The following is a article that I posted in SCIT as a reply to
Bhimaraju Kalidindi's question. I know I haven't been active on
telusa or SCIT for a while. I wanted to concentrate more on my
swadharma (i.e., computers) and unsubscribed to telusa list early
this month. But, it was only couple of days ago that Jampaala
gaaru and myself were discussing on annamayya during my visit to
his place at Beaver Creek. Coming back from my trip I saw
Bhimaraju's post on SCIT and couldn't resist the temptation to
reply his query. I would encourage anyone following-up this
post to copy it to SCIT also.
Regards,
Suresh.
=================================================================
From: suresh@austin.ibm.com (Suresh Kolichala)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian.telugu
Subject: Annamayya (was Re: Movie News)
Date: 28 Dec 1995 01:42:40 GMT
Message-ID: <4bssmg$fcs@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>
Bhimaraju Kalidindi (Bhimaraju@msn.com) wrote:
>
> May be yourself or any other knowledeable person can write
> briefly about Annamaacharya; as to which century he belonged,
> his works and achievements, who he was.. etc
I don't remember the exact dates, but I know that annamacharya belonged
to the 15 century. taLLapaaka annamayya is the first among the telugu
poet-composers (vaaggEyakaaraas) and he is also the most prolific writer
of the lot. He has the titles of sankeertanaacharya, harikeertanaacharya
and pada kavitaa pitaamahuDu.
annamayya was an unknown personality in literary and music circles until
recently. It was only in the second decade of this century, when the store
to the side of sanctum sanctorum of tirupati temple containing the copper
plates of annamayya compositions was opened, that the treasures of annamayya
padams got into the limelight. Songs like chandamaama raave jaabilli raave
and jO atyutaananda jO jO mukunda that were popular in the telugu house-hold
for centuries were then discovered to be authored by annamaachaarya.
annamayya is said to have written a total of 32,000 pada sankeertanalu,
of which only 14,000 songs are available now. Even 14,000 is an astounding
number unmatched by any other poet-composer in any language. annamayya
wrote compositions on wide range of varied topics from folk-songs, lullabys
to amorous songs, to devotional songs to the songs that discussed the
philosophical details of viSishTaadvaita and advaita theories.
What a prolific and versatile writer he was!
Among the other works of annamayya, also available are: a kavya titled
SRngaara manjari written in dwipada manjari meter and a Sataka on
Venkateswara. Annamayya is also said to have written few other kaavyas
viz., dwipada raamaayaNamu, samkeertaNa lakshaNamu and 11 other Satakas.
but none of these works are available now.
Also it is now known that purandara daasa, who is considered as the
pitaamahaa of carnatic music, during his youth visited tirupati to
meet the old-aged annamayya. It is said that the song "naaraayaNa
tE namO namO" was jointly composed by annamayya and purandara daasa.
Even though, tyaagaraaja is highly acclaimed as one among the trinity
of carnatic music for his musical contributions I would say that the
literary quality and poetic imagery found in songs of annamayya is way
superior to that found in the songs of tyaagaraaja. Since annamayya
did not have a long Sishya-parampara, we do not know much about the
his music to comment anything on his musical contributions.
Regards,
Suresh.
***
prabhandha kavitaa pitaamahuDikee, karNaaTaka sangeeta pitaamahuDikee,
pitaamahuDayyEntaTi vayassu pada kavitaa pitaamahuDidi !