Purandara Dasa
Purandara Dasa was a composer, singer and a Haridasa philosopher from present-day Karnataka, India. He was a follower of Madhvacharya's Dvaita philosophy. He was one of the chief founding proponents that shaped modern Carnatic music. In honor of his contributions to Carnatic music, he is referred to as the Pitamaha of Carnatic music. According to a legend, he is considered as an incarnation of Narada.
Purandara Dasa was a wealthy merchant of gold, silver and other miscellaneous jewellery from Karnataka, who gave away all his material riches to become a Haridasa, a devotional singer who made the difficult Sanskrit tenets of Bhagavata Purana available to everyone in simple and melodious songs. He was one of the most important music scholars of medieval India. He formulated the basic lessons of teaching Carnatic music by structuring graded exercises known as Svaravalis and Alankaras, and at the same time, he introduced the raga Mayamalavagowla as the first scale to be learnt by beginners in the field – a practice that is still followed today. He also composed Gitas for novice students.
Purandara Dasa is noted for composing Dasa Sahithya, as a Bhakti movement vocalist, and a music scholar. His younger contemporary, Kanakadasa, emulated his practice. Purandara Dasa's Carnatic music compositions are mostly in Kannada, though some are in Sanskrit. He signed his compositions with the ankitanama "Purandara Vittala" and this same form of Vishnu is his aaradhya daiva or ishta murthi or worshippable deity. His work was appreciated by many scholars of his time and later scholars.
Biography
Inscriptional evidence suggests Purandara Dasa was born to a diamond merchant in a Kannada Gauḍa Sāraswata brahmin family in 1470, in Purandara gada,18 kms far from pune present-day Maharashtra state. According to other opinions, his native town was Purandaraghatta in Karnataka, or Purandaragad near Pune, but the latter is considered a historical mistake – connecting his "pen name" with a location that mainly served as a military encampment in the 15th and 16th century. In 2018, a five-member committee set up by the Government of Karnataka to ascertain the birthplace of Purandara Dasa has submitted its report asserting Tirthahalli as the likeliest candidate. The committee included veteran singer and musicologist RK Padmanabha, scholars Aralumallige Parthasarathi, AV Navada, Veeranna Rajora, and former minister Leeladevi Navada. It is now ascertained that Purandharadasa was born in Araga, Vijayanagara Empire, KarnatakaPurandara Dasa was the only son of the wealthy merchant Varadappa Nayaka and his wife Rukmini. He was named Srinivasa Nayaka, after the patron deity of Venkateswara Temple, Tirumala. He acquired proficiency in Kannada, Sanskrit, and sacred music through education. At the age of 16, he was married to Saraswati Bai, traditionally described as a pious young girl. They had four sons, Varadappa, Gururaya, Abhinavappa and Madhvapati. He lost his parents at age 20, thereby inheriting his father's business of gemstones and pawning. He prospered and became known as Navakoti Narayana.
Popular legend narrates a miraculous incident in Srinivasa Nayaka's life, owing to which he was led to devote himself to the practice, propagation and inculcation of bhakti towards Krishna through musical compositions. As a consequence of the event, he is believed to have relinquished his former greedy and miserly self having realized the worthlessness of attachment to worldly possessions: Per this version, the deity in a bid to cure Srinivaasa of his tenacious materialistic delusion and attachment and thereby claim his devotion to himself, approached Srinivaasa in the guise of a poor man. In this guise the deity is said to have made a piteous plea to Srinivasa for money to perform his son's 'upanayana'.
Having been summarily rejected, mocked and turned out, the 'poor man' repeated his plea before Srinivaasa's wife who per the legend was a generous soul of rigorous spiritual nature. She gave away one of her precious nose rings, unbeknownst to her husband. The 'poor man' sold the nose ring back to Srinivasa himself. The shrewd Srinivasa, privy to his wife's openhandedness, immediately identified the nose ring as his wife's and hurried home. He was enraged and anxious to ascertain the truth of the matter. He demanded his wife to produce the nose ring before him immediately.
Realizing that Srinivaasa had grown wise to her secret donation, the wife decided to end her life with poison. Having completed her prayers to Vishnu before her attempt, she was shocked to see a nose ring inside the poison cup – completely identical to the one she had just given away. Incredulous and rapturous, she recounted the entire episode to her husband, who was bewildered and lost. Meanwhile, a search for the 'poor man' was of no avail; he had as mysteriously vanished as he had appeared.
Per legend at that very moment, Srinivaasa became convinced of the inscrutable ways of Vishnu because of having witnessed the unfailing grace that saved his pious wife. He is said to have become bewildered at the power that could produce a gold ornament in a moment by mere will and is said to have instantly shook off the beginning-less, persistent veil in the form of 'I' and 'mine' which is believed to mask men's vision of the divine. At 30 years of age he gave away all his wealth in charity, and with his family he abandoned his house to lead the life of a mendicant. They start living on alms and singing the glories of Vishnu. In his first song composition, he laments his wasted life of indulgence. It begins with the words "Ana lae kara" in the Shuddha Saveri raga, set to Triputa tala.
In the course of his wandering, he met the sage Vyasatirtha, one of the chief exponents of Madhwa philosophy and the Rajaguru of Krishnadevaraya, emperor of the Vijayanagara Empire. According to Prof. Sambamoorthy, Srinivasa had his formal initiation at the hands of Vyasatirtha in 1525 when he was about 40 years old, with the name Purandara Daasa bestowed on him. Purandara Daasa travelled through the length and breadth of the Vijayanagara Empire and Pandharapur in Maharashtra composing and rendering soul-stirring songs in praise of God. He spent his last years in Hampi and also sang songs in Krishnadevaraya's court. The mantapa in which he stayed is known as Purandara Daasa Mantapa in Hampi. He died on 2 January 1564 at the age of 95. Within a short period after his death, the Vijayanagara Empire collapsed. Tradition and legend hold that he composed keerthanas. Further, according to this legend, his original desire was to compose 500,000 keerthanas. Being unable to do it in his present life, he requested his younger son to complete them. His son Madhwapathi told his father that he could do this in his next janma. It is believed that he was reborn as the famous Vijayadasa—birthplace is Cheekalparvi village near Maanvi town, Raichur district in Karnataka State—and completed the remaining 25 thousand keerthanas as promised. Most of his songs are in praise of Vishnu and other divinities. Due to this, he is believed to be an avatar of Narada, the celestial singer and son of goddess Saraswati. One of the Trimurtis of Carnatic music, Saint Tyagaraja, has paid tribute to Purandara Dasa in his geya natakam Prahlada Bhakti Vijayam.
Dating
Purandara Dasa's year of demise is 1564 as given by his son Madhvapati and this is well recorded. But his year of birth is unknown. Several different dates have been proposed by various scholars, authors and historians. B. N. K. Sharma in his book History of Dvaita Vedanta which was published in 1960, wrote year of birth of Purandara Dasa as 1484 based on his own logic and in later reprints he changed this year to 1494. But many scholars, authors and historians have different opinions on this. Authors Guy L. Beck of University of South Carolina and William Joseph Jackson of Oxford University gave dates as 1480-1564 CE. Prominent scholar Amaresh Datta, the chief editor of the Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature published by Sahitya Akademi in this book he gave Purandara Dasa dates as 1480-1564. But based on the historical event of Purandara Dasa meeting Annamacharya and the keerthanas that they have sung together on Sri Venkateshwara Swamy at Tirumala, which were recorded by Annamacharya's grandson Tallapaka Chinanna, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams gave year of birth of Purandara as 1470.Dates based on Purandara Dasa meeting Annamacharya
Most of the authors or scholars have not taken the historical event of Purandara Dasa meeting Annamacharya and both singing sankeerthanas on Sri Venkateshwara Swamy at Tirumala into consideration while decided the dates. But based on the manuscripts found, which were written by Tallapaka Chinanna, the grandson of Annamacharya Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams gave it's analysis. Based on these manuscripts, Purandara Dasa met Annamacharya after taking Haridasa initiation from Vyasatirtha in Hampi when he was 30 years old and Annamacharya was in his 90's. After meeting both Purandara Dasa and Annamacharya sang songs in front of Sri Venkateshwara Swamy in Tirumala temple. Based on these historical recorded events the scholars of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams did analysis and finally declared that Purandara Dasa met Annamacharya in the year 1500 and the year of birth of Purandara Dasa as 1470.R. Sri Hari, the Vice Chancellor of Dravidian University in his book, "Major Genres and Trends in Dravidian Literature: Classical", in 2003 also published about this historical event as follows, "The meeting of Annamayya and Purandaradasa as narrated by Tallapaka Chinnanna was a historical fact which heralded a new phase in the evolution of the Padakavita Paddhati in the south, into Karnataka Sangīta Paddhati on one hand and the Bhajana Sampradaya Paddhati on the other".