Caturdandiprakasika of Venkatamakhin (2 volumes)

by R. Satyanarayana

Caturdandiprakasika (c. 1650 A.D.) of Venkatamakhin is a fundamental treatise of Karnataka music and marks the rearguard in the renaissance of Indian music. It has launched a crucial, conceptual revolution which has metamorphosed this musical system into an enduring the attractive paddhati. Caturdandiprakasika is written in ten chapters: Vina, Sruti, Svara, Mela, Raga, Alapa, Thaya, Gita Prabandha and Tala.

The first volume consists of the critically edited Text, English Translation, Text-Critical Comments, Critical and Explanoatory Notes, several Indexes and a detailed Critical Introduction.

The second volume is a detailed commentary of Caturdandiprakasika called Makhihrdaya. It consists of a purely musicological study, critical and comparative and Caturdandiprakasika, set in a historical perspective. It inaugurates a modern era in Indian musicology of critical analysis and interpretation devoted to a single musicological text. With an interdisciplinal approach, it organizes enormous musicological information in a compact format.

This translation of Caturdandiprakasika of Venkatamakhin strikes a balance between appreciation and criticism of Venkatamakhin and his contributions. It provides a historical continuity to the subject matter both in its entirety and in its divisions so that the author's personality and his work are placed in the perspective of totality and distance of both the past and contemporaneity.

About the Author:

Dr. R. Sathyanarayana is one of the foremost thinkers and writers in the field of Art (especially Indian music and Indian dancing) in modern India. He is broad-based in several physical sciences, humanistic and indological disciplines. He has published numerous books including critical editions, translations, commentaries, annotations etc. of original Sanskrit texts on music and dancing, monographs, original creative works, popularizations, research papers etc. on these cognate subjects. He has received numerous academic distinctions (including doctoral degrees, fellowships, honorific titles), awards and honours. He is associated with many learned bodies in India and abroad. He has presented papers at numerous national and international conclaves.

Major areas of his interest and activity include systematic textual criticism, textual interpretation with contemporary relevance, interdisciplinal studies, performance-oriented reconstruction and revival of ancient and medieval compositions in music and dance. He is a guide and examiner for doctoral examinations. Prof. Sathyanarayana belongs to the third generation of the sisya-parampara of the saint-composer Sri Tyagaraja. He is a music composer, teacher, public speaker, broadcaster etc.

He travels frequently to both the East and the West to interpret traditional Indian culture and traditional love on cultural missions. His life and work are documented in many professional directories and Who's Who's. He is hailed for his systematic contributions to the intradisciplinal and interdisciplinal bases of modern Indian musicology and danceology. Sri Sathyanarayana is a noted guru in the srividya tantra of kadimata and anandabhairava sampradaya.