Remembering the Harikathapithamaha

A Four-day celebration of the 154th birthday of ‘Harikathapitamaha’ Adibhatla Narayana Dasu concluded on Sunday. The disciples of Adibhatla Narayana Das had organised the ‘Harikatha festival’ in commemoration of Harikatha legend Adibhatla Narayana Das at Sitarama Kalyana mandapam from August 17. Sri Sri Sri Kaivalyananda Saraswathi swamy and Burra Padmanabha Sarma have been conducting this festival for the last 30 years.

Adibhatla Narayana Das was the creator of the unique art form ‘Harikatha’ which comprised of music, dance and expression. Narayana Dasu was a poet, philosopher, playwright, composer, dancer, actor and he was a scholar having fluency in Telugu, Sanskrit, Tamil, Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, English, Arabic and Persian. Next to Tyagaraja swamy, legend Adibhatla has composed music in all the 72 Carnatic ragas he was next only to Tyagaraja.

Narayana das opined that the objective of Harikatha are to educate and entertain the listeners. He wrote twenty one Harikathas both in Telugu and in Sanskrit. During the four days festival, 17 Harikathas were presented by the “Haridas” or various parts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The festival commenced with the harikatha of Vemuri Ramalakshmi of Rajahmundry. She rendered “Bhakta Annamayya”.

It was followed by the Harikatha “Bhakta Kuchela” by V Srirama Bhattar of Hyderabad. Nayani Lakshmikumari from Prodduturu rendered the story of “Pururava Charitra” and the first day concluded with the Harikatha ”Sitakalyanam” by Muppavarapu Venkata Simhachala Sastry of Tirupati.

Vepuri Srivani of Vijayawada rendered “Parvathi Kalyanam” as the first Harikatha on second day of the festival. That was followed by ‘Maharadhi Karna” by Katta Jeji Narayana of Visakhapatnam, “Paduka Pattabhishekam” by Jayanthi Savitri of Tirupati and “Srinivasa Kalyanam” by P Ravi Prasada Raju from Kurnool.

The third day of the festival commenced with the Harikatha of Kottapalli Kalyani from Anakapallim, who rendered “Srikrishna Rayabaram”. On the same day ‘Sriram Samrajya Pattabhishekam” was rendered by Kodapalli Viswanatham (Kapileswarapuram), ‘Gajendra moksham’ by T Narasaiah Suri (Vinukonda), “Padmavyuham” by Mogilicharla Nagamani (Tenali) and ‘Mudrika Pradanam’ by Pala Ramanjaneyulu (Unguturu).

On the concluding day M Ramudu (Tirupati) presented the katha of ‘Srirama Jananam’. The second harikatha of the last day ‘Bhakta Markandeya’ was rendered by Niraghatam Padmavathi (Repalle) followed by the Harikatha “Mahabharatha Ghattam” by Chandu Bhaskara Rao (Tenali). The festival concluded with the Harikatha of noted Haridas “Kota Sachidananda Sastry (Guntur). He rendered the story of “Droupadi mana Samrakshana”.

It was a happy moment for the audience to listen the yesteryears famous art form “Harikatha”. All the performers rendered the Harikathas with their good expressional voice and music. M Lakshmana Rao (Srikakulam), M Ramagopal (Tirupati), Panyam Dakshinamurthy (Vijayawada) ably supported with violin and S Suribabu (Bhadrachalam), M Nagadhararao (Tenali), K Subbarao (Peda Amiram), Ammula Prasad (Vijayawada) and Padumarthi Haranatha Sastry (Vijayawada) also supported on mridangam for the Harikathas during the four days. Kota Sachidananda Sastry and Chandu Bhaskara Rao were felicitated by the organisers during this festival.