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tODi - Part 2
History:
 The raga is believed to have originated from the riShabha mUrchana of ShaDja grAma. While tracing the history of tODi, one might observe that the raga has not had a distinctly stable evolution, even though it is very much a longstanding melody. Some scholars are of the opinion that it is an authara raga, i.e., a rAga that has come down from the North. We do find mention of tODi in a few ancient works like sangIta samaya sAra of Parsvadeva (circa 11th century) and sangIta ratnAkara of Sarngadeva (circa 13th century), and also in some of the later day works like Somanatha’s rAga vibOdha(17th century), sangIta sArAmrita(1735) of Tulaja, and Govindacharya’s sangraha chUDAmaNi (18-19th century).
One also comes across names like chAyA tODi and turuShka tODi in sangIta samaya sAra and sangIta ratnAkara. Annamacharya, the 15th Century composer, seems to have composed in tODi only sparingly, but almost all these works and other treatises on music mention the raga bhUpAla, whether they mention tODi or not. For instance, Narada’s sangIta makaranda (circa 12th century) lists only bhUpAla as a rAgAnga raga, and similarly, it should be noted that in the main chaturdaNDiprakAsika, there is a place for bhUpAla mELa, but tODi does not find any mention.
It is only in the anubandham of this work, believed to have been authored by Muddu Venkatamakhin, that we have janatODi classified as the 8th mELa. And then we of course have the sampUrNa mELa system of sangraha chUDAmaNi, wherein Govindacharya replaced the kaTapayAdi prefix ‘jana’ by ‘hanuma’, and thus we have hanumatODi or just tODi. All said and done, the tODi that we know of today has come down to us through the Trinity, Kshetrajna and other great
vAggEyakAras.
The thAT tODi of Hindustani sangIta has nothing in common with the Carnatic tODi, except the name. The latter’s equivalent in the Hindustani system, is bhairavi thAT. Like the mUrchana system of the ancient grAma music, the concept of modal shift of tonic was prevalent in the system of tamizhisai. Apparently tODi was arrived at this way, and it was referred to as viLarippAlai. But there is no known equivalent paN that has been mentioned in any work on
tamizhisai.
Janyas:
chaturdaNDiprakAsika has given three janyas under the tODi mELa, namely nAgavarALi, punnAgavarALi and asAvEri. But we have other common janya ragas like dEsya tODi, dhanyAsi, bhUpAla, ghaNTa, suddhasImantini also classified under hanumatODi. We also have Suddha tODi which is a tODi without the pancama, that has been referred to in sangraha
chUDAmaNi.
Compositions:
As Sri Subbarama Dikshitar put it, tODi is no doubt a ‘pedda’ raga. Being a melody capable of evoking many subtle shades of emotions, it has been polished with great finesse at the hands of various utthama vAggEyakAras, and has also successfully survived through various tests of expositions, both kalpita and kalpana. This rakti rAga and its janyas have been used with great effect to evoke bhakti and karuNa rasas in particular. This holds good in the realm of dance music and theatre music too. The classic compositions that we hear in tODi today are countless. In our next section we will take up the compositions of the famed composers in this rAga.
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