[Advaita-l] Prayoga texts from the raajaa-vedapaaThashaalaa

[Balasubramanian Ramakrishnan]

If you are interested in prayoga read on, otherwise please delete the email.

Good news for students of prayoga. The raajaa-vedapaaThashaalaa is a
premier veda-paaThashaala, set up in the mid 1500-s by bhagavantaH
govinda-diikShitaH in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu. It teaches the R^ik, yajur
and saama-veda-s even now and is the premier veda school in Tamil Nadu.
They have reissued many of their old books and are available for purchase.

I) Many of the prayoga texts were compiled by muttu-shrautinaH, who passed
away in the early 1940-s. The texts are all in the grantha script with
pretty much no printing errors, so there is your motivation for learning
this beautiful script :-). muttu-shrautinaH was an accomplished scholar and
had performed the vaajapeya-shrauta-yaj~nam as the adhvaryu when he was
just 16 years old! Here is a list of the books that I obtained with a brief
description:

1. kalpa-cintaamaNi: puujaa vidhaanam compiled from various sources for
different vrata-s like the shiva-raatrii, etc. The mantras in this are
largely not vedic, but from smR^iti texts.
2. aashvalaayana puurva-apara-prayogam
3. aashvalaayana shraaddha prayogam: 2 and 3 are smaarta prayoga texts for
the R^ig vedins and it's a testimony to the scholarship of
muttu-shrautinaH, whose sva-shaakhaa was the yajur veda.
4. aapastamba puurva-apara-prayogam
5. aapastamba shraaddha prayogam: 4 and 5 are smaarta prayoga texts for the
aapastamba yajur vedins.
6. bodhaayana puurva-apara-prayogam: 6 is the smaarta prayoga text for the
bodhaayana yajur vedins.
7. saamaveda puurva-apara-prayogam.
8. shaanti-ratnaakaram (2 parts): smaarta shaanti yaj~nams such as the
aayuShya, navagraha, etc., for yajur vedins. This has over 150 yaj~nam-s in
it!

II) I also got the following saama veda texts.

1. saama veda samhitaa with svara-s in the grantha script (2 parts).
2. saama veda aShTa braahmaNam in 3 parts in the devanaagarii script. Note
that the saama braahmaNam does not have svara-s in the Tamil tradition.

III) A few other non-prayoga books in devanaagarii are also available
including the nice compilation R^ig-veda-shR^i~Nkalaa. However, this seems
to be a recent work and does not have the svara-s unlike the yajur
counterpart.

Their contact info:

email: rajavedapatasala at gmail.com
Phone: (0435) 2425948, 2401789.

The lady at their office was super helpful.

Rama