“To-day, a hundred years after his passing away, we remember Sri Thyagaraja with feelings of profound pride and gratitude which are tainted by no narrow considerations of patriotism or parochialism. In his universality he is like Shakespeare. Rooted in the rich soil of the Tamil country watered by the Kaveri, which runs like a silver thread through many a song, the mighty tree of his genius gives rest and refreshment to all who seek its hospitable shade.”
DECEMBER 22, 1946
Thyagaraja
ONCE OR TWICE IN A MILLENNIUM THE HUMAN SPIRIT GATHERS itself up in a mighty upheaval; and a poet, a saint or a master-singer is born. He is made of the stuff of revolution. He contains in himself all the past and the future. His brief sojourn on earth is a benediction. Our common human kind learns to walk erect seeing in him the complete man, “in apprehension, how like a God!” He profoundly affects our destiny by giving us eyes. The extension of consciousness by which evolution takes a leap forward is always the work of a seer, the kranta darsee. Today, a hundred years after his passing away, we remember Sri Thyagaraja with feelings of profound pride and gratitude which are tainted by no narrow considerations of patriotism or parochialism. In his universality he is like Shakespeare. Rooted in the rich soil of the Tamil country watered by the Kaveri which runs like a silver thread through many a song, the mighty tree of his genius gives rest and refreshment to all who seek its hospitable shade. In music we have the nearest approach to a universal language; melody is the soul of music; and Thyagaraja is the soul of melody. As Mr. T. V. Subba Rao has well pointed out in his address to the Music Academy, the triumphal progress of his immortal song has just begun. Some of the finest minds of the West have felt its compelling attraction. Thyagaraja may well prove to be our greatest single contribution to the cause of world harmony.
In the music of Thyagaraja tradition and invention find a unique balance. Mr. U. Rama Rao, in his opening speech at the Academy celebrations, rightly reminds us that he studied with loving reverence the work of the great master-composers who had laid the foundations of Carnatic music, Purandaradas, Kshetragnya, Theerthanarayana Yati. He mastered the theory of his art not merely from books but from the practice of the virtuosi of his time. He soaked himself in the inspiration of the Ramayana and the Bhagavata. And, if one may judge from internal evidence, he received early in life what can only be described as spiritual initiation leading to a unitive experience that lodged itself firmly at the very core of his being. There was no divorce between his life and his art; song was sadhana. He made endless experiments; he was always striking out along new lines. But there was no uncertain groping after perfection. To those of his contemporaries who might have regarded his talent as mainly lyrical the majestic sweep of the epic style, as of an army on the march, displayed in the ‘Pancharatna kirtanas must have come as a blinding revelation. Though he handled the Madhyama Kala and the Adi tala by preference he is equally at home whatever the tempo or the time-measure. Many a raga of which little more than the name was known before his time began to dance its way through the human heart under his life-giving touch. Of each one of them he made a fit vehicle for a recondite emotion which others may have felt before but none could so well express. And even now the mystery at the heart of such ragas well-nigh eludes us; so much so that when the uninspired executant attempts to render them he can do little more than reproduce the appropriate Thyagaraja kriti in outline. As for his pieces in the ghana ragas, one can only say “Here’s God’s plenty!” The inexhaustive fertility of his imagination, the variety, richness and grace when the uninspired executant attempts to render them he can do little more than reproduce the appropriate Thyagaraja kriti in outline. As for his pieces in the ghana ragas, one can only say “Here’s God’s plenty!” The inexhaustive fertility of his imagination, the variety, richness and grace of his phrasing, the revelation at every turn of unsuspected possibilities in the mode handled – these combine to open up endless vistas for the musical explorer.
Behind that magnificent achievement was a soul that had found itself. Unfashionable as it is to talk of such things, we must insist that those who would ignore the mainspring of Thyagaraja’s inspiration, the mystic’s love of God, can never hope to understand him or feel a fraction of his haunting charm. A sublime certitude marked the march through life of this humble man who could look with unerring insight into the heart of the peasant and the prince, the footpad and the fashionable roue. He was tempted neither by the pomp of power nor by the vanity of wealth. He strove with none; his heart was full of compassion. He yearned to bring to his fellow-men the peace that passeth understanding. In the company of the dedicated spirits of all time, Prahlada, Narada and Suka, his immortal genius ministers to our need for sweetness and light.
Reference:
The First 100
A Selection of Editorials, 1878-1978, THE HINDU, VOLUME I