Goals
Outside of Sri Lanka most young Sri Lankans cannot access Yogaswami's legacy. In some nations, like Mauritius, the "Tamil" children are 4 generations removed from their Tamil roots. They do not know Tamil at all. For them, as well as any non-Tamilians, Yogaswami's heritage is a "black box." They may learn to sing the songs by repetition, but they do not have any idea what is the meaning behind what they are singing. Our goal is to open this treasure to everyone and thus help the Sivathondan Society in the mission of making sure that the living tradition of singing these songs continues on into the future. And also, by helping us all to understand the meaning of the songs as we sing them, they become like sacred affirmations that re-impress our minds with the key elements of our faith and philosophy. Study of Natchintanai is a very high order of "svadhyaya" sadhana.
Scope
In 2005 when devotees requested small Natchintanai songs books for satsangs, we found that the computer files for our 1992 edition, which only contained 15 songs, were completely obsolete. In November 2005 a project to re-create and expand the songbook was undertaken. Seventy-two popular Natchintanai commonly song at satsangs and bhajans were chosen. A "cap" was set at this number. Once all goals have been achieved for these 72 songs, if there is significant demand for additions, we can add more songs as time goes on.
Note, in the project outline below, English translations are mentioned. Many of these are taken from the English translation done in Jaffna by Yogaswami's devotees, this book and its excellent introduction to Saivism is a "must have" for the library of any serious student of Natchintanai. Not all the popular songs were translated into English. Note that our English translation is an accurate reflection of the original Tamil and may vary in some cases from the original Jaffna translation, where the latter took "liberties" in rendering some obscure phrases. For example, where the original Tamil says: "yama, iyama sey" it means "practice the yamas and niyamas" which is what we have as our translation. But the Jaffna version says: "follow the eight-fold path of Yoga," which is a liberal interpretation of the original Tamil.
The goals include, for each song:
- Tamil script
- an easily "digestable" roman transliteration
- links to one or more MP3 audio versions of each song
- a literal English translation--so that we know what each Tamil word means as we sing. The literal version will also help maintain accuracy when translations or lyrical versions are created other languages.
- rendered prose version (using the original English version for all songs that have a translation in that book.)
- written svarams that document tunes from traditional ragams for congregational singing (so that we all learn the same tune) and audio recording of the same.
- PDF's so that these songs can be widely distributed and easily learned.
- Lyrical version: a poetic rendering that we can sing in English in the same tune as the original. Possibly similar version will be created in other languages: German, Spanish, etc.
Common Melody for Group Singing
Regarding Goal # 6 above: When we finally are able to produce a "svaram" version, (musical notation) this will be a standard tune that can be learned by our sishya in different countries, so that we can all sing together a common melody. An audio recording of the same will be provided for practice. Of course Hindu music is very "open" and may suggest a ragam (scale) but not necessarily a fixed melodic line for any given song. So soloists may freely improvise, which is accepted and even expected. But traditional fixed melodies have developed over time for many common bhajans such as, for example the "Arati Song" ("Jaya Jagadisha Hare.... etc.") or Skanda Shashti Kavacham. We need to have a similar common tune for each Natchintanai so that someone in Singapore can fly to Mauritius and join in singing the same song in perfect unison.
Parallel Project: Saivite Songs
A parallel project is in its incipient stages, which is to create a similar collection of Saivite songs and bhajans, both in written form with audio versions. If you would like to participate in this project, please send a note to studyhall@hindu.org In particular we need help from those who have the technical capabilities of making digital recordings, digitizing cassette tapes, saving .aiff files as .mp3 files, who understand how to do FTP files transfers and can do simple editing of web pages.
Audio Archive
On the music side, our goal is to get recordings of all 300 plus Natchintanai sung by those devotees of Yogaswami who can sing them. If you know anyone who can sing the songs, please send recordings to the Aadheenam, attention, Sivakatirswami.
Terms Used In This Project
- Roman: This is the version that uses the Roman alphabet, letters A to Z to represent Tamil syllables. The linguistically inclined can read the notes on transliteration here.
- Literal: this is a word-by-word, phrase-by-phrase translation which follows Tamil word order. It may not always be totally "rational" for understanding, but aids in proper visualizations in the Tamil mind flow. See the Project Overpage for details on translation.
- Translation: This is a prose rendering in English. When available, it is based on the original English translation done by Yogaswami's close devotees, otherwise it is a new translation. Our version avoids "interpretive" translation and does not introduce images or ideas that are not actually "visible" in the Tamil original. You can easily relate the literal version in the Tamil order with the English grammer prose translation to get a meaningful visualization as you sing. Footnotes are used to help explain obscure phrases.
- Lyrical English: Transposing an English translation on top of the same melodic line, ragam and talam used for the Tamil is an impossible feat. The literal may use a three word English phrase to translate a single Tamil word. The prose translation is grammatically complete, but unpoetic. And neither of them have a syllable count to match the talam beats of the original Tamil song. The "Lyrical English" is a version designed to fit the talam, but is a very free translation. It attempts to hold true the original spirit, but not necessarily the actual words of the original Tamil.
PDF formats, Feedback, Upgrades
This is a work in progress. We provide a small song book of just 22 of the favorites songs in a single PDF that can be printed and saddled stitched and 72 PDF at 8.25 inches wide and 11 inches high which can be photo copied on A4 or US letter. If you want a different format for printing in your country, send a specification and request to Studyhall@hindu.org.
Source data is maintained in a database from which we can easily export different configurations: Tamil plus Roman; Roman plus Literal; Tamil plus Translation etc. Different contexts have different requirements. For congregational singing in temple in North American where most of the youth cannot read Tamil, only the Roman and literal are needed. But a version with Tamil, roman, literal and translation for each line is helpful for personal study or as a handout for teaching a single song in class, but much too long for a song book." For example, Engal Gurunathan with all 4 versions for each line is a 10-page document. It is not practical to put this into a song book. But a teacher or individual may download and print out a full version of one or more individual songs for indepth study and memorization.
Please send feed back on your needs, testimonials on what is working well for you, and suggestions for teaching tools to Study Hall. Please share your context: number of children or youth you are working with, venue, age group, challenges you face and your insights on what more we might do to achieve the goal of transmitting Natchintanai to the next generation.
Our transliteration scheme
Our transliteration has been done for easy assimilation by any young person who might casually pick up a songbook or song sheet at a Saturday temple satsang. If you are interested in the details, click here for a thorough elucidation on the rationale and method behind the system. Our system is not a perfect "one-to-one" system but is meant for easy reading by the untutored. If you would like to get a better "grip" on Tamil and English is your first language. We highly recommend the series by Mrs. Vasantha Navaratnam in Toronto "Learning Tamil Through English."
Pronunciation Guide
| a | short "a" | as in "about" "ago" |
| a | along "aa" | as in "father" "far" (open mouth) |
| i | short "e/i" | as in "dig" "pit" (not "eye"!) |
| ee | long "ee" | as in "geek" "seek" "peek" |
| u | short "u" | as in "put" -- and very short at the end of words |
| oo | long "u" | as in "Google" "fool" |
| e | short "eh" | as in "pet" "get" |
| ey | long "ay" | as in "day" "pay" "hey" "clay" |
| ai | long "i" | as in "hi" "pie" "sky" (dipthong, open mouth)) |
| o | short "o" | as in "over" "chosen" |
| oh | long "o" | as in "Oh!" |
| au | long "au" | as in "cow," "ouch!" "couch" (dipthong) |
Vowels
It is important to observe long vowels! This does not mean "stress" or "louder" as we do for English accented syllables. The sound is simply elongated, mouth more open. "Seevan" is "soul" but "Siva" is "God Siva" a big difference. "Naathan" is correct, not "Nathan."
Consonants
Pronounce them as in English but note the following nuances.
- "th" (lightly touch the tongue to the back of the front teeth), is very soft and often sounds like "d."
- Similarly "g" and "k" are very soft and may even be pronounced like "h" in between some vowels;
- "l." with a dot is the "high L" seen elsewhere as "zh" "Tamil." = "Tamizh." Just pronounce regular "l" if you don't know how to pronounce it.
- Consonant clusters: Tamil always enunciates consonant doubles and clusters where a consonant ends one syllable and starts the next. Sometimes called "stops"--"kk," "tth," "nng," "nd" etc. The singer "lingers" on the last consonant of one syllable (especially nasals).
Our system does not attempt to distinquish retroflex "n" or "l" which is beyond the scope of our goals. Ultimately the only way to properly learn Tamil is to learn the script and not use transliterations. We encourage you to study from a competent Tamil teacher. Tamil is a beautiful language and it's study will enrich your life immensely.
Word Breaks and Liason Letters
Tamil uses "liason" letters ("y" "v" "k" "t" "m" etc. ) between words, which may join two words, or be a suffix of one or a prefix of the second. These are often written together with no spaces. Wherever possible we have introduced a logical word break and removed the liason letter. This was done to facilitate recognition of the Tamil words which are otherwise obscured by being run together. But we can all freely use the liason letters when singing. They vary depending on context and will come naturally after some practice: e.g. sing: "thaagatthai(y)aakki". But to sing: "thaagatthai (break) aakki" is also correct. For those interested in such linguistic issues, go to the transliteration page here.
Notes on Translation
Literal TranslationThe literal translation is designed as an aid to visualization and also to assist in learning the Tamil for those who are interested. But a challenge is faced because Tamil syntax order is different than English. In Tamil the object of the verb may begin a sentence, and the subject follows and the sentence ends with a the verb.
For example, we could have a line of Tamil script with an English translation underneath, like this:
Tamil Script: "Hat red to me Yogaswami gave."
Translation: "Yogaswami gave me a red hat."
The problem with this is that the singer who does not know Tamil will be singing "Hat red: (in Tamil) but he will be visualizing "Yogaswami."
To address this issue our literal translation maintains a one-to-one correspondence with Tamil sentence structure.
On the other hand, where Tamil words use suffixes to indicate both case and associated subjective-pronouns (the doer of any action), for single words, the equivalant English requires a short phrase, but only makes sense in the natural English order: For example:
Accusative case:
"ennukku" is translated "to me"
-- where the suffix "-ku" indicates "to" . If we put "me -to" it will not make sense at all
Subjective Pronoun: "arivitthaan" is translated "he introduced"
where the suffix "-aan" indicates masculine "he". Similarly, "introduced-he" will not make any sense.
No attempt has been made to elaborate metaphorical or allegorical phrases and we did not want to "corrupt" Yogaswami's original diction. These need to be studied out. Two examples would be "within the house no builder built" means the body. and "vasiyogham" -- "horse yoga" -- meaning diaphragmatic breathing. Check the footnotes in the song books and the full prose translation.
Roadmap and Status Overview
| Task | Date | Status | |
| Tamil Data Entry | January 2005 | complete | |
| Proof Tamil-Enter corrections | March 2006 | Complete | |
| First Draft Transliterations | January 2005 | Complete | |
| Proof and Correct Transliterations | January 2007 | Complete | |
| OCR -- Enter Original English Translations | February 2005 | Complete | |
| Milestone: Create first Songbook | April 2007 | Complete | |
| Literal Translations | March 2007 | Complete | |
| Remaining English Translations, (for those not originally translated) | Pending | ||
| Web-Site: PDF's Uploaded | May 2007 | In Progress | |
| Music Side: (runs concurrently) | -- | ||
| Web-Site: MP3's Uploaded | May 2007 | In Progress | |
| Recordings-Traditional Ragam Set | Pending | ||
| Chose tune and set swarams | Pending | ||
| Expand to all 360 Natchintanai ?! | Futuristic |
Organizational Scheme
Songs have been entered, process and maintained in a small data base at Kauai Aadheenam. The key ID is the original page number in the "Red Tamil Edition" published in 1997. In a few case, there are two songs on the same page. The order of songs follows their natural order in the book. This makes for easy referencing to the original Tamil. Note that some minors errors were found in the typesetting of the original Tamil which have been corrected in our versions.
PDF's are set to an A4 page size with a large bottom margin that will allow for copying also on US letter size paper. Initially songs will be simply posted to the internet as individual PDF's. Overtime we will determine the best format through actual usage, we will finalize a format for a song book that we can print as a whole. Until then everyone will need to print out and distribute the PDF's as individual songs. Intially PDF's will contain just Tamil and transliterations. As we add the other increments (literal, translation, svarams) we will update the PDF's. Since all increments would mean printing 5 lines for each line, we will eventually break create two PDF's for each song: one for satsang use and one for personal study and practice.
Get the Original Books!
Everyone is encouraged to get the complete Tamil and English translation editions published by the Sivathondan Society, available at our web store. It will be a boon to your spiritual life and support the society's publishing efforts. Gurudeva used to say that there is no point singing songs "like parrots." We should know the meaning of what we are singing to give the fullest expression of devotion. Then singing because a true sadhana, "svadhyaya," as well as meaningful worship.
Appreciations and Credits
We want to first offer our deep appreciation to the Sivathondan Society of Sri Lanka which has continued to fulfill its sacred duty in preserving the sacred treasure of Satguru Siva Yogaswami. Their books are the source texts for this project. We also want to thank the dedicated Sivathondars working on this project: Prof. A Manickavel, Chidambaram, India; Sheela Venkatakrishnan, Chennai, Jayalakshmi Gopalakrishnan, Mumbai, India; Anil Bardwaj, Norway; Rishi Thondunatha, Florida; our consultants for IT issues relating to Tamil fonts: Prof. Kalyansundaram, Switzerland and Muthu Neduraman, Malaysia; Thiru Satkunendran of Toronto for support, as well as all the ladies and others of the Sri Lankan community in Toronto, Canada, who are contributing their feedback and insights.
