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MUSIC ACADEMY
Treatise on music
KRIPA SUBRAHMANIAM
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Pappu Venugopal Rao expanded on the contents of Dathilam at the Music Academy.
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Photo: V. Ganesan
Pappu Venugopala Rao.
Dathilam, a musicological text written in the first century A.D by sage Dattila, was the subject presented by Papu Venugopala Rao. The text contains 243 and a half verses in 487 lines. The later granthas have quoted amply from this stupendous piece o
f work. Dathilam was first published in Trivandrum by Pt.K.Sambasiva Sastry in 1930. A compendium of Indian music a Dutch publication by Te Neyenhuis followed in 1970. There has been a thesis on the same book in 1978. There have been further publications in 1988 and the last was in 2002 by Dwaram Bhavanarayana Rao in Telugu.
The text Dattilam describes music as a Gaandhara denoting the sacredness of the Indian music. The book provides succinct definitions of Swara, Thala, Pada. Avadhana essentially refers to concentration. Dattilam denotes sruti as the dominant feature over swaras.
Another feature described in Dattilam are gramas. The gramas are Shadja and madhyama in nature, the Gandhara category is not in vogue.
Sage Dattila gives an exposition on Vadi, Samvadi and Vivadhi swaras.
Dattilam categorises ‘Murchanas’ which are either Shadavam or Audavam in nature. (Pentatonic or hexatonic).
Dattilam refers to ‘vritti’, the sage categorises them as three, namely, ‘Vritti’, ‘Dakshina Vritti’ and ‘Chitra Vritti.’ In the first category the song is dominant, song and vadya embellish each other in the second and vadya is the dominant in the third. The treatise then refers to jatis. There are four varnas namely Sthayee, Sanchari, Aarohi and Avarohi. Dattilam has specified 13 alankaras which are decorative embellishments. The topic of thalas is the next feature dealt with in Dattilam. These are ‘Yugma’ and ‘Ayugma’ that is even and odd. Dhruta, Madhyama and Vilambit are also discussed with reference to tempos.
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
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