Talas of Thiruppugazh

Tālam & Layam related topics
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srkris
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Post by srkris »

The great Mani Iyer had confessed once that he relished greatly playing for thiruppugazhs on account of their complex talas.

Can we start discussing these talas one by one?

drshrikaanth
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Post by drshrikaanth »

It is generally said that the movement/use of a lot of the aShTOttara tALas can be found in the tiruppugazh. I do not know if a formal study of the tALa breakup has been done. It probably has been although it may not have been systematically done for all the verses.

drshrikaanth
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Post by drshrikaanth »

Here are the details about the 108 tALas

http://www.angelfire.com/mb/mridhangam/108talas.html

drshrikaanth
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Post by drshrikaanth »

In there you will find the simhanandana tALa, the longest known tALa in which Maha Vaidyanatha Iyer has composed a tillAna. But I cannot find Sarabhanandana tALa in which SyAmA SAstri sang a pallavi and defeated his challenger(bobbili kESavayya).

Incidentallay, bobbili kESavayya sang the pallavi in simhanandana. A very apt selection by SS as ISvara took the form of Sarabha (a mythical 8 legged creature) to subdue and pacify narasimha as the latted continyed to show ugra swarUpa after slaying hiraNyakaSipu.

drshrikaanth
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Post by drshrikaanth »

Actually Sarabhanandana is not part of aShTOttara Sata tALas.I think it is part of the 120 tALas.(Got to check this out). SOme credit SS with the creation of this tALa. I doubt this simply for the reason that bobbili kESavayya would have immediately declared SS's defeat as this was not described in SAstra. There can be no appeal for that. :D

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/05/11/st ... 110707.htm

drshrikaanth
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Post by drshrikaanth »

Just checked a source. Sarabhanandana is not even part of the 120 tALas. Did SS create it after all :rolleyes:

arunk
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Post by arunk »

FYI: see http://www.geocities.com/balu.iyer/vazh ... index.html for english version of tiruupugazh and some indication of tala structure (in terms of anga duration).

The unique feature of the talas employed in tiruppugazh is that the tala structure is sort of determined by the word/syllable structure of the song (sandhi i believe is the term for this?). I guess it is sort of reverse of the traditional way, where the phrase structure of the song should adhere to that of the tala. The scheme employed in tiruppugazh seems to lead to angas whose duration is not integral (like the example below). I am not 100% sure but i think this also could imply talas with mixed gatis like the commn cApu talas - but more variation (??).

I dont know much about specifics, but my guess is this: Take #9 (under thirupparangkunRam in that site), which starts with santhatham bandhath thodaraalE, in hinDoLam.The talam structure is given as 2 1/2 - 2 - 3 i.e. the tala cycle is 7.5 units, split into 2.5, 2 and 3 sub-units. I am not sure what the exact correlation for units and sub-units would be - Anga and akshara? Or would it be just aksharas and mathrais?

Anyway, I think this means that word santhatham which has 3 syllables i think should be sung to such that "tham" is half the duration of "san" and "tha". The first 2 lines would be sung as:

Code: Select all

san(1)  tha(1)  tham(1/2)  -   ban (1) dhath(1)   - thoda (1) rA (1) lE (1) 
san(1)  cha(1)  lam (1/2)  -   thun(1) jith (1)   - thiri (1) yA (1) dE(1)
Apologies if this is a misinterpretation.

Arun

drshrikaanth
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Post by drshrikaanth »

arunk wrote:The unique feature of the talas employed in tiruppugazh is that the tala structure is sort of determined by the word/syllable structure of the song (sandhi i believe is the term for this?). --
It isa candam or sandam.(derived from chandas in sanskrit). sandhi is word combination. It is part of puNarcci (sandi, sAriyai, vikAram).

The tALas of tiruppugazh(When you can) trace back to the 108 tALas. cApu is not part of that.

msakella
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Post by msakella »

Dear moderator, drshrikaanth, For your kind information there are still longer Talas than Shimhanandanam. Sharabhanandana-tala is said to have been created by Shyama Shastry himself to defeat Bobbili Keshaviah. Funnily, either of them is acquainted with Talaprastara. So, Shyama Shastry thought that he made Bobbili Keshaviah defeated and Bobbili Keshaviah thought he was defeated. No other Tala like Sharabhanandanam is available in the annals of our music literature. Please also refer the 7th, 9th & 12th posts of the thread ‘Pallavis in rare talams’. amsharma.
drshrikaanth wrote:Actually Sarabhanandana is not part of aShTOttara Sata tALas.I think it is part of the 120 tALas.(Got to check this out). SOme credit SS with the creation of this tALa. I doubt this simply for the reason that bobbili kESavayya would have immediately declared SS's defeat as this was not described in SAstra. There can be no appeal for that. :D

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/05/11/st ... 110707.htm

msakella
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Post by msakella »

Dear brother-member & moderator, drshrikanth, Just now I have gone through my post in which your quotation is also included. Immediately I also referred the article in ‘Hindu’.
No doubt, it is an incredible feat to demonstrate Sharabhanandana-tala irrespective of its genuineness to use it as Tala. At one point the demonstrator herself opined that we can create a Tala just like the creation of a raga. Here one important point has to be noted that only Vakra-ragas can only be created but not Avakra-ragas at all as all the different combinations of Avakra-ragas are already available, though some of them have not been named after. In the same manner, for example, if a person claims that he had created the figure ‘1234567890’ everybody laughs at him treating him as a fool. Of course, in the absence of the knowledge of Talaprastara, one cannot agree with me for which I can’t help. amsharma.
Last edited by msakella on 02 Apr 2007, 20:19, edited 1 time in total.

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