Revolutionary step
SRIRAM VENKATAKRISHNAN
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It is 150 years since ‘Vina’ Ramanujayya brought out one of the earliest printed works on Carnatic music.
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Sangita Sarvartha Sara Sangrahamu
April 15, 2009, marks the 150th anniversary of what is perhaps the earliest printed work in Carnatic music, an art which till then had largely relied on oral tradition and to a lesser extent on palm-leaf manuscripts. The Sangita Sarvartha Sara Sangra
hamu in Telugu, was the work of ‘Vina’ Ramanujayya of Tirunagari, who as the name suggests was a veena artist. Interestingly, he was a resident of Tiruvallikeni.
Although Madras had a newspaper tradition dating back a good hundred years previously, the print revolution came to the city in the 1850s and of the earliest presses, the Gantz Press was set up then. The Sangrahamu establishes that Carnatic musicians were then, as now, in the vanguard of adopting modern technology when it came to propagating their ideas.
Great lineage
Ramanujayya came from a great music lineage. One of his ancestors was Bobbili Kesavayya who had the title of Bhooloka Chapa Chutti (the man who rolled the world into his mat) and who is said to have roamed hither and thither challenging musicians to duels and defeating them all until he met his match in Syama Sastry. Understandably, several of his descendants have gone to great pains to deny this not very edifying story. But there is no taking away from the fact that he was a great musician.
A descendant of Kesavayya was Vina Varadayya who composed with the mudra Vijaya Varada. His descendant was Vina Ramanujayya and he lived under the patronage of Suri Chetty Govindaraja Chetty, a businessman of George Town, Madras. It was with the latter’s encouragement and financial support that Ramanujayya embarked on his book which was printed at the Jnanasuryodaya Press, Govindappa Naicken Street, and was released on April 15, 1859.
In terms of content, it used a format that was to be followed by many others. Beginning with theory of music wherein it describes the seven notes as divinities and has slokas dealing with each, it then discusses ragas and talas with slokas on them also. Interestingly, the emphasis on ragas is not matched by that on tala, a bias that exists in music discussions even today.
Rather uniquely, the swara exercises, the sarali and jhanta series have notes and lyrics. The latter were composed by Ramanujayya himself. In addition there are alankaras by Vina Varadayya. Following this there are forty-six gitams, nine prabandhams, chitta tanams in nineteen ragas, fourteen varnams, two swarajatis, 157 padams of eighteen composers and 192 kritis of nine composers including Tyagaraja, Syama Sastry and Subbaraya Sastry. A few of Tyagaraja’s pieces have been singled out for some rudimentary notation as well, perhaps the first time Carnatic music notation appeared in print.
The Sangrahamu made quite an impact on the music world. Not only did musicians begin bringing out their own works, several worked on fresh editions of the Sangrahamu itself, with at least six appearing between 1859 and 1917, and quite a few made no mention of Ramanujayya at all! Subsequently, the work faded into obscurity with the writings of the Tachur Brothers, Subbarama Dikshitar, K.V. Srinivasa Iyengar and others gaining attention. Ramanujayya, however, remained a revered name with Subbarama Dikshitar and Abraham Pandithar referring to him with respect in their works. Copies of the earliest edition are hard to come by today.
How interest in the book resurfaced is an interesting story. ‘Tiger’ Varadachariar taught music to Kanakammal, the wife of Dr. T. Sitapati Ayyar, Director of the King Institute and was a patron of the arts. Tiger drew his disciple’s attention to the book. Kanakammal’s daughter Savitri Rajan who also learnt music from Tiger as well as Veena Dhanammal wrote about the book for a Sabha souvenir. This was read with interest by Michael Nixon, a scholar who did much work on Carnatic music and whose lasting contribution to Madras is the setting up of Sampradaya, the archival centre.
Nixon and Savitri Rajan, with the encouragement of Dr. S. Ramanathan presented a paper on the Sangrahamu during the Annual Conference of the Music Academy in 1980. Subsequent researchers have largely based their work on what Rajan and Nixon presented.
One hundred fifty years is a long time and it is fascinating to think that Ramanujayya set in motion what one day would become an industry by itself – the dissemination of Carnatic music through print which in turn paved the way for the electronic media to take over.
(The author has referred to the paper titled Sangitha Sarvartha Sara Sangrahamu written by Savitri Rajan and Michael Nixon which was published in the JMAM 1981. He also acknowledges information given by Dr. N. Ramanathan, former Head of the Department of Music, University of Madras.)
(The author can be contacted at srirambts@gmail.com)
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