Tyagaraja and his contemporaries, Shyama Shastri and Muthuswami Dikshitar, are regarded as the Trinity of Carnatic music.

Tyagaraja composed thousands of devotional compositions, most in Telugu and in praise of Rama, many of which remain popular today.

Giriraja was born in Kakarla village, Cumbum taluk in Prakasam district, Andhra Pradesh.

His songs feature himself usually either in an appeal to his deity of worship (primarily the Avatar Rama), in musings, in narratives, or giving a message to the public.

He has also composed krithis in praise of Krishna, Shiva, Shakti, Ganesha, Muruga, Saraswati, and Hanuman.

[15][16] Tyagaraja, who was immersed in his devotion to Rama and led a spartan way of life, did not take any steps to systematically codify his vast musical output.

Rangaramanuja Iyengar, a leading researcher on Carnatic music, in his work Kriti Manimalai, has described the situation prevailing at the time of the death of Tyagaraja.

It is said that a major portion of his incomparable musical work was lost to the world due to natural and man-made calamities.

[citation needed] The songs he composed in pure Telugu were widespread in their popularity because of the ease with which they could be sung in those days.

[17] Furthermore, Musiri Subramania Iyer, the doyen of Bhava Sangitam, had a vast collection of books in his library.

T. K. Govinda Rao, his disciple, brought out a volume of Tyagaraja's songs in English and Devanagari script.

[18] In addition to nearly 720 compositions (kritis), Tyagaraja composed two musical plays in Telugu, the Prahalada Bhakti Vijayam and the Nauka Charitam.

Prahlada Bhakti Vijayam is in five acts with 45 kritis set in 28 ragas and 138 verses, in different metres in Telugu.

The latter is the most popular of Tyagaraja's operas, and is a creation of the composer's own imagination and has no basis in the Bhagavata Purana.

[19][20] The 20th-century Indian music critic K. V. Ramachandran wrote: "Tyagaraja is an indefatigable interpreter of the past... but if with one eye he looks backward, with the other he looks forward as well.

On the Pushya Bahula Panchami,[Note 2] thousands of people and hundreds of Carnatic musicians sing the five Pancharatna Kritis in unison, with the accompaniment of a large bank of accompanists on veenas, violins, flutes, nadasvarams, mridangams and ghatams.

V. Nagayya made a biographical epic on Tyagaraja titled Tyagayya in 1946 which is still treated as a masterpiece of Telugu cinema.

Pancha Bhuta refer to the five fundamental elements according to Hindusim - Jala, Agni, Vayu, Akasha and Bhu i.e. Water, Fire, Wind, Sky and Earth.