Ambi Dikshitar

Neither Muthuswamy Dikshitar nor his brothers had sons and so his brother Baluswami Dikshitar adopted his daughter’s son Subbarama Dikshitar. The latter’s son was named Muthuswamy Dikshitar after his uncle and revered composer. The kid later came to be popularly known as Ambi Dikshitar (1863–1936), another composer in the lineage. Below is a family tree of the Dikshitars.

Works

Ambi Dikshitar predominantly helped propagate his grandfather’s songs during his stay as court musician in Ettayapuram and later when he migrated to Madras. However, he has also composed a few songs which include:

• ganapathe mahamathe in kalyani
• gananathaya in gowlai
• ganapathi sodaram in arabhi
• varasidhi vinayakam in nattai
• sri saraswathi vidhiyuvathi in devakriya
• gopika manoharam in mohanam

Mudra

Ambi Dikshitar used the same mudra that was used by his grandfather, Muthuswamy Dikshitar of the Carnatic Music trinity, “Guruguha”, in his compositions.

Sri Venkatesam Bhajami

I had previously written in my blog that the song in ragam Kalyana Vasantham “Sri Venkatesam Bhajami” was by Ambi Dikshitar and I wanted to write here about the confusion around the composer claim for the said composition.

Old cassette albums of Maharajapuram Santhanam said that Sri Venkatesam Bhajami is a Muthuswamy Dikshitar composition; however it is not present in the volumes of Dikshitar books.

Some say it is Ambi Dikshitar’s composition, with the same mudra Guruguha in the charanam – madhyama kalam (fast paced). However, this is also contested as Ambi’s songs did not usually have raga mudra while this one does have “kalyana vasantham”.

There is also a claim that this is a composition of Mysore Maharaja Jayachamaraja Wodeyar. However, there is no mudra “sri vidhya” here. Also, Wodeyar seems to have written only 94 songs with no raga repetitions – there is already another composition of his, on Vishnu in Kalyana Vasantham ragam and Misra Jhampa thalam – “Sri Ranganatha Pahimam”.

Disciples

Ambi Dikshitar initiated the musical journey of DK Pattamal, S Rajam, TL Venkatrama Iyer, Ananthakrishna Iyer and Sundaram Iyer to name a few. He and his disciples made it their life mission to preserve and propagate Muthuswamy Dikshitar kritis as is. The Dikshitar lineage was followed by Ambi’s son Baluswami Dikshitar.

Listen to…

Gopika Manoharam in the ragam mohanam by my guru Dr. Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam at the Chembai festival. Incidentally, this was also the first song I learnt from her :) Dr. Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam is the disciple of Rajam sir who was in turn trained by Ambi Dikshitar himself.

References

• https://sreenivasaraos.com/tag/ambi-dikshitar/

sreenivasarao’s blog, karnatik, odeyar.pdf