banTu reeti kOlu
raagam: hamsanaadam

60 neetimati janya
Aa: S R2 M2 P D3 N3 S
Av: S N3 D3 P M2 R2 S

taaLam: dEshaadi
Composer: Tyaagaraaja
Language: Telugu
Click to view in: KannaDa | Sanskrit | Tamil | Telugu

pallavi

banTu reeti kOlu viyavaiyya raama | (banTu)

anupallavi

tuNTa viNTi vaani modalaina madaa- |
dula goTTi nela goola jEyu nija ||
(banTu)

caraNam

rOmaanca manu ghana kancukamu |
raama bhaktuDanu mudra biLLayu ||
raama naama manu vara khaDga mivi |
raajillu naiyya tyaagaraajuni kE ||
(bunTu)

Meaning: In this song Sri Thyagaraja pleads with Rama to give him the post of a guard for Raama; symbolically meaning that he always wants to be in Sri rama's sannidhi (in his presence).

He says in the anupallavi, the guard's post should be such that he is empowered to destroy all the demons which are arishadvargas (kama-love, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya) and since the guard is empowered to do so, he needs such a guard's post.

In the caraNam, he says he should be blessed with the emblem of Ramabhakti, given a sword called Raama Naama (the name of Raama) to perform his guard's job.

Notation:
Available in English here. Also available on Shivkumar Kalyanaraman's site here. Listen to the music class here.

Other information:
This song popularized the raga hamsanaadam.

Song performed for karnATik by Aruna Venkatraman.