The SupremeBoss

Dikshitar an enigma, a saint, a composer, a philosopher, an astrologer an everything so to speak. Why Dikshitar or more specifically Muthuswamy Dikshitar? That is precisely what yours truly would like put forth in the future posts as well as in the lines below.

His music is beyond the realms of the ordinary. His music is secular, unbiased towards a particular deity (though he himself was a Devi and a Srividya upasaka) as well as a tradition. The music has a completely different brand so to speak and as the b-schools say in order to carve out a niche you need to carve out a brand an image for oneself. Madhyamakala, Samashti Charanam might have been in vogue prior to Dikshitar but he has made them his own. Similarly, Sanskrit considered as the toughest language comes as naturally in his compositions as our mother tongue comes to us in conversations.The rhythm, the meter chosen for each kriti seems the most appropriate. And there is no question on the lyrical beauty. The vast amount of esoteric knowledge, philosophy, shastras, zodiac, astrology, iconography of places and temples and the deities, details of each religious place, the time of festivals, even the prasadam in the temples havent gone abegging for mention because Dikshitar grants all of them their deserved place in his compositions. No deity in the vast Hindu pantheon has been left out including the planets and each of them has been given their importance in the compositions compose in their praise. A few are of the opinion that due to Sanskrit and complex intermingling sahitya, raaga and laya as well as Dikshitar himself being a votary of the knowledge form of the bhakti, the devotion element in his kritis with which a layman can connect directly is reduced. Personally, one only would ask them to listen to a perfect rendition of sri Rangapura Vihara or a Meenakshi Memudam Dehi or a Mamava Meenakshi or Ehi Annapoorne. In each of these and in most of the others one can simply enjoy the tune and the melody completely leaving aside the lyrics. That is Dikshitar. His greatness lies in the fact that, for the musically inclined they find bliss in the melody, for the spiritually inclined they find the bhakti in both the sahitya and the raaga and for the philosophically inclined there is a mountain of the same in the sahitya. He only asks us for a soulful and a devoted rendition of the kriti in return for all this. Are we ready to give him that? Because for that, it requires patience, dedication, sincere practise and total involvement.