I have been charmed time and again by the sheer spontaneity of Tyagaraja's poems of intense devotion and love. The musical structure and the words are so inseparable that to paraphrase seems to drain out both music and emotion from the compositions.
A remarkable feature of Tyagaraja's songs, particularly the lyrical kritis directly addressed to Rama, often in a plaintive tone, is the cyclical element in the compositions, marked by incremental repetitions creating a soulful, well-knit structure formed as much of words as of music. Hence, if a translation has to be made of Tyagaraja, it has to have some of the quality of song in his poems, along with the words. Then again, the spirit of the song, the ecstatic self leaping forth in voice, is more important to me than faithfulness to each literal detail. After all, the evocative is characteristic of even the shortest phrase of Tyagaraja, and to miss the evocative would be to have Tyagaraja stop singing!
A remarkable feature of Tyagaraja's songs, particularly the lyrical kritis directly addressed to Rama, often in a plaintive tone, is the cyclical element in the compositions, marked by incremental repetitions creating a soulful, well-knit structure formed as much of words as of music. Hence, if a translation has to be made of Tyagaraja, it has to have some of the quality of song in his poems, along with the words. Then again, the spirit of the song, the ecstatic self leaping forth in voice, is more important to me than faithfulness to each literal detail. After all, the evocative is characteristic of even the shortest phrase of Tyagaraja, and to miss the evocative would be to have Tyagaraja stop singing!
To my sensibility, the refrains of of "teliya leru rama" have a shade of the looping villanelle:
Oh Rama, we do not know the path
of love that leads to you.
Alas , my dear Rama
we do not know the way to you.
Men roam the earth all around
their minds preoccupied with dreams,
not leading to you,
for they do not know the path.
They are up early, to dip into splendour.
Dressed to display, with their beads
and their prayers the slaves of gold.
They do not know the path, oh Rama,
the do not know the way to you.
the do not know the way to you.
The effortless flow of Bahudari in "brovabarama" and the cry of a destitute devotee seeking the protection of his beloved deity are one as Tyagaraja asks Rama repeatedly if his frail self was such a burden on one who had borne the weight of the world. The melody indeed effectively reproduces this emotion of frailty and tender devotion:
Is it a great burden, oh Rama,
for you to shelter me?
I am but a frail creature,
you cradle all the world!
My Vasudeva,
do you not contain the universe
in your belly?
Am I then a load on you?
For the gods you held
the mountain under the ocean
and hoisted another
to secure the gopis.
Oh kind Rama,
is Tyagaraja then a burden on you?
Well written Saroja!!!
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