Vijayanagara musicological nonet
Encyclopedia
The Vijayanagara musicological nonet or the Sangitashastra navaratna are a group of nine musicological treatises written during the reign of the Vijayanagara empire
. These works are counted among the most important and definitive treatises in Carnatic music
theory. Each of these works contributed seminally to the growth of the Carnatic music
tradition. These nine works are the Sangitasara by the sage Vidyaranya
, Taladipika by Salva Gopa Tippendra, Sangitakalanidhi by Kallinatha, Bhandaru Vittaleshwara's commentary on the Sangitaratnakara, Bhandaru Lakshminarayana's Sangitasuryodaya, Achyutadevaraya's Talakalabdhi/Talakalavriddhi and the much celebrated Swaramelakalanidhi by Ramamatya.
was a watershed period in the cultural history of South India, particularly the history of Carnatic music. The period witnessed the prolific contributions of numerous musicians, saints and theoreticians. By virtue of the geo-political influence it exerted, Vijayanagara had become the confluence of many religions, art forms and cultures. Society and culture went through a process of conflict and eclectic assimilation of the traditional and elite values on the one hand and the emerging folk and foreign influences on the other. There was a strong interaction between traditional and elite values on the one hand and folk and foreign influences on the other. Much of this was also the result of a reaction and revolt against emerging sociological and aesthetic trends. Even as this assimilation and nativization of the contending or opposing influences took place, traditional purity and historical continuity continued to be preserved. These cultural trends and objectives were later sustained and fostered in the several feudatory states that continued to thrive beyond the fall of the Vijayanagar empire. Some of the notable states included Anegundi, Penukonda, Tanjore, Mysore Kingdom, Madurai, Ikkeri
etc.,.
Various melodic and rhythmic structures found their way art music. All music became desi and marga music passed into oblivion as did the madhyamagrama and its paraphernalia. The totality of melody came to be referred to sadja grama alone. The arbitrary, archaic and prolific desi talas made way for the suladi talas engendered by the Haridasa
s. These were further refined based on the principles of the ten vital elements called taladasaprana.
, Sripadaraya
, Vyasaraya
, Vadirajatirtha
, Kanaka Dasa
, Tallapakam Annamacharya
and his descendants, and Nijagunashivayogi flourished. Musical forms, the Kriti, the Suladi, the Ugabhoga, the Dandaka, the Urttanama, the Namavali, the Mundige, the Gita, the Thaya and the Prabandha developed and found wide currency during this period.
and Venkatamakhin made foundational contributions from Tanjore about a century later. Each work of these scholars records a revolutionary and seminal concept or development which cumulatively resulted in modern Carnatic music. Nine musicological treatises of great significance were composed in the Vijayanagar period and these have been called the Vijayanagara Sangitashastra Navaratna or the 'Vijayanagara Musicological Nonet'.
Sangitasara
The first of the navaratnas is Vidyaranya's Sangitasara, composed in the second half of the fourteenth century. The work dealt with, among other things, the fifteen melas and their fifty janya ragas as well as certain types of singers. Some of this even found its way into Govinda Dikshita's Sangitasudha (nidhi), authored in the early seventeenth century.
Taladipika
The second of the nonet (chronologically) is the Taladipika. Authored in the mid-fifteenth century by Salva Gopa-Tippendra, brother-in-law of king Praudha Devaraya II
and a viceroy of Mulbagal
, the work deals at great length with the tala
. It describes over a hundred desi talas including some of the author's own inventions. Most importantly, the concept of taladasaprana (ten vital elements of tala) is elucidated for the first time in the work. This innovation was to prove so influential that, following its explication, all temporal activities in music and dance came to be organized and consolidated under these elements.
Sangitakalanidhi
To the same period belongs the third work of the Nonet, Kallinatha'sSangitakalanidhi, a versatile commentary on Sharngadeva's Sangitaratnakara, the encyclopedic magnum opus on Indian music. It was about dancing and aesthetics of the thirteenth century. In the work, Kallinatha meticulously annotated, explicated, criticised and emphasesed all the central issues of the Ratnakara; he also illumined it through comparison with contemporary practices, theories and norms of music and dance. He anticipated many developments in these arts.
Bhandaru Vittaleshwara's commentary
A Telugu commentary by Bhandaru (-ri?) Vittaleshwara on the Sangitaratnakara in the last quarter of the fifteenth century forms the fourth of the navaratnas.
Sangitasuryodaya
In 1525, Vittaleshwara's son Bhandaru (ri?) Lakshminarayana composed the fifth treatise, the Sangitasuryodaya, under the patronage of king Krishnadevaraya
of Vijayanagara.
Talakalabdhi/Talakalavriddhi
In the generation that immediately followed, Achyutadevaraya's Talakalabdhi/Talakalavridhi was written. This was an important treatise on tala. This work organizes for the first time the theory and practice of the suladi talas of the Haridasas in terms of the dasapranas. In the work, he also compiles views from several earlier works on tala such as Talakalavilasa, Sangitavidyavinoda, Jainamata, Sangitamarga, Chaturasabhavilasa, Sangitachudamani, Anjaneyamata, Nrttachudamani, Sangitamanidarpana, Katyayaniya, Sangitarnava, Rangaraja Bharatabhashya, Kapardi, and Parameshvara (all of them non-extant), and refutes them.
Further, Achyutaraya applies all the five laghu-jatis to each suladi tala and thereby expands the scope and function of the suladi talas. Around the same time, Ashtavadana Somabhatta composed the Svararagasudharasa or Natyachudamani under the guidance of his guru Sitarama and probably under Achyutaraya's patronage. This work is now available only in fragments.
Swaramelakalanidhi
The final 'gem' in the series is the much celebrated Svaramelakalanidhi
authored by the illustrious Kallinatha's grandson, Ramamatya ca. 1550. Ramamatya was the royal composer and architect in the court of de-facto king Aliya Rama Raya
. He described himself as abhinavabharatacharya and todara-malla (meaning "the hero(malla) who wears the honorific anklet(todar)). The last epithet however, is usually interpreted by scholars as alluding to the Todarmal, a minister in Akbar's court, the anachronism notwithstanding. The Kannada term, in fact translates to 'the hero (malla) who wears the honorific anklet (todar)'.
Svaramelakalanidhi importance lies in the fact that it is more relevant and related to modern practice than the books written prior to it. The work, spread over five chapters deals primarily with Raga and preliminary to it, describes the Mela-s for the classification of Raga - and the different Suddha svara-s and Vikrta svara-s constituting the Mela-s. Similar works by other celebrated contemporaries like Pandarika Vitthala and Somanatha project a common theme, namely the description of Ragas, classification under Melas and the enumeration of the Suddha and Vikrta svaras constituting the Melas. Minor ideological differences can however be discerned among these works.
The Svaramelakalanidhi brings the theory up to date, rationalizes intervals and scales, introduces the concepts of svayambhu-svara (self-generating note, upper partial), .dharashruti paryayatattva and pratinidhitattva of svaras. Mukhari is established as the shuddhasvara saptaka. It also fixes and standardizes musical intervals on the keyboard, defines the accordatura, range, preferred strings (for particular notes) etc., for a variety of stringed keyboards. It also innovates and dedicates a new keyboard to Achyutaraya. A new scheme for classifying ragas into uttama (superior), madhyama (middling) and adhama (inferior) on the basis of their expressive potential is also expounded in the work. It also resolves the problem of the antara and kaishiki notes.
Vijayanagara Empire
The Vijayanagara Empire , referred as the Kingdom of Bisnaga by the Portuguese, was an empire based in South Indian in the Deccan Plateau region. It was established in 1336 by Harihara I and his brother Bukka Raya I of the Yadava lineage. The empire rose to prominence as a culmination of attempts...
. These works are counted among the most important and definitive treatises in Carnatic music
Carnatic music
Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...
theory. Each of these works contributed seminally to the growth of the Carnatic music
Carnatic music
Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...
tradition. These nine works are the Sangitasara by the sage Vidyaranya
Vidyaranya
' is variously known as being a kingmaker, patron saint and high priest to Harihara Raya I and Bukka Raya I, the founders of the Vijayanagar Empire. He was the 12th Jagadguru of the Sringeri Sharada Peetham from 1380 to 1386 A.D. He was born to and in in 1268 CE. Another account has it that he...
, Taladipika by Salva Gopa Tippendra, Sangitakalanidhi by Kallinatha, Bhandaru Vittaleshwara's commentary on the Sangitaratnakara, Bhandaru Lakshminarayana's Sangitasuryodaya, Achyutadevaraya's Talakalabdhi/Talakalavriddhi and the much celebrated Swaramelakalanidhi by Ramamatya.
Historical milieu
The reign of Vijayanagara empireVijayanagara Empire
The Vijayanagara Empire , referred as the Kingdom of Bisnaga by the Portuguese, was an empire based in South Indian in the Deccan Plateau region. It was established in 1336 by Harihara I and his brother Bukka Raya I of the Yadava lineage. The empire rose to prominence as a culmination of attempts...
was a watershed period in the cultural history of South India, particularly the history of Carnatic music. The period witnessed the prolific contributions of numerous musicians, saints and theoreticians. By virtue of the geo-political influence it exerted, Vijayanagara had become the confluence of many religions, art forms and cultures. Society and culture went through a process of conflict and eclectic assimilation of the traditional and elite values on the one hand and the emerging folk and foreign influences on the other. There was a strong interaction between traditional and elite values on the one hand and folk and foreign influences on the other. Much of this was also the result of a reaction and revolt against emerging sociological and aesthetic trends. Even as this assimilation and nativization of the contending or opposing influences took place, traditional purity and historical continuity continued to be preserved. These cultural trends and objectives were later sustained and fostered in the several feudatory states that continued to thrive beyond the fall of the Vijayanagar empire. Some of the notable states included Anegundi, Penukonda, Tanjore, Mysore Kingdom, Madurai, Ikkeri
Keladi Nayaka
Keladi Nayaka Kingdom were an important ruling dynasty of post-medieval Karnataka, India. They initially started to rule as a feudatory of the Vijayanagar Empire...
etc.,.
Innovations in theory and practice
A wide range of experiments and innovations were carried out in the field of instruments too. The Tamburi introduced during the period soon became the principal drone instrument. Seminal work and innovations also took place in the Vina keyboards with regard to the accordatura, tonal range and instrumental parameters. The mela replaced the grama and it's the theoretical possibilities were fully explored through mathematical schemes of tabulation. The innovation of the concept of mela and organization of the entirety of contemporary melodic material under its umbrella culminated in Venkatamakhin's Melakarta scheme, one which continues to influence greatly the theory and practice of Carnatic music to this day. New classificatory models emerged for ragas; svayambhusvara (upper partials), paryaya-svara (alternative svara denomination) and pratinidhi-svara (representative note) scales and intervals were tuned to be brought into alignement with contemporary musical practice.Various melodic and rhythmic structures found their way art music. All music became desi and marga music passed into oblivion as did the madhyamagrama and its paraphernalia. The totality of melody came to be referred to sadja grama alone. The arbitrary, archaic and prolific desi talas made way for the suladi talas engendered by the Haridasa
Haridasa
The Haridasa devotional movement is considered as one of the turning points in the cultural history of India. Over a span of nearly six centuries, several saints and mystics helped shape the culture, philosophy and art of South India and Karnataka in particular by exerting considerable spiritual...
s. These were further refined based on the principles of the ten vital elements called taladasaprana.
Prominent composers
At the height of the Vijayanagara empire great saint-composers like Purandara DasaPurandara Dasa
Purandara Dāsa is one of the most prominent composers of Carnatic music and is widely regarded as the "father of Carnatic Music". Purandara Dasa addressed social issues in addition to worship in his compositions, a practice emulated by his younger contemporary, Kanaka Dasa...
, Sripadaraya
Sripadaraya
Sripadaraya, a haridasa, is also known as Sripadaraja or Lakshminarayana Tirtha .Sripadaraya was born in Abburu in Chennapattana taluk of Karnataka state. It is believed that he was the incarnation of dhruva...
, Vyasaraya
Vyasatirtha
Vyasatirtha , also called Vyasaraja or Vyasaraya or Vyasraja swamin, was acclaimed as one of the three spiritual lights or munitrayam of dvaita Vedanta, i.e., Sri Madhvacharya, Sri Jayatirtha and Sri Vyasatirtha. He was a scholar of very high order with a judicious defence of the Dvaita Vedanta...
, Vadirajatirtha
Vadirajatirtha
Sri Vadirajatirtha , traditionally 1480 - 1600, a Haridasa, is said to have been a Shivalli Tulu Brahmin and native of the village of Hoovinakere, near Kumbhashi in Kundapura taluk, Udupi District in Karnataka state...
, Kanaka Dasa
Kanaka Dasa
Kanaka Dasa was a great poet, philosopher, musician and composer from Karnataka. He is known for his Kirtanes and Ugabhoga compositions in the Kannada language for Carnatic music...
, Tallapakam Annamacharya
Annamacharya
Sri Tallapaka Annamacharya was the official songmaster of the Tirumala Venkateswara Temple, and a Telugu composer who composed around 36000 keertana songs, many of which were in praise of Venkateswara, the presiding deity of the temple...
and his descendants, and Nijagunashivayogi flourished. Musical forms, the Kriti, the Suladi, the Ugabhoga, the Dandaka, the Urttanama, the Namavali, the Mundige, the Gita, the Thaya and the Prabandha developed and found wide currency during this period.
The 'nonet'
Throughout the Vijayanagara period, theory and musical practice kept pace with each other closely. Great musicologists like Vidyaranya, Salva Gopa Tippendra, Kallinatha, Kumbhakarna, Ramamatya, Laksmanarayana, Pandarika Vittala, Somanatha, Locana Jha and Hrdayanarayanadeva contributed to musical theory of both North and South India during this period. Tanappacharya, Govinda DikshitaGovinda Dikshita
Govinda Dikshitar was the minister of three successive Nayaks of Thanjavur, who ruled the region of Thanjavur in South India between the 16th and 17th centuries CE.-About the scholar:...
and Venkatamakhin made foundational contributions from Tanjore about a century later. Each work of these scholars records a revolutionary and seminal concept or development which cumulatively resulted in modern Carnatic music. Nine musicological treatises of great significance were composed in the Vijayanagar period and these have been called the Vijayanagara Sangitashastra Navaratna or the 'Vijayanagara Musicological Nonet'.
Sangitasara
The first of the navaratnas is Vidyaranya's Sangitasara, composed in the second half of the fourteenth century. The work dealt with, among other things, the fifteen melas and their fifty janya ragas as well as certain types of singers. Some of this even found its way into Govinda Dikshita's Sangitasudha (nidhi), authored in the early seventeenth century.
Taladipika
The second of the nonet (chronologically) is the Taladipika. Authored in the mid-fifteenth century by Salva Gopa-Tippendra, brother-in-law of king Praudha Devaraya II
Deva Raya II
Deva Raya II was an emperor of the Vijayanagara Empire from the Sangama Dynasty. Perhaps the greatest of the Sangama dynasty rulers, he patronised some of the famous Kannada and Telugu poets of the time...
and a viceroy of Mulbagal
Kolar district
Kolar district is a district in Karnataka state of India. The town of Kolar is the district headquarters. Kolar district is located in the southern region of the State and is the eastern-most district of the Karnataka State...
, the work deals at great length with the tala
Tala (music)
Tāla, Taal or Tal is the term used in Indian classical music for the rhythmic pattern of any composition and for the entire subject of rhythm, roughly corresponding to metre in Western music, though closer conceptual equivalents are to be found in other Asian classical systems such as the notion...
. It describes over a hundred desi talas including some of the author's own inventions. Most importantly, the concept of taladasaprana (ten vital elements of tala) is elucidated for the first time in the work. This innovation was to prove so influential that, following its explication, all temporal activities in music and dance came to be organized and consolidated under these elements.
Sangitakalanidhi
To the same period belongs the third work of the Nonet, Kallinatha'sSangitakalanidhi, a versatile commentary on Sharngadeva's Sangitaratnakara, the encyclopedic magnum opus on Indian music. It was about dancing and aesthetics of the thirteenth century. In the work, Kallinatha meticulously annotated, explicated, criticised and emphasesed all the central issues of the Ratnakara; he also illumined it through comparison with contemporary practices, theories and norms of music and dance. He anticipated many developments in these arts.
Bhandaru Vittaleshwara's commentary
A Telugu commentary by Bhandaru (-ri?) Vittaleshwara on the Sangitaratnakara in the last quarter of the fifteenth century forms the fourth of the navaratnas.
Sangitasuryodaya
In 1525, Vittaleshwara's son Bhandaru (ri?) Lakshminarayana composed the fifth treatise, the Sangitasuryodaya, under the patronage of king Krishnadevaraya
Krishnadevaraya
Śrī Kriṣhṇa Devarāya , , , and also known as Krishna Devarayulu in some inscriptions was the famed Emperor of the Vijayanagara Empire who reigned from 1509–1529 CE.He is the third ruler of the Tuluva Dynasty. Presiding over the empire at its zenith, he is regarded as an icon by many Indians...
of Vijayanagara.
Talakalabdhi/Talakalavriddhi
In the generation that immediately followed, Achyutadevaraya's Talakalabdhi/Talakalavridhi was written. This was an important treatise on tala. This work organizes for the first time the theory and practice of the suladi talas of the Haridasas in terms of the dasapranas. In the work, he also compiles views from several earlier works on tala such as Talakalavilasa, Sangitavidyavinoda, Jainamata, Sangitamarga, Chaturasabhavilasa, Sangitachudamani, Anjaneyamata, Nrttachudamani, Sangitamanidarpana, Katyayaniya, Sangitarnava, Rangaraja Bharatabhashya, Kapardi, and Parameshvara (all of them non-extant), and refutes them.
Further, Achyutaraya applies all the five laghu-jatis to each suladi tala and thereby expands the scope and function of the suladi talas. Around the same time, Ashtavadana Somabhatta composed the Svararagasudharasa or Natyachudamani under the guidance of his guru Sitarama and probably under Achyutaraya's patronage. This work is now available only in fragments.
Swaramelakalanidhi
The final 'gem' in the series is the much celebrated Svaramelakalanidhi
Svaramelakalanidhi
Swaramelakalanidhi is a much celebrated musicological treatise of 16th century Vijayanagara. Authored by Ramamatya in the year 1550, the work is counted among the sangita shastra navaratnas or the nine 'gems' of the theory of Carnatic music. The work's importance lies in the fact that it is more...
authored by the illustrious Kallinatha's grandson, Ramamatya ca. 1550. Ramamatya was the royal composer and architect in the court of de-facto king Aliya Rama Raya
Aliya Rama Raya
Rama Raya , popularly known as "Aliya" Rama Raya, was the progenitor of the "Aravidu" dynasty of Vijayanagar Empire. This dynasty, the fourth and last to hold sway over the Vijayanagara Empire, is often not counted as a ruling dynasty of that empire, for reasons delineated below. Rama Raya...
. He described himself as abhinavabharatacharya and todara-malla (meaning "the hero(malla) who wears the honorific anklet(todar)). The last epithet however, is usually interpreted by scholars as alluding to the Todarmal, a minister in Akbar's court, the anachronism notwithstanding. The Kannada term, in fact translates to 'the hero (malla) who wears the honorific anklet (todar)'.
Svaramelakalanidhi importance lies in the fact that it is more relevant and related to modern practice than the books written prior to it. The work, spread over five chapters deals primarily with Raga and preliminary to it, describes the Mela-s for the classification of Raga - and the different Suddha svara-s and Vikrta svara-s constituting the Mela-s. Similar works by other celebrated contemporaries like Pandarika Vitthala and Somanatha project a common theme, namely the description of Ragas, classification under Melas and the enumeration of the Suddha and Vikrta svaras constituting the Melas. Minor ideological differences can however be discerned among these works.
The Svaramelakalanidhi brings the theory up to date, rationalizes intervals and scales, introduces the concepts of svayambhu-svara (self-generating note, upper partial), .dharashruti paryayatattva and pratinidhitattva of svaras. Mukhari is established as the shuddhasvara saptaka. It also fixes and standardizes musical intervals on the keyboard, defines the accordatura, range, preferred strings (for particular notes) etc., for a variety of stringed keyboards. It also innovates and dedicates a new keyboard to Achyutaraya. A new scheme for classifying ragas into uttama (superior), madhyama (middling) and adhama (inferior) on the basis of their expressive potential is also expounded in the work. It also resolves the problem of the antara and kaishiki notes.
See also
- Vijayanagara empireVijayanagara EmpireThe Vijayanagara Empire , referred as the Kingdom of Bisnaga by the Portuguese, was an empire based in South Indian in the Deccan Plateau region. It was established in 1336 by Harihara I and his brother Bukka Raya I of the Yadava lineage. The empire rose to prominence as a culmination of attempts...
- Carnatic musicCarnatic musicCarnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...
- Haridasas and Carnatic musicHaridasas and Carnatic musicThe Haridasas, the Vaishnava saints of Karnataka, are classified into the Vyasakuta and Dasakuta. The Vyasakuta were the pontifical saints known for their scholarship and exposition of the Madhva's philosophy. The Dasakuta were the peripatetic saint disciples of the Vyasakuta sanyasins...
- AnnamacharyaAnnamacharyaSri Tallapaka Annamacharya was the official songmaster of the Tirumala Venkateswara Temple, and a Telugu composer who composed around 36000 keertana songs, many of which were in praise of Venkateswara, the presiding deity of the temple...