sri:
sri raamaanujaaya nama:

The accompanying files contain the paasurams (poems)
called naalaayira dhivyap prabhandam composed by twelve
great souls called aazhvaars.  The paasurams were collected
and brought out by one of the much revered sri vaishnavaa
aachaaryaas called sriman naadhamuni.  By the time of
sriman naadamuni (9th century A.D.) the aazhvaar
paasurams were not lost or unknown.  It was by  divine
fortune that sriman naadhamuni came to know of the
thamizh poems praising Lord Vishnu.  It is believed that
sriman naadhamuni heard some devotees visiting his home
town of veeranaaraayaNapuram (present day kaattu
mannaarkudi near mayilaadurthurai) singing a few thamizh
songs starting with "aaraa amudhE adiyEn udalam" and
ending with

"... kurugoor sadagOpan
 kuzhalil maliyach sonna Or
   aayiratthuL ippatthum,
 mazhalai theera vallaar kaamar
   maanEy nOkkiyarkE."   (Thiruvaay mozhi 5.8.1 - 5.8.11)

Sriman naadhamuni was enchanted with the exquisite
beauty of the poems.  He approached the devotees and
enquired about its origin.  The ending of the 11 poems,
"aayiratthuL ippatthu,"  suggested that there are many more
such poems.  This possibility intrigued sriman nadhamuni.
Unfortunately, the devotees were unaware of any other
poems besides the eleven they had just finished reciting.
However, they suggested to sriman naadhamuni that he
may try enquiring in the town of thiruk kurugoor, present
day aazhvaar thiru nagari near thirunelvEli.  So he set out
to travel from kaattumannarkudi to thiruk kurugoor, a long
journey indeed in his time.  There he found one paraangusa
daasar.  From him sriman naadhamuni learnt 11 more paasurams
called kaNNinuN sirutthaambu.  These were composed by
madhurakavi aazhvaar and all 11 paasurams are in praise
of kurugoor sadagOpan (namaazhvaar).  Sriman naadamuni was
excited to have doubled his collection.  But this only
whetted his desire to seek out the more than 1,000, promised
in the first set of paasurams he fell in love with at
his home town.

paraangusa daasar suggested that he repeatedly recite
kaNNinuN sirutthaambu in the hope of pleasing the Lord.
Sriman naadhamuni took his advice and recited it 10,000 times.
It is said that Namaazhvaar was impressed with sriman
naadhamuni's persistence and appeared before him.
Namaazhvaar was so impressed that he revealed to
sriman naadhamuni not just the 1102 paasurams of his own
thiruvaay mozhi, but also all the rest of the paasurams
composed by the other eleven aazhvaars.  From this we may
deduce that it is sriman naadhamuni who gathered the thamizh
verses praising Lord Vishnu composed by the twelve aazhvaars.
Sriman naadhamuni called this collection of paasurams or
prabhandams naalaayira dhivya prabhandam or draavida vEdham.

There is much debate about the exact historical dates for the
twelve aazhvaars.  It is believed that most of the aazhvaars
lived prior to kali yuga, i.e. at least 3000 years ago.  Others
place the aazhvaars in the range of 7th through the early
parts of 9th century.  In any case, we can be sure that the
aazhvaars lived much before sriman naadhamuni (826 A.D.)
since during his time aazhvaar paasurms had become
virtually unknown.  The following table gives the birth
star (thiru nakshathiram) for each aazhvaar.

                        Thamizh      Thiru          Approximate
aazhvaar                  month       nakshathiram   English month
------------------------------------------------------------------
poigai aazhvaar           aippasi     thiruvONam     November
boothatthaazvaar          aippasi     avittam        November
pEyaazhvaar               aippasi     sadhayam       November
thirumazhisai aazhvaar    thai        magam          January
namaazhvaar               vaigaasi    visaagam       May
madhurakavi aazhvaar      sitthirai   sitthirai      April
kulasEkaraazhvaar         maasi       punarpoosam    March
periaazhvaar              aani        svaathi        June
sri aaNdaaL               aadi        pooram         Agust
thoNdaradippodi aazhvaar  maargazhi   kEttai         December
thiruppaaNaazhvaar        kaartthigai rOhiNi         November
thirumangai aazhvaar      kaartthigai kritthigai     November
------------------------------------------------------------------


Besides the aazhvaar paasurams we have also included 3
more prabhandams. They are (1) iraamunasa
nooRRandhaathi by thiruvarangatthu amudhanaar,  (2)
prabhanda saaram by Swami Sri dEsikan and (3) thiruvaay
mozhi nooRRaandhaathi by sri maNavaaLa maamunigaL.
iraamaanusa nooRRandhaathi is in praise of sri
raamaanujar.  Prabhandassaaram gives an account of each
of the aazhvaars and the prabhandams credited to each of
them.  Further, it gives a numerical accounting of all
the prabhandams.  In this accounting, Swami Sri dEsikan
includes iraamunusa nooRRandhaathi as part of the
naalaayira dhivya prabhandam.   Thiruvaay mozhi
nooRRandhaathi is exclusively in praise of
namaazhvaar's thiruvaay mozhi.

Another file included in this collection is aazvaar.txt.  This
file contains some basic facts about each of the twelve
aazhvaars.

The following two tables give details about how the
pasurams are organized into computer files. Table I lists the
start and finish pasuram numbers for each of the 26
prabhandhams.  These numbers are based on the accounting
given by Swami Sri dEsikan in his prabhandha saaram.
Table II lists the names of the computer files and the names
of the volunteers who entered the pasurams.

The pasurams were entered into computer format by
volunteers working in their free time using their computers
and software.  Each volunteer followed one of the three
popular thamizh transliteration formats they were familiar
with.  These are Adami, Madurai, and ITRANS.  To avoid
format discrepancy problems,  Sri K.Srinivasan, the author
of Adami software, developed a software for viewing text
entered in a variety of formats.  This software is called
TAMILVU and it is bundled with this collection.  To avoid
errors due to format differences please use only TAMILVU
to review, select, save, and print pasurams.  For use with
TAMILVU a file containing all the file names of this
collection is also included.  This file is FLIST.TXT.

In as much as this was a volunteer effort errors in typing is
bound to occur.  All the volunteers were diligent in
correcting these mistakes as much as  possible.  However,
if the users of this collection find any lingering
typographical errors kindly inform Sri. P. Dileepan at the
e-mail address [email protected] or by regular
mail at 1908 Preswood drive, Hixson, TN 37343, U.S.A.

Thank you for using our collection.

emperumaanaar thiruvadigaLE saraNam!
----------------------------------------------------------


Table I
-------
List of prabhandam, number of pasurams, beginning and
ending serial number.


                               # of
   Prabhandam                pasurams    Start    Finish
----------------------------------------------------------
1.  Periyaazvaar thirumozhi      473         1      473
2.  thiruppaavai                  30       474      503
3.  naacchiyaar thirumozhi       143       504      646
4.  perumaaL thirumozhi          105       647      751
5.  thirucchanda viruttham       120       752      871
6.  thirumaalai                   45       872      916
7.  thiruppaLLiyezucchi           10       917      926
8.  amalanaathipiraan             10       927      936
9.  kaNNi nuNsirutthaambu         11       937      947
10. periya thirumozhi          1,084       948    2,031
11. thirukkurnthaaNdagam          20     2,032    2,051
12. thirunNedunthaaNdagam         30     2,052    2,081
13. muthaRRiruvanthaathi         100     2,082    2,181
14. iraNdaanthiruvanthaathi      100     2,182    2,281
15. moonRaanthiruvanthaathi      100     2,282    2,381
16. naanmugan thiruvanthaathi     96     2,382    2,477
17. thiruviruttham               100     2,478    2,577
18. thiruvaasiriyam                7     2,578    2,584
19. periyathiruvanthaathi         87     2,585    2,671
20. thiruvezukooRRirukkai          1     2,672    2,672
21. siRiya thirumadal             40     2,673    2,712
22. periya thirumadal             78     2,713    2,790
23. thiruvaay mozhi            1,102     2,791    3,892

24. iraamanusa nURRanthaathi     108     3,893    4,000
25.  prabhanda saaram             18
26.  thiruvaaymozi nURRanthaathi 100
----------------------------------------------------------




Table II
--------
List of filenames and individual entering the pasurams:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Periyaazvaar thirumozhi       473       1        473
  PERIAZH1.TXT                                           Badri
  PERIAZH2.TXT                                           Badri
  PERIAZH3.TXT                                           Badri
  PERIAZH4.TXT                                           Badri
  PERIAZH5.TXT                                           Badri

2. thiruppaavai
  TPAVAI.TXT                      30     474        503  Srinivasan

3. naacchiyaar thirumozhi         143     504        646  Vaidehi
  NACCHI.TXT

4. perumaaL thirumozhi
  PTMOZHI.TXT                    105     647        751  Gopu

5. thirucchanda viruttham         120     752        871  Varadhan
  TCVIRUTH.TXT

6. thirumaalai
  TMALAI.TXT                      45     872        916  Varadhan

7. thiruppaLLiyezucchi
  TPALLI.TXT                      10     917        926  Varadhan

8. amalanaathipiraan
  APIRAN.TXT                      10     927        936  Varadhan

9. kaNNi nuNsirutthaambu
  KANNINUN.TXT                    11      937       947  Varadhan

10. periya thirumozhi
  PERITM1.TXT                    100      948     1,047  Anonymous
  PERITM2.TXT                    100    1,048     1,147  Anonymous
  PERITM3.TXT                    100    1,148     1,247  Anonymous
  PERITM4.TXT                    100    1,248     1,347  Rengi
  PERITM5.TXT                    100    1,348     1,447  Rengi
  PERITM6.TXT                    100    1,448     1,547  Rengi
  PERITM7.TXT                    100    1,548     1,647  Viji
  PERITM8.TXT                    100    1,648     1,747  Viji
  PERITM9.TXT                    100    1,748     1,847  Viji
  PERITM10.TXT                   103    1,848     1,951  Ramprasad
  PERITM11.TXT                    81    1,951     2,031  Ramprasad

11. thirukkurnthaaNdagam           20    2,032     2,051  Ramprasad
  THANDAG.TXT

12. thirunNedunthaaNdagam          30    2,052     2,081  Dileepan
  NEDUNTHA.TXT

13. muthaRRiruvanthaathi
  MUTHAL.TXT                     100    2,082     2,181  Dileepan

14. iraNdaanthiruvanthaathi
  IRANDAAM.TXT                   100    2,182     2,281  Dileepan

15. moonRaanthiruvanthaathi
  MOONRAM.TXT                    100    2,282     2,381  Dileepan

16. naanmugan thiruvanthaathi      96    2,382     2,477  C.R. and Kumari
  NAANMUG.TXT                                            Selvakumar

17. thiruviruttham                100    2,478     2,577  C.R. and Kumari
  TVIRUTH.TXT                                            Selvakumar

18. thiruvaasiriyam                 7    2,578     2,584  C.R. and Kumari
  TASIRIAM.TXT                                           Selvakumar

19. periyathiruvanthaathi
  PERIANDA.TXT                     87    2,585     2,671  Kathiravan


20. thiruvezukooRRirukkai
  VEZHUKOO.TXT                     1    2,672     2,672  Dileepan

21. siRiya thirumadal              40    2,673     2,712  Satish
  SMADAL.TXT

22. periya thirumadal              78    2,713     2,790  Dileepan
  PMADAL.TXT

23. thiruvaay mozhi
  TVMOZI1.TXT                    110    2,791     2,900  Sankaran & Ganesh
  TVMOZI2.TXT                    112    2,901     3,012  Ganesh
  TVMOZI3.TXT                    110    3,013     3,122  Dileepan
  TVMOZI4.TXT                    110    3,123     3,232  Uday & Jayaraman
  TVMOZI5.TXT                    110    3,233     3,342  Uday & Jayaraman
  TVMOZI6.TXT                    110    3,343     3,452  Uday & Jayaraman
  TVMOZI7.TXT                    110    3,453     3,562  Geetha
  TVMOZI8.TXT                    110    3,563     3,672  Geetha
  TVMOZI9.TXT                    110    3,673     3,782  Geetha
  TVMOZI10.TXT                   110    3,783     3,892  Mani

24. iraamanusa nooRRanthaathi     108    3,893     4,000  Mani
  IRAAMANU.TXT

25.  prabhanda saaram              18                     Dileepan
  PSARAM.TXT

26.  Thiruvaaymozhi nURRanthaathi 100                     Uday, Jayaram,
  TVM100AN.TXT                                           Dileepan, Mani
------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------
OTHER FILES:

README.TXT   This file
FLIST.TXT    List of prabhandam file names for use with TAMILVU.
TAMIVU.EXE   Viewing software
----------------------------------------------------------------------




Participant                         E-mail address
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Badri Seshadri                      [email protected]
P. Dileepan                         [email protected]
Ganesh Rajagopal                    [email protected]
Geetha Ramaswami                    [email protected]
R. Gopu                             [email protected]
Jayaraman                           [email protected]
Kathiravan                          [email protected]
Mani Varadarajan                    [email protected]
S. Ramprasad                        [email protected]
S. Renganathan                      [email protected]
S. Sankaran                         [email protected]
Satish                              [email protected]
C.R.Selvakumar                      [email protected]
K. Srinivasan                       [email protected]
Rajendran Udayakumar                [email protected]
Vaidehi Venkatakrishnan             [email protected]
Thirumalai Anandanpillai (Varadan)  [email protected]
T. Vijayaraghavan (Viji)            [email protected]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------