Music of the Melakkar

Part 3 Melakkar and the breach of the Isai Vellalar borders.

As I mentioned in the previous article, there were two distinct aspects to the Carnatic music tradition, the vocal and the non-vocal performers, i.e. the backing instrumentalists. While both were dependent on each other, the development of one or the other was intrinsically related to the positioning of the caste to which the performer belonged. We saw in the previous article how Brahmins influenced, molded, and set a clear structure around the vocal tradition. We also saw how the public forced small changes to make the system more inclusive to other languages and traditions, over time and how the non-Brahminical castes, Tamil Nadu politics, and linguistic pressures influenced the music culture. Let’s now look at how the instrumentalists fared.

As we studied in the article about dance and the Tanjavur quartet, music was closely related to dance in the past, and temple performances included Dasi-attam performed by devadasis, who were mainly from the Vellalar community, originating from the Deccan districts. The musicians as well as dancers were from the Vellala community. We had previously looked at the Vellala Christian community and the story of Vedanayagam, now let’s look at the Hindu Isai Vellala’s.

But let us read something interesting, first. The tone notations for Carnatic music as we all know are " Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni, Sa" - a complete octave on which are based all musical sounds. These are again divided and sub-divided. An old method of teaching the sounds is very peculiar and amusing and I had no clue about this till I read Ellen Kelly’s article dated April 1897! This is also attributed to Chinnaswamy Mudaliar and recounted by DB Ramachandra Mudaliar in a 1924 article.

According to Chinnasamy Mudaliar, M.A., Sa is the sound of joy and happiness, produced by the peacock, at moments of rapture, which generally happens when the clouds gather in the sky, indicating the commencement of the rainy season. Ri is the troubled low of the cow in calling to her calf dragged away from her. Ga is the puzzled bleat of the goat, amid its flock, calling for the aid of its fellows. Ma is the unhappy cry of the heron on the bank of a pool, uttered on seeing the gathering of the clouds, and anticipating a flood, which would force her to flee elsewhere for safety. Pa is the note of joy sounded by the nightingale at spring tide, the brightest period of the year. Dha is the neigh of readiness of the horse when the rider approaches it and Ni is the sorrowful yell of the elephant when the mahout strikes the back of its head with an iron rod.

Strangways on the other hand mentions hearing the following - There is an interesting comparison of the notes of the scale to the cries of animals. Sa is the note of the peacock. Ri, of the chataka (a type of cuckoo), the bird of the rainy season. Ga, of the goat. Ma, of the crane. Pa, of the Koyal, generally translated cuckoo, but bearing no resemblance in its vocal achievement to our bird; it hammers out a single note when making love in the spring, and its mate joins in, invariably at the distance of a tone, and perhaps a rival lover at the distance of a semitone. Dha, of the frog, and Ni, of the elephant. This has been quoted as showing that the scale was conceived as a matter of absolute pitch, and there is some evidence that the cries of animals always keep the same pitch. It may be so it would require special knowledge to decide this point.

Interestingly, these notes are also connected to castes, though such connections would be construed as rude today. Per Mudaliar- These seven principal notes are also divided into four main castes according to merits, viz., Brahmans being Sa, Ma, and Pa, each of which contains four srutis, Kshatriyas being Ri and Dha with three srutis, Vysyas being Ga and Ni with two srutis and Sudras being sharps and flats, as unstable, being affected by the relative value of the various notes. SE Gopalacharlu clarifies further - The classes to which they belong are Sa, Ga, Ma of Devas; Pa of Pitras; Ri, Dha of Rishis; and Ni of Rakshasas. The castes to which they correspond are - Sa, Ma, Pa to the Brahmin; Ri, Dha to the Kshatriya; Ni, Ga to the Vaisya, and the intermediate sounds to the Sudra Caste. From an instrumental perspective, it is believed that stringed instruments were invented to imitate the humming of bees, and drums to reproduce the sound of thunder. The complete musical theory and analysis in the same vein is quite interesting, but I guess we can take it up some other day.

Ayyangar explains that the primary aim of all instrumental music was to approximate, if not imitate, the human voice. But he says that developments in the field have proved otherwise, and each has a distinct personality of its own, totally unrelated to the human voice in the matter of pitch, volume, timber, appeal, and capability. He adds - To expect all of them to toe the line to vocal music wore to misjudge their function and defeat their purpose.

Let’s get back to the historical settings and see how the community developed, by checking what Anthropologist Thruston had to say (based on inputs on the Tanjore Gazette prepared by Hemmingway)- He clarifies that there were two musician castes in the Tanjore Vellalar community, the Tamil and Telugu Melakkarans (of whom the latter were barber musicians). While the Telugu community practices only Periya melam and has nothing to do with dancing, the Chinna Melam Tamils have dancing at its core, and perform both Chinna melam and even Periya melam. Chinna melam, originally known as nautch music, comprised vocal music performed by a chorus of males and females to instrumental accompaniment and included Nattuvans, i.e., instructors of the dancing girls. The Vairavi, or temple servant, should always be chosen from the Melakkaran community.

CR Day adds - The players in these bands are mostly taken from a caste of Telegu-speaking barbers called " Mangala-vandlu," who make this their special profession and provide the music, so-called, commonly heard at temple ceremonies, weddings, festal gatherings, and all street " tamashas." The composition of these bands varies greatly, the number of instruments in some cases being as many as thirty and in others perhaps only three or four; generally, one or two nagasaras, a sruti or drone—a drum such as the dhol—and a pair of cymbals (called Jhanj), about ten inches or a foot in diameter, are found. Sometimes a mela, consisting of a single mukavina, a flute, a flageolet, a drone, and a small side-drum called Dhanki is employed. The dancing men and women of the Melakara caste, who together form a complete chorus, constitute what is called a Chinnamela (or smaller music), in distinction to the Peryamela (big music), which is a band of male musicians who play upon the Nagasara with drums and accompaniments differing from those of the dancers.'' The Peryamela, or Pathamelam as it is also called, is the ordinary native band formed by the Mangalavandlu caste and already described.

How did barbers get involved in this business in Telugu-spoken areas? Apparently, by day or when it was not the music season, they were barbers (their wives were sometimes, midwives). In Deccan, this was not considered an unclean caste. Inscriptions at a temple in Kamalapuram going back to the 15^th century attest to the connection between instrumental music and barbering. Researchers opine that it was their finger and arm dexterity that allowed barbers to excel on musical instruments.

There is always a discussion if the Periya melam instrument is called Nadaswaram or Nagaswaram, though considered a Rajavadyam (royal instrument) or even a Mangalavadyam (auspicious instrument). Since it resembles a snake, some prefer to call it Nagaswaram; maybe the name Nadaswaram is more appropriate.

Periya Melam was always part of rituals and festivities in temples as well as weddings. The instruments involved were the nadasvaram (melody), the tavil (rhythmic accompaniment), talam (cymbals for indication of rhythmic cycles), and sruti petti (to provide a drone background. Periya melam music is also believed to be the sonic manifestation of the Hindu deity and is believed to make the deity's presence immediate and real to worshippers.

Note here that while Mridangam accompanies vocal artists or artists playing violin, veena, flute, or mandolin, Thavil is the standard accompaniment for the nadhaswaram, clarinet, and saxophone played at other, usually open venues. The Chinna melam and its instruments over time were developed and tuned to the concert hall acoustics and the microphone, whereas the Periya melam instruments are louder and perhaps tuned for outdoor performances. The Thavil which produces a powerful sound matching the rich volume of the nagaswaram has its player using a stick to play one side and hands (with rings on playing fingers) for the other side as against the Mridangam player using hands on both sides. The craft of thavil-making in the nineteenth century moved from Tanjore to Panruti, located some 75 miles north of Tanjore around the middle of the twentieth century. The cymbals for talam were mainly of two types, Periya melam version is much larger than those used by the Chinna melam.

The nadaswaram is a double-reed wind instrument and one of the world's loudest non-brass acoustic instruments. In South Indian culture, the nadasvaram is very auspicious and is a key musical instrument always played in almost all Hindu weddings and temples. Each part of the Nadaswaram is related to a deity. The bottom circle to Surya, the upper hole to Goddess Sakti, the inner holes to Lord Vishnu, the body to Lord Brahma, and the seven holes are to seven mothers. The music emanating is related to Lord Siva. Narasinganpettai, 10 miles from Kumbakonam, is home to great Nagaswaram makers. The nagaswaram of the south and the shehnai of the North are of the same musical family and look alike. The Bari is the bigger version, whereas the Thimiri is smaller. The ottu, Thoottu, or Mukhavina belong to the drone family and provides the sruti. Like the nadaswaram, the ottu is a double-reed instrument but has no holes and produces a single long note after it is tuned and sealed.

According to Terada - Brahmans not only constitute the vast majority of Karnatak musicians and patrons but also the most important group of connoisseurs and patrons for Periya Melam music. Their artistic predilection and patronage for "traditional" Periya Melam music has been largely responsible for the survival of the genre. The ritual pollution associated with the instruments used in the Periya Melam ensemble has allegedly kept Brahmans from becoming performers themselves, and this inhibition has made them depend on Isai Vellalar and other non-Brahman musicians for temple worship and lifecycle rituals calling for Periya Melam music... For this reason, Periya melam is considered an essential element of temple rituals and festivals, as indicated in a statement commonly made by Periya melam musicians: "There is no village without a temple, and there is no temple without the nagasvaram."

Chinna Melam was traditionally the art form of temple dance performed as part of worship at Hindu temples. The Nattuvan or choreographer was accompanied by a Mukahvina/Thootu, replaced later by a clarinet or flute, smaller cymbals, a drone, the Thavil, etc. Interestingly in Telugu areas, during olden times, some troupes even had a couple of Muslims handling bigger drums! This form also developed into an on-demand performance art for rich patrons, at their homes and eventually was transformed in the 1930s into a concert hall art form known today as Bharata Natyam.

We can conclude therefore that the Telugu community of Tanjore who held themselves superior were temple performers, specializing in the Periya melam or Nadaswaram playing, whereas the Tamil community were offspring of the Devadasi families and took up the Chinna Melam or dance-music combo. In the Thanjavur district, Isai Velalars were the practitioners of both traditions. They were as colloquially termed the sadir (Chinna melam) people or the nadaswaram (Periya melam) people.

Amit adds - Professional divisions such as Periya and Chinna melam reflected an involution and greater sophistication of the artistic services rendered by the community under the influence of the Bhakti temple institution. The performance of the nautch, the Chinna melam or sadir kacheri as it was variously called in old Madras, was obligatory and a matter of etiquette at society occasions. The requirement for both heredity and skill in temple positions was evident in that it was not enough to be born into the community, one had to be competent as well. In Tamil Nadu today, the art of Sadir/Bharatanatyam is monopolized by Brahmins who clearly see themselves as having `rescued' it from the fallen 'prostitute', the devadasi.

Per Soneji - Isai Vellalar - The birth of the “icai velalar” jati in the 1920s signaled a reinvention of masculinity within devadasi communities in the Tamil-speaking regions... Before the political mobilization of these communities in the 1920s, men who were relatives of devadasıs identified themselves using a range of caste names and occupational titles. The broadest and far-reaching of these was melakkarar (“one who plays in the melam”), which functioned as an umbrella term for the various subgroups that made up the community.

In and around Tanjavur, the “barber-musicians,” as they were called in the 1901 census, were divided into Tamil- and Telugu-speaking groups. The Tamil-speaking barber-musicians were known as ampattan (“barber,” from the Sanskrit ambastha), napitan (“barber,” napita), or parikari (“remover,” pariharin). These communities performed music for lower, non-Brahmin patrons and at temples dedicated to village deities.

In Tanjavur, men from this community who were “full-time” nagasvaram and tavil players often distinguished themselves with the title maruttuvar (meaning “practitioner of medicine,” a common epithet for “barber”). They also used the term pajantiri (“musician”) to identify themselves. Among the Telugu-speaking barber-musicians in Tamil Nadu, the surnames Nayudu and Reddi were very common. They usually claimed superior status to the Tamil-speaking barber-musicians but were still considered much lower than “professional” nagasvaram artists and nattuvanars, who were employed by larger temples and patronized by elites during marriage functions.

Daneil, Harp, and Sankaran conclude - Though music and dance have long been the profession of the Isai Vellalars, the Brahmins have been a parallel music caste, particularly as composers, vocalists, vainikas, and violin vidwans with a sprinkling of drummers, but carefully keeping away from nagasvaram and dancing. The stigma of higher castes learning leather percussion instruments was lessened when Brahmin Palghat Mani Ayyar became a mridangam maestro… The Isai Vellalar caste of traditional music was somewhat akin to the gharanas as guardians of tradition but now the tables are turned against them.

The Melakkar community thus, reclassified themselves as Isai Vellalar or the Vellalar’s connected to music and typically added a Pillai as their surname. After the ban on Nautch and the Devadasi culture took effect, the dance was rebranded as Bharata Natyam and set to a structure mainly by the Tanjore Quartet. After the restructuring, many a girl from the community took to vocal performances as well as the new dance styles, while the musical performers continued with instruments. The dancers and the vocalists moved to Madras from Tanjore, since the new patrons and concert hall events were all in the great metropolis while the royal patron of Tanjore had been replaced by the British state. The rich individual patrons were situated in Madras and worked for or with the British bureaucracy. However, the instrumentalists were in a quandary, since in addition to supporting dance performances, they also performed for temple events, weddings, and other occasions such as processions, and festivals – most of which were connected to the temples of Tanjore.

Encroachment by Brahmins and the takeover of the Mridangam scene

Violin – Though it made its entrance much earlier through Baluswami and Vadivelu, it was popularized by Varahapayyar, opening the doors to Brahmins who could now substitute the yazh or the veena. A news report explains - A Brahmin Fiddler -The "Madras Government Gazette," of January 1831, celebrated the performances on the violin, of a descendant of the ancient Gymnosophists-a Brahmin named Verapiah, in the service of His Highness the Rajah of Tanjore, who had lately made his appearance before the musical public of Madras. He was said to play at first sight, with correctness and in exact time, the most difficult pieces of printed music… See Violin in Carnatic Music article.

Animal skin and saliva–caste-polluting substances kept Brahmins out of percussion and reed instruments for many centuries. Thamburu or Veena, as well as the violin, were thus the Brahmin forte, but it was their transgression into the field of Mridangam playing that created a revolution, mainly because this drum unlike a flute, stringed instruments, or the mud pot ghatam, was made up of skins from the cow, buffalo and goat on the contact sides. Though a Brahmin Mridangam player can be identified in a 1915 Tyagaraja festival photograph, it took many more years for the brilliant Palghat Mani Iyer to break the borders.

It was his search for the perfect ‘nadam’ or tone from the drum he had already mastered, that led Iyer to collaborate with the Christian makes of Mridangams. TMK narrates the fascinating tale between his two books which are great reads and explains how Mani Iyer rose to the top despite fierce competition from Isai Vellalar percussionists.

TMK explains that for a very long time, playing the mrdanga was mainly associated with the Chinna mela vidvans and other isai vellalars, and quite linked with the tavil tradition. There were a few Brahmin mrdanga vidvans but they were connected with teaching or playing for Namasankirtana and Harikatha. In the 20^th century, the Tanjavur style was connected to the Brahmin players whereas the Pudukotai style with the isai velella. Strangely, the Tanjavur style was influenced by the non-Brahmin Maratha Appa’s. Everything started to change with the arrival of the maestro Palghat Mani Iyer.  Quoting TMK - The one domain within the kutcheri that they dominated had now been taken over. Once Palghat Mani Iyer made his breakthrough, the floodgates opened and there was no stopping the Brahmin monopoly over the mrdangam…. The Isai Vellalar community is said to have resisted the Mani Iyer invasion but ultimately succumbed to a great musician backed by a dominant community. So far, the Brahmin mridanga vidvans had never been considered at par with the non-brahmin ones — neither as mathematically sharp nor as physically strong as the Isai Vellalar. The Isai Vellalar community too believed in the superiority of its own skills. All of this collapsed with Palghat Mani Iyer. He was, therefore, feted as the greatest, as Nandi himself (the lord of the mrdanga). Pazhani or Murugabhoopathy were never referred to as Nandi.

According to Krishna’s book, the reduced influence of Brahmins in temples after Periyar’s self-respect movement in Tamil Nadu eventually culminated in the takeover of temples by the government of Tamil Nadu. While the movement was a necessary social awakening, he notes, “it did not lead to a more egalitarian Karnatic music environment, instead spurring it to become even more insular… The government, which took control over the temples, hardly contributed to the development of quality nagasvara or tavil vidvans. The end result has been tragic – lack of support for those Karnatik musicians who once breathed musical life into the temple and society.”

References

Reform or Conformity? Temple 'Prostitution' and the Community in the Madras Presidency - Amrit Srinivasan
A Southern Music: the Karnatik story - Krishna, T. M
Sebastian & Sons: A brief history of mrdangam makers – Krishna TM
Reform and Revival: The Devadasi and Her Dance - Amrit Srinivasan
Musings of a Musician – R Rangaramanuja Ayyangar
The Voice in the Drum: Music, Language, and Emotion in Islamicate South Asia - Richard K. Wolf
Unfinished Gestures Devadasis, Memory, and Modernity in South India (South Asia Across the Disciplines) - Davesh Soneji
Temple Music Traditions in Hindu South India: "Periya Mēḷam" and Its Performance Practice - Yoshitaka Terada
T. N. Rajarattinam Pillai and Caste Rivalry in South Indian Classical Music - Yoshitaka Terada
From the Tanjore Court to the Madras Music Academy – Lakshmi Subramaniam
The Life of Music in South India - Neuman, Daniel, Allen, Matthew Harp, Sankaran, T.
The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music: South Asia: The Indian Subcontinent - Ed Alison Arnold
The music and musical instruments of Southern India and the Deccan - C. R. Day

Images – acknowledged with many thanks

1-      Nautch Party Tanjore - Victoria and Albert museum collections 

2-      A ‘Nautch Scene’ with dancers and accompanists. (Collection of the University Cote d’Azur; originally from the archives of the Ancien Musee des colonies)

Please note – I am tracing all this from a historical aspect – No disrespect or offense is directed to any community in any comment, or statements made. Should any reader feel so please send a specific note with suggested corrections to the author for review. As such the article is based on historical events, and referenced sources, with effort put in, to make it readable and provide some brevity.

Related articles

Part 1 Caste ingress into the Musical Realm, The story of Vedanayagam Sastri

Part 2 Caste conflicts – Carnatic Music, Brahmins and Carnatic music

Part 3 The Music of the Melakkar - The Melakkar and the breach of the Isai Vellalar borders.