Thanjavur (Local Loop) A Day at Sarasvathi Mahal Library
Today being a Thanjavur City Ride the morning starts with a heavy dose of breakfast,the support staff especially the Masseur who had a hectic time for the last four days can relax a bit,the shutter bugs can get more time to shoot.The hotel lobby presents a holiday look the rider's assemble and after a small briefing our pedaling session begins,the history of Thanjavur city is unique,it dominated the cultural scene of Tamilnadu till 20th century.Its a place renowned for Paintings,Carnatic Music, modern day dance forms of classical and folk genres of dance and dance dramas temples where once existed Devadasis,the Palaces and the Libraries. After a ride to the Great Living Chola Temple the UNESCO Heritage site Brihadeesvara Temple our next big stop is the Sarasvati Mahal Library and the adjacent Thanjavur Palace,with the disappearance of Chola's around 13th AD there was a lull for a brief time and later Vijayanagara Kingdom took over,the Nayaks,the Maratha's and later British ruled Thanjavur respectively. In "India's Best Kept Secret: The Sarasvathi Mahal" pioneer in Thanjavur history Pradeep Chakravarthy mentions about the role of Ragunatha Nayaka (1600-1633) who built Sarasvati Mahal Library and the others kings who followed him especially the Great Maratha King Serfoji-2 (1798- 1832) and their contributions to this library, he also mentions about certain unique manuscripts in this library,most of which you cannot find in any other library.
On Food:
A book titled Raghunatha Nayakabhyudayamu,by King Vijayaraghava Nayak (1633-1673) on one day in the life of his father Raghunatha Nayak,the builder of Sarasvati Mahal it gives us an accurate and extremely elaborate picture of what it was like in the court of one of India’s most opulent kingdoms in the sixteenth and seventeenth century,contains many things worth talking about,the king’s daily routine, costume, jewellery,processions and dancers.The royal feast of the King contained the following items is worth mentioning 1.Appalam (paapad) and sesame seeds flavoured chicken 2.Coconut and curry leaves stuffed red chicken 3.Black gram and bengal gram Chanagi choornam stuffed chicken 4.Sugar, butter-stuffed milk chicken 5.Kattuk kozhi (a wild fowl) onions and garlic 6.Nuluva kozhi (a fowl of some sort) 7.Fish fries 8.Cluster beans (kothavarai) poriyal 9.Several vegetable dishes 10.Beeranji (Biriyani) with many fragrant spices 11.Podimas with crushed vadam 12.Appalam and vadam (deep fried snacks) 13 Lemon rasam and salted rasam 14.Sweets a.Peni b.Mande c.Laddu d.Purnakalasam e.Gajjeyam made of semiya f.Adhirasam g.Modak with pulses h.Sarathulu i.Managupoolu mul murrukku j.Therattipaal k.Coconut milk l.Paneer payasam m.Jeera payasam n.Cold payasam o.Sooji payasam p.Ceekarani sugar rice q.Basundi r.Fruits with or without honey s.Dates from the islands(Maldives) 15.Many types of mixed rice 16.Kari vadai, curd vadai and Aamai vadai (vadai without a hole in it) 17.Roti Crisp,coconut,sambar 18.Water with spices ... there are some recipe books during the Maratha period and were authored sometime in the seventeenth century called Bhojna Kuttukalam and Sarabhendra Phakshastram. Interestingly the Maratha's are credited with the creation of Sambhar,when a Maratha cook added tamarind (a Tamil staple not used in Maharashtra) to Dhal. A interesting recipe dealing with Egg Pickle is also available.
Astrology and Astronomy:
Countless books in the Sarasvati Mahal library deal with astrology and some of them are unique.The first one is called the Pakshishastra.The Jinendramala is a very interesting work on astrology because it was authored by a set of Jain monks,it mentions fortune for animals.The Shakunashastra is like playing ‘book cricket’,this is a book that you open randomly and depending on the painting on that page you know whether it is a good omen or not and whether you should undertake a particular action or not.The Ramachintamani Prasnam is another very interesting volume.The Kalaprakashika is again a work on astrology in Sanskrit.This is not meant for fairly wealthy people but for farmers.So it talks about when to start sowing and reaping,
Vaastu and Kama Sastra:
There are several versions of Vaastu Shastra in the library.If a Vaastu consultant believes that there is only one version,he can be told he is mistaken because there are as many different versions of Vaastu Sastra as there are of Kamasutra.These texts are in Sanskrit,Tamil and Teluguand various versions deal with construction and planning of houses,palaces,cities and temples.Vimanarchana is a text in the library devoted to the construction of temples.
Jewellery:
The Ratnaprakashika a Sanskrit text deals with different kinds of gemstones.The book tells one how to find them and where not to find them,and convert them into saleable gemstones.All these details make it a guideline book for the jewellers,luckily it has been published.
Music, Dance and Drama:
There cannot be another place in India that has done as much as Thanjavur did, in such a short period for dance,music and drama.Bharatanatyam,was codified in Thanjavur. Carnatic music the way we know it today,the structure and classification of the ragas again from Thanjavur.One of the most important drama traditions that continue even today is the Melatur Bhagavata Mela.The Narasimha Jayanti festival takes place sometime in May and is a serious five day affair in Melatur.The Melatur village itself was granted to the villagers and the grant deed is present in the Sarasvati Mahal library as a beautiful, long scroll believed to be one of the longest scrolls in India.The Ragalakshanimu is one of the many many treatises that classify different forms of raga,here each of the ragas in the Carnatic system is identified or given the form of a beautiful woman.A significant portion of the library manuscripts are on dance dramas that were performed as well.The Nritya-ratnavalli is an example of a Bharatanatyam text that goes into a lot of detail into the permutations and combinations of body movements and the kind of exercises that dancers should perform to keep themselves fit also in this group are the Kuravanjis (Dance Dramas).
Medicine
Many books in the library are about medicine.There are also books about how to eat well and look after yourself and how to create your own remedy for common illness.There are also books on how to treat Animals.Maratha King Serfoji -2 himself is said to have been a very accomplished Eye Surgeon and there are case sheets of surgeries that he handled in form of beautiful painted pictures of how the eyes looked before and after the surgery and how they looked six or seven months after the surgery. The Library also has several volumes on various Ayurveda Texts.
On Horses and Elephants:
The Ashwashastra and the Gajashastra are two beautifully illustrated works both in Sanskrit and Marathi that tell you everything that you need to know about horses and elephants. They talk about how you should capture them,how you should train them,how you should identify their sickness,how should you take care of them,how you should tell their age,all sorts of facts and then just in case you are religiously inclined they also give you some mythical information about horses and elephants.
Eighteenth Century European Books:
The Sarasvati Mahal library also has a lot of Coffee Table books published in Europe during the 17th - 18th Century. One of them is on Chinese Torture another one is on costumes in China,costumes in Turkey,scenes of English Countryside,books like this that were purchased from the UK.
Summing up the availability of manuscripts which also includes Sanskrit Literature, Illustrated Texts and some incomplete texts a mention about thousands of bundles of Modi Documents must be made,it is a form of Marathi shorthand in Marathi script which contained the day to day activities of the Government but unfortunately could not be translated since Marathi used in Thanjavur was different from Marathi in Maharastra Viewing this expansive list,the ride to Sarasvathi Mahal and Day 5 comes to an end ... awaiting Day 6 and the 185 km Ride.
Reference: "India's Best Kept Secret: The Sarasvati Mahal" by Pradeep Chakravarthy (IIC, New Delhi)
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| At Saraswathi Mahal Library |
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