PART-20

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PART-2.......MANALI AND TO KAASI WITH CHITHAMBARANATHA YOGI

2 Manali to Kashi (with Chidambaranath Yogi) ================================== After Muthukrishna Mudaliar's death, his son Venkatakrishna (Chinnayya) Mudaliar continued to play host to the Dikshitars. The Dikshitar family lived in Tiruvottriyur and later at Manali, close to the "Meddai Veedu", the palatial country home of the Mudaliars. (Till the 1980s, this house existed as a ruin). Venkatakrishna Mudaliar was also a dubash, attached to the East India Company and quite influential with his English masters. He introduced Muttuswami and his younger brothers to the bands playing Western music at Fort St. George. Muthuswami listened keenly and assimilated the essentials of that alien music. Later in his life he composed Sanskrit sAhityas in praise of Hindu deities for about thirty-five of those Western tunes including the British national anthem. These are called nOTTu svara sAhityas. Ramaswami Dikshitar who observed the various western instruments being played, was partic...
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PART-7- CHIDAMBARAM

7 Chidambaram =========================================--- One of the most popular and celebrated Siva kShEtras in the country, Chidambaram is the confluence of the varied and significant streams of religion, philosophy and art. Nowhere else do we see such a congregation of yOgIs, philosophers, musicians, dancers, poets, composers and of course the simply devout, offering homage to the Supreme Being through the medium of their calling, as at Chidambaram. For, Lord Nataraja symbolises for all of them the ultimate in their chosen mode of worship. No other place is closely connected with the performing arts as Chidambaram, which for Shaivites is simply 'kOyil'. The Lord Himself is a dancer, a consummate Artiste as represented in the beautiful icon that adorns the citsabhA. Nataraja is variously referred to as sabhAnAyakan (the Lord of the hall of Consciousness), ADalvallAn (the dancing God), naTEshan (the Lord of Dance) or simply sabEshan and by hundreds of other names. The esoter...
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PART-14....KUZHIKKARAI AND MANNAARKUDI

14 Places around Tiruvarur, Kuzhikkarai and composition of shri viswanatham ragamalika, Mannargudi  ============================ We do not know how comfortably or otherwise Dikshitar was placed in those early years after his return to Tiruvarur. His father Ramaswami Dikshitar was a recipient of the Tanjavur king's munificence earlier. Whether this continued in full measure after the family returned to Tiruvarur is not known, though it can be surmised that some kind of allowance must have been offered by the palace in lieu of Ramaswami Dikshitar's services to the cause of music. What can be said with some authenticity is that the Tiruvarur temple would have catered to the needs of the Dikshitar family. . As already pointed out earlier, Ramaswami Dikshitar, and later on Muttuswami Dikshitar, were both associated with organising the temple music. Nevertheless, because of Dikshitar's peripatetic life, the temple might not have been able to regularly provide for his family. For,...
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