English translation of 72 Mela-Ragamalika of Sri Mahavaidyanatha Sivan.

[Rajani]

I have always been fascinated by this magnum opus of of Sri Mahavaidyanatha Sivan and have immensely enjoyed and admired the beautiful renderings by Smt MSSubbulakshmi, Smt Vedavalli and more recently, the young students of Smt Kiranavali Vidyashankar. All of these can be found on Youtube, sangeethapriya and such. The lyrics are also very appealing to me - concise and packed with stories and philosophical ideas.

I have started putting up the translation of the 72 Melakartha-Ragamalika . Six chakras (i.e. 36 Ragas) are already done and the rest will be done shortly.

https://mela-ragamalika.blogspot.com/

It is still work-in-progress, but I wanted to share, since I hope for some helpful comments and suggestions from forumites while I am still at it. Sri V Govindan who has done monumental tasks in this area is also helping me and I got the kind consent of Dr PP Narayanaswamy, who has done a similar translation which I have provided a link to in the Intro page.

Please send your thoughts about improvements to the features of the blog to my mail-id through this forum. Anything that can be discussed about the lyrics and its interpretations - I request you to post here itself as replies, as they will be of interest to all readers.

[rajeshnat]

Rajani
Wonderful work . I just read one chakra . It is such a great composition . I remember many years back buying the CD of MS amma singing it .

Just one question . I do understand and guess say what is Agni Chakra . I donot know what is netra chakra. If you can explain briefly each chakra and if there is a logic why such a sequence of chakras is followed that would make sense.

Great work.

[Rajani]

Thanks a lot, Rajesh.

The use of objects which are of a specific number, to indicate that number itself is found often in Sanskrit literature, So Indu is one (since there is one moon), netra is two ( since we all have two eyes), Agni is three ( since there are three fires specified in Vedic rites), Veda means four etc.

Dikshitar has also used this for eg "vasu KONa" in Kamalamba kritis to indicate the Chakra with 8 triangles, (There are 8 gods called Vasus so vasu means eight).

[rajeshnat]

The use of objects which are of a specific number, to indicate that number itself is found often in Sanskrit literature, So Indu is one (since there is one moon), netra is two ( since we all have two eyes), Agni is three ( since there are three fires specified in Vedic rites), Veda means four etc.

Dikshitar has also used this for eg "vasu KONa" in Kamalamba kritis to indicate the Chakra with 8 triangles, (There are 8 gods called Vasus so vasu means eight).

Can you include this details also in the introductory part of the text so that it is permanently assimilated by many from one place,

[Rajani]

Thank you for the suggestion Rajesh. I shall add it soon.

[Rajani]

Please see the complete translation at
http://mela-ragamalika.blogspot.com/

I've also added some pictures.