In his lec-dem at the Music Academy, T.R. Aravindhan discussed ‘Muthuswami Dikshitar’s kritis in unpublished manuscripts.’ His search threw up five unpublished compositions in a manuscript available with the descendants of the Thanjavur Quartet family, who were direct disciples of Dikshitar. Of the five, ‘Sri kamakshi’ (geetham), ‘Charanu kamakshi’ (charanu) and ‘Manonmani’ (mangalam) are given as Malavagowla janyams. ‘Charanu charanu’ is given as Sankarabharanam janya, and ‘Jaya jaya’ as Sri raga janya. The manuscript says ‘Jaya jaya’ is a Thodayam. Interestingly, even today ‘Charanu charanu’ and ‘Jaya jaya’ are part of the bhajan sampradaya. King Serfoji composed a form known as nirupanam, where a central theme is taken, and many musical forms such as geethams, charanus, and mangalams are used. Aravindhan’s hypothesis was that the five compositions, all in praise of Ambal, could be part of a nirupanam by Dikshitar.
Four of the compositions are notated, and the raga can be inferred from the sahitya. Aravindhan pointed out that Dikshitar shows Megharanjani as an elaborate raga in ‘Venkatesa’ , but shows it in a scalar form in ‘Charanu kamkashi’.
‘Venkatesa’ also has a lot of vakra prayogas. ‘Sa ri ga ma and ma ga ri sa’ are used less in ‘Venkatesa’, but in ‘Charanu kamakshi’, only these are used. In ‘Venkatesa’, nishadam in the phrase ‘ma ni, ni ga’ appears to be discordant, but not so in ‘Charanu kamakshi’.
‘Sri kamakshi namostute’ is in raga Padi, Adi tala. In this composition, nishadam occurs twice in one avartha. And in his popular ‘Sri guna palitosmi’, Muthuswami Dikshitar uses the phrase ‘pa da pa ni sa’ often. Ramaswami Dikshitar uses nishadam much less.
“For the composition ‘Manonmani’, we get the name of the raga in the lyric as Mechabowli, but no notations are available. Shahaji composed mangalams in Mechabowli, Malavasri and Pantuvarali. So maybe there was a Shahaji influence in the choice of the raga”, said Aravindhan. Tyagaraja, for example, used Pantuvarali, for his ‘Shobane’.
‘Charanu charanu’ is in raga Arabhi. The raga for the composition ‘Jaya jaya’ is said to be in a janya of Sri. The name Manohari occurs in the lyric. But Sangita Sampradaya Pradarshini (SSP) mentions raga Manohari as a janya of Gangatarangini. Was there another Manohari, which was a janya of Sri? Exploring the possibility, Aravindhan said that there seem to have been ragas with the same name but with different features. For instance, Shahaji says raga Velavali is a janya of Sri. But in a manuscript in Saraswathi Mahal library, Velavali is given as a sampoorna raga and a janya of Sankarabharanam. Using the notations, Aravindhan ruled out Shuddha Dhanyasi, Manirangu and Brindavana Saranga as the raga of ‘Jaya jaya’, leaving only Rudrapriya. Aravindhan said that since Rudrapriya had many variants, a definitive conclusion was difficult.
A manuscript of Bharatam Natesa Iyer, a sishya of Sabhapati Nattuvanar, descendant of the Quartet, had ‘Vadanyeswara’ (raga Devagandhari) a kriti not found in SSP. The chittaswaram follows a pattern similar to that found in ‘Kshitija’ (Devagandhari). There is a publication of ‘Vadanyeswara’ by Mudicondan Venkatrama Iyer.
Aravindhan discussed variations of ‘Chandrambhaja’ seen in various versions. In a manuscript of Ambi Dikshitar, Aravindhan found that the madhyama kala portion of the sahitya did not have the line ‘kamaneeya vara kataka raasyaadeepam’, or the chittaswaram. A book published by Ambi Dikshitar’s disciples, Vedanta Bhagavatar and Anantakrishna Ayyar in 1937, carried the chittaswaram, but not the ‘kamaneeya’ line. Anantakrishna Ayyar published a book in 1957, with the extra line and chittaswaram. In SSP, the extra sahitya line is not mentioned, but chittaswaram is given. Anantakrishna Ayyar’s daughter Champakavalli’s manuscript records both the extra line and the chittaswaram. Mahadeva Bhagavatar’s manuscript shows the extra line, but has no chittaswaram.
Dikshitar Kirtana Malai, published in 1949 by Kallidaikurichi Sundaram Ayyar, has the chittaswaram, but not the line. Aravindhan concluded that although manuscripts give us a lot of information, they are not easy to interpret, and one must tread cautiously.
