Galaxy of composers
TYAGARAJA (1767 - 1847) - PART 1
In the coming weeks, we shall bring you several articles by the eminent Sanskrit and music scholar, Dr. V Raghavan on various topics pertaining to music. This article was written by him during the year of Tyagaraja's 100th aradhana.
The remarks made above regarding the decay in our painting, sculpture and literature, as against the miraculous persistence of music, may be verified by the significant phenomenon that while in the modern times, Indians had begun appreciating, enjoying and taking to alien painting and alien literature, they have never been able to take to or enjoy alien music to any extent; nay, even those de-nationalized in dress and food, have never been able to enjoy anything but their own music. It has been truly said by aesthetic philosophers that music is the art of arts and towards its supreme nature, all other arts end. Its essence is so near to the essential nature of ones own real being that an alien music can never hope to tear its way in to the heart of a man.
Many indeed have been the great music makers of this period in South India who have helped the country to keep its music; of all these Tyagaraja, the latest is also probably the greatest. His powerful genius comprehended the several and varied excellences of all, the early masters, the giants that immediately went before him, and his own brilliant contemporaries. In sheer volume of output, he essays in the direction of Purandaradasa and Kshetragna; in devotion, religious fervour, reformatory zeal and spiritual realisation, his songs approach those of Purandaradasa; when we think of him singing in anguish to his Rama, we find in him a second Ramadas of Bhadrachala; in his lyrical moods, he takes a page off Kshetragna; in his Pancharatnas and some of his heavier compositions, he treads the path of the earlier Prabandhakara-s and later Varnakara-s; turning out pieces now and then in the language of the gods, he seems to beckon his contemporary Dikshitar; when he sings of Mother Tripurasundari, it appears as if Syama Sastri of Tanjavur was sojourning at Tiruvottriyur; and he could sustain himself through the task of a dramatic composition like Narayana Teertha or Merattur Venkatarama Bhagavatar and pay his homage to a Sampradaya sanctified by Jayadeva. To many of these predecessors of his, Purandara, Bhadrachala Ramadas, Jayadeva and Narayana Teertha, Tyagaraja pays obeisance in his Prahalada Bhakti Vijaya. To Ramadas in particular he refers in two pieces, Ksheerasagara sayana in Devagandhari and Emidova balkuma in Saranga.
It is said that, in view of the progressive decline of human powers, and the consequent need for easier paths, the path of bhakti was devised for the present age. In the sphere of music too, the period we are reviewing showed a tendency to evolve simpler media of enjoying music. It we look at the Prabandha chapters of the Sanskrit treatises on music, we find described huge edifices of compositions in numerous parts, sometimes handling a long series of Ragas and Talas; and mere Ragas, even in times nearer to as, we are told, some of our bygone musical giants went on singing for days together, introducing it for hours, unfolding it a whole night, emphasizing its contours a whole day and crowning it with effects another twenty four hours! Their capacious mind and the equally capacious mind of the connoisseurs then comprehended and digested huge musical meals of which we today we have no conception. Music had gradually to bring itself into more and more concretised and condensed forms, and reduce itself into tiny crystals. The age of the Chaturdandi, of Gita, Prabandha, Thaya and Alapa, had to give place to the age of the Keertana and the Kriti. Within the compass of a handy piece, effective capture and picturisation of a Raga, the mounting of it on a rhythmic setting, increasingly of the medium tempo of Madhyakala and giving it an exalted poetic medium were all achieved. In the process of achieving this musical vitamin tablet of Kriti, which has preserved our music for today and saved the great art from being lost in us, Tyagaraja stands foremost with his marvellous contribution.
From simple compositions set in metrical patterns to elaborate Pancharatna-s which have long sentences, piled one upon another, we have in Tyagaraja a wide variety of song-types, showing manifold architectonic experimentation, design and skill. This variety again is a speciality which marks Tyagaraja among his contemporaries. From plain Divyanama Sankeertanas, he soars to artistic creations in which, into a few words, an eddying flood of music is thrown. Such variety, they say, the composer adopted to suit the varying capacities of the learners that came to him; undoubtedly, it has contributed to the wide appeal of his productions. What a large number of small, simple, well set pieces he has given, the ease and grace of which have made them live on the tongues of women and children in our homes! And again those little lilting pieces, bearing the impress of the band airs heard from Tanjavur that have a vivaciousness and charm, all their own!
Tyagaraja, though he is found in plaintive and drooping strains in many pieces, he is also found strong and self-conscious in numerous songs. His description of the essentials of a kriti in his Sriranjani piece apply well to his own compositions - Nigama sirottamu galgina nijavakkularo, swarasuddhamuto, yativisrama, navarasa yuta kritiche - Kritis that speak the true words of the Upanishads, have swarasuddha, rhythmic pauses, true devotion, vairagya, ease and grace, nine rasas. The expression Draksha-rasa refers to the songs being in the style called Drakshapaka, like grapes, laden inside and out, with rasa (Bahirantar dravad rasa) as Alankarika-s say. Draksha-paka is indeed the style of Tyagaraja's songs.
Posted on January 24, 2002
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