Shashtriya Sangeetham...

[Guest guest]

Dear Bhagavadhas,

 

Adiyen has heard about a lot of sam-keertanais from various poets in

the Telugu/Andrha region, like Annamacharyar, Thyagarajar and also

like Purandaradasar from Kannade etc. These poets were not just

sangeetha vidwans composing a song based on their music knowledge.

These poets were pretty much similar to the Azhwars and composed

1000s of sam-keertanais only because of the blessings of the lord.

Why are these people not included in our sampradayam(I know they

lived in the post-Ramanuja period)? Any specific reasons, like, they

differed in the philosophy or probably they did not stick to Lord

Shriman Narayana etc? Also, why the Shashtriya Sangeetham was never

practised in our sampradayam(kindly exclude the modern day

vaishnavites). What adiyen mean is that, may be it was practised, but

was not prominent. Does any one have any idea about this? Also, do we

still have the various ragas and talas that Shriman Nathamunigal

composed for all the Divya Prabandhams? Is it practised or taught

anywhere?

 

Sarva Aparaadhaan Kshamasva.

 

Adiyen,

Ramanuja Dasan.

[Guest guest]

Dear Sri Lakshmi Narasimhan,

 

While I have no knowledge of music, I do hail from a family of classical

music lovers and musicians. So, if only as a feeble attempt to uphold the

family legacy, here is what I can offer on this:

 

Of the three great musicians, only one, Sri TAlapAkka Annamachariar was a

SriVaishnava, having received pancha samskAram from the renowned Adivan

satakOpan of what would later come to be known as Sri Ahobila Matham.

Indeed, I have reason to believe (although much more research needs to be

done into this) that Sri Annamachariar's music was deeply influenced by

SriVaishnava thought, particularly the AzhvArs pAsurams, and it is for that

reason that to this day, Srinivasan is lulled to sleep with renderings sung

by his direct descendant (It is interesting to note that while the

TAlapAkka family is smArtha by tradition, the eldest son in each generation

takes samAsrAyanam from Srimad Azhagiya Singar such that this tradition can

be maintained).

 

As for the other two, Sri ThyAgaraja, while an ardent devotee of Sriman

NarAyana in his own right, was not connected to Ramanuja Sampradayam, and

in fact hints of an advaitic element in his musical compositions.

 

Regarding Sri Purandaradasa, perhaps the devotees from Karnataka could shed

more light on him. I was under the impression that he belonged to the

Madhva community.

 

adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan

Mohan