Brahmam Okkate (Tandanana Ahi) · Tallapaka Annamacharya

Meaning

Pallavi: Tandanana, ahi! Tandanana, pure! Tandanana, bhala! (the cries of a folk drummer’s song). Brahman is one; the Supreme Brahman is one.

1. Here there is no high and low that the clever claim. Shri Hari is the inner Self of all. In this world every kind of creature is one; Shri Hari is the inner Self of all.
2. The sleep a king sleeps in his fullness is one, and the sleep of the servant beside him is the same. The ground the noble brahmin walks on is one, and the ground where the chandala lives is that same earth.
3. The joy of desire for the gods is one, and for the great insects and beasts it is the same. Day and night pass alike for the rich man, and for the poorest they are the very same.
4. The tongue that eats fine food is one, and the tongue of the wanderer eating spoiled food is the same. The wind that blows over foul smells is one, and the wind over fragrance is the same.
5. The sun that beats on the elephant is one, and the sun that falls on the dog on the ground is the same. To protect alike the very virtuous and the doers of sin, the name of Shri Venkateshvara is one.

About this bhajan

Annamacharya took the rhythm of the tandana padam, a song of village drummers, and put the Upanishads into it. The refrain ‘tandanana, ahi, bhala’ is the drummer’s cry; the words are pure Vedanta: one Brahman, one Hari dwelling in all. Line by line he sets a king against a servant, the rich against the poor, an elephant against a dog, and finds the same sleep, the same sun, the same wind. The last line turns it into bhakti: the one thing that saves sinner and saint alike is Venkateshvara’s name. The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams sing it in Annamacharya programmes, and it is among his most quoted songs.

Telugu text: te.wikisource.org, ‘తందనాన ఆహి’ (అన్నమయ్య పాటలు); checked against karnatik.com c1107 (Bauli / Nadanamakriya, Adi)