Muthuswami Dikshitar

This is our national day of jubilation and prayer.^l Every Hindu home is lit with the joy of bright faces and new clothes, alive with the noise of crackers and of children, and aglow with mirth and music. But, on the Deepavali Day in the year 1835 a gloom was cast throughout Southern India by the sudden passing away of one of India’s greatest musicians and composers. Amongst the many items of celebration today, not the least is that of the memory of this great and high-souled person who has left the indelible impress of his personality on India’s art and culture. He lived at a period in her history when the lustre of her creative art had not yet dimmed and her cultural unity and supremacy had not been impaired, in spite of the fact that her political unity and autonomy had been entirely broken. Music in India has, from remote antiquity, been developed to a high degree of perfection and the scientific knowledge of the subtle intricacies of its technique has been evolved with great precision. It has had a unique and long history from the days when the Vedic seers set to music their beautiful hymns in the simple seven swaras, down to the period of the Chalukya and Karnataka Kings of Medieval India, and later, the period of the renaissance of music under the Nayak and Maharatta Rulers of Tanjore, to the present day when we are the proud inheritors of the highly evolved schools of Hindustani and Karnatic Music with its 72 Mela Kartha Ragas. Among the illustrious roll of the masters of the art who have made their lasting contribution to the development and perfection of music stands the name of Muthuswami Dikshitar as one of the foremost. He along with his distinguished contemporaries, Thygaraja and Shyama Sastri, are the three great masters of the modern school of Karnatic Music whose compositions form the stock-in-trade of all South Indian musicians. While the compositions of Thyagaraja and Shyama Sastri are mostly in Telugu, those of Dikshitar are mostly in Sanskrit. Having been born at Tiruvalur in the Tanjore District in the year 1775 A. D. in a family which exhibited the striking and unusual combination of proficiency in Sanskrit learning and music, he had a natural aptitude towards the mastery of both Sanskrit and music, and trained by his father Ramaswami Dikshitar, himself a great master of music, he acquired proficiency in them very soon. But he went further than his father. He not only acquired a grasp of the Sanskrit language but also cultivated a thorough acquaintance with all the phases of Hindu religious literature and philosophy, the technique of the Mantra Shastra, Sri Vidya and Yoga, the rules and regulations of the Agamas, and the traditions and usages of the temples of South India. His compositions bear the marks of this varied learning. The traditional account that, early in his life, he came into contact with a Sanyasin Chidambaranathaswami, imbibed the knowledge of Sri Vidya from him and went with him to Benares to promote his further studies in the atmosphere of profound scholarship and piety of the sacred city, can very well be believed. While there, he got into touch with the subtleties of North Indian Music which he has used with great effect, later, in his compositions. In the song Jambupathe in ‘Yamuna Kalyani’ which will be sung to you in the next programme,² you will appreciate how well he has caught the tune. There is also another song ‘Soundararajam Asraye’ in the North Indian tune ‘Brindavana Saranga.’ It is also said that he learnt Vedanta at the feet of another great Sanyasin, Upanishad Brahmam, at Kanchi.

Thus like a true scholar he scorned delights and lived laborious days. By arduous training and discipleship he added to his remarkable gifts, profundity of learning, wide culture and intense spirituality. He was more than well-equipped for the great task of exercising his wonderful powers of creative art. For, he was not merely a musician skilled in the art but also a scholar of varied learning and tastes. We see in him the unique spectacle of enthralling music dedicated to the service of God and applied to the quest for spirituality, quite in contrast to the picture of the great muse found in the company of light-hearted revelers. It is common to find in the pages of Hagiology and the accounts of the lives of many great masters of creative art, references to the miracle that they derived inspiration for their great task from visions of the Unseen Reality. So it was with Dikshitar. It is said that he had a vision of the Lord Karthikeya at Tiruttani and that henceforward he poured forth his soul in ‘un-premeditated art.’ Even to the sceptical mind, this traditional account embodies the truth that all true creative art is inspired and partakes of the nature of the Creator of the universe. This accounts also for the fact that all his compositions contain what is called in technical language the ‘Mudra’ of ‘Guru Guha’ indicating that the Lord Subrahmanya was the inspirer of his songs. It is remarkable that in spite of this self-imposed restriction on the free flow of his poetic genius, Dikshitar succeeded so well in exhibiting true literary excellence. He imposed upon himself another restriction also, viz., that the name of the Raga in which every composition is sung must find a place in the composition itself. It is a tribute to his genius that he has succeeded so well in this. He has made the unpromising material of the Raga names yield aesthetic grace. Some of the Ragas have peculiar names and require great skill on the part of the composer to use them in a literary piece. For example, there are Raga names like Paraz, Mahuri and Arabhi and how successfully he has tried to use them without marring the effect of the literary merit of the composition is seen from the following sentences of his songs:

"Bhakthajananam athisamiparujumarga darsitam,
Tvamahurisadayo, Samsarabhithyapaham."

Again there is the name of the Raga ‘Andhali’ which conveys no meaning to the hearer. But in the song ‘Brihan nayaki varadayaki’ in the phrase. ‘Andhaliharana chana pratapini’ he develops a fine poetic conceit out of it: "The fragrance of her shining beauty attracts even blind bees." The name of the Raga ‘Varali’ has been taken advantage of by him to add to the artistic beauty of the piece in the song ‘Mamava Minakshi’ which will be sung in the next programme. Notice the expressions ‘madhuravani, Varali veni.’ These are typical of the excellence of the poetic merit of the composer who is able to achieve success in his task in spite of what literary critics may imagine to be obstacles to the natural flow of his elegant art. It is not necessary to multiply examples during the short time available to me.

All his compositions are in the Kirtana style which came into vogue through the inventive genius of that great Saint and Musician, Purandara Dasa. If we compare it with the ordinary sloka style of Sanskrit poetry, we will understand its characteristics and peculiarities. While in the sloka style the literary form, words, and metre are given prominent attention and higher art in it consists in making the rhythm flow from the words, and if set to music the Raga has to be adapted to the piece and occupies a subordinate position, in the Kirtana form, the Raga combined with the Tala measure together with its component parts of Pallavi and Anupallavi and Charana are given the primary attention and importance, and the literary matter has to be adapted to the requirements of the musical piece. The common literary devices of alliteration, end-rhymes and the rhythmic balancing of sounds which, according to the standards of true literary criticism, are not regarded as really enhancing the poetic beauty of the piece, attain in the Kirtana style greater prominence and produce a subtler harmony of sounds. Hence the merit of Kirtana compositions has to be appraised by standards differing from those adopted in judging the literary excellence of Sanskrit poetical compositions. Moreover, the compositions are in the nature of hymns in praise of the Gods and Goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon and the literary form has necessarily to be suited to the invocatory style usually adopted in such compositions. To strike the true note of poetic art when it is hedged in by these forms and conventions is a great achievement and it must be agreed on all hands that Dikshitar has exhibited marvelous gifts of genius and attained remarkable success. The slow measured cadences of his compositions exhibiting in all their variety, fullness and beauty, the Ragas chosen for them, the perfect harmony of the Bhava, Raga and Tala, the symphonic attunement of the words to the swara-sthanas, the lilt of the verses and the resonance of particular letter sounds when intoned with the nuances of the Raga, and the harmonious combination of the Raga with the words subtly indicative of the emotions or Rasas underlying them, make his compositions masterpieces of soul-stirring melody. The songs which will be sung will justify my remark. Nor are they devoid of literary grace, poetic suggestion, and depth of meaning. Many instances can be given from his compositions to illustrate the correctness of this observation. In the song beginning with ‘Mamava Minakshi’ we find the beautiful phrase ‘Somasundareswara Sukhaspurthirupini’ which suggests nicely the ideal of true love which the Goddess Minakshi signifies. In the song beginning with ‘Mamava Pattabhirama’ the two phrases ‘Komalatara pallavapada Kothandarama, ghana shyama vigrahabja nayana sampurna kama’ suggest to the reader by a stroke of inimitable phraseology the lovely picture of Rama at the height of happiness in the Parnasala on the Chitrakuta Hill. In the song beginning with ‘Amba Nilayadakshi’ notice the two phrases ‘Bimbadhari, chitprati bimbadhari.’ What a fine rhyme! Thrown in juxta-position, they give beautiful expression to the truth of the immanence of God in man as pure consciousness which gives him the power of perception and articulation. In the song beginning with ‘Gouri Girirajakumari’ advert to the profound significance of the rather cryptic phrase ‘Sringaradi navarasadhare.’ Many more instances can be multiplied, but owing to the short time at my disposal, I have to resist the temptation.

Above all, Dikshitar was the inheritor of the store of knowledge and experience which the mystics of India had gained in exploring the possibilities of sound effect on the nervous centres of the human metabolism and on mental psychology and the consequent generation of spiritual energy. He was deeply imbued with the hoary tradition beginning from Vedic times which believed in the mysterious efficacy of the collocation of sounds, and loved to worship God as Mother and as the embodiment of the fifty-one letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, and to meditate on the unseen reality behind the universe with the aid of the sound of the symbol ‘OM.’ India’s Saints have always regarded the harmony of music as a powerful aid to Yogic concentration of mind. The great Yogic seer, Yagnavalkya, has said that he who knows the truth behind the harmony of the music of the Veena and grasps the technique of Sruti, Jathi and Tala has easily attained the way to eternal happiness. Hence Dikshitar, soaked in this tradition and lore, composed his musical hymns in the true spirit of reverential meditation. Sitting before the microphone and experiencing the marvellous powers of sound transmission, one cannot brush aside the possibilities of sound effects as an illusion and a snare. It is not for me to say how far Dikshitar has succeeded in this respect. It is for minds attuned to the harmony of his music and imbued with the spirit of his compositions to experience. Words shall always fail to give expression to the intuitive joy of spirituality.

As was often the case with many scholars, chill penury often repressed his noble rage and occasionally in his compositions we find a tone of melancholy. In the song ‘hiran mayim Lakshmim bhajami, hinajanasrayam tyajami’ with a touch of pain he exclaims, "I shall discard my dependence on men of low breeding flushed with the pride of wealth," and in the song ‘Vinapustakadharini’–an invocation to Saraswati–with a tone of sadness he extols Her as the destroyer of the misery of having to wait on the good graces of petty-minded persons. Apart from this occasional pessimism we find no personal reference in his compositions. They breathe throughout the spirit of joy and utter self-abnegation. They conjure before our minds the picture of a man lost in his own song, unmindful of his own comforts and desires–a ‘man of faith with a light in his eye, a song in his heart, and a supernatural shine in his face.’ By his work and life, he proves the truth of the saying "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." "The world, in the end, belongs to the unworldly." So long as music is here on this earth to give joy to humanity, the name of Muthuswami Dikshitar will be cherished with reverence and admiration.