परम्पराः

कर्णाटकसङ्गीतम्

कर्णाटकत्वम्

शास्त्रकृतः

Among the Kannada speaking musicologists who wrote in Samskṛta, we should include Vidyāraṇya (Saṅgīta Sāra), Kallinātha (Saṅgīta kalānidhi, a commentary to Śārṅgadēva’s Saṅgīta Ratnākara), Rāmāmātya (Svaramēḷa Kalānidhi), Paṇḍarīka viṭhala (Sadrāga Candrōdaya, Nartana Nirṇaya) Gōvinda Dīkṣita (Saṅgīta Sudhā ), Veṅkaṭamakhi (Caturdaṇḍi Prakāśikā) and Muddu Veṅkaṭamakhi (Rāgalakṣaṇa). We can not forget that even though Śārṅgadēva’s forefathers came from Kashmira, he lived and wrote his work Saṅgīta Ratnākara in the courts of Yadava Singhana, a Kannada speaking king who ruled from Devagiri. Padmasri Mahamahopadhyaya Sri R Sathyanarayana opines that one of the reasons for the name Karnāṭaka saṅgīta, to get attached to the southern stream of music was the profuse contributions of scholars and writers who documented our traditions through the centuries and kept them going until recent times.

Technical terms

Besides these, we also can observe many technical terms used in Karnāṭaka saṅgīta in the Kannada language.

The initial lessons of music include saraḷe, jaṇṭi varase, heccusthāyi varase, taggusthāyi varase, dāṭu varase etc. Usually these lessons are taught in the raga Māyāmāḷavagauḷa to begin with then followed up with other ragas, and the same method of teaching is in vogue all over south India. As you can notice there is a Kannada component in these names. Among these the name saraḷe, the name of the very first lessons comes from svarāli or svarāvali with origin in Samskṛta. Given that even in Tamizh/Malayalam speaking areas these lessons are known by the same or very similar names, and given the fact all music practitioners in these regions considers Purandara dāsa to have given this progression of lessons, it is very likely that the names first originated in Kannada and they were adapted into other languages as is.

… There are many types of gamakas used in Karnāṭaka saṅgīta, and there are multiple systems of classification with 10 types of gamakas, 15 types of gamakas, or even more. Of these gamakas, some names like hommu, jāru, rave, orike, originate in Kannada or Telugu.

Apart from the very early lessons, most compositions of Karnāṭaka saṅgīta, have two components – one musical and one lyrical. The musical part is called dhātu and the lyrical (words) part is called mātu (which is the Kannada word for speech).