Power of the ragas
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Kunnaikudi Vaidyanathan's exposition demonstrated the power embedded in ragas.
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Holding forth on the virtues of ragas.
KUNNAIKUDI VAIDYANATHAN is widely known for his maverick approach to Carnatic music. Still, he is among the few musicians endowed with a flair for research in the field. The Raga Research Centre at Chennai founded by him 12 years ago has been assiduously working to discover the inestimable energy latent in the ragas. `Raga Vaibhavam' is an ingenious musical programme conceived by the musician to demonstrate to the rasikas the power embedded in the ragas.
The programme was staged jointly by the Vivekananda Sangeetha Sadas and Nadalayapravah Academy of Music at the Regional Theatre, Thrissur, on Sunday last.
Seated on a chair at the centre, flanked by 12 musicians, including vocalists and instrumentalists, Kunnaikudi explained at length the activities of his institution. "Every raga, whether janaka or janya, has its own power and we have been successful in experimenting with 50 of them," he said. According to him the vaggeyakaras, including the Trinity, knew this very well. They selected appropriate ragas for the effective evocation of the mood suggested by the `sahithya,' he said.
Although the mainstay of the lecture-demonstration was Sankarabharanam, it began with an inspiring choral rendition of the much sought-after Thyagaraja composition in Sourashtram `Sree Ganapathi nee sevim paraare' (Prahaladavijayam) in adi talam. This helped to create the ambience for the performance.
On Sankarabharanam
Dwelling at length on the qualities of the sampoorna raga Sankarabharanam, which is also known as the major scale in Western music, Kunnaikudi said it was capable of healing mental illness. Further, regular rendition or listening to it would usher in prosperity, he claimed.
As many as 12 compositions in the raga were rendered by four male and four female vocalists during the demonstration. The kritis were classified mainly on the basis of swaras with which they took off. For instance `Swararagasudha,' the Thyagaraja composition in adi tala, `Bahumeeraganu of Vinakooppayyar in Roopakam, `Emineramu nannu brova' of Thyagaraja in adi tala and the famous Dikshitar composition `Dakshinamoorthe' in misra jhampa had `shadja' as the first swara. After each composition was sung, Kunnaikudi would explain the meaning of the sahithya in detail.
Swati Tirunal's `Devi jagajjanani' in adi tala was given as the one that started in gandhara. In this connection, he said that the note of anthara gandhara employed in Sankarabharanam was different from the one used in other ragas. The troupe also demonstrated four compositions that had madhyama, two that had panchama and another two that had thara sthayi shadja as the first swara.
Although the purpose of the programme was to highlight the power of the raga, there was more discussion on the sahithya than on the intricacies of the raga. Moreover, a raga is an entity that has an existence independent of sahithya. And, as for the effect that a raga produced, it is highly subjective as well.
G.S. PAUL
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