Legends Retold — Hiranmayeem
There once lived a man called Muthu along with his wife somewhere in the land of Tamil Nadu. Muthu grew up in a family that was surrounded by pious musicians and thus he inherited both these traits. He became a singer and songwriter (the collective term used is vaggeyakara) and he was a staunch worshipper of the Goddess.
Muthu travelled far north and mastered his music before he began releasing his singles and albums (called group krithis) to the public. His speciality was the ability to capture the features of a particular temple (called Kshetra), its Gods and Goddesses, location, legends and other details succinctly in a song.
During that time period, the set up of the land was that kings and wealthy men would act as patrons to artists like Muthu and help with their day to day survival so that the musician, in this case, Muthu could continue to produce their art.
One day, Muthu’s wife, who essentially ran the household, was in need of money. She asked if Muthu could procure it for their family. Muthu, who was not in the habit of vocalising his need for help, was in a fix. He did what he did best — he wrote a song on the Goddess of Wealth.
In this song, Muthu described a golden goddess and prayed to her to help him get rid of his dependency to mean mortals. He went on to describe the Goddess in detail and even referenced the Goddess of his birth place in the same song.
Muthu’s wife who was intently listening to his song, understood the meaning and his intention behind it. She went to sleep that night pondering about what had just happened. So much so that she had a dream of the same golden goddess.
She got up with the clarity that she would let her husband keep his ideals about not asking money from others. She must have been an extraordinary woman to have managed the family with whatever help they got, at the same time supporting her husband’s musical endeavours. Such a golden heart she had had!
We relate to everything better when we have a story connected with it. Especially when it comes to abstract concepts such as music and bakthi, the history is full of legends that have travelled along with the song, and is recited as much as the song itself.
Such stories undergo addition, subtraction and evolution just like any other legend, but it definitely creates a mark on how we remember and relate to the song.
In this article, I attempted to retell the story of Dikshitar’s composition set in the ragam Lalitha, “Hiranmayeem Lakshmim”. What you just read is my version of the “story”, just like the other versions. That is why they are called legends.
References
https://sriramv.com/2019/08/09/dikshitars-intriguing-songs-on-mahalakshmi/
Until next,
Vid :)
