Bengaluru Nagarathnamma

Within a male-dominated festival, she was the feminist strong enough to ensure that women artists were given equality to participate in it. She "was among the last practitioners of the devadasi tradition in India," and the first president of the Association of the Devadasis of Madras Presidency. She also edited and published books on poetry and anthologies.

• Name — Bangalore Nagarathnamma • Born — 3 November 1878 • Birthplace — Nanjangud, Kingdom of Mysore, British India • Died — 19 May 1952 • Place of death — Thiruvaiyaru, Madras State, India • Occupation — Carnatic singer

Nagarathnamma was born in 1878 to Puttu Lakshmi and Vakil Subba Rao, in Nanjangud. Puttu Lakshmi's ancestors served as singers and musicians in the court of Mysore. Abandoned by Subba Rao, she found refuge under Shastri, a Sanskrit scholar in the court of the Mysore Maharaja. He educated Nagarathnamma in Sanskrit and music, and she was initiated in devadasi at the age of five. However, Shastri also abandoned Nagarathnamma who soon left Mysore and found protection under her uncle, Venkitaswamy Appa, a violinist by profession. Nagarthnamma continued her studies and learned Kannada, English and Telugu, also becoming proficient in music and dance. She was trained in Carnatic music by Munuswamappa in the 'shishya-parampara' (tradition of the student teacher learning process), on the process set by Thyagaraja. She was able to make her first stage appearance before a learned audience as a violinist and dancer at the age of 15.

• Illustration — Mukunda Mala stotra by Bengaluru Nagaratnamma Nagarathnamma became a singer early in her life and emerged as one of the best Carnatic singers of her time. She sang in Kannada, Sanskrit and Telugu. Her special musical forte included Harikatha. Her talent in dance attracted the attention of the Mysore ruler Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar who, impressed with her talent, made her the Asthana Vidushi (court dancer) in Mysore. Following the death of the ruler, she moved to Bangalore. She attained popularity in Bangalore not only in music but also in dance. She was also patronized by many other royal houses such as those of Travancore, Bobbili, and Vijayanagaram. Narahari Rao, a judge in the High Court of Mysore, was one of Nagarathnamma's patrons and he suggested to her to move to Madras (now Chennai) to further her career as a musician and dancer. She shifted to there as it was considered the "Heart of Carnatic music" and her musical talent was further developed. Here, she specifically identified herself as Bangalore Nagarathnamma. The patronage she received from Justice Narahari Rao made her famous as a "concert artist" in Madras. As promoter of Tyagaraja Aradhana, she was the "first female artist to pay income tax" in Madras, India.

As an erudite and scholarly person, Nagarathnamma dabbled in editing and publishing books on poetry and anthologies. She was a linguist who held religious discourses not only in Kannada, her mother tongue, but also in other languages such as Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu. During her foray into literature, she came across an old poem called the Radhika Santawanam (Appeasing Radhika), which she found inadequately covered vis-a-vis the original version written by Muddupalani, a courtesan herself, in Telugu verses. This was a book which Paidipati Venkatanarasu had edited based on the ready to print version, which Charles Phillip Brown, an eminent scholar in Telugu, had prepared and deposited in the Oriental Manuscripts Library in 1855. However, Venkatanarasu, an associate of Brown, had printed an annotated version in 1887 (reprinted in 1907), but had deliberately dropped a few erotic verses and also the prologue from the original version as he had considered them inappropriate to the then prevailing social norms. The prologue which he had deleted was related to the devadasi tradition that had been adopted by Nagarathnamma's mother and grandmother. This exclusion was particularly disliked by Nagarthnamma and she made efforts to get the original version written on palm leaves. Once she found the original version, she reedited the Radhika Santawanam, which fully conformed to the palm leaf manuscript version. In 1910, she published this book with a preface in which she noted that she had read and reread the poetic verses of the book several times for its aesthetic quality. The book, published 150 years after the original manuscript was written by Muddupalani in Telugu, was reviewed by Kandukuri Veeresalingam, who, though a supporter of women's causes, attacked some of the erotic contents of the book as totally "inappropriate for women to hear let alone be uttered from a woman's mouth." Nagarathnamma strongly defended her version of the book and counterattacked saying that there was very much more titillating content included in the book titled Vaijayantivilasam, which the critic (Veeresalingam) had reviewed and accepted for printing. She protested against this double standard and wondered "Does the question of propriety and embarrassment apply only in the case of women and not men". Muddupalani's Radhika Santawanam, edited by Nagarathnamma, was published but received criticism, with one Telugu magazine even noting that "a devadasi had composed the book and another devadasi had edited it." Following the adverse reaction to the book, it was banned. However, with the intervention by Raja Venkatagiri the issue was "soft-pedaled". It was alleged that it was a vindictive action by the Veerasilingham lobby, as books with much more suggestive content had been published. However, after India attained independence the ban on the book was lifted by Tanguturi Prakasam, the then Chief Minister of Madras, with a comment that "he was restoring a few pearls to the necklace of Telugu literature".

Nagarathnamma, in 1951, saw Thyagaraja in a dream or vision and he directed her to Venkatagiri where she saw her Lord Rama in Sathya Sai Baba, swooning and falling in the process. She sought Baba's blessings and stated that she had seen her Lord. Sai Baba: Invitation to Glory by Howard Murphet Nagarathnamma died in 1952 at the age of 74; a memorial in her honour was erected next to Thyagaraja's samadhi.