The great grandsire of Music

Our Land is known for music, specially the south Indian Carnatic music. This is the world known fact. So many mahans incarnated in our land. Among them Sri Purandharadasar the great preceptor, he systematized the method of teaching Carnatic music which is followed even present day. He introduced the ragam Mayamalavagowlai as the basic scale for music instruction and fashioned series of graded lessons such as Saralivarisai, jantavarisai swaras, alankaras, lakshana  geetas, prabandhas, ugabhogas, daatuvarase,  sooladis and kritis.
Another of his important contributions was the fusion of bhava,raga, and laya in his compositions. Purandara Dasar was the first composer to include comments on ordinary daily life in song compositions. He used elements of colloquial language for his lyrics. He introduced folk ragas into the mainstream, setting his lyrics to tunes/ragas of his day so that even a common man could learn and sing them. He also composed a large number of lakshya and lakshana geetas, many of which are sung even today. His sooladis are musical masterpieces and are the standard for ragalakshana. Scholars attribute the standardization of varna mettus entirely great contribution of Purandara Dasar.
The a roundabout journey  dasasr who succeeded him are believed to have followed the systems he devised, as well as orally passing down his compositions.
Purandaradasar was a vaggeyakara (performer), a lakshanakara (musicologist), and the founder of musical instructional methods. For all these reasons and the vast influence and his deep devotion that he had on Carnatic music, musicologists call him the "Sangeeta Pitamahar" (grandfather) of Carnatic music
Sri Purandardadasar born in 1484 AD near tirthahalli Sivamogga district in Karnataka state to a Brahmin merchant named sri Varadhappa Nayaka and Leelavathi ammal .His original name is Srinivasa Nayaka, . He received a good education according to his family traditions and possession of excellent skill in Kannada, Sanskrit, and sacred music… When he was 16 years old he married to a pious young girl named Saraswathibai. He lost his parents at age 20, thereby inheriting his father's business of gemstones and pawning. He prospered and became known as "navakoti narayana" (owner of nine crores).
Once a poor Brahmin came to his home and asked Saraswathibai some help to perform his son’s Upanayanam (Thred cermoney)  Saraswathibai gave her nose ring to the man and told him that “Swamy, My husband is in his business now I do not know anything and what to do however I give my nose pin  you can sell and take that money for your son’s Upanayanam”..Happily he took that nosepin and went to Srinivasa showed that nosepin and told him that for sale, he was wondering that “how this man got this it looks like my wife’s nosepin” thinking that he lend money to him  and went home, in the meanwhile Saraswathibai was worried about what to say to her husband, so she prayed to her favorite god sincerely , she got  a nose ring just like the one she had just given away. When Srinivasa hurried home, anxious to know if the nose ring was hers, for his surprise and he was confused seeing her wear the same one. She too confessed what had happened, and he was converted to belief in the virtue of a charitable life. That incident changed his life style. He gave away all his wealth to a charity and left his house  to lead the life as a medieval poet and musician to embrace ritual system. He met the holy sage Vyasatirtha, guru of Krishnadevarayar, the emperor of Vijayanagara kingdom. It is said Srinivasa had his formal initiation at the hands of Vyasatirtha in 1525 when he was about 40 years old, with the name Purandara Dasa bestowed on him. Purandara Dasa traveled extensively through the length and breadth of the Vijayanagara empire in Karnataka, Tirupathi, Pandharipuram composing and rendering soul stirring songs in praise of god. He wrote more than 20 lakhs songs on lord narayana and other devatas. In his very first song composition, he regretted his wasted life of indulgency. It begins with the words 'Ana lae kara' in the Shuddha Savaeri ragam, Triputa talam.
He spent his last years in Hampi and also sung in Krishnadevaraya's durbar. The mandapam in which he stayed is known as Purandara Dasa Mantapam in Hampi. He died in 1564 at the age of 80.
Purandara Dasa advised earnestly to the people to earn the grace of God by acquiring the True Knowledge (Jnana) and Detachment (Vairagya).  All of his compositions understand the Nature (Svarupam) of God Hari, who is the ultimate reality and the Reality of our existence in the Real World. Purandara Dasa has forcefully referenced up in a ugabhoga (a kind of free verse) the Upanishadic Truth that Hari is the Supreme Lord (Sarvottama, Paratara) of the entire Universe:.
This in short is True knowledge. We must understand also that this very real world is short-lived; our corporeal existence therein is not permanent: hence worship hari and sing devotionally (a song contains not only the sruthi and thala but Bakthi is also very much needed)
Therefore Purandara Dasa implores "Human life is of a great value. Pray, do not waste it, O devotees!" Purandara Dasar’s prescription for a good and useful life as means to ultimate Bliss is a correct mixture of Detachment (Vairagya) and dutiful acceptance of the reality of existence with its concomitants - sorrow and happiness, pleasure and pain, hopes and despairs, and its shortcomings and pitfalls..Man should desire to live the full span of his life, Purandara asks us to swim in the turbulent stream of life and come out of it without being swept away by the current; to be in it and yet out of it, like a lotus leaf in water.


                                                Home