Rag: Gauri

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hariharan
Posts: 677
Joined: 14 Apr 2008, 21:57

Post by hariharan »

I heard a Thyagaraja kriti in this rag sung during a Divyanamam bhajan. The rag mostly resembles its parent raga M.M.Gaula, but shines well only when sung in the higher octave. The entire song was also sung in the tara sthayi sancharas, Due to very close similarity to its parent raga, identity of raga is always in doubts. Any information/details on this raga is most welcome in this forum.
Radhekrishna

vijay
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Joined: 27 Feb 2006, 16:06

Post by vijay »

Parrikar - http://www.sawf.org/newedit/edit03052001/musicarts.asp
Apparently there are versions under the Bhairav (MMG), Marwa (Gamanashrama) and Purvi (Kamavardhini) thaats. Characteristic treatment of the Nishadam is apparently what sets in apart according to the article but I agree it sounds very close to MMG.

revanthv552
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Joined: 31 Jan 2008, 22:26

Post by revanthv552 »

There is a bhajan of Sri Ganapathi Sachchidananda in this song It is ambA mAdhyA maha meedE gouri mEka mahameedE....
And there is Gouri girirAjakumAri of Dikshitar in this raga,,,
In Dikshitar's Chaturdasaragamalika Sri Viswanatham the second charanam is in this rAga....

keerthi
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Joined: 12 Oct 2008, 14:10

Post by keerthi »

There is a krthi 'Dhurjati natinchene' in Gauri composed by a certain Dorasamayya. It is notated in the Sampradaya pradarsini. The song was in vogue among the oldies of Mysore state;and was sung by Mutthaiah Bhagavathar in one of the first experts' commitee sessions of the Academy to explain the Ragalakshana .This krthi is supposed to give a definiyive picture of the raga.
Gauri girirajakumari and Sri Minaksi gauri are two compositions of Dikshitar given in the Sangeeta Sampradaya pradarsini.
The Divyanamakeerthana 'Jayajaya sree Raghurama ' is Thyagaraja's longest song with 20+ charanas. There are two versions extant, one each in Mangalakaisika (Balamuralikrishna commercial HMV tape) and the Gauri version, seen in most books.
The ragamalika Amma ninnu neranammithi of chinni krishna dasa (popular with the Andhra singers) has a Gauri line; as does Sree vishvanatham Bhajeham of Dikshitar.

Lakshman
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Joined: 10 Feb 2010, 18:52

Post by Lakshman »

Here is a more complete list of songs in gauri:

Agachcha gachcha me kaivalyam datum-M/Laghu-Upanishad Brahmayogin
Akhilanda devi asura samhari rere (lkg)-Triputa-Venkatamakhi
Are re jaya jaya lakshmi (lng)-Triputa-Govindacharya
Bajat badhayi nagari raghurayi-Adi-Svati Tirunal
Bhaja bhaja manasa-Rupaka-Bangalore S.Mukund
Bho krishna vishva-M/Laghu-Upanishad Brahmayogin
Dhurjati natinchene pradosha samayamunanu-Adi-Pallavi Doraisvami Iyer
Enta tappinchukonevu ivela nivu (p)-Triputa-Shahji Maharaja
Gangadhara gaurivara mangalanga-Rupaka-Vina Sheshanna
Gauri-girirajakumari gana vanamayuri gambhira-T/Eka-Muttusvami Dikshitar
Gauri shivadhangi-Rupaka-R.K.Suryanarayana
Hanta jnanendu cheyvu matpriya sakhiyalla (p)-Rupaka-Svati Tirunal
I bhagyaniki rani vasamenduke niku (p)-Adi-Sarangapani
I shrushtilo- -Sriramachandra Murti Sistla
Jaya jaya shri raghurama sajjana hrdayarnava-Adi-Tyagaraja
Jaya jaya vishvesha pranayini (pr)-Dhruva-Ramananda Yatindra
Jaya mangalam nitya shubhamangalam/mangalam (tar)-Jhampa-Narayana Tirtha
Kaniya helabande-Adi-Kanakadasa
Mangalam chitsabha nathaya shambhave mangalam-Jhampa-?
Momu jupaga rada muddugaru nidu-Adi-Vinai Kuppier
Nennannani-Rupaka-Anai Ayya
Nerama komma vadenduke chera radamma (p)-Triputa-Kshetragna
Pahi lokaysa- -Sriramachandra Murti Sistla
Ri rere purna kusumalate lilagate (lkg)-Triputa-Venkatamakhi
Sarasa dala sunayana sarasaku-Adi-Svati Tirunal
Sayyen na ye kan shrihari (p)-Adi-Tanjavur Marattha Composers
Shankara shri giri natha prabhuke nrutta- -Svati Tirunal
Shri minakshi gauri raja shyamale ashrita rakshana-Rupaka-Muttusvami Dikshitar
Shri virupaksha chikshitadaksha-K/Chapu-Muttiah Bhagavatar
Sukavani gauri-Adi-Bangalore S.Mukund
Tenil iniyane-Rupaka-Nerur Shrinivasachar
Varunda vagai en mana tamarai- -Abhirami Bhattar

coolkarni
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Joined: 22 Nov 2007, 06:42

Post by coolkarni »


hariharan
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Joined: 14 Apr 2008, 21:57

Post by hariharan »

Is there any stipulation that this rag to be sung only in the higher octaves? Can it be sung in the Madhyama Sruthi?

keerthi
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Joined: 12 Oct 2008, 14:10

Post by keerthi »

There is no rule. It is a Shadja graha-amsa-nyasa raga. It shouldn't go beyond Tara Madhyama. Singing in madhyama shruti won't make sense/ be possible, as it circulates mostly in the Madhya sthayi.

arasi
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Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Post by arasi »

Cool,
Very enjoyable.

coolkarni
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Joined: 22 Nov 2007, 06:42

Post by coolkarni »

..
Last edited by coolkarni on 29 Nov 2009, 09:49, edited 1 time in total.

hariharan
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Joined: 14 Apr 2008, 21:57

Post by hariharan »

Thanks to all for the details on this raga.
Radhe krishna

arasi
Posts: 16774
Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Post by arasi »

Cool,
You are kind. Yet, you over-estimate my capabilities! A vasantakokilam can play in dayAvati. Nandagopal knows much much more than I do! Ramaraj has approached many exotic rAgAs. My ASu kavis are only of a trivial kind ;) Let us not forget the other young scholar composer who is classical to the core in his sanskrit compositions!
And CML. He combines erudition with expression. And Arun! Some day, he may bring us his songs. Ramakriya as well.
My songs just happen to hover around, and once in a while, I happen to spot them and make them my own :)

SrinathK
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Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: Rag: Gauri

Post by SrinathK »

So a thread on gauri already exists. Good. It's high time for her to make her return to Carnatic Music for real.

But before I get talking serious on the history, raga lakshanas and phrases and compositions in gauri, I must warn you. I am not yet done with the joke purAnam starting from the story of gauLipantu. So let us just get that mega serial to a good ending first. :mrgreen: :lol:

Continued next post...

SrinathK
Posts: 2477
Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: Rag: Gauri

Post by SrinathK »

"I am waiting for gauri to come clad in a white silk saree" was a statement made by Dr. A when he and I were having a conversation on this rAgA. When he said this though, he meant gauri in royal robes making a grand regal entry back to her home of CM, but to me that meant something else altogether...

For those who knew gauri knew she had been an equally capable, maybe even a more capable rAgA than her husband. She had a vaster history. Before marriage, she had been a princess of melakarta stature. Ramanada Yati had offered a rich prabhandam in tribute to her Highness at Kashi. Later on the ambitious mAyAmALavagauLa, with the power of his trusty scale, usurped the throne for himself, in the process, forcibly robbing his rowdy phrase distinguished brothers and sisters of their lands of phrases and opportunities at scale-point, sending many of them into poverty, ultimately reducing them to unknowns. gauri however kept her royal status as one of the old ones. But mAyAmALavagauLa, in exchange, took away a portion of her wealth. Not stopping at that, he eventually altered the whole culture and demographic of the music kingdom and overhauled the educational system too. In this new country, the past was a footnote in a manuscript and gauri began to be seen as a beautiful foreign girl in mAyamALavagauLa land. Still, she was well off.

But marriage and the subsequent turn of events, changed all that. 19th century life was not the luxurious abundance of today and married women had enough responsibilities at home to keep them engaged. And when it was not that or society, there was always the husband and his orders to deal with. So as gauri stayed home, the music world began to ignore her and increasingly turn toward her younger sister - sAvEri (!), when they wanted to be deeply moved. Even her brother gaura (or as we know him, gauLa) become one of the big 5 of ragas, used for prayers to ganEsha and being blessed to be a part of both the great saptaratna and pancharatna kritis.

gauri didn't mind this at first. She was still respected and occasionally sung. She was also capable of singing many of the heart melting phrases that people recognized in sAvEri. She was also a nervous girl. If made to dance too much, or made to wear excessive gamaka jewellery before the public, she'd get nervous and tremble all over. She could of course look magnificent with them. But the best part was that you could totally sing her plainly dressed and still look absolutely perfect. So not one to actively seek the stage unlike say, a kalyANi, gauri stayed satisfied. Thyagaraja and Dikshitar revered her, Swati Tirunal from Kerala gifted her with some beautiful while Kerala silk sarees, and she felt in due course, her time would come.

Then came the betrayal of gauDipantu like a bolt from the blue. Well, he wasn't entirely to blame, left to himself he wouldn't have dreamt of such a thing. It was that apsara, kAmavardhini and the prati madhyama group that planned his falldown and conversion to poach him for themselves. At first the story was that gauri packed up and left for good, never to be seen again. But that wasn't all of it. See, when gauri found out about the affair, she was heartbroken and decided to return to her brother's house for a while, needing some space. In the meantime, word spread like wildfire and mAyAmALavagauLa banished him from his country for his act of betrayal and to make sure no one else in the shuddha madhyama katchi would accept him, gauDipantu was also ordered to surrender his M1. gauri eventually came back - to an empty house and lost family honour.

What was worse however was the attitude of the rest of the society, who outwardly preached moral science and virtues, but behind the scenes, proved themselves to be petty hypocrites of an insidious kind. They looked at her suspiciously, pitifully, treated her like those unfortunate young widows of the past, avoided her presence and refused to invite her for any social functions, and liberally indulged in dirty gossip about her. At the point where she needed them to help her cope and give her support, they began to consider her as an unfortunate, even inauspicious woman. Some rumours even began to spread that gauri's hot tempered kAkali (or should I say, bhadrakALi) nishAdam had resulted in marital quarrel and unhappiness and resulted in gauDipantu leaving his home for a woman who gave him what he needed.

The same people also sought sAvEri out much more now. They liked her because she was young, meditative and soft in expression (and also because she wasn't married, but I digress :mrgreen:). sAvEri also had a simpler, more approachable personality and an agile form with natural reach. She had to grow up and deal with all that popularity and ended up shedding her weaker nishAdam and gAndhAram for the stronger ones to handle the workload. sAvEri went on to become one of the great ragas in CM, with none failing to give her generous offerings. gauri however was not permitted to appear in public. The last, most humiliating straw on the camel's back was when she was asked to wear that dreaded white sAri of widowhood, shave her head and renounce her mangaLa-sutra by the tribe that considered gauDipantu as dead to them.

That was just too much for poor gauri. She went to the only place where she still had support, the family of Muthuswami Dikshitar, and despite their promises to help her recover her honour, like Sati had given up her body over grief of dishonour in the house of Daksha, gauri, dissolved her physical presence through the power of yoga and became an unmanifest spirit to the world. Muthuswami Dikshitar arranged for her to appear from time to time at Kashi Vishwanatha Temple when his great chaturdasha rAgamAlika was sung. Musicians and musicologists searched her out in Kashi, but the bit of gauri that they saw there was a brief translucent apparition, a brief glimpse of her form, far from the once glorious girl she once was, and far too brief to know her in any great detail.

Clearly the trips to Kashi had not yielded results. Then some of us came to know that there was a gauri-kuTumbham of rAgAs in the Punjab, in the Golden Temple of Amritsar, embodied and preserved by the Guru Granth Sahib. When we went there, we ended up finding an entire tribe of gauris - all relatives of our gauri. But our lady gauri, the one we wanted, wasn't among them. And they hadn't heard of her either. Another dead end.

One last hope lay with the Dikshitar family. Surely they would have done something to preserve her honor. Maybe there was some way to bring her back. After many prayers, we were blessed with a darshan of Subbarama Dikshitar who gave us the SSP, in which the mantras and phrases for invoking and reviving gauri were present. One song would bring gauri back in Madurai as meenAkshi and the other would give her a proper navAvarna pUja worth of offering where she'd sit proudly on her throne of meru. He also gave us the jewels that Ramanada Yati had gifted her that spoke of her older glories. We were delighted that gauri had been preserved as she had been when she vanished from the world, but we also we got to know more of who gauri was before the imperial annexation of mAyamALavagauLa began. One good thing that happened inadvertently as a result of her disappearance was that musicians forgot about her and so failed to tamper with her form and nature in all the ways they did with so many other ragas and compositions. Therefore we could resurrect her in her pristine glory.

The songs were sung, and instantly gauri reappeared back in her original glory as she had been almost a hundred and fifty years ago. She was a magnificent presence, everything we had imagined about her, and then more. But she was even more shy and nervous as times had changed, and CM was in an era where every raga seemed ever more eager to decorate themselves with more and more jewellery, the quantity often surpassing their actual bodyweight. These ragas also didn't seem to be able to take a single step without shaking every part of their body from head to toe in myriad ways. Some had even taken up athletics seriously and did Usain bolt sprints and body bending twisting tumbling gymnastics at the first opportunity. Some even danced to rock music with all sorts of special effects and break dances in modern denim and western fashions, pure ear shattering power and pyrotechnical wizardry dominating far more than aesthetic grace. But all the knowledgeable musicians assured her she'd be quite fine naturally - both simply and richly decorated.

Not only that, the current era was one of women's empowerment and recognition, and it was high time for gauri to be welcomed back with the respect she deserved. And then the most important development. We also told her that just a few days back, gauDipantu had returned in his original form to be welcomed back to his old house and all has been forgiven and forgotten and that the new society was far more kind and understanding and supportive. Also the kriti that was taken from her would become hers once more.

That was when she agreed to appear here. In the next post, gauri will make her grand entry like Mylapore's karpagAmbAL on Kapaleeswarar temple's bramhOtsavam day, dressed in royal robes and decorated with beautiful ornaments and flowers! Welcome back gauri! Show this world that you are as capable as your younger sister sAvEri and then some more. Let them know your unique greatness! May you become an example of the good of women's reempowerment in the land that still worships the divine feminine! :lol:

The happy ending of this self manufactured parody of a harikatha style story owes it all to the great Su-Ra, Subbarama Dikshitar and those who supported him, without whom this would not be possible and gauri would have forever been lost to this world. He single handedly saved an entire tradition of ragas and a parampara's wealth from extinction. Obeisances!

rajeshnat
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Re: Rag: Gauri

Post by rajeshnat »

srinath
No wonder you are from umayalapuram tradition .It is almost harikatha in english that TS Balakrishna sastrigal will even fel thrilled to hear. Just a caution gauri may be caught in the traffic jam ask her to come in uber to mylapore if she by any chance drives her own vehicle and tries to find parking thats it for gauri. I am entering the forum after 5 day absence . YOu are rocking!!!!

SrinathK
Posts: 2477
Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: Rag: Gauri

Post by SrinathK »

At last, back to where I left off... now no more crazy plots and scripts, we're going to get into the raga seriously this time. So to start with we're going to look at a brief history of rAga gauri.

Raga Gauri - the Old and the Ancient

Gauri has been around since the oldest traces of what now exists as Carnatic Music. The journey of this raga goes back to the Sangam period. One article by the Tamil Isai Sangam about research into paNNs suggests that gauri existed long back as a pann by the name of kaudi (http://tamilisaisangam.in/en/tamil-pann-research.php). Another work called the Pancha marabu, written before the 1st century, mentions 103 panns, in which gauri is classified under paNNs meant for Aryas (a north Indian origin??). https://tamizisai.weebly.com/about-pans.html

I could not find more information about gauri as a paNN. After that it's fast forward 14 centuries to the origins of the mEla system, where rAgAs first began to get grouped based on similar notes and characteristics. In the old raga-rAgini classification system, gauri seems to have existed as a rAgini. The first attempt at classifying ragas into melas was by Vidyaranya who came up with 15 melas, followed by Ramamatya and Pundarika Vitthala and many others, all the way down to Venkatamakhi in the 17th century, who came up with 19 mElas. (https://sg.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10 ... er%208.pdf). These old mEla ragas were not like today's sampUrna melas, they were just the most important raga among that group and so the other ragas were placed under them.

In these texts of these authors, various versions of gauri (or Gaudi or even gauLa) appears as one of the original mEla ragas. While there are differences in the versions, it looks like the positions of the notes (R1 G3 M1 D1 and N3) were fixed. These forms of rAgA gauri occupied the position what mAyAmALavagauLa holds today in the modern sampUrna and asampUrna mEla systems. From their similar characteristic phrases the ragas gauri, gauLipantu and gauLa (and maybe even mAyAmALava gauLa) all seem to have common ancestry.

More clarifications and elaborations of ancient forms of the gauri / gauLa family of ragas are best left to musicologists to break their heads over and piece together the timeline.

After that, we know that the raga gauri continued to keep evolving and making the rounds until the time of the CM Holy Trinity, by which time it's lakshanas in CM had mostly stabilized. I could not find it in the list of Annamacharya's ragas from TTD (at least so far). We know that Dikshitar has composed in it, Thyagaraja has composed his lyrically biggest divyanama keertana in gauri and even Swati Tirunal seems to have composed in it. After this point, for some reason, the music world seemed to have suddenly given up on gauri altogether. In a short span of time, the rAgA virtually ceased to be heard in performances, except in Dikshitar's Sri vishwanatham bhajeham, and that too, probably because it is a necessary part of the rAgAmAlika. Post trinity, what we have today is plenty of sAvEri, mAyAmALavagauLa, gauLa and pratimadhyama gauLipantu, but no one IMHO is really singing gauri anymore.

This should have rendered gauri extinct by now. Fortunately, we still know about this raga's existence and phrases only because of the Sangeetha Sampradaya Pradarshini, which preserved details of the prayogas and lakshanas of gauri as it was during Dikshitar's period. In the SSP there is also the notation of a prabandha by Ramananda Yati, which is an older version of gauri that is closer to mAyAmALavagauLa and old gauLipantu in phrases, which hints at the times where it was once a mElA raga. That Subbarama Dikshitar has taken care to preserve this older version with its archaic phrases intact is remarkable.

One more resource is the manuscripts of versions of Thyagaraja's kritis where his gauri divyanama keertanam is available.

Also an older, and surprising source for gauri comes from up North in (wait for it) the Guru Granth Sahib, which interestingly mentions like 10 (!) versions of gauri, all with different suffixes like Gauri Cheti, Gauri Bairagan, Gauri Dipaki, Gauri Purbi-Dipaki, Gauri Guareri, Gauri-Majh, Gauri Malava, Gauri Mala, Gauri Sorath, Gauri Dakhani.

However, there is one version in the Guru Granth Sahib whose lakshana is a proper equivalent to gauri of Carnatic Music. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragas_in_ ... anth_Sahib)

So in the next post, I'll discuss the phrases and compositions in gauri. This was a raga with a long and interesting past, a wide geographical reach, and many versions, and IMHO it is totally worth studying a summary of its history before getting into the music.
Last edited by SrinathK on 29 Mar 2020, 21:30, edited 2 times in total.

SrinathK
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Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: Rag: Gauri

Post by SrinathK »

Raga Gauri - Part 2

In the Sangeeta Sampradaya Pradarshini, gauri is described as a bhAshAnga rAgA of mela 15, despite the fact that it does not actually use any foreign notes. This usage of the term bhashaga indicates that the raga probably entered into CM from elsewhere. Gauri is a complex raga, to be understood from the phrases than any model of arohanam and avarohanam.

In the murchana, the ascending and descending sequence are given as one thing, but the actual phrases of the raga do not follow it at all (which is actually typical or a lot of SSP era ragas). For e.g. the murchana in the ascent is given as S R1 M1 P D1 N3 S, but actually the version of gauri used in Carnatic Music does not use D that way any more. (Note : There is a version of gauri in the Guru Granth Sahib that does use it that way though). And the descending phrases are more complicated.

Let's first talk about one of the old archaic versions of this rAgA - namely in the prabhandam of Ramananda Yati, jaya jaya vishvEsha praNayini. The opening line starts with dpmgr pmg, mgrs grsnd, nsrs n,r, . After that some key phrases (from random snapshots across the compostion) are : ssrggmg gmp-rmpn srrs -- then elsewhere dpdn,dp - pdpmgr, - srpr grrs - sns - pdps - rpmgrs. Then we also have pdSndp, drsr, sndm, mddmp - srgrr, gmpmgr mgrs and even rmpS, SndnSR-SnS - SMGMGRS - RSnd pdS and dndpm. Then mrmpd, pdndp and mgrgmp, dpdns, and more extreme ones like pprrpp, rgmggr, SRndp, grsnd, and nsrs.

This means this archaic version of gauri is much closer to mAyAmALavagauLa and resembles some combination of MMG with old shuddha madhyama gauDipantu, and there are other multiple ascending sequences like pdS and pdnS. It seems to come from an era where there were far fewer ragas, and therefore ragas had greater room to be distinguished by phrases of various possibilities - perhaps so wide was the space available that ragas might have only been distinguished by what notes they used and some key phrases and multiple possibilities, a set of which could have been unique to a raga. Ragas would have distinguished themselves through swara patterns rather than gamakas. Clearly this gauri was older than mAyAmALavagauLa which was just a linear scale during the time of Purandaradasa and all, but over time MMG has grown to dominate the landscape of this mEla.

No raga can exist like this in the modern era anymore. Archaic gauri would be 3 different and distinct ragas today - and maybe that is indeed what happened. This also indicates a complete change in the approach to a raga over time. Before the mAyAmAlavagauLa era, the old mela school ragas eventually attained their unique identities by having select key phrases that were in turn not allowed to be used by other ragas - the janya ragas of mela 15 even today are a case in point. I'd call this the feudal age of ragas - ragas had their own little "lands" that they owned.

Over time as the number of ragas grew, ragas began to avoid the "set of multiple possibilities" approach and go more for unique phrases and gamakas, extra notes, how far they covered the 3 octaves, etc.. These ragas went for a more organic approach. From the time of Annamacharya (who used around 90 of these ragas) to about the time the SSP was written (when an additional 53 asampUrma mElas and another 50 organic ragas raised the total number of ragas in Vogue to around 190-200), these ragas had been around with fairly stable lakshanas (and most of them are in fact covered in the SSP).

After mAyAmAlavagauLa came along the scene since Puramdaradasa popularized the basic varsais in it, the very approach to music study and ragas began to change. Suddenly it became possible for almost every raga right from the basic varsais onwards to use arohanam and avarohanam, janTas, zig zag dhATTus, phrases connecting far away notes and sequential patterns. This widened the possibilities for ragas to expand their range of phrases.

This change was slow at first, where new ragas came up by organic and non-scalar possibilities, but as scalar ragas began to become more popular, it completely and rapidly changed the raga landscape.

In fact such was the impact that mAyAmALavagauLa had on banishing most of his "rowdy" Swara phrase based brothers ( :mrgreen: ) into obscurity with this new approach to ragas, that even till date, most of the numerous janya rAgAs (almost 60 of them) under the 15th mEla have hardly ever come to the limelight again. Essentially the 15th mEla went from a place where ragas had their own pools of phrases to a place where a few ragas with greater scope essentially ate up the entire phrase pool and only ragas that could sufficiently distinguish themselves through their scales could stand out. The rest of the rare janya ragas became an example of an "overpopulation" problem where their scope was drastically restricted by the greater possibilities that were made available to the major ragas of mEla 15. In fact this went to the extent where some of these janya ragas even became redundant. An example of this is modern gurjari (I'll save this story for the day I write about gurjari).

In the long run, by the 17th century MMG's scalar and patterned approach to raga phrases might have paved the way for the 72 mElakartas to become the rulers of the raga world. This then went one step even further once the 72 mElakarta systems appeared. Ragas had begun to distinguish themselves through unique arohanams and avarohanams -- first the asampUrna scale focused more on non-linear phrases to differentiate the ragas, and eventually the scalar approach began to supersede both the older paradigms. Suddenly it became possible to mass manufacture ragas by just different scale variations and by the 19th century the Arohnam Avarohanam scalar approach began to dominate over the older organic, slowly evolving phrase based ragas.

The best example of the bridge between the old organic tradition vs the newer scalar tradition is none other than Thyagaraja himself. It was Thyagaraja who kick started the modern style of using scalar ragas (his apoorva ragas), and popularizing the sampUrna mElas while adhering to the old lakshanas for the older ragas and the ragas of the asampUrna school as well.

As an example of how the changing raga paradigms led to an explosion of new ragas, initially Vidyaranya had covered 19 mela ragas and 51 janya ragas for a grand total of 70 ragas. In the 14th century, Annamacharya used around 90 ragas total (including some regional ragas) for over 14 thousand compositions so far found on copper plates. By the time Muthuswami Dikshitar was composing in the 19th century, as per SSP, 191 ragas are covered in the main book (147 shuddha madhyama and only 44 prati madhyama) and a few more variations in the Appendix, so we could take this as around the 200 mark.

Today, in just 170 years post Trinity era, I think there are over 800 ragas being used in Carnatic Music (including old and new as well as different variants of a raga) and that number is increasing as ragas are imported from other systems of music and musicians keep coming up with new ragas from time to time. If you take D Pattammal's Raga Pravaham as a reference, the total number of scales known via treatises, texts and current practices is over 4000. No new organic ragas have ever been created since the Trinity era. A computer program could generate raga scales en masse. This alone should tell how just what kind of impact the scalar approach to ragas has had, in such a short time.

Vestiges of the older traditions however do survive in today's ragas like aTHANA, reetigauLa, and yes, gauri.

So clearly archaic gauri belonged to another era. Now let's come to THE gauri, the version of the Trinity era, and the version that is still most relevant to CM today.

(To be continued....)

PS : As for the Post Trinity period, don't ask -- to call the late 19th century to the mid 20th century as the age of confusion and changes wouldn't do it justice. It is like comparing the subcontinent of the kings and empires to modern democratic India -- the maps have been totally redrawn. I said that Thyagaraja was a bridge between the old and new traditions of ragas, but since then nobody has had that kind of knowledge or ability to balance both traditions as he did. Post trinity, the see saw just tilted completely to the modern end and most compositions also have been retuned to contemporary sensibilities. When I am done with my raga essays, you will see for yourself that everything you call as Carnatic Music tradition is actually a completely new set of developments starting from the Post Trinity Dark Ages and culminating in the 20th century, where only because of the rise of musicology and recordings, the modern tradition has finally stabilized, and some parts of the old school are present here and there. Otherwise at one point it was almost every musician for themselves!
Last edited by SrinathK on 29 Mar 2020, 23:54, edited 14 times in total.

SrinathK
Posts: 2477
Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: Rag: Gauri

Post by SrinathK »

Raga Gauri - Part 3.

Before coming to the Sampradaya pradarshini's description of gauri's current avatar, there is a version of the rAgA gauri in the guru granth sahib, which, if this article is correct, is closest to the SSP gauri. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauri_(raga)

GGS Gauri :
Aro : S R1 G3 R1 M1 P N3 S
Avaro : S N3 (D1 M1 P), D1 P M1 G3, G3 R1 S N3 S -- As we shall see below, this is a surprisingly good effort.

While if you look up the typical arohanam avarohanam for gauri, you will usually find this
Aro : S R1 M1 P N3 S
Avaro : S N3 D1 P M1 G3 R1 S -- This is very basic and doesn't cover the complex phrases of gauri.

Now let's come to the SSP description of gauri.

First starting with the basic notes and simplest phrases. The first significant note is kakali nishadam (N3). In gauri, N3 stands distinct. It is mostly sung plain, or with some amount of kampita. By far it is used as a double note with janTa in the phrase SNN, SNNS and PNNS and sometimes as a triple note NNN,. This one phrase is so significant one can instantly identify gauri just from this phrase alone. Of course both PNS and SNS are used. The nokku gamaka (N as NSN) comes in phrases starting from N like NSR, which adds weight to the N3.

Next up R1. R1 can be handled in a variety of ways in gauri. It can be sung plain. It can be extended with kampita - either a downward kampita starting from R1 or an upward kampita from S (ala sAvEri style, but sAvEri cannot do a plain R1 like gauri), or as a descending jharu (slide) in GR and PR. It is also used as a double or triple note and sometimes entire lines in compositions like R,RR,RRR R,. - so that automatically means GRR is another significant phrase. The slide from P-R1 is a very important phrase in this raga. Between N3 and R1, gauri is a rather hot tempered raga in bhava. :)

Then M1. M1 can be sung plain (especially when extended), with swasthana kampita (oscillating between M and G3) or can be sung with a big arching glissando in SRMP starting from R1, going up to P and coming back down to M1 or also with nokku gamaka (MPM)P in the phrase MP.

The phrase MPR, as used in RMP-R or SRMP-R is gauri's signature phrase (this phrase also belongs to sAvEri) - in fact Muthuswami Dikshitar considers this phrase so important that in both his compositions in gauri, the rAga mudra gauri comes in this very phrase. Then by extension, RPM, RPMP and SR-P-R are possible. In RPM, the phrase just touches short of P(chyuta panchamam)

Next comes gauri's first non-scalar phrase. RGR, or SRGR. This can be plain, or with a graceful slide up and down on the RGR. Again this phrase combined with SRMP has been used very often. SRGR,SRM,P, or SRGR SNN,S - SRMP-R or even SRPMR, GRSNNS,

The next phrase is the descending DPMGR. Using the odukkal gamaka, this part of gauri sounds exactly like it does in today's sAvEri. And that also means PDMGR is possible and even SRPMGR (note the phrase PDM, ending on M actually belongs to gauLipantu) Now old savEri FYI used mostly N2 and G2 (sadharana varieties), so this phrase that we all identify and woo over in sAvEri today is actually gauri's !!

Gauri can also link to this phrase from M1 - M-DPMGR and this is a favoured ending phrase and MDP is possible. Also MPDP, PDPMGR and rarely DMP (with a shake on M), DMPR are also possible. Of course, the linear SRMPDPMGR is there.

Because of this, a very important phrase, MGM-DPMGR is possible in gauri - this phrase is unique to gauri and Dikshitar has used it a lot for endings. Gauri can do MGM, even MGM-PMGR (though here it touches a chyuta panchamam) and even stop on the G, something that saveri can't do. And there is a phrase DMG-M,DPMGR in one Dikshitar kriti.

S-M is rare, but possible, and it is linked back to the DPMGR descent. Very rarely, a S-G is possible and Dikshitar has used SRS-G-MDPMGR at one place in the kriti Sri meenAkshi.

After P, things get interesting on the way to S. PNS, PNNS, PSNS, PRS, PSNNS, DPSNS, and also rarely PDPS (NS) (an old phrase) are all possible. Curiously I have only seen the phrase PDP-NS in the gauri geetham, not in the kritis, though it should be possible. However this phrase, PDPN, and PDPNS is really owned by the raga pADi, and given that the janyas of MMG still follow their old phrase based boundaries, I don't really expect to see it coming in gauri. Similarly the geethams contain some archaic phrases like PDNS which is not seen anywhere else - proof gauri has been an evolving raga for quite a while.

Beyond S, gauri doesn't go all the way up to the upper P in the compositions, although there is no stipulation that it can't or shouldn't. It goes up to G in RGRS in all the compositions in the SSP, and even in the notated raga phrases by Subbarama Dikshitar. Similarly it doesn't appear to explore the lower octave much either, stopping with SNNS. D1 can appear virtually by way of janTa (and it does appear once in the opening line of the kriti gauri girirAjakumAri), but it doesn't look like gauri wants to go down lower. However I have been told that the divyanama keertanam of Thyagaraja goes down to D1. And there is a good reason for this.

Because the descending phrases from S in gauri are the most interesting ones. One is where a phrase stops at S and then followed by DPMGR (e.g. RGRS-dpmgr), often with an ascending slide on D to highlight the discontinuity (e.g. Sri vishwanAtham bhajEham). But Dikshitar's favourite ending has got to be S->M,DPMGR or S-M,PDM(P)GR and especially S-M,-MG-MDPMGR with the downward slide from upper S->M acting as a particularly moving phrase in gauri. This is a signature phrase.

SNDP is very rare or not used at all (despite it appearing in the avarohanam, gauri is indeed highly non-linear). At one place on the guruguha mudra in Sri meenAkshi, Dikshitar has used a rare RND-P,DP M(P) G. But otherwise, a linear descent is seldom seen in the Dikshitar school. Note though, the phrase MPG is not used in gauri, P was just virtually there in the gamaka.

This preference for non-linear descending phrases may be deliberate. Using SNDP frequently causes gauri to overlap with old gauLipantu. In fact NDPNS or DPNS is more associated with gauLipantu than gauri. However other composers like Pallavi Dorasamyayya have used SNDPM (the SSP version of dhurjati nenenchene shows it in one place only). Someone using gauri's favoured ending phrases in the lower octave will have no choice but to go down to the lower S, so this would mean lower octave exploration is better suited for instrumental music.

Another reason for not really exploring the lower octave is that going down to the lower P and M and coming back up is actually old gauLipantu's trademark. Particularly in the janyas of mAyAmALavagauLa, the Dikshitar school has taken great care to avoid ragas treading on each other's fields. gauLipantu also uses the phrase PDM, and PDMP and it also uses PDMPGRS, but the Dikshitar school handles this differently from gauri, not as soft with all those orikkais, but like mAyamALavagauLa, straight and direct, more masculine may I say?

In the 1939 journal of the Music Academy, Pallavi Doraisamyayya's composition is notated as being in gauri, which I did go through. However apart from PNNS and SNNS and extended RRR passages, the raga phrases resemble old gauDipantu of the Dikshitar school far more than gauri. The fact that old gauDipantu also uses NN and SNNS (IMHO this is a major area of overlap with gauri) ought probably explains why the current version of dhurjati is being sung in modern gauLipantu with prati madhyamam.

This is why the SSP phrases in gauri are of such key importance. It may be that the early 20th century attempts to fit ragas into melas with arohanam and avarohanam resulted in gauLipantu essentially sidelining gauri out of the scene. And then somewhere gauLipantu turned into a prati-madhyama raga and sAvEri in turn started exclusively using N3 and G3, taking the place of gauri on the CM stage. Old savEri was indeed quite a bit different because of using N2 and G2, and as I have already shown, many phrases in savEri today are actually gauri's.

And now, after this exhaustive treatment of phrases in gauri, we finally, finally come to the compositions. There is a geetam in gauri, with some archaic phrases from the prabandham days like DPNDP and DNDP (these phrases now belong to gauLipantu, not gauri). It suggests that perhaps at one point in history, gauri and gauLipantu were probably one raga (archaic) and seem to have gone their separate ways over time.

The first kriti by Muthuswami Dikshitar is Sri meenAkshi gauri in old rupaka (2+4), sung by Dr. T R Aravindhan :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUlFTP10c_k - pay attention to those old phrases and the gamaka variation possible on the notes. If you keep hearing sAvEri at DPMGR, well, now you know why. The kriti has 2 chittaswarams as well.

The second kriti is a big one, gauri girirAjakumAri. This one is sung by Sumithra Vasudev (More modern style, with some more gamaka on usually plain notes, but note for note it is faithful to the SSP).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvoEBnOTp-I

I hope Dr. A will also revisit gauri with his renditions of gauri girirAjakumari and dhurjati at some point. Unfortunately I haven't found a rendition of dhurjati that is faithful to the SSP or even sung in gauri for that matter.

Of course, there's gauri in Sri vishwanatham bhajeham. Here's an elaborate rendition by TM Krishna, with a brief alapana of gauri at around the 2-3 min mark : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPLyGjXcSkU&t=627s

The divyanama keertanam of Thyagaraja in gauri is available in the Walajapettai manuscripts. I have heard from Dr. Aravindhan that for this keertanam the range of the raga is just between lower D1 and middle M1, but the phrases are consistently those of gauri. I'll wait for it. Unfortunately I couldn't find the composition(s) of Swati Tirunal in gauri either.
Last edited by SrinathK on 30 Mar 2020, 08:31, edited 5 times in total.

SrinathK
Posts: 2477
Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: Rag: Gauri

Post by SrinathK »

Finally my own personal thoughts (damn that 10000 character limit, I wanted this to be one post) - gauri IMHO has probably even more potential for elaboration than sAvEri and gauLa because of it's possibilities, but Dikshitar did it best and adapting his style to the present day linear, flowing, brigha laden alapana style will be the challenge. This raga has to be sung patiently and probably expands more through the kritis. Nevertheless some musician with a vast imagination could very well surprise me as to just what one could do in gauri.

It is sad that a majestic raga like gauri has literally been forgotten by the CM world. Even on Dikshitar day events, people just talk about it, but I haven't heard anyone sing gauri yet. Hopefully the CM world wakes up and gives gauri her due.

And now that you know this, do go back and read my scripted parody of the story of gauri and gauLipantu and you'll see where I've put in all the hints about the lakshanas of this raga as well as the references to actual history in it. I don't think I'll be able to do that for any other raga again. :mrgreen:

cienu
Posts: 2387
Joined: 04 Feb 2010, 11:40

Re: Rag: Gauri

Post by cienu »

@SrinathK
What a masterpiece on Gauri.
What a majestic Raga which certainly deserves more attention.
Your essay of 3 to 4 parts had everything that a reader could wish for. Racy, poignant, Thrilling and emotive..
Keep them coming Srinath. You are indeed an asset to Rasikas

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