Biography of Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande

Born: 10 August 1860, Mumbai
Died: 19 September 1936, Mumbai

Nobody knew that a pleader of Bombay High Court and Karachi Court would leave his profession and devote his entire life for the revival of music. The man was Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, the pioneer of Modern Hindustani classical music.

Pandit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande was born in 1860. During the initial stages of his life, he used to wander in search of music teachers and learnt from different Gharanas and traced the various ragas and their relationship. His work of collection of music literature, compiled by the help of able and experienced people and contemporary kings, is really an outstanding endeavour. His most valuable work was 'Sangeet Shastra' divided into four parts which made it possible to teach music at the university level. In his work, Bhatkhande has produced a subtle critique of ragas. In fact this is the book through which modern researches on music and its study are based. He opened many music schools and prepared a special kind of Gayak-Vadak. He died in 1939.