Harikatha is storytelling in which music does much of the narrative work. One performer tells a story, usually from the epics or the lives of saints, moving between speech and song. Commentary, poetry and often humor fill the spaces in between.
The performance
The principal performer traditionally stands for the whole performance, speaking, singing and acting out the characters. A pair of wooden clappers, the chipla, keeps time in the performer’s hands. Behind them sit the accompanists: a mridangam player, a violinist or harmonium player, and often a supporting singer who keeps time with small cymbals. Songs often mark the story’s high points, and the spoken passages explain and digress.
From kirtan to harikatha
In Tamil Nadu, the form has Marathi roots. Maratha rule in Thanjavur began in the 1670s, and Marathi devotional kirtan traditions took hold there through religious houses and court patronage. Over time local practitioners absorbed them into Tamil musical practice. In the later nineteenth century, Tanjore Krishna Bhagavatar, who had learned from a Maharashtrian kirtankar, reshaped the form. According to the historian B. M. Sundaram, he kept the kirtan’s structure but sang mostly in Carnatic ragas, added songs in Telugu, Kannada and Tamil, and narrated in Tamil. Later Tamil performers, among them Embar Vijayaraghavachariar, carried the form into the twentieth century, and many moved it closer to spoken religious discourse.
Regional practices
Harikatha did not develop in one place only. In the Telugu-speaking region, Adibhatla Narayana Dasu (1864–1945) is regarded as its defining figure. He was a composer, scholar and veena player, and his performances added dance and abhinaya to narration and song. He is honored in that tradition as Harikatha Pitamaha, a title Tamil sources give to Krishna Bhagavatar. Kannada harikathe is a related tradition with its own repertoire and performers. Language, repertoire and the balance of speech, song and movement differ from region to region.
At a harikatha, notice what each song adds to the narration that came before it.
For more on harikatha and the other forms AFA presents, see Meet the Art Forms.
