Sun, Moon, (and Fire) as eyes in the songs of Muthuswami Dikshitar
This is the third in an occasional series on the lyrical raw material at the disposal of Muthuswami Dikshitar. The first two posts in the series looked at the different ways in which Dikshitar describes Vishnu as Kama’s father, and the 26 different combinations of words for lotus and eyes that he uses to describe deities as lotus-eyed.
There is a trope in Carnatic music across many composers — describing the eyes of the Lord Rama as the sun and the moon — the phrase ravi shashi nayana comes readily to mind. For instance, in Thyagaraja’s Jo Jo Rama. I set out to discover how many times and the different ways in which Dikshitar has described eyes in this way.
What I found surprised me:
First, I found only four songs in which the sun and the moon were used to describe the eyes of a form of Vishnu (and indeed ravi shashi nayana is the phrase used in two of those four). However, I discoverd 15 songs in which he describes Shiva’s three eyes as the sun, moon and fire.
Considering all 19 songs (four for Vishnu and 15 for Shiva):
The most common names used for the sun were Surya and Ravi (6 each). For the moon it was Shashi (9) and for fire, Agni (8).
The greatest range of names / phrases was for the sun — eight different names. Of these jalaruha-apta and bala-arka are quite delightful. The former is a description of the sun as ‘the friend of the lotus’ (jalaruha = lotus; apta = friend of). Bala-arka is the ‘rising sun’ (bala = rising or young; arka = sun). Nabhomani is another compound name for the sun meaning ‘the gem of the sky’ (nabhas = sky; mani = gem). The range of names for the moon is limited to four. I confess I was somewhat surprised to note that Shashanka does not feature as a name for the moon. Rohini-isha is a compound name meaning ‘the lord of Rohini’. There are three names used for fire.
Here is a Youtube playlist of 17 of the 19 songs.
The two that I could not find are Shri Dakshinamurthim in the raga Athana and Kanakasabhapathim in the raga Malavashri. [Also, the rendition of Shankaranarayanam Bhajeham in the raga Narayana Desakshi is a veena rendition].
Before we go, there are contexts other than eyes in which Dikshitar brings the sun and moon, or the sun, moon and fire together. For instance, in describing the Devi as the animating force behind the sun, moon and fire. In the Kalyani raga composition Gnanaprasunambike, for example, he describes the deity Gnanaprasunambika (consort of Shiva as Kalahastishwara) as dinakara chandra tejah prakasha kari, deploying yet another combination of names for the sun, the moon and fire.
Finally, as always, I am indebted to Guruguha Vaibhavam for the translations of Dikshitar’s kritis.
