The eldest Carnatic Trinity wrote jewels for Kamakshi
Syama Sastri (1762–1827) was the eldest of the Carnatic Trinity, alongside Tyagaraja and Muthuswami Dikshitar. He wrote only about three hundred pieces, mostly hymns to the goddess Kamakshi, but their learned Telugu and fiendishly complex rhythmic cycles still challenge performers.
He was born Venkata Subrahmanya Iyer on 26 April 1762 at Tiruvarur, in present-day Tamil Nadu, to Visvanatha Iyer and Vengalakshmi, a Tamil-speaking Brahmin couple. As a boy he studied the Vedas and astrology, took his first music lessons from a maternal uncle, and later trained under Adiappayya, a court musician at Thanjavur. Posterity knows him by his adopted name or by Syama Krishna, the signature he worked into his lyrics.
His output was small beside those of his two great contemporaries. Several things kept it narrow: he had few pupils, printing was scarce, and his texts favoured a formal Telugu laden with Sanskrit, while Tyagaraja wrote in everyday speech. Scholars warmed to the songs more readily than ordinary listeners. Some Tamil kritis are credited to him as well, and most of his pieces address Kamakshi.
He wrote kritis, varnams, and svarajatis. The svarajati had been a dance form close to the padavarnam, and he was probably the first to recast it as music to be sung or played in concert. His three best-known examples, nicknamed the Three Jewels, are Kamakshi Anudinamu in Bhairavi, Kamakshi Padayugame in Yadukula kambhoji, and Rave himagiri kumari in Todi; the first two run in Misra Chapu tala and the third in Adi tala. He was famed for handling the most intricate talas.
His pupils spread the work: Alasur Krishna Iyer served at the Mysore court, Porambur Krishna Iyer popularised his teacher’s songs, Tarangambadi Panchanada Iyer composed, and Dasari became a noted nagaswaram player. His son Subbaraya Sastri was also a respected composer. He died in 1827.
Source: Syama Sastri
