Lecdem-Dikshitar-RaviRajagopalan@MusicAcademy on Dec 25th,2025

[rajeshnat]

Lecdem-Dikshitar-RaviRajagopalan@MusicAcademy on Dec 25th,2025
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Topic - Chronology of Muthuswami Dikshitar Biographies

This year in music academy is earmarked with all the lectures on nadajyothi Muthuswami Dikshitar .I cherry picked 2 , one i wanted to know bit more Navagraha krithis where Smt Rama Kausalya , a brilliant person spoke(they did well but this info is quite available, may be i will write if time permits) . The second i wanted to pick up is Ravi Rajagopalan our forumite . RaviRaj is his id or does he have another id , he is certainly a phenom for sure ,his website guruguha.org is a treasure ,and for the first time i am seeing him

Ravi Rajagopalan was introduced where prior to that one youngster sivaramakrishnan sang a brilliant anandAmamrithakarshini, certainly konjam madras weather was showing likely rains -varshaya varshaya ,but it only turned out to be no rains - Sthambhaya Sthambaya

Of late personally i find it very difficult to read and understand what i have written . My handwriting was very bad in school days now no chance can give a run to any kalvettu or olai suvadi of any future MD undiscovered song

The review is zig zag not in the presented order , 50 percent recollection and 50 percent referring notes. I am adding in italics my own comments.

#1# V Sriram introduced crisply Ravi Rajagopalan as a lawyer and he with his great humour next to TL Venkatarama Iyer RaviRaj is presenting. Ravi wasted no time , no meandearing and gooja thookufying , he went directly .HIs topic is Chronology of Muthuswami Dikshitar Biographies

#2# Deekshitar lived for 60 years from 1775 to 1835 , few versions of his death take him one year later and there was a mention about he was born even 7 years before

What should interest all of us is this journey. He was a travelling musician who created connecting equally science and music. He is and will be the most analytical vaggeyakkara ever . As SRJ used to say taught by Dikshitar, caught by Thyagaraja
Ravi said all this as his travelogue dates
1775- Tiruvarur (born)
1790 - Manali
1795 - Kasi/Varanasi (he must have taken 5 years to reach kasi and perhaps stay ther)
1800 - Back to Manali

1800 - Tiruttani (Sri Nathadi strike in mmg)/Kanchipuram
1809 - return to Tiruvarur
1820 - Thanjavur
1825 - Tiruvarur and to Madurai
1830 - Tiruvarur
1835 - Ettayapuram (became a nada jyothi)

#3# First publication is printed form came in Indian Listener in 1938. Singer than was Smt Savithri Ammal , he showed a song list of 5 plus songs , i could just write Ananda natana(kedaram) and nilotpal nAyike (reetigowlai)
I thought as performers most of them started with DKP. I did not know about savithri ammal

#4# Subburama Dikshitar Sangita Sampradaya Pradharshini (SSP) book is the most seminal book that got released in 1899. That chronicles most of the MD compositions . One small maharaja forgot his name only made Subburama dikshitar write this SSP. Also Chinnaswami mudaliar was very instrumental in popularizing the same .

[rajeshnat]

#5# The most prolific and popular biographies are these seven
1. SSP by subburama dikshitar
2. Great Composers - Sambamurthi
3. Sound and Shadows - Dr V Raghavan
4. Vedanta Bhagavathar and Anantha Krishna iyer - covering kamalAmbA

5.Sundaram Iyer- ??
6. TL Venkatarama iYer - National BIography (this i think is may be most known after SSP )
7. Special Bicentennary - 1975 - IS that Dr V Raghavan
8. Mahakavyam - IS that Dr V Raghavan
9. Dikshitar paadiya thiruthalangal - Bharanidharan

10. Book by Vidya Jayaraman???
11. ANothter book by kanniks kannikeshwaran - This must be the latest
Both vidya and Kanniks are also part of our forum . They were active

#6# S Rajam depiction of MD in painting was key and it was taken from the book of I think TL Venkatarama iYer

#7# Quite a few anecdote of various versions was just briefly touched upon. Like Meenakshi Me mudham where subburama deekshitar did not connect to his death where as his son Ambi Deekshitar connected to MD death. Also some mention was also made about why MD had two wives. MD took both his wives to kasi is what i heard.

#8# All said it looks based on Rita Rajan and RKSK who gave a closing notes there could be quite a lot of compositions not unearthed yet
Or
With more and more composers getting added post Trinity , like say Papanasam sivan to propogate what we have and sing those itself is itself a difficult ardor to accomplish

Take a bow @RaviRaj, very well done . As you said , You clearly separated biography and hagiography.

Overall an excellent to outstanding lecdem for close to 1 hour

[rajeshnat]

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Lecdem-Dikshitar-RaviRajagopalan@MusicAcademy on Dec 25th,2025
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Topic - Chronology of Muthuswami Dikshitar Biographies

GLICSPAWES 2025 "Goto LIve Concert Show PAtronage Without Excuses Series" concert #28 of xy(hopefully 30 is goal) is done.
www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=385381#p385381

[narayan]

rajeshnat, since the talks are available on YouTube, it should be possible to verify all missing details. Your impressions are most valuable, e.g. the reference to 'no gooja thookufying', about which I had to clarify with more knowledgeable folks. Very apt.
Your final assessments always remind me of the good old AB grade. No matter how many grades we create in the scale, there is a temptation to further interpolate!

[rajeshnat]

Narayan
I am falling more and more in love with writing , online viewing is distraction and interruption. I think you were also there for this lecdem . WOuld love to hear your few liner impressions. Winston Churchill who once said If i had to speak for few hours, i can start right away but if it is 20 mins speech , i need a day to prepare.

Kudos to Ravi Rajagopalan, his deck is a life time preperation and his articulation did not repeat and most importantly he never wasted time. Many speakers repeat getting carried away and he did not.

Muttuswami Dikshitar krithis,lecdems and writeups have to reach whole of North India above southern states after all Hindi is far more closer to Sanskrit.

[narayan]

I was there for Ravi Rajagopalan's presentation, and I wholeheartedly agree with the part about getting straight to the point and not wasting collective time of so many (which is so hard to get, these days). I do know Ravi and would have expected nothing less from him in terms of depth, crispness of presentation and rigour. I am an avid reader of his occasional blog articles in guruguha.org and have had the pleasure of hearing him sing as well. So, in summary, nothing more to add to your observations in this particular case. As a Diksitar fan, myself, I am only disappointed that we have so little documentation of a revered personality who lived so recently, by modern historical standards. We really should know much more about the raw facts of his his life and music - after that, we can interpret, reinterpret, render and interpolate to our heart's content. The amount of reliance on one gentleman's effort (the Sangeeta Sampradaya Pradarshini) and its patron, is quite scary! Of course, some others that Ravi mentioned have some serious biographical inputs, but the material available is all so meager, in my opinion, compared to the polish and sophistication of this art form, Though Ravi would balk at being transplanted from Mylapore, if he was in Germany (random example), he would be an ace historian with a library full of material about a man of Diksitar's caliber. Anyhow, I am glad we have him (Ravi) and a few more like him at least, and your enthusiasm and commitment ...

[shankarank]

PatchavALukku, patchavA mAdiri peSinAdAnE puDikkum! pazhaiyavA mAdiri konjam periyava mariyadai , bhakti, appaDi pESina puDikkAdE! ( To the educated , one has to sound educated eh? not the old fashioned deferential, devoted person with respect to elders and such!)

What is the use of this lecture and all this history seeking? If you all listened to Junior kalAnidhi lecture, there was tracing of rudrapriyA history, oru rAgam eppAdi eppAdillAmo tEDa paTTirukku. It has been a meandering search for a viable rAga in the 22 scale. Now rudrapriyA - who?

And Sri SubbarAma dIkshitar, noted, there is G3 somewhere, and that is Hindustan kApi.

kadaisiyilE rudra kOpa, sUma sAyaka mAdiri irukkAnnu juniorE kETTUTAr. At the end Junior himself asked doesn't it sound like sUma sAyaka. Emperor's clothes moment!

VadivElu makes a trek to ThiruvAnguR and rest is history (RIH)! Oops Oops I also mentioned that word .. History I mean Sorry

That summarizes the entire conscious of rAgA search in asampURNa mELa system. Consciousness and truth transcend the flow of time and there is no need of discovering chronological order or recounting of actual happenings or events.

RKSK the just anointed SK, was very disappointed in one Lec. Dem by Arati Rao ( IIRC) , when Dr Rita Rajan called MAya mALava gaULa a scalar rAgA. What with so many kritis by vAggEyakAras? He was heard pleading: enna ippADi solREL?

And in another occasion , RKSK , the SK wondered aloud: "dEva gAndhAri mAdiri karnATakamAna rAgam irukka muDiyumA?( is there a a more carnatic rAgA than dEva gAndhAri?)" "dESya rAgamnu ezhutarAr" yAru? subbarAma dIkshitar. ( He wrote, it is a dESya rAgA!). Meaning came from outside!

aamaaa , enda rAgAm taan uLLErundu vandadu? Which rAgA came from inside?

ennamO ragA music, rAgA musicnu meccikirEngaLE , enda rAgam ullERundu vandadu?

And why was it called dEva GAndhAri? And what about the other dEva gAndhAri from 22 scale? dEvAs are upwards and gAndhAram is also held upwards in both cases. Why? - semitone suppression! - ranjakatvam!

Mysore Sri vASudevacAr , puts the sAhitya padam: 'dEvam' ( the 'vam' part) exactly on the dEva gAndhAram in BhajarE , rE mAnasa.

And we lose sight of this key principle, and go on debating names. AbhEri, dEva GAndhAri etc. And we want to sell an unmitigated semitone in that old AbhERi ( the D1) based on some history.