Maharaja Swati Thirunal, a multifaceted genius

[cmlover]

Is there an authentic historical biography of Swathi available? Are the 'palace documents' and those in the Manuscript Library available for historical reasearch? Particularly we know very little about his CM interests and connections. We know a lot about the Life History of the Trinity but comparatively very little about Swathi. Unlike Thyagaraja his compositions do not reveal any Life events of significance. Varmaji had mentioned that some of his compositions were preserved in pristine form among the Nadasvara vidvaans of that time. Since they form an indirect sishya parampara, are we in a position to garner more information about the original nature of his works prior to the intervention of HMB/SSI with his works? Are the 'palm leaf' manuscripts worked upon by HMB/SSI still preserved in some archives?