The work
 |
| The composer |
The great musical composition of Mahavaidyanatha Sivan, is well-known as one of the few works that contain Charanams in all 72 Melakartha Ragas. It is in praise of Shiva and the Sahitya contains references to many ideas and stories from the Vedas, Puranas and works such as Periya Puranam and Tiruvilaiyadal Puranam.
Translations and discussions
A detailed Tamil commentary named “Sivapriya” was written on it by Sri VSV Guruswamy Sastrigal and was released by the Music Academy, Chennai in 1989. In 2018, the same book was released again, with the English translation added, done by Vidushi Smt. Sumitra Vasudev. This book can be bought at the Music Academy.
Around 15 years back, this work was discussed in detail in the Carnatica website, by Dr PP Narayanaswamy and some others.
About this blog
This blog attempts to provide word-by-word meaning as well as running translation of the Sahitya, along with some additional notes on the stories being referred to etc. The Sahitya is given in Devanagari script, as well as in Roman script as per the ISO transliteration scheme.
I am grateful to artist Sri. Maniam Selvan (Ma.Se) for allowing to me use his father's painting (Charanam 9). I thank Sri R.Gopu of Tamil Heritage Trust for sharing his photographs of sculptures, and the Himalayan Academy, which has allowed permission to use pictures from their gallery by anyone for non-commercial use.
Some initial comments:
1.Long Samaasas (compound words) in the text, are hyphenated for reading ease
2.The word-division of the text is found along with the translation.
3.‘Sivapriya’ refers to the Tamil commentary on this work, authored by Sri VSV Guruswamy Sastrigal.
The naming convention of the Chakras follows a traditional method of indicating a number with the name of an object which is well-known to be found in that number. So Indu (moon) refers to one, since there is one moon. Netra (eye) refer to two. Three fires were worshipped by householders in the Vedic tradition, so Agni (fire) is synonymous with three. There are four Vedas, Manmatha has five arrows (Bana) and there are six seasons (Ritu). Seven sages are famous as the Sapta-rishis and hence Rishi indicates seven. The Vasus are a group of eight gods. Nine Brahmas (or Brahma-rishis), Bhrgu, Pulastya, Vasishtha etc. were created by Lord Brahma to further creation. The ten directions (Disha) are the eight cardinal and ordinal directions, and also above and below. Rudras are Devas who are aspects of Shiva, eleven in number. The Sun takes twelve forms (one for each month) to protect the world and so Aditya means twelve. Thus we get the names of the Chakras of the Melakartha Ragas.
The sections of this Kriti are :
A very nice rendition of this monumental work can be seen and heard at :