Christian Song Tradition in India with Special Reference to Telugu
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CHRISTIAN SONG TRADITION IN INDIA WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO TELUGU Solomon P. Raj The Land and the Missions Andhra Pradesh is one of the southern states in India on the East Coast, north of Madras and south of Orissa. Telugu is the language spoken in this region and it is a musical sounding language some times even claimed as 'the Italian of the East'. Protestant missions came to this area in the earlier part of the 19th century. Lutheran, Anglican, American Baptists, Canadian Baptists, English Brethren etc., worked in this region from that time onwards and most of the major churches are members of the regional Christian Council and some of these churches have joined the Church of South India as a Telugu language constituency of this bigger body. Fr. John Christian Frederick Heyer who came to India in 1842 is the founder of the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church and other denomina- tions started working from about the same time. These mainline churches now have a common hymnbook to which we will be referring to as ACC Hymnal (the Andhra Christian Council hymnbook). But later on when several indigenous, non-mission churches started coming up, they also produced their own hymns taking some numbers from the ACC Hymnal. When the missionaries learnt the local language, and as Christian communities started worshiping in their own language, the missionaries . learnt Telugu language and translated some western hymns line by line into Telugu and people learnt to sing them in unison many times without the help of an organ. These translations of western hymns were sung to western tunes and today in the ACC Hymnal mentioned above, 138 such translations are found out of a total number of 640 songs. The translated pieces include doxologies, Christian carols etc. Many well-known western hymns are translated into Telugu and they found a place in our Hymnbook. For example, hymns such as 'The church's one foundation', 'What a friend we have in Jesus', 'A mighty fortress is our God', 'Jesus lover of my soul', are known to people in Telugu language renderings. The translated pieces are generally called the Hymns and the original songs in Indian melodies are called Lyrics but this distinction is not strictly followed and all songs are generally called hymns and our song books are always called hymn books. 354 Telugu people's culture has imbibed many Sanskrit features and the music, for example, is mainly classical Karnatic, which is the ancient music of the elite with strictly structured Raga and Tala (melody and time). But there is also a light form of song which is adapted to congrega- tional singing while the classical type is generally used for solo perform- ances by trained voices. In addition to these there are pure folk melodies from work songs, bhajans (group songs of worship led by a person and repeated by a group) etc. Native Indian Christian hymn writers started writing in Telugu lan- guages for community worship in the middle of the nineteenth century, that is, soon after the western missionaries came to the Telugu land. Well known hymn writers like Chowdary Purushotham (1803-90) down to the more recent writers like A.B. Masilamani (1915-1980), have contributed to the hymn material of the Telugu speaking Christians. Some features of the Telugu Hymn Indian music is not harmonic. It is only melodic and people can learn the melody by hearing without having to look at the written music and often without a musical instrument like an organ. A lyric generally starts with a chorus part or refrain, which comes again and again after each stanza or charanam (literally 'foot') that follows. This repetition of the chorus part helps the singers to remember the melody and also generally to internalize the theme of that particular song. For example one lyric starts like this: Who is the source of my joy? Who indeed except the Lord Jesus? (ACC Hymnal 348) And each of the stanzas that follow narrates something the Lord has done like To give me wisdom to know God's will And to render me able to do that will Who is the source of my joy? etc. The question comes again and again and the affirmation that it is none but Jesus who is the source. Similarly, there is another song by Chowdary Purushotham : The Lord has heard my cry . And counted me worthy of his mercy. (ACC Hymnal 16) This is the refrain and the following stanzas expand the theme by telling the various things the Lord had done to the singer. .