Topic started by Kazhuku (@ spider-wq071.proxy.aol.com) on Wed Jul 25 23:28:37 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

So far, most of the Tamil texts sung in Karnatik music that I have heard come from mediaeval or early modern Hindu poetry, from the
period that was heavily influenced by Sanskrit. It is also easy to find the greatest modern poet, Bharatiyar, set to Karnatik music. In any case, my favourite Karnatik singers perform texts that are no older than a few centuries.

With the great wealth of ancient Tamil poetry --
Sangam poems from the Ainkurunuru, the urintokai, the Pattuppattu;
narrative poems like the Cilappatikaram;
even the Tirukkural --
I would like to know if any Karnatik vocalists are performing such ancient pre-Hindu Tamil poetry.

The development of Carnatic music as we know it in the present took shape in the days of Tyagaraja, at a time when Sanskritized Tamil
poetry flourished with devotional Hindu themes for deities like Krsna, Rama, etc. Tamil literature, after all, with ANTAL and the
Azhvars, was the first to initiate the Bhakti movement in the early mediaeval period that later swept all India. So it is understandable how the Karnatik tradition relies on this genre of poetry.

But I have thought with the revival of Tamil consciousness and ancient Sangam poetry and Murukan hymns, that it might be adapted to Karnatik music. Has this ever been done? Is it possible? I imagine that to authentically revive ancient Tamil songs one would wish to restore the
use of ancient instruments mentioned in that poetry, such as the yazh.

Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: Chandra (@ 12.36.152.153) on: Tue Jul 31 17:46:58
  
  Devanagari:
  -----
  cilappathikaram which has the multi-cultural influence ? where kovalan and kannagi get married by circumambulating the fire,and many
  puranic stories borrowed entirely from sanskrit.Indra's son jayanta and many other such reference.
  ----
  
  Most people are not aware that almost all the purANas in Skt. were composed well after the end of cangkam era, after cilappatikAram! It was after 5th century A.D.
  Actually Kalidasa is long after cangkam and after CilappatikAram. Classical Sankrit begins after cangkam era is over.
  
  A most startling fact is that bhAgavatha purANam which spread Krishna bhakthi in the North was composed only after 10th century AD! It was based on the Tamil Krishna purANas from cangkam era and the Tamil bhkathi Krishna poem collection nAlAyirat tivviyap pirapantam composed by various poet-saints 7-9th century A.D.
  There are quite a lot of events not ever mentioned in Skt. purANas at all but found only in Tamil texts.
  
  PuRanAnURu poems(#378) and akanAnURu(#70) have references to certain Ramayanam events not at all found Valmiki. PuRam 378 has the monkeys on search mission finding and wearing in a confused fashion the jewels thrown by Sita after they found them. But Valimiki has no such incident. There Sugriva simply brings the jewels and shows them to Rama.
  
  Akam#70 has Rama silencing the birds on the banyan tree when he performs the tapas to varuNa at KOdikkarai. Valmiki has no such thing.
  So Hart an expert in Skt. and Tamil (Professor of Sanskrit and South East Asian studies at UC BErkeley) concludes that given the casual reference to such minute Ramayana incidents and the literary maturity od cangkam Tamils, they must have had their own version of Ramayana in Tamil.
  Note first of all that Valmiki is assiged the same time frame as cangkam poems (BC 2 nd century- AD 2nd century)!. And we do indeed have 5 verses potentially datebale, based on their language and prosody, to cangkam era surviving as quotations in commentaries. See them at Project Madurai at:
  http://www.tamil.net/projectmadurai/pub/pm0061/lost1.html
  
  George Hart has in his "Poems of Ancient Tamil" that Valmiki Ramayanam owes its literary status as AdhikAbvya for Skt. owing to borrowal of literary tehcniques from southern traditions.
  Moreover the Sthalapuranam of Anpil temple near Thiruchi has Valmiki being a resident there and having attained visions of Rama there.
  
  Or like CilappatikAram mentioning Krishna breaking the kuruntam trees with a mortar tied to him by yacOdha. Or that he played only with only gOpika and not a villageful.
  Or the 11-types of dances which have unique purANic events not at all found in Skt.
  Note also that there were pre-vedic Indus society.
  Asko Parpola assigns Arundhathi and karthikeya et al to pre-vedic societies. Moreover even Jainism drew its mythology from prevedic sources.
  
  
  
  Devanagari:
  ----
  "It is said that Arunacala kavi's disciples set the tune for his rama nataka kirtanas".
  
  It is exactly such rumors that are a result of ignorance. We have discussed this in thsi forum in detail. Please check the archives. It is a waste of time.
  
  You also aasked:
  -----
  What about the lack of uttama vaggeyakaras in "Tamil music". Why is that ???And were they not able to preserve the tunes when they could preserve so many texts?
  ------
  What about the thiruvArUr trinity themselves who were genius Tamil music composers? They are not uttama v.'s to you?
  
  That the loss of Tamil music compositions in Tamil language has been substantially deliberate is documented by UVS Iyer. He says he found Tamil compositions being destroyed in hordes during his life time.
  Another reason is that due to overwhelming patronage of non-Tamil Tamil music compositions, Tamil compositions got neglected.
  You can see a similar process of destruction by neglect continuing with non-lingual aspects of Tamil music even today.
  
  Nayanam is on the verge of disappearance. It has been pushed from its place of pride.
  
  
  Devanagari said:
  ---
  Well what about Melattur Virabhadrayya,Sonti and others?
  ----
  What are their time frames? See kik's comments also.
  
  Devanagari:
  ---
  Oothukadu composed in sanskrit too.Some of his original tunes are available and sung even today.Why not so with people like muthuthandavar?
  ----------
  Ooothukkadu..how does he figure in here. He was just 70 years ago. MuththuththANDavar is 1700s. The thiruvArUr trinity came long after him!
  
  Many forget that there are more serious divine interventions involved with the cIkAzi trinity than with the thir.trinity. The latter's legends were modeled after the former.
  
  Devanagari:
  ---
  IS there something more in detailed other than cilappathikaram which has the multi-cultural influence ?
  ---------
  Of course Devanagari. We have the Tamil tome "panca marapu" by ARivanAr dated ca. 3rd-5th century AD approximately the same period as or slightly later than cilappathikAram. It is devoted completely to carnatic music grammar. It was thought lost forever until discovered near Erode in the 1970s.
  I have a copy of it with me it has had two editions. The later with commentaries by the great musicological genius V.P.K.Sundaram; (btw his guru was the same as that of TNS.)
  
  As mentioned before, cangkam texts are replete with musicological references to the so-called carnatic music.
  There are casual refereces to raga/paN names and musicological details such as swaras and paNNup peyarththal or grahabhedham etc. and to treatises on them.
  
  e.g. in kuRinjcip pATTu when descibing the humming of bees during the silence intervening the enquiry by the hero and the reponse by the heroine, the poet says
  (146-147)
  "naivaLam pazuniya pAlai vallOn
  kai kavar narampin immena imirum..."
  
  "[the bees] humming like the strings strummed by a musician expert at playing the naivaLam ragam/paN.."
  
  maturaik kAnjci:
  ---
  559-60
  : Ez puNar ciRappin2 in2 toTai cIRu yAz
  tAz peyal kan2ai kural kaTuppa paNNu peyarttu
  ----
  
  malaipaTukaTAm:
  ---
  450-451:
  nal yAz
  paNNu peyarttan2n2a kA um paLLi um
  --------
  
  patiRRUp pattu: 65:14-15:
  ---
  tIm toTai narampin2 pAlai vallOn2
  paiyuL uRuppin2 paNNu peyarttAgku
  ---
  
  Another akanAnURu poem has a heroine telling her
  friend how she feels about her husband:
  
  "putuvatu peyartta paNNin uLLum
  vatuvai nALinum iniyanAL emakkE"
  
  "He is sweeter than he was on the day of marriage, sweeter even than the ragams obtained fresh by paNNup peyrattal (grahabhedham)"
  
  Skt. l
  And it is an established scholarly fact that these are all carnatic music.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• From: kik (@ ts3-162.silcon.com) on: Tue Jul 31 21:29:08
  
  Most people are not aware that almost all the purANas in Skt. were composed well after the end of cangkam era, after cilappatikAram! It was after 5th century A.D.
  
  Moreover the Sthalapuranam of Anpil temple near Thiruchi has Valmiki being a resident there and having attained visions of Rama there.
  
  
  Chandra: These 2 statements seem to conflict? In the first you're suggesting the sanskrit puranas are of later date and in the second claiming support from the puranas for influences on Valmiki. That too a sthalapuranam which most likely was composed in the 19th cent/within the last millenium (see David Shulman's interesting discussion in Tamil Temple Myths).
  
  I expect interaction between the tamil & sanskrit traditions to have caused changes in both - influence rarely works one way only. Unfortunately, we don't have enough information from the early tamil/sanskrit times (pre-2nd cent BC) to compare and understand this better.
  
  
• From: Chandra (@ att-56-78-59.atl.mediaone.net) on: Tue Jul 31 22:51:24
  
  Kik:
  Shulman's is a very good book. Amazing how much a Jewish professor has learnt about our Tamil heritage. It has valuable information.
  
  "In the first you're suggesting the sanskrit puranas are of later date and in the second claiming support from the puranas for influences on Valmiki. "
  It was intentional and shows that if we are not systematic we can end up with two conflicting but equally "sacred" versions that do not allow for any questioning. While many sthalapuranams were created very late, some are genuine. We do not know about the anpil one. if 4000-tivviyap pirpantam says nothing then we have some problem with that. But anyway I am told that a scholar who has indeed written a book asserting that Valimik must have been a Tamil. We are digressing.
  For a brief but important discussion of general dating of most of the puranas see the chapter "The Puranas in Indian Literature" pp 501-502, Maurice Winternitz, "A History of Indian Literature", 1907, Motilal Banarsidas (1996 print). There he points out that many dynasties like the Mauryas, Guptas etc., are enumerated in these puranas and that among the barabaric dynasties are listed some tribes like Huns who ruled as lates as 500-515 A.D.
  Only three or four are very old.
  
  
  
  
• From: ark (@ a2.verascape.com) on: Wed Aug 1 14:35:05
  
  Chandra,
  
  You said
  > Ooothukkadu..how does he figure in here. He was
  > just 70 years ago. MuththuththANDavar is 1700s.
  > The thiruvArUr trinity came long after him!
  I think oothukadu predated the trinity.
  
  See http://www.carnatica.com/composer/oothukadu.htm. He is listed under "pre-trinity".
  
  Also see http://www.chembur.com/carnatic/page05.html where it mentions some doubt in exact period but the contention is whether 17th or 18th century (and so 70 years definitely does not seem right)
  
  Of course this does not change your main line of argument(s) (:-)
  
  ark
  
  Arun
  
  

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