This article by Sri RR was first published by Yogavedanta Forest Academy,

Rishikesh, 1958.

'Hamlet' staged, with the Prince of Denmark left out - such has been the case of Carnatic
Music. Tyagaraja, Dikshitar, and Syama Sastri have been deified as the Trinity of South
Indian Music. But the genius who first gave the art 'a local habitation and a name' has
almost been forgotten. It was Purandaradasa who took the cue from the Tallapakam
fraternity and popularised the modern Kriti with its clear cut features of Pallavi,
Anupallavi and Charanam. He thus created the model for the Trinity and a host of latter-
day composers.

However, a combination of circumstances, most of them obvious enough, has

kept in oblivion a composer of his eminence and denied to generations of
musicians and music lovers the great art treasure of this hoary patriarch.
Tradition has it that Tyagaraja learnt hundreds of Purandara's compositions from
his own mother. It is not improbable that Dikshitar also drew upon this abundant
lore for his inspiration (vide 'Krishnadvaipayana' in Kamboji). Though Tyagaraja
and Dikshitar built on similar foundations each developed a technique and style
all his own. Consequently there have been two schools of music in South India,
one passionately devoted to Tyagaraja, and the other upholding the traditions of
Dikshitar. It is a healthy sign of the times that the 'cold war' between the
protagonists of the two schools has been slowly dying out for sometime now.

An earnest Sadhaka, calm and serene, with his mind detached from worldly
pursuits and tuned to Sri Vidyopasana, dedicating his vast classical erudition and
knowledge of music to the service of his tutelary deity, Lord Tyagaraja of
Tiruvarur shrine - this is the personality that Dikshitar reveals through his
compositions.

Why did he choose Sanskrit as his medium of expression? With the exception of
Jayadeva, there has been no Sanskrit composer of standing, either before or
after Dikshitar. Even in his own times Telugu had established its reputation as a
language pre-eminently suited for music, thanks to Tyagaraja, Syama Sastri and
others. Dikshitar himself could not resist its charms. This is borne out by a
number of Telugu compositions that stand to his credit.

Another illustrious contemporary, Gopalakrishna Bharati, poured forth the

longings of his awakened soul in his own mother-tongue, Tamil. Therefore,
something more than traditional reverence for 'the language of the Gods'
prompted the choice. The intellectual highbrow and the philosopher that Dikshitar
was, he perhaps felt like the Devonshire congregation of the Reformation days,
when it declared that the new English Prayer-Book was like a Christmas game
and demanded the restoration of the old Latin Mass. Be that as it may, Dikshitar
has amply justified his choice. He drew liberally on the ancient Vedic lore, rather
than on the poetic or literary output of the more recent past-the Vaidika, as
distinct from the Lowkika, style in Sanskrit. His exquisite sense of the value of
diction has made his compositions models of pure and dignified Sanskrit. He has
tapped the boundless wealth of rhyme and meter for which Sanskrit holds the
field, and wrought a perfect concord between word and sound.

Doubtless, the limitations of an unspoken language were there. And Dikshitar

added to them by restricting the scope of his utterances to a rather stereotyped
rhymnody in praise of the vast Hindu Pantheon. Profusion of words, lack of
emotional appeal, unvarying theme and want of spirit are some of the features
that have told on the worth and popularity of Dikshitar's output. On the other
hand, his mastery of Sanskrit and the Classics was thorough. His Swarakshara
Prayogas, Raga - Mudras ('Arabhi' concealed in 'Samsara Bheeti') Srothovaha
and Gopuchcha Yathi artifices ('Thyagaraja' in Anandabhairavi), etc., are marvels
of verbal imagery and consummate craftsmanship in musical architecture.
Interesting details of topography and local history abound in songs like 'Sri
Mahaganapati' in Goula. The delineation of planets and their satellites in the
Navagraha Keertanas, the Shodasa Ganapati series, the Panchalinga series, the
Tyagaraja Ashtakam and the Guru Ashtakam in all the eight cases, the
Abhayamba and Navavarana series, combine sweetness of music form and
ineffable lingual charm. In short, Dikshitar's kritis are epitomes of Sanskrit culture
and exalted melodic expression.

The unvarying theme, referred to above, coupled, perhaps, with a philosophic

bias towards passivity and exclusiveness, if not downright inhibition, set very
definite limits to the subject matter of his compositions. Besides, he had to free
himself from the shackles of an outworn nebulous, musical tradition before he
could rise to his full stature. Therefore, the effort and strain that his unfolding
involved stamped his compositions with a heavy, ponderous gait, which,
however, lacked neither force nor majesty. Besides, the deliberate, long-drawn
out tempo had its refreshing counterpart in the sumptuous complement of smart
Madhyama - kaala frills that usually adorn Dikshitar's Kritis.

But for one or two hints like those in the Vegavahini and Amritavarshini Kritis
about his prayer for relief from famine and the anguish born of disappointment at
the hands of the base and the vulgar, we have no clue to Dikshitar as a man. He
leaves us in wonder, the more so by the cosmopolitan taste and impressionism
with which he has chosen the tune of the English National Anthem and a number
of other English songs for his own pieces, impressed touches of Hindustani
music in quite a number of his Kritis, and composed a Manipravala song in praise
of the deity at Pulivalam.

From the placid, contemplative tenor of Dikshitar's outpourings to the myriad

varieties of melody-types, swelling crescendos and delicate arabesques of
Tyagaraja is a delectable experience at seesaw, 'balancing the one with his
opposite, on which the health of the state depends'. His fecund creative genius
and spontaneous emotional upsurges have no parallel, on the count of either
quality or quantity of output, in the history of music as a whole.

In the process of its evolution from Sanskrit the Telugu Language acquired a
great phonetic refinement. One of the sweetest and most popular living
languages in India, it was also Tyagaraja's mother tongue. He turned these
advantages to good account and succeeded in presenting beauty in sound
framed in the minimum of words. This departure from the tradition, referred to
above, was a turning point in the progress of art. Till then, music had played a
secondary part. As in the Thevaram and Thirupugazh, the theme developed
through the same texture of music repeated ad infinitum. It was all that Dikshitar
could do to circumvent this by resorting to madhyamakala appendages. But it
was given to Tyagaraja to proclaim the proper function of music as a vehicle of
emotional expression. The greater the music content of a piece, the fewer were
the words he employed. On this congenial ground, he built the variations
unknown to those before him. The picturesque combination of notes in all their
sustained cadences, compressed within a particular time measure, with the
distribution of words intact, (Padagarbham) and with the whole edifice of the
melody type growing more impressive, varied and elaborate at each successive
step - this is popularly known as sangatis. The introduction of this ingenious
device revolutionised the entire system of our music. Consequently the post-
Tyagaraja period of more than a century now has altogether broken from the past
and followed the line opened by him.

Dikshitar composed one or two pieces in the seventy-two major modes of

Venkatamakhi. Only a limited number of janya ragas came in for his notice. But
they all bear testimony to the scrupulous care with which he made them perfect
and complete in themselves. Nevertheless, the region of the raga remained as
yet unexplored. Tyagaraja's contribution in this respect cannot be adequately
measured. He composed a large number of songs in ragas that were familiar in
his days. He brought to light hundreds of unknown ragas and wrought priceless
gems in them. His genius was so prolific that songs in the same raga were
sufficiently marked and bore distinct features of it. The range and extent of his
treatment of ragas, the astounding variety in tempo and style, the exhaustive
treatment of Laya and the spirit and liveliness of 'turning and wheeling with the
agility of a hawk upon its wing', are characteristics peculiar to Tyagaraja.
Dikshitar, perhaps, intended it as a homage to his great contemporary, when, he
adopted the latter's tunes for his own compositions, 'Sri Guruguho',
'Kshitijaramanam' and 'Anantha Balakrishnam'.

Tyagaraja differed from Dikshitar not only in the choice of medium and mode of
expression, but in that of the theme as well. A profound mystic to whom Sri
Rama was the warp and woof of his very existence, he has been hailed as the
incarnation of Valmiki. In moods of ecstasy he had visions which bodied forth in
the lyrical flow of word and song (Paritapamu, Datsukovalena, Upacharamu).
The aesthetic and spiritual influence of music stirred the depths of his emotion.
Swara-raga-sudha, Seeta-vara, Mokshamu and Sangeethajnanamu are
specimens of his panegyric on music. From references to the small rubs from
unkind neighbours and his own kith and kin (Teliyaleru, Adaya, Palukavemi) to
serious dissertation on life's eternal problems (Dvaitamu, Paramatmudu) he
covered a vast ground. This wholesome variety all round was the keynote of
Tyagaraja's greatness. Appropriately enough, his compositions have been
spoken of as Tyagopanishad.

The foregoing survey, by no means exhaustive or comprehensive, may yet

explain the abiding, universal popularity of the one as compared with the limited
appeal of the other. Tyagaraja's compositions have penetrated the aesthetic life
of a whole nation. No musical activity, be it a performance, a dramatic show, or
even a conference, may be imagined without the place of honour assigned to
them. Pride of place is assuredly theirs even in Tamil homes afflicted with blind
language predilections, till, perhaps, another Tyagaraja rises in the firmament
and brings light and life to Tamil Music. Thus Tyagaraja enjoys the status of a
national composer and the most outstanding tone-poet of the world, while
Dikshitar, with all his creative genius and prodigious skill, has reached but a few.

Nevertheless, both were men of great learning, deep piety and rare gifts of vision
and originality. They pursued the same ideal of a simple, virtuous life, with no eye
on popular applause or other worldly gains. They were pioneer veterans who
transformed the course of the history of our music by the sheer vitality and
enduring quality of their contribution. So long as music retains its hold on our
minds as a source of joy and solace, both Tyagaraja and Dikshitar will live
enshrined in the hearts of all true lovers of art and culture.