Rag. VASANTHAVARALI

hariharan · Post by **hariharan** » 13 Dec 2008, 12:37

This thread is about the song:

paahi raama dhootha -of Sri. Thyagaraja
raagam: vasantavaraaLi

20 naTabhairavi janya
Aa: S R2 M1 P D1 S
Av: S N2 D1 P G2 R2 S

Please listen to This song on the following link,sung by Sri.
Shivkumar Kalyanaraman for Karnatik.com. The audio link is

http://www.karnatik.com/c2698.shtml

This song is sung using a Vivadi swara very prominantly.
The notes that are heard in this song, other than Shadjam and Pancham, are sudha Rishabam, sudha Gandharam, prati Madhyamam, chatusruti Daivatam and kaisika Nishadam. This song has a close resemblance of the rag Chandrajyoti, which is a janya of 41st mela
( a vivadi raga).

Raga VasanthavarAli is said to be a janya raga of the 20th mela Natabhairavi. Another type of VasanthavarAli is also said to exist which is a nishadantya type with the aroh. & avaro. notes 'SRMPDN - NDPMGRSN' and this popular song of Sri. Thyagaraja is said to be of the 'nishadantya' type VasanthavArali.

1. Is the rag VasanthavArali a vivadi raga, if so the name of its parent raga.
2. if it is a janya of 20th mela, then how come the use of a vivadi note here
3. this song is heard sung only in the very same pattern as being rendered here, using the vivadi swara. This therefore confirms the fact that the rag VasanthavArali is a Vivadi raga. Do any one have a different view about this?

I look forward to a very interesting discussion of this thread.

Radhekrishna,
Hariharan.

keerthi · Post by **keerthi** » 13 Dec 2008, 12:50

I am so happy this topic has been broached , Hariharan sir.

The classic books list VasanthavarAli as a nishadantya srmpdn ndpmgrsn. I haven't heard any rendition of this version of Vasanthavarali.
There is a MDR rendition, which I think Shivakumar may has followed in his website, where it is sung like a raga of the vaRAli chakra, Navaneetham; or it's janyam. This should justify the semblance to chandrajyothi. MDR's rendition also has an occasional Sadharana Ga thrown in.
There is a tradition of singing it in Shadvidhamargini - the Hyderabad brothers sang it once in the Academy. It also came as a commercial release.

This and other such anomalies arise out of the difference in Traditional(Oral-Aural) and textual/historical(Lakshana-grantha) versions of ragas and their transmission.
in the old times, all ragas with similar name-endings belonged to a family, and had common notes or atleast common sanchara patterns.
e.g, the Gaula family - Gaula, malava gaula, chayagaula, kedaragaula, Narayanagaula etc, would have borne some strong commonalities in the 14th -15th centuries.

This lost meaning over time to some extent, and can no longer be used as a measure of how closely ragas are allied IN CARNATIC MUSIC.

In the Northern Tradition, the familes have been better preserved, all the kAnadas - Abhogi kanada, nayaki K, shahana k, darbari K, rAisa Kanada and adAna K have retained the 'kAnada ang' - typified by phrases like GmR, mD and rM, rP etc..
Similarly the sarang set or the thodi set, usually retain some common motif in UttarAdi music.

poornashadjam · Post by **poornashadjam** » 13 Dec 2008, 13:04

yes. I have learnt this song for Sri TMT . It is taught in Shadvidha maargini . The Ga in that resembles the Varali Ga.

There are sangathis in the song with p d n s ...p d n s r ... pd n s r g ....... prayogams. I havent yet heard the one sung by Mr Sivakumar .

Sridhar

hariharan · Post by **hariharan** » 13 Dec 2008, 13:04

I had heard this song sung during 'Anjaneyotsavams' conducted as part of Sitakalyana mahotsavam or Radhakalyana mahotsavam functions in the Bhajan sampradayam. Also heard this song sung during the concluding function of Thyagaraja Aradanai utsavam. But at all these occasions it is sung in the Varali ragastyle/pattern only. Karnatik.com also refers this song to Rag.Shadvidhamargini-46th mela.

Let us hope wemay get more informations and references on this thread.

keerthi · Post by **keerthi** » 13 Dec 2008, 13:16

Lokking at Carnatic music, there are a few sets where the patterns can be discerned; but the ravages of time and Karna-parampara have made it too difficult to trace the lineage of ragas. To illustrate - There are more Varali-s with a prati-madhyama than with a shuddha Ma.
Varali, Pantuvarali, Shubhapantuvarali(I don't include jhAlavarali as it is just a Katapayadi version of Varali)

The more recent ragas like prathApavarali, Kokilavarali and Kunthalavarali, all extant only after Thyagaraja's time are suddha madhyama ragas.

Old Kriyas/Priyas were all Suddha ri ragas - (Kasi)Ramakriya,SindhurAmakriya Gundakriya, Natharama(or nama)kriya, kumudakriya.
also included are the newer entrants - ramaPriya, ravikriya and it's twin Raghupriya.
Of the older ragas, devakriya is an errant chatusruthi ri exception.

This can be seen in the northern tradition too. Gumkali/Gunakri/Gunakriya/Gundakriya/ gaundagri/gunkari and rAmkali/ ramkari are suddha ri, while deskari/ deskar is a Mohana clone.

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 13 Dec 2008, 21:14

Prof SRJ lists this as a eka kriti raga handled only by Thyagaraja. I agree Sivakumar is singing it as a vivadi raga (R1G1) which does look like janya of navaneetham. Perhaps Lakshman can find other kritis in this raga based on which one can decide... No doubt the way it is sung it is a nishadaatya raga...

bhaktha · Post by **bhaktha** » 14 Dec 2008, 04:29

As far as my knowledge goes, vasanthavarali is a janya ragam of shadvidamargini, without the nishadam in the arohanam.
-bhaktha

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 14 Dec 2008, 09:23

There seems to be a common tradition of rendering shadvidamargin's ga such that it has a strong G1 touch . I have heard this not only with pahirAmadhuta but also in a special concert of Smt. Vedavalli where she rendered gnyanamosagarada in the (original) shadvidamargini, and in that rendition the ga had this G1 flavor. However, I think hyd bros rendition of pahiramadhuta (musicindiaonline?) is different where the ga is rendered like regular G2 (and thus shadvidamargini has shades of shubhapantuvarali due to the similarity in the purvanga).

In the renditions of navanItam I have heard,the G1 is way more pronounced and is flat or is done as a slide down from ma - i.e. a typical vivadi mela approach and hence is actually different from the ga flavor of shadvidamargini that has the G1 touch.

I think I had started a thread regarding this a while ago (?)

Arun

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 14 Dec 2008, 11:50

arunk wrote: I think I had started a thread regarding this a while ago (?)

Found it - http://rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5571/shadvidha ... ntavarali/