Sri Adhi kEsava perumAL

Sri Mayooravalli thAyAr samEdha sri Adhi kEsava perumaL, thirumayilai is a scintillating sthalam. Hundreds of years ago, sri pEyAzhwAr had performed thiruppani for this temple. The majestic dvijasthambam is the one that we see first on entering the temple. Under the shades of the dvijasthambam, we have garudAzhwAr standing with his arms bowed to the lord. It also appears as though garudA is welcoming his master's devotees to the temple. Moving on, we enter the sanctum sanctorum of the lord who is in nindra thirukkOlam, with shangachakra - varadha abhaya hastham. His majesticity knew no bounds to us. That much gambheeram. On the doors, the dasAvathAram - From Matsya to kalki has been carved. pEyAzhwAr who is the amsam of perumAL's sword, has found a place inside the sanctum sanctorum itself. After having his dharshan we come out of the sanctum sanctorum to perform a circambulation around the temple.

Sri KulasEkara Azhwar sannidhi is seen first. After offering our salutations to the AzhwAr, we enter into the sannidhi of sri mayoora valli thAyAr. She is the embodiment of grace. As told by sri subrahmanya bharathi, "nambinOr keduvathillai ithu naangu marai theerppu - ambikaiyai saranadaindhAl, adhika varam nAm peralAm" (one who have got faith in God, they will be never ruined. That too if we surrender at the lotus feet of ambikai we can get more boons), thAyAr is the manifestation of grace.

After seeing her, we move to the sannidhi of sri chakrathAzhwAr. He is also called as sri sudharsanAzhwAr. On his back, stays sri nrusimha moorthi. To enable devotees to have a look of sri nrusimhan, a mirror has been placed on the side of chakrathAzhwar. We bow to chakrathAzhwAr and sri nrusimhar and then move to the right. We reach the AndAL sannidhi. AndAL was decorated with a silk saree tied as madisAr (saree style of brahmins) and she was standing with a sense of proud for she being the better half of sri mahA vishNu. The mAngalyam was studded with shining stones and whether it glorifies AndAL or AndAL glorifies the stones is a topic that cannot be debated upon.

Moving further, we come to the other end, which is obviously the front right end of the temple. We bow to the veera AnjanEyar and come near the dvijasthambam and offer our namaskArams to the lord.

One important thing, Oops! I forgot to mention. On the way to the sannidhi of Adhi kEsava, we have a room where great saints and Acharyas like Sri Ramanujar, Sri MudhaliAndAn, sri maNavALamAmunigaL, sri kooraththAzhwan, sri vEdantha dEsikan and many more were seated. It appeared as though these great people were involved in deep discussion about the grace, fame of namperumAL. Let the blessings of namperumAL be showered on us.

aum namO nArAyanAya!

Softsmith webinars for July 2009

Softsmith Infotech presents 17 new webinars for July 2009.

Here is the list:

1) Microsoft Word
2) HTML, XML, CSS
3) Linux OS Basics
4) Save your eyes - IT and BPO people
5) Bharath Natyam Theory Fundamentals
6) Microsoft Excel
7) SAP Purchasing
8) MySQL Stored Procedures
9) Selenium Test Automation Tool
10) ASP.Net Programming
11) Microsoft Powerpoint
12) Basic Networking and Exchange Server
13) Software Users – Myths and realities
14) Spoken English (Teaching in Hindi)
15) SAP Quality Management
16) COBOL Programming
17) Vaasthu principles - what is it all about?

Visit Open Mentor website for registration.

Svanubhava 2009

The music fest is back this year with more interesting events. Yes! Svanubhava is back. The dates are from August 4, 2009 to August 9, 2009. This is conducted by Matrka and YACM. For more details, visit http://www.svanubhava.com.

Register yourself for the feast and be ready to grab the pearls of knowledge from the ocean of music! Registration link is on the home page itself!

எட்டுத்தொகை நூல்கள்

நற்றினை நல்ல குறுந்தொகை ஐங்குறுநூறு ஒத்த
பதிற்றுப்பத்து ஓங்கு பரிபாடல்
கற்றறிந்தார் ஏற்றும் கலியோடு அகம் புறம்
என்றித்திறத்த எட்டுத்தொகை

இந்த பழம் பெரும் பாடல், எட்டுத்தொகை நூல்கள் யாவை என்று நாம் எளிதில் ஞாபகம் வைத்துக்கொள்ள உதவுகிறது.

இப்பாடலுக்கு விளக்கம் பின் வருமாறு:

நற்றினை, குறுந்தொகை (இன் நூலிற்கு "நல்ல" என்ற அடை மொழி கொடுத்திருக்கிறார்கள்), ஐங்குறுநூறு, அதனை ஒத்த பதிற்றுப்பத்து, ஓங்கிய புகழ்க்கொண்ட பரி பாடல், நன்கு கற்றவர்கள் உயர்வாய் பேசும் கலித்தொகை, இவற்றோடு அகநானூறு, புறநானூறு என்று மொத்தம் எட்டு நூல்களை நாம் எட்டுத்தொகை என்று கூறுவோம்.

என் முதல் தமிழ் பதிப்பு

பல நாட்கள் முயற்சி செய்து இன்று எனது முதல் தமிழ் பதிப்பினை வெளியிடுகிறேன். இன்னும் தொடர்ந்து பல அறிய பதிப்புகளை நீங்கள் எதிர்பார்க்கலாம்.

இப்படிக்கு,
சரண்யா

Tanjore Brihadeeswara Temple

I had been to ThanjAvoor for a marriage this week end.

I visited the Brihadeeswarar temple also called as The Big Temple. What a massive structure! The gOpurams, prakArams were all studded with impressive paintings, sculptures, inscriptions.

There is a Ganapathi sannidhi in the outer prakAram. On the steps, there were inscriptions in sanskrit instead of the traditional dEvanAgari (grantham). The temple is well maintained by archeological department. Earlier, the gOpuram will not be that much bright and all. But now, they had cleaned the entire stretch and its very bright and shiny.

I visited the temple on a Saturday which happened to be a pradOsham day. The priests were preparing the massive nandi for pradOsha kAla abhishEkam. But I went there at around 11 AM in the morning and the sun was at its peak. Though the prakAram was very hot, I managed to walk through it and saw other sannidhis like vArAhi amman, brihannAyaki, dakshinAmoorthy who was seated at reasonable a height from the ground (we need to climb some 15 to 20 steps to see him), rAhu bhagawAn, Bhairava, Sanaischara so on. There was also a siddhar sannidhi (karuvoorar) which was also very pious.

I went to that temple for the second time. My first visit to that temple was when I was 10 or 11 years old. At that time I didnt observe this much.

And one good thing that made me happy was, a small boy, aged about 7 or 8 years, chanted the vEdA. He was chanting sri rudram in front of the lord brihadeeswara under the supervision of the head sivAchAryA. I was amazed by the tone with which the boy rendered the rudram.

Cleveland Tyagaraja Aradhana

Every body will be familiar with the phrase mentioned in this blog title. I am not going to write reviews of how singers and other artistes performed. Instead, I am going to share my thoughts about this.

These Aradhanas Cleveland or Tiruvaiyaru Tyagaraja Aradhana, Tirupponthuruthi Narayana theertha Jayanti, Syama Sastri Jayanthi or Dikshithar Music Fest or Gopalakrishna Bharathi Music Festival and many more festivals on great composers are being conducted to offer our thanks and respect to them. This is a known fact.

During this functions, the artistes sing the compositions of corresponding composers and refrain from singing other composer's songs. I could remember an incident at a aradhana at Trichy, where an artiste was asked by the audience at to sing abhangs at the end of a concert, organised for the composer who installed Rama Bhakti and Nadopasana by means of his kritis. The artiste asked another senior artiste for permission to satisfy rasika's wish. The senior artiste denied permission and announced that this function is for so and so and it is correct only if we sing his kritis which is very true. Thats the way and it is the best offering that anyone could do for upkeeping the respect he or she has for the composer.

The thing is, in Cleveland Tyagaraja aradhana, I could see in the telecasts, that the artistes (inclusive of the two artistes that I referred in the previous incident) reciting kritis other than that of Tyagaraja. Is that to satisfy the NRIs there? Or have the committee has broken to rule of singing Tyagaraja kriti alone at Tyagaraja aaradhana?

Whatever may be the case, either of the two things should be done. Either the festival has to be renamed as Cleveland Music Festival or to retain the same name, only Tyagaraja kritis need to be sung.

Knockout 2009

People would have been watching T20 World cup. This T20 has brought lot of surprises. Budding teams like Ireland went into Super 8. World Champions Australia has been sent out of the tournament even before entering Super 8. The group formation was partial. It was just a matter of lucky draw. Aussies, Windies and Srilanka were in one group. India, Ireland, Bangaladesh were in another. Pakistan, England and The Netherlands formed a group and Newzealand, South Africa, Scotland formed the fourth group.

If you see in the group AUS-WI-SL, there existed a tight competition between the three. In the other groups there was atleast one new team. So It was easy for two teams in the other three to go to super 8 directly. This is not at all fair. The Aussies fell as a victim to this fixture.

Indians tried their level best to cross the super 8, but fell as the prey to WI, England. They need to still play with South Africa in Super 8. But there is very negligible chance for India to enter semi finals. Again strong teams in this group and we have Ireland, Newzealand, Pakistan and Srilanka in the other group.

So the World Cup Champions - Australia, T20 Champions India were knocked out during this T20 World Cup. Cricket is a game of luck. Anything may happen at any time. Cricket - Uncertainity Personified!

Softsmith Webinars - June 2009

For the month of May 2009, Softsmith has launched the following courses:

1) MSSQL DBA Operations
2) JSP, Java programming
3) Quality Center Basics
4) Recession - Let us equip ourselves
5) PHP programming
6) SAP - Inventory Module
7) Spoken English (Teaching in Tamil)
8) Silk Test - Operations
9) Manual Testing
10) Mutual Funds
11) Rational Functional Tester
12) SAP - PP module

Please visit their website www.softsmith.com for more details. Or visit the online portal Open Mentor and register yourself to get benefitted from more facilities like online exams, demos etc.