On the 23rd, we drive to Thanjavur, which is a nice drive with good roads, except for the sections where there is no road surface at all–just dirt and potholes. It reminded us of the roads on Himalayan Acres… It had been raining very hard throughout this area for the past several weeks–evidenced by the extensively flooded rivers and rice paddies. However, it all cleared up upon our arrival. This photo is taken at the Saraswati Mahal Library, part of the Tanjavore Palace. It houses an immense collection of palm leaves.

Mu Devrayan, our photographer for Hinduism Today, accompanied us on the trip for four days. Here he is checking his camera settings prior to taking pictures of a leaf. In January he will return to the Institute for a week-long trial shoot of important manuscripts.

This is a chart at the Saraswati Mahal Library showing the evolution of the Tamil Alphabet.

This is a closeup of the first vowels. From what we saw in the demonstration in palm leaves, the alphabet change to a more rounded shape because that was easier to scribe on the leaves. Difficult to do sharp corners.

A bundle of leaves

Here we are talking to a resident pundit who is able to still scribe the leaves. Here he is explaining how it was done.

A sharp pointed stylus is held in the right hand, and set in a notch cut in the thumbnail of the left hand. The right hand applies pressure, the left thumb guides. With practice, one can write very small and very fast.

He demonstrates the method.

The tool also includes a knife for cutting the leaves to shape.

The sample–the first two words of the Tirukkural–as

“Akaa mutal…”

A is the first and source of all the letters. Even so is
God Primordial the first and source of all the world.

The leaves and tools. The middle tool is also used to scribe, but we did not understand quite how it was used.

Here one of the librarians explains their collection.

This is a book of fabrics, with actual samples.

The library is quite extensive, much larger than the Pondicherry collection. However, it does not contain any significant number of Saiva manuscripts.

There are many Vaishnava manuscripts, also other scriptures, medical texts, even land records.

These are three-foot long leaves which are land records.

After we left Pondicherry, we returned along the coast road, which naturally took us to Chidambaram where we enjoyed a personal archana at the same time the spatika lingam puja was taking place. It was a powerful spiritual moment! Here we are with Anantanatarajan Deekshita and his son Gurumurthi. In back are Manikavel and his wife.

A cool and bright tropical day on Kauai, so we took a walk over to the Orchid Mandapam. On the way we spotted a new garden one of the monks created this retreat. It is called “Anthurium Arcade.”

It has seven mounds defined by a square of coconut tree trunks. In each mound is a GIANT anthurium. Well, they are not that big today as they were just planted, but in the years ahead each will be taller than a man. This is just a few feet away from Umbrella Ganesha.

Nearby rests a turtle. Wait, that’s not a turtle. It’s the famed and oh-so-rare, never-saw-that-before Turtle Vine from South America. Officially, it is known as Dioscorea macrostachya and is a member of the yam family of plants.

Mr. and Mrs. Shah arrived yesterday and said they worshipped Siva through fire. This morning they chanted Sri Rudram together in Kadavul during the puja then took their traveling yagna pot to the orchid mandapam to perform an hour long ceremony.

Ghee is offered into the fire after each chant. We took a few seconds of video so you could hear their sacred verses. The chanted the famed “Mrityunjaya Mantra” over and over again for one hour, while making their offerings to Agni.