T.S.Balakrishna Sastrigal

Carnatic Musicians
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rajeshnat
Posts: 9906
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Re: T.S.Balakrishna Sastrigal

Post by rajeshnat »

If you think center of music is Tanjore ,Trichy Tirunelveli,Mysore,Matunga, Malleshwaram, Mambalam, Mylapore we can debate for life. But I know this place Thiruvidaimarudhur , a small village exactly in between Mayavaram and kumbakonam. There are just 3 artists whom i know there and see the quality. (recalling in the order of my acclimitization)

1. Thiruvidaimarudhur - Flute Mali. World has never witnessed any instrumentalist as great as Flute Mali

2. Thiruvidaiamarudhur - balakrishna sastrigal(TSBS). World has never witnessed any dramamusic intersect artist as great as Harikatha artist TSBS

3. Thiruvidaimarudhur - Rajagopalan Subramaniam(TRS) . More better known as Taala Raaga Swaroopan. I have told enough about him in our forum.

I am yet to know if TSBS and TRS were indeed born in Thiruvidaimarudhur despite their initials representing that village .I do know Mali was born in Tiruvidaimarudhur.

TSBS is just about to celebrate his 100th anniversary. A week or so back TSBS had a 99th anniversary celebrations and an award was given to the great drama actor Late Neelu of Cho troupe and his wife Mrs Shantha Neelakantan recieved. Late Neelu was an ardent bhakthan of TSBS.

There are 3 parts of TSBS jayanthi function. Check atleast these 2 parts

Part 1 where his excerpts of TSBS is put
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_E6rRpiz5k

Part 3 Swami Omkarananda speaks about TSBS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V60QMNkHIbU

Personally just heard only one upanyasam of Brahmasri TS Balakrishna Sastrigal that i recollect vaguely .He is fascinating, blend of bhakthi, intellect and the content just flows and flows. His son Sb kanthan is turning out to the best of best archive and content curator in doing everything about great artists.

The hindu write up of this function dated oct04,2018
https://www.thehindu.com/society/histor ... 122991.ece

If there is a town/village it has to be Thiruvidaimarudhur .I know only 3 people from there and see the quality of each of the three.

HarishankarK
Posts: 2216
Joined: 27 Oct 2007, 11:55

Re: T.S.Balakrishna Sastrigal

Post by HarishankarK »

Thanks for initiating this post - he was a great Harikatha exponent - especially his Tyagaraja Charitram was superb !
Good emotive singer also and loved his neravals. He was able to transport us to the scene - so good were his emotive skills

It would be great to get more insight on him and his life

ajaysimha
Posts: 831
Joined: 19 Apr 2018, 18:16

Re: T.S.Balakrishna Sastrigal

Post by ajaysimha »

once again thanks a lot for initiating this topic.

in one of this upanyasams "guruguha jayathi" on muttuswami dikshithar.

sastrigal explains us how mutthuswami dikshithar val accepted the invite from thagarajar and went to his residance and sang mamava pattabi rama in manirangu , then when requested by M.D. thyagarajar sings koluvai yunnade in bhairavi.

the way sastrigal explained the incident of 2 mahaans meeting is superb!!! (you can feel goosebumps)
actually sastrigals refers this incident as 2 ganga rivers meeting at once
(he means 1 ganga itself is so divine and purer , what if 2 gangas meet ?)

ajaysimha
Posts: 831
Joined: 19 Apr 2018, 18:16

Re: T.S.Balakrishna Sastrigal

Post by ajaysimha »

one more important thing what i learnt from TS balakrishna sastrigal is:

[Samaana Darianam] which he used to stress on almost all his upanyasams/harikathas.

i.e we must have the samaana darishanam (The equal vision) among-st all the gods

rajeshnat
Posts: 9906
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Re: T.S.Balakrishna Sastrigal

Post by rajeshnat »

The great TS Balakrishna sasrigal centenary is celebrated in chennai . A lovely write up that came in The HIndu dated Sept 13th 2019. Two lovely writeups:

https://www.thehindu.com/society/histor ... 399356.ece

https://www.thehindu.com/society/histor ... 399401.ece

---------------------------------
Few Personal points i feel like sharing
----------------------------------
# His thyagaraja ramayanam where he sings with such emote the krithi rAga ratna malichake in reetigowlai . We cannot understand the sprititual and religion essence as we get engrossed in the musical aspect when vidwans and vidushis sing, but with TSBS harikatha it is just way too easy to comprehend. Our Vgvindan has said that his love for CM and Thyagaraja was only nurtured and nourished primarily by BalakrishnaSastrigal . Are you there @ vgvindan any updates from you on TSBS centenary. Vgv you once told me that TSBS is like your manaseega guru,.Time for you to write a long post in his centenary.

# I had a relative in ambattur and I have met him and his brother valleesan few times some where in ambattur . I dId not know of their greatness they were way too simple and appeared as commoners just as my elderly relatives .

# There were some recordings that were shared where Late Washington TN Bala (of vilayada ithu nerama fame)organized the tour in US they are all treasures. In particular search for commercial recording of even a partial english harikatha. His anecdotes are content rich and few connecting kanchi paramacharya were superb.

# THe biggest in the above writeup is mention of Tiruvidaimarudhur. For many years We all knew with FLute TR Mali - T stands for Tiruvidaimarudhur . Then with my own curiosity when mahavidwan TR Subramaniam passed away ,I only asked TRS mama's sister and told to Rasikas world that TR Subramaniam - T stands for Tiruvidaimarudhur. Now with this writeup the world will will also know TS Balakrishna sastrigal - T stands for Tiruvidaimarudhur

What a village is Tiruvidaimarudhur(exactly in between mayavaram and kumbakonam ). What a temple and what a legacy - TIruvidaimarudhur has produced the 3 greatest onspot creative Trinities - Mali, Subramaniam and BalakrishnaSatrigal. One can say

Tiruvarur Divine Trinity- Thyagaraja, Muttuswami DIkshitar and Shyama Sastri
Tiruvidaimarudhur Performing Trinity - Flute Mali , Taala Raaga Swaroopan(TRS) and BalakrishnaSastrigal

parivadini
Posts: 1190
Joined: 22 Oct 2013, 22:44

Re: T.S.Balakrishna Sastrigal

Post by parivadini »

I recently made a presentation Brahmashri T.S.Balakrishna Sastrigal and his Tyagaraja Ramayana. As part of my preparation, I noted down the list of the songs in the recording. This commercial recording released by Sanskriti Series is a live recording of the maestro rendered as series for 11 days.

Here is the list of the Tyagaraja Songs in the recording (In the order rendered by him). Some songs might have been only a passing mention and I might have missed a few when I noted down as well. Also please excuse the transliteration errors.

https://carnaticmusicreview.wordpress.c ... -ramayana/

Sachi_R
Posts: 2174
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 20:20

Re: T.S.Balakrishna Sastrigal

Post by Sachi_R »

Image

I was able to watch this very crisp presentation by good friend Lalitharam on Sri. BTSBS. What an ugly abbreviationšŸ™„. I mean Brahmasri T. S. Balakrishna Sastrigal.

I have heard great harikathas from a very young age. I grew up in front of a temple. Bhadragiri Keshava das and family even built a huge ashrama on Tumkur Road after he became internationally famous and became a Guru to many. So the Harikatha tradition was very strong in our times.
Brahmasri Balakrishna Sastrigal was unique in raising the Carnatic and Thyagaraja content in Harikathas. I have heard him. I have gone to his house in 1984 with Sri. KVN.
Lalitharam's presentation does great justice to him by showcasing his particular skill in weaving in Thyagaraja's kritis which are mostly dialogues with Sri Rama.

Ramayana is an eternal fascination for me. Sri. Sastrigal has his own way of focusing on the Bhakti aspects of Ramayana very much. Your narrative about how he began in Madras outskirts famous for DK influence was fascinating. His lineage was also very revealing. No wonder such a story teller singer was born.

What does it take to create a great Harikathakaara like Sri. Sastrigal?

First and foremost the man or lady has to be born and raised in a very devout family with a tradition of Bhakti marga as well as scriptural studies. This is not a trivial thing.
BG 6.42: athavā yogināmeva
kule bhavati dhīmatām
etaddhi durlabha-taraį¹
loke janma yadÄ«dį¹›Å›am

Then the child has to be thoroughly trained in the path of expositing scriptures correctly. This calls for multifaceted education.

Finally the person has to have a personality full of oratorial skills, s sense of humour, a gift for story-telling, and extremely sharp musical and literary sensibilities. Finally he or she has to adhere to the scripture rather than push whatever he wants to say in the garb of a Harikatha.

This triad of qualities is wanting in most current-day harikathakaaras.

What places Sri. Shastrigal in a league of his own is that he boldly reached areas and people not normally touched by this tradition. Lalitharam narrates it very well. Watch and listen to this video!
And I intend to buy the two MP3 CD set.
God bless.

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