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Swati Tirunal – Part 2
The musical perspective
 In the past, it was the custom that these kritis be rendered by a group of musicians (probably the Mullamoodu Bhagavatars, who preserved Swati Tirunal’s compositions). The main musician would render the rAga and tAna, after which the entire group would sing the kriti of the day. Swara singing would be taken up by each of the musicians in the group in order of seniority. Today the concerts are solo affairs.
When one looks at the kritis, several interesting features come to light. S Venkitasubramonia Iyer in his book Swati Tirunal and His Music (College House, Trivandrum 1975) undertook a detailed analysis of the songs and this article largely relies on his findings.
1. The songs are not of uniform length: This was stated in the first part of this article itself. Song 1 has four caraNams, while all the remaining ones have three each. Among the songs, the second, pAhi mAm is the longest in terms of length of individual components with eight lines in the anupallavi and nine lines in each of the caraNams. The sixth, sarOruhAsana jAyE has caraNams of varying length, with the first one having eleven lines, the second eight and the third twelve. Such variations are found in group kritis of other composers too, such as the AvaraNa and vibhakti kritis of Muttuswami Dikshitar for instance.
2. Not all the songs are on Sarasvati: The first six are on Goddess Sarasvati and the last three on Parvati. Iyer, in his book, wonders about the absence of any kriti on Lakshmi, the middle in the triad of Goddesses in the Hindu pantheon. Moreover the songs in the last triad appear to be dedicated to specific Devi shrines. The seventh and ninth songs are on the Tiruvarattukavu Bhagavati deity of Attingal and the eight on Kanyakumari Bhagavati at the eponymous kshetra. Iyer bases his theory on “internal evidence” in the songs. The sAhitya in the seventh and ninth songs includes the line vAhinitaTavAsini which means the Goddess is on the banks of a large body of water . Could this mean Attingal? But the ninth kriti has a line which is significant – nata vancinrpAlakavansha shubhOdaya. The eldest sister of the Maharajahs of Travancore was styled the Maharani of Attingal and it was her fist male offspring who was designated the heir apparent. So the line (she who is worshipped by the entire clan of the Vanci kings), could mean the Attingal Bhagavati. The eighth kriti has the line kanyAkubjavAsini on which Iyer bases his premise that the song is on Kanyakumari
Bhagavati.
3. Usage of Mudra: In Iyer’s view, the mudra shrI padmanAbha is not consistent in the first three kritis. The mudra occurs in the last line of the fourth caraNam in the first kriti. As per Iyer, the very presence of a fourth caraNam is contrary to the norm and he believes that this caraNam must have been an addendum to the original kriti. The second kriti does not have the mudra and the third kriti has the line shrI padmanAbha vilAsini (beloved of Padmanabha) which is strange in a kriti on Sarasvati. Iyer says that this must be an error while transcribing and the original must have read padmabhava vilAsini (beloved of Brahma). In which case, the mudra is absent in the third kriti also. The rest of the kritis bear the mudra. Iyer concludes that the first three must have been composed at an earlier period in Swati Tirunal’s life, when he did not think of using a mudra. There being no information as to what was Swati Tirunal’s first kriti, one is unable to verify whether he began using a mudra midway in his career of composing.
 4. SOllukaTTus: sOllukaTTus are present in the anupallavis of the fourth, fifth and sixth songs only. CiTTasvarAs are now rendered for the last kriti, pAhi parvatanandini, but as per Iyer, none of the original manuscripts have these svarAs and it is a mystery as to when they were introduced. Similarly, Iyer claims to have seen certain old manuscripts where ciTTasvara and sOllukaTTus are employed for the first kriti dEvi jagajjanani. He states that only a part of it was decipherable.
5. Varying speeds: The first six songs are cauka kAla songs, while the last three are essentially madhyama kAla songs.
6. kalyANi kriti: As per Iyer, the kriti pAhi mAm is a perfect example of the sOpAna style of music followed in Kerala. The pallavi is set to two AvartAs, the anupallavi in six and the caraNa in nine. The caraNa itself is divided into two parts, the first having four Avartas and the second five. The first four have a graded increase in the speed of the syllables, from slow to fast, which as per Iyer is a typical sOpAna feature.
7. The Grouping: Iyer doubts if the kritis were composed with an intention of being grouped together as a navarAtri cluster. He feels that they must have been composed at different times and finally bracketed together. As per his findings the Navaratri Prabhanda of Iraviamman Tampi mentions that the Navaratri Mantapam programme featured kritis of Swati Tirunal alone. But Iyer does not specify if Tampi’s work specifies the nine kritis or merely means Swati Tirunal’s kritis in general. Iyer states that the second kriti pAhi mAm alone describes Goddess Sarasvati exactly as depicted in the idol. Also this kriti specifically mentions the navarAtri utsavam. He therefore concludes that this kriti must have been composed on the deity for rendition during navarAtri. It must be noted here that the first kriti dEvi jagajjanani also mentions the navarAtri utsavam. But as the words occur in the fourth caraNam, Iyer feels that this must be a later addition to justify the grouping. Iyer also buttresses his argument by stating that it is strange that kritis on Parvati, who is the main deity during navaratri are much smaller than those on Sarasvati. But if one takes into account that in Travancore, it was (and is) Sarasvati who is given pride of place during the utsavam, his contention does not hold water.
8. Tala: The tALa for all the songs are variations of tripuTa, some being in Adi tALa which is caturashra jAti tripuTa
tALa.
All said and done, the Navaratri Mantapam concerts, with their unique rules, regulations and songs are very interesting aspects of our Music Heritage. One hopes that the tradition will continue for all time to come.
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