From: "M. V. Ramana" 
Subject: Pre-trinity composers of Tamilnadu 
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 01:40:33 GMT

Karnatic music owes a lot to various pre-trinity composers hailing
from Tamilnadu.  In my opinion their contribution to the growth and
development of Karnatic music is not adequately recognized by many.
Here I have listed a few of them along with some discussion about them
and sample compositions so that they can be added to the list of
pre-trinity composers which was under discussion a few weeks ago.
Before going any further I would like to caution readers that in much
of what I write here, the dates mentioned are subject to controversy.

Even early Tamil literature mentions music a lot. An ancient work in
Tamil literature, the tolkAppiyam, has a few references to music.
There is a lot of music related discussion in the silappadikAram (ref.
Prof. S. Ramanathan's thesis on music in the silappadikAram - Wesleyan
University). However there are no tunes surviving from this period.
Perhaps the earliest compositions we have which are set to paNNs
(equivalent to rAgAs) are the compositions of kAraikkAl ammaiyAr
(approx. 5th century AD).

Next come the composers of the tEvAram.  gnAnasambandar (635-651 AD),
appar or tirunAvukkarasar (580-661 AD) and sundarar (about 700 AD). It
is said that each of them composed several thousand padigams but only
a few hundreds are available today.  A few tEvArams that may be
familar to listeners of karnAtic music are sambandar's kAthalAgi
kasinthu (paNN - kausikam, equiv. to bhairavi) and appar's sotrunai
(gAndArapancamam - kEdAragauLa) and vAnanai.  The original tune for
the latter is probably lost; the version sung by KVN and DKJ is in
kIravANi rAga. I have been told that this tune was set by "tOdi"
kaNNan. The viruttam that madurai maNi ayyar used to sing often -
vEyoru tOLi.. is a sambandar tEvAram.

A legend involving sambandar mentions that he composed his first song
(tOdudaiya seviyan) at the age of three - that would perhaps make him
the youngest composer in the whole world.

Many of the tEvAram tunes have been preserved to this date due to the
services of the OduvArs attached to temples. Due to the munificence of
kings like rAjarAja chOzha, they were given lands etc, thus allowing them
to continue their adherence to music. 

In the post-tEvAram period came mANickavAcagar, the composer of
tiruvAcakam and tiruvempAvai, sometime in the latter half of the 9th
century AD (controversial date). In his case the original paNNs for
his songs are not available and they are usually sung in mOhanam.
According to some scholars this indicates that he predated the tEvAram
trinity.

Besides these Saivite composers, there were the vaishnavite azhvArs
whose (approximately 4000) compositions are called the nAlAyira
divyaprabandam.  Some of these composers were periAzhvAr, nammAzhvAr,
tirumangaiAzhvAr and ANdAL. It is said that these compositions were
all set to paNNs and that they included some paNNs not used by
sambandhar, appar, etc, but their tunes have been lost.
(Dr.S.Ramanathan mentioned in a lec-dem of his that there are
references which mention the paNNs in which the songs of nammAzhvAr
and tirumangaiAzhvAr were sung. I have also heard him sing a pAsuram
of tirumangaiAzhvAr - paLLiyil Odi - puranErmai paNN - equiv. to
bowLi.) But at some point, the divyaprabandam came to be regarded as
the tamizh vEdam and so people stopped singing them and just recited
them. I am not too sure about these and I leave it to someone more
knowledgeable to give more info.  All these divyaprabandams are
available on-line at
http://reality.sgi.com/employees/mani/prabandham.html

The music of the thEvAram and divyaprabandham had a lot of influence
on the subsequent development of musicology. For example, an important
early musical treatise is the sangIta ratnAkara. The author of this
work, nissanka sArangadEvA, studied many paNNs and wrote about them.
(ref. rangarAmAnuja ayyangAr)

There has already been a lot of discussion on the net about
aruNagirinAthar and his compositions - so I will not mention anything
about him.

One other pre-trinity composer from Tamilnadu, whose dates I am
uncertain about, is UthukADu vEnkatasubbayyar. He was perhaps the
first to compose group kritis on a certain deity worshipped at some
specific temple - something that was followed by all the members of
the trinity. An example of this is the kAmAkshi navAvarNam.  One other
popular kriti of his is tAyE yashOdA in tOdi.


A few centuries later came four great composers in the 16-18th 
centuries - muttutANDavar (16 century), pApanAsa mudaliAr (1650-1725),
aruNAcala kavi (1711-1779) and mArimuttA piLLai (1712-1787).

muttutANDavar was one of the architects of the kriti format as we know
it today - i.e. a piece with pallavi, anupallavi and caraNam. While
much has been said about later composers like mArgadarsi sEsha iyengAr
and their contribution to the development of this structure, the
contribution of muttutANDavar goes largely unmentioned. The tunes for
many of his kritis appear to have been lost (this may not be true for
his padams) and many of them were "re-tuned" in the early part of this
century. Some kritis of his which are famous are sEvikka vENdumayya -
AndOLikA - sung by madurai maNi ayyar and GNB, and arumarundOru -
mOhanam/kAmbOji. 

muttutANDavar also composed several padams, some of which are still
popular.The late bAlasaraswati used to dance to his kamAs padam -
teruvil vArAnO.  The dhanyAsi padam, ittanai tulAmbaramO, is also
often heard.  He was probably the first major composer of padams and
his example was followed by several other composers such as mArimuttA
piLLai, pApanAsa mudaliAr, kavikunjara bhArati(composer of inimEl avarukkum 
- bhairavi and varattum - sAvEri), vaithIswarankoil subbarama ayyar (composer
of padari varukudu - kAmbOji and ini enna pEccu - sahAnA) and ghanam
krishNa ayyar (composer of nittiraiyil - pantuvarALi and tiruvatriyUr
tyAgarAjan - atAnA). The last three were relatively later composers -
ghanam krishNa ayyar was a junior contemporary of tyAgarAjA.

Not many of the compositions of mArimuttA piLLai and papanAsa mudaliAr
have survived till today. The yadukulakAmboji piece kAlai tUkki... and
the tOdi piece ennEramum are compositions of mArimuttA piLLai. vidwAn
b. krishNamUrthy once mentioned in a lec-dem that while both these
pieces were often sung during the turn of the century, most people did
not know who composed them. pApanAsa mudaliar's compositions include
mukattai kAttiya in bhairavi and nadamAdittirintha in kAmbOji.  The 
latter is an example of the nindAstuti style in musical compositions
wherein the superficial meaning of the song seems to ridicule the
deity involved.  This was mainly introduced by pApanAsa mudaliAr and
mArimuttA piLLai.  tyAgarAjA has followed this in songs like adigi
sukhAmu - madhyamAvati.

The songs of aruNAcala kavi's rAma nAtakam are very well known and
justly famous. The music for these was composed by two of kavirAyar's
disciples, kOthandarAman and venkatarAman.  But sometime around the
turn of this century, others such as ariyakudi rAmAnuja ayyangAr,
composed different tunes for these songs and the original tunes are no
longer heard. The recent net-debate about kandEn sitayai is also a
reflection of this "tampering".  aruNAcala kavi's rAma nAtakam is
mentioned as gOpAlakrishNa bhArati's chief source of inspiration for
composing his magnum opus, nandanAr caritram.

Sometime between the times of the AzhvArs and nAyanmArs and
muthutAndavar et al, there were a number of simple musical pieces
composed by a group of mystics (usually 18 are listed) known as the
siddhars. The earliest siddhars lived around the 6th or 7th century AD
(sivavAkyar). Their pieces were in simple Tamil and based on folk
tunes.  The famous song tAvAram edukkadi.... is a composition of
kudumbai siddhar.  KVN sings this quite often.

Tamil music has also been the source of some relatively recent
(post-trinity) musical forms which have been incorporated into
Karnatic music concerts such as the kAvaDichindu and the kiLikkanni.
Both these draw heavily from folk music. The most famous composer of
kAvaDichindus is aNNAmalai reddiAr of cinnikuLam (1865-1891). The
famous chenchurutti piece, manjunIgar, which used to be sung memorably
by the late musiri subramaNya iyer among others, is a composition of
his. The late Dr.S.Ramanathan also used to regularly include
kAvaDichindus in his concerts.

The kiLikkani is a set of "love songs" addressed to Lord subramaNya.
They were composed sometime in the 19th century by subbarAyaswami of
ambAsamudram, a devout muruga bhakta and a *head constable* in the
police force. D K Pattammal and her brother, the late D K Jayaraman,
often used to sing one of these beginning with the words, vaLLikanavan
pErai, in their concerts. 

A few words about the influence of Tamil music on the the modern
trinity tyAgarAjA, dIkshitar and SyAmA Sastry. (For an interesting
article on tyAgarAjA and Tamil, see S. Pasupathy's article in SRUTI
issue #55, April 1989, page 28. I thank Sri Pasupathy for this
reference as well as lots of other information/references.) All these
composers lived in tanjAvUr which has been the center for paN music
for centuries, it is highly unlikely that they would not have
regularly (if not every day) listened to tEvArams and nAyana music.
tiruvArUr being an important saivite centre and having a major temple
would certainly have attracted the best of OduvArs and nAdaswara
vidwAns.  From various accounts, such as the works of u vE svAminAtha
ayyar, we know that the songs of composers like muttutANDavar etc were
quite popular till they were somewhat upstaged by the flurry of new
compositions in the late 18th and 19th centuries. It is quite natural
that the trinity would have listened to them also.  Given all this, it
is perhaps ironical that composers like annamAchAryA whose
compositions were re-discovered only recently, are said to have
influenced the trinity and thus Karnatic music a lot, whereas the
influence of composers whose compositions were the prevailing ones in
the tanjAvUr region has not been mentioned at all.

To summarize, I have tried to indicate several prominent music
composers from Tamil Nadu and their contribution to Karnatic music.  A
study of their influence on the development of Karnatic music leads
one to expect that the quote of Isaac Newton about seeing further
because he was standing on the shoulders of giants would have befitted
any of the relatively modern composers! It is but appropriate that we
recognize atleast some of the contributions of these early composers.

Comments/additions/corrections invited.

Ramana

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