sthala puranam

[Guest guest]

I have sthala puranams on Ahobilam, Attigir (works in English), Ayodhya (bad

English), Srivilliputtur (one English, one Tamil), Tiruccherai,

Tirukkovalur, Tirukkutantai, Tirumaliruncholai (Alagar Koyil, not a good

source), Tirunaraiyur (2 different Tamil ones), Tiruvallikkeni (one

English, two Tamil + one souvenir on the adhyapaka goshti), Tiruvanantapuram

(English), Srirangam (many) Tiruvayintapuram, Tiruvenkatam (many),

Tiruvinnagar (standard one in Tamil). On Abhimana sthalams, I have

Madurantakam, Mannarkudi, Srimushnam, Sriperambudur and Vaduvur. The

bibliographic details are under the sub heading of Sthala Puranams in my

bibliography in The Vernacular Veda: Revelation, Recitation and Ritual. I

bought most of them during my visits -- I have now had the fortune of going

to 70+ of the divya deshas. Where possible, I also took notes on nitya

anusandhanam differences. I was also allowed to take photographs in some

temples (Anbil, Nandipura Vinnagaram, Terezhundur (our kula dhanam),

Tiruvellarai, Thayar at Koyiladi, Tiruvedandai, et al. purely for research

and private devotional use (they were afraid of public dissemination through

calendars and so on). In some temples the bhattars would bring me

photographs from their houses. I can make them available for the data base,

but do not know about the ethcs/copyright of other people's photographs that

were given to me. I had copied the whole set and donated them to the

Atlanta temple. They made them available for Vaarshika utsavam at Atlanta

temple two years back by putting them on a videotape with the short intro

(in writing) I gave to each picture, describing the sthalam and a reference

to the alvar who did the mangalaasaasanam. This was then run continuously

for three days on a vcr during the celebrations. Since I'm towards the end

of the semester, with heavy grading to be done plus a lot of travelling for

conferences, if you can give me time till summer, I can describe the

pictures/sthalapuranams/and /or the various cassettes on the Divya

prabandham that I have. This depends on your interest, of course. I also

have several privately commissioned and commercial versions of the Divya

Prabandham (about 60 volumes, could be up to 80 I think). THese include

recitation and singing; Veenai Rengarajan who does the ekantam at the

Srirangam temple did one or two with his family, with the songs he generally

sings during the ekantam at Ra Pattu tirunaals.

I also have the raw footage of about 8 videos of the festivals at

Srirangam (87-90 done by the studios they authorize). These include

Vaikunta Ekadasi, Thayar Festivals, Chitirai festivals etc. Because it is

hard to note all the details while observing them-- sometimes one is caught

in the emotion of the moment -- I went back to these videos to fill in th

details for the research. These videos are of uneven quality, (some are

really bad copies, some very good); no commentary. Just natural sounds that

emanate from the crowds etc. While I am glad to share these riches with all

bhaktas, I am nervous about the ethics and copyright issues. Obviously this

won't matter for short sthala puranams and the pictures I took-- it's only

the videos and photos that I bought that I would be worried about. But I'd

be delighted to share them.

Best wishes, Vasudha Narayanan

[smulchandani]

Hi i know its been a long while since this post. but am very inteersted in the sthala puranas that you have. are they in english, would you be willing to share them with me? would it be possible to contact you on an email??

sandhya mulchandani