srkris wrote:DRS, the ragamudra for this song is "shuddha mukhari", then how come dikshitar uses both references - kanakAmbari and shuddha mukhAri, in his compositions if they are the same?
I see we are not still done with kanakAngu arrr... kanakAmbari
Few observations here.
mukhAri is the name given to the first mELa, since at least kallinAtha's time ( 14th century). However, whether it is same as the current first mELa ( even though venkatamakhi, rAmAmAtya claim so), is somewhat doubted by musicologists, who think the mukhAri which was the fist mELa was probably related to the shaDja grAMa, and probably closer to the current mukhAri, than a rAGa with R1,G1,M1,D1 and N1. Or, ther
Whoever started framing new mELas as per Venkatamakhi's system chose kanakAmbari as the name to the first mELa, to fit the katapayAdi scheme. There also might have been another rAGa at the same time called mukhAri or shuddha mukhAri, with similar structure - So shuddha mukhAri could have been made a janya of kanakAmbari; And to keep it distinct, some new feature might have been applied to kanakAmbari - the new mELa no 1.
SSP give a clue between shuddha mukhAri and kanakAmbari.
The lakshaANa shOka for kanakAmbari is
kanakAmbari rAgah syAt ArOhE gani varjitah
nivakrah sArvakAleshu gIyate gAyakottamaih
(KanakAmbari rAga is devoid of ga and ni in ArOha. Sung by eminent musicians at all times of the day it has
ni vakra
The shlOka for (shuddha) mukhAri is
mukhAryAkyasya rAgasya ArOhE gani varjitah
saMpUrNah sagrahOpEtah sarvakAlEshu gIyatE
(The rAga named mukhAri skips ga and ni in ArOha. It is a sampUrNa rAga having sa as graha. Can be sung always.
(Incidentally, the shlOka given for the (popular) mukhAri in mELa 22 is almost exactly the same!
We can see that ni vakratva is mentioned only in kanakAmbari - and it could have been a distinguishing feature. It may have been artificially put in there too to create a new mELa kanakAmbari, different from an existing (shuddha) mukhAri.
I saw some ni vakra prayogas in the sancharas given in SSP for kanakAmbari. I have not shuddha mukhAri sanchAras given there carefully to see that this could be a distingusing feature in practice.
Hmm. Some errors do creep in into treatises. What I would like you and others to do is to listen to kanakAmbari and SuddhamukhAri and tell if you can discern any difference. Forget about rAga names for now.
One thing I noticed in 'muraharENa mukundEna', particularly in the kalpanA swara part, the artist has used avrOhaNa prayOgas lot more than the arOhaNa prayogas. Wonder why so?
-Ramakriya