Sirsi(Karnataka): Veteran Yakshagana Guru Hostota Manjunath Bhagwat passed away here on Tuesday.
He was 80 and was not well for the last few days. His last rites were performed at Vidyanagar on Tuesday evening. Born at Hostota on February 15, 1940, Manjunath Bhagwat was a well-known Yakshagana performer.
In front of the corpse of Manjunath Bhagawath, some of the Yakshagana artists performed a short scene of Yakshagagana with the help of Chande and Maddale (A musical instrument which is used in Yakshagana) for the salvation of the soul.
He had learnt the nuances of Yakshagana from his guru Keremane Shivarama Hegde and was proficient in each and every aspect of Yakshagana - singing, dancing, make-up and playing of drums.
He has composed more than 160 Yakshagana plays, including Sri Ram Niryan, Sri Rama Mahime and Sri Krishna Mahime. He had embraced monkhood in 1966.
Hostota had conducted Yakshagana training programmes at over 75 places and had trained over 1,600 students. With concern towards environment, he penned Yakshagana Prasangas like ‘Govardhan Giri Puje’, ‘Nisarga Sandhana’ and ‘Prakruthi Sandhana’ which were staged in Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Goa.
He had received a number of awards for his contribution to the field of Yakshagana, including Karnataka Rajyotsava Award (1987), Karnataka Yakshagana Academy’s Parthisubba Award (2012), Special Award of Janapada Academy (2012), Keremane Shivaram Hegde Award (2014) and Kendra Sangeet Nataka Academy Award (2016).
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