ELECTRONIC TEXTS OF SCRIPTURES IN TAMIL SCRIPT (FORMATTED PDF FILES)
Photo: Ananda vimaana nilayam and vimaana veN^katesvara, tirumalai

Expression of bhakthi through Tamil language, is as ancient as the language itself. The divya prabandham composed by the Azvaars and the devotional outpourings of the Nayanmaars are outstanding contributions to Tamil bhakthi culture and literature. Historically, one tends to conclude that there must have been some form of schism and puritanism in ancient South Indian bhakthi culture. However, during the religious renaissance of yatiraaja shriimat Raamaanuja Achaaryaa, and later during the period of svaami shriimat Vedaanta Deshika and svaami shriimat MaNavaaLa Maamuni, great strides were made in transcending language barriers. Sanskrit and Tamil were both considered integral parts in temple worship and traditional rituals. Sanskrit texts were written in Tamil Grantham script for the benefit of those who had no formal exposure to Sanskrit. Thus the usage of Tamil script for Sanskrit Scriptures has come to be an accepted practice over several centuries. With passage of time, Tamil evolved to be what it is today, but the phonetic nuances of Sanskrit Scriptures have been preserved as a result of the gurukula mode of vedic instructions. One has only to listen to the chantings of Vedic scholars who have no formal exposure to Sanskrit, in order to discard the reservations of the puritans, that there is no compatibility between Sanskrit and Tamil scripts. Sanskrit Scriptures have flourished in South India partly because of their transcription in Tamil and will continue to do so for centuries to come.

The impetus to prepare electronic texts of devotional hymns came out of the interest of a dedicated group of individuals of Indian origin living in Canada who had no previous exposure to scriptures, but were keen to learn. A selected set of commonly chanted stotraas was initially put together in Tamil (Mylai font) and Telugu (Pothana font), for the benefit of this group. Nominal tutoring was provided and the project was very successful. This initial set of stotraas entitled "Stotra Mala" is so identified in the Archives. The scope of the compilation was subsequently enlarged to cover a broader range of Stotraas and Mantraas. The motivation to archive the texts on the internet came through contact with Dr.K.Kalyanasundaram of Lausanne in Switzerland who developed MYLAI Tamil font and has been making a significant contribution to electronic documentation of Tamil literature. MYLAI Tamil font was used in generating the texts presented in these pages which were archived in early 1996. After these texts were first archived, major developments have taken place for generating Indian Language texts on computers. The seqential development of the standards for Tamil and the current state of the art are described in detail by Dr.K.Kalyanasundaram in his web pages. The input of the "Stotra study group" while putting together these pages is gratefully acknowledged. Periodic upgrades to Windows operating system and browsers has necessitated frequent format changes to old HTML files in Indian Languages. To avoid the need for frequent revisions or inconvenience to viewers due to changing standards, the entire stotraa collection has now been converted and archived here in PDF format.

The archived scriptural texts may be chanted and the mantra rituals practiced by anyone so interested, individually and/or in groups, without taboos or exceptions of any kind. These pages are maintained as a small step in fostering sanaatana saampradaayam. ITRANS transliteration scheme has been generally followed for all Sanskrit words written in Roman script, and adapted where appropriate, for easy reading. These pages do not represent the official views of any group or organization. and Netscape

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