Re: jaavaLeelu
Ramakrishna S. Pillalamarri (pkrishna@ARL.MIL)
Tue, 17 Jun 1997 12:39:46 -0600
Again I went for help to my kannaDa friend, Mysore (what else!) Nataraja of
Gaithersburg, MD. He is interested in Dance, Music, Sanskrit, and allied
fine arts. Here is what he said about jAvaLi.
I have never thought about why is jAvaLi called a jAvaLi! Off hand, I can
not even think of the origin of the word. My guess is that it is the
influence of the uttarAdi music on dakshiNAdi music that must have created
the romantic jAvaLis in the telugu language.
If you look at karnAtic music, the main theme there is bhakthi (take the
compositions of the trinity, they are all devotional). It is the sultans of
the north that patronized the singers of hindustAnI style. The musicians in
turn were obligated to them and hence felt the need to praise them and make
them the heroes of their compositions. (All the Tumris and many of the
chOTA KyAls etc. have mostly romantic poetry associated with them. I
believe this to be the result of heavy Persian and other Islamic
influences.)
The later composers of the royal courts of Mysore also composed jAvaLis
(again mostly in telugu) in which the kings were the heroes. Perhaps
because of the Muslim influence on the telugu speaking areas of the south
during the bahamani regime, the romantic singing in the royal courts became
a part of the music culture. The Mysore composers cheated the kings by
composing romantic jAvaLis using mostly kRshNa as their hero and yet
brought in the names of the kings in suitable forms (kRshNa-rAjEndra,
cAmar-Ajendra etc. I have heard a few kannada jAvaLis (which follow the
telugu trend mostly), successfully adopted to the kannada stage of the last
fifty to hundred years.
In any case, jAvaLi, in my opinion, is not indigenous to karNAtaka sangIta.
I will not be surprised if there are a few PhD theses dealing with jAvaLis
in the various music departments of the south Indian universities!
I am sure that there will be more added to this by knowledgeable people.
phalAnA ani ceppaTam anavasaram!
Ramakrishna