A library of Tamil palmyra manuscripts

[Guest guest]

Dear Madhu ji,

Please read the following article appeared in chennaionline.com. If

possible please go there and collect the ancient astrological

treeties that may benefit us. I have copied and pasted the article

from the following page.

http://www.chennaionline.com/cityfeature/manu.asp

Love,

Sreenadh

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A library of palmyra manuscripts

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Uththamadhanapuram Venkatasubramanian Swaminathan. Does this name

mean anything? Millions of Tamils and Tamil lovers all over the world

know this name. Only in a different way, by the initials. U Ve Sa is

the way he is known. Yes. The very same grand old Tamil savant who

spent all his life time in collecting ancient Tamil literature

written on palmyra leaves a large part of which was eaten away by

termites, burnt by the ignorant, lost in exchange for mirrors and

hurricane lamps. But for him, we would not have come to know of our

rich cultural heritage. In his efforts to publish the ancient Tamil

literature, he travelled far and wide and collected numerous copies

of palmyra leaves. In fact an astounding amount of them. The U Ve Sa

Library on the Arundel Beach Road, Thiruvanmiyur in the Besant

Theosophical Society campus houses all of them in well rows and rows

of almirahs.

 

The library is situated in a very placid atmosphere. The façade of

the library is resembles a temple. An apt design for a temple of

wisdom. As we enter the library, a statue of U Ve Sa smiles at us,

the presiding deity of this temple of wisdom. On the right side we

have an impressive portrait of U Ve Sa. Photographs of his parents,

his guru Mahavidhwan Meenakshisundaram Pillai, Ambalavana Adigal

adorn the walls, along with a number of other Tamil scholars. An

almirah displays 92 books, published by U Ve Sa from the collected

palmyra manuscripts as well as the ones that were written by him.

Another contains the articles that he used for his puja, his research

scripts etc.

 

The library has thousands of well preserved original scripts on

palmyra leaves, besides books in printed form. M. Phil. Students,

research scholars and those who have Tamil as a subject in their IAS

exams frequent the library to access the most valuable information.

The library provides a calm atmosphere, enabling all visitors to read

and take notes from the rarest of rare books. However, the books are

not lent for being taken out of the library. It is understandable.

These books are irreplaceable. It is very difficult to preserve

palmyra leaves. They are periodically treated with oil obtained from

lemon grass, to protect them from insects and from becoming brittle.

 

Maha Mahopadhyaya U V Swaminatha Iyer was teaching Tamil in

Kumbakonam Government College, when he met Salem Ramaswamy Mudaliar.

Ramaswamy Mudaliar had a manuscript of Seevaka Sindhamani written on

palmyra leaves and was struggling to understand the poetry, as it was

full of expressions relating to the Samana Samayam (Jain religion).

His conversations with U Ve Sa challenged the Tamil scholar in him.

However, U Ve Sa could not decipher the peculiar expressions,

specific to Jains. He could not stop himself afterwards, from

seeking the help of various people spread all over Tamil Nadu in

understanding its meaning. He was able to learn all the intricate

details of Seevaka Sindhamani from a lady, wife of Gunapala Chettiar.

Thus started his first ever attempt to publish an ancient Tamil book.

A staunch saivite publishing a samana religious book as a first

attempt. At one time both religions were at loggerheads.

 

That was a good beginning. It led to the publication of a number of

ancient Tamil literature like Pathu Paatu, Pura Naanooru, Pari Padal,

Pathitru Pathu, Kurun Thokai, Silappadhikaram, Manimekalai and a

whole lot of cultural treasure that would have been lost for ever. It

was due to his efforts that we are able to so easily have access to

our ancient times. In the times of U Ve Sa, scholars who had studied

these rare collections were rarer than white elephants. Even his own

guru, Meenakshisundaram Pillai did not have the opportunity to study

the Sangam Classics, due to their non-availability. U Ve Sa did a

superhuman job of collecting, comparing, proof reading, correcting,

indexing and publishing the works.

 

Then there were a number of pieces that are known as `idai serugal'.

The palmyra leaf manuscripts had to be copied and preserved at least

a 150 to 200 years once. During the process of such copying, the

scholar who did the work would naturally be influenced by the work

that he is copying and would add a verse or so of his own to the

original work. Identification of such pieces, which found their way

into the original manuscript, was a massive task and U Ve Sa did it

wonderfully well. Authenticity was his watchword. U Ve Sa was born on

19.2.1855 in Sooriya moolai, a village in Thanjavur district. He was

born in a family of musicians. He even gave up the learning and

practising of music (he learnt music from Gopalakrishna Bharati) for

the sake of learning Tamil from Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai, as his

guru was against his learning music. He lived for Tamil right until

his death – on 27.4.1942. Out of the 93 years of his life more than

85 years were spent in learning and teaching Tamil and collecting and

publishing ancient works.

 

After his death, his son Kalyanasundaram, in an attempt to preserve

the works that his father collected with love and unimaginable amount

of effort, wanted to establish an organisation. For, preservation of

these manuscript was the real way of preserving the memories of U Ve

Sa. Smt Rukmani Devi, member of the Brahma Gnana Sabha and the

founder of Kalakshetra, allotted a large hall in the Brahma Gnana

Sabha campus for the purpose of starting the manuscript library, in

1943. The library functioned in that place till about 1963.

 

It was then felt that this library should be housed in a building of

its own. With the grants from Government and donations from Tamil

lovers, the present building was constructed and the library is

functioning here from 1967. There are a total of 24,600 books

available here comprising the books published by U Ve Sa and those

published by the library as well as those donated by public. There

are around 1555 palmyra leaf manuscripts available in the library.

The library proposes to bring out new editions and publish hitherto

unknown works, collected by U Ve Sa, based on the annotations left by

him.

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