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A library of Tamil palmyra manuscripts-Thankyou Sreenadh !

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Dear Sreenadh, Thankyou very much for providing the extremely useful link .If not now, atleast in future, it will be useful. Once again Thanking you Best Regards Madhu N Nair Sreenadh <sreesog wrote: Dear Madhu ji,Please read the following article appeared in chennaionline.com. If possible please go there and collect the ancient astrological treeties that may benefit us. I have copied and pasted the article from the following page. http://www.chennaionline.com/cityfeature/manu.aspLove,Sreenadh====================================================A library of palmyra

manuscripts --------------------------------Uththamadhanapuram Venkatasubramanian Swaminathan. Does this name mean anything? Millions of Tamils and Tamil lovers all over the world know this name. Only in a different way, by the initials. U Ve Sa is the way he is known. Yes. The very same grand old Tamil savant who spent all his life time in collecting ancient Tamil literature written on palmyra leaves a large part of which was eaten away by termites, burnt by the ignorant, lost in exchange for mirrors and hurricane lamps. But for him, we would not have come to know of our rich cultural heritage. In his efforts to publish the ancient Tamil literature, he travelled far and wide and collected numerous copies of palmyra leaves. In fact an astounding amount of them. The U Ve Sa Library on the Arundel Beach Road, Thiruvanmiyur in the Besant Theosophical Society campus houses all of them in well rows and rows of

almirahs.The library is situated in a very placid atmosphere. The façade of the library is resembles a temple. An apt design for a temple of wisdom. As we enter the library, a statue of U Ve Sa smiles at us, the presiding deity of this temple of wisdom. On the right side we have an impressive portrait of U Ve Sa. Photographs of his parents, his guru Mahavidhwan Meenakshisundaram Pillai, Ambalavana Adigal adorn the walls, along with a number of other Tamil scholars. An almirah displays 92 books, published by U Ve Sa from the collected palmyra manuscripts as well as the ones that were written by him. Another contains the articles that he used for his puja, his research scripts etc.The library has thousands of well preserved original scripts on palmyra leaves, besides books in printed form. M. Phil. Students, research scholars and those who have Tamil as a subject in their IAS exams frequent the library

to access the most valuable information. The library provides a calm atmosphere, enabling all visitors to read and take notes from the rarest of rare books. However, the books are not lent for being taken out of the library. It is understandable. These books are irreplaceable. It is very difficult to preserve palmyra leaves. They are periodically treated with oil obtained from lemon grass, to protect them from insects and from becoming brittle.Maha Mahopadhyaya U V Swaminatha Iyer was teaching Tamil in Kumbakonam Government College, when he met Salem Ramaswamy Mudaliar. Ramaswamy Mudaliar had a manuscript of Seevaka Sindhamani written on palmyra leaves and was struggling to understand the poetry, as it was full of expressions relating to the Samana Samayam (Jain religion). His conversations with U Ve Sa challenged the Tamil scholar in him. However, U Ve Sa could not decipher the peculiar expressions, specific to

Jains. He could not stop himself afterwards, from seeking the help of various people spread all over Tamil Nadu in understanding its meaning. He was able to learn all the intricate details of Seevaka Sindhamani from a lady, wife of Gunapala Chettiar. Thus started his first ever attempt to publish an ancient Tamil book. A staunch saivite publishing a samana religious book as a first attempt. At one time both religions were at loggerheads. That was a good beginning. It led to the publication of a number of ancient Tamil literature like Pathu Paatu, Pura Naanooru, Pari Padal, Pathitru Pathu, Kurun Thokai, Silappadhikaram, Manimekalai and a whole lot of cultural treasure that would have been lost for ever. It was due to his efforts that we are able to so easily have access to our ancient times. In the times of U Ve Sa, scholars who had studied these rare collections were rarer than white elephants. Even his own

guru, Meenakshisundaram Pillai did not have the opportunity to study the Sangam Classics, due to their non-availability. U Ve Sa did a superhuman job of collecting, comparing, proof reading, correcting, indexing and publishing the works. Then there were a number of pieces that are known as `idai serugal'. The palmyra leaf manuscripts had to be copied and preserved at least a 150 to 200 years once. During the process of such copying, the scholar who did the work would naturally be influenced by the work that he is copying and would add a verse or so of his own to the original work. Identification of such pieces, which found their way into the original manuscript, was a massive task and U Ve Sa did it wonderfully well. Authenticity was his watchword. U Ve Sa was born on 19.2.1855 in Sooriya moolai, a village in Thanjavur district. He was born in a family of musicians. He even gave up the learning and practising

of music (he learnt music from Gopalakrishna Bharati) for the sake of learning Tamil from Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai, as his guru was against his learning music. He lived for Tamil right until his death – on 27.4.1942. Out of the 93 years of his life more than 85 years were spent in learning and teaching Tamil and collecting and publishing ancient works.After his death, his son Kalyanasundaram, in an attempt to preserve the works that his father collected with love and unimaginable amount of effort, wanted to establish an organisation. For, preservation of these manuscript was the real way of preserving the memories of U Ve Sa. Smt Rukmani Devi, member of the Brahma Gnana Sabha and the founder of Kalakshetra, allotted a large hall in the Brahma Gnana Sabha campus for the purpose of starting the manuscript library, in 1943. The library functioned in that place till about 1963. It was then felt that this

library should be housed in a building of its own. With the grants from Government and donations from Tamil lovers, the present building was constructed and the library is functioning here from 1967. There are a total of 24,600 books available here comprising the books published by U Ve Sa and those published by the library as well as those donated by public. There are around 1555 palmyra leaf manuscripts available in the library. The library proposes to bring out new editions and publish hitherto unknown works, collected by U Ve Sa, based on the annotations left by him.====================================================

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