(b Tiruvarur, Tamil Nadu, 4 May 1767; d Tiruvaiyaru, Tamil Nadu, 6 January 1847). South Indian composer, musician and member of the Karnatak trimūrti (‘trinity’) of singer-saints (see also Dīksitar, Muttusvāmi and Śāstri, Śyāma). Tyāgarāja is widely regarded by Karnatak musicians as the finest and most important South Indian composer. He was born into a climate of Hindu revivalism, and his father, Rāma Brāhmam, a pūjāri connected with the court of Tulajājī at Thanjavur, introduced his son to Rāma bhakti. Both Tyāgarāja and Muttusvāmi Dīksitar are known as having been smārta Brahmans, a group closely associated with the development of devotional religion in the 15th and 16th centuries. The status of the ‘trinity’, as Brahman musicians, contributed greatly to an increase in the social acceptability of the practice of music. The Thanjavur musician Sonti Vēnkataramana became Tyāgarāja's teacher in 1782, and Tyāgarāja studied with him for the next 20 years. There is some evidence that he also had access to musical texts in the possession of his grandfather, including the Sangīta-ratnākara. He was married twice, at first to Parvatī, and then on her death to her sister, Kamalāmbā. Tyāgarāja is said to have travelled widely, visiting many temples and singing in praise of their deities, for example his kriti ‘Tera tīyagarādā’ in rāga Gaulipantu was sung for Śrī Venkateśvara at Tirupati. At the age of 74 he became a sannyāsin, and on his death he was buried beside his guru, Sonti Vēnkataramana, on the banks of the Kaveri.
His lifelong devotion to Rāma is well documented, and it is this which was the primary focus of his musical activity. Like the other two members of the ‘trinity’ he was firm in his refusal to serve at court, in the face of repeated requests, seeing it as incompatible with his role as a bhakta. (This resolve was reportedly the cause of some friction between Tyāgarāja and his brother.) A significant difference between Tyāgarāja and Muttusvāmi Dīksitar and Śyāma Śāstri, however, was his dedication to teaching other musicians. His many disciples included Vēnkataramana Bhāghavatar and Vīnā Kuppayyar, who, among others, preserved his compositions through notation, and Subbarāya Śāśtri, the son of Śyāma Śāstri.
Tyāgarāja is remembered both for his devotion and the bhāva (‘emotion’) of his kriti, a song form consisting of pallavi, anupallavi and caranam. This three-part form is shared by the devotional kīrtanam from which the kriti derives. Tyāgarāja's development of the sangati (composed variation) within this three-part structure is one of the markers that distinguishes the kriti from the kīrtanam. He is also noted for composing in a great number of different rāga, many of which he invented himself. The texts of his kriti are all, with a few exceptions in Sanskrit, in Telugu (the contemporary language of the court), and this use of a living language, as opposed to Sanskrit, the language of ritual, is in keeping with the bhakti ideal of the immediacy of devotion. Of his many compositions, which number over 700, particularly noteworthy are: the pańcaratna (‘five jewels’) kriti, one in each of the ghana (‘heavy’) rāga Nāta (the Sanskrit ‘Jagadānandakāraka’), Gaula (‘Dudukugala’), Ārabhi (‘Sādhińcenē’), Varāli (‘Kanakana rucirā’) and Śrī (‘Endarō mahānubhāvulu’), this grouping was suggested by Harikesanallur Muthiah Bhagavatar in 1940 and it has become a permanent feature of the annual Tyāgarāja festival in Tiruvaiyaru; and those kriti in which he refers to the theory of music itself as an aspect of the divine, such as ‘Nāda sudhārasambilanu’ in rāga Ārabhi, ‘Nādatanumaniśam’ in Cittarańjanī, ‘Sōgasugā mrdangatālamu’ in Śrīrańjanī, ‘Svara rāga sudhārasayuta’ in Śankarābharanam and ‘Vidulaku mrokkeda’ in rāga Māyāmalavagaula, which praises musicologists both divine and mortal, including Sōmēśvara and Śārngadeva.
P. Sambamurthy: Great Composers, ii, Tyagaraja (Madras, 2/1970)
W.J. Jackson: Tyāgarāja: Life and Lyrics (Madras, 1991)
W.J. Jackson: Tyāgarāja and the Renewal of Tradition: Translations and Reflections (Delhi, 1994)
MARIA LORD