Announcement of a New Book on Music

Published by                     : DHANUSH INFOTECH, Hyderabad.
Copies Can be had from : N. Ravi Kumar
Raj Towers, E-4, D.No. 50-121-56/1/19
Balayyasastry Layout, Visakhapatnam - 530 013.
The Karnatic Music Book Centre
14, Sripuram, 1st Street, Chennai - 600 014

This book Ragatalacintamani of Poluri Govinda Kavi (Critical edition with translation and comments) is based on the thesis 'Ragatalacintamani of Poluri Govinda Kavi - A study' for which she was awarded the Ph.D. Degree by the Andhra University.

This treatise Ragalalacintamani was written by Poluri Govinda Kavi in early 17 th Century AD and is perhaps the earliest laksana grantha on music in Telugu language.

Ragatalacintamani is a very important treatise belonging to the late medieval period.

In this work Govinda Kavi manifested grama, murchana, tana, svaraprastara, svaras and srutis and suddhavikrta svaras, raga classification systems and tala and taladasa pranas. Grahasvara is the one important aspect of svara system that Govinda Kavi treated. Description of talas is the another important contribution of Govinda Kavi.

Apart from music Govinda Kavi touches upon other arts like drama and dance also.

This work of Poluri Govinda Kavi was brought to light when Sri T.V. Subba Rao edited and published it in the year 1952.

The present publication has attempted to improve the text by consulting more manuscripts and has further presented an English Translation and comments on technical aspects.

This book is devoted to a study of the work of Poluri Govinda Kavi.
The contents of this book is as follows:
This book is divided into two sections.

FIRST SECTION :

The first section relating to the text of Ragatalacintamani. There are three chapters in this first section .
1. INTRODUCTION : The introduction chapter comprises the following aspects.
i) The author’s period
ii) His family history
iii) Modern scholars opinions
iv) Literary style of the author
v) Merits of Ragatalacintamani
vi) Other poets mentioned by Govinda Kavi

2. The Second chapter consists of the improved edited text which is presented on compiling of the manuscripts of Ragatalacintamani.
The manuscripts compiled are
i) GOML - Madras - D2564 - Telugu
Begins on fol 1a - 240 pages - paper complete.
ii) GOML - Madras - D2565 - Telugu
Begins on fol 1a. -181 pages - paper - complete.
iii) Transferred to ORISVU - Tirupati - D2566 - Telugu
307 pages - paper - complete.
iv) ORISVU - Tirupati - 7599 - Telugu
223 leaves - palm leaf - complete.
3. In the third chapter an English translation of the newly edited text of Ragatalacintamani has been given.

SECOND SECTION:

There are five chapters in this section.
1. In first chapter a general view of the topics dealt in it with a brief explanations and comments about the earlier treatises.
2. Second chapter gives the contribution of the author on the suddhavikrta svaras, mela-raga classification.
3. In the third chapter grahasvara, kutatana etc topics are treated.
4. Tala is studied in the fourth chapter. The contribution of Govinda Kavi to prastara has been pointed out in detail.
5. And finally the last chapter is the concluding part.

There are four appendices in this book:

• The first contains the list of epithets relating to Lord Rama by Govinda kavi.
• The second appendix furnishes in Roman script the newly edited text of Ragatalacintamani.
• The third appendix gives the names of the `Sons of Bharata' listed in Natyasastra and the corresponding list of names of `Brahmaputra' given in Ragatalacintamani.
• The fourth appendix furnishes a table that presents a comparative study of the treatment of extra-musical attributes to Svaras found in Sangitaratnakara and Ragatalacintamani.