LANGUAGE IN INDIA

LYRICAL SANSKRIT IN THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF
SRI NARAYANA TEERTHA
V. V. B. Rama Rao, Ph.D.

Lyrical Sanskrit

Saints and sages are born on this earth in an age and a clime but they are for all and for all time.

Lyrical Sanskrit has been the most potent inspiring and unifying force in this hoary country, the glory that has been India and she continues to be so even today in spirituality. Song and lyric have always been the favourites of the lay and the learned anywhere in the world. Sanskrit the most scholarly language also is the sweetest of tongues and the lay and the poorest of the poor are not afraid of it when it comes to a spiritually oriented composition, lyric, song or poem and the villagers in the remote corners offer the proof.

Sage, Saint, and Ascetic

Sage, saint, ascetic, renunciate are all names given to the great aspirants and saadhakas of diverse distinctions. Yati and avadhoota are similar names that great saadhkaas got. Teertha is unique in that it is a suffix to the name of a saintly person. This is the suffix the Guru adds to the ascetic’s new name he gives. This is done only after the Guru is convinced that his disciple has successfully subjected all his passions and become a jitendriya, one who subdues all his sense organs and keeps them under strict control and becomes a devotee in the highest sense.

Narayana Teertha

Narayana Teertha of the 16th Century goes down in the history of divine composers of extremely poetic musical compositions singing the praise of Sree Krishna, the Great Lover. The name of this saintly person prior to his being ordained Teertha was Govinda Sastry, born into the family of great Sanskrit scholar Neelakantha Sastry of the village Kaaja, in Guntur District of the present Andhra Pradesh.

Temperamentally traditional, devout and scholarship loving, Narayana took to Sanskrit as a duck takes to water. After becoming an ascetic, he composed joyously devout and sweetly poetic songs in the traditional bhajana sampradaya in Sanskrit. Sanskrit in the Life of the Elite and the Common People

It is a point worth noting that all the devout poetic composers were themselves singers of great repute and their knowledge of Sanskrit was part of their devotion to God.Sanskrit is called geervaaNa bhaasha and dEva bhaasha. The kings in that era knew and appreciated Sanskrit, which was part of their own education.

Though now considered only as the language of the ‘exclusivist’ elite, the use of Sanskrit in rituals and devotional discourses and scriptures was always common. Faith led to devotion and devotion-intensified faith. The epics went deep into the psyche of even the lay. In fact the scriptures are more venerated by the rural folk in their innate simplicity. Set to delectable music and sung melodiously with devotional fervour, keertans were favorites of the lay as much as they are of the learned.

Popular Religiosity and Keertan

Keertan is a song of praise in devotion. They spread from mouth to mouth and went deep into the devout people irrespective of social level or ‘educational’ accomplishment. They were easy to remember with their lilting rhythm and sweetness of imagination. Even today women sing the keertans not only in their devotional daily chores but also for their innate devotional spirit.

A Distinct Characteristic Devotional Lyrics in South Indian Languages

Lyrics composed on devotional themes in South India are more than mere lyrics. For, invariably they are set to music and sung either in a single voice or as bhajans in a chorus to the accompaniment of various musical instruments. In some cases as in yakshagaanas they are performed all along a night in temple compounds and such public places. The lilt, the tune, the rhythm and the intricate meandering of swaraas is not only enchanting but also inspiring devotion in the devout in a memorable way.

Even to this day the lyrics and their rendition by talented exemplars are preserved with religious zeal and cultural verve. All these lyrics are great tributes to the supreme being with intense yearning to reach the sublime and be in harmony with ‘OM’ the praNava naaada, one of the attributes of the divine.

Exponents of Lyrics

The language component in a rendition is something like an easy, accessible springboard to many, prosaically you may call it a stepping stone to inspired, transcendental consciousness, the intense awareness of the Absolute reality. These lyrics are called variously as padams, keertans, ahsthapadis, tarangams and kritis by their various exponents.

Kshetrayya’s compositions are padams: Jayadeva’s are Ashthapadis and Saint Tyagaraja’s are kritis and Annamacharya’s are keertans. There are subtle special shades of difference in the attitude of the composer and the dominant mood of the composition. The categories are very important in musicology.

Keeratan is a song of praise. Tarangam is the name Sree Narayana Teertha gave to his compositions in Sree Krishna Leela Tarangini which contains gadya (Prose) and slokas too. The whole composition is envisioned as waves flowing from Sree Krishna’s glory in the different periods of his life described in the tenth canto of Sradbhagavatham.

Magnum Opus of Sree Narayana Teertha

Sreekrishnaleelatarangini is Sree Narayana Teertha’s magnum opus. This is in Sanskrit, exquisite poetry, set to music and cast in the form of an Yakshagana (literally singing of the demi-gods, dance-drama). It is about Lord Krishna’s divine pranks based on the tale from his birth to his wedding with Rukmini in the Dasama skandha of the Srimadbhagavata, This work is considered the most sublime in many ways.

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