Lakshmi Keshava of Kowshika

Hoysalas were master temple builders. They have built temples all around in southern Karnataka. The temples at Belooru, Halebeedu and Somanathapura are very well known. You’ll find a wealth of information about Hoysala’s temple architecture on the wikipedia, here and here.

However, what is not so well known is that there are several temples where the temple architecture does not typically look like a Hoysala work, but the idols inside looks like a Hoysala work of art. The temples of Keshva at Kowshika, and at Haasana, Varadaraja at Kondajji are examples for such temples.

The temples do not have the stamp of typical Hoysala architectures, but the main idols do. Were the temples built later on to house original Hoysala images? May be yes. Folk tales also say (at least with respect to the temple at Kondajji), that the idol was buried under sand to protect it from invaders, and temples were built later on when the images were unearthed.

Kowshika is a village about 8 km away from the Haasana, in the heart of southern Karnataka. It has a temple of Lakshmi Keshava. The temple is very simple in structure. As per the information on www.karnatakatemples.com, it is built in the Vijaya Nagara style. You can see the front view of the temple at the top of this blog today. It is also available on here .

Here are few pictures from Kowshika.

Lord Lakshmi Keshava:

A close up – Who doesn’t fall for such a beautiful smile?

Kowshika village as seen from the temple entrance:

Utsavamoorti of Lakshmi keshava getting ready for Garudotsava:

Here is the main idol, decorated in flowers, for a special occasion :

(Picture courtesy: The first three are mine; The last two are by Dr Shreekanth Murthy)

Why am I writing about Kowshika of all places, when there are so many Hoysala temples?

Because it is my ancestral village, and this is the place which I wrote about in some of my earlier posts, here and here.

-neelanjana

‘Star’ Conversations

No. This is not about Bollywood or Hollywood stars, but about two stars in my own life!

We have two stars right at home, because we named our kids after two bright stars in the sky – one, a bright blue-white star and the other, a bright orange-red star.

This was the conversation I overheard on the morning of Mothers Day, when the ’stars’ were wishing my wife.

Star 1 : “amma, The day I was born, I loved you!‘

Star 2 : “It’s supposed to be “From the day I was born”, and there is should be a comma after that, but that’s OK..“

Star 1 : “There is more to Mother’s Day than correcting people’s mistakes!”

How true! I wish a happy Mother’s Day to all mothers, a day belated.

On second thoughts, I think I am not late at all..

Because mothers indeed deserve every day of the year to be Mother’s Day!

-neelanjana

Remembering Tygaraja, Once Again

I knew I forgot something. How did I forget  4th of May happens to be Tyagaraja’s birthday? Stuff happens, but I guess it was somewhere in the back of my mind. Otherwise  I would not have remembered even now! Anyway, better late than never.

Any time  is a good time to listen to some nice compositions of good old Tyagaraja. So off we go.

First, a feast of Kalyani. In my opinion, Tyagaraja must have played an important role in making this ‘alien’ raaga into one of our own, by composing 30 compositions in it – giving it the same status as the other big two – Shankarabharana, and Todi. 

Instead of listening to the oft-repeated nidhi chAla sukhamA or E tAvunarA, here is another lesser known, but equally grand compositon – kAruvElpulu sung by Sri SRJ. I had written about this composition in another post earlier too.

Poor Venkatamakhi should eat his own words saying -”there are millions of rAgas like kalyAni, which are not fit for compositions such as geeta, thAya and prabandha” when he listens to this composition

Tyagaraja seems to have used dEshAdi tALa profusely. In my observation, most of his compositions in this tALa follow a general pattern. Pallavi mostly starts off the first part of madhya sthAyi, exploring parts of mandra sthAyi and madhya styAyi in different sangatis. Anupallavi typically goes from the middle of the madhya sthAyi, all the way to the middle reaches of tAra sthAyi. In many kritis, the landing in the anupallavi is on upper shadja. The charaNa comes back to madhyasthAyi, typically taking off from the madhyama, or panchama. I could give many examples, but I will limit it to three or four here.

First one is ‘atukArAdani balka’ in manOranjani, played on the flute by Sri Tejaswi Raghunath. The pallavi of the song takes off from the middle sa. Anupallavi starts with madhya sthAyi da, and goes all the way to tAra ma, and the charana takes off from madhya panchama.

Next is ‘Ora jUpu’ in kannaDa gouLa sung by Sri Sikkil Gurucharan. You can make similar inferences here too.

The next is ‘brova bhArama’ – another popular composition of this sort sung by Sri Vijaya Siva.

Finally, another such popular composition in a pratimadhyama rAga – ‘bA gAyenayya’ played on the flute by Sri VK Raman.

Why did Tyagaraja follow this pattern? I don’t know, but I find these compositions somewhat easier to learn. Was this his intent? Might be, may be not. I don’t know. But my guess is as good as any!

Tyagaraja passed away in his 80th year, and by known accounts, continued composing till his last days. And his spirit of exploring the unknown and new must have stayed with him till the very end.

Here is ‘Paramatumudu velige’ in Vagadheeshwari, which is one of his last compositions, and probably the first ever composition in this raga, sung by Dr Nagavalli Nagaraj.

Enjoy the clips! As I said, any day is a good day to remember Tyagaraja through his compositions. Isn’t it?

-neelanjana