Tyagabrahmam

[srikanthamshastry]

please don't impose us saying,'there is nothing to add'.there should not be a BHARATHAVAAKYAM like this.The reality is, we have changed so many vaaggeyakaara's name from IYYA to IYYER.In your documentation also there is TYAGABRAHMAM in TELUGU.For your IYYER concept,we can call this process as tamilization. we can notice several examples in this process.Natta/naata will become nattai. In somany compositions tamilisation has given wrong pronounciations. parihaasakama is the original sahitya;we are using pariyaachakamaa{vanaspathi].so we dont have any right to change the names&saahityas of others.please read B.G.L.Swamy's 'Tamilu Thalegala Naduve,' regarding this very topic. This is like assuming Dr Manmohan Singh's name as Dr Manmohan Singh IYYER pun apart, it is re-iterated that none of us have no business to alter, add prefix. suffix or distort the names and works of any one . That will be nothing short of Sacrilege ! !.

[keerthi]

The very premise of this document is suspect. TyagarAja lived in times when paper was easily available and was being used for most administrative work. VenkaTaramana bhAgavatar wrote out the nauka caritram in notation, in a paper codex.

We know for a fact that tyAgarAja himself was using a handwritten copy of the pOtana bhAgavataM, and I remember that the year and makers' watermark on the paper had been identified.

Also, we only have access in this picture to the transcript of the palm leaf manuscript, and not the palm leaf itself. If there were a better picture of the palm leaf itself, it would be available for all of us to read.

[mannari]

Dear Keerthi, I totally accept your ideas and opinion on this topic. I feel it is a disease engulfed on us to step into bees hornet when it is totally uncalled for. As i know, the paper was available during Thyagaraja Swamy's period. With a proven history of his great quantum of creations and documentation, Thyagaraja would not have used palm leaf. So one can easily question the authenticity of this palm leaf, supposed to have been created.

[vasanthakokilam]

>I feel it is a disease engulfed on us to step into bees hornet when it is totally uncalled for.

Just curious. Why is Ayya vs Iyer just a sensitive topic to escalate it to the level of 'engulfing in a disease' etc.? It has been a healthy debate so far which is great but we do not have to get all twisted up on this.

In fact I would like to know more along the lines of what Keerthi is talking about ( T using a water marked paper copy of treatises etc. ). We also hear about some originals being safeguarded by some families in Madurai. While I do not fully understand such secrecy in this day and age, I respect that but if somehow they can be persuaded to digitize them, they are doing themselves a favor. Those paper copies are not going to last forever.

[Pratyaksham Bala]

It has been a healthy debate so far which is great but we do not have to get all twisted up on this ...

Thanks! Yes, there is no need for emotional outbursts. There is nothing personal here - we are just discussing a subject.

And these discussions do not in any way aim at disrespecting anyone. Sri Tyagabrahmam was born and brought up in Tamil Nadu. He was living among Tamil Brahmin crowd. Like a few of my Mulakanadu family friends in Tamil Nadu who are using the surname 'Iyer' for two/three generations, Sri Tyagabrahmam too might have opted to use this surname. In post #19 I had mentioned the names of Mulakanadu Brahmin musicians who have willingly taken the 'Iyer' surname. We have also seen that a number of Mulakanadu Brahmins who have opted to use the surnames of fellow Brahmins of those places where they have decided to settle down. We are all equally attached to Sri Tyagabrahmam and admire him for his contribution to CM.

TyagarAja lived in times when paper was easily available and was being used for most administrative work. VenkaTaramana bhAgavatar wrote out the nauka caritram in notation, in a paper codex ... ...

That was the same doubt I had at the beginning!
Though paper was used extensively by general public and in many government departments of princely states, the land records were continued to be maintained in palm leaves by several princely states even upto 1896. Check http://www.princelystates.com/ArchivedF ... 3-05.shtml
where three images of cadjan (palm leaf) fiscal documents of Cochin State are shown. These palm leaf land documents bear signatures inscribed on 9.6.1890, 21.7.1885, and 9.1.1883!

MODS: If you feel that we have had enough, you may consider closing this thread!

[Nick H]

I know of no bee that has ever taken the surname hornet



But something wise was once said about roses, names and smells

[vasanthakokilam]

I just bumped into this interesting bit of information (not sure if this was posted elsewhere in our forum before)

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sci ... age_id=861

"Of Interest: This image ( of Mercury ), taken with the Narrow Angle Camera (NAC), gives us a stunning high-resolution view of Tyagaraja crater. The crater was named for Kakarla Tyagabrahmam, colloquially known as Tyāgarājar, the 18th century composer of Carnatic music or classical South Indian music. "

[kmrasika]

And let's not forget the bhakti of this devotee towards Tyagabrahmam: http://www.thehindu.com/2001/07/20/stories/0920070f.htm.

[vgovindan]

Some more interesting information about the ancestors of Sri tyAgarAja -
http://tamilartsacademy.com/articles/article22.xml

[keerthi]

Govindan Sir,

SubbarAma dIkSitar too has said things similar to Prof. Nagaswamy's article, and identifies this GirirAja Kavi with tyAgarAja's grandfather [he doesn't say paternal or maternal]. He also gives in notation a vairAgya padam in kAmbhOji ''mAyA nI vanchana", with the girirAjEndra signature.

I remember an article by Prof Raghavan distinguishing a girirAja-brahmam who was a scholar in Tulaja's [?] court; from this girirAja kavi, who lived in tiruvArUr, and composed many padas and was in Shahaji's [and Sarabhoji I's] court.

I am unable to locate the article, but am inclined to believe that there were these 2 scholars - girirAja kavi, of tiruvArur the composer of padas and bhAvata mELa nirUpaNams of the lOhita gotra; and tyAgarAja's ancestor girirAjabrahmam of the atrEya gotra[?] and the family title [iNTi pEru] kAkarla. There seems to have been a tradition of affixing brahmam to the names - as recorded by walajapet V. Bhagavatar in his verse on tyAgarAja [in the set with vyAso naigama-carcaya etc].


As for the veiled reference to an ancestor in the bangALa song - which wasn't tyAgarAja's first composition anyway; there is little substance to that story, as can be seen if we look at this song from tIrthanArAyaNa yati's KLT, and its preceding slOka; it is very clear how every single phase in the bangALa song is either a paraphrase or a borrowing from the song jaya jaya swAmin.

So, the 'reference' to a grandparent - maternal or paternal, must be a coincidence.

[vgovindan]

keerthi,
This person 'Nagaswami' seems to be some research scholar - ASI related? At least that is what I guess from the type of articles written by him as listed in the website.
I fully concur with your view points - even the mention of 'girirAja sutA tanaya' is far fetched - because it is addressed to Lord gaNESa.
Thanks for clarifications.

[chetana]

tIrthanArAyaNa yati

In the spirit of squabbling over names, tIrtha, bhArati, etc. are aSrama nAmas and this saint's name is nArAyaNa tIrtha.

[harimau]

Sri G S Mani said in a recent lec-dem that Sri Thyagaraja adopted the name Nadabrahmananda when he took sanyas in the last days of his life. Thus it is wrong to call the festivities on Bahula panchami day Thyagaraja Aradhana.

[vasanthakokilam]

The speaker in the recent lecture demo on Nauka Charitham is Sri. R. Nagaswamy (singing by Gayathri Girish with B V Raghavenda Rao and Ram Kumar R). May be it is the same gentleman referred to in this thread.

http://rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=24906

(Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FqwilrGI30 )

[harimau]

The speaker in the recent lecture demo on Nauka Charitham is Sri. R. Nagaswamy (singing by Gayathri Girish with B V Raghavenda Rao and Ram Kumar R). May be it is the same gentleman referred to in this thread.

Yes, it is the same person.

At the above-referenced lec-dem, Dr. Nagaswamy gave the attendees a copy of an article he had written which had been published quite a while back in The Hindu. The article is titled Fresh Light on Tyagaraja's Ancestry and makes for interesting reading.

Giriraja Kavi's brother was Venkata Kavi. Sri V Narayanaswami Iyer (note the last name or caste identifier), a descendant of Venkata Kavi, showed Dr Nagaswamy some documents from which Dr Nagaswamy derived his conclusions on Sri Tyagaraja's ancestry.

[keerthi]

At the above-referenced lec-dem, Dr. Nagaswamy gave the attendees a copy of an article he had written which had been published quite a while back in The Hindu. The article is titled Fresh Light on Tyagaraja's Ancestry and makes for interesting reading.

Giriraja Kavi's brother was Venkata Kavi. Sri V Narayanaswami Iyer (note the last name or caste identifier), a descendant of Venkata Kavi, showed Dr Nagaswamy some documents from which Dr Nagaswamy derived his conclusions on Sri Tyagaraja's ancestry.

That is the same article that Sri VGovindan shared. I can only accept this identification of Giriraja Kavi with TyAgaraja's ancestor [and the ostensible reference in the bangAla], if we can all agree that nArAyaNa tIrtha anticipated that tyAgarAja would take birth in the dauhitra lineage of a certain GirirAja kavi, Tanjore court poet; and cryptically embedded this nostradamic prediction in his song on 'GaNesa jaya jaya swAmin'.

DO tell me what the consensus is. If it is in favour of NT being a prescient Nostradamous encoder, I volunteer to read the entire KrishanlIlAtarangini carefully, and then enrich the history of carnatic music, by performing a fine-toothed combing of any such hidden gems that nArayaNa tIrtha may have encoded about dIkSitar and Papanasam Sivan and Sri Spencer Venugopal.

[HarishankarK]

This is a most interesting thread

One thing that appeared rather strange to me was that the property sale happened in the month of Margazhi which is usually not considered the right time to make any big purchases/events etc., - those days they believed Shastras even more so how come this deal happened in this month??

[HarishankarK]

As for the veiled reference to an ancestor in the bangALa song - which wasn't tyAgarAja's first composition anyway; there is little substance to that story, as can be seen if we look at this song from tIrthanArAyaNa yati's KLT, and its preceding slOka; it is very clear how every single phase in the bangALa song is either a paraphrase or a borrowing from the song jaya jaya swAmin.

Tyagaraja has used 'Hemachala Chapa' in his Kalyani krithi Isa Pahimam. Perhaps he borrowed it from the same shloka of Sri Narayana Teerthar.