Foreword

This monumental publication and all of the research conducted by the Yoga Siddha Research Center's team of scholars and yogins since the year 2000 has been sponsored by Babajis Kriya Yoga Order of Acharyas, a registered educational charity in Canada and the USA, with sister organizations registered in Bangalore India and Sri Lanka. In concert with Babaji' s Kriya Yoga and Publications, Inc. of Canada, the Order is pleased to make this new translation and commentary available to the English speaking world.

There is some history behind this publication. The Thirumanthiram is one of the first texts to emerge in the West from the gold mine of ancient Tamil literature, which until recently has been bypassed by scholars outside of south India. While the Sanskrit literature has been mined and studied by Western scholars for more than 200 years, the ancient Tamil language literature has been largely ignored. However, the late Swami Subramaniam, founder of the Saiva Siddhantha Church in Hawaii, USA, commissioned the late Dr. B. Natarajan to translate the Tirumandiram in the late 1980 'so Unfortunately, only the first of the nine tantras was published by the Saiva Siddhantha Church, prior to the death of the translator, Dr. B. Natarajan, in 1982. While it contained no verse by verse commentary, it did include some notes. Having received from Dr. Natarajan in person a copy. of this first tantra in 1980, and dismayed by the fact that the rest had not been published, I, as the founder of Babaji's Kriya Yoga and Publication, repeatedly urged Dr. Natarajan's heirs, from 1986 onwards, to allow me to publish the entire manuscript. Unknown to me, Dr. N. Mahalingam, the noted industrialist, philanthropist and scholar of Sangam literature, finally persuaded the heirs to do the same, and financed the publication of Dr. Natarajan's manuscript in a single volume published by the Ramakrishna Mission in Chennai, India in 1992. Seeing that this edition lacked the presentation which would make it appealing and useful to the vast majority of Western readers, Babaji's Kriya Yoga and Publications, Inc. received permission to publish it from the Ramakrishna Mission in September 2002. The new edition which we published in 1993 was a three volume international edition entitled the Thirumandiram: A Classic of Yoga and Tantra. This edition contained special introductory chapters, glossary and index which made it much more accessible to the readers in the West in particular. Since then, this publication has gone through five printings, and as a result, the Thirumanthiram has become known to lovers of Yoga all over the world.

However, the need for a more accurate translation became apparent as Tamil speaking specialists pointed out that Dr. B. Natarajan had too often sacrificed precision for poetic grace. Furthermore, he neglected to translate many of the technical terms, and consequently, the average reader, with little or no background in the philosophical and rich cultural, esoteric and religious tapestry of the Thirumanthiram, was often unable to grasp the significance of many of the verses. Finally, it became apparent that the non-specialist would need a running commentary along with translation, in order to easily understand the meaning and significance of most of the verses.

This present work fulfills this need and several others, which the previous translation did not. It has the advantage of being based on the Tiruppanandal Kaci-t-tirumadam edition. We have followed the numbering of verses of this edition only. It also has the advantage of making use of the annotated and critical edition of the Tirumandiram written by Dr. S. Annamalai in 1999 for many critical points. To produce that critical edition, Dr. Annamalai examined thirteen different manuscripts of the Thirumanthiram in their original Tamil language. From this examination, he was able to identify interpolations and other errors in several of the manuscripts.

 

This present edition also benefits from the experience and knowledge gained by the Yoga Siddha Research project's team of scholars, lead by Dr. T.N. Ganapathy. Since 2000, they have produced six volumes of translation and commentary on the works of the eighteen Yoga Siddhas. Tirumular, the author of the Thirumanthiram, is one of these eighteen Siddhas, or supreme masters of Yoga, and like them, uses their twilight language, or sandhya bhasa, extensively to deliberately obscure the meaning of his verses, as well as many other of their literary forms and references. These scholars' unique experience and knowledge has. enabled them to produce what has never been done before: a precise English translation with verse by verse commentary of the entire Tirumandiram in nine volumes, plus a tenth volume, which serves as an index.

As a final step in preparing for the present publication, two years ago, we published The Yoga of Tirumular: Essays on the Thirumanthiram, by Dr. T.N. Ganapathy and Dr. KR Arumugam. It develops many important themes of the Thirumanthiram and serves as both an excellent introduction and companion resource for both the specialist and the non-specialist reader.

This edition of the Tirumandiram (Thirumanthiram), because of its size, in well over 3,000 pages, has been a great challenge to publish. It was clear that with the exception of a few research libraries, very few individuals would want such a mammoth work on their book shelves, even if they could afford its high cost. Modern technology, in the form of digital storage on a DVD has provided a solution that is both convenient and affordable for the vast majority of potential readers. Also, it enables us to honor our commitment to "Green Yoga." In early 2 0 0 8, as we neared completion of this work, we therefore made a strategic decision to print only a limited number of copies in a paper edition, which will be made available to research libraries, and to make this new publication accessible to everyone who wants it, reproduced and stored in a digital form, on DVDs.

We are grateful, however, to Dr. N. Mahalingam who at the end of July 2009 offered to pay for the cost of printing 2,000 copies of the ten volumes in a hard bound set, and to distribute many of these to various institutions on a charitable basis. We concluded an agreement to co-publish the same, while at the same time going ahead with our plans for printing a single volume English translation of the 3,047 verses with a DVD containing all ten volumes inserted into its rear jacket cover.

It has also been a challenge to produce a translation that would not take sides in the important philosophical debate between Saiva Siddhantins or realistic pluralists, and those who see the Thirumanthiram as an expression of the highest mystical states of consciousness accessible to the Yogin, or monistic theism. The views of the two sides are reproduced in the special introductory chapter. The translation and commentary itself has been kept neutral, with an aim of making the original terminology as clear and accessible as possible.

As the world wide interest in authentic Yoga grows, the importance and reputation of the Thirumanthiram is bound to excel. May all lovers of truth and the Sanatana Dharma, in particular, find their path illuminated by the poetry and wisdom of Tirumular.