Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

MUSIC

The saint-musician of Karnataka, laid the foundation of the existing system of Kamatak music by composing thousands of songs rang- ing from graded exercises for beginners to highly sophisticated compositions. His origi- nal name was Krishnappa Nayak and he hailed from Purandaragad, a village in the Poona District of Maharashtra. He was a wealthy money lender. One day a poor beggar came to his house seeking alms but was turned away by Krish- nappa. But later after he had left the house the beggar came again. Krishnappa's wife not finding any money in the house gave the beggar her diamond studded gold nose-ring. The beggar took it to the nearest money lender who happened to be Krishnappa Nayak. Rec- ognising the nose-ring as belonging to his wife, he kept it in the? shop and rushed to his house to demand an explanation from his wife. Frightened by the anger of her husband, she locked herself in her room, prepared a cup of poison and was about to drink it when she saw the diamond ring flashing at the bottom. She showed it to her husband who rushed back to the shop but both the beggar and the ring had SADARANG He was responsible for popularising "khayal" which was very popular during Mus- lim rule in North India. His original name was Nyamat Khan, a court musician of the Mo- ghul Emperor, Mohammad Shah (18th C.). He is considered to be a descendant of Tansen. He was a great veena player. He was a rare in- strumentalist and also a very distinguished and talented singer of dhrupad. He left the service of the Moghul Emperor and settled in Lucknow about 1719. Here he trained two boys (popularly known as Miyan brothers) in 'Khayal'. The Miyan brothers became great singers of Khayal and their virtuosity reached the ears of Moghul king Mohammed Shah. When he found that their teacher was none other than Nyamat Khan, his erstwhile court musician, he recalled Nyamat Khan back to his court. When the king asked Nyamat Khan to teach music to the ladies of the palace, Nyamat Khan was displeased and left the court again. However he agreed to couple his name with that of the king in all his future compositions. From then on he used the signature 'Moham- mad Shah-Sadarangeele'.

disappeared. Recognising the hand of God

Purandaradasa (1484-1564)

in the event, he dedicated the rest of his life to the service of Lord Panduranga at Pandharpur. His burning devotion opened the floodgates of divine inspiration and he is said to have com- posed 475,000 songs. His songs are in Kan- nada. The variety of his compositions, apart from their sheer number, is staggering — padas, suladis, ugabhogas and devara na- mas. Much of this, however, is lost. Purandaradasa was a pioneer in musical pedagogy. He standardised teaching methods and postulated sa ri ga ma pa dha ni as the standard scale for teaching. He also devel- oped graded lessons to train students in the intricacies of music. He has thus been called the Adi guru (the first guru) and the Karnataka Sangeetha Pitamaha (the father of Kamatak music). It was Purandaradasa who provided the ground for the great trinity of Kamatak music -- Thyagaraja (1767-1847), Muthuswami Dik- shitar (1775-1*835) and Shyama Shastri (1762- 1827) — who enriched Karnatak music with their compositions. KSHETRAJNA A great Telugu poet, his real name was Varadayya. He was born in the 17th C. in Andhra. According to one version, he became a peripatetic saint, initiated by a yogi. He composed padams on God Gopala of Muvva. He took to wandering from place to place visiting the courts of kings and nawabs and holy centres ( kshetras ), hence the name 'Kshetrayya'or'Kshetrajna'. It is known that he was a welcome visi- tor to the court of Raghunatha Nayak of Tanjavur. All his songs cry of the pangs of the woman for union with the Lord, the pain of separation, the jealousy and suspicion, the memory of happy moments. Kshetrayya visualises himself as the woman beseeching the Grace of the Lord. The allegoric love of the heroine for Muwa Gopala Lord Krishna, is as real at the physical plane as the mystic and the excellence of communica- tion is unmatched.

HARIDAS He occupies a highly important place in the music of North India. He was instrumen- tal in the spread of dhrupad. Nothing much is known about his birth and early life. At the age of 25 he took to sanyas. He shifted his residence to Brindavan, the playground of the immortal cowherd and his beloved Radha. There he built his ashram and sang his songs of the love of Radha- Krishna. His compositions may be called as Vish- nupadas, that is songs in praise of Lord Vishnu (Lord Krishna). There are about 128 songs attributed to him of which about 18 are philo- sophical and 110 devotional. The former are known as Siddhantapada and the latter as Kelimala. Swami Haridas is respected not merely because of his musical genius, but also due to the literary beauty and simplicity of his dhru- pads. He began the Haridas school of mysti- cism. The main feature of this was that it was congregational. His fame reached Moghul Emperor Akbar. It is believed that Akbar and Tansen went to, the ashram of Haridas dressed in rags as a tamboora bearer. The Emperor was enrap- tured by the divine music.

“Saamyak

Geetham

Ithi

That is, “well-cre-

Sangeetham”.

ated music”.

This, we now call Shashtriya Sangeet or classical music.