The jeweller who gave away his fortune and invented how Carnatic music is taught
Purandara Dasa was a rich dealer in gold and silver who renounced everything to wander as a singer devoted to Vishnu. Along the way he designed the graded exercises that South Indian music students still begin with today, earning him the title of grandfather of Carnatic music.
Even his dates are argued over. His son recorded his death in 1564, but proposed birth years range from 1470 to 1494. The Tirumala temple authorities settled on 1470, reasoning from manuscripts by the grandson of the poet Annamacharya, which describe the two men singing together at Tirumala around 1500, when Purandara was about 30 and Annamacharya in his nineties. His birthplace was disputed too, until a Karnataka government committee in 2018 pointed to Tirthahalli.
What is not in doubt is his method. He picked the raga Mayamalavagowla as the basic scale for beginners and built a ladder of lessons, from simple swaravalis and alankaras up to full compositions. He folded in folk melodies and everyday speech so that ordinary people could learn and sing his songs, and scholars credit him alone with standardising the varna mettus. Musicologists describe him as composer-performer, theorist and the founder of musical teaching in the tradition.
His lyrics carried a social message. Singing in Kannada rather than Sanskrit, he made the teachings of the Bhagavata Purana accessible and attacked caste prejudice. In one song he notes that cattle come in many hues and cane stalks grow crooked or straight, and uses them to argue that birth alone cannot make one person higher or lower than another.
Memorials are scattered across South India, from a hall beside the Vijayavittala temple at Hampi to a statue at the foot of Tirumala. India issued a stamp in his honour on 14 January 1964, four centuries after his death, and three Kannada films have told his story.
Source: Purandara Dasa
