Silambu selvam

Silambu Selvam

We place this work at the feet of the Goddess of Tamil, bowing to her with the prayer: "Lady ruling over us, grant us the strength to spread the light of the arts developed by you, all over the world." It has been our desire for long to get the poetic treasure of Silappadikaram of Ilango Adigal rendered in its full form into lucid sensitive Tamil easily understandable by all; many good scholars of Tamil also enthusiastically urged us to do so. By the grace of Lord Shiva from whom Tamil was born, our desire has been fulfilled now by this work. It is a rare work of the literary art; which sets forth clearly the glories of the ancient civilisation of the Tamils. It will give a new sense of pride to all readers.

Dr. Shuddhananda Bharati has spent his life doing penance according to the pure Advaita path, having the welfare of the Tamils as his motivation. The Swami has written this book after having studied critically for two years past, 150 works and having understood the Silappadikaram thoroughly. These works include the Tamil Sangam classics, works in languages like English, Tamil, French and Sanskrit having a Tamil antiquarian interest and also works of a technical nature on the arts.

Tiru Desikavinayakam Pillai, the Tamil poet, has kindly gone through the manuscript of this book in Tamil line by line and rendered with his suggestions and interpretations - we express our sense of gratefulness to this great scholar-poet, old in years, we also pay our obeisance to him.

The mention of Silappadikaram brings to mind first of all the name of Mahamahopadhyaya Dr. U. V. Swaminatha Iyer; to this great scholar who has researched painstakingly the veritable mine of Tamil Sangam works and brought out this 'golden anklet' of the Tamil Goddess called Silappadikaram, we pay our grateful respects.

Our thankfulness goes to Vidvan T. P. Minakshisundaram Pillai, M.A.B.L., M.O.L, who has done valuable and great services in the field of Tamil and religion and has obliged us with his Preface to the Tamil work, Chilambu Chelvam.

Thank you to Dr. J. Parthasarathi M.A., Ph.D. for the English translation Silambu Selvam and to Dr. Shuddhananda Bharati for Chilambu Chelvam, the original Tamil version.

With the energy of Aum Shuddha Shakti!

Possessing the gifts of
Song and service to the Lord,
We will be the servants of
Only the Prince who bears up
The umbrella of the sky.

Editions ASSA, Christian Piaget