Arunachala Kavi

Arunachala Kavi (1711–1779) was a Tamil poet and a composer of Carnatic music. He was born in Tillaiyadi, which was formerly part of Thanjavur District and is now located in Mayiladuthurai district in Tamil Nadu. The three Tamil composers Arunachala Kavi, Muthu Thandavar and Marimutthu Pillai are considered the Tamil Trinity, who contributed to the evolution of Carnatic music. He composed the famous opera Rama Natakam.

Life His father died when he was 12, and during that time he went to Dharmapuram Adheenam to continue his studies in Sanskrit and Tamil. The head of Mutt was so pleased with him and even considered making Arunchala as his successor. At 18, Arunachala left the Mutt and continued his studies in Tamil for another 12 years. He got married at the age of 30 in a place called Karuppur and earned his livelihood by setting up a jeweller's shop.

He wanted to buy gold at a cheaper rate, therefore he travelled to Pondicherry. On his way, he stopped at Seerkazhi, and found a branch of Dharmapuram Mutt. The head was his old colleague named Chidambaram. Chidamabaram convinced him and his family to settle in Seerkaazhi. Therefore, he got the name Seerkaazhi AruNaachala Kavi. Arunachala lived a major part of his active life in the town Seerkazhi. As he was running a jeweller shop, this not only provided him with a good living, but also with a fair amount of leisure to pursue his literary studies. Just as he was good at “estimating the fineness of the precious metal, he was equally proficient at estimating the worth of the literary works.” Two books were most liked by him — The Tirukkural of Tiruvalluvar and The Kambar's Ramavataram, While the former was only a book of ethics, the latter gave the same in the form of a story which would be more appealing to the common man.

Arunachala Kavi's Rama-Natakam

Srirangam Ranganathaswamy temple was the place where both the Kambar's Ramavataram and Arunachala Kavirayar's Rama Natakam were composed in this Temple.

Arunachala Kavi was fluent in Tamil, and Sanskrit. He wrote Rama Natakam, a musical drama based on the Ramayana. Kavirayar was fascinated by the Ramayana so much that he wanted to impart the story and the good lessons preached by it to a large number of persons who could not obviously read the entire epic in original. He gave a number of discourses on the epic. Two of his disciples, Venkataraman Iyer and Kodandaraman Iyer who were very proficient in music, requested him to compose songs from Kambar's Ramavataram. Some of his famous compositions of Ramanatakam are still popular today like Annai Jaanaki vandale (Saveri), Enpalli kondir iyya (Mohanam), Yaro ivar yaro (Bhairavi or Saveri), Kanden Kanden Sitayai (Vasantha), Ramanai Kannara Kandane (Mohanam), RAmanukku mannan muDi (Anandabhairavi) and many more.