Nandan Charithram aanandam

Courtesy: Sri.PPR 

Dear Friends,
For the past six months I have been trying to collect the Keerthanas constituting " Nandanar Charithram", possibly the greatest work of one of the greatest musicologist of Tamil Nadu, Sri Gopalakrishna Bharathi. This great music composer was a contemporary of the musical trinity of Thiruvayyaru. He was trained both in Carnatic music as well as Hindusthani music. Apart from handling classic ragas , he was also an adept in handling folk meters. He wrote in Tamil and one of his master pieces was a musical composition called "Nandanar Charithram". Nandanar was a slave to a Brahmin land lord but a great devotee of Shiva. Once he visited a shiva temple at Thiruppunkur. Since as a dalit, he was not supposed to go inside the temple, he was not able to see the God, because a big Nandi statue that was hiding it. As per his prayer the Lord asked his Nandi to move so that Nandanar can see him. After this incident , Nandanar heard a lot about The great Nataraja temple in Chidambaram. His master wanted him to complete his job of ploughing and then think of going to Chidambaram. That night , Lord Ganesa, dug a lake in that village and also completed the ploughing of his master's fields. The master was more than convinced of greatness of Nandanar and even requested him to be his Guru. Nandanar was received by the Chidambaram Deekshithars and merged with god, in that temple. Long search revealed that Nandanar Charithram was available in the web in http://www.shaivam.org/siddhanta/sta_gkb_r.htm . Unfortunately there were lot of songs in this collection , which did not belong to the Nandanar Charithram and also, they were not in proper sequence. My further search took me to a book on notations to the "Nandan Charitham" by Sangeetha Kalanidhi Prof.Srinivasan. I understand that even here in many cases the full songs are not given. There is a reference to a" Nandanar Charithram" published in two volumes by Annamalai University. I could not get it. So there would be several omissions and commissions in the translation that I have given. I would be grateful, if some of you who are far more learned musicians, would make whatever I have done as a basis and bring out a more correct and more authentic book so that this great treasure is not lost to us. You can read my translation in
http://translationsofsomesongsofcarnticmusic.blogspot.in/2013/01/nandanar-charithram-of-gopala-krishna_1266.html