The Genius of Dikshitar (Part 4)

This is my fourth post on the Genius of Dikshitar, my favourite composer of all time!

4) Laya 

Dikshitar was a master of talams.

Apart from composing songs in talams like Adi, Rupakam and the Chapu talams, Dikshitar also composed in weirder, more complex thalams like Dhruva talam and Matya talam. (Singing swarams in these weird thalams is really fun!) In fact, the first seven Navagraha Krithis (the krithis in praise of the nine planets: Surya, Chandra, Budhan, Shukra, Ankarakan, Guru, Shani, Rahu and Ketu) are composed in each of the sapta talams.

He composed in these weird talams with so much ease, as can be seen in the caranam of suryamurthe namosthuthe (Sourastram ragam). The song was composed in Kanda Druva talam (2 Kalai), which has a total of 28 beats. The words of the madhyama kalam go as follows: 

saurāśtrārna mantrātmane sauvarna svarūpātmane

bhāratīśa hariharātmane bhukti mukti vitaraṇātmane

Dikshitar comes to one avartanam (28 beats) by singing 7 x 4. However, anyone can do 7 x 4 = 28. It takes a true creative genius to make the pattern sound aesthetically appealing at the same time, which is exactly what Dikshitar did. (Gotta love Dikshitar!)

First of all, there is rhyming in the endings of each phrase: every sentence ends in the word "ātmane", which makes everything rhyme. There is also prasam in place because the first two lines both start with the sound "sau" and the next two start with "bh". And then, the composer brilliantly uses the word "saurāśtrārna" as a raga mudra, and does so without disrupting the overall meaning. Talk about killing two birds with one stone! 

I could just keep going on (I would actually love to!) but my typing fingers are getting tired!

So I hope you now know why I love Dikshitar so much. He was a genius, not only musically, but also rhythmically and lyrically.

I will finish this post with one last sentence:

No Carnatic Music, no fun.

Know Carnatic Music, know fun!