Swami D.R. Parvatikar - Raga Nayaki Kanara and Bhopali - Rudra Veena - Rudra Vina

With Dattatreya Rama Rao Parvatikar, known as Swami D.R. Parvatikar or Veena Baba we add another musician from the 20th century to this historical collection of Rudra Veena players. Rather known as a Sanyasi and Nada Yogi who lived in the Himalayas, he was a multiverse instrumentalist. He played not only several instruments like in Sitar, Vichitra Veena, Rudra Veena and Swarmandal, but invented also his own Veena called Dattatreya Veena (also Bhram Veena), a mixture of Sitar and Swarmandal. The sound of this instrument was captured in recordings of Alain Daniélou taken for a UNESCO project: ‘UNESCO Collection of Traditional Music of the World’.

While these recordings are available on disc and CD we present here some short pieces of Swami D.R. Parvatikar Rudra Veena playing, which seem according to the audio quality also be done in the 1950ties by Alain Daniélou.

Though there are no information about his musical training and tradition we can hear in his Veena playing a Khyal based style that uses a short Alap, Jor, Jhala, followed by Teental and Sitarkhani Gats as played on Sitar. A trend we see with several (amateur) Rudra Veena players in the 20th century resulting from the increasing extinction of pure Veena traditions and the popularity the Sitar gained in that time.
However the short clippings added in the end of this upload demonstrate his well-versed command over the Jor and fast Jhala techniques.

From the little known about him we can gather that he was not too much involved in professional performing, rather exploring his Sadhana of spiritual practice and music as well as teaching both of them. He started a Nada Yoga School in Rishikesh in the 1950ties. We can hear in the Bhoopali recording a student playing accompanying him.

I hope you will enjoy also this unique Rudra Veena recordings.
Carsten