Sri Purandara Mantapa: A hall that echoes the raagas of devotion

Published on: 15/01/2025

Photo title: Sri Purandara Mantapa

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Photo Credits: Vikram Nanjappa

In the heart of Hampe stands a pavilion whose stones echo the music of history, mythology and devotion across the arc of time.

Hampe may be one from a distance, but dive in and you will find that it’s many places in one, places where history takes on a thousand poetic guises. And the Sri Purandaradasa Mantapa is one of this poem’s prime stanzas.

The Purandara Mantapa, literally ‘Purandara Pavilion’, is an eloquent structure of stone pillars without walls. All structures in Hampe speak – of a time of unbridled architectural prowess, artistic plenitude and cultural wealth, but the Purandara Mantapa sings.

It sings because this relic of the extraordinary Vijayanagara empire is named after Purandaradasa, who sang in the darbar of Krishnadevaraya. And he was no common crooner. A major vocalist of the bhakti movement, he was monikered ‘Sangeetha Pitamaha’ (‘Father of Carnatic music’), and in the echelons of Indian music, is among the holy trinity of the art, along with Tyagaraja Swami and Mutthuswami Dikshitar. And he is believed to have composed many of his masterpieces, now in the tradition of Dasa Sahitya (Dasa Literature), in this very pavilion in Hampe. These pillars have supported more than just the roof. Purandaradasa is often deified as an incarnation of the divine sage Narada, but this demigod couldn’t have been any closer to earth.

Before becoming a philosopher-poet, he was a wealthy merchant. It is said that on a fateful day, realising the futility of worldly riches in a seeker’s life, he renounced his wealth to become a haridasa (a servant of Hari, i.e., Vishnu or Krishna). Beginning his new journey as a devotional singer who made certain difficult Sanskrit literary compositions palatable to the non-scholarly world, he went on to become a foremost music scholar of mediaeval India, whose melodies burst forth in classical music schools even today.

He also made the processes of teaching and learning Carnatic music easy by structuring graded exercises known as Svaravalis and Alankaras. He introduced the raaga Mayamalavagowla as the first and fundamental scale for beginners, which is followed by students even today. He also composed a whole world of simple songs for students called Geetegalu.

Photo title: Sri Purandara Shrine

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Photo Credits: Vikram Nanjappa

All of his surviving thousand classical compositions, of the roughly seventy-five thousand he’s believed to have composed in his lifetime, are dedicated to Purandara Vittala, an epithet of his beloved Krishna. Little surprise then that the Purandara Mantapa is located behind the world-renowned Vitthala Temple.

A small, simple shrine built as part of the mantapa contains a carving of the Sangeetha Pitamaha with his tamboori (a string instrument). The birth anniversary of this saint-poet is celebrated every year in this sacred space with musicians of repute performing his compositions.

The open, pillared pavilion stands on the banks of the mighty River Tungabhadra, so close to a stretch where she decidedly flows with poise that it sometimes feels like it is built on her waters.

While she thus flows with a devastating tenderness, she reminds you what you might frequently forget: all your soulsongs fading in discord can still, and always, be harmonised, like the sweet gurgles of her as she flows gently over hard rocks. It is as if this harmony has endured because the poet’s tamboori’s strings were strummed to set this eternal elemental rhythm.

And if you are fortunate, your heart can harmlessly trick your mind like the notes of Carnatic classical music, the same seven universal notes in any form of music, are wafting away all around you, whispering things of beauty in your ears.

This is why you want to keep returning to a place like Hampe, for it defies to fall prey to our defined ways of seeing things. It is a tease, always taunting you to explore experiences that can thrill and surprise your senses and their usual assigned functions. Like a wise thinker once said, there are things you can see with listening eyes and listen with seeing ears. And so Hampe, where everything is carved out of stone, keeps blooming as a muse. It keeps opening itself up for as many interpretations of it as you can possibly muster – in the realms of abstract, myth and mysticism, too, if you wish to venture far enough.

A stone may not make music, but just as the moon does not make light but merely reflects it, the Purandara Mantapa mirrors the music that was born between its opennesses in the crucible of devotion, capable of melting even a heart of stone to the tenderest string that resonates to the music of myth, faith and transcendence.

Sourabha Rao

Sourabha Rao is a professional writer, poet, translator, former freelance columnist and voiceover artist, with literary proficiency in English and Kannada. She deeply cares about producing stories primarily on nature and wildlife, social issues, history and art. She strives to write truthfully and creatively in an earnest attempt to create content that educates and entertains, has impact, and mobilises positive social change. She has written op-eds and photo-stories for leading Kannada and English newspapers, and has collaborated with filmmakers in wildlife conservation and water conservation. Sourabha lives in Bengaluru, while a big chunk of her heart has stayed back in Mysuru, her forever-muse.

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Sri Purandara Mantapa: A hall that echoes the raagas of devotion

Sourabha Rao