Place · Shiva temple town · India
Tiruvarur
Also known as Tiruvarur — Muthuswami Dikshitar
The 7th-century Chola-period Pancha Bhuta Sthalam temple city on the Kaveri delta in Tiruvarur district, Tamil Nadu — one of the 275 Paadal Petra Sthalams of Shaiva Tevaram. The Tyagaraja temple of Shiva as Veethi Vidangar (one of seven sapta vitanka sacred-image forms) is the central shrine. Tiruvarur was the birthplace of the three giants of South Indian classical music — Thyagaraja (1767-1847), Muthuswami Dikshitar (1775-1835) and Syama Sastri (1762-1827) — the Carnatic music Trinity, all born on the same street in the Tyagaraja temple precinct between 1762 and 1775. The temple's annual Panguni Uthiram chariot festival hauls the largest temple-car in India. The Kaveri delta temple-and-musical ecology converged here.
- Date
- 1775–1835
- Function
- Arts & performance
- Condition
- living practice
- River basin
- Kaveri
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 10.770, 79.640
Connections (1)
- Life routeMuthuswāmi Dīkshitar
Dīkshitar was born at Tiruvārūr in 1775, in the same street and within a few years of Tyāgarāja and Śyāma Śāstri — the three of the Carnatic trinity came out of one Kāveri-delta town in one generation. His Kamalāmbā navāvaraṇa cycle is written for Tiruvārūr's goddess. Tiruvārūr's Tyāgarāja temple has the largest chariot in Tamil Nadu, and all three composers grew up watching it pulled through streets laid out around the temple tank.
On these journeys
Sources
Histories of Carnatic music; Dikshitar composition traditions and temple histories.
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