Though Subbarama Dikshitar's biographical account of Syama Sastri gives his year of birth as 1763, it is now more or less accepted to be 1762, making 2011 his 250th year.
The eldest among the Carnatic trinity however remains a figure about whom very little is known. There is a positive side to this, for he has also been spared several miracles being added on to his life unlike what has happened to his contemporaries, Tyagaraja and Muthuswami Dikshitar.
According to Subbarama Diskhitar's Sangita Sampradaya Pradarsini, a group of Dravida Brahmins decided to shift the golden processional deity of Goddess Kamakshi from Kanchipuram following a Muslim invasion.
The idol and its protectors moved from place to place, reaching Tiruvarur where they stayed for several years. It was here that Syama Sastri was born into a family that worshipped the deity. Later the family migrated to Thanjavur where the deity, Bangaru Kamakshi was enshrined in a temple on the West Main Street where it still remains.
Syama Sastri was initiated into the Sri Vidya cult and was also trained in music for three years under a guru – Sangita Swamin, about whom very little is known. The tutor before leaving for Kasi instructed his disciple to learn further under Pachaimiriyam Adiyappayyah, composer of the immortal ‘Viribhoni' varnam.
Family tradition has it that Syama Sastri on coming of age became the hereditary priest at the Bangaru Kamakshi temple. He soon turned composer using the mudra ‘Syama Krishna.' Syama Sastri, according to Subbarama Diskhitar, was a composer of kritis, swarajatis and tana varnams all imbued with ‘magical lyrical beauty, poetic felicity and tala intricacy. Writing 13 years after Subbarama Dikshitar, Abraham Pandithar in his ‘Karunamritha Sagaram' (1917), repeats roughly the same but adds definitively that Sastri's songs were known for their skill and minuteness of talam. By then clearly, Syama Sastri was considered a past master in rhythm, a reputation that he enjoys till now.
Syama Sastri's corpus of songs is not as much as Tyagaraja's or Dikshitar's and consequently the number of ragas he used are also far less, being around 30 or so. He appears to have been partial to Anandhabhairavi. It is obvious however that his entire repertoire is not available for access for Subbarama Dikshitar writes that he had in his possession over a 100 kritis of Syama Sastri's which he hoped to publish after his magnum opus, the Sangita Sampradaya Pradarsini. That however was not to be and today what we do have with us are 71 pieces including the three swarajatis and a varnam. Some of his songs are in Tamil as well, though the authenticity of these pieces is doubted by some scholars.
The common link
Syama Sastri was a common link between the other two of the Trinity. Living all his life in Thanjavur he was residing at a short distance from Tyagaraja who was in Tiruvarur. Syama Sastri's younger son Subbaraya Sastri was a disciple of Tyagaraja. As for Dikshitar, he made his contact with Syama Sastri when during his peripatetic life he came to Thanjavur to teach music to the Quartet. The Sriranjani varnam of Ramaswami Dikshitar left incomplete by the composer, was, according to Subbarama Dikshitar, given full form with Syama Sastri, Muthuswami Diskhitar and Chinnaswami Dikshitar composing a charanam each, thereby giving proof of the acquaintance between Syama Sastri and Dikshitar. Subbarama Dikshitar was almost certainly the first to group the three – Syama Sastri, Tyagaraja and Dikshitar – together though he did not use the term Trinity. But some felt Syama Sastri was less than an equal. In his biography of Tyagaraja, written in 1927, the musicologist M.S. Ramaswami Aiyar dismissed Syama Sastri (and Muthuswami Dikshitar) as a varnam composer. R. Rangaramanuja Iyengar suggested that Syama Sastri owed his mastery over rhythm to Tyagaraja's inspiration. Perhaps foreseeing such views, Subbarama Dikshitar said that “only lazy musicians who could neither comprehend nor had the mettle to sing the songs of Syama Sastri” could dismiss them thus.
A cursory glance at his compositions reveals that he did visit several places of pilgrimage. Apart from songs on Bangaru Kamakshi he has composed pieces on other deities in Thanjavur (Brihannayaki of the Big Temple), Tiruvanaikkaval (Akhilandeswari), Nagapattinam (Nilayatakshi), Madurai (Meenakshi), Tirugokarnam (Brihadamba), Kanchipuram (Kamakshi, Varadaraja), Tiruvaiyaru (Dharmasamvardhini) and Vaitheeswarankoil (Muthukumaraswami).
This great composer left the world in 1827. Interestingly, a portrait of his was executed even during his lifetime and is now worshipped by his descendants. His musical lineage was carried forward by several disciples who, along with his own descendants (Subbaraya Sastri and Annaswami Sastri) ensured that his music was handed down to several performers thereby enriching Carnatic music repertoire.
(The author can be contacted at srirambts@gmail.com)
