Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music

Muttusvā m i Dīkṣitar an d the I nvention of Mo ern Carnati c Musi

Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music:

The AbhayâmDavibād S hulVibhakti-kṛtisman j. gon d a le c ture

21th j. gonda lecture 2013 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

1 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

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Eviatar Shulman] Illustration cover: The Māyūra-nātha temple gopuram tower [photographs: Preferred citation: David Shulman (2014). Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music:The Abhayâmbā Vibhakti-kṛtis. Amsterdam, J. Gonda Fund Foundation of the KNAW.

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2 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 david shulman

Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā Vibhakti-kṛtis

3 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 acknowledgments invitation to deliver the Jan Gonda lecture and to all those who made our stay inMy Amsterdam thanks, first, so to happy the Royal and productive; Netherlands these Academy include of ArtsBernadette and Sciences Peeters, for Pien the Meijman, and Jan van Herwijnen, who has seen this lecture through to publica- tion. I particularly want to thank my good friends Jonathan Silk and Yoko. kṛtis at my suggestion; I was proud to play her beautiful renditions during the lecture, andRoopa they areMahadevan now accessible learned on and her sang website. several I will of neverthe Abhayâmbā forget the September evening in Manhattan when my wife Eileen and I sat with Roopa in the Na- kṛti; I knew at once that Roopa would give us the rich and moving performance I was hoping for. I am delighted atvatman the partnership Studio and that heard has her emerged sing the in Kalyāṇithe course of this venture.

Harold Powers and, with a great depth of insight, Emmie te Nijenhuis, who did mePioneering the honor of work coming on to the hear Muttusvāmi my lecture. Dīkṣitar I have learned corpus from was these carried great out mu by- sicologists and from our wise colleague and friend, Joep Bor; their work made and Osnat Elkabir, for introducing me to the tradition from the inside. My Tamil my own reflections possible. I want to thank my music teachers, Pantula Rama would also like to mention the seminal works of Yoshitaka Terada and Davesh Sonejiguru, John on the Marr, history first unveiledof south Indianfor me, performance. long ago, the miracleTo all of ofthese Carnatic teachers, music. my I debt of gratitude and delight is beyond measure.

Ilanit Shacham-Loewy graciously and selflessly plied me with rare texts from the Regenstein Library in Chicago, thus making it possible for me to write my toessay. some Yigal of the Bronner kṛtis and encouraged discussing me their to go intricacies deeper into with the her Dīkṣitar unique world. sensitivity. ForMy this, wife among Eileen, so a manytrained gifts, Carnatic I can onlysinger say herself, the simplest spent time words: listening thank with you. me Jan Heesterman, a life-long friend and source of inspiration, came to hear my lecture. That was the last time I saw him. He died a few months later. I would like to dedicate this short study to his memory.

4 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 contents acknowledgments 4 introductory remarks 7 abhayâmbā, no-fear 9 muttusvāmi dīkṣitar: modern shaman 15 defining the new sensibility (1): āryām abhayâmbām 22 the new sensibility (2) abhayâmbā jagad-ambā 32 conclusion: a grammar of art music 34 select bibliography 47 about the gonda lecture 2013 50

5 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

Abhayâmbā

6 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

Inintroductory the last decades remarks of the eighteenth century and the early decades of the nineteenth, south Indian classical music underwent a revolution, largely re-invent- ing itself as an artistic domain in secular settings removed from the royal courts and the great temples, its primary arenas of patronage before this point. Per- withhaps athe fondness most innovative for composing figure sets in ofthis eight revolution or more incompositions taste, expressivity, on a chosen and goddesscultural contextfrom a major was Muttusvāmi temple in the Dīkṣitar Tamil country.(1775-1835), This lecture a practicing focuses Tantrika on one to read these compositions, taken as a coherent whole, in the light of the new such set, to the goddess Abhayâmbā, "No Fear," in Māyilāṭutuṟai, and attempts- en by principles of radical iconicity with the accompanying verbal text and spe- aesthetic this composer was creating. A musical "grammar of emergence," driv listening to these works, which, it is argued, aim to make the goddess present cific and meaningful musical figuration, can be extracted inductively by careful- through techniques I call "auralization" (in contrast to the more familiar "vis herualization"). presence The in hiscomposer/performer awareness along the sings lines the the goddess artist hasinto carefully being, and put the in place.attuned The listener, pragmatic sitting aspect in a precursorof this process of the of modernmantic listening concert hall,is largely internalizes forgotten today, but it informed Dīkṣitar's work throughout and defined him not so- posedmuch as it intothe pious a new, figure highly of personal,current canonical universalist-secular narrative as, mode. in effect, a modernist shaman who detached Carnatic music from its earlier ritual contexts and trans

- re-inventingGoddesses, such itself as in Abhayâmbā, the forms we “No-Fear,” know today of Māyavaram, even as Western have their classical ways. Anmusic in explicable synchronicity marks the extended moment when Carnatic music was was creating its canonical core in Vienna and Salzburg. In the early 1780's Mozart was composing his six so-called “Haydn Quartets” in profound conversation with Haydn's Opus 33; in these same years, in the heady atmosphere of Maṇali on the- northern outskirts of the new colonial capital of Madras, the young Muttusvāmi- nancesDīkṣitar comprised was completing the very his stuff education and texture at the offeet composition, of his father, though the maverick we know musi all cal genius Rāmasvāmi Dīkṣitar. In the Tamil south as in Vienna, intertextual reso too little about specific quotations and elaborations by Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar of themes from the works of his slightly elder contemporaries, Tyāgarāja and (in

7 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 particular) Śyāma Śāstri. These three great composers apparently met in the politicalTo state capital the matter of Maratha in this Tañjāvūrway is, however, and clearly to be were swept aware at once of intoone theanother's stand- emerging oeuvre, the primary modern canon of the Carnatic tradition. in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth centuries. This overly familiar sto- ard hagiography that Carnatic music likes to tell about its formative moment Saṅgīta-sampradāya-pra- darśiniry, first, enshrinesfully articulated the three in composers,the Telugu workall born of withinDikṣitar's a few grand-nephew years in the small and adopted son Subbarāma Dīkṣitulu , the monumental temple-town of Tiruvārūr in the Kāveri Delta, as the foundational “Trinity.” Yet even Subbarāma Dīkṣitulu's account is more complex and colorful than what we usually hear today. I think it is time to re-examine the self-image of Carnatic thatclassicism, is, to specify to expand the historicalits cultural circumstances and intellectual that horizons, drove it and theto attempt analytical to featuresdefine the that revolution dominated in thesensibility formation that of wasa new achieved musical at culture that creative in the south. time— In such a wider view, Muttusvami Diksitar will, I argue, emerge as the major in- can be said to have effected the major breakthrough in taste and technique.1 Tonovator, pose thethe problemfigure who, as a rather set of likequestions: Monteverdi What in was seventeenth-century the nature of the transfor Venice,- enabled the transition into new, more modern modes of composition and per- mation that Dīkṣitar wrought within his inherited musical tradition, and what - formance? Who were Dīkṣitar's audiences? What processes were at work at worldthis time? patterned What newand projected?kinds of expressivity emerged as the hallmarks of Dīkṣi tar'sThere kṛtis? are Or, other more questions simply: I whocannot was begin this tocomposer, answer; Iand am ahow cultural was historian,his inner not a musicologist. Others will have to address the profound issues of composi- tional technique. At most, I hope to shed some light on the cultural matrix out of which the new music emerged. The social and cultural contexts that shaped the tradition have been studied in depth by Davesh Soneji, in a pioneering book, and by Indira Peterson, Lakshmi Subrahmanian, Amanda Weidman, Saskia Kersen- boom, and, in an early generation, S. Seetha, among others. Thanks to these scholars, we now know quite a lot about how south Indian music and dance crystallized in the genres and templates of “salon performance,” to use Soneji's term; about the main performance lines leading back to the devadāsī-veśyā Sacred Songs of India: Dīkṣitar's Cycle of Hymns to the Goddess Kamalā 1 Thus Emmie te Nijenhuis and Sanjukta Gupta, (Winterthur: Amadeus, 1987),1:1: [Dīkṣitar was] “the most versatile and innovative of them all.” 8 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

- aginedcourtesans themselves and their and male successfully counterparts, made the the naṭṭuvaṉārs, transition, thenot guardians without cost, of this to thetradition; modern and stage. about We the know turning-point considerably when less Carnaticabout that music earlier and period dance when reim a long-standing, well articulated musical world took the first bold steps toward capablebecoming of aunfolding semi-secular into artsuch music—not later modes. as weThis know evening it today I want in theto address sabhās thatof Chennai earlier andtime Rajahmundry of invention orand reinvention Vizianagaram and andto trace Kocci, some but ofas its something primary historical features, placing particular emphasis on the extraordinary figure of Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and closely examining one set of his most sustained and- intricatestand them compositions, we will have theto have Abhayâmbā a look at kṛtis,their setting arranged, in the like ancient other suchtemple sets of by this composer, according to the eight Sanskrit inflectional cases. To under prevalentMāyavaram pious or Māyūram, halo that hastoday come Mayilāṭutuṟai to envelop onthis the radical banks Tantric of the modernist. Kāveri; and we will need to revisit the Dīkṣitar biography or hagiography, putting aside the

abhayâmbā, no-fear

The Māyūranāthasvāmi Temple is situated in the heart of the Tamil temple- country, on the southern bank of the Kāveri River, at a place today called by the- ancient name Mayilāṭutuṟai, mentioned by two of the canonical Tamil Śaiva po ets (Tiruñāṉacampantar and Tirunāvukk'araracucuvāmikaḷ, c. seventh centu ry), but until recently known as Māyavaram, a major town in the eastern Delta. It’s an imposing shrine, endowed with Chola-period donative inscriptions (late- eleventhjayanagara to times,mid-thirteenth others as centuries).recently as Large1928. partsAs usual, of the the older, ritual Chola-period order at the edificetemple haveseems been to haveremoved survived in the intact course from of extensive medieval renovations, times. I can sometouch in here Vi - only on a few high points of direct relevance to our topic. The large Māyūranā tha liṅga, embedded in a series of receding door-frames as one moves from the outer prākāram into the inner ones, has been replicated by four other Māyūranāthas, one for each of the cardinal directions: on the east, Tuṟai kāṭṭum vaḷḷal, the Generous Lord who Shows the Crossing; to the south, in Pĕruñceri,- Vākku kāṭṭum vaḷḷal, the Generous Lord who Gave his Word (to Bṛhaspati, chief of the 8000 sages in the Forest of Pines); to the west, in Mūvaṉūr, Mārgasahā yar, the Lord who Helps One on the Way; and to the north, in Uttaramāyūram,

9 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 silent teaching). Kai kāṭṭum vaḷḷal, the Generous Lord who Showed his Hand (in the gesture of

One sees at a glance that this god is a source of bounty and benefice pouring out freely in all directions, also inwards as well as outwards,Tevâram and concretized poems on in specific iconic forms. He points to the place of crossing, and he helps the pilgrim find his way. In a sense—already clearly articulated in the - gesthis herselfshrine—he came is downthe male from condensation north India andto worship equivalent her of here. the freelyWe should flowing, no generous gift of the Kāveri River, thought to be so rich in benefice that the Gan doubt think of the stone liṅgas that capture parts or aspects of the god as liquid and unconfined, like the river. and the lord sings as he begs for alms fromHere isthe Mayilāṭutuṟai, heart of every where young the woman. peacock plays We know all of ancient time on her banks, covered in foam, asis his.bees Here sip honeythe Kāviri from scatters mangos gems torn open by monkeys who leap from branch to branch.2

Music is the third level of gushing, flowing goodness, perhaps flowing into the strand.river, the Elsewhere, first and inprimary a similar level, vein, and Appar also tellsinto usand that out this of theLord god of theand Peacock mixing iswith a perennial the rush ofbridegroom, feeling in “the maṇāḷaṉār heart of.3 every young woman,” the second liquid But, as usual in south India, the male deity is also vulnerable to forms of relatively severe self-obstruction, or encrustation, hence to extreme fragmenta- sapta-sthānam) in the Delta4 that share an annual festival aimed at recomposing, or coalescing, the god who has tion.been Mayilāṭutuṟaidivided among is them.one of To the facilitate “seven sites” this business ( of reuniting the disparate pieces of a shattered deity is perhaps the main task of the goddess—in our case,

2 Tiruñāṉacampantar 3. 70. 5. Tirumayilait tirip'antāti 3 Tirunāvukk'aracucuvāmikaḷ 6.59.4 (Tiruvĕṇṇiyūr). 4 See list in Cāmināt'aiyar's introduction to [Tiruvanmiyur: U. Ve. Cāmināt'aiyar Library, 1997], xiii. 10 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 5 - - uousAbhayâmbā, and complete No Fear in (Tamilself and Añcŏlāḷ). thus always Although potentially she, too,helpful is subject to human to fissipa beings whorous currentsseek her withinout. I witnessedher “self” and her her astonishing world, she interaction is also, as wewith will her see, devotees contin at the time of the evening prayer, pradoṣa-pūjā (August 2013). The lighting of the lamps in her sanctuary, seen through the set of stone gateways, sends high-voltage signals of, when her lovingI last visited presence, Māyavaram and the

Shepilgrims stands, fan black, the flames draped with in three their white,prayers. hanging garlands or necklaces, the top one issuing into a brilliant gem at its nadir. A huge garland of lotuses, garnished sides of her body. Above her, above the inner chamber, there is light glowing with orange blossoms, surrounds her head and shoulders, flowing down the Green dominates the green and red sari she wears. A vast, unruly kīrti-mukha monsterinside a circle protects of lights. the entrance She seems to peaceful,this inner dignified, space. She graceful, has four a little arms: reserved. discus on the top right, conch on the top left; the lower left hand rests on her waist, the lower right is raised in the familiar abhaya gesture: No Fear. A green parrot rests on her right shoulder. The entire image is suffused with resonances of

Viṣṇu, so much so that one wonders if an original Viṣṇu deity has been replaced amongby, or absorbed many others. into, this female form, thus obscuring the symbiotic Śiva-Viṣṇu pattern so pronounced in Tamil shrines such as Tiruvārūr and Cidambaram, At the entrance to the sanctum, on the left, there is a large, clean mirror, and just under the weight. It seems the mirror is to see yourself after you’ve taken the below it sindūra powder is held, ready for use, by a carved male figure, bending as she sees herself in you. Here is but one of the Tantric touches that color the powder and applied it to your forehead—that is, to see yourself as this goddess,

Abhayâmbā shrine. Indeed, it is clear that Māyūranātha and his consort have undergone a phase of systemic Tantricization, in at least two distinct stages— an initial assimilation of the Kashmiri Āgamas into the ritual structure of the shrine, probably in late Chola times, and a later reworking of the entire system of myth and cult in terms consonant with the mature Śrī-vidyā—probably in - Tevâram 5 The Tamil name occurs, probably originally as a simple epithet (“Umā of beauti ful speech“), in Tirunāvukk'aracucuvāmikaḷ 5.39.4 [389]. Añcŏlāḷ may have features:become, orsee been below. glossed as, Añcal nāyaki, “Don't-be-Afraid-Goddess” (see commentary to the Tarumapuram edition on this verse), perhaps in conjunction with her Vaiṣṇava

11 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The latter process culminates in the - cern us here. DīkṣitarPerhaps kṛtis, the today most inscribed striking andon the unusual walls of feature this goddess of this shrine, entire thatprocess, will conone unique to the Māyavaram complex, is the role of Anavidyā/ Aṉavidyâmbikai red(“Non-non-aware“), sari that then rises a goddess-as-liṅga to enfold its left standing side. According on a raised to the stone Tala-varalāṟu platform to,6 the left of the Abhayâmbā shrine. The black liṅga is decked at its base with a other saris, of various colors, hanging on a string on the wall to the right, and threeeach day more, a new orange red andsari nicelyis attached ironed, to tothis the liṅga left. onAn itsoil rightlamp side. burns I countedat the right six liṅgodbhava, and base of the liṅga. On the wall behind her (him), we find the Dakṣiṇāmūrti stands, where he should be, on the wall to the left. A peacock adorns a pillar at the entrance to her shrine—not by coincidence. Who is she/he? The story is that Anavidyā's husband, Nātha-śarma, a Siddha alchemist-Yogi, came to Māyavaram with his wife and brought the Tiruvaiyāṟu temple (north of Tañjāvūr) with him (a Pañca-nadīśvara temple, patterned after Tiruvaiyāṟu, does indeed exist in the village). Eventually, Nātha-śarma became deities.a liṅga in7 the god's shrine, and Anavidyā, too, was transformed8 But we are into left, a liṅga;still, with it is still customary for pilgrims to worship both liṅgas before they turn to the main Siddhas excel above all at self-deification. the seeming incongruity of a female liṅga that has achieved a certain primacy in the ritual order here. Moreover, this liṅga stands between Māyūranātha, in his shouldseparate be shrine, reserved and for Abhayâmbā, the male consort.its immediate But what neighbor, kind ofalmost a male as isif Anavidyāshe? The were another, parallel form of No-Fear. Anavidyā, in a sense, takes the place that texts offer no explanation. It is quite common in Tamil Śaivism to see Viṣṇu—in the maleidentity half of of Mohinī, this female the Enchantress— half? And is the as male the left half half of a of female Śiva, andhalf wemale have or seen that Abhayâmbā does bear Vaiṣṇava iconic features. But is Anavidyā, then, female, or both, or neither? Can femaleness be bifurcated in this way? As we Tirumayilāṭutuṟai tiruttala varalāṟu - Census of India 1961, XI-D, Temples of6 Tamil Vai. Ambikapati,Nadu (1971), 55-56. See Tirumayilait tirup'antâti (Tirumayilāṭutuṟai: Pub lished by the author, 2008), 54; K. Chockalingam, of Irāmaiyar (Madras: U. Ve. liṅgasCaminataiyar Nūlnilaiyam, 1997), v. 11. loc. cit. 7 Cāmināt'aiyar tells us that the custom in his day was for pilgrims to visit these two samādhi after first worshipping CaṇṭikecuvararTirumayilāṭutuṟai and Caṇṭikecuvari: tiruttala varalāṟu , 51. 8 Māyūram was also the primary site for the Siddha known as Kutampaiccittar, whose is here: see Ampikāpati, 12 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

Mayilāṭuṟai: Brahma-tīrtha, Māyūranātha-svāmi Temple on this goddess. willOften, see, thesein south questions Indian ariseshrines, again metaphysical in the musical quandaries texts of Muttusvāmi of this sort Dīkṣitarare embodied in stone, not set to rest in discursive words. We will not attempt to solve the riddle here. But we can, at the least, note the rather unorthodox experiment and unsettling quality of this deity. We should bear this set of elements in mind that Abhayâmbā has apparently attracted to herself, and the at once ravishing- ment of her nature, history, and internal dynamics. when we turn to the Dīkṣitar compositions about her, by now a canonical state

I have still not mentioned the main purāṇic story about Māyūra-nātha and- Abhayâmbā. The setting is Dakṣa's sacrificial ritual, to which he deliberately did not invite his son-in-law, Śiva. Umā, Dakṣa's daughter, insisted on going in or der to defend her husband's honor. When Śiva sent the furious part of himself, heldVīrabhadra, fast to this to wreckpeahen, the trying rite, toa peahensave her. who Since happened this was theto be last there thought rushed of the to goddessUmā for refuge;before herand immolation, Umā, who was she burnt was reborn to death as in a thispeahen destructive and, in this moment, form,

13 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 - vīraṭṭānam or worshiped Śiva until he came to marry her and merge her with himself. The de- struction of the sacrifice took place at Paṟiyalūr, one of the eight appearedheroic sites as of a Tamildancing Śaivism—only peacock to claim some her;five kilometersthis identity away is preserved from Māyavar in his am. The goddess as peahen9 emerged at Māyavaram, where her husband-to-be name, Māyūra-nātha. Abhayâmbā takes other forms as well: she is Āṭippūra Ammaṉ, “the goddess of the floods in the month of Āṭi," diagonally situated to the north-east of Abh- ayâmbā in her primary iconic form (remember that the goddess is deeply linked to the flowing river, which she visits in the Aippaci festival days); and she is also identified with the canonical Tantric deities Lalitâmbikā and Tripura-sundarī, whose huge portraits have been painted on the walls behind Abhayâmbā along with a painted image of Samayapuram Māriyammaṉ, a third Tantricized deity (in the Samaya, not the Kaula, stream). It is in the form of Tripura-sundarī that we will encounter her in the Dīkṣitar compositions, which fuse specific features of the Māyavaram goddess with the more generalized and universally familiar, materializations of the Śrī-vidyā. A significant corpus of Tamil10 poems about Māyavaram, from the seventeenth century on, explored such identifications, along with others centered on the male deity, Māyūranātha. - There are striking continuities between Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar, in the late11 Theeighteenth composer, century, blending and localverbal Māyavaram and musical poets texts, such is doing as the what now thelargely Tamil forgot poet isten, trying but enormouslyto do; both seek creative, to reveal Irāmaiyar, in sensible probably form, visual,a generation audible, before or tangible, him. a living goddess who inhabits both external and internal domains. Or perhaps the composer is attempting to outdo such a poet by means of the musical devices he commands. In terms of the aesthetic goals of composition, both operate within a world where sound impacts upon, indeed shapes, reality and can be andmanipulated aims at certain by the distinctive poet or musician effects, asto weparticular will see. effect, although Dīkṣitar's Tantric orientation moves beyond Irāmaiyar's somewhat less radical stance

Māyūrappurāṇam by Project Madurai, 2011) chapters 9-11 (in particular 9.47, 10. 21-26). See Tirumay- ilait9 tirip'antāti of Tiricirapuram Mīnāṭcicuntaram Piḷḷai (edition made available ulā by of Irāmaiyar 10. 10 Some of theseTirumayilait works appear tirup'antāti to have, beenmentioned lost, including above, deserves an close study in its Tuṟaimaṅkalam Velaiyacuvāmi, the brother of the more famous Civappirakācar. deities.11 This poet's own right and as a precursor of Dīkṣitar's musical experiments with the Māyavaram

14 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 of kṛtis in performance and the historical milieu that shaped the composition From this point on, our main interest lies in the pragmatics of Dīkṣitar's set biography in its standard form. of these works. To understand what this means, we need to revisit the Dīkṣitar

Mostmuttusvāmi of what we dīkṣitar: know, or thinkmodern we know, shaman about this composer is derived from - an account by his famous grand-nephew, Subbarāya Dīkṣitulu, in his compen dium of classical Carnatic music and, in particular, of the Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar- corpus, the Saṅgīta-sampradāya-pradarśini (in Telugu, the primary language of this musical tradition), published in Eṭṭayapuram in the southern Tamil coun try in 1904. Subbarāya Dīkṣitulu was the grandson of Muttusvāmi's younger tobrother, cross-check Bālusvāmi, the information who had his the own grand-nephew connection to givesthe small-scale about his royalgreat courtrela- tive;in Ěttayapuram moreover, the (where account Muttusvāmi itself is laconic died inand 1835). drifts Weinto have the prevalent virtually hagiogno way- raphic mode that has colored our understanding of many of the great Carnatic composers. Some details, however, are too specific to have been invented; and, taken as a whole, this “biography” does offer an eloquent image of Muttusvāmi forin which a series certain of biographical critical features remarks come, on perhaps the early, without formative the periodauthor's in intention, the com- into focus. In what follows, I take the Subbarāya text as a useful starting point poser's life. Muttusvāmi was the son of Rāmasvāmi Dikṣitar, an unusually gifted and versatile musician with strong links both to the Tiruvārūr temple and to the Tañjāvūr Maratha court. He has to his credit a serious of virtuoso compositions, namesincluding are perhaps embedded the longestin the Telugu single verbalwork in text. the12 entire Carnatic tradition, the Asṭottara-śata-rāga-tāla-mālikā, which runs through 108 ragas and tālas whose Muttusvāmi's father is also (acredited feature with which, stabilizing as is well the known, system has of disappeared rāgas in liturgical from the use modern at the concerts).Tiruvārūr temple, including specifying the time of day suited for each rāga's performance

Subbarāma tells us that Muttusvāmi was born in Tiruvārūr in 1775 after his History of South Indian (Carnatic) Music Muthuswamy Dikshitar 12 See R. Rangaramanuja Ayyangar, mālikā has survived (Madras:only in part. Published by the author, 1972). 215; V. Raghavan, (Bombay: National Centre for the Performing Arts, 1975), 1. This

15 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 parents, desperate for a child, went on pilgrimage to the shrine of the god Mut- act of grace, and this gift is embodied in the name chosen for the boy. Note the tu-kumāra-svāmi in Vaittīśvaraṉkoyil; the god gave them the child as his special kāvya, nāṭaka, and alaṅkāraimportance), grammar of Kumāra-svāmi (kaumudi at), thecommentaries, very moment and of conception.music, and weMuttusvāmi are told thatwas educatedhe achieved in Vedâdhyayana, deep erudition poetry, in astrology, drama, medicine and poetics ([Āyur]vaidyamu ( ), and māntrīkamu.13 -

Tantra. We need The to finaltake term—notthis evidence by chanceseriously, the as culmination it offers one of ofthe the entire keys se to ries—must mean a proficiency in the practical mantric sciences of south Indian - understanding the composer's life and work. While Muttusvāmi was still a boy, the family shifted to Maṇali, a northern sub urb of the newly emergent colonial metropolitan center of Madras. In Maṇali Rāmasvāmi was lavishly patronized by Venkatakrishna Mudaliyar (also known as Chinayya), who had inherited his father Muddukrishna's job as dubhash— theinterpreter/executive eighteenth century agent—for;14 the East India Company. We have supporting wasevidence exposed about here the to clearly Western vibrant music. cultural In later atmosphere years he composed in Maṇali works, at the known end of today as noṭṭusvaram, based and on we a knowseries forof popular certain Englishthat the and young Irish Muttusvāmi ditties, including “God Save the King.” Bālusvāmi, the younger brother, nouveau also learned riches violin and in Maṇali and became perhaps the main source of the violin's omnipresence in South Indian concerts today. Colonial Maṇali, with its returnsecularized to this middle point. class, provides the paradigm for the revolution in audience and musical taste with which Muttusvāmi is most closely associated. We will

It was at Maṇali, according to Subbarāya, that the young Muttusvāmi first met a wandering Tantric Yogi named Cidambaranātha, a practitioner of the Śrīvidyā. whereWe are thetold—this budding is musicianclearly the was family thoroughly tradition—that instructed this inTantric the intricacies master took of Muttusvāmi with him as his disciple on a five-year pilgrimage to Varanasi,- the Śrīvidyā and was initiated into the worship of the goddess Tripurasund arī. The grand-nephew says clearly: “In these five years he (Cidambaranātha) Saṅgīta-sampradāya-pradarśini 1:26.

Kanakalatha13 Mukund, The View from Below: Indigenous Society, Temples and the Early Colonial14 My State thanks in toTamilnadu V. Sriram 1700-1835 for detailed (Hyderabad: notes on early Orient colonial Longman, Maṇali. 2005), See also 66-70; Davesh Soneji, Unfinished Gestures: Devadāsīs, Memory, and Modernity in South India

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 245. 16 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 siddhi) through practicing the mantras; he made him master eight mahāsiddhis gradually(mahā-puruṣunigān gave his student ĕrigi “powers” ( mode (anubhavamuto 15 and, realizing that he was a great man ), taught him the Vedânta-śāstra in the experiential antar-yāga-bahir-yāgamulu).” Muttusvāmi, now an accomplished), that is, both practitioner, the meditative/ took leave of his teacher and returned to Maṇali, where he lived a life of “internal and goddessexternal sacrifice”and making ( her present.16 imaginative practices of visualization and the daily rituals of fashioning the the young composer-to-be. We will revisitLet us thistake particular note of this statement phrase; at“internal a later pointand external in this essay. sacrifice” is the way the family tradition described the praxis of

- Following the standard hagiographical template, Subbarāya tells us that the next step—the moment when this earnest young Tantrika became a com poser—occurred during a visit to the Murugan-Kumāra shrine of Tiruttaṇi in northern Tamilnadu. The god himself, Cĕṅgalvarāyaḍu, appeared in human kṛtiform, Śrīgurunāthâdi-guru-guho ordered Muttusvāmi to open jayati his mouth, placed a sweet on his tongue, sevenand disappeared. more compositions, Muttusvāmi each at referring once broke to theout godin song—first in another the of thewell-known Sanskrit nominal cases (vibhakti). That was the in beginning. Māyā mālavagauḷa rāga, followed by Let us take a moment to understand what this story is telling us. It comes as - - no surprise that the composer's talent comes directly from God. More inter theesting primary is the patron highly inspecific the Tamil Tantric world background of sorcerers, present alchemists, almost and from specialists the be inginning the pragmatics of Muttusvāmi's of Tantric life, ritualas well in as its the most intimate individualistic link with forms.the god This Kumāra, composer was actually conceived, according to family tradition, through the active intervention of this deity, who is also responsible for the irreversible trajectory compositions constitute a set of eight vibhakti-kṛtis of his creative musical activity. It is also telling that the composer's very first , like the Abhayâmbā set musicamong of others, various and streams that the (including first is set Hindustani in the foundational classical rāgaperformance, that still serveswhich all novices in Carnatic music. In short: here is a composer—widely educated in intent upon Tantric praxis in its most immediate and effectual forms, though he is supposed to have learned in Varanasi)—given to playful experimentation,- alist (Advaitic) mode, with a predilection for composing sets of internally trained in Vedântic interpretations of the Śrī-vidyā in the Tañjāvūr non-du Saṅgīta-sampradāya-pradarśini 1:27. the Bhāvanā Upaniṣad: see below. 15 Subbarāma Dīkṣitulu, 16 Following Bhāskara-rāya on 17 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 the patron deity of alchemists and magically potent Yogis that he carries the unified kṛtis, in Sanskrit (and not Telugu or Tamil), and so intimately linked to signature-name, Guruguha, that appears in all the kṛtis - name and, in effect, the vital seed of this god. Muttusvāmi chose for himself a —once again, a Muru gan-Kumāra epithet from local, Tamil mythology, specifically from the shrine (

Already the conventionally pious image of Muttusvāmi seems a little anachro nistic, to say the least. I think it's very clear, even before we start listening to his- works, that we are dealing not with a devotionalist in the style of Muttusvāmi's contemporary, Tyāgarāja, among others, but with a much less tame, even bor derline heterodox figure, a visionary innovator who went beyond even his highly inventive father. Add to this picture the later influence on Muttusvāmi— we again follow Subbarāya—of the famous Advaita composer and Upaniṣadic- tra-tintedcommentator Advaita Upaniṣad perspective. Brahmam,18 To a clarify major afigure little: in I theam prehistoryspeaking of of an modern active Advaita-TantraCarnatic music fusion,and another very characteristic exemplar of the of Maratha-period eighteenth-century Tanjavur, Tañjāvūr in which Tan that is, embodied, tangible, visible, and audible deities at home both in the great a non-dualist metaphysical frame opens up to reveal a fascination with saguṇa-, at bringing them into some form of tangible, sensual presence. templesA categorical and in the divide practitioner's opens up mindat this and point, susceptible though weto ritual cannot practice explore aimed it in - detail here. Like the Māyūra-nātha temple, discussed earlier, all the major Śai va temples in the Tamil south were “Tantricized” in the sense, first, that they assimilated the canonical Āgamic ritual order to their daily praxis and then, deityeven moresituated dramatically, in the shrine. that19 north-Indian Śaiva-Śākta metaphysical notions- cameposing to songs color, directed and rationalize, to these temple primary deities; conceptual and, as schemata we know, appliedhis family to was the Muttusvāmi spent much of his adult life com

Kantapurāṇam History of South Indian (Carnatic) Music, 221-222. 17 of KacciyappacivâcāriyarThe Mucukunda 1.17. Murals in the Tyāgarājasvāmi Temple,18 Rangaramanuja Tiruvārūr Ayyangar, 19 See V.K. Rajamani and D. Shulman, (Chennai: Prakriti Foundation, 2012), introduction. 18 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

But by late-medieval or early-modern times, major Tantrika theorists and no stranger to the Tiruvārūr temple, the focus of a large segment of his works. and practicing as individual gurus, often of a pronounced non-confomist and individualistcommentators cast, were and at creating work in or the perpetuating Kāveri region their outside own thelines temples, of authority teaching and transmission. They embodied a rich world of study and practice still largely unknown to modern scholarship. There is reason to believe that many of these lines of initiation derived from earlier Deccani lineages, in both the Telugu area tells us, aligned himself with one or more of these independent lineages on the to the east and the Kannada-Marathi region to the west. Dīkṣitar, as the story edges of orthodox Tamil Śaivism and is best seen as continuing their vision— and also as transforming it. Bhāskara-rāya, who followed the Maratha kings to the Tañjāvūr region, is a good example of the phenomenon,samayâcāra although) contempo the- Dīkṣitar “biography” carefully positions the young composer in thesamaya tradition, that of Upaniṣadis, the non- Brahmam,kaula, traditions. Bhāskararāya's20 more orthoprax ( rary. Many of the Dīkṣitar texts reveal his identification with the Whether samayins or kaulins, these practicing Tantrikas belong to a milieu that - - we could easily characterize, using a cross-cultural analytical term, as “sha manic,” in the sense that they follow the standard ritualized progression be ginning with “a shift away from everyday experience and perception towards a radically different realm of being,” then moving through a phase of “radical beentransformation acquired.21 and The empowerment,”third, critical phase and makes ultimately these returningpractitioners to “consensualfar less sub- realityversive andthan impacting one might it” think; through in effect, the heightenedthey tend rather existential to sustain means a homeostat that have- ic social order, as one can see by their close relations with the political center at Tañjāvūr. But we should not underestimate their radical image as magically bodilypotent act.mavericks: He is also Bhāskara-rāya supposed to haveis said been to havecapable refrained of enumerating from bowing by name to a passing Yogi lest he, Bhāskara-rāya, engulf the ascetic in flames by this simple

The Secret of the Three Cities: An Introduction to Hindu Śākta Tantrism 20 See Douglas RenfrewGirijayā Brooks, samayâcāra (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 28. In the Abhayâmbā series, in Śaṅkarâbharaṇam makes clear the composer's affiliation.Shamanic Trance in Modern Kabbalah 21 The definitions are taken from Jonathan Garb, “Saints and Shamans in Modern Kabbalah” (2013) and (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press: 2011), 3-11. 19 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 system.22 and distinctive attribute each of the 640 million Yoginī goddesses of the Kaula vector in the life story we are pursuing. The second, a mainly musical one, leads The Advaita-Śrīvidyā nexus with its associated forms of practice is one major - back through the composer's father to the systematizer and theoretician23 of This the musicologicalrāgas, Veṅkaṭa-makhin pedigree (via was Veṅkaṭa-makhin's not the only one grandson,available inMuttu Tiruvarur Veṅkaṭa-makh and Tan- javurin), and at tothe the end now of themostly eighteenth forgotten century, composer, though Meḷattūr none Vīrabhadrayya.of its competing lines who brought this genealogy to its highest point. could claim the same prestige and authority. Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar is the figure - - neered.Subbarāya's A more portrait complete of his account grand-uncle would ignores focus on major the huge strands corpus of the of widerpadams cul in tural and intellectual matrix of the musical revolution that Dīkṣitar largely pio century, performed and preserved by courtesans;24 on the newly emergent and Telugu and Tamil, reaching a high point with Kṣetrayya in the mid-seventeenth Irāma-nāṭakak-kīrttaṉai; on antinomian and eccentric poet-singers such as immensely popular genre of “operatic” works, such as Aruṇâcalak-kavirāyar's 25 on the Tāyumāṉavar (first half of the eighteenth century), rooted in what I have called the “intellectual context of Tantric esotericism, alchemy, and magic;” - musicological texts produced at the TañjāvūrVasu-caritramu courts, on); and,the one as Davesh hand, andSoneji in isremote showing regions us, on of the Telugu-speaking bhajan tradition Rāyalasīma, imported onfrom the the other Western (as we Deccan. see, for The ex newample, musical in Bhaṭṭumūrti's idiom of the great late eighteenth work, the century did not arise ex nihilo; indeed, many elements in the implied grammar of performance that I will attempt to - define were already in place, in embryonic forms, in the works of Dīkṣitar's pre decessors. We have argued that major structural changes took place in Nāyaka Tañjāvūr and Madurai, including a merging of the hitherto discrete domains of Tanjore as a Seat of Music (During the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries) (Ma- 22 See the biographical notes by Brooks 1990: 30-31. Saṅgīta sampradāya 23 pradarśini S. Seetha,, 1:13. dras: University of Madras, 1981), 153-154; SubbarāyaMusic in South Dīkṣitulu, India: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture - yana24 Rao,See Matthew A.K. Ramanujan, Allen and and T. Viswanathan,D. Shulman, When God is a Customer. Telugu Courtesan Songs by Kṣetrayya (Newand Others. York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 91-95; Velcheru Nara - Religion (1991), 69. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. 25 D. Shulman, “The Yogi's Human Self: Tāyumāṉavar in the Tamil Mystical Tradi tion,” 20 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 royal court and temple (with corresponding transformation of the main insti- tutional carriers of these domains, in particular the royal patron and the veśyā courtesan-performer);26 - sorbed a divine identity, and the courtesan now served him in this new persona along with the deity in the for temple. the first The time far-reaching in south Indian interpenetration history, the kingof these ab domains impacted on all forms of artistic production: the court assimilated styles and contents proper to the context of temple ritual, and the musical repertoire of the great temple meḷams

, as in Tiruvārūr, gradually regulated itself eighteenthto fit courtly century, norms. and Add the to deepening, this process enlivening the appearance effect of Tantric of secular, esotericism colonial onvenues, these with venues their as wellmiddle-class as at the royalaudiences, courts, like as described Maṇali toward above, the and end you ofbegin the to see the contours of the new cultural order that provided the background to

Dīkṣitar's work. -

In the light of this thick cultural and cultic background, before leaving the Dīkṣi tar biography and turning to the Abhayâmbā set, we need to flesh out a little- the intertextual environment withinkṛtis which the composer worked—although, as mentioned earlier, it is not always easy to reconstruct the specific resonancAmma varamul'es. In the immācase of in theGaulipantu Abhayâmbā) and also, withhowever, another we canwork assume by this that king, Dīkṣitar on Ka- was familiar with Shāhaji's Nacomposition mīda parāku on “our”ceya ingoddess, Gauri). Abhayâmbā27 It is not impossi ( - malâmbā from Tiruvārūr ( - padi;ble that28 and the thereDīkṣitar is the Abhayâmbā tradition worksthat a pada-varṇarespond directly to Shāhaji's.Sāmi Dīkṣitar ninna) quotes (and apparently set to music) his master Upaniṣad Brahmam's Rāmâṣṭa in śrīrañjani ( by Rāmasvāmi Dīkṣitar, our composer's father, was completed by Muttusvāmi,29 his brother Cinnasvāmi, and Śyāma Śāstri, apparently at the time when both Muttusvāmi and Śyāma Śāstri where living on West Main Street in Tañjāvūr. Symbols of Substance: Court and State in Nāyaka Period Tamilnadu. Delhi: Oxford University Press. 26 1992. Velcheru Narayana Rao, D. Shulman, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. Sacred Songs, 1:90, citing an essay by G. Ananta Subrah- Journal of the Madras Academy of27 Music Te Nijenhuis37 (1966), and 69-74; Gupta, on Shahaji as composer, see also Seetha 1981: 69-85. manyam, “Sri Sāhajī mahārājāvinSaṅgīta apūrva-kīrttanaikaḷ, sampradāya pradarśini , 1:27; te Nijenhuis and Gupta, Sacred Songs Muttuswamy Dikshitar (Bombay: National 28 See Subbrarāya Dīkṣitulu, Muthuswamy, 1:117; V. DikshitarRaghavan,, 9; T. M. Krishna, A Southern Music: The Karna- tikCentre Story for the Performing Arts, 1975), 1. 29 Raghavan, (Chennai: Harper/Collins, 2014), 493. 21 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

iṣṭa-devatā and the addressee of many of hisMoreover, kṛtis Muttusvāmi's great compositions on Kāmâkṣī of Kāñcīpuram refer- poserto Baṅgāru to his Kāmâkṣī,senior contemporary. Śyāma Śāstri's Oral paratextual criticism embodied in such traditions,—almost like the certainly systemic a world deliberate of cāṭu gesture verses on we the have part studied, of the younger30 attests com elo- together with its verbal texts. Here is one corpus with which we can work as we attemptquently toto theunderstand dense matrix what out was of radically which this new early-modern in the late eighteenth music crystallized century, and how much carried over to the new context of performance from the mutu- ally embedded worlds of court and temple.

Todefining draw in the the contoursnew sensibility of this powerful (1): āryām mélange abhayâmbām is one task; to attempt to another. This music, which we now think of as canonical, is light years away fromcharacterize the courtly the radical padams shift and in varṇams sensibility or thatthe templeDīkṣitar's meḷam music performances reveals is quite of

- the mid-eighteenth century. Certain principles can be stated as we move into ofspecific the far texts: south what and expressivewe are seeing of at is least the creation one major of stranda new formof their of artmetaphysical music, ac cessible to the emergent middle class ofkīrtana the small towns and zamindari estates world. The musical form—the mature —has been transformed, in ways natureI will seek (nothing to define; like theit has great also public been spacesdetached of thefrom temples, its liturgical on the setting one hand, and ortransformed the large concertinto a genre halls fitof fortwentieth-century concert performances Madras, of on a relativelythe other). intimate At the same time, the highly active theurgic praxis proper to the worship of a Tantric kīr- tana both manifests this goddess tangibly in the interactive and intersubjective goddess in the Śrīvidyā tradition has survived in a special form: singing the her awareness, and her intricate relations with the poet-singer who brings her intospace being. of the Just concert how and this gives works specific remains expression to be seen; to her I will nature suggest and attributes,a possible historical trajectory below, after addressing some passages in our texts. We should, in any case, take seriously what Dīkṣitar tells us—for example, the fact that at least two, or perhaps three, parties to the process reflect one another. A Poem at the Right Moment: Remem- bered Verses from Premodern South India 1998).30 Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman, (Berkeley: University of California Press,

22 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 ātma-rūpa-prati- bimbā As Dīkṣitar says in the Kalyāṇi composition: Abhayâmbā is means,…[“counter-image in effect, among other of the things, inner self”]):that a pronounced a mingled innerness,personal, subjective becoming voiceaudible, colors allows each the one human of the reflection compositions to transpose and seeks itself the into appropriate the godly one. musical This means to express itself. I will be speaking of a grammar of performance which, I think, underlies nāda-laya-gati the cultural shift we are trying to kṛtiunderstand.), thus adumbrating Dīkṣitar himself our notion. uses the But phrase let us , “processed through (subtle) sound and rhythm“, to describe IAbhayâmbā will have to (in differ the hereKedāra-gauḷa from the lucid analytical distinctions drawn by the late be clear about what a term like “grammar” might mean. With some hesitation,

Harold S. Powers in an essay on two of Dīkṣitar's kṛtis on Tiruvārūr: names (nāma) because they have forms (rūpa), like any other verbal dis- “Dīkṣitar'scourse. His texts,musical though patterns, sometimes conversely, cryptic, are linked touch with on things verbal which forms, have but not with semantic substance. Larger musical divisions are correlated with grammar and syntax, but not with meaning. Rhythmic patterns are linked with the sounds of words, but not with their sense. The pitch contours of the melodies are still more independent of the texts, in a characteristically 31

NoIndian one would way.” doubt that musical patterns, including rhythm and pitch, have a life and logic of their own and cannot be linked in mechanical ways to the semantics of the verbal text (any more than they could be in a Bach cantata). And the pragmatics of kīrtana performance. One has always to bear in mind the au- yet to rule out “semantic substance” as a feature of musical patterns is to miss others.ral construction Melody, rhythm, and activation pitch, phrasing, of a divine sequence, presence, tonal especially texture, in and the especially Śrī-vidyā musicalcompositions repetition such are as the those building on Abhayâmbā, blocks of the Kamalâmbā, entire endeavor, Nīlotpalâmbā, which I andwill be calling “auralization,” the eighteenth-century southern Tantric concomitant of and/or substitute for the more commonly discussed “visualization.” At the very least, the attuned listener rapidly identifies diagnostic “signature” patterns that fit the goddess in a particular rāga, with its concomitant mood Ānandabhairavi Kīrtanams Discourses on Śiva, edited by31 M. Meister. Harold. Philadelphia: S. Powers, “Musical University Art of and Pennsylvania Esoteric Theism:Press, 1984: Muttusvāmi 319-20. Dīkṣitar's on Śiva and Śakti at Tiruvarur,” in

23 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

- baland and temporal musical slot. texts Beyond that can such only personal be intrinsic. “signatures”—which I will refer broadly are to not such unusual links in Western music, either—one is continuously surprised by links between ver- tures binding musical sound with semantics are omnipresent in Tamil poetry in performance.as “iconic” in Goodthe discussion listeners experiencethat follows. such As linkagesI hinted almostearlier, effortlessly, such iconic even fea if they cannot articulate them as such. Powers himself hints at certain iconic effects in his essay, and he comes close to formulating the underlying principle syntactic continuity, semantic content, and melodic-rhythmic continuity are when he says, in a summation to which all would subscribe:32 “Grammatical and- ever, goes well beyond iconicity in a narrow sense and includes grammatical carefully coordinated” [in Carnatic compositions, DS].” “Coordination,” how- nation, bitextual superimposition (śleṣa), yamaka-repetition, aural rhebus de- andvices, figurative antâdi processes such as transposition/inflection, hypotactic subordi vertical responsion,33 the space created ring-patterns by the interaction (coincidence of verbalof verse-final and musical and verse-initial texts. Moreover, sounds), all and similar figures of sound and sense, all transpiring in asymmetricalinstances of melodic patterns, and as rhythmicthe song repetition—theis sung. But what very space heart does of shethe inhabit?musical process—configure or map the subject who is coming closer, in recursive, often

Where can we find her? - - Let us, for now, go back to Abhayâmbā and see if we can identify singular fea tures of her existence and awareness. We have seen that she has Vaiṣṇava attributes; that she is positioned beside the ambiguous female liṅga of Anavidyā,- siblea shadow through self theof Abhayâmbā's; mantras and thatyantras she ofis thisone goddess;particularly that ravishing she attracts conden and sation of Tripura-sundarī, “most beautiful in the cosmos,” and as such acces day, especially in the evening pradoṣa pūjā and, with particular energy, in the focuses the passionate attention of pilgrims to the Māyavaram shrine day by need now to add that she is, for the most part, an afternoon-evening goddess. great autumn Tulā-kāveri festival (see below). To these selected elements we

No less than six of the ten Abhayâmbā compositions proper were, in the days Ibid. 322. Te Nijenhuis offers many telling examples of iconic process, e.g. Sacred Songs sa-pa at the beginning of this phrase may refer to the 32 , 1:220: “The empty fifth bodilessness of the goddess, who becomes pure, vital energy” [with referencecaraṇam to the verses.Kāmbhoji composition in the Kamalâmbā set]. 33 Particularly prevalent in the musical-cum-verbal structures of the

24 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

Māyūranātha-svāmi Temple, Mayilāṭutuṟai: Gopuram Tower

25 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 when the temple meḷams were still attuned to the old ritual order, aimed at the late-afternoon hours (sāyaraccai, from 5:00 PM): Sadâśraye - Āryām abhayāmbām in Bhairavi; Girijayā Abhayâmbā Jagadambā Dākṣāyaṇi Abhayâmbikāyai in Saṇmukhapri in ya/Camaram; 34 Three more, Abhayâmbikāyāḥ and in Abhayâmbā-nāyaka Śaṅkarâbharaṇam; vara-dāyaka in Kalyāṇi;Abhayâmba-nāyaka in Toḍi; and Yadukula-kāmbhoji. - gas (iraṇḍakālam in Kedāra-gauḷa and in Ānandabhairavi, the aslatter the twolight directed fades. Of to course, the consort this goddess of the goddess, is not limited are late-evening-to-night to this time slot: two rā of the compositions,, fromAmbikāyā[ḥ] 7:00 PM on)—completing35 and Māyūra-nāthamher daily temporal trajectory Śrī abhayâmbā, the meditative, trilin- in Kedāram in Dhanyāsi, are meant for morning, and one more— gual song in Śrīrāgam commonly seen today as framing the entirepĕriyameḷam series—is orderingto be sung of at the high ragas. noon.36 (This leaves out Sahānā, a relative newcomer to the Carnatic tradition and apparently not included in the Tiruvārūr ) What is more, the whole series of 9 + 1 [+ the three addressed to Māyūra-nātha] was, we know, intended for performance during- Navarātri in the autumn, one song per day. Gaurī-tāṇḍavaNavarātri is synchronized(on the 25th with the great Aippaci festival in which vast num bers of pilgrims come to bathe37 in During the Kāveri these at daysthis site, the whengoddess the movesgod danced through the of Aippaci, two days before he marries Abhayâmbā here),of a peahen unique before to Māyavaram. she re-enters the temple and achieves oneness with her husband.the four main38 As streetsa peahen of theshe townno doubt and reachesspeaks or the sings bank the of peacock-peahenthe Kāveri in the note,form the foundational sa 39

(= C). But she is also identified, as we have seen, with the sheluxuriant resides flow in theof the form river—indeed, of a stone peahen of the worshiping three-fold riverthe liṅga constituted in preparation by the mixing of Kāveri, Gangā, and Yāmunā at the festival moment—on whose bank for her own reunion, or flowing together, with Māyūra-nātha. Periya Mēḷam Asian Music 39 (2008): 108–51. 34 See Yoshitaka Terada, “Temple Music Traditions in Hindu South India: morning and practice? its Performance Practice.” 35 This composition includes theSacred detailed Songs description, 1:233. of Kuṇḍalinī-Yoga—perhaps a Gaurī-tāṇḍava 36 See Te Nijenhuis and Gupta, Tulākāveripurāṇam (Trichinopoly: Ripon Press, 1889). 37 Does the exemplify the male-female blendingAesthetics of Anavidyā?in Performance: Formations38 Ambikapati of Symbolic 2008:57. Construction See and Experience, edited by Angela Hobart and 39 D. Shulman, “The Buzz of God and Click of Delight,” in Raghuvaṃśa 1.39 (ṣaḍ-saṃvādinīḥ kekā[ḥ]. Bruce Kapferer (New York: Berghahn, 2005), 49, following Śārṅgadeva;

26 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

- tar kṛtis on this goddess? In what form do we meet her as the set unfolds? Are there elements of this rich characterization that come through in the Dīkṣi the forms in which he sees and hears her in his mind? Please recall that, on Or, stated differently: how has the composer grammaticalized this goddess in progression through the eight Sanskrit declensions, each one expressed by a the most overt level, the entire Abhayâmbā set is organized as a grammatical- ple of arrangement is only the beginning. differentWe can rāga only and proceed a distinctive inductively, verbal listening text. But carefullythis evident to andthe familiarway the princimusic and the verbal texts reinforce one another and paying particular attention to characteristic phrasing, repetition, and evident emphasis. With apologies to my musicological colleagues into whose domain I am intruding, I will attempt a partial reading of two of the kṛtis that, I argue, evoke the sensibility least insofar as it can be related to the pragmatics of this still experimental art form.we are Readers exploring are andreferred reveal to withthe brilliant some clarity performances the composer's by Roopa technique, Mahadevan at at: http://roopamahadevan.com .40 We begin with Āryām abhayâmbām, the setaccusative-case in the rhythmically composition, demanding in the Aṭa extremely tālam popular rāga Bhairavi, a derivate aof deliberate the generative enactment super-rāga of the Naṭa-bhairavi complex Peacock (Melakarta Dance. 20). The composition is with its fourteen beats—perhaps

BhairaviS R2 G1 has M1 the P Dh2following N1-2 Sascending and descending “scales“, respectively:

S N2 Dh1 P M1 G1 R2 S

(However, the mūrcchana variant of the ascending scale includes the melodic pattern

S G1 R2 G1 M1 P )41

Note the crucial alternation in the dha note in ascent and descent. We hear this

Saregama India, 2008). 40 There is also a CD Therecording Rāgas ofof theSouth entire India: Abhayâmbā A Catalogue set of by Scalar E. Gayatri Material. (Kolkata:-

41 Walter Kaufmann, Cal cutta, Bombay, New Delhi: Oxford and IBH Publishing Co., 1976, 206-207. 27 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 feature clearly in the recording. It is also important to attend to the pivotal role of ni, one of the jīva-svaras strong vibrato. Our composition begins on ni in the descending phrase, striking because of its eery, even dissonant or a “life-giving transition: note” ni dhain this pa rāga,, immediately usually sung followed with by the rest of the descending scale: ma pa ni-dha pa ma ga ri sa. If you listen well, you will hear the ni dha pa sequence, a characteristic melodic phrase in Bhairavi,42 few of these moments. repeated many times, to specific effect. I will attempt to spell out a andThe temperament “eerie” opening, of the in goddess which the who goddess is being begins summoned. her emergence, It is her name is typical that of Dīkṣitar, a personal signature, undoubtedly keyed in this case to the nature fillsāryām this tonal abhayâmbāṃ sequence: bhaja re citta santatam43 Noble No-Fear: always go to her, oh my mind

We are still in the opening pallavi refrain. The second and third lines go: avidyā-kārya-kalanāṃ tyaja re ādi-madhyânta-rahitāṃ śiva-sahitām

Give up, oh my mind, doing deeds out of non-awareness.

[Go to her who is] devoid of beginning, middle, and end, Nowwho one is connectedshould listen to Śiva.to the refrain as a whole. You may have noticed that the opening melodic sequence repeats itself at the beginning of the second line (avidyâ[kārya-kalanām - mate link between No Fear and the non-awareness the mind is told to renounce. ], “non-awarenesscitta, which generally deeds“), means, as if there by this were period, some some inti-

More“Mind” to is the too point, dull a canword we for fail to hear a reference to Non-Non-Awareness, the alterthing egolike of“thinking,” our goddess, or “intellection”—a standing beside relatively her and somehow limited part mixing of awareness. male and female personae? The musical repetition establishes a surprising relation. The avidyā-kārya-kalanāṃ tyaja two verbal phrases—Anavidyā, the name of the liṅga linked to the goddess, and , “give up doing deeds out of non-awareness” –are, Sacred Songs, 1:223. kṛtis can be found in Vāggeyakāraratna śrī muttusvāmi dīkṣita kṛti- maṇi-dīpika42 Te Nijenhuis and Gupta, 198-217.43 Texts of the , edited Niraghatam Sriramakrsna Sastri (Tenali: Vani Art Printers, n.d.),

28 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 in fact, basically synonymous.44 The dissonant vivādi note (dha), always worth

bhaja paying attention to in Dīkṣitar songs, animates both phrases. startingBut what with about the vocative the second particle half re of but the then first rising line, withand falling its crucial to the verb, long citta, is(“go structured to“)? The by singer the stressed,is at the bottom repeated of thesa scale, and the address to the “mind“, momentarily, on this sa. I think, nonetheless,—the that peacock throughout note. Oneour canset ofalways kṛtis thesay, saof course, that in Carnatic music the phrase, sooner or later, rests, at least

has a much more lively function—as if it were the voice of the goddess singingSo within or speaking. a few notes, She thesays: composer “Listen to has me, drawn you recalcitrant, in the initial thought-clogged contours of this deity,mind. evokedLet go of the that tonality non-knowing. that animates Listen.” her awareness, suggested her somewhat wider persona, and allowed her to speak directly through him, gently commanding him, or us, to act, literally to change our minds. Since the melodic characterization is so powerful here, oneCintaya might wantmā-kanda-mūla to juxtapose, in it thiswith same a far less conspicuous use of this same progression, for example in Dīkṣitar's well- known composition on the earth-liṅga, rāga.

Let'ssūryâgni-candra-maṇḍala-madhya-vāsinīṃ move on to the anupallavi, the secondary refrain, whose text reads: sukhatara-pravarttinīṃ svetara-nivāsinīm ācārya-śiṣyânugraha-karaṇa-śakti-pradâpāra-karuṇām

[To her, No-Fear] who dwells in the middle of the circle of Sun, Fire, and ofMoon—who teacher and acts student in happiness, who lives in herself and in others, whose infinite compassion generates the power of the mutual blessings madhya, comes to rest on the ma By now we can formulate a simple grammatical rule for this music: iconic cor- respondencesThe word “middle“, tend to dominate the relation of the musical—literally, to the middle—note. verbal text, as I have suggested in the preliminary discussion above in the wake of te Ni- - svetara-nivāsinīmjenhuis and other scholars. Now listen again to the important phrase—proba bly the first fully subjective statement by the author in this composition— , “who liveskalpita-māyā-kāryaṃ in herself and in others.”tyaja

44 Compare the phrase … in the Kalyāṇi composition from the Kamalâmbā series. 29 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 One can disentangle from the wider context an expansive variation on the opening pattern:

dha ni ni ni sa dha ni sa ni sa ni sa sa

[pa pa] -

The goddess inhabits her own self, also the singer's self, the internal and ex ternal domains clearly merging in his understanding of her nature—and again, she comes to rest on the note of the peacock's cry. This one small phrase, both is,verbal in his and awareness, musical, a offersdeep persona us something who is moving of the composer'shim to sing, moving self-perception, through him,colored perhaps as it is revolving by his visualization, inwardly, and or with rather pronounced auralization, dissonance of the goddess. and strug She- gle, as she moves.

earI don't by wantthe moment, to belabor turns the up,point. with It shouldsome interesting be enough, variation, for now, toat sayleast that seven the times“signature” in the ofcaraṇam this goddess, who is becoming more clearly visible to the mind's the strongly hypotactic Sanskrit that Indira Peterson has shown to be intrinsic 45 verse so that, that as follows. the song Incidentally, progresses, this the stanza intertwining is composed of the in two active personae becomes audible in the syntax of the text. The verse is also to the Dīkṣitar style, dvitīyâkṣarânuprāsa, that is head-rhyming of the second syllable of each line (nandana-vandana-candana-vandana-man- damarked by the so-called “Dravidian”

…). Here is a translation of this long stanza:

more[To her] than who capable wears of a freelygarland giving of flowers a place grown in the in same heaven, world as his towho those is the human goddess, beings Bhairavī, who follow of dancing the discipline Śiva/Hara, that clears their mind, who serve other servants in building temples for her, in coating her with sandal paste, in cleaning her home, who sing and recite her hymns of praise. Her face, bright as a lotus, is graced by a gentle smile.

withShe's joyfulness. the goddess of Guru-guha, the sister of Viṣṇu, the great Tripura-sundarī, Most Beautiful in the World, which she floods

Dīkṣitar has, as always, signed his name, Guru-guha, and also found a way to Indo-Iranian Journal 29 (1986), 183-99. 45 Indira Peterson, “Sanskrit in Carnatic Music: The Songs of Muttusvāmi Dīkṣita,”

30 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

melodicmention pattern the rāga's that name, we have [Naṭa-]bhairavī, isolated, but Ithis should name mention being perfectly that it appears integrated both into the syntax of the long sentence. I won't attempt to mark all the sites of the the text, resuming the opening sequence verbatim: ānanda-laharīm in her proper name—Mahā-tripura-sundarī—and in the very last segment of But when the singer returns to the pallavi refrain and brings the entire, the compo “flood- sitionof joyfulness,” to conclusion, a certain she reference ends not onto the the well-known lower sa, the Śrī-vidyā familiar textresting of that point, name. the ri. Having come this far, we should observe how this composition begins with apeacock dramatic note, musical but on descent. the unbalanced, We might unnerving, notice how and many again of “eerie” the vibhakti-kṛtis are downward-looking and how many move upwards in this musical version is, I think, very clear that the composer is building up the goddess triangle by triangle,of the well-known piece after visualpiece, inmanifestation the well-structured of Tripura-sundarī and densely populatedin the Śrīcakra. cosmos It that is her world, her self, and her ongoing process of self-unfolding.

Māyūranātha-svāmi Temple: Abhayâmbā as a peahen worships Māyūranātha

31 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 There are discoveries to be made at every point in the performance. There is also considerable room for the performer to expand the terms of his musical fromtext (we that have, time). however, Iconicity a bycomplete no means musical exhausts notation the expressive of this kṛti devices in Subbaraya availa- Dikṣitar's magnum opus—the only such notation of any of the Abhayâmbā kṛtis visual and aural forms, and in inseparable connectedness to the verbal Sanskrit text.ble to Before the singer. offering The awider list of principle rules for is this that grammar, of grammaticalization, I would like to in examine both its Abh- ayâmbā jagad-ambā. Once again, we proceed in an inductive mode. briefly one more of the compositions—the very moving one set in Kalyāṇi,

the new sensibility (2) abhayâmbā jagad-ambāSadâśraye or dhyāna-kṛti thisIf we slot), take 46the Cāmaram/ṢaṇmukhapriyaAbhayâmbā composition, jagad-ambā (ādi-tālam, as the “frame”), is the true opening of (rather the entire than set the (thus Śrīrāgam naturally one couchedmore often in the said nominative to be occupying case). As such, it is then graced the by Kalyāṇi an auspicious, song, happy tone; to be understood more deep-

kṛti mostly lacks the characteristic phrase ga- ma#-paly, it should; in befact, juxtaposed the tīvra withma, perhapsthe Kalyāṇi the composition most conspicuous from the feature Kamalâmbā of this series. Unlike the latter, “our” melodic progressions in the later sections of the song as well. Or, to be more precise:rāga, is entirelythis sharp absent ma fromappears the aspallavi the dissonant refrain and vivādi mostly, so skippedthat each from time the it appears it draws attention to itself. Remember that such striking, somewhat trace of something along these lines, a shadowy, jarring dha, manages to slip intodissonant the melodic combinations ascent in are the classic second Dīkṣitar, line of thea personal pallavi: signature. Only a faint

abhayâmbā jagad-ambā rakṣatu ātma-rūpa-pratibimbā mad-ambā

kṛti stands out as quite different from the rest; as noted, its verbal text is couched in three languages, Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu. A particular prestige 46 The Śrīragam Saṅgīta-sārâmṛta of Tulaja, edited by Subrahmanya Sastri (Madras: Music attaches to Śrīrāgam, which is said to have been born from the Sadyovaktra face of Śiva: see Academy, 1942), 9 (p. 71). Possibly for this reason, the Śrīrāgam composition has been seen as introducing the entire series, as it does the Kamalâmbā set. 32 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 May No-Fear, Mother of the world, protect (me), the counter-image of the inner self, my goddess/mother

ga, predominates from the start. But you can hear that faintly jarring dha in the third syllable of pratibimba - As usual in Kalyāṇi, the third note, image of the inner self is not entirely congruent with the inner self,, “counter-im to put the matterage,” “reflection,” as gently as and possible. in the vibrato that follows. This is only fitting: the mirror

Now listen to the anupallavi:

ibha-vadana-śrī-guruguha-jananī īśa-māyūra-nātha-rañjanī abhaya-varada-pāṇī ali-veṇī āśrita-mā-vāṇī kalyāṇi

herMother hand of held the elephant-headedin the No-Fear posture god and and of offering Guruguha-Skanda boons, [and of me] pleasing to God, her lord, Māyūra-nātha,

with bees buzzing47 in her long hair, Lakṣmī and Speech at her side, [ever] auspicious. atNote the theend. second-syllable But even more important head-rhyme; than the these composer's formal elements signature, are coinciding the three with the name of the god, Lord Skanda, teacher of secrets;ma/na's and of thethe rāga'sverbal name text: ja-Na-nī īśa-Māyūra-nātha- rañjanī instances of the sharpāśrita -]ma Mā emphasizing-vāṇī the nasal - gists call, this“mother,” svarâkṣara and then [ ], “pleasing to God, her notelord,” superimposed and later [ on its homonymous, “Lakṣmī verbal and text.Speech The at note her ma side.”, that Musicolo is, is the , a peculiarly literal form of iconicity—the name of the goddess as mother and as Lakṣmī, and also as the opening of the name of the haveMāyavaram the phrase god. (upper) Interestingly,ri-sa < all tīvra of these ma, a instances huge downward create a glide tensile resting, gap in for the a moment,otherwise on harmonic this diagnostic progressions: tone. if we take the god's name, for example, we The same emphatic dissonance recurs at several points in the caraṇam (including another svarâkṣara, bhasa-mā-na a pivotal imbalance in certain aspects of No-Fear, possibly including her some- ). Perhaps by now we can recognize what unstable fusion with the male part of her being, Māyūranātha, the PeacockLalita- sahasranāma. 47 “Ever auspicious,” Kalyāṇī—see Bhāskara-rāya's gloss on this name in the

33 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 composition seeks to explore precisely these esoteric elements of the goddess Dancer. Together with the 48 Bhairavi The sharp rāga ma with which we began, this Kalyāṇikṛti as a whole is true to its name, auspicious, serene. But neither does the composer letit is us materializing forget that beforethis very us. auspiciousness doescontains not subsumewithin it her—thea certain ener- gizing discord, or an open space, a long stretch in which the goddess perhaps Andturns just or asrevolves—a the upper- reflexiveri-to-ma moment. In this sense, the Abhayâmbā Kalyāṇi thispaints means, a portrait so it must distinct open from up inthat the of singer Dīkṣitar's of, and “home” in the goddess,listener to, Kamalâmbā. her song.49 space suddenly opens in Abhayâmbā, whatever

Whatconclusion: are we to a make grammar of this kindof art of musical music experience? How are we to understand its expressive drive, its material building blocks, its fusion of verbal and melodic texts, its predominant generic forms as they present themselves to us, in a fresh way, in the late eighteenth-century? And how did the tradition evolve from its original cultic and ritual contexts to the art music that we now hear whaton the we concert have heard stage? so Muttusvāmi far, in a straightforward, Dīkṣitar, I want somewhat to say again, abstract is probably manner, the as akey series creative of interconnected figure in this transition. points. Let me try to state my argument, based on

1. Pragmatics. There is a logic to the compositions, seen both as individual

such sets, some of which I have mentioned; in all such cases, including the units and as comprising a cumulative set. Dīkṣitar clearly had a fondness for like the Haydn quartets that come as a series of six and deserve to be heard asAbhayâmbā such. A strong series, integration, we would do possibly well to thinkthe single of them most as integrated salient feature wholes, of

also in terms of the conceptual or metaphysical underpinnings of the series andthese the sets, particularity exists on severalof its divine interlocking subject. levels—musically,It is not enough simply of course, to speak but

the space opening up between ri and pa, with the sharp ma serving as fulcrum, is said 48 to stretch In the to very the endpopular of the Hindustani cosmos if therag singerYaman, carefully the counterpart articulates of Carnatic each note: Kalyāṇi, see ma is also associated with the krauñca bird, thus with the origin of poetry.) Shulman, “The Buzz of God,” 55, citing Mohineddin Dagar. (Incidentally,

49 My thanks to my wife Eileen. 34 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

of a Tantric orientation and to tease out resonances with the classical Śrī- tovidyā the in cakras its eighteenth-century Kāveri-delta extension, including a general characterizationkṛti in ourof the set), goddess and so as on. Tripura-sundarī, We have excellent her studiesphysiological by Harold link Powers and by and Samjukta the Kuṇḍalinī Gupta showing coiled the at the correspondences base of the spine of the (see verbal the textsKedāram in the kṛtis But we need to take the next step. (especially the Kamalâmbā series) with canonical sources. As I have said, at least in all the major goddess-oriented sets of kṛtis, the composer is clearly building the deity, note by note, in the manner of an aural, audi- - gression through the nine enclosures (āvaraṇa) in the direction of the dense ble yantra, akin to the graphic andbhakti visible Śrīcakra, thus enacting a gradual pro ofcenter. the kṛtis Dīkṣitar are descriptive,is a Tantric, notin the a usual poet sense in of the the Tyāgarāja word; I ammode not (note even again sure theythe bifurcation could be called of the Carnaticdiscursive. tradition They are in these non-symbolic, two concurrent pragmatic, streams). operative None texts tell us at many points as the verses move through the enclosures, awaken moves in the active construction of a goddess,50 enter as, into indeed, the space the Dīkṣitar of the deepest verbal mantric tension (the hrīṃkāra),51 and produce the personal experience (an- ubhavathe Kuṇḍalinī,) of sharing call upthe the aliveness, Mālinī mantra,the spatial proximity, and the actual physical form of this deity, with the taste of freedom that these existential states en- gender (sālokya-sāmīpya-sārūpya-mukti).52 Such sharing of existential states may also be seen as the latent goal of the performance. Hence the common imperatives, conjuring her response, imparting direction to the process and ehi), come close (saṃnidhehi), give us goodness (bhadraṃ dehi).53 accelerating its progression: Come to us ( 2. Subjectivity

. But who is this person at the center? In all cases, she—- Abhayâmbā, Kamalâmbā, Nīlotpalâmbā, Maṅgalâmbā, and so on—is highly andspecific of manifesting, in nature, attributes, and the unique and awareness, elements the that very compose opposite her of inner a general char- acterized Tantric achieve principle. musical expression Abhayâmbā in hasthe herkṛtis own, that distinctivebring her to modes emergence. of being In

kṛti kṛtis 50 See the Kedāra-gauḷakṛti of Abhayâmbā and Punnāgavarāḷi of Kamalâmbā. 51 See text of the Sahānā and Śrī-rāgam of Kamalâmbā. 52 See Kedāra-gaulā of Abhayâmbā. 53 Cāmaram of Abhayâmbā. 35 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 other words, the grammar and syntax of these songs are intrinsic to her par-

ticular range of potential states. Abhayâmbā is endowed with an individual Letsubjectivity, us remember realized that in the music composer or, better, is ingrammaticalized the process of turningand also himself profoundly into her,interwoven or her into with himself, the composer's as he sings subjective, (similarly personal,with the performer individual whosensibility. serves as a co-creator of the compositions he or she sings). We are witnessing the early stages of a revolution in sensibility and taste. A pragmatics of tangible manifestation have fused with the individualistic and personal creativity of

a singular artist, who signs his compositions at least twice—he is Guruguha, 3. Theas he Internal always tells and us, External but his Sacrifice true signature (antar-yāga-bahir-yāgamulu lies in the recognizable, ).indeed This inimitable, style, tonality, figuration, and structure of his works. - ily tradition, only two generations away from the composer himself. What pregnant phrase, as we have seen, comes directly out of the Dīkṣitar fam

did Subbarāya-dīkṣitulu mean by it? The external ritual is clear enough: the Śrī-vidyā offers a prescribed course of ritualizedBhāvanā practices Upaniṣad and offerings, that the correlated, of course, to internal, intentional states. Bhāskara-rāya—he is criticalnot alone—tells aspect to usthe in entire his commentary enterprise of on transforming the self into goddess.54 Theinternal practitioner sacrifice builds is the up sum the of goddess ongoing in meditative-imaginative his or her mind in the praxis,ordered a patterns mapped out by the yantras and mantras of this Tantric system. The progression is highly disciplined, and the goal, and the stages on the way to

it, well defined. We know the texts that were used to guide the adept and to explain the meaning of each step. Eighteenth-century Tañjāvūr produced some of the most lucid handbooks we have to the Śrī-vidyā in practice. - asAlso is thein performance. universe in which It is important she is embedded to keep and in mind which that she the has goddess—Tripu generated from ra-sundarī or her local manifestation, such as Abhayâmbā—is made of sound, the composer has superimposed two separate notions of phonic evolution fromwithin very herself. subtle, One in striking fact inaudible aspect statesof the Dīkṣitarto something corpus we as can a whole hear andis the know. way itsThe concomitant Śrī-vidyā, like and earlier enduring Śaiva tensions. systems, I haveshows suggested us a phonematic that this progressionsequence is from micro-sonar, pre-semantic quivers and buzzes to discursive speech, with More than Real: A History of the Imagination in South - bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 301. 54 See D. Shulman, India (Cam

36 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 other hand, the emergence of audible sound from a domain of latency or po- tentialityintimated isin a some standard, of what and we ancient, hear intheme the Māyavaram in the musical compositions. handbooks On and the a subject of some importance to what one listens to at a concert.55 In its later phases, this process of emergence includes the movement from śruti, the stuff of phonic experience, to svara merged, quite explicitly, in the—the verbal organized, texts of meaningfullythe kṛtis.56 Put structured differently, notes the of a rāga. Distinct in origin, these two portraits of the prehistory of sound have thismantric music efficacy to its purpose.of the primordial syllables has charged the musical syntax of the composer's texts. I have already spoken of the pragmatic charge that molds the Tantric deity and undergoing the standard ritual and meditative progression.It is Moreover, commonplace sound, to speakin this of period visualization in south as India, a dominant is something form of oneworshiping should, indeed must, be able to see.57 or rather, the translation of the Co-extensivelatter into pragmatic with this performance. notion is the By practice ordering I have called auralization—an approximation, perhaps, of the “inner sacrifice,” and combining the sound-syllables, the composer—also the performer and the listener—can compose the deity, not in the external space of the temple but in his or her mind. Think of our set of kṛtis as examples of, or experiments with, active auralization guided by the composer, activated by the singer, and shared by the listener. It is just here that Dīkṣitar's historic move took place. He has shifted musical operations from the mantric world of ritualized practice into bean created internal, and mantic worked domain upon, ofbut effective all of this auralization now takes place (with in verbal the mind. and visualIn the process,components, the indirectlyas in all forms referential, of Tantric overdetermined, auralization). and The encoded goddess grammar still has toof the mantras58 - rative grammar of the kṛti. I will try to formulate how this grammar works in a moment. has been superseded and replaced by the new, iconic and figu by now not very useful or even meaningful. I prefer to speak about grammati- We could call this shift “internalization”—an old Indological word, perhaps calization. Yet Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar himself often points to the “internal ritual,” Saṅgīta-sārâmṛta 1, pp. 4-5, following the Saṅgīta- ratnâkara. 55 Shulman, “Buzz of God.” See -

56 For example, in the Kedāra-gauḷa composition in our series, and the Sahānā com positionIbid in. the Kamalâmbā set. 57 Shulman, “How to Bring a Goddess into Being.” 58 37 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

- namicssometimes, of this it seems, experience as a wayand ofabout characterizing how it is generated. the musical You experience need a series he has of invented and regularized. It is possible for us to say something about the dy as I have just said: composer, performer, and listener enter into the process together,attuned, awakeweaving imaginations. their imaginations, Auralization and that normally of the goddessoccurs in they tripartite are address forms,- ing, into a somewhat volatile whole. Sound marks the external surface of this whole, and has its own, far from random patterns and logic. One can see some- to braid together the imaginative potential of actors and spectators, thereby creatingthing similar, and shapingin some aways, new, in shared the way space. the 59Kūṭiyāṭṭam theater of Kerala works sort I am discussing emerges directly from (indeed presupposes) the merging Note that “internalization” of the earlier contexts have fed harmoniously into the mental arena that has super- sededof courtly them and as templethe venue settings for a new in Nāyaka- musical and praxis. Maratha-period Tañjāvūr; both - extension It is this of auralizing, poetic and displaced musical performance ritual of listening in the thatfar South. we seem The to early have audi forgotten, though it was once—two centuries ago—a natural, indeed irresistible - ferredences, towhich the salonI have or, called later, “proto-secular,”the concert hall, surely at a far knew remove it. Whatfrom thecould earlier a word in- like “secular” actually mean here? For one thing, auralization has been trans 60 stitutionalone listens settings with an of awareness Carnatic music. that is For partly, another, perhaps such increasingly, musical praxis unfocused, requires athough specific highly kind receptive of attentiveness to the isomorphism (a mental move of the very musical close structuresto imagination): and the images generated in the mind. It is not just a matter of admiring the artist- ry of the composer, and of the singer; nor is the attentive listener involved in listening and tends to surprise. Such forms of attentiveness are not associated acts of decoding. A strong iconicity of verbal and musical texts shapes one's amenable to articulation; nonetheless, very dramatic things are going on in the with strain; the cognitive effects may never crystallize as formal perceptions, listener's mind. wasAuralization, a master iconicity, sculptor; figuration: but he did these not arework big alone. words, He and was inevitably closely linkedabstract. to Perhaps it would be better to think in terms of sculpting in sound. Dīkṣitar -

59 See Tammy Klein,More “Kshedimyon than Real, 134-43. vesiman nifgashim: huladta shel hapoetika haha dasha shel teatron hakudiyattam.” M.A. thesis, Hebrew University, 2009. 60 See Shulman, 38 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 the artistic heritage of the mid-eighteenth century, including the works of his father; he was clearly aware of what his contemporaries were doing. His audi- completeences, in placesin the packagelike Maṇali he offersand Ěṭṭayapuram, us as a program had for their experiments own part toin play.listening But Dīkṣitar may have been the first to produce a fully three-dimensional music, have come from the courtly padam and varṇam of the two or three generations and as a way to find, and “realize,” the goddess in the mind. Note how far we- beforelimited Dikṣitar. in scope There in the is, earlier for one genres. thing, Three-dimensional an evident difference effects in scale, in the complex padam andity, and varṇam intensity. mostly More depend important, on their what being I have performed called “auralization” as dance. It is is far thus more of dance,interest Kamalam) that a few61 Dīkṣitar compositions entered the devadāsī repertoire, as Sonejiway, well has suitedshown to us the (one emerging of Dīkṣitar's middle-class direct disciples audience was ofthe connoisseurs Tiruvārūr temple who —but only a few. The new music62 was, in its ownkṛtis distinctive are not usually danced. They have a self-contained complexity that demands the full frequented the salons where devadāsīs performed. But Dīkṣitar attention of a receptive listener—and, of course, a gifted performer. paradoxically,Interestingly, to the be closerother majorto the courtlyvector ofmodel innovation of the padam-varṇam in Carnatic music (paradox at this- period—the one we associate, above all, with Tyāgarāja—turns out, somewhat ically, because Tyāgarāja famously disdained all contact with the royal court).- Classic devotional texts generate far more direct, but also less complicated, forms of auralization. The Dīkṣitar three-dimensionality—the sculptural qual ity—is of an entirely different order. To understand this more deeply, let us 4.attempt Grammaticalization to formulate the. How working did he grammar do it? There that rules are several the Dīkṣitar ways corpus.to describe the means he used, some of them familiar from earlier studies, perhaps

operativenot all of themprinciples fully that,premeditated. taken together, I would comprise argue foran innovativea mode of reflectivegrammar grammaticalization, in the sense that the logic of composition is ruled by

(actually both a first-order and a second-order grammar, as we shall see). Unfinished Gestures Saṅgīta sampradāya pradarśini, 1:28. 61 Soneji, , 247; Subbarāma Dīkṣitulu, - - tet,62 among The history other importantof transmission nineteenth-century and teaching offers composers further and evidence performers for this working argu in thement: new it waspublic Dīkṣitar spaces. who See largely Soneji ,molded loc. cit. the sensibility of the famous Tañjāvūr Quar

39 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 The term itself is implied by the conventional designation of the large sets as vibhakti-kṛtis: the composer, along with the performer and the listener, declines (also conjugates) the deity with the help of these principles. We nāda-laya-gati, to charac-

saw that Dīkṣitar uses a nearly synonymous term, Girijayā ajayāterize), the ādi-kṣânta-varṇa-veditā goddess: she is “processed through [subtle] sound and rhythm.”a toShe kṣ is, Dīkṣitar tells us in the Śaṅkarâbharaṇam composition ( , “revealed in the phonematic series from ,” that is, in the cosmogonicTantrâloka unfolding. It is perhaps of syllables worth from noting, the given subtlest, the pre-audible level to that of actual speech or song, as Abhinavaguptakṛtis, that defined this processit in the offirst unfolding book of ishis an uneven, unsteady movement in which a vector characteristic dissonance built into so many of the Dīkṣitar tension with a powerful vector of resistance and re-absorption by the orig- straining toward creation (objectification, externalization) is in continuous

inal buzz, or by silence. Very likely, it is this rhythm, the movement toward Fourand meta-principles away from audibility, rule the that new we grammar. are hearing in the Abhayâmbā songs. a. Radical iconicity informs the conjoined, overlapping verbal and musical texts, as others have noted before.63 One need not exaggerate the scope of this phenomenon, but neither should it be underestimated; we have seen, or rather heard, a few, relatively minor and simple examples. Iconic corre- - vidual nature, as we have seen, and to strong thematic statements about her naturespondence and conducesbiography. to The musical set of characterization kṛtis thus slowly of leads the goddess to a state in inher which indi this goddess is, for the duration of the concert, ever more present as herself,

with her audible and visible yantras and, in all likelihood, with internalized- yantras becoming manifest in the singer's mindliṅga as in and the to listener’s a set of asfurther well. As I have argued, Abhayâmbā is a late-afternoon or twilight goddess, inti half,mately and connected so on, all ofto thisthe beingambiguous enacted, Anavidyā rather than described, in the music. Syllableattributes, by temporallysyllable, svara accessible by svara in the course of the Navarātri week and a in the rule-bound, patterned, and teleological discipline of musical grammar. , she is being “made,” or made manifest,

Pada Var- nams Sacred Songs, 1:195, on 63 (svarākṣara See above;), with the numerous remarkable examples lectures in by her Lalgudi study. G. J. R. Krishnan, [DVD](Chennai: Kalakendra.com, 2009); te Nijenhuis,

40 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 technical kind, very evident in the svarâksaras, where the verbal text coincides, partlyIconicity or entirely,operates with in several the names distinct of the ways sargam in this notes, grammar. as we Wehave have, seen. first, Then a there is the expressive use of a relevant svara 64 But by far the more extensive and res- in particular contexts—in the textcase becomes, we examined, for a themoment, “peacock isomorphic note.” with the verbal semantics (also, in the presentonant forms case, ofwith iconic elements relations of the could yantra be calleddiagram “thematic,” that is this when goddess). the musical65 The- matic iconicity tends to be systemic and complex, penetrating and animating seemingly distinct textual levels. There are many cases when it reaches toward - tra in another idiom: for example, we have the famous kṛti on Sūrya- mūrtethe efficacy of the mantra, in effect self-consciously reconstituting the man 66 Sūrya,Similarly, the , wherekṛti the in ourvery set name seems of theto reconstitute rāga, Saurāṣṭra/Saurâṣṭa, the well-known itself kâdi-vidyā embodies or kâdi-mantrathe primary [Saura-] aṣṭârṇaśārira-kâdi-vidyâ-siddhânta-yuktā mantra applied to the Sun God. embodiedSadâśraye kâdi singing the composition (Abhayâmbā one is could achieve the results that were, “joined once attaina to the- ble only through knowledge the mantra. in67 its This conclusive mechanism [that of is, formal effective] substitution form“)—as and/or if by

Trulyextension astonishing is, I think, levels paradigmatic of iconic correspondence for the dynamics appear of the in “internal kṛtis sacrifice.” - rāga-mālikā Śrī Viśvanātham - such as Dīkṣi tar'sin a forward (pravṛtti , comprising fourteen rāgas that are correlat thened to revert the fourteen to their worlds original of latent the Purāṇic-Tantric state (nivṛtti cosmos; these worlds unfold- ) direction 68initially In other as words,the rāgas musical appear sound-sequence in sequence and is ) as the rāgas are “played” back wards, “in a retrograde scheme.” ni - position, Ehi annapūrṇe. 64 Similarly, we have the pregnant “elephant-call” in Dikṣitar's penultimate com fourth āvaraṇa 65 Thus, as te NijenhuisSamskṛta has andshown, Saṅgīta the Kāmbhoji raga is intrinsically linked to the Institute, 2010), of 192. the Śrīyantra, and so on. 66 See S.S. Janaki, (Chennai: Kuppuswami Sastri Research Saundarya-laharī 32-33. The kâdi-vidyā is as- 67 See Shulman, “How to Bring a Goddess into Being,” 335, with reference to suggests.Lakṣmī-dhara Note, and in the Kaivalyâśrama kṛti, the dvitīyâkṣarânuprāsa on and the strategic placement of the referencesociated with to the sensual, kâdi-vidyā this-worldly, in line 4 embodiedof the caraṇam enjoyment,, immediately as Dīkṣitar's following phrase mention also of the subtle nāda-bindu that comprises the life-force of this goddess. Janaki, Samskṛta and Saṅgīta, 160-61.

68 41 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 the verbal text of this composition explicitly tells us that this process unfolds organized to reproduce the rhythm of cosmic creation and re-absorption,caturdaśa-bhuva and- na-rūpa-rāga-mālikâbharaṇa-dharaṇântaḥkaraṇam). Not all listeners will be in both the god, Viśvanātha at Kuḻikkarai, and in the music ( - teners have to. The music works its magic (I take the word literally) even if you able to hear and recognize these complex and subtle moves—but not all lis don't “think” it. b. Alaṅkāra

—figuration, in a wide sense—is a grammatical device serving to “thicken” the goddess and to render her accessible. It takes many forms, exfoliatedsome of which ecology I have of mentionedrepetition). earlier Figuration (figures is ofalmost syntax, never figures an ofextrinsic sound, applicationstructural devices to a pre-existing such as vertical template; responsion, rather, it rhebus constitutes figures, the and template the richly for

auralizing performance and tends to be bound to its object in singular andas configuredspecific ways that enable her concrete appearance in the mind. In general,- ity,as in or poetry, necessity, figuration of visible has sound. a causal69 aspect: Abhayâmbā is made present . Underlying musical configuration we find the ever-present real c. Disjunction, dissonance, trans-semanticity. Side by side with radical

and verbal texts and textures, however iconically interwoven, retain their owniconic logic effects, and weinternal find potentiallyautonomy, contrapuntalthere are many moves; neuralgic since points the musical when the two domains are at odds. A grammar of performance has to take cogni-

Sanskrit is, in one sense, a kind of Telugu and thus naturally reproduces thezance contrapuntal of disjunction. rhythms Perhaps of Teluguthis is theprosody moment in recitation to remark (syntactic that Dīkṣitar's units are normally at odds with prosodial ones). I have pointed to the expressive power of dissonance in our set of songs.

Such disjunctions are relatively simple examples of a much deeper principle of composition. Dīkṣitar's musical grammar includes a trans-semantic

alaṅkāra in the Saṅgīta-sārâmṛta 6, quoting earlier sources Nāṭya-śāstra on the absolute ne- 69 See the definition of formerin a recontextualized, constituting the Tantric latter. frame. Tulaja cites the cessity of figuration, that is, on the intrinsic relation of ornament and ornamented, the

42 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 component, as Harold Powers has stressed.70 Stated different: like other poetic grammars in South India, this one includes a mechanism for transcending its own rules.71 Let me repeat that the kṛti - tendency to slip back into inaccessible reachesreflects, of perhaps the self. structures, This tension the is inher built ent tension between self-manifestation of a divine person and that person's particular forcefulness in the Mālinī-tantra - into all audiblekṛti utterance thus slips and in hasand beenout of articulated iconicity andfrom its Bhartṛhari related semantici on, with- ty. Or we could say that a further, unexpected and typethe mature of iconicity Śrī-vidyā. embodies The clas the sical Dīkṣitar the literally unthinkable (unmanī) level of her existence as an inaudible quiver. Thistension tension, between among a knowable, other things, auralized is something and visualized we are goddess-as-soundmeant to hear in perand- formance. We may, then, have to imagine a grammar without words or other signs and a syntax without sentences72 carried along, in this case, by regularly emergent mental phonemes. Partly because of this important feature of the corpus, we need to speak of - a second-order grammar. First-order grammaticalization is immediatelymeḷam , evithe dent in the immense effort of the Tañjāvūr musicologists from the sixteenth tāḷamcentury, and onwards; the attempt in their to works map anwe ecologysee the systematizationof musical genres. of the Second-order cataloguing of distinctive, rāga-specific phrasing, the ramified discussions of grammaticalization follows śabdâlaṅkārasthe reflective logic I have tried to outline. It deals- in both iconic and meta-semantic effects, including “pure,” structural figuration internal(figures performance.of form, prosodial This new meta-grammar—some short-circuits of them familiar the processes from San of skrit poetics), and in the transposition of mantra into the domain of auralized, precise decoding in which the classical mantra specializes, replacing them with alternative modes73 of efficacious sounds. But some of the mantric meta-rules still operate. For example: “Any effective phonic pattern can be visually mapped and quantified.” “All non-random phonic sequences are consequential.” And so on. Note, though, that the domain of operation of such rules is now firmly located in the listener's mind.

The Wisdom of Poets: Studies in Tamil, Telugu, and Sanskrit (Delhi:70 Powers, Oxford “Musical University Art Press, and Esoteric 2001), 16. Theism,” 336. 71 See D. Shulman, in Paradise, before the Fall, in the view of Syriac exegetical sources. 72 I owe this phrase to Yonatan Moss, who uses it to describe the linguistic situation

73 Shulman, “How to Bring a Goddess into Being,” 338. 43 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 d. Idiolect - ther, still. Athighly the heartpersonal of the idiom entire of theprocess performer. of grammaticalization Each acknowledges lies thehis personal inflection, idiosyncratic and affective, of the composer and the fur performance. A space for experiment remains open. In this sense, the musi- or her responsibility for what happens—unpredictably—in the course of mantra, with its over-determined rules of application. Possibly for this very cal performance moves away from the scientific, objectivist causality of the

lessreason, causally auralization oriented of art the of goddess listening. in Inconcert this respect, performance the manifestation gradually lost of theits original, goddess still may largely well takeritualized unique, character, idiosyncratic which forms was replaced in each bylistener’s a new, mind. Nowhere is the personal voice of the composer-singer more evident than in the omnipresent vocatives addressed to the deity he is conjuring up. Note that there is a cardinal difference between describing a goddess and addressing her by name, that is, activating her in relation both to singer and audience. Res- appeal to the goddess, attract her attention, impact upon her internal states of awareness.onant vocatives, Like other“recursive” elements insofar of this as grammar,they take vocative up their address familiar is intertexts, primarily - - effectual and pragmatic, a basic technique of auralization, always highly specif ic in its articulation. Note that we have hardly begun to characterize the singu structuringlar style, lexis, of thesyntax, vibhakti and prosody of Dīkṣitar's verbal texts. graha-bheda form, A more in which technical each series subsequent of first-order raga can grammatical be derived features from the would preceding include one the by starting from a different set, note as weof the find scale with74 Abhayâmbā, in the goddess as a densely integrated and interconnected temple/yantra of sound. We would also want to say more about the dissonant—another vivādi way notes to construct in relation the to the jīva-svaras, as in the case of the Bhairavi composition I referred to. I cannot pursue further the grammatical uses of rhythm in this essay; note, though, that sulâdi set of primary rhythms.75 the famous set of compositions on the planets is unified by the complete - kṛtis and between this set A grammar of emergence requires76 fierce intertextual resonance, a dense inter connectivity—both within the set of the nine or ten and each parallel one (Kamalâmbā and Nilotpalâmbā in particular, but also the Sacred Songs, 1:194. ibid. 1:133; Powers 1984: 319. 74 See Te Nijenhuis, 75 See discussion 76 Note, among many other formal elements, the choice of Śaṅkarâbharaṇam rāga 44 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 kṛtis, and then beyond these works to the poetic exemplars Vasu-caritramu Shāhaji Abhayâmbā padams - I have briefly mentioned: the Telugu , the TamilTevâram Tāyumāṉavar hymns of verses, the large corpus of Tañjāvūr , the operatic works of Aruṇâ calakkavirāyar and others, and back at least as far as the - the mid-first-millennium).sañcāras and saṅgatis We witness something of this intertextuality in the toselection their recognition. of rāgas and Relevant their internal to this ordering notion andof a alsothick in intertextual the increasingly web stand is the oftenardized iconic syntax of the verses that that became rework hallmarks and cite of classicalthese rāgas Tantric and the sourc key- upwardes (very throughnoticeable the in subtle our set cakras in the in theconvoluted course of composita the performance of the Kalyāṇi of the longand caraṇaKedāram verse). songs: in the latter, the Kuṇḍalinī is effectively awakened and raised

Finally, we have the new generic format assumed by the kīrtana or kṛti, now

kīrtana assumes a distinctive place. T.M. Kr- the prime genre of classical Carnatic music. The ecology of musical genres has been reorganized, and the Dīkṣitar - ishna has defined the change as follows, contrasting Dīkṣitar with Tyāgarāja: because“He [Muttusvāmi even within Dīkṣitar] one section, has looked many at melodicthe whole movements kirtana as endone bodyonly afterof me a lodic movement. This makes comprehension of the composition more difficult,- afew Muttusvami āvartanas Dikshitaror lines of kirtana sahitya. is Theof a ragamelody flows with in numerousa very unstructured nuances slowly man ner…[and] reveals itself as one composite form.77 The feeling that one gets from- - movingsary feature across integrating octaves, unravelingthe utterance the as raga.” a whole. Such Again, unraveling—an we might identify appropri this ate and suggestive term—is also an element of the new grammar and a neces Telugu poetry from the early-modern period. principle as “modern” in a way that recalls developments in both Tamil and 5. Shamanic modernism. So who, or what, is this composer who shifted away from the traditional performance contexts of temple and court to the new middle-class salons, re-imagining the nature of his artistic enterprise in the process? He is a practicing Tantrika, no doubt of that. I have used the

word “shamanic” to suggest something of his non-conventional nature as well as the metaphysical processes operating in his works. The Śrī-vidyā for thein its instrumental-case Kāveri Delta forms composition was committed in both sets. to the dehabituation of normative A Southern Music, 99.

77 T.M. Krishna, 45 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 perception and to dramatic movement through inner space, the very heart 78 of par excellence. Stated differently, of Tantric praxis, in the interests of what Garb has called “revitalization” ancollective audience experience—a of active, attuned modernist listeners move to enter the deep, transitional states ofthe musical quite miraculous meditation, transformation still pragmatic that in effect Dīkṣitar (if one has knows achieved how now to listen),allows not as initiated practitioners but as concert-goers focused on artistic and kṛti from its - poetic experience. I have argued that Dīkṣitar detached the more traditional ritual foundations—still predominantmantric in his father's com positions for the Tiruvārūr temple—and, in the particular sense suggested above,idiom, secularizedone which it;remains and that mantic the normative and effective, though praxis not of thein Śrī-vidyā,the older causallike other mode. Tantric systems, has been neutralized or transposed into a new

One could describe this process, historically, as a new, third-phase Kaula ref- ormation, in the Tamil milieu, that is, a far-reaching domestication of an antinomian Tantric ritual order and its normative extension into a middle-class, semi-secular setting. “Third phase”—after the original Kaula revolution in late- first-millennium Kashmir and the re-appearance of a radical Kaulism in the Kaverimode of region listening-and-seeing in the two or three by, orgenerations within, the preceding silent, contemplative, Muttusvāmi. yetThe awake local andized activethird-phase mind. Kaulism allowed for Tantric praxis in a universally accessible

None of this could have happened without the personalization of experience- and creative form that Dīkṣitar exemplifies. He is, I think, the first of the great ofCarnatic the melody composers in its to individual, mold the melodic context-sensitive, line into an mood-sensitiveentirely personal, character non-re andpeatable, texture always and re-structuring recognizable emotionalthe kīrtana statement, form to suit highlighting this melodic the unity integrity seen as a whole (or as a stable base for further experimentation). Precisely in this

- sense—as exemplifying the uniquely personal sensibility that we call “modern” aboveand reshaping all literature the (butavailable also painting), forms to beginningexpress this over individualist two centuries stance—Mut before him withtusvāmi Annamayya Dīkṣitar joinsof Tirupati the series and ofthe early-modern great Telugu innovators and Tamil proto-novelistsin other domains, of

Shamanic Trance, 3.

78 Garb, 46 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

- Vijayanagara, Penukonda, Nandyala, and Tenkasi. To this personal sensibility Dīkṣitar brought, not by chance, the living legacy of Tantric Yoga and its prac tices of transformative visualization. Again in79 a incomparative which the rootsvein, we of characterare seeing- hereistically the modernist south Indian movements equivalent (Jacobism, of a much revolutionary wider historical socialism, pattern, existential identified- andism) analyzed are found by not the in latethe proximateShmuel Eisenstadt, intellectual and social antecedents of these movements but in ancient and medieval heterodoxies or esoteric currents -

(Gnosticism, Stoa, millenarian movements, and so on). Dīkṣitar is modern insofar as he remains a practicing Tantrika, entirely continuous with the Tañjāvūr varieties of the non-dualist Śrī-vidyā yet capable of applying its ritual and med Pragmatic,itative praxis personal to a radically and lyrical, changed, secular universalized in a special setting. way, heavily intertextual, inherently effectual, largely iconic (on several levels) in its expressive style, thoroughly grammaticalized in a set of novel meta- rules, experimental in form itand as aim,such recontextualizedin the concert halls, for almosta new twoaudience, centuries thus after already the deathmodern of thein many composer,ways—such but such is the is the music fate idiomof revolutions of Muttusvāmi as they Dīkṣitar. become Wethe maynorm. not recognize

Music in South India: Experiencing Music, Ex- selectpressing bibliography Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Allen, Matthew HarpTirumayilāṭutuṟai and T. Viswanathan. tiruttala varalāṟu the author, 2008. Brooks,Ambikapati, Douglas Vai. Renfrew. The Secret of the Three Cities:. Tirumayilāṭutuṟai: An Introduction to Published Hindu Śākta by Tantrism Eisenstadt, S.N. Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution. The Jacobin Dimension of Modernity. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Garb, Jonathan. Shamanic Trance in Modern Kabbalah . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Gayatri, E. Abhayamba Vibhakti Kritis . Chicago and London: University of ChicagoTirumayilait Press, 2011. tirip'antâti Janaki, S. S. Samskṛta and Saṅgīta [CD]. Kolkata: Saregama India. 2008. Irāmaiyar. . Madras: U. Ve. Caminataiyar Nūlnilaiyam, 1997. . Chennai: Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute, 2010. , Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution. The Jacobin Dimension of Modernity 79 S.N. Eisenstadt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 56-61.

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Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 Kantapurāṇam. Madras, 1907. Kaufmann, Walter. The Rāgas of South India: A Catalogue of Scalar Material. Kacciyappacivâcāriyar. Calcutta, Bombay, New Delhi: Oxford and IBH Publishing Co., 1976. Krishna,Klein, Tammy. T. M. A“Kshedimyon Southern Music: vesiman The Karnatik nifgashim: Story huladta shel hapoetika hahadasha shel Lalguditeatron G. J. hakudiyattam.” R. Krishnan, Pada M.A. Varnams thesis, Hebrew University, 2009. Māyūrappurāṇam. Chennai:. Project Harper/Collins, Madurai, 2011. 2014. Mukund, Kanakalatha. The View from Below: [DVD]. Indigenous Chennai: Kalakendra.com, Society, Temples 2009and the Early MīṉāṭcicuntaramColonial State Piḷḷai,in Tamilnadu Tiricirapuram. 1700-1835 . Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2005. Vāggeyakāraratna śrī muttusvāmi dīkṣita kṛti-maṇi-dīpika, edited

Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar. When God is a Customer. TeluguNiraghatam Courtesan Sriramakrsna Songs by Sastri.Kṣetrayya Tenali: and Vani Others Art Printers, n.d. NarayanaPress, Rao,1993. Velcheru, A. K. Ramanujan, and David Shulman. A Poem. atBerkeley: the Right University Moment: Rememberedof California Verses from Premodern South India TeNarayana Nijenhuis, Rao, Emmie Velcheru and and Sanjukta David Gupta, Shulman. Sacred Songs of India: Dīkṣitar's Cycle of Hymns to the Goddess Kamalā. Winterthur:. Berkeley:Amadeus, University1987. of California Press, 1998. Indo- Iranian Journal 29 (1986), 183-99. Peterson, Indira. “Sanskrit in Carnatic Music: The Songs of MuttusvāmiĀnandabhairavi Dīkṣita,” Kīrtanams Discourses on Śiva, edited by M. Meister. Powers,Philadelphia: Harold S. “MusicalUniversity Art of and Pennsylvania Esoteric Theism: Press, Muttusvāmi1984. Dīkṣitar's Muthuswamy on Śiva and ŚaktiDikshitar at Tiruvarur,” in 1975. Raghavan, V. The. MucukundaBombay: National Murals Centre in the Tyāgarājasvāmifor the Performing Temple, Arts, Tiruvārūr Rajamani,Rangaramanuja V. K. and Ayyangar, D. Shulman. R. History of South Indian (Carnatic) Music. Madras: Published by the author,. Chennai: 1972. Prakriti Foundation: 2012. Seetha, S. Tanjore as a Seat of Music (During the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries). Madras: University of Madras, 1981.

Religion (1991). Shulman, David. “TheThe Wisdom Yogi's Human of Poets: Self: Studies Tāyumāṉavar in Tamil, inTelugu, the Tamil and MysticalSanskrit .Tradition,” Delhi: Ox- ford University Press, 2001. Aesthetics in Performance: Formations of Symbolic Construction and Experience, edited by Angela Hobart and Shulman,Bruce David.Kapferer. “The New Buzz York: of Berghahn,God and Click 2005, of 43-63. Delight“, in

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Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013 Shulman, David. More than Real: A History of the Imagination in South India Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012. Soneji, Davesh. Unfinished Gestures. Devadāsīs, Memory, and Modernity in .South Cambridge, India.

Saṅgīta-sampradāya-pradarśini Press,1904.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Tulaja.Subbarāma Saṅgīta-sārâmṛta Dīkṣitulu, . Edited by Subrahmanya Sastri. ,Madras: Ěttayapuram: Music Academy, Vidyāvilāsini 1942. Tulākāveripurāṇam. Trichinopoly: Ripon Press, 1889. Periya Mēḷam and its Asian Music 39 (2008): 108–51. Yoshitaka Terada, “Temple Music Traditions in Hindu South India: Performance Practice.”

49 Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar and the Invention of Modern Carnatic Music: The Abhayâmbā

Vibhakti-kṛtis – 21th Gonda Lecture 2013

Theabout J. Gonda the gondaFund Foundation lecture 2013of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences supports the scholarly study of Sanskrit, other Indian languages and literature, and Indian cultural history. The Fund is a legacy of Indologist Jan Gonda, who was a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Each year the Gonda Fund organises and publishes the Gonda Lecture. - fessor of Indian languages and literature and a cultural historian of Southern The Twenty-first Gonda Lecture was held in 2013 by David Shulman, Pro

India at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, on the major composer of Carnatic music at the end of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar.