Lotus Eyes in the Songs of Muthuswami Dikshitar
A minor example of Muthuswami Dikshitar’s major lyrical cache (2)
This blogpost is dedicated to the memory of my uncle Dr. Subramanyam L. Rau, Babu Chikkappa to me. He was a big fan of Dikshitar’s music and a great supporter of my blog, and especially appreciative of my posts on Dikshitar. This is the first post on Dikshitar that I have written since his passing.
About a year ago, I wrote a blog post listing the various ways in which Muthuswami Dikshitar describes Vishnu as the father of Kama in his songs. Using an array of names for Kama and many different words for 'father’, he comes up with an even wider range of phrases to describe Vishnu in this identity. I noted that this was a small example of the vast lyrical raw material that Muthuswami Dikshitar had at his disposal to make his compositions excel in prosodic beauty.
This article is in a similar vein. I surveyed his 400+ compositions for instances in which he describes a deity as ‘lotus-eyed’. This is what I found:
There were 42 songs in which he has described the deity as lotus-eyed. To do so, he deploys 16 different words for lotus and four main root words for eyes — nayana, lochana, aksha and netra, resulting in an incredible 26 unique combinations of lotus+eyes for ‘lotus-eyed’.
If you, like I, have wondered what exactly ‘lotus-eyed’ means, or how to imagine eyes as lotuses, it is easier to think of the lotus petal than the whole lotus, much like this illustration at the top of this post. Dikshitar makes this explicit in sixof his songs, qualifying the word for ‘lotus’ with the word for ‘petal’. He employs the word dala for petal in four songs — Shri Krishnam Bhaja Manasa in the raga Todi, Sarasadala Nayana in the raga Khamas, Kamakshi Kalyanim in the raga Kalyani and Kanjadalayatakshi in the raga Manohari. And the word patra for petal in two other songs — Chetah Sri Balakrishnam in the raga Dwijavanti and Seshachala Nayakam in the raga Varali.
The trigger for this whole exercise was the phrase nalina patra nayanam in Chetah Sri Balakrishnam in the raga Dwijavanti. It is followed immediately by vata patra shayanam, which means the one who rests or reclines on a banyan leaf. I was listening to a recording of MS Subbulakshmi singing this song and was stopped in my tracks by the beauty of these two lines together, the majestic but delicate soar of ‘nalina patra nayanam’ followed by the sudden safe solidity of ‘vata patra shayanam’, all of which was enhanced immeasurably by the dual-octave combination of Subbulakshmi’s and Radha Vishwanathan’s voices. All of it worked only because of the innate poetry of the twin lines, which in turn rode on Dikshitar’s ability to dig into his lyrical store and grasp, whether in a moment of inspiration or by meticulous design, the phrase ‘nalina patra nayanam’.
Other qualifiers to the lotus eyes include:
vishalam / vishalini (big / wide), in four songs — Shri Neelotpala Nayike in the raga Reetigowla, Rajagopalam in the raga Mohanam, Shankachakra Gadhapanim in the raga Purnachandrika and Ehi Annapoorne in the raga Punnagavarali,
vilasini (charming, pleasing) in the song Maruvakadi Malini in the raga Maruva, and
prakatita (blossomed / in bloom) in the song Kshijita Ramanam in the raga Devagandhari.
ayata (long) in the song Kanjadalayatakshi (kanja-dala-ayata-akshi) in the raga Manohari
Of course, eyes are not the only features often described as lotus-like. Dikshitar routinely describes the faces, hands and feet of various deities as lotus-like. I found two songs in which the description of eyes as lotus-like are part of compound phrases in which he describes the deity’s eyes, face, feet and hands as lotus-like. These are:
pada nayana-anana kara nalini in Shri Bhargavi Bhadram in the raga Mangala Kaishiki. In this phrase nalini (lotus) refers to pada (feet), nayana (eyes), anana (face) and kara (hands). And
tamarasaksha vadana pada kara in Mamava Raghuvira in the raga Mahuri. In this phrase tamarasa (lotus) refers to aksha (eyes), vadana (face), pada (feet) and kara (hands).
I have created a playlist on Spotify with as many of the 41 songs listed in the table above that I could find. It makes for great listening:
(If you are having trouble accessing the playlist, you can go to Spotify and search for “Muthuswami Dikshitar — Lotus Eyes".)
Thanks for reading! As with many of my posts on Dikshitar, I am hugely indebted to two free online resources — the list of Dikshitar krithis compiled by Todd McComb and the Guruguha Vaibhavam website which has translations of all Dikshitar krithis. All errors in this post are of course, mine.
