I read in this forum that the sanskrit original of the Boat stuff
P Sambamoorthy has himself stated that the Samaskrita version was written later while the Telugu was Thyagaraja's. This is well known. Please do not suggest that the sanskrit was the original. In fact Thyagaraja has mentioned the name of his guru in his work. Though we should look into whether there was any particular reason to compose a sanskrit version.
Sambamoorthy's statement says that the Pothana Bhagavatam manuscript of Thyagaraja was written in Venkataramana Bhagavatar's handwriting because it matched with his handwriting elsewhere. He did not say that Venkataramana Bhagavatar was the actual author of the work. Bammera Potana (1450–1510) was the original author of the Pothana Bhagavatam. It is known as the "Andhra Bhagavatam" and TTD has released it also.
Further, P Sambamoorthy has also tried his best to authentically date each work by examining things as fine as the type of paper on which they were published.
Your claim that SSP didn't mention it can't be taken as a valid point. I have now gone through that part. It did not mention prahlada bhakta vijayam either. Half the songs in that aren't being sung either even now, so? Making nATakas has been a very prevalent pastime of Vaishnava Sampradayas. I am aware of old traditions of nATakas which were performed in Bhagavata festivals across the country in those days, by all men troupes.
Unlike the VRB and his son, Thyagaraja was NOT an admirer of Jayadeva version of Bagavatham. and he hated the dance-oriented creations of Kshethragya.
The Pothana Bhagavatam is an almost exact copy of the Srimad Bhagavatam with nothing excluded from it, not even the chapters of the rasa leela. Further Jayadeva was not the author of the Srimad Bhagavatam or any version of it. Please do not make spurious claims. This claim you make, what is the source and authenticity? Has it been claimed by him or anyone in his parampara? Is there any record? Has any musicologist suggested this till now? Thyagaraja did not want to do nara stuti or get into the materialistic matters of court musicians. But why did he allow his disciples to compose varnams and tillAnAs? Or quote the Bhagavatam in 2 of his pancharatnas even? Please let us not consider conspiracy theories.
Why not get the opinion of leading lights of the other schools of Thyagaraja Swami heritage?
Are you going to listen to the opinions of those who have and are still trying for any piece of valuable information from any source? Or will you yourself take the trouble to contact their descendants?
I'll share some info about my extended family. The descendants of Umayalpuram Swaminatha Iyer are related to my maternal great grandmother indirectly as her elder sister was married to Rajagopala Iyer. Unfortunately today none of their descendants went on to carry forward the musical heritage and all of them are very old and are now unable to even recognize us - however there may still be one or two who could help us out. I do remember that RaviSri's version of vAsudEvayani was similar to how my great grandmother would sing it (she had learnt a few songs from USI, but alas, all lost to dementia). My grandfather despite his talent unfortunately could not learn from him due to circumstances - but he has told me some incidents of how he did not approve of MVI's liberties. With my great grandmother's passing 2 decades ago all the direct disciples of USI in any capacity are gone. Like a curse on that whole family, their musical wealth has now dispersed amongst the wider music community and it is gone.
The Lalgudi parampara is all modern now. The thillaisthalam parampara was too generous with their manuscripts and therefore nearly all that they preserved was lost over time -- however their version of kana kana ruchira and a few other songs like rA rA seeta ramani manOhara have survived. Are you aware of how much we have lost and how difficult efforts are still being made to search and find out what is there?
And a post here, if I remember by Sri.Govindaswamy, that the Sourashtra Sabha people were claiming that many by creations of the father/son are attributed to the Bard.
Which ones may they be and who said this? Can you quote the post? If vgovindan is the one you are referring to, we can always ask him. In any case, his blog is familiar to all of us. I am still looking for this post and the author.
I have heard many compositions of WVB. His style is far too different to be mixed up with his guru.
All claims of this nature must be backed up with appropriate research and one must be ready to look at the subject in depth. Now if I had to choose between you and Dr. Aravindh, I would always pick him because he knows his stuff very deep. Plus there is enough for me to do a bit of amateur research of my own and see a few things for myself - now I am sure for one, that Thyagaraja also used gauLipantu with shuddha madhyamam.
Truth is established like this, bit by bit after tremendous effort to prove or disprove a hypothesis or find the facts and then infer or declare insufficient evidence to come to a conclusion. Opinions based on highly subjective tastes or claims with heavy confirmational bias only push a narrative, not the truth.
Now I am going to make a claim here that Thyagaraja was familiar with both sampUrna and asampUrna melas and followed the prevailing lakshanas for many ragas common to both schools, even though he was more on the sampUrna side of things and gave fresh life to harikAmbhOji and kharaharapriya. Apart from that he has of course created his own scalar ragas, but did not reveal the names himself. Some came from his disciples. Others were named based on the closest similar scales in the books, but doing this and mixing up raga names has caused enough confusion and distortion down the road.
I will look into this Thyagabrahma upanishad when I get the time.
Last time this discussion happened, I argued with some heat, but this time I am putting my points calmly.