I am forwarding a news item on temple libraries in Chennai. I heard from acouple of my friends that these are not maintained properly. Retired librarians in Chennai may offer to provide free service for proper upkeep of such libraries. Vyasamoorthy ============== Sacred texts give insights to the Gods June 24, 2011 By J.V. Siva Prasanna Kumar Though searching online has become the latest fad among many, for this group of people, browsing the books at the temple library is an obsession. — DC Some of them are research scholars and many others voraciously pore over the books attempting to gain an insight into the rich tradition and Hindu religious history. “They are not only treasure houses of spiritual knowledge but also serve as centres for learning about Hindu rituals,” says Mr Srinivasan, a regular visitor to the library at Sri Parthasarathy Swamy temple, Triplicane. Though superficially it may appear that casual visitors to the temple ignore them, the libraries functioning at the three major temples in the city attract a steady trickle of ardent devotional literature-lovers. This library contains Kamba Ramayanam and Valmiki Ramayanam, Nalayira Divyaprabandam in Tamil, besides numerous titles in English, Telugu and Sanskrit. It was first started by a devotee Ramanuja Dasan several decades ago and later on came to be known as Ramanuja Nool Nilayam. This library, like the one at Vadapalani Andavar temple and Sri Kapaleeswarar temple, Mylapore, are meant only for reference and are open for four hours in the morning from 7 am and another four hours in the evening from 4 pm. The library at Sri Kapaleeswarar temple was opened in 1958 and it possess a rich collection of Shivaite books. The Vadapalani temple’s audio library has collections of discourses, Suprabhatham and Thiruvachagam and other books. Three persons can utilise the facility at a time. In addition, it has books on Tamil literature, culture, epics, Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas and iconography. Though the patronage to the temple libraries are good, regular visitors urge the state government to completely modernise them and also digitise the rare collections. Urging the government to take steps to popularise the libraries in a big way, BJP state vice-president, Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan, has demanded the constitution of an expert committee to go into the aspects of procuring books, including rare manuscripts, and develop the libraries to be used by the academia and public alike. “There should be a survey on the titles available in these libraries and measures should be taken to procure additional books, if required. Also, the works of Siddhars and Ayurveda texts, including the translated versions, if any, should also be made available,” she added. Sources at the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department said annually funds are allotted for the upkeep of these libraries, which have been renovated recently, and also for acquiring more titles. http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/cities/chennai/sacred-texts-give-ins... -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.