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Eternal India
encyclopedia
MUSIC
Purandaradasa (1484-1564)
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.
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
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.
“Saamyak
Geetham
Ithi
Sangeetham”.
That is, “well-cre-
ated music”.
This, we
now call
Shashtriya Sangeet or classical music.