Tansen Miyan (1506-1589) - court musician- sitarist of the great Mughal emperor Akbar I. He is considered the father or ancestor of the modern North Indian musical genre of raga and one of the greatest musicians in the history of India.
Tansen was born in 1506 in the north of India, in the city of Gwalior , in a family of traditional Hindus . His father Makund Mistra was a local writer. As a child, Tansen took private lessons from the famous teacher Haridas Swami. Initially, he served in the courtyard of King Ramachandra from Meva, and then with the Mughal emperor Akbar I. Later Tansen was awarded the navartras, a necklace of nine stones, for a long and faithful service, and received a new title “Miyan”. Therefore, now the name Tansen Miyan is also common in India, mainly among Muslims.
Many of India’s well-known contemporary music repertoires, such as Darbari Kanade, Miyan ki Todi, Miyan ki Malkhar and Miyan ki Sarang, as well as two new genres of Indian music, Sangita Sarah and Raymala, were created based on the music style and the Tansen genre.
Today in India there are schools of northern Indian music (Garanas), which study the basics of the playing style of Tansen, his teacher Swami Haridas, the vocal style, as well as the activities of his two children, Bilas Khan and Saraswati Devi, and many of their descendants - famous musicians.
Literature
- Abul Fazl Allami. Akbar Name. Samara, 2009, vol. 3, p. 251
- SC Welch, India: Art and Culture 1300-1900, Munich, 1999, pp. 171–173
Links
- Tansen Miyan on the Nervan website.