One of our viewer form Trinidad and Tobago writes English Poetry based on Sanskrit-Hindi literature.
The following for Lord Siva, based on the famous Maha Mrtyunjaya Mantra, from the Rig Veda, found in the Sri Rudram
Trayambakam Yajamahe
Upon the tresses of life’s fragrant breath,
Came Love, Compassion,
And the bliss of Realisation;
As I came to know that all these three,
Are the soft beautiful eyes of Mahadeva,
For He is Trayambakam;
The beautiful one of three eyes,
And Yajamahe;
We worship him with all our hearts,
Sugandhim, pushti and vardhanam,
He pervades the universe with His sweetness;
He nourishes all and sustains everything.
Oh Lord, my God of Gods,
Open my heart and release my soul,
Lift me to the heights of devotion to You,
As we tread our path of BhaktiKarmaGyana,
Give us liberation and free us from death,
Mrtyor mukshiya mamritat,
Just like a ripe fruit
Is snapped from its stem,
Quickly, effortlessly and with consummate ease:
Urvarukam iva bandhanan;
Give us Realisation of the Brahman,
The permanent reality of the universe,
Grant us Your Sat, Chitta and Annand,
That we may be free in life,
To live the bliss of Your Realisation,
And always worship at Your Lotus feet,
With all our heart and all our love,
Om Shri Trayambakaya Namah.

Scribe Day? Yes, this is the day each quarter when our cenobitic editors have to submit their articles for the magazine. Then we have four working days to make our final edits and color corrections and such before Scroll Day. Scroll Day is when the PDFs go off to our printer in Minnesota. Get it? Scribe is the writer and scroll is the printer. Gurudeva never like the word deadline, so we have positive names that won't keep a monk awake at night if he is behind schedule.

After it's all off to the printer, we go to work and repurpose the files for our website, and then send the PDFs to India to be ePubed, then send another set to Delhi for the India Edition, then send Pub Desk to seven translators for porting to other languages, then.... you get the idea.

The monks have an official Fictionary, a place to honor and preserve those creative moments when the tongue and the brain conspire to create a new word that really should be in the dictionary, but isn't. We offer today our latest entries, and we welcome Fictionary entries from you. We will keep them, use them, be entertained by them. 

thyping: typing with two thumbs, the new form of the now antiquated typing.

projectory:  The arc along which projections move

bloomy: adjective to describe a plant that is in full flower.

simplicated: taking something complex and making it simple

conduce (vt) - to be conducive.  Example:  I have read that peanuts do not conduce to tooth decay.

sbaw (adj., usually enclosed in parentheses) - actually a lowercased acronym for "should be a word."  Example:  I have read that peanuts do not conduce (sbaw) to tooth decay.

Holycowiferous: The famed expletive in adjectival form

Venture philanthropist: A savvy person of means who strategically invests in projects (especially non-profit initiatives) expecting the returns to not be monetary, but dharmic and karmic.

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A computer disk drive containing the Saiva Agamas from the archives of the French Institute of Pondicherry, which was arduously electronically compiled by Kauai Saiva Aadheenam, arrived in Nallur, Sri Lanka. 

This gem, containing over a million photos - including most of the Saiva Agama scriptures - was made available at the All Ceylon Hindu Congress (ACHC) Jaffna Branch in Nallur. A special computer has been dedicated for this and now scholars and priests can use this electronic library for their research and study.

There was a grand celebration to receive these scriptures at Nallur. The Saiva Agama computer disk drive was taken on a  procession with Nathaswaram, drum and dancers that began at the Nallur Sivan Temple and went around the Nallur Murugan Temple and onto the Hindu Congress building at the Temple Road in Nallur. Hundreds of devotees attended the event including the Head of Nallai Adheenam, the Deputy Indian High Commissioner to Jaffna, and priests, university professors and scholars.

ACHC President, Mr. K. Neelakandan, presided over the event, and I had the great privilege of handing over the Saiva Agama computer disk drive to Hindu Research Center Director, Dr. Aru Thirumurugan. 

Deputy Indian High commissioner, Hon. V. Mahalingam, in his speech stated how happy he was that the Agamas from the Institute were now electronically available to the Jaffna people and he thanked Kauai Adheenam and the ACHC for making this possible.

Former head of the Hindu Culture Department at Jaffna University, Prof. Gopalakrishna Iyar in his speech noted that he had travelled to the Institute many years ago to perform research. He explained how important the study of the Agamas had been and how valuable it is that now those who wish to study them can do so right in Nallur!

In my speech, I explained that saving the Saiva Agamas in digital format was a vision of Gurudeva Sivaya Subramuniyaswami; this enormous task - which took over 2 years using the most modern technology - was successfully completed by Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami and the monks of Kauai Adheenam. Four hard working Indian youth were hired, to do the copying of the decaying and fragile ola leaves and other manuscripts.  Currently,  a team in India is working hard to index the Agamas; after this, researchers can easily search the Agamas in this Electronic Library.

We also dedicated a Saiva Agama Electronic Library at the ACHC headquarters in Colombo for the use of these Agamas in the south of Sri Lanka. Like Nallur, the city of Colombo also held a grand celebration to receive the Saiva Agamas. (I am enclosing some photos taken in Colombo and Jaffna for you to enjoy). When I took the Saiva Agama hard drive to Sri Lanka, I did not have a clue they would be so joyously received. How much value the Saiva Agamas will be to the priesthood and the academic community remains to be seen, but our expectations are high. My sincere thanks go to Gurudeva and Satguru Bodhinatha for the monumental accomplishment -preserving the Agamas for generations to come. 

Aum Shanthi,
Rishi Thondunathan

Amongst everything else, something very interesting and quite momentous has been happening quietly behind the scenes at the monastery the past few weeks. A devotee has come forward to inspire us to have an audiobook created for The Guru Chronicles.

There is something about hearing stories being read to you, hearing teachings being taught to you. We knew the book was important and would have a positive and important effect on the world, especially to the children and grandchildren of Yogaswami devotees worldwide who have struggled for the past half century to grasp who Yogaswami is, and now to the students coming forward seeking membership in Saiva Siddhanta Church and even to enter the renunciate life at Kauai Aadheenam, but who did not know Gurudeva in person. What we didn't know was that there was a missing piece, that an audiobook would make the circle complete. As the project has begun to develop, it has thoroughly inspired Bodhinatha and our publications kulam. Gurudeva's energy is clearly behind it.

When we initially put the call out through a few different channels to find just the right person to voice the text, we were skeptical that we would find someone who could fit the bill. It would, of course, have to be just the right person, with just the right voice and vocal capabilities. We wanted a male voice, raised if not born in America, but of Sri Lankan or Indian descent, with some accent, but not a lot, an approachable voice that is easy to listen to, having the ability to pronounce Sanskrit and Tamil words and names properly and with ease. It seemed a bit of a long-shot to us! We couldn't think of anyone amongst the folks we know, and we know a lot of folks.

Then we got an email back from a pandit who has done some writing for Hinduism Today in the past. He runs a philosophical mailing list. The pandit had received some useful advice from the monastery and sought to give back in some way. He helped by announcing our call on his mailing list. A recipient of the list forwarded the message to one Raj "Roger" Narayan, who immediately wrote to us expressing great interest in the project. We had no idea who he was. When we looked him up, we discovered that he is a Hollywood actor with quite a bit of experience in mainstream and independent TV and movies, and we even recognized him from a few of his roles. It was only after we initially got in touch with him that we then went back over his resumé and noticed something that was masked from our view initially: that his latest project was a lead role in "Clay," a beautiful short film by Sushma Khadepaun-Parmar, a gifted, award-winning indie writer-director who literally had just finished a project for us the same week. She did the new "Introduction to the Monastery" video on our site. What synchronicity?

Raj is young and so full of inspiration for this project. As we have gotten to know him, we have discovered that he is from a traditional Indian Tamil background, born in Sri Rangam and raised in Bangalore and the San Francisco Bay Area. In fact, while working as an engineer in the Bay Area before pursuing his acting career, he occasionally visited our temple in Concord as well as singing and dancing arangetrams of some of our members' children. All this time, it turns out, he has known of the monastery from a distance. It seems that Ganesha and Gurudeva have been drawing him toward the monastery, perhaps for the divine work of voicing The Guru Chronicles audiobook, for many years.

Amazed and inspired by the book, he recorded an audition, reading a selection of pages that we proposed, so we could get a feel for what it would sound like. You can listen to his audition below. Can you imagine hearing the entire book read like that, with such professional skill? With a little guidance, his voice and storytelling abilities will let us all feel like we are sitting around a campfire with him as he tells us the stories, becoming each of the characters in the book, transitioning skillfully from one to the other. The impact that the audio edition of this book will have for generations to come is only something we can imagine as we embark on this project.

This week Raj, his wife Rama and four-month-old son Pratim came to Kauai to meet Bodhinatha and the monks in person, visit Gurudeva's temples, speak with the authors of the book, walk the land that is such an integral part of the book, meditate here and there and absorb the feelings of these real places and stories. It has been an intensive week of conversations, walks, more conversations, test recordings and feedback sessions, all to help him prepare to read the book in his professional home studio in Los Angeles over the next few months.

We hope you all enjoy his audition and look forward to the audiobook edition of The Guru Chronicles as much as we do. Aum Namah Sivaya.

Use the controller below to play the audio.

We are happy to announce that we have completed the migration of the Hindu Lexicon over to our new web site.

See: http://www.himalayanacademy.com/view/lexicon

It took some time... because we ported all the data to a MySQL data base and we are presenting the information through a new modern web application which will be easily re-worked for use on mobile devices. As and additional plus the lexicon is dynamically tied to our web view of books. If you are on the simple web book page format for view, for example, this page in Dancing with Siva (click) you can select a word and if it can be found in the lexicon it will be opened to it's definition. (Note that some of the unicode diacritical words will not work in this environment, but you can copy and paste then into the lexicon search and then they will.)

Feel free to report any bugs with an email to studyhall@hindu.org

We want to thank our Digital Dharma Donors as projects like this take many man hours of programming by skilled, and your donations are what enable us to move forward. Thank you!

The monks of Kauai's Hindu Monastery have spent a lifetime crafting the tools and books, art and literature that convey the profundity of the Sanatana Dharma. Our magazine has reached into the White House, into virtually every major Hindu institution in the world. The resources produced by the monks have touched hundreds of thousands of people, from school kids learning Hindu history to Rotary Clubs seeking to understand their new neighbors.

In recent times our resource-building efforts have shifted toward the web, following the fast-evolving world of communications and publishing. Anyone who has marshaled such an information legacy knows that creating and sharing an articulate and graphically elegant repository of Hinduism is neither easy nor without costs. But we were set on this course by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, and we cannot, and will not, fail to fulfill his vision. We are driven forward by the knowledge that there has never been a greater need. Hindu youth are learning their spiritual ABCs online, and millions of seekers are discovering Hinduism digitally. What they encounter should be sensible, lucid, elegant and thoughtful. That's what our annual fundraising campaign is all about. It's a chance for you to help us to help explain and share Hinduism globally.

Those of us who create free content know the challenges. And one of the challenges, often the greatest, is funding. Most activities at Kauai's Hindu Monastery operate on a donation basis, and when we need money for a project, we raise funds for it. We are strict in the usage of those funds; contributions are only used for the projects for which they are given.

For many years, we have operated under the guiding principle that our many Hindu resources will all be available digitally for free. Yes, we could charge for them, but many who might find them inspiring or needed would simply not pay. But free to the world is not free to us. We have significant costs in running some of Hinduism's leading websites. Plus we want to keep our digital tools sharp and grow our toolbox. We want to engage professionals who know more than we ever will to move us forward in the rapidly advancing field of digital technology. These goals all come with a price tag. It's a modest one, but it is real.

In order to provide it all without charging for downloads, without showing advertisements on our sites, without commercializing our mission, we turn to you for help.

In 2010 we received $60,000 and last year we received $65,000. The goal for this year is $70,000. Our two-month-long Digital Dharma Drive ends on January 31. We hope you will join in helping us meet our goal. In the right hands, and leveraged by the unsalaried work of the monks, these funds will have a profound impact on the future of Hinduism around the world. Please make a donation today to keep our sites strong well into 2013.

Warm greetings this holiday season,

The Editors
Kauai's Hindu Monastery
Himalayan Academy Publications

Click here to donate

It is said that the history of Russia is inextricably tied to Saivism, and many of the youth there are rediscovering these connections. The result: Gurudeva's books are being aggressively translated and published in Russia. If you know a Russian-speaking person, you can share this web resource with them. http://300knig.ru/ezoterika/svitki-iz-lemurii-sadguru-shivajya-subramuniyasvami/