Torchbearer of Tyagaraja tradition
LAKSHMI DEVNATH
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Walajapet Venkatramana Bhagavathar was a pivotal link in the continuance of a great parampara.
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PHOTOS: S. JAMES.
DISCIPLE WITH GURU: Venkataramana Baghavathar (left) with Saint Tyagaraja.
Ever since he moved into Ayyampettai from Ariyalur, Kuppaya, a Saurasthra Brahmin, was like a man possessed. The spell was cast by the rich classical music of the Thanjavur belt. It metamorphosed into a yearning for a child — one who would be blessed with music in his blood. With this hankering in his heart and prayers on his lips Kuppaya visited one shrine after the other. His prayers were answered with the birth of a grandson on February 18, 1781.
The story of Walajapet Venkataramana Bhagavatar, one of the principal torchbearers of the Tyagaraja tradition, commences with this deep longing of his grandfather. On perusing the baby's horoscope, Kuppaya found that music would be the boy's future. Fulfilling the promise he had made to the Lord of Tirupati, Kuppaya named his grandson, Venkataramana. The boy mastered Telugu and Sanskrit by the time he was thirteen. Tyagaraja's music drew Venkataramana to his doorsteps. The tutelage extended for 26 long years.
For the first two years Venkatarmana learnt only by listening to the master teaching his other disciples. The turning point came when, one day, Venkataramana brought flowers for his master's puja. Tyagaraja began his prayers with the song, ``Tulasidalamulache... " While singing the charanam, ``Sarasiruha punnaga... " he found to his great surprise that he was picking up the flowers in the same sequence as mentioned in the song. Divining a message in this apparent coincidence, Tyagaraja turned around to young Venkataramana and asked, ``Do you want to learn from me?"
Rama's grace
Tyagaraja felt that his sishya was not grasping the essentials of music at the desired pace. He appealed for the grace of Rama by singing, ``Jnanamosagaradha" (Can you not bless me with knowledge?) in the raga Shadvidhamargini. Venkataramana matured musically into an accomplished Bhagavatar. Around the age of 40, he married and shifted to Walajapet, in North Arcot district, where he lived till he passed away 1674 at the age of 93.
``Torchbearer," ``A Boswell" — successive generations, recognising Venkataramana Bhagavatar's contributions have showered him with encomiums that seem to only partially describe his achievements. But then, can there be one term to describe a man who was a laudable musician, poet, composer, chronicler and above all an ideal sishya, one for whom the guru was god and for whom the propagation of the master's songs became the mission of his life?
``My guru," described Walajapet Venkataramana Bhagavatar in his ode titled Guru Stotra Ashtakam, ``is equal to Vyasa in his analysis of the Vedas; to Valmiki in his usage of mellifluous words; to Suka in his spirit of renunciation and to Prahlada in devotion. There were other odes and a few kritis too that he penned on his revered `Gurusvamulavaru.' They revealed snippets of biographical information on Tyagaraja and copious references to his divinity — ``Ramachandra swaroopaya Tyagarajaya mangalam" (benediction to Tyagaraja).
Panegyrics on his guru apart, Venkataramana Bhagavatar also composed varnams, swarajatis, kirtanas and tillanas in Telugu, Sanskrit and Saurashtra and handled even rare ragas like Namanarayani and Nadavinodini. He signed his compositions as ``Sri Ramachandrapura Venkataramana," Ramachandrapura being another name for Ayyampettai.
Palm leaf manuscript from Bhagavatar's collection.
Walajapet Venkataramana Bhagavatar then decided to chronicle his guru's life and compositions. His son Krishnaswamy Bhagavatar (he learnt from Tyagaraja for three years) and grandson, K.K.Ramaswamy Bhagavatar pursued this mission with comparable vigour.
The Walajapet trio wrote both on palm-leaf and paper. They signed their writings with their individual names along with the prefix Kuppaya. The Walajapet corpus now housed at the Saurashtra Sabha, Madurai, represents, in the words of Prof. P. Sambamurthy, ``by far the largest private collection of musical manuscripts ever made." Significantly, the collection includes the manuscripts that Venkataramana Bhagavatar had presumably inherited from Tyagaraja.
Boswellian efforts apart, the Bhagavatars of Walajapet pursued their mission of dissemination of knowledge, by moulding worthy sishyas and sharing their scholarship with all who sincerely sought it. In his book, Oriental music in European notation, A.M. Chinnaswami Mudaliar writes on Krishnaswamy Bhagavatar, ``For the purpose of annotating Tyagarajayya's works. The services of Krishnaswami Bhagavatar of Walajapet, one of the most intelligent and trusted among the last pupils of the great master, have fortunately been secured. The great loyalty and devotion with which he preserved, in its integrity, every one of the productions of his guru — the great magnanimity, candour and readiness with which he imparts all his knowledge without the slightest hesitation..."
Treading the noble path of his guru, Tiruvotriyur S.A. Ramaswami Iyer, principle disciple of Krishnaswamy Bhagavatar, published in 1910, the first ever book of Tyagaraja's songs under the pseudonym Ramananda Yogi.
In 1935, K.K. Ramaswami Bhagavatar wrote a book titled Sri Tyagabrahma Upanishad also called Sangita Rahasya Siddhanta Suryodayam. The pages include the biography of his legendary grandfather and form our primary source of information on him.
Walajapet Venkataramana Bhagavatar's life was one committed to music and dedicated to his guru. He expressed both by serving as a pivotal link in the continuance of a great tradition; by inspiring his sishya parampara that included his descendants, to carry on his mission. Therein is his inestimable contribution.
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First ever biographies
The Walajapet legacy of manuscripts comprises the first ever biographies of Tyagaraja, one incomplete but the other full, bare texts of songs with the names of the ragas and talas (this manuscript goes by the name, ``Kuttalam Suvadi"), compositions with notation, works on musicology and writings on other subjects like Ayurveda, Jyotisha and Vyakarana.
Significantly, it is through the Walajapet manuscripts, that we come to know for the first time about Prahlada Bhakti Vijayam and the Nowka Charitram, the two operas of Tyagaraja. Strangely none of the manuscripts refer to the popular story behind the famous song ``Nannu Palimpa" supposedly inspired by Venkataramana Bhagavatar's gift of a painting of Kodanda Rama to Tyagaraja's daughter on the occasion of her wedding.
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