British composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934) has been known until today for one single orchestral work: The Planets, a suite of seven movements dedicated to different planets of the solar system. He composed it during World War I, years before Pluto was discovered in 1930. In 2000, a composer by the name of Colin Matthews added an extra movement of "Pluto" to the suite. Poor fellow, he must have been very disappointed last week when the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet, bringing the number of planets in the solar system down to eight. Anyway, Holst's composition was in fact not so much motivated by astronomy as by astrology. Inspired by Indian spiritualism, Holst, incidentally of Latvian-Russian descent, learnt Sanskrit in his lifetime and also composed a number of works based on stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata as well as hymns from Rig Veda. He was also a vegetarian. One reference he used while composing The Planets was a book by the astrologer Alan Leo, known for introducing Indian astrology into western astrology.

And talking about Indian astrology, let us now turn to another musical work that came to the world long before Holst composed The Planets - I'm talking about the Navagraha Kritis by Muthuswamy Dikshitar. It uses all the suladi sapta talas that carnatic students have to learn by heart in their theory lessons - dhruva, matya, rupaka and so on. I don't know what to say about the ragas since they all sound unfamiliar to me. And I'm anything but an expert in astrology, I can't do an in-depth comparison between the astrological meanings in Holst's suite and the Navagraha kritis, but I shall make a few interesting observations on similarities. First of all, Mars represents a god of war in Roman astrology as well as Vedic astrology. The song Angarakamasrayami sings of the one with red limbs, red dress and red eyes, bearing the sword and trident. Holst opened his suite with the dramatic and militant "Mars, The Bringer of War". Secondly, the popular piece "Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity" with its fanfare evokes magnificence of a cosmic space like a sci-fi movie. Guru in Indian astrology is the most auspicious planet and the exultant song Bruhaspathe sings of the bestower of vigour and an ocean of compassion. Mercury is the Winged Messenger in The Planets and what corresponds in the Navagraha kritis is the song Budhamasrayami describing the one with book in hand, bestower of the sweet art of poetry. It happens to be a favourite piece of mine here, seems to evoke a mystical or contemplative sense of wisdom.

Incidentally scholars have come to believe with regards to the Navagraha kritis that the last two songs in rupaka talam on Rahu and Ketu are spurious additions to Dikshitar's original Vara kritis. To me they are not so interesting anyway since they do not represent astronomical planets, but the north and south nodes of the moon - go figure out their significance only if you are charting your horoscope.