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Tyagaraja refused to acknowledge the British in songs, but he was resolutely
preservative of important indigenous musical elements which had been accumulating in
Tanjavur and elsewhere in South India for centuries. His way was an insistence that
foreign rule did not mean loyalty (bhakti
) to Lord Rama's rule was now a thing of the
past. His songs reaffirm the way of other earlier saint singers whom he echoes. They
criticize hypocrisy, and promote spiritual values which bhakti
inspires.
Tyagaraja is often pictured in paintings in the Haridasa attire of the singer-beggar,
which he is supposed to have commonly worn. He practiced unchchavritti
, strolling,
singing and receiving alms. Tyagaraja's appearance in these pictures memorializing him
offers a clue. Victor Turner has suggested that a simple mode of dress "signalizes that
one wishes to approximate the basically or merely human, as against the structurally
specific by way of status or class." Tyagaraja voluntarily chose the dress of the haridasa
,
literally the "slave of God," rather than that of the king's companion -- developing the
powers of the weak."
Tyagaraja the renunciate-householder, the other-worldly music yogi, shared a sense
of outsiderhood with the poor, and he offered communitas
in his works, first in the
music itself, which is a world-dissolving flow of bhakti
, and secondly in
namasiddhanta'
s free access to the divine and to liberation through praise and repetition
of the holy name. This sadhana
or discipline was open to all, "regardless of caste, sex or
status." Another brahman, whose songs are sung by all classes in India, Rabindranath
Tagore, wrote of "The tiller, the weaver, the fisherman, [who] all sustain the world with
labor," saying that he desired to enter their "intimate precincts." "I know that the song
basket is empty/ if filled with trinkets when links/ are gone between life and life./ And I
know my failure, whenever/ my song has been incomplete,/ whenever it has missed the
all." Tyagaraja's songs succeed in catching "the all" with their life-linking power, even
if he did not personally train lower caste disciples. As one South Indian earlier in this
century put it, Tyagaraja was singular in the wideness of his appeal:
His music is a synthesis of South Indian culture and is as great as any form of Indian
culture. Its Telugu is as simple almost as the Telugu of the girl that goes home in the
evening, singing, with her bundle of fresh cut grass. But from such slim footing
Tyagaraja's music rises tall as the world. Its tradition is Tamil, the tradition of Alwars
and Nayanmars. Its grammar is Carnatic, that is to say, South Indian. Its culture is Indian
in its vision. Its spirit is human, the spirit of man, the top of creation, communing with
his creator. Everyone in South India can understand it, can feel its rhythm, can follow its
spirit and feel at home in it. Tyagaraja, more perhaps than any other single musician, has
preserved for us our one great live art with an appeal both deep and wide.
The language of religious music sometimes manifests an undefinable power to reach
deeply into individuals and bring out the best human qualities, fostering understanding
and feelings of kindredness in people otherwise estranged. While German philosopher
Gottfried Leibniz thought of music as "unconscious counting," this accounting leaves
out song's potency to educe refinement. A European composer and theorist of music
wrote in 1739: "It is the true purpose of music to be above all else a moral lesson."
Perhaps we should think of Tyagaraja as an illustration of this; he was a persuasive
master expressing through mandala
s of exquisite sound and conscience a sense of unity
and justice, making life more bearable and meaningful regardless of the brutal realities
of the times. Tyagaraja could wield the old raga
s and discover new ragas able to
displace fearful events in the memory of his listeners. His music is an intangible but