Anantha Bharathi’s Sri Bhagavatha Keerthanai — Dasama Skandam can be introduced as a Bharatanatyam efficiency
Anantha Bharathi’s Sri Bhagavatha Keerthanai — Dasama Skandam can be introduced as a Bharatanatyam efficiency
It was within the early 90s when Kalyanapuram Aravamudachariar was rendering Srimad Bhagavatam Dasama Skandam that I heard the title of Anantha Bharathi and his keertanais on Krishna for the primary time. There began my quest for the ebook of the keerthanais, which I believed can be a worthy addition to the Bharatanatyam repertoire.
After a quick search, I discovered the 2 volumes of the ebook at The Music Academy library. The volumes, which had been a part of Embar Vijayaraghavachariar’s assortment, had been donated to the Academy.
The preface of the ebook provides a top level view of Anantha Bharathi’s life. He was a recent of the Trinity and was born in Umayalpuram, in 1785. He had began composing on the age of 13.
He composed a natakam on Uthara Ramayanam, as a sequel to Arunachala Kavi’s Rama Natakam. Sadly, it isn’t traceable.
Anantha Bharathi composed his magnum opus, a Tamil translation of Srimad Bhagavatham Dasama Skandam, in two elements. Like Kambar’s Ramayanam and Arunachala Kavi’s Rama Natakam, Anantha Bharathi’s Sri Bhagavatha Keerthanai additionally had the arangetram on the Srirangam temple. He handed away in 1845.
There have been two manuscripts of this mammoth work and the script from them was printed in January 1877 on the Kalvi Vilakka Press of Pu. Ma. Sabapathy Mudaliar of Chennai.
Within the introductory verses, Anantha Bharathi mentions the whole variety of songs within the first half as 998, comprising Venba, Kalithogai, Dharu Keerthanai and in addition a varnam and swarajathi. The story is usually within the type of dialogues, monologues, interspersed with descriptions in viruthams. The language used is harking back to Rama Natakam, which is a mix of the poetic, conversational and the colloquial kinds. There’s a sprinkling of Sanskrit and archaic phrases.
Commencing with the customary raga Saurashtram, various ragas together with Thodi, Sankarabharanam, Kamboji, Kalyani, Nattai, Saveri, Madhyamavathi, Yamuna Kalyani, and Manji have been employed. And talas comparable to Adi, Rupakam, Chapu and Jhampa are steadily used.
Whereas the format is that of an Isai Natakam (opera), the songs are eminently appropriate for harikatha, and discourses.
Natyarangam, the dance wing of Narada Gana Sabha, has undertaken the duty of reviving this work, the excerpts of which can be premiered in a dance drama format on October 2, 6.30 p.m., at NGS. Set to music by R.Ok. Shriramkumar and choreographed by Sasirekha Raammohan, it is going to be introduced in reminiscence of Dr. S. Ramanathan, underneath the Endowment for Tamil literature in Bharatanatyam.
The Chennai-based creator is a musician and bilingual author.