He is said to have composed a song a day for most of his adult life — roughly 32,000 in all — for one deity, at one hill. The copper plates on which they were engraved were sealed in a room at Tirumala and stayed there. They were opened in 1922.
🎵 Annamacharya at a Glance
Lived: 1408–1503, by tradition
Born: Tallapaka, in present-day Andhra Pradesh
Composed for: Venkateswara of Tirumala
Output: traditionally 32,000 sankirtanas
Called: Pada Kavita Pitamaha — grandsire of the song-poem
Surviving: about 12,000, on copper plates
📑 Table of Contents
🪙 The Copper Plates
Annamacharya's son Pedda Tirumalacharya and grandson Chinnanna had the compositions engraved on copper plates and placed in a stone chamber near the temple's Hundi. There they remained.
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Rediscovered | 1922, in a sealed chamber at the Tirumala temple |
| Quantity | Roughly 2,500 plates, carrying about 12,000 compositions |
| What was lost | The traditional figure is 32,000, so the great majority is gone |
| What was not preserved | The music. The plates carry the words and the raga names; the melodies did not survive |
| Published by | The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, over decades, in a long series of volumes |
📌 The tunes are modern
This is the fact most often missed. The melodies to which Annamacharya's songs are now sung — including the very famous ones — were composed in the twentieth century, chiefly by Rallapalli Ananthakrishna Sharma, Nedunuri Krishnamurthy, Balakrishna Prasad and others, working from the raga names on the plates. The words are Annamacharya's; the tunes, in almost every case, are not. Both facts belong in an honest account, and neither diminishes the other.
📚 The Two Kinds of Sankirtana
| Adhyatma Sankirtana | Sringara Sankirtana | |
|---|---|---|
| Subject | Philosophical and devotional — the nature of the deity, surrender, the futility of pride, the equality of beings | The love of Venkateswara and Alamelu Manga, in the erotic-devotional register |
| Voice | The devotee's, or the poet's own | Often the woman's, or a companion's — the nayika bhava |
| Best known | Brahmam okkate; Nanati bratuku natakamu; Adivo alladivo | Muddugare Yashoda; the many songs on the consort's moods |
brahmam okkaṭe, para brahmam okkaṭe …
kaṇḍaga laṇḍaru ī jagamu …
There is one Brahman, one supreme Brahman. The dog that sleeps in a fine house and the dog in the street — the sleep is the same. The one who eats the finest food and the one who eats coarse grain — the hunger is the same. In the body of a brahmana and the body of an outcaste, the same blood, the same flesh, the same breath.
📌 What that song is doing
It argues from the body. Not from scripture, not from a philosophical premise — from sleep, hunger, blood and breath, which do not vary. The song was composed in the fifteenth century for a temple that had strict rules about who entered it, and it is now among the most-performed pieces in the Carnatic repertoire.
🎭 The Other Famous One
nānāṭi bratuku nāṭakamu; kānaka kannadi kaivalyamu
Everyday living is a play. What is seen without seeing is liberation. Waking is one kind of illusion, sleep another; hunger is real, and sleep is real, and neither is what it looks like.
💡 The range in one composer
Annamacharya wrote the most quoted Telugu statement of the equality of bodies, one of its sharpest statements of the world as performance, dozens of songs about a woman's sulking with her husband, and cradle-songs for an infant Krishna. The sankirtana as he practised it was a form flexible enough to carry all of it — which is why he is called its grandsire rather than merely a practitioner.
🏛️ What He Started
The line and the aftermath
- The Tallapaka family continued the practice — his son Pedda Tirumalacharya and grandson Chinnanna were themselves substantial composers, and the family served at Tirumala for generations.
- The padam form he established became the basis for later Telugu devotional song; Kshetrayya in the seventeenth century works in the same form.
- Carnatic music absorbed the repertoire from the mid-twentieth century onward, and Annamacharya compositions are now standard concert material.
- The TTD maintains a dedicated project for the compositions, and the songs are broadcast at Tirumala daily.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
How many songs did Annamacharya compose?
Traditionally 32,000 — a song a day for most of his adult life, all for Venkateswara. About 12,000 survive, engraved on roughly 2,500 copper plates by his son and grandson and placed in a stone chamber near the temple's Hundi. The chamber was opened in 1922.
Are the tunes of Annamacharya's songs original?
No — and this is most often missed. The plates carry the words and the raga names; the melodies did not survive. The tunes now sung — including the famous ones — were composed in the twentieth century, chiefly by Rallapalli Ananthakrishna Sharma, Nedunuri Krishnamurthy and Balakrishna Prasad, working from the raga names. The words are his; the tunes are not.
What does Brahmam Okkate say?
That there is one Brahman — and it argues from the body, not from scripture: the dog in a fine house and the dog in the street sleep the same sleep; the finest food and coarse grain answer the same hunger; a brahmana's body and an outcaste's hold the same blood, the same flesh, the same breath. Composed in the 15th century, for a temple with strict rules about who entered it.
What are the two kinds of Annamacharya's sankirtanas?
Adhyatma sankirtanas — philosophical and devotional, on the deity, surrender, the futility of pride and the equality of beings (Brahmam Okkate, Nanati Bratuku Natakamu). And sringara sankirtanas — on the love of Venkateswara and Alamelu Manga, often in the woman's voice. The range in one composer is the point.
How reliable is Annamacharya's biography?
The principal source is the Annamacharya Charitra by his grandson Chinnanna — a family account written by a descendant, and its episodes should be read as such. Secure: that he composed for Venkateswara over a long life, that the plates exist, and that the Tallapaka family served at Tirumala for generations.
🙏 Conclusion
Twelve thousand songs on copper plates in a sealed room, opened in 1922, with the words intact and the music gone. What they contain runs from the sulking of a wife to the plainest statement in Telugu that a brahmana's body and an outcaste's contain the same blood and the same breath — argued not from scripture but from hunger and sleep. The tunes now sung to them are modern. The argument is five hundred years old.