There is a swelling stream of holiday season visitors. It’s always the time of year when whole families come. With schools closed, this is quality time together in a holy place.

This is Selva Subramaniam with his wife, daughter and grandchild. They all live in Toronto. His father was a companion of Kandiah Chettiar.

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END OF PHASE
Today is the last day of our phase.
This edition of TAKA will remain posted
over our coming two-day retreat,
until Dasami Tithi, Sun One, Thursday, December 14th.

Thondunatha is here for a visit after being away for nearly five years. He served as a Sadhaka for about 12 years and now, while working to support his mother and father in Sri Lanka, continues to do good work teaching Tamil children and visiting the elderly in the Sri Lankan community. He had a good long talk this morning with Bodhinatha.

While Yoginathaswami is on pilgrimage to India, the silpies are focusing on some fine detail ornamentation.

There they are detailing the fifth course of the main sanctum.

This is a marvelous new addition…

See the video below for a live show of their work.

The primary focus of the recent trip to India was to move forward the Saiva Agamas project. The main thing that Bodhinatha and Arumugaswami realized was that the first order of business was not to worry about translations just yet, but to get the ola leaves digitized. This and the following photos are of a leaf from a manuscript we have at Kauai Aadheenam, we’re told it is a medical text. We’re experimenting with lighting and focus.

Despite carefully maintaining their condition, deterioration is inevitable and this precious treasure is housed right near the ocean in Pondicherry.

So the next initiative will be a focus on taking digital images of these for posterity.

That’s it for this. We will see you all again in a few days.

Om Namasivaya!