Regarding the materials, I myself went to many places (some places did not find place inthe book) and gathered information. When C. M. Ramachandran chettiar was the Commissioner of Hindu religions endowments, he made arrangements to publish small book-let on each sacred place of Tamil Nadu. Many books were written by one Thiru, Pancha-natham Pillai and he was kind enough to send some of them which he had at that time. Archakas of some of the temples had given me informations regarding the dieties and method of worship etc.,
Thiru, J. M. Somasundaram Pillai has written about Nataraja temple of Chidambaram in the Annamalai University publication (University Environs) and I quoted some of his writings with no alterations or additions. So also the Dharmapuram Mutt has published about Tiruvaiyaru (publication 309) and I added the same in this book. I have also taken some paragraphs from Thiru. Jagadeesa Iyer’s “‘ South Indian shrines”. Some writings of Ananda Kumaraswamy and other distinguished scholars helped meaiotto bring this book in this form. Thiru. J. M. Nallaswami Pillai’s writings on Saivisms and Saiva Siddhantha are included in the Appendix. The Madurai District Gazetter was helpful to me to write about the temple city. My thanks are due to them all.
I have to thank the following friends in addition to those I have already mentioned above.
- Thiru, Jayasenthilnathan—-Kancheepuram
- Thiru. Prof, Krishnamurthi—Palani
- Thiru, Dr. Sambasivam~—Madurai
- Thiru, Dr. Subramanian—Nagarkoil
- Thiru, Rajagopalan—Trichy
- Thiru. Sapapathi Desikar-Tiruvalankadu
- Thiru, M.S, Senkaran-Tirunelvelly
He has also helped me in getting the inscriptions on ‘Tala vadya’ with its explanations.
- Thiru Dr. Prof. Sowrirajan, Head of the Dept, of Tamil, Venkateswara university.
With the grace of God, I am publishing this book and placed it at the feet of of Lord Venkateswara of Tirupati. I hope this book will be of help to foreigners and other people of India who visit Tamilnadu. Once again I thank one and all for all their help in publishing this book.
Tamil Kalai Illam A. M, Paramasivanandam Madras-30 Tirupathi,
1—6—1981.
