Amara Sara Arana - Articles

Birthday tribute to Amaradeva
The Island Friday 05th December, 2003

Musician, Scholar and Patriot by H. L. .Seneviratne I do not know enough of Amaradeva’s professional work, or music in general, to write a learned essay on our greatest musician. This is merely a brief personal note on Amaradeva as I know him. I had the good fortune to gain a nodding acquaintance with music in my youth, and as an undergraduate at Peradeniya, I naturally looked for opportunities to continue my musical interests, which led me to involve myself with the appropriate student organization, then known as the Mela Society, also called the Gandharva Sabhava. One of the society’s activities was to invite artistes, and in about 1956 we invited Amaradeva. I was introduced to Amaradeva by one of his childhood friends, K. L. F.Wijedasa, a fellow resident of Arunachalam Hall, who was a talented singer himself, and a distinguished athlete. Listening to Amaradeva live for the first time, I was absolutely enchanted. However what touched me more was his self-effacing humility and warmth. To us he was already a superstar. Now, nearly half a century later, when Amaradeva has gained worldwide recognition, this quality is even more in evidence. Among his numerous qualities as an exceptional human being, this I think is one that has endeared to him most to those who know him. To say that Amaradeva’s voice is as divine as his violin is to state the perfectly obvious. This is clear to even those who are not particularly versed in music. Amaradeva was born with rare gifts, and his home background gave him the early fertilization necessary for these inborn gifts to grow. After some years of practice, Amaradeva went to Bhatkande where he received the best training one could imagine in the field of Indian music. His teachers at Bhatkande were legendary figures in the teaching and practice of classical North Indian music. These include vocalists K. N. Ratanjankar, G. N. Natu, V. M. Lele, D. R. Kaikini, Usman Khan, Maksud Ali Khan, and K. R. Rao, and instrumentalists V. G. Jog and Davji Gosamy. Among his long list of distinguished awards are the Padmashri awarded by the Government of India and the Magasaysay of the Ramon Magasysay Foundation. The master violinist V. G. Jog has named Amaradeva his most distinguished pupil, and Bhatkande honoured him with the title `ECPandit`EE. Amaradeva could have rested on his laurels. He could have continued the study and practice of Hindustani classical music and gained renown internationally, but the patriot in him placed him on a different path. Mid twentieth century was an era when scholars and artists in Sri Lanka were consciously searching for their identity. One testimony to this is the symposium on traditional culture, edited by Professor Ralph Pieris, published in 1956 by the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya. This volume consisted of essays dealing with practically every field of art, and the theme that united the volume is that of creating art works that express a contemporary sensibility, yet rooted in the native soil of Sri Lanka. Amaradeva took upon himself the task of creating a distinctively Sri Lankan music, yet sophisticated enough to provide serious enjoyment to listeners with complex tastes. Amaradeva’s method in this task is most explicit in his Janagayana project, going back to the mid 1950s, in which he sought the wisdom and artistic experience of such master exponents of the Kandyan Dance tradition as Pani Bharata, Kiriganita, Gunamala, Ukkuva and Suramba. This effort was based on the musicological axiom that a national musical tradition can only arise from a system of traditional folk music. Noticing that the Sinhala folk songs are pentatonic, Amaradeva proceeded to add a secondary composition (antara) carefully making sure that the latter conformed to the colours of the existing primary melody. Amaradeva elaborated on this task in a series of attempts over the national radio under the titles Madhuvanti, Rasamiyuru, Vijayageetha and Swarnawarna. These were followed by TV programmes Gi Ama Bindu, Gisaraniya, Sanka Padma and Sangeetha Makaranda. The music he composed for Ediriweeera Sarachchandra’s Budhist plays (Vessantara, Lomahamsa, Bavakadaturava) also constitute an important part of this repertoire. These attempts made over a period of over 40 years represent the formation of a recognizable national musical style. Though not an elite music like the classical raga based music, this body of musical creations represent a corpus that appeals to sophisticated taste. The style was taken up by many younger musicians which attest to its crystallization as a national tradition of music. With the solitary exception of the theatre, nowhere in the artistic fields where a national tradition was explored have we achieved a measure of success as in the single handed effort of this creative genius. Music is one thing, and its academic and contemplative study is another. Few in the comparative history of music have been equally adept at both. Amaradeva belongs to that small group of versatile practitioners. He is an accomplished comparative musicologist conversant not only with Indian music but also the great tradition of western music as well as other forms of music around the world. In writings strewn with poetic imagery Amaradeva has theorized, among other things, on the relations between the Indian and Far Eastern traditions. The precision and elegance of these writings is evidence of an unsurpassed intellect. Listners are well aware that Amaradeva’s songs consist of the most poetic of the contemporary lyrical corpus, and that this is owed to the work of gifted lyricists like Mahagama Sekera, Chandraratna Manavasinghe, Madavala Ratnayaka, Arisen Ahubudu, Dalton Alwis and Vimal Ahayasundara. While these lyricists deserve credit, it is Amaradeva who should be credited with the broad vision that conceptualized the mutual dependence of the melody and lyric for enhanced musicality. This is a vision that derives from Amaradeva’s familiarity with Indian aesthetic theory. His early lyrics were his own and it was only later that he turned to others for them. Amaradeva’s nationalist songs are very popular among expatriate Sinhala communities in different parts of the world. They are no doubt appreciated by these communities for their musical beauty. But they are also not infrequently valued by these communities for the nationalist sentiments they express, and they have sometimes been appropriated for narrowly nationalistic purposes. Nationalism can be a positive force but the world has seen enough of its dark underside in the last half century or so, and we in Sri Lanka have had more than our share of the woes it can cause. Amaradeva’s nationalist songs express aesthetized homage to the Sinhala people and culture. But neither this, nor his inspiring endeavours to create a national music, should make us attribute to Amaradeva the kind of philistine chauvinism that often goes with conceptions of national art and indigenousness. Amaradeva’s background is a blend of Buddhist and Christian cultures, and his literary imbibement is both Sanskritic and hela just as he combines classical Indian music with folk music. It is clear that his is a cosmopolitan mind, free of narrow nationalist and other distinctions. In one of his poetic contemplations Amaradeva reminds us that the Buddha deplored narrow sentiments locality, ethnicity and so forth (jati vitakka, janapada vitakka, anavajja vitakka) as parochial, saying that all wars and conflicts arise from the baseless idea that ones ethnicity is nobler than that of all others. I recall an incident in the heady days of Sinhala Only when the Student Union of the Peradeniya University debated the issue. The Arts Theatre was packed, and emotions ran high on both sides. A powerful speech was made, for the proposition, by Nandasena Ratnapala, and some others, prominently the Trotskyites, opposed. It is the stormiest session I ever experienced in my entire university career. It was as if the protagonists were going to come to blows, or, in any case they were going to be lifelong enemies. Amaradeva was to perform that evening at the Arts Theatre. Due to the controversial nature of the subject the session dragged on till about15 minutes before the performance. But it did start in time. The same place and the same crowd, but there was no sign that minutes ago the place was the venue of a raging controversy. Perfect calm prevailed. Those who were at each other’s throats a few minutes ago were now mesmerized by the golden voice of Amaradeva. The writer is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Virginia, USA.