Tyagaraja

 No other composer is celebrated to the extent that Tyagaraja is nor is any other composer’s aradhana observed across the world by generations of musicians as well as other ordinary people seeking the way to God. Tyagaraja is the guide who shows everyone the path to attain God is through faith in Rama and by chanting Rama nama, said Suchithra Balasubramanian in a discourse.

Tyagaraja did not recommend elaborate rituals and ceremonies in order to experience God. Rather, he simplified everything by highlighting the impermanence of temporal goals. Leading a simple, austere and disciplined life, he became a Rama bhakta at an early age.

Hailing from a telugu brahmin sect of mulakanadu of the kakarala vamsa, he was born in Tiruvarur and was named Tyagaraja,  after the presiding deity of the temple there. When the family shifted to Tiruvaiyaru, Tyagaraja continued to flourish, endowed with knowledge with knowledge of Rama through his father's discourses and through his nuanced understanding of music.

When he was barely 18 a sage who arrived from kanchipuram asked tyagaraja to recite Rama,s name 96crore times, reciting 1,25,000 names every day. LORD Rama appeared to him many times during this penance, sometimes appearing to hijacker the poet completed chanting one crore nama.

In one Pallavi, Tyagaraja sings, Nee daya redhu but by the time he sang the anupallavi he says, Ra ra Rajeev Raghuvara Putra, recording his vision of Rama. Tyagaraja was also a recipient of Narada's grace.