Saturday 28 January 2017

BOOKS

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."

[Cosmos, Part 11: The Persistence of Memory (1980)]”


So did the Siddhas document their findings in the form of Olai Suvadi or writings on dried palm leaves.

When I searched the net for authentic material on Agathiyar and the Siddhas after Agathiyar asked me to come to this path in 2002 through a Nadi reading, there was hardly any. If at all there was something it would only be a repost from somewhere else. Many administrators of sites did not acknowledge its sources. Seeking out the numerous establishments related to Agathiyar did not satisfy my needs neither. When I frequented the handful of bookshops dealing in Tamil books, though they had only a limited collection, I discovered some rare gems among them. Then I engaged myself to gather whatever hymns I found into a small booklet that I could use to follow during my home puja. This slowly grew into a compendium of Siddha hymns over the years with the discovery of many new songs.

After returning from my maiden pilgrimage to India in 2003, I posted my travel jounal of all the places I went and all the exciting experiences gained during the tour on my first website, indian heartbeat. Later I recollected all the wonderful moments with Agathiyar and the Siddhas, and my masters and their teachings into several online digital books posted at Scribd. Whatever video footages were uploaded to YouTube too. Then one fine day I terminated these sites and deactivated others. When I informed Tavayogi of my actions he asked that I maintain them. And so I had to upload all those files again. Some I managed to salvage, the files still intact; some I lost - when my hard disk crashed and existing recovery programs at that time did not quite help salvage these files.


Today, Agathiyar has moved us one step higher in our spiritual ladder asking us to include the worship of Vaalai Thaai. So my search has started again for any authentic material on Vaalai. I shall share it once I compile them too.

Some books that I picked up, purchased or received as gifts during my search to know about Siddhas.





I take this opportunity to thank Mylon Trading, Manonmani Book Depo, Janani Book Store, Krishna Book Store, Sivaguru Book Store, Sri Vidhya Book Stores, Jaya Bakthi Book distributors, and Uma Publications for bringing in these valuable books to Malaysia.