Kannada Composers and Devotional Music
The Haridasa tradition
- Naraharitirtha, Sripadaraja and Vyasaraja lead the early Dasakuta; Purandara Dasa (1484-1564) and Kanaka Dasa (1509-1609) are its best-known composers, followed by Gopala Dasa, Vijaya Dasa and Jagannatha Dasa, author of the Harikathamritasara.
- Devotional forms: devaranama (set to tala), ugabhoga (raga-based, free of fixed tala), suladi (compositions built on the sapta talas), and vachana, the twelfth-century Sharana poetry of Basavanna, Allama Prabhu and Akka Mahadevi.
- A traditional Haridasa kirtane moves from a raga exposition (purvanga) through an ugabhoga and a suladi into the main devaranama.
- Later Karnataka composers include Mysore Sadashiva Rao, Veene Seshanna, Mysore Vasudevachar and Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar; the sugama sangeetha movement later carried dasa songs to a wider audience.
Worked example
A performer opens with a free raga phrase, sings a tala-free ugabhoga, then a suladi in Adi tala, then a devaranama. Reasoning: no kriti contains an ugabhoga or a suladi before its pallavi, so the sequence identifies a Haridasa kirtane; the free opening is the purvanga, and the metrical close is the devaranama.
Traps that cost marks
- Listing Kanaka Dasa as a member of the Trinity.
- Saying an ugabhoga is sung to a fixed tala; it is not.
- Describing vachanas as Sanskrit compositions; they are Kannada poetry.
- Giving the title Sangita Pitamaha to Kanaka Dasa instead of Purandara Dasa.