guNDakriyA - Dikshitar

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SrinathK
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Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

guNDakriyA - Dikshitar

Post by SrinathK »

Continuing from the last post on the scalar apoorva rAga named guNDakriyA (viewtopic.php?t=34963), where I had gone through the history of the various versions of the raga named guNDakriyA, of which it appears, that two have survived to the present day.

This raga as I spoke of it earlier seems to have existed in many different forms throughout history and was quite a popular raga during the middle ages, having been used by Annamacharya and even Vadiraja Tirtha.

At that time, I had mentioned that there is indeed an older and very different guNDakriyA available in the Sangeetha Sampradaya Pradarshini. The lakshaNa of this raga goes back to Venkatamakhin. This raga is much more complex, phrase based, not as straightforward and requires a detailed study of various compositions and sancharis (phrases) to understand it. While SD doesn't give a detailed prelude about the various phrases used in the introduction, considerable knowledge may be gained from the various compositions notated.

In the old generation of organic ragas, there is a set of ragas that are distinguished by their tendency to optionally use or skip a note or two during ascending or descending phrases -- in other words they play hide and seek with certain notes. In some phrases a note will be there, and in some phrases, that note will be avoided. As a result looking at them through the lens of arOhana-avarOhana gives too many permutations and such an approach becomes inelegant. It is best to study such ragas by looking at their handling of every note, which is unique to each raga. Quite a few janya ragas of mAyamAlavagauLa belong to this type and old guNDakriyA is one such raga. (A few other ragas are ArdradEshi, rAmakali, paras (phraju), chAyAtarangiNi (mela 28), nATa, old yamunakalyANi and old gurjari).

Of all the ragas in the rAgAnga rAga school which is followed by the SSP, guNDAkriyA is special as it has a huge geetam dedicated to it in which the names of all 72 rAgAnga rAgAs appear from kanakAmbari to rasamanjari. The geetam spans 12 stanzas and covers virtually every phrase in gunDakriya. Note, unlike a recently composed geetam by Chitraveena Ravikiran in all the 72 sampUrna rAgAs (kanakAngi - rasikapriya), the SSP geetam is only in guNDakriyA. But it is fascinating to know that such an attempt has existed in the past in some form. The geetam is in tripuTa tala.

Based on this geetam and the phrases notated by Subbarama Dikshitar in his raga sanchAris, we come across virtually every type of possibility in this game of hide and seek.

Phrases devoid of D - PNS, PSNS, SNP, SNPN, NPNP,
Phrases with D but not N - PDS, RSDS, RSD-R, SDP (rare), GMPDS, GMDS, DSDP
Phrases devoid of R - MGS, SGM
Phrases devoid of G - MRS, SRMP, RMP
Phrases devoid of M - GP, DPGS
Occasional phrase skipping P - GDS (!!)

Linear Phrases using all the notes - PDNS, SRGM, MGRS, GMPD, DMPGRS. But curiously SNDP is rare or non existent - even in the ascending and descending mUrchana, it is not there, but in the geetam, it does come at one place only, so despite the listed mUrchana, there is room for some license. It seems that the prevailing rule is to avoid SND and SNDP, as it does not come either in the MD kriti or the phrases notated by SD.

Mixed phrases using combinations of the above (both with and without a note) - PMGM, PDSNS, PNSD, MRGM, GSRM, GSRGM, SNPDP (frequent), MRGRS, SDNS, MGSRS, GRGR, SNPDS, SNPMGR, MGSRM, PDSNP, RGMRMP, DR, RGRMGR, SNPMGM, MGPD,

Notable non-linear phrases - SMGR, SMGS, SGRS, RPM, RPRG, RSGRMG, PMDP, GMPGMPS, SPMP, GMDP(this is an important phrase, it appears even in the murchana), SN-M (downward). The SN-M phrase is unique and the geetam in fact starts with the phrase (SN | M, PPMGM ||)

Clearly it would be nigh impossible for a raga to be conceived like this today. This is an extremely old raga belonging to a totally different era of musical ideas. Had it not been for mayamalavagauLa, guNDakriyA would have been the uncontested queen of mela 15. But over time the status of this raga has been eroded by the rise of MMG, paras, gauri and other rivals like pADi.

The geetam is pretty challenging as it features extended runs of high notes(The SSP geetams ascribed to Venkatamakhi collectively can cover 5 octaves(!!), some geetams including notes higher than ati tara S and some lower than mandara S, and jumping to notes located ridiculously far away. These are suited for developing instrumental skills covering the entire range of the veena, and probably cannot be sung by most people without transposing to a different shruti).

The usage of the phrases is mixed and constantly rotates between phrases using a note and phrases avoiding it.

Therefore it may concluded that guNDakriya plays hide and seek with virtually all its notes, with SND being the odd one down (but maybe not out). I have not seen any other raga that does this game with as many notes as guNDakriyA, not even close. Maybe other ragas do this with 1,2 or even three notes, but this is on a different level. This may also be why guNDakriyA in its shloka is described as sampurna.

Indeed guNDakriyA was a mighty raga in those days and this explains its popularity as it lends itself to many possibilities in an era were ragas on record were significantly fewer than today.

This may also be the reason why so many descriptions of guNDakriyA in old texts all vary and some of them include some notes and other texts exclude those notes. Perhaps this raga didn't change as much as I first thought. It may be that actually all these texts may well and truly have in fact described the same raga, but unable to have understood this hide and seek nature of its notes, much in the tradition of the blind men describing the elephant. In fact many organic ragas have become rather simplified and linearized in today's music for the same reason.

Some day I will get a recording of this geetam out.

In the case of such organic ragas like the ones mentioned above, what we have observed from old notations is that composers have taken liberty to include only certain phrases in certain compositions and not others. This goes to the extent that in certain ragas, we have in fact observed that one composer (like Thyagaraja) uses one set of phrases, while another (like Dikshitar or Syama Sastri) uses another set. The same composer may use some phrases in one composition which were eschewed in another composition. This might have been their way of finding an individual expression. I will tell you why I mention this soon enough.

Now coming to the sole kriti of Muthuswami Dikshitar in this rAgA -- rAja rAjEndra chOLa pratishTitam, in this kriti, MD has followed the characteristic lakshaNa of the geetam, but with the exception of the phrase MGS, which is not found in his kriti. With that opening line, I feel this kriti might have been composed on Brhadeeshwara of Gangaikonda Cholapuram, something that struck me more so after I visited the place last week. Thanjavur Brhadeeshwara was by his father Raja Raja Chola - there is a story that the consecration failed after a dispute between the king and the yogi who was supposed to complete it, resulting in the yogi walking out, the deity ultimately being distorted. Even today this is why it is believed the receding energy of that temple will bring bad luck, especially upon rulers. The failure of his father's dream forced Rajendra Chola to try again, hence the reason for the same deities and temple complex at Gangaikondacholapuram. At least this time the prANa pratishta seems to have been successful.

But this kriti does not go into much specific detail unlike many other kshetras where MD is known to have visited.

This kriti is in tisra tripuTa tala, but I was unable to find any rendition of it on the net. All this elaborate theory is woefully incomplete without example. Therefore, for the first time, I've myself decided to take out the SSP and sing it from the book myself. Disclaimer : I make no claims to be a trained vocalist, never having had any dedicated time or space to practice, or even to regularly attend classes, so my voice hasn't improved much since it broke. And I don't see any hopes of becoming pro. And this was recorded with my phone. So go easy on me. But someone has to do it. :mrgreen:

So here is rAja rAjendra chOLa pratishTitam brhadeeshwaram bhajarE in guNDAkriyA, tisra tripuTa tAla.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qNMZOQ ... sp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dse0d4 ... sp=sharing

You will need a gmail account for Drive. Any player can play the .opus format.

Lyrics : http://guru-guha.blogspot.com/2008/05/d ... a.html?m=1

Gamakas are typical of many other 15th mela janya ragas -- plain or mildly flavoured. It is not a heavyweight like a gauri or a modern sAveri, but it weighs up decently in madhyamakala. :ugeek:

Update : I was able to find jnanarnava's rendition on the net, courtesy Carnatic Corner. rAja rajendra is at the 1:34:40 mark.

https://youtu.be/USZlzgpuoiA

I was pleasantly surprised at how accurately my attempt came out in comparison to the pros. I guess I can read those gamaka symbols after all :mrgreen: In that case, I can now attempt other compositions as well. Thanks to Dr. A for guiding me.

Now here's the interesting part -- in the previous post, I had felt that the modern guNDAkriyA might have been a scalar raga which Thyagaraja might have derived from pADi. But curiously, all the phrases of that raga do in fact fit into the original guNDAkriyA, and it could be argued that the modern raga is a scalar version of a small subset of the real guNDAkriyA. You can check out the previous post with all the phrases I put up here and see that the scalar raga is about 1/3rd of the older guNDakriyA. It may very well be that the scalar version was derived from the original guNDAkriyA itself.

In general, for some ragas of the rAgAnga / asampUrna school, the Dikshitar school tries to explore all the phrases possible, while other composers tend to either use or not use all the phrases or have some unique raga phrases of their own. These are individual stylistic variations across composers and in those days, it was only natural to expect more individuality of interpretation than now. This can be seen in ragas like paras, gauri, gurjari, husEni, Sree, vEgavAhini, Ahiri, ghaNTA, vasanta and many others. A raga therefore is fully understood only by studying the works of many composers / schools.

So alternatively, as a response to the question I asked myself at the end of the last post on scalar guNDakriyA, it might also very well be that perhaps Thyagaraja Swamigal, like he has done in the case of many organic ragas (case in point, chAyAtarangiNi, will get back to her soon), chose to present only one set of phrases in a particular way for this composition. If so, then it would not be wrong to call the raga of intanuchu varnimpa as guNDAkriyA, but with the caevat that this raga is more than just what is covered by that one song.

In the modern world of Arohanam avarohanam based scales, guNDakriyA could easily give rise to a rather large family of scalar ragas with different possibilities, but before recklessly doing so, one must pause and reflect that this would be like splitting up the family land amongst the children. In the end, none of the children would ever be as rich as their parent, even if they are extremely capable in their own right. No one could truly make another rAgA like guNDakriyA today even if they tried. The case of intanuchu has already made the world forget the real guNDakriya for a much simplified scale (son of guNDakriyA??) not a third as capable as the original.

If such a thing does happen in the future, at least come up with some original names for those janya ragas and let none of them mislabelled as guNDakriyA themselves. Enough damage has been done.

guNDakriyA is one of the last great surviving feudal age phrase based ragas, and were it not for the efforts of Subbarama Dikshitar, it would have been lost forever, and no one would ever conceive of anything quite like it again.

So with that, we wrap up the story of guNDAkriyA - a very old and mighty rAgA, one whose present form (a straight road with a bend or two) hardly gives us more than a glimpse of the mighty mountain of twisty and mesmerizing hill roads it once was, a favourite of driving enthusiasts. Hopefully the Dikshitar school specialists are reading this and will try to resurrect it to its former glory.
Last edited by SrinathK on 07 Apr 2021, 21:02, edited 29 times in total.

ramakriya
Posts: 1876
Joined: 04 Feb 2010, 02:05

Re: guNDakriyA - Dikshitar

Post by ramakriya »

Your observation about the range is on the dot. I have wondered whether some of the gItas in SSP were meant to be only played on the Veena for the range they cover!

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