01-PURANDARADASA

1-10-2019

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purandara_Dasa

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Purandara Dāsa (Kannada: purandara dāsa)

(1484–1564) was a Haridasa (a devotee of Lord Hari (Vishnu)), a great devotee of Lord Krishna (an incarnation of Lord Vishnu) and a saint. He was a disciple of the Madhwa hilosopher-saint Vyasatirtha, and a

contemporary of yet another Haridasa, Kanakadasa. His guru, Vyasatirtha, glorified Purandara Dasa in a song thus: Dāsarendare

purandara dāsarayya. He was a composer, singer and one of the chief founding-proponents of South Indian classical music (Carnatic music).

In honor of his significant ontributions to Carnatic music, he is widely referred to as the Pitamaha (lit. "father" or "grandfather") of Carnatic music. He is respected as an avatara (incarnation) of the great sage Narada

Purandara Dasa was a wealthy merchant of silver and other miscellaneous jewellery from Karnataka, who gave away all his material riches to become a Haridasa, a devotional singer who made the difficult Sanskrit tenets

of Srimad Bhagavatam available to everyone in simple and melodious songs. He was one of the

most important music scholars of medieval India. He formulated the basic lessons of teaching Carnatic music by structuring graded exercises known as Svaravalis and Alankaras, and at the same time, he introduced the raga Mayamalavagowla as the first scale to be learnt by beginners in the field – a practice that is still followed today. He also composed Gitas (simple songs) for novice students.Purandara Dasa is noted for composing Dasa Sahithya, as a Bhakti movement vocalist, and a

music scholar. His practice was emulated by his younger contemporary, Kanakadasa.

Purandara Dasa's Carnatic music compositions are mostly in Kannada, though some are in Sanskrit. He signed his compositions with the

ankita (pen name) "Purandara Vittala" (Vittala is one of the incarnations of the Hindu god Vishnu).

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Inscriptional evidence suggests Purandara Dasa was born to a diamond merchant in a Deshastha

Madhwa Brahmin family in 1484 CE in

Kshemapura, near Tirthahalli, Shivamogga district, Karnataka state. According to other opinions, his native town was Purandaraghatta in Karnataka,

The only son of Varadappa Nayaka, a wealthy merchant, and Leelavati, he was named Srinivasa Nayaka, after the Lord of the Seven Hills. He received a good education in accordance with the family traditions and acquired proficiency in Kannada, Sanskrit, and sacred music. At the age of 16 was he was married to one Saraswati Bai, held by tradition to have been a pious young girl. 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(an abundantly rich man; worth ninety millions).

Popular legend narrates a miraculous incident in Srinivasa Nayaka's life, owing to which he was led to devote himself to the practice, propagation and inculcation of bhakti (devotion) towards Lord Krishna through musical compositions. As a natural, inescapable consequence of such a transforming event, ubiquitous in the lives of several saints throughout the ages, he is believed to have relinquished his former greedy and miserly self, having realized the

worthlessness of attachment to worldly possessions: The Lord, in a bid to cure Srinivasa of his tenacious materialistic delusion and attachment, and thereby claim his devotion to Himself, approached Srinivasa in the guise of a poor man, with a piteous plea for money; ostensibly, the money was direly needed to perform His (!) son's upanayana (sacred initiation).Having been summarily rejected, mocked and turned out, the 'poor man' surreptitiously repeated his plea before Srinivasa's wife; a

generous soul of rigorous spiritual nature, she gave away one of her precious nose rings, unbeknownst to her husband; the 'poor man' sold the nose ring back to none other than

Srinivasa himself! The shrewd Srinavasa, privy to his wife's openhandedness, immediately identified the nose ring as his wife's and hurried home; enraged and anxious to ascertain the truth of the matter, he demanded his wife

to produce the nose ring before him

immediately.

Realizing that Srinivasa had grown wise to her secret donation, the wife decided to end her life with poison. Having completed her prayers to the Lord before her attempt, she was shocked to see a nose ring inside the poison cup – completely identical to the one she had just given away. Incredulous and rapturous, she recounted the entire episode to her

husband, who was bewildered and lost.

Meanwhile, a search for the 'poor man' was of no avail; he had as mysteriously vanished as he had appeared! At that very propitious

moment, Srinivasa's old self – convinced of the inscrutable ways of the Lord, having witnessed the unfailing grace that saved his

pious wife, bewildered at the power that could, in a moment, produce a gold ornament by mere will – instantly shook off that beginningless, persistent veil in the form of 'I' and 'mine', which masks the men's vision

of the divine. At 30 years of age, he gave away all his wealth in charity, and together with his family, abandoned his house to lead the life of a mendicant – living on alms and singing the glories of the Lord. In his very first song composition, he laments his asted life of indulgence. It begins with the words "Ana lae kara" in the Shuddha Saveri raga, set

to Triputa tala.

In the course of his wandering he met the holy sage Vyasatirtha, one of the chief exponents of Madhwa philosophy and the rajaguru of

Krishnadevaraya, the emperor of Vijayanagara kingdom. According to Prof. Sambamoorthy, 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,

Tirupati, Pandharapura composing and rendering soul stirring songs in praise of god. He spent his last years in Hampi and also sang in rishnadevaraya's durbar. The mantapa (mandap) kin which he stayed is known as Purandara Dasa

Mantapa (mandap) in Hampi. He died on 2 January 1564 at the age of 80. , Saint Thyagaraja, has paid tribute to Purandara Dasa in his geya natakam(an opera) Prahlada Bhakti

Vijayam

Purandara Dasa systematized the method of teaching Carnatic music which is followed to the present day. He introduced the raga Mayamalavagowla as the basic scale for music instruction and fashioned a series of graded lessons such as swaravalis, janti swaras, alankaras, lakshana geetas, prabandhas, ugabhogas, daatu varase, geeta, sooladis and kritis. Another of his important contributions was the fusion of bhava, raga, and laya in his compositions. He included comments on ordinary daily life and elements of colloquial language in 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 to this day. His sooladis are musical masterpieces and are the standard for raga lakshana. Scholars attribute the

standardization of varna mettus entirely to Purandara Dasa.

The itinerant dasas who succeeded him are believed to have followed the systems he devised, as well as orally passing down his compositions.

Purandara Dasa was a vaggeyakara

(composer-performer), a lakshanakara

(musicologist), and the founder of musical pedagogy. For all these reasons and the enormous influence that he had on Carnatic music, musicologists call him the Sangeeta

Pitamaha (lit. "grandfather") of Carnatic music.

Purandara Dasa had great influence on Hindustani music. The foremost Hindustani musician Tansen's teacher, Swami Haridas, also a Saraswat Brahmin, was Purandara Dasa's disciple.

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Though the compositions of Purandara Dasa are

originally in the ragas of the Carnatic system of music, his compositions have been adopted and made equally popular in Hindustani music. Hindustani music legends such as Bhimsen Joshi, Madhav Gudi and Basavaraj Rajguru have made them more popular in recent years.

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