a highly musical people, had a fairly well-developed system of music and were familiar with concordant and discordant notes and other acoustic phenomena. Recent research has shown that the system of music, as expounded in Tamil works, has much in common with the more detailed musical theories described in Sanskrit treatises written by later musicologists. The “palais” of the Tamil music are the Melas or scales and “pans” correspond to Ragas. Most of these have since been identified and correlated with the current scales and Ragas of Karnataka music.

A study of Indian music will show that the musical heritage all over India is the same and although the authors of music treatises lived in different parts of the country and in different centuries, they spoke the same language so far as musical theory and practice were concerned. The “Natya Sastra of Bharata (circa 2nd century) is the oldest available work on musical theory but it deals with dance, theatrical art and everything connected with dramaturgy. Sarngadeva (13th century) the author of the monumental “Sangita Ratnakara”, was the harbinger of nearly a dozen writers on music who appeared later in different parts of India. But Ramamatya and Kallinatha, who lived in the Vijayanagara area, Pundarika Vitthala, who lived in North Karnataka, Somanatha of Andhra and Ahobala of Hyderabad were interpreters of the same musical tradition though they often differed in regard to scales, Raga nomenclature and other details.

Early Music

The earliest music in all parts of the world was sacred music, which is centuries older than secular music, and India was no exception in this respect. It is common knowledge that the origin of Indian music is traced to the chants of the Samaveda. Valmiki’s Ramayana was the earliest post-Vedic composition to be set to music and sung in the seven pure melodies known as “Jaatis.” The earliest compositions, in any Indian language, set to music, which are still being sung are the Tamil hymns of the Alvars and the Nayanmars who flourished during the religious renaissance between the fifth and the seventh centuries. The fact that hymns composed nearly 14 centuries ago are being sung in temples even today is a tribute to the vitality of the Tamil language and the musical system of South India.

Several musical forms are mentioned in ancient works but most of them became obsolete with the passage of time and a few underwent changes and are now known by other names. Dhruvaa, Gitis and different kinds of Prabandhas were among the early musical compositions of India. The great poet Jayadeva (12 century) who was the court poet of King Lakshmana Sena of Bengal, calls his Sanskrit opera “Gita Govinda” a Prabandha. This single evergreen lyric sequence, set to music and rhythm by the poet himself, made Jayadeva as memorable as Valmiki a Kalidasa. The songs of his opera, known as Asbtapadis (eight footed), are the earliest known specimens of regular musical compositions in India, each piece being set to a specific Raga and Tala.

So great was the popularity of Jayadeva’s classic that in the centuries that followed the Ashtapadis came to be sung not only in the Jagannath temple in his home state of Orissa but also in Bengal, Assam and in distant Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The work found its way to Rajasthan where Maharana Kumbhakarna of Mewar wrote a magnificent commentary on it. No further testimony to the integrating power of Indian music is needed than the fact that even today the songs of a 12th century poet from Orissa are being sung in the Guruvayur temple and in Bhajanas in Tamil Nadu.

More than a dozen poets wrote Sanskrit works on the model of the Gita Govinda on parallel themes. The “Krishna Lila Tarangini” (River or Krishna’s Sports) written by Narayana Tirtha (16th century), an Andhra composer, ranks in literary beauty and musical merit with Jayadeva’s work and its songs occupy an important place in South Indian Bhajanas and in Kuchipudi dance performances.

A close follower of Jayadeva was Mahakavi Vidyapati Thakur (15th century) who was known as the “Nightingale of Mithila.” He was the court poet of Raja Siva Singh of Tirhut and has composed in Sanskrit and two local dialects.

Radha and Krishna were the unfailing source of inspiration to the Vaishnavite poets and singers of Bengal who composed hundreds of sonnets, collectively known as Padavali, in local dialects. This type of composition reached its acme ofperfection at the hands of Chandidas. The Vaishnava movement was equally strong in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Assam and produced numerous saint-singers who enriched the Bhajan mode and spread the Bhakti cult throughout the country.

Hindustani Music

The two major areas of the present day Indian music are the Karnataka styles. Before this cleavage, there was practically a single system of music followed throughout the country with natural local variations. The division perhaps took place after the advent of the Muslims at Delhi when the music of the North began to develop along fresh channels under exotic influences. Musical forms like Dhrupad and Khayal began to be developed by renowned singers like Baiju-Bawra, Gopal Nayak and Tansen. A galaxy of saint-singers like Surdas, Tulsidas, Kabir and Mirabai composed a large number of Bhajans in classical modes and enriched Hindustani music. Sanskrit was gradually replaced by Brajbhasha, Maithili, Rajasthani and Hindi to make the compositions intelligible to the common folk.

The music of South India continued to develop along traditional lines, strictly following the grammar laid down in texts. Both the sub-systems are, however, in keeping with the genius of the Indian people and have the same basis so far as their rules of Raga and Tala structures are concerned.

Karnataka Music

The seeds of Karnataka music are to be sought in the early Tevaram music of the Tamil country. Even Sarngadeva appears to have taken note of the forms of Tevaram music and mentions some Ragas as “Tevara Vardhani” in his treatise. According to Chatura Kallinatha, his commentator, the area lying between the Krishna and Kaveri rivers was then known as “Karnataka Desa” and hence perhaps the name “Karnataka music.”

The Kirtana in its embryonic form appeared in the 15th century in the Kannada language composed by Vyasaraya, Purandara Dasa and others and was called by the common name of “Pada.” Purandara Dasa (l484-1564) was veritably the father of Karnataka music and blazed a trail which was eagerly followed by many a later day camposer. This giant laid the foundation for the existing system by composing thousands of songs ranging from Gitas for beginners to highly sophisticated compositions. He also wrote Suladis, Ugabhogas and Devarnamas in homely Kannada and projected Puranic lore in a form which could be assimilated by the common folk. Tallapakkam Annamacharya (1424-1503), a senior contemporary of the Dasa, is the earliest known composer of Kirtanas in Telugu. As in the case of the North, Sanskrit made way for local languages like Kannada, Telugu and Tamil. A composer who left his indelible imprint on Karnataka music was Kshetrajna (17th century) who gave a new interpretation to the Pada type of composition. He composed more than 8000 “Padams” which are lilting melodies, replete with the mood of the Raga used. They have a romantic theme as the motif which could be interpreted both as divine love and as profane love. Kshetrajna was another composer, like Tyagaraja, who achieved immortality by composing only one type of composition viz., the Padam.

After the fall of the Vijayanagar empire in 1564, musicians and composers had to seek patronage from smaller states in the South ruled by chieftains and among these, Thanjavur became the brightest spot in the musical map of South India. The munificent patronage extended to musicians there, first by the Nayak rulers and later by the Mahratta kings, led to a concentration of the cream of South Indian musical genius in the Thanjavur area for three centuries. The Thanjavur court had at one time the reputation of having more than three hundred musicians under its patronage and the period 1750-1850 came to be known as the Periclean Age of Karnataka music. By a curious coincidence, this was also the golden age in Western music in Europe and produced composers like Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner and Haydn!

Many of the musicians patronized by the Thanjavur rulers proved their mettle both as performing artistes and as composers. Karnataka music became richer by the addition of new types of compositions like the Daru, Swarajati, Tillana and Ragamalika. Musical plays called “Yakshaganas” and a large variety of compositions intended for Bharata Natya performances were also the products of this memorable era in the history of Karnataka music. Some of the rulers were not only patrons and connoisseurs of music but were themselves distinguished composers of several musical forms.

Tyagaraja

Tyagaraja (1767-1847) was the greatest among the music composers of this age. He exerted the greatest influence upon musical art in South India during the 18th and 19th centuries a revolutionized the very nature of Karnataka music. His works are of delicate spirituality, full of melodic beauty and in the highest sense artistic. His songs are accepted today as the only adequate interpretation of classical Karnataka music from both the music and the Sahitya points of view.

Tyagaraja was as much a product of the golden age of music as he was one of its makers. Veterans like Virabhadrayya of an earlier generation had already set up conventions and standards for the systematic presentation of Karnataka music. Tyagaraja’s formidable contemporaries included Adippiah, Pallavi Gopala Iyer and his own Gurus, not to speak of Dikshitar and Syama Sastri who stood in a class of their own. It was in the midst of these giants that young Tyagaraja was called upon to prove his mettle as a composer. In his formative years he had excellent opportunities of listening to a remarkably rich variety of musical fare and imbibing its best elements. He must have not only drunk deep at the fountain of Karnataka music but must have also heard Hindustani music from the Bavas from Maharashtra who visited Thanjavur, and even the English band. We can discern their influence on him in his Nalinakanti, which resembles Guada Sarang and Suposhini, which sounds like an English note.

He was thus fully exposed to the heritage of Indian music and its cultural and integrating aspects. His genius lay in organising the rich material before him for his own ends and conjuring up a world of ethereal beauty. The secret of his art lay in producing something utterly new from Ragas and Talas used over and over again in the past. The one test of the supremacy of his music was that it swept the music world like a deluge, throwing into the shade most of the compositions of the earlier composers. From about the middle of the 19th century, Tyagaraja begins to dominate the repertoire of our musicians and the preference of listeners as no other single composer of the past had done.

A Musical Empire

He built a unique musical empire with only one type of composition, the Kriti, for which he himself spelt out the grammar in his song “Sogasuga.” In fact, the Kriti form seems to have been awaiting his coming for, in his hands, it was to grow to grand proportions and to be filled with an in tenser life than before. His musical instinct was unerring and it led him to choose the appropriate Ragas and Talas and the form in which he should cast the compositions. It was a challenge on his part to have attempted no less than 30 Kritis in a common Raga like Todi in seven different Talas. Though primarily based on vocal music, his compositions und equally communicative on instruments also and have been the mainstay of flute and Nagaswaram players ever since his time.

He was fully conscious that he was the inheritor of a noble tradition and his mission in life was to project it through his positions as great singers and saints had done in the past. Saint composers before him were, in the main, either devotees of Rama or Krishna, Ramanand, Kabir, Tulasidas and Bhadrachala Ramadasa had sung the glories of Rama while Jayadeva, Narayana Tirtha, Surdas and Mirabai had poured out their devotion to Krishna. The spiritual initiation Tyagaraja had received early in life made him a confirmed devotee of Rama but, as a cosmopolitan in his religious outlook, he has sung with equal fervour on other deities and has composed an opera based on a Krishna theme. But a mystical rapture appears to have seized him at the very thought of Rama. He, therefore, soaked himself with the inspiration of the story of Rama as depicted by Valmiki and others and composed Kritis of everlasting sublimity based on themes connected with his Hero.

In the music of Tyagaraja tradition and invention find a unique balance. He had studied, with loving reverence, the work of the great master-composers of an earlier period. He mastered the theory of the art not merely from books but from the practice of the virtuosi of his time. He made endless experiments and always struck out along new lines. The precious heritage left behind by him comprises about 700 songs composed in over 200 Ragas falling under 45 of the 72 parent scales of Karnataka music and two operas in Telugu.

He was a great river into which the noblest Indian traditions of music, devotion and renunciation flowed. A homely songfulness flowed into his melody. No Raga current in his time is without a matchless composition by him. He was one of the great integrators of the emotional and cultural life of India and our greatest single contribution to world music.

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