(fl c1630). South Indian poet, musician and musical scholar. The son of Govinda Dīksita, a minister of the Nāyak rulers of Thanjavur, he became the minister of the king Vijayarāghava Nāyak (reigned 1633–73) and wrote the Sanskrit music-theoretical treatise Caturdandīprakāśikā at his bidding. The title of this work, which survives only in part, refers to a system of four divisions of composition, namely ālāpa (rhythmically free exposition of a rāga), thāya (melodic inflection), gīta (vocal composition in a rāga) and prabandha (a compositional structure). The work uses a scheme of 19 mela, classificatory scales under which the current south Indian rāgas could be accommodated. The system closely resembles that of Rāmāmātya in his Svaramelakalānidhi, though not in every detail. Venkatamakhin is credited (perhaps erroneously) with the invention of the system of 72 melakartā, much as was in use in Karnatic music of the late 20th century and became current from the late 17th century. The system is worked out in a text appended to the Madras edition of the Caturdandīprakāśikā. It seems that Venkatamakhin considered only a limited number of these scales to be practically useful in classifying rāgas.
Caturdandīprakāśikā, ed. D.K. Joshi and B.S. Sukthankar (Poona, 1918)
Caturdandīprakāśikā, ed. S. Subrahmanya Sastri, T.V. Subba Rao and T.L. Venkatarama Aiyar (Madras, 1934)
V. Raghavan: ‘Later Sangīta Literature’, Journal of the Music Academy, Madras, iv (1933), 62–4
V. Raghavan: ‘Venkatamakhin and the 72 Melas’, Journal of the Music Academy, Madras, xii (1941), 67–79
S. Seetha: Tanjore as a Seat of Music (Madras, 1981)
N. Ramanathan: ‘Influence of Śāstra on Prayoga: the Svara System in the Post-Sangītaratnākara Period with Special Reference to South Indian Music’, The Traditional Indian Theory and Practice of Music and Dance, ed. J.B. Katz (Leiden, 1992), 75–105
JONATHAN KATZ