Was taught Soundararajam, last Saturday at Sameeksha. Was ensnared from the very first raajam( r,n, s, p,) Of course
these notations do not capture the beauty of that first descent into the
mandara sthayi.
I think Dikshithar has explored this raga way better than
anybody else I know. All that I have learnt in this raga is Rangapura( also
from MKD and in the same tala as Soundararajam), Kamalaptakula ( Thyagaraja),
Kaliyuga varadan( Periaswamy Thooran) and Saraseeruhaasana( Patnam). And before
anybody accuses me of bias towards my ishta vaggeyakara, let me quickly say
that I will be the first to admit that Thyagaraja has explored certain ragas
way way deeper than MKD.. ..a Sukhi yevvaro and sri narada as compared to a Veera hanumathe and Balambikayaha in Kaanada
Anyway let us get to the sthala. Let us look at the genesis of
the name – Nagapattinam( originally Nagar Pattinam since Adiseshah, the king of
Nagars or snakes is believed to have worshipped Vishnu here)
This temple is classified as one of the 108 Divya Deshams. I will not elaborate too
much on the temple since there is enough available on both Wikipedia and the
temple’s own site. There is no point cut pasting to this blog.
However, just a couple of other things.. this deity is also
called Kaveri Thuraivan since the Cauvery apparently flows nearby. Vishnu, at
this place is also called Azhagiyan or Soundararajan( the most beautiful one.)
His consort here is called Sundaravalli.MKD has composed another song on this deity Sri Sundararajam
Bhajeham in Kasiramakriya( Pantuvarali). Have gone through all the 472
compositions of MKD with me , but there seems to be no song on Soundaravalli by
him.
Since this blog is basically a learning tool for myself, I will
not go into the kind of detail, there was when I started with the pancha buta
krithis. The meanings are available in enough places already. Will just refer
to certain aspects.
In the pallavi , he is obviously referring to Gajendra Moksham(
the incident when the leg of Gajendra, king of elephants was caught by a
crocodile.) After many thousand years of struggle, Gajendra prayed to Vishnu
and was saved by him. Varada means boons. So the person who is most adept at
giving boons.
Let me just dwell on the line sura vinutha mahi raajam
First sura in this context has to refer to the number 33. As we
know there were 33 principle devas, who were the guardians of Nature and Cosmic
Creation. They were the 12 Adityas( Indra, Surya, Mitra Varuna etc), the 11
Rudras( manifestations of Shiva), 8 Vasus or elemental Gods like Vayu, Agni,
Antariksh etc, Prajapati Brahma and Shri Hari Vishnu
Sura is image of God/deity/sun or symbolical name for number 33
Vinuta is to be praised by
Mahi – great/greatness/ intellect.
So MKD is saying the king who was praised greatly by the 33
devas. Of course, this also means I have to stop singing it as soora vinutha
and start saying sura vinutha
The madhyama kalam in the anupallavi is pretty straight forward(
no layered references). Most of the words like manda smitha , karambujam etc..
I have gone into at the root level in earlier posts
Let us go to shambara vairi janakam. i.e father( janaka) of the enemy( vairi) of shambhara. Shambara was a asura ,
who carried off Pradyumna, Krishna’s son and threw him into the sea. He was
eaten by a fish. Shambara’s wife
released him and later Pradyumna killed Shambara.
The next few lines are straight forward. We will go to Ambudhi (
sea) garva( pride) nigraha( defeat, punish, suppress). Nagapattinam is on the
sea shore and was badly destroyed in the 2004 tsunami. I am sure the people in
this area have been at the mercy of the sea, from time immemorial, and
Soudararajam, the presiding deity of this town, was seen as the protector of
the populace, who suppressed the sea.
This post can be made still richer. Will try at some future
point, when I have more time. And of course, let us hope I can sing it the way
it should be sung.
