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Kṛṣṇadevarāya

A figure from the books

#Krishnadevaraya

Kṛṣṇadevarāya · 1471–1529 · reigned 1509–1529

In the books · 1 chapter

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Who this is

Carnatic music and Kannada devotional poetry — the Haridāsa ("servants of Hari") singing movement of the Dvaita tradition; honoured as Saṅgīta Pitāmaha, the grandfather of Carnatic music.

“Somewhere near you, this week, a child sat down for a first Carnatic music lesson and sang the very scale and the very exercises set down in this man's name half a millennium ago. The empire he sang in was burned within a year of his death; the syllabus walked out of the fire in children's throats.”
— The Great Indians, Ch. 129

The big idea, in the book's words:

“A rich gem-and-pawn merchant gave away everything at thirty, took up a tambūra — and then designed the graded ladder of scale, exercises and first songs by which Carnatic music has been taught to every beginner, everywhere, for five hundred years.”
— The Great Indians, Ch. 129

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