South India in the 18 century was a place where music blossomed and flourished into a mighty tree from the deep roots of past knowledge. In the course of the next two centuries we saw the emancipation of music in the form of Trimurtis, Saint Tyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri. Among the Musical Trinity, Muthuswamy Dikshitar was the youngest and was considered as one of the pillars of Karnatic Music. He was a great scholar, astrologer, Tantrik, and above all a great vaggeyakara and had enriched the rich treasury of Karnatic Music with his large number of compositions apart from group kritis. The great literary heritage brought through these compositions have been applauded from every quarters, both by Sanskrit scholars and Musical giants. This is the third in the series of Golden Treasury series of compositions of great composers. Our earlier books on Saint Tyagaraja and Maharaja Swathi Tirunal have been well received and this led to my editing this book on Muthuswamy Dikshitar. Though it would have been appropriate to include all compositions of Dikshitar, looking to the immensity of the task and voluminous size of the book, the present edition has been prepared comprising 38 songs of the composer. We have kept in mind the importance of the compositions, looking to the variety of ragas, literary importance of the composition, popularity of the kriti, and simplicity of the compositions. An extensive introduction on Muthuswamy Dikshitar has been included giving the achievements, literary heritage, importance of the group kritis and his contribution to Karnatic music. We hope this introduction will make the reader to understand the greatness of Muthuswami Dikshitar and his compositions. We have also included an index containing a comprehensive list of compositions of Muthuswamy Dikshitar.
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