4 of 50 by my friend vasu not by me.

50 Articles for 2019 Number 04
Topic: nishAdhAntya rAgams
(also madhyama shruti, certain rAgams sung together in rAgamAlikAs)
'anta' in sanskrit means an end. nishAdhAntya rAgams are those scales which culminate in the nishAdham. The scales do not go further up into the tara stAyi shadjam or any swarams in the upper octave. Similarly, on the descent, the rAgam is not sung below the mandara stAyi nishAdham. In fact, the scale includes the mention of the mandara stAyi nishAdham, without ending at the shadjam itself. The rAgam will have only one octave.
Examples of nishAdhAntya rAgams are:
cencuruTTi (janya of HarikAmbhOji 28) - N2 S R2 G3 M1 P D2 N2 - N2 D2 P M1 G3 R2 S N2
cittaranjani (janya of kharaHarapriyA 22) - N2 S R2 G2 M1 P D2 N2 - N2 D2 P M1 G2 R2 S N2
nAdanAmakriyA (janya of mAyAmALavagowLa 15) - S R1 G3 M1 P D1 N3 - N3 D1 P M1 G3 R1 S N3
punnAgavarALi (janya of HanumatODi 8 ) - N2 S R1 G2 M1 P D1 N2 - N2 D1 P M1 G2 R1 S N2
One main aspect is that these rAgams are usually sung with madhyama shruti (instead of sama shruti). To my knowledge, they tune the tambura / shruti box to S M1 S, instead of S P S - and then begin the rAgam using M1 as the tonic note (shadjam shifted to M1 in the rendition). Musicians and rasikas kindly chime in, and correct any mistakes in my understanding.
Here are some more popular rAgams of dhaivatAnya, pancamAntya varieties:
janjUTi - dhaivatAnya from 28th mELakartA HarikAmbhOji
kurinji - dhaivatAnya from 29th mELakartA dhIrashankarAbharanam
navaroj - pancamAntya from 29th mELakartA dhIrashankarAbharanam
sindhubhairavi in old version madhyamAntya from 10th mELakartA nATakapriyA
So, whenever these rAgams are sung, the shruti is adjusted to madhyama shruti. As a corollary, when the artists adjust the shruti during the concert, especially to sing tukkaDA songs, one can expect these type of rAgams. It is also the reason that some of the rAgamAlikAs using any of the above rAgams will include only those in this set. That is, there is no mix-and-match of these ***antya rAgams and non-***antya rAgams (for want of a better term). For example, a rAgamAlikA that starts with nAdanAmakriyA would include punnAgavarALi, cencuruTTi and sindhubhairavi.
In one of the concerts I have listened, the artist explained about 'OduvArs' were the people that practised and sang to preserve lot of our music. In the olden days of not having a microphone / speaker, in order to reach people, they adjusted the shruti to madhyama shruti and sang at that higher shruti. Hence to go beyond upper madhyama would not be an easy thing (even now for most singers). It was mentioned that this is how many of these rAgams were preserved - they are old and took a rUpam of their own over time.
Again, if there is any correction of my understanding, please feel free to point out and comment on the same.
Other minor mentions:
devakriyA in an old version was S R2 G2 M1 N2 D1 N2 - P D1 P M1 G2 R2 S N2
dana kApi - pancamAntya from 22nd mELakartA kharaHarapriyA or 28th mELakartA HarikAmbhOji
kApijingala - madhyamAntya rAgam from 22nd mELakartA kharaHarapriyA
nAgavarALi - nishAdhAntya from 8th mELakartA HanumatODi
saindavi - nishAdhAntya from 22nd mELakartA kharaHarapriyA
shrutiranjani in one version nishAdhAntya from 61st mELakartA kAntAmaNi
vEdagoshapriyA pancamAntya from 28th mELakartA HarikAmbhOji

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

33 of 50

50 articles for 2019-2020 33 of 50 Structure of Krithis part 2 Annamayyas krithis dont have an Anupallavi passage and His Samkeertanas have multiple charanas. While Puradaradasa's compositions have mixed variety as in some have anupallavi passages and some dont. Thiagaraja Swami and Syama Sastry compositions have multiple charanams and its not a LH thumb rule since there are uni charana compositions too. We can conclude that due to lack of evidence of a structure for Krithis as a standard, the brilliants minds explored many formats. We must mention a Margadarshi. A pre trinity composer Sesha Ayyangar composed in Sanksrit, His kritis have triple charanams, and he experimented with the traditional pallavi-anupallavi-caraNam structure of kritis. The famous musician Shatkala Govinda Marar brought with him a collection of the songs of Margadarsi Sesha Iyengar and sang many of them before the king, Swati Tirunal. Impressed by their novelty, adopted them as models for ...
Read more
Image
50 Articles for 2019 Number 03 Topic: mUrcana kAraka rAgams (also covered: popularity / beauty of some rAgams) A rAgam whose swarastanas are retained while shifting the tonic note (adhara sadjam) to get other rAgams, is known as a mUrcana kAraka rAgam. For example, if we keep the relative position of notes of mOHanam and shift the shruti (sadjam) to its rishabham, we will get madhyamAvati. What do we mean by this? The distance of swaras from previous swara in mOHanam are sa->next tone (T)->ri-(T)->ga-next tone+semi-tone (T+ST)->pa-(T)->da-(T+ST)->sa'. For madhyamAvati, the series is sa->(T)->ri-(T+ST)->ma-(T)->pa-(T+ST)->ni-(T)->sa'. As we can see the sequence T - T - T+ST - T - T+ST has been rotated to get T - T+ST - T - T+ST - T (moving first tone gap interval to last). If we wish to look at it from keyboard layout point of view, with 12 swaras stanas (7 swaras or fewer are chosen from the 12 for a rAgam usually), and we start wi...
Read more

35 of 50

50 articles for 2019-2020 Article 35 of 50 GovindarajaSwamy and Gummakambodhi Yes yes of late my aritlcles resemble some archaelogical find but i can assure my sea of readers ( less than 10) it is unintentional. When visiting the magnificient temple of Nataraja in Chidambaram i used to wonder how come there is a Govindarajaswamy temple in the Siva Complex and answered myself it could be the syncretic nature of our 3 arms of Hinduism Decade ago i was captivated by Sanjays rendition of Govindarajena rakshitoham sada by Muthuswamy Dikshtar , the raga name easily merging in the Sahitya...the final lines of the Vibhakthi being mEca bauLi rAgENa santOshitEna I have to visit what readers already know as in the beautiful Bowli raga with the following Arohana and Avarohana ārohaṇa: S R₁ G₃ P D₁ Ṡ avarohaṇa: Ṡ N₃ D₁ P G₃ R₁ S Curiosity be served with some food... Venkatamakhin enumerated without describing this raga. I will just run thru the references which speak of Mecha...
Read more