Purandara Dasa - Purandara Dasa and Carnatic Music

Purandara Dasa and Carnatic Music

Purandara Dasa systematized the method of teaching Carnatic music which is followed to the present day. He introduced the raga Mayamalavagowla as the basic scale for music instruction and fashioned series of graded lessons such as swaravalis, janta swaras, alankaras, lakshana geetas, prabandhas, ugabhogas, daatu varase, geeta, sooladis and kritis. Another of his important contributions was the fusion of bhava, raga, and laya in his compositions. Purandara Dasa was the first composer to include comments on ordinary daily life in song compositions. He used elements of colloquial language for his lyrics. He introduced folk ragas into the mainstream, setting his lyrics to tunes/ragas of his day so that even a common man could learn and sing them. He also composed a large number of lakshya and lakshana geetas, many of which are sung to this day. His sooladis are musical masterpieces and are the standard for raga lakshana. Scholars attribute the standardization of varna mettus entirely to Purandara Dasa.

The itinerant dasas who succeeded him are believed to have followed the systems he devised, as well as orally passing down his compositions.

Purandara Dasa was a vaggeyakara (performer), a lakshanakara (musicologist), and the founder of musical pedagogy. For all these reasons and the enormous influence that he had on Carnatic music, musicologists call him the "Sangeeta Pitamaha" (grandfather) of Carnatic music.

Purandara Dasa had great influence on Hindustani music. The foremost Hindustani musician Tansen's teacher, Swami Haridas also a Saraswat Brahmin was Purandara Dasa's disciple. Purandara Dasa's compositions are equally popular in Hindustani music. Hindustani music legends such as Bhimsen Joshi, Madhava Gudi, and Basavaraj Rajguru have made them more popular in recent years. Young, well known artists such as Puttur Narasimha Nayak, Venkatesh Kumar, Nagaraja Rao Havaldar, Ganapathi Bhatt, Vidyabhushana, Flute Prapancham Seetharama Acharya, Praveen Golkindi and Nachiketa Sharma,and other singers like Raichur Sheshagiridas,Anant Kulkarni,Sangeeta Katti, Bombay sisters,Chennai Sisters etc are continuing the tradition of singing and performing Purandara Dasa's compositions and other dasa sahitya songs in Karnataki as well as Hindustani music concerts. Of latest, Mysore Ramachandracharya is highly propagating dasa sahitya through his programs. Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams is also propagating the dasa krithis through the Dasa Sahitya Project.

Film director and playwright Girish Karnad made a documentary film titled, Kanaka-Purandara (English, 1988) on the two medieval Bhakti poets of Karnataka.