A common occurrence in the world of science and art is plagiarism. Interestingly, the reverse happening is also known to occur in the world of art. Instead of attempting to steal the creations of another person, the creators of a piece of art pass it off as that of another. One motivation for this may just be the desire to see one's work achieve greater fame and popularity! For a relatively unknown person, this is aided by ascribing one's work to someone who is already famous and popular. Of course, this results in the real creator remaining anonymous, except in the circumstances when this event is detected; hence the infrequency of such an event.

In this article, we list some compositions that are ascribed to the three most famous composers of Carnatic music (the Trinity) which are now believed to be composed by others, or, of dubious or controversial authorship.

While such misattributions also occur with earlier composers who worked prior to the Trinity, two problems arise in dealing with these. First is the lack or paucity of data; even when sources are available, they are often fragmented and conflicting. Second is the lack of authentic versions (padantara-s) due to the absence of a lineage of disciples originating from the composer. This casts doubt on the tunes to which these compositions are sung. In many cases, we actually have evidence that the lyrics were set to music by latter-day artistes. The best compositions in Carnatic music are the handwork of a single individual; this makes them an organic whole, consisting of both the lyrics (vak or datu) and the tune (geya or matu), often with intrinsic variations (sangati-s). It is for this reason that the great composers of Carnatic music are known as vaggeyakara-s, the creators of words and tunes. Thus, cases where the tune and words come from different sources are of less interest when pursuing questions of authenticity since the composition is already of mixed parentage.

In this article, we do not deal with post-Trinity composers due to two reasons. Firstly, the compositions of recent-day composers are well documented, often published, and there is very little scope for misattribution. Second, in the period following the Trinity, there was an enormous increase in the number of composers whose compositions are available to us. Dealing with all of them is a major task that goes beyond the scope of an article.

There are relatively few compositions, original or otherwise, ascribed to Syama Sastry. Most books mention about 45 compositions of his, mostly kriti-s, except for two varnam-s and three swarajati-s. However, in her book on Syama Sastri’s compositions ("Syama Sastri’s Compositions", Smt Vidya Shankar, Parampara Publisherss, Madras, Third Edition 1989), Smt. Vidhya Shankar provides the words with detailed musical notation for about 70 compositions. She learnt these kriti-s from her guru, also named Syama Sastry and the great grandson of the composer himself. Interestingly, these 70 kriti-s include several compositions in Tamil and one on Lord Muruga! The standard collections of Syama Sastry’s compositions are all addressed to the Goddess Parvati and include only one composition in Tamil (tarunam idamma in gaulipantu). Some musicians and musicologists have questioned the authenticity of these additional compositions (unearthed by Smt Vidyashankar) on somewhat flimsy grounds, usually based on statements like "my guru told me that Syama Sastry composed only one kriti in Tamil". In the absence of concrete evidence to the contrary, and in view of the solid lineage from which Smt. Vidhya Shankar learned her songs, there is little reason to doubt the authenticity of the compositions she lists in her book. I have also heard that Subbarama Dikshitar, the author of the monumental work on music, Sangeeta Sampradaya Pradarshini, was contemplating a compendium of one hundred compositions of Syama Sastry when he died! This would lead us to believe that many of Syama Sastry's compositions are lost.

As the composer whose creations form the bedrock of the modern Carnatic music concert, Tyagaraja has many compositions ascribed to him. Fortunately, in many cases, we also know the original composer. Among the more prominent of these are the compositions of K. V. Srinivasa Iyengar, the brother of the legendary Tiger Varadachariar (both lived during the earlier part of this century). His well known pieces are the harikambhoji kriti, vinatasuta (not to be confused with the kriti in jayantasena starting with the same words), and the two famous kriti-s in simhendramadhyamam, natajana and needucharanamule. In May 1986, at a lecture demonstration in Bangalore, organized by the Indian Institute of World Culture in collaboration with the Karnataka Gana Kala Parishad, the Tirumale Sisters claimed that the hamsadwani kriti, sri raghukula was also a composition of K. V. Srinivasa Iyengar. (This was reported in the magazine, Sruti.) Despite the composer's public admission, many people still think that these kriti-s were composed by Tyagaraja, in part because they contain the word Tyagaraja (the great bard’s mudra) in the charanam.

There are a few other kriti-s which are attributed to Tyagaraja and whose composers are known: diname sudiname in latangi, a composition of Visaloor Gireesa Iyer; paramukhamelara in suruti and abimanamennadu in vivardhani, compositions of Mannargudi Rajagopala Iyer; vedalanu kodandapani in todi, a composition of Tanjavur Krishna Bhagavatar. In the last case, it is reported that the song was altered by some other person, who introduced the Tyagaraja mudra and began singing it. When Krishna Bhagavatar came to know of this, he resented it and publicly objected to it.

Then, there are some kriti-s that are attributed to Tyagaraja, whose composers are unknown, but there are reasons to doubt that these are compositions of Tyagaraja. In some cases, there are no good reasons but their authorship has been under dispute for a while.

An example is the kriti saraseeruha in amritavarshini. This kriti, which is listed as a composition of Tyagaraja in the second volume of the "Kritimanimalai" (song #347), the book by Rangaramanuja Iyengar. This composition is also apparently listed in a book on Tyagaraja's compositions by Jagannatha Rao. Given that amritavarshini is a raga that is believed to be a creation of Dikshitar, and given the relative abundance of examples of raga-s where only one of the two composers have composed kriti-s, (Examples: raga-s like kharaharapriya, harikamboji and deepakam that Tyagaraja has utilized but Dikshitar has not, and raga-s like padi, samanta and jothi, which Dikshitar used and resurrected in many cases, but Thyagaraja avoided.) it seems quite plausible that this is a spurious composition.

Other such kriti-s are neeku sarievvare in manirangu, abhishta varade in hamsadhvani, maravairi ramani in nasikabhushani, and sundaratara deham in pantuvarali.

T.S.Parthasarathy, in his book on Tyagaraja kriti-s, has added some songs in an Appendix. This lists kriti-s which are found only in the collection of one lineage of disciples and not in that of the others. These include sri gananatham in kanakangi, kalasavardhijam in ratnangi, ganamurthe in ganamurthi, sadhamathim in gambiravani and rara phanisayana in harikamboji. Due to the above-mentioned reason (and although T.S. Parthasarathy himself has not said so), some scholars have suggested that these may be spurious, though in my opinion the evidence is not sufficient to lead to that conclusion. That the suspicions were raised during an era when vivadi raga-s were not considered auspicious and vidwan-s were suggesting that they be "banned" also suggest that the kriti-s may indeed be Tyagaraja's.

We now come to the youngest member of the Trinity, Muttuswami Dikshitar. Thanks to the efforts of people like Subbarama Dikshitar, the author of the "Sangeeta Sampradaya Pradarshini", and Sundaram Iyer, the author of the series of books with Dikshitar kriti-s, "Sri Dikshitar Kirtanamala", we have a list of over 450 kriti-s of Muttuswami Dikshitar available to us. Despite this, several spurious kriti-s are popularly assumed to be his.

The most common among these are the kriti-s of Ambi Dikshitar, the son of Subbarama Dikshitar and the grandson of Muttuswami Dikshitar. He used the mudra guruguha, the same as that of his grandfather. About 12 kriti-s of his are mentioned in Sundaram Iyer's book. Perhaps the most famous of these is gananathaya in gaula. Some compositions of Subbarama Dikshitar are also occasionally mistaken for Muttuswami Dikshitar's; an example is kantimatim in kalyani, which was sung often by Smt. T. Brinda and Smt. T. Mukta. There is also some confusion about the composition, rama rama in ramakali. This is mentioned as a composition of Muttuswami Dikshitar in Sundaram Iyer's book whereas Subbarama Dikshitar claims it as his own in his Sangeeta Sampradhaya Pradarshini (the Tamil edition). Some knowledgeable musicians like T.Viswanathan consider this to be Muttuswami Dikshitar's composition.

A commonly sung Dikshitar kriti that is not mentioned in any book that I have seen is sri ranganatham in poornachandrika. The more authentic kriti of Dikshitar in this raga is sankuchakra. This is set to an archaic form of poornachandrika. It was Thyagaraja who created two different raga-s from this older form - janaranjani and the modern poornachandrika. The latter is exemplified by Thyagaraja's twin compositions, telisi rama and palukavemina. Comparing sri ranganatham and sankuchakra, one is led to suspect the authenticity of the former's tune, if not the composition itself. Other kriti-s bearing the guruguha mudra but which are not mentioned in any books are sri venkatesam in kalyanavasantam (sung by Maharajapuram Santhanam) and gopikavasantam in mohanam (sung by T.M.Thyagarajan).

Another curious case is the kriti gananayakam. All the books I have seen mention this kriti as being set to rudrapriya, which indeed is a raga that was explored in detail by Dikshitar in kriti-s like sri tyagarajasya and rudrakopa. However, all renditions of this kriti by artistes that I have heard (D.K.Jayaraman, N. Ravikiran, Nedunuri Krishnamurthy, M.L.Vasanthakumari) perform this in purnashadjam, and to the exact same tune as Thyagaraja's kriti in the same raga, sri manini. This would lead us to the conclusion that the tune of this kriti has been altered. The confusions which existed in the earlier part of this century about some pairs of raga-s, like rudrapriya and purnashadjam, vasanta and lalita, and, suddha dhanyasi and udayaravichandrika, has probably also contributed to this mix-up.

To our knowledge, Dikshitar has only utilised the kriti form. Yet, the todi varnam, rupamu juchi, is often ascribed to him. Musicologists like B.M.Sundaram claim that this is actually a kriti of Tiruvarur Ramaswami Pillai, a disciple of Ramaswami Dikshitar. This would also explain the use of Telugu - a language that Muttuswami Dikshitar never composed any kriti-s in. (There are a couple of instances of Telugu words appearing in his Manipravala kriti-s like sri abhayamba in sri raga).

B.M.Sundaram also claims that the last two navagraha kriti-s, maramyaham (on rahu) in the raga ramamanohari, and mahasuram (on ketu) in the raga chamaram, are compositions of Baluswami Dikshitar and Tiruvarur Veeraswami Nattuvanar, a disciple of Muttuswami Dikshitar. This is not generally accepted.

The purpose of this article is to clear up some confusions, and to introduce them in other cases where there was previously none, in the hope that these will be cleared by future work. Another purpose is to assure that the credit for various compositions goes to the real composers. Any clarifications or feedback would be appreciated.