Mahishasura Mardini by MD - Bilahari or NArAyaNi ?

[Sundar Krishnan]

6/4/12

(Chembai + MTC) have sung / played this song in Bilahari, but this song is listed as Ragam : nArAyaNi, which is a janya of 29 – SB in MD School :
http://www.medieval.org/music/world/car ... hitar.html ?
-> http://www.medieval.org/music/world/car ... dinim.html

As per the Std T School :
bilaHari |29 - SB| S R2 G3 P D2 S | S N3 D2 P M1 G3 R2 S

A) Would request clarification on the correct Ragam of this song.

B) Also Ar / Av of nArAyaNi as a janya of 29 – SB in MD School.

PS 1 : Even http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chembai_discography lists this song under Bilahari ??

PS 2 : Unfortunately, this song is not listed in :
http://www.karnatik.com/lyrics.shtml
http://www.karnatik.com/ragasn.shtml#nArAyaNi
http://www.karnatik.com/ragasb.shtml#bilahari

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Out of curiosity, I listed the various Ragams with suffix = narAyaNi (as per the Std T School) :

50 | nAmanArAyaNi | S R1 G3 M2 P D1 N2 S | S N2 D1 P M2 G3 R1 S

jayanArAyaNi |22 - KP| S R2 G2 M1 P D2 S | S N2 D2 P M1 G2 R2 S
harinArAyaNi |22 - KP| S R2 G2 M1 P M1 D2 N2 S | S N2 P M1 G2 R2 S

kApinArAyaNi |28 - HK| S R2 M1 P D2 N2 S | S N2 D2 P M1 G3 R2 S
nArAyaNi |28 - HK| S R2 M1 P D2 S | S N2 D2 P M1 R2 S

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TIA

...

[classicallover]

Sundar,

The song is listed as composed in raga Narayani. Even in the lyrics, the raga mudra gives evidence to this. But Chembai sang it in Bilahari. His rendering in his indomitable style has gained credence as it was new & appealing. It appears only Chembai has sung this and I have not heard it sung in Narayani by anyone, so far.

[Sundar Krishnan]

7/4/12

Yes, Chembai had his own styles in Swarams also !

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In many of PD's songs, we often see that the same Song is sung in many diff Ragams - it is often free-for-all !
Even in T's Songs, there are a few songs, where karnatik.com site lists Ragam A OR Ragam B.
However, in MD's songs, I thought that the Ragam is a 100 % Fixed ? one, since it is encapsulated in the Sahityam itself. But, here, we have an exception of practical usage !

A) Is there any other song of MD's, which is sung in a diff Ragam, and has thus become popular in the other Ragam ?

B) You may also like to refer to :
http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18998
which relates to a BR's Song in a diff Ragam - diff from the one listed.

...

[classicallover]

Sundar,

It is very well known and obvious for a long time that, compositions of those before the Trinity are not really defined as to which raga they should be sung in - Purandara Dasa, Ramadas, Annamacharya ( he is not a vaggeyakara, but just a vaakkaara-poet ), Arunachala Kavi, Swati Tirunal, Sadashiva Brahmendra, etc.. These can be sung in any raga hence, as per the musician's originality and want.

What did you mean by ' impinge ' ? Impregnated or embedded must be the suitable words if you meant the mudra. Dikshitar's compositions are really fixed and standardised, as much as Samskritam language itself is. However, many compositions have been passed off as the Trinity's though they were composed by their disciples, trying to follow their style, in their memory.
Smaraamyaham in Ramapriya was said to be composed by Suddamaddalam Tambiyappan, MD's first disciple. Vedalenu Kodandapani in Todi is attributed to KV Srinivasa Iyengar. Tyagaraja's Pahiramaduta is sung with notations in both Shadvidhamargini and Vasantavarali. One more is sung in both Shankarabharanam as well as Sulini - Prananaatha biraana brovave ; Vallakaadanaka is sung in SB & HK also ; and the list goes on with a few more.

This subject may be discussed in a different thread I suppose as we may be digressing from the main subject of this thread.

[keerthi]

SK,

This version of Chembai's is in nArAyani. Since our ears are unacquainted with the vEnkaTamakhin version of nArAyani, and also to a smaller extent because of Chembai's style of singing, this appears to be like bilahari. This composition was part of the repertoire of Kallidaikurichi vEdanta bhAgavatar and kancipuram dhanakOTi ammal, besides chembai. Now, I suspect it must only be the disciples of the Calcutta AnantakRSNayyar school who keep it alive.

SrmpdS / Snpndpmgrs is the scale of this nArAyaNi. It takes the notes of shankarabharaNam scale, unlike the nArAyani seen in the compositions of tyAgarAja and paTNam SubrahmaNyayyar whixch is srmpdS / Sndpmrs in harikAmbhOji's notes.

There are a few sancaras beyond this scale -
snpdm - npndm - pmggs - pdSnp - gdpmgrmgs - d/RR etc. So rest assured this isn't bilahari.


There have been two cases of the musician K.J.Yesudas singing dIksitar's compositions in StavarAja and ardradEsi ni different ragas. The tarangini piece mAyE has the abberant version established better than the correct; as a result of the collective genius of several vidwans. After BalamuralikRSNA several artistes have sung the composition srInIlOtpala nAyike in rItigaula, with a catusruti D. Many many compositions of dIkSitar in the vEnkatamakhi mEla-rAgas are merrily sung with alapa and neraval, in the corresponding symmetric versions of the same mElas.

Classicallover,

1. AnnamAcArya is a vAggEyakara as much {actually more}as all the others mentioned in that line of your post, since he has mentioned the rAgas designated for each song. The copper plates found at tirupati and Ahobilam have the rAga name given for each song. It is our misfortune that we are singing his songs tuned in outlandish kuntalavaralis and hamsadhwanis.

2. SmarAmyaham is by baluswami dikSitar, according to Scholar B.M. Sundaram. The ketu kriti he attributes to vIrAswAmi nattuvaNAr.

2.2. veDalenu kOdaNDapANi is by tanjAvUr kRSNA bhAgavatar, the harikathA exponent.

2.25. tambiyappan was far from being dIksitar's first student. MD first taught his siblings.

2.3. pAhi rAmadUta is sung in SaDvidhamArgiNi and vasantavarALI, not vIravasanta.

[Sundar Krishnan]

8/4/12

classicallover, First, I too thought of “embedded”. However, I wanted a better word, and at the time of typing, the word “encapsulated” missed me.
So here you have – I have edited Post # 3 with “encapsulated”.

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keerthi and classicallover,

Thanks for the examples - specially of those Songs of MD's [or, attributed to his Disciples etc] - since in the case of T's Songs, the info about Alternate Ragams is already mentioned in many cases, in karnatik.com.

Thanks also for confirming that BR's Songs are also sung in diff Ragams by diff Artists.

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Thanks for confirming that the Mahishasura Mardini song by MD, is sung in narAyaNi, not in Bilahari.
To clarify this doubt only, I had raised in Post # 1 :
>> B) Also, Ar / Av of nArAyaNi as a janya of 29 – SB in MD School.

keerthi wrote : >> SrmpdS / Snpndpmgrs is the scale of this nArAyaNi. It takes the notes of shankarabharaNam scale ...
So, could you pl confirm if the foll is correct :
29 | DhIrashan'karAbharaNam.....|..S R2 G3 M1 P D2 N3 S..|..S N3 D2 P M1 G3 R2 S
So, narAyaNi................|29 – SB|..S R2 M1 P D2 S..|..S N3 P N3 D2 P M1 G3 R2 S ??

Comparing ...
As per the Std T School :
bilaHari.......................|29 - SB|..S R2 G3 P D2 S..|..S N3 D2 P M1 G3 R2 S

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>> d/RR etc
Pl let me know what “d/RR” means.

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>> sancharas beyond ... So rest assured this isn't bilahari.
To compare, could you also pl list the sancharas of bilahari too ?

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>> StavarAja and ardradEsi in different ragas by Yesudas ...
Could you pl let me know which song in stavarAjaM :
http://www.medieval.org/music/world/car ... hitar.html
lists 2 songs in 46 – stavarAjaM.

In the case of ArdradEshi, we have only one song by MD, listed in the above link :
shrI gaNEshAtparaM citta nahirE - ArdradEshi / khaNDa cApu

Audio / Video Links to above by Yesudas ?

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>> The tarangini piece mAyE has the abberant version established better than the correct; as a result of the collective genius of several vidwans.
Could you pl elaborate on the “abberant version”.

>> collective genius ...
So, who else other than Yesudas ?

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As per the discs above ...
So, a vaggeyakara is a {Poet (Lyrics) + Music Composer (assigning Ragams, Chitta Swarams etc)}. Right ?

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PS : If this topic is being moved to a diff folder (as requested by classicallover ?), could you pl keep me informed and / or leave a note in this Thread also.

...

[Pratyaksham Bala]

There is a reference to the term 'vaggeyakara' in this article in The Hindu:-
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/fr/2002/1 ... 420400.htm

[classicallover]

Keerthi,

There are quite a few things I would like to say. This may deviate further from the main subject of this topic on certain issues, but I don’t see any other way out.

1. You are right that the Narayani of Thyagaraja ( Rama niivEgani nannu ) is a janya of HK-28, while Bilahari is that of SB-29. There was talk among some senior musicians quite some time back that the Narayani of Venkatamakhii is very much Bilahari of Thyagaraja . This is half akin to the debate on Vasanta-Lalita. Much before this topic was started in this forum, I had heard the audio of Chembai and posed the same question to a few musicians. All of them could only say it is Bilahari with very good sancharas. Whether it is because of poor audio quality, it cannot be said.

2. The sancharas you have mentioned are actually with some subtle gamakas –

snpdm - npndm - pmggs - pdSnp – gdpmgrmgs is actually =
sdnpdm - npdndm - pmgrgs - pdSdnp – gdpmgrmgs etc. ,

which is very common in Bilahari. So whence narayani ?

3. Yesudas’s singing cannot be taken as any kind of standard ( except for his voice quality ) since he rushes through the raga and the kriti rashly and also succeeds in distorting the melody of the raga and bhava of the kriti. This opinion is very much in large circulation among many musicians right from SSI and they simply brush him aside just as another singer like an also-ran in a running race. Yesudas always gives the traditional musician that he attempts to sing something without actually assimilating it assiduously.

4. The standard way of singing Ritigaula which is an ancient one, is with both D1 & D2 occurring depending on the sancharas. Ragaratnamalikache, Sadguru Swamiki, etc have the alpa prayoga of D1. Balamurali’s singing with only D2 is just another experiment as part of his research – this he told me personally quite sometime back. As per Venkatamakhii’s school, the name is Naarii RiitigauLa , a.k.a. Natabhairavi. Hence many musicians - old & new – have sung the kriti Sri Nilotpalanayike in Natabhairavi also.

5. What did you mean by symmetric versions ?

6. Rangaramanuja Iyengar has notated and printed in his magnum book Kritimani Malai two versions of Rangapuravihara – one is old traditional , while the other new one is popularized by MSS.

7. Annamacharya is at best an extempore poet ( Ashu Kavi ). This has been very well admitted by the vast majority of musicians of yesteryears in true spirit. His lyrics do not conform to chandassu & alankaara required for weaving music around them and set to a definite tala. He composed the lyrics and gave them to some musicians for setting the tune & tala, indicating the ragas prevalent at that time to be used ( many of them are not known now ). But they simply ignored him & his lyrics and melted many of the copper plates to make vessels, ornaments, etc.. The remaining copper plates and palm leaves were brought out from obscurity mainly by Rallapalli Anantakrishna Sarma , Venkataraya Sastry and others. The Govt. of AP, TTD, Annamacharya Bhavana Vahini, etc., call them Annamacharya Sankeertanalu only. The songs were set to tune by Nedunuri and other telugu fanatical musicians who wanted a local hero ( son-of-the-soil syndrome ) to combat the spread of Trinity’s music which is dubbed as Tamila Sangeetam. The AP’s musicians view was that : Kerala has Narayaneeyam & Bhattadri and Swati Tirunal with Guruvayoor, Sabarimala & Anantapadmanabha temples as the main shrines ; Karnataka has Purandara Dasa, etc with Udupi, Mysore and Mangalore shrines ; TN has the Trinity, GB, SB and a host of others with thousands of temples ; but having the largest revenue earning temple in the country, there is no vaggeyakara associated with Telugu ! So greatness was thrust on Annamacharya and he was deified. The “Love Annamacharya & hate Tamila sangeetam” syndrome is so severe that none of AP’s musicians give credibility to and attend concerts of artistes from other states - except maybe when they are invited personally by the artistes themselves and transport is arranged for them. Anyone can become vidwan instantaneously in AP by learning 4-5 Annamayya’s “songs” and get a chance in TV programmes to sing.

8. I have heard very recently from the same BM Sundaram that Rahu kriti was composed by Tambiyappan who was the first to learn music from outside MD’s family. Ketu kriti was composed by the senior of the two Muttuswami Nattuvanaars ( PaTTaNam ).

9. As per information trickled down from senior musicians of yesteryears, Vedalenu was attributed to KVS Iyengar and Enduku dayaradura to TK Bhagavatar.

10. Shadvidhamargini & Vasantavarali is correct.

SK,

The word 'encapsulated' sounds archaic and pharmaceutical. "Impregnated, embedded and incorporated" are the words in used since ages. I feel there is no need for new descriptives.

Vak+geya kaara = lyric + music composer = vaggeyakaara

PB,

I have already suggested that this topic is going elsewhere. Your post is also contributing to the deviation from the subject of this topic.