From: srini@engin.umich.edu (Srinivasan Pichumani)
Subject: Mela rAgas, rAgAnga rAgas (Re: Koteeswara Iyer's krithis in all melakarta ragams)
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 92 14:01:23 EST
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor
Keywords: Melakartaragams, Koteeswara Iyer

In article <BxF8Mq.Dqw.1@cs.cmu.edu> pjn+@cs.cmu.edu (P J Narayanan) writes:
>
>One lives to learn endlessly, doesn't one? The first tape of the above
>includes a few words of introduction by T. S. Parthasarathy. TSP
>sketches the development of structure in the form of mELakartA rAgams
>very briefly. He said that though VenkaTamakhi devised the current set
>of 72 MKRagas, his mELams were not complete or "sampUrNam," they were
>mere scales. Later, one Govinda made the current 72 sampUrNa mELas.
>
>This is completely new to me. Does anyone have any information on
>this?  Who was this Govinda and when did he live? What were the
>structure of VenkaTamakhi's mELams?

Well, GovindAcAryA's 72 sampUrNa meLas are also mere scales; only till
composers came along and developed these scales in a judicious way, 
did these scales become meaningful.

Not much is clearly known about GovindAcAryA and his period except
that he postdated Venkatamakhi and predated the Trinity; a good guess
would be circa 1700-1750. Anyway, he wrote the Samgraha CUDAmaNI in
which he explains this 72 "meLakartA" raga set. And he named each one
of them according to the katapayAdi sankhya, with a few anomalies
[The anomalies arise when there is a conjunct 
consonant; in some cases, the second component of the consonant is
taken into consideration e.g. ratnAngI, and in others, the first
component is taken into consideration e.g. cakravAkam. 
In the age-old KatapayAdi convention, the second component
should be the one used in the sankhya]

According to tradition, TyAgarAjA was conversant with the Samgraha
cUDAmaNI. MahA VaidyanAtha Iyer (1844-1893) was also conversant with
this text and composed the 72 mela-rAga-mAlika based on these sampUrNa
meLas (the composition itself starts in shrI rAgam
as "praNatArtihara prabho murAre" and then goes on to cover the entire
meLakartA set in sequence)
 
Venkatamakhi(~1620-1680)(son of Govinda dIkShita
who was a minister/musicologist/religious
scholar in the court of RaghunAtha NAyaka of Tanjore
-- the current ParamAcArya of KAnchi Kamakoti Math belongs to his 
lineage --) was the first one to suggest the 72 scale structure and
use the terms "rA rI rU", "gA gI gU", "mA mI" etc to indicate the
various varieties of the rShabha, gAndhAra ... In his books, the
caturdaNDI prakAshika and "rAga prakaraNam", he outlined the basis 
on which he obtained the 72 "rAgAnga" rAgas; and he tried to fit in
previous rAga classification schemes, and older rAgas, under the 
rAgAnga-upAnga-bhAshAnga classification. (rAganga --> parent, 
upAnga --> child, bhAshAnga --> child, which also takes notes not
present in the parent).

There are differing opinions as to who named this set; one view is
that Venkatamakhi himself named the set of 72 rAgas he proposed;
another view is that Muddu Venkatamakhi, the "mAtula pautra" of
Venkatamakhi, (grand-nephew or grandson via daughter ???) named
these rAgas; in any case, this nomenclature is referred to as 
"kanakAmbari-phenadyuti" nomenclature as opposed to the 
"kanakAngI-ratnAngi" nomenclature of GovindAcArya".

RAmasvAmI dIkShitar, the father of the great composer MuttusvAmI
dikShitar, learnt sangIta lakShaNa (grammar of music) and vINa 
under Muddu Venkatamakhi and it is via the dIkShitar family 
that the "rAganga" rAgas of Venkatamakhi, and his lakShaNa gitams
in these rAgas were preserved and handed down to posterity.

MuttusvAmI dIkShitar composed kritis in all these 72
rAgas, many of which are short pieces in the relatively rare
rAgas, to teach the Tanjore quartet -- Ponniah, Chinniah, Vadivelu,
SivAnandam -- the principles of this 72 rAgAnga rAga system. And in
the last kriti "shrngAra rasa manjari" in the rAga rasamanjari, he
makes an obvious reference to this "bahattara" (72) rAga system.

>Also, can someone post biographical/historical and/or anything else
>they have on Koteeswara Iyer? How about Koteeswara Iyer for the
>Great Masters series? :-)
>
>PJN
>

I know some of KotIsvara Iyer's family members, but never bothered
to collect the composer's bio-data. All I know is that he lived in
the period ~1880-1940. From his mudra, it is clear that he was a 
disciple or follower of Kavi Kunjara BhArati, a composer/poet of
some renown -- different from Subrahmanya BhArati. 
The popular singer, VIramaNI, (he made his name singing 
devotional songs on Lord Ayyappan) was this composer's grandson;
and he used to sing KotIsvara Iyer's kritis often.

S.Rajam certainly has done yeoman service in this area, as elsewhere.
About a decade back, he rendered all the 72 kritis of this composer,
6 at a time, on 12 consecutive Wednesdays or some such day of the week,
in a high school in Triplicane, Madras. I attended quite a few of
those sessions.
In particular, the kriti in JyotisvarUpiNI, "(kanda) gAnAmuda pAnam"
still remains fresh in memory.

--Srini.