Muddu followed the asampurna mela structure of his grand father and added 51 more ragams totaling to 72. Thus two separate streams of scale usage evolved. Later, two other musicologists, Muddu Venkatamakhin (Venkatamakhin's grandson) and Govindacharya delineated the groundwork of Venkatamakhin. He wrote his treatise in Chaturdandi Prakashika in 17th century. Later he added a 19th raga Desi simhavaram to his list, thus he formulated 19 Melakartha or Janaka ragams. Venkatamakhin tried to permute the 12 notes and came up with his 18 raga Melakartha scheme. Ragams in olden times were categorized as Upanga, Bhasanga, Kriyanga and Raganga Ragams. Venkatamakhin a scholar at Tanjore court tried to give a formal definition to Janaka and Janya Ragams. This was the time when Carnatic music shifted its epicenter to Tanjore Courts. From a theoretical standpoint Carnatic music witnessed a major turning point during the reign of Tulaja Maharaja. Before I give the explanation lets travel down the History lane a bit. Their compositions and the scale they used for the ragas reflect this. His grandson, Muddu Venkatamakhi, added a supplement to the work. Twelve hundred and odd couplets available are in simple, elegant Sanskrit. Out of the ten chapters, the last and part of the ninth are said to be missing. The name itself means ‘Exposition or illumination of the four channels through which a raga manifests itself’. It gives a systematic and scientific classification of Mela ragas based on swaras. It had been in circulation only in manuscript form until it was taken up for print early in the 20th century. Venkatamakhin's Chaturdandi Prakasika was a landmark in the annals of Carnatic music. He was devotee of Tyagesha, the presiding deity of Tiruvarur, and composed 24 ashtapadis in his honour. Seeing as to how there was no authoritative treatise on the classification of ragas in Carnatic music, the king commissioned Venkatamakhin to compile the Chaturdandiprakashika, his most renowned work. Like his father, Venkatamakhin served as a minister to Raghunatha Nayak's successor, Vijayaraghava Nayak (r. Venkatamakhin was also versed in Sanskrit and equipped with knowledge in varied subjects such as astrology, logic, philosophy, and alankara. He was later schooled in the scholarly aspects of classical music by Tanappacharya. He was instructed in the veena by his father and his brother, Yagnanarayan. Venkatamakhin or Venkateswara was the son of the musician, scholar, and priest, Govinda Dikshita, a Kannada Brahmin from the Mysore area, who was also a minister of Raghunatha Nayak of Thanjavur.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
December 2022
Categories |