Marathi abhangs wanted

Dinesh K. Prabhu

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May 4, 1992, 9:02:56 PM5/4/92

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Hi y'all,

Are there any Maharashtrians out there? I would like the lyrics of
Marathi "abhang"s (?). Is "abhang" the Marathi word for "bhajan"?.
Also, what is a "gaj(z)ar"? I have a Bhimsen Joshi song that goes
as "Naamaache gaj(z)ara..." which I guess is a Naamdev composition.
I know there are literally thousands of "abhang"s but e-mail or post
(I guess this newsgroup is appropriate for this kind of stuff :-))
some of your favorite ones. While I don't need complete translations
of these songs, I'd appreciate it if you give the meanings of words that
are particularly difficult/alien to Konkani speakers :-).Thanks much in
advance.

Regards
Dinesh Prabhu
(pra...@corvus.arc.nasa.gov)

Rajan Parrikar

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May 5, 1992, 12:39:58 PM5/5/92

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I have song request too. It's a Marathi geet composed and sung by
Jitendra Abhiseki: "Kashi tuja samjaoo saang, ka bhaamini ugich
raag..". An accompanying translation would greatly help this
Marathi-illiterate poster!

Rajan Parrikar
==============
email: parr...@mimicad.colorado.edu

Dhananjay S Joshi

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May 5, 1992, 3:11:05 PM5/5/92

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Here is some translation of Pandit Jitendra Abhisheki song

kashi how
tuj you
samjaoo convince/explain
saang tell me

ka why
bhamini beloved
ugich unnecessary/unnecessarily/without any reason
raag anger/ angry

basically the guy is asking his beloved how he can convince her of
something( his love) and asks her what is the reason/ basis for her
unnecessary anger.

Tushar Samant

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May 6, 1992, 7:56:41 AM5/6/92

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My knowledge of abhangs is limited to having heard them as "songs".
Abhangs are different from bhajans, in that they are mainly 'poems'
as opposed to songs or solo as opposed to chorus, but this is rather
a simplistic distinction. After all, what is to be sung by a group is
defined by the group itself, so almost all abhangs can be used as bhajans
(going by the bhajans in Bombay's local trains, at least :-) ). The main
distinction which the saint poets seem to have made is that of metre -
an abhang line has four parts - the fourth is generally shorter than the
other three, and the second and third rhyme. However, they were not written
for showing off the poet's skill at writing verse, so that these metric
'rules' are only very loosely followed. Bhajans, on the other hand have
metres that can be sung. Anyhow enough of this and on to some well-known
abhangs of some well-known saint poets (I have to rely on memory, so I will
write only those which I am sure of and stick to a one or two well known
ones):

Tukoba (Tukaram)
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
1

(Sorry, I just can't remember the last line.)

chakor is the bird which lives on 'moonlight'.
vaatuli is another word for 'vaat'.

2

(I seem to have a knack of forgetting the takhallus line :-) :-) )

This is a description of the splendour of Vithoba. Any words which might
be troublesome are :

makarakuNDale : the "fish" ear-ornaments (which you can see in any picture
of the god).
shravaNi : on the ears

Eknath
~~~~~~
Probably the best known is :

(line 4 is also sung as
punDaleek bandhu rhaay | tyaachi khyaati saangu kaay | )

bheevarechyaa : of the bheema river (bheevara = bheema)

I guess the post is already getting long. The obvious omission is that of
*Dnyandev*. I don't remember any except the first lines, the main reason
being that the language is more difficult and harder to remember. I will
post them in some time if I find references, but don't expect me to give
explanations of difficult terms ! (Much smarter people have worked at it
and haven't been completely successful :-) )

Finally I should mention new abhangs, not written by the "authentic" saint
poets. I guess that the famous "indraayaNi kaaThi" is in this category. The
lines which I rememeber are :

The most famous one in this category is of course "aadhi beej ekale".
This was written by Shantaram Athavale and was used in the seminal
Prabhat film "sant tukaram". It managed to trick some famous scholars
into believing that they had missed an authentic tukaram abhang. Since
I don't know the exact words, I will refrain from trying.

tushar

Tushar Samant

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May 6, 1992, 7:59:15 AM5/6/92

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As for bhajans, I will only mention two now, and give details later:

Dnyandev:

roop paahataa lochanee | sookh jaale vo saajaNee |
to haa viTThal baravaa | to haa maadhav baravaa | ( etc.)

Namdev (?)

vaariyaane kuNDal haale | doLe moDit raadhaa chaale | (etc.)

Both of these are very beautiful. They both seem to have at least
two different tunes, one a traditional one and another set by some
modern music directors. Both are very nice. Finally two bhajans which
I must mention, but don't know ANYTHING about is:

1 amrutaahunee god | naam tujhe devaa | ???

2 raam krishNa govind | naaraayaN hari | keshavaa muraari | paaNDurangaa

(Note how the second one is clearly an abhang, being used as a bhajan
here. The first one probably is too.)

If anyone has any more information, who wrote these, the words, etc.
PLEASE mail me or post.

tushar

Prashant Kulkarni

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May 9, 1992, 10:37:03 AM5/9/92

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tukaa mhaNe majhi hechi sarva sookh paahiNe shreemukh aavadiNe

shreemukh - face of the lord.

>
>(I seem to have a knack of forgetting the takhallus line :-) :-) )
>
>This is a description of the splendour of Vithoba. Any words which might
>be troublesome are :
>
>makarakuNDale : the "fish" ear-ornaments (which you can see in any picture
> of the god).
>shravaNi : on the ears
>
>
>

(rest of the mail deleted)

>
>tushar
>

prashant
(pras...@caen.engin.umich.edu)