Bodhinatha and Arumugaswami were in Singapore today… meanwhile Arumugaswami has sent some photo collections and we step back now to the 20th in India at the beginning of their mission there.

Arumugaswami writes:

After bit of rest on arrival in India, they met with people hotel lobby. Here is Shankar Nathan (right) we and talked about augmenting Hinduism Today digital edition with video. One idea is to develop short one or two minute pieces for each article, a kind of video summary. Another is to augment articles with audio, for example, if the article mentions vedic chanting to provide a button to play vedic chants, which could go on while the person continued to read the article. We talked about making 10 to 12 minute video versions of the feature articles, based on video we had shot. This is a more complex project. Shankar Nathan is working also on a short Hinduism Today commercial. Altogether, there were a lot of ideas discussed, all within the range of possibility.

We also met that evening with Srinivasan, who is the former head of the Saraswati Mahal Library at Thanjavur, which we will visit shortly.

November 22 we proceed to Pondicherry in the early morning, whizzing down at a 100 km an hour. It was 20 km outside of Chennai before we saw our first cow, which used to roam the streets of Chennai but are now banished to the countryside. We checked in to our hotel and headed for the French Institute. Pictured here is a paper copy of a palm leaf manuscript. Several thousands of these were done about 30 years ago by NR Bhatt, mostly. They are of Saiva Agamas and other scriptures. They are in very neat Devanagiri script, having been copied over from the Grantha script. They are rapidly falling apart, being acid paper and much less durable than the palm leaves. The Muktabodha Indological Research Institute had worked for many months at the institute earlier in the year photographing these manuscripts.

Dr. Sabharatanam, an expert on the Saiva Agamas, came with us to the Institute. Here he holds a small bundle of leaves. There are several dozen styles of the bundles.

From left to right, Nelliappan, Arumugaswami, Dr. Sabharatanam and Ganesan of the French Institute staff examine some leaves.

Here is a copy of the Sukshma Agama.

There is a massive conservation effort underway at the Institute. These bundles have been given new boards and strings. This is a simple job, but must be done with utmost care to neither damage the fragile leaves not mix up their order.

Ganesan explains the paper manuscripts to Bodhinatha.

This is an example of the paper manuscripts.

The working area of the French Institute for the palm leaf collection. Here an expert works on replacing the outside board between which the leaves are bound.

The French Institute sits right on the ocean. The precarious preservation of the leaves became clear to us as we visited. Had the tsunami waves followed a slightly different pattern, the Institute could have been damaged. There is also an extreme danger from fire for the dry leaves.

Our team is joined by Sambhanda Sivachariaya. He has worked for 30 years at the Institute in preservation and cataloging of the collection. Cataloging is another tedious job that requires expert knowledge of Sanskrit and Grantha script to read the manuscripts and make an index of what each bundle contains.

The Institute has several other large departments in addition to the manuscript collection. This is the photo archive, containing hundreds of thousands of photos of South India religious sites. These are cataloged and available for use. The photo department is working hard to get their catalog and the photo collection into the computer and on the web.

Here is a set of leaves that has been coated with lemon oil and is drying before being repacked. If you look closely, you’ll see this set is suffering from considerable damage.

At home on Kauai, today began an new phase with homa and a very busy tour day. Yogi Jivanananda performs the rites today.

Paramacharya Palaniswami presides over the homa.

Bodhinatha’s seat with his Tiruvadi…

Monks chanting Sri Rudram.

Paramacharya give a talk after the homa.

Our photographer surveys some small features inside Kadavul. This multi-bell set give a marvelous sound during pujas.

Stain glass inlays in the ceilings representing the chakra associated with that part of the temple.

Over 100 people today for the phasely tour, in two groups of more than 50 each!

The first Sunday of each month continues to draw more and more devotees to the worship of Lord Ganesha at the Spiritual Park of Saiva Siddhanta Church, Mauritius. For November it has been another memorable event for many…

Many small Ganesha are brought by devotees to be blessed by the shakti of Lord Pancha Mukha Ganapati during the ceremony. Devotees take their murthis home immediately after the ceremony to be lovingly placed on the shrine altar.

A group leads the bhajan….

Many devotees come early to find a seat inside the Mandapam…

They all sing the devotional songs..

The inside group now consists mainly of women….

A few sishyas …..

The kulapatis are seated on the four sides to conduct the Homa…..

As usual hundreds of written prayers dipped in ghee are sent into the homa fire…

One lady giving a testimony….. Her family has been sponsoring the food for this homa.

Kulapati Manon gave a talk drawing from the Yamas and Niyamas…

Lord Ganapati and Satguru Bodhinatha overseeing the whole event.

After the ceremony food is served to all devotees….

….While a group of sishyas help with the cleaning inside the Mandapam.