Precious stones on the offering

Dear Friends and Devotees, Shri: I am very pleased to introduce Shri P.R Ramachander who wants to share some of his precious things with us. Hope you would extend your two arms and grab as much as you can :). First, a brief introduction about him. Shri Ramachander is a 66 year old retired scientist from Kerala whose passions are history, translations of poems, cartoons and free matching of horoscopes for matrimony through internet. More than anything else, he has been maintaining a gem of a website. I am sure that reading directly from the horse's mouth will be more appropriate and useful. So, here is Shri Ramachandran wording for the readers of this blog, Dear Friends, Over hundreds of millenniums, the people practicing Sanatana Dharma (Perennial faith of justice-called Hinduism) used Sthothras (prayers praising their deities) to pray to their Ishta (pet) devathas. Our Vedas and Puranas were replete with such prayers. Some of them like Rudram and Chamakam from Vedas, Vishnu Sahasranama from Mahabaratha, Lalitha Saharanama, Lalitha Trishathi and Devi Mahatmyam from Markandeya Purana became extremely popular. Then came many great writers of Sthothras like Adhi Shankara, Kali Dasa, Vedantha Desigar, Appayya Deekshithar, Mooka Kavi, Kulasekara Azhwar, Abhirama Bhattar, Andal, Poonthanam etc Since the meaning of Sanskrit words, would change according to the method of pronunciation which involves division of long joined words, our ancestors, insisted that tall these prayers should be learned from the Guru. Things changed. Easily available books with proper guides for splitting the words and proper emphasis were published. Now are the days of revolution of audio recording of the recitation of these Sthothras by learned Gurus. I for one believe that because of all this, it is not necessary to learn these Sthothras from Gurus only. But another development came. We are now having the intelligent, curious generation who not only wants to recite it properly but also know the meaning of what they recite. Unfortunately many of them have lost touch with Sanskrit or even their mother tongue. If such state of affairs continues, a time will soon come, when our Sthothra rathnas will be confined to books and audio/video records. I am a scientist by profession with a fairly good understanding of more than 5 languages of India, So when I retired from service, I thought, that translation to English of these great Sthothra rathnas would serve the purpose of bringing the majesty of these prayers to the younger generation. I have been at it for the past six years. This is to bring to the notice of those who read this, that all my translations are available in the web site www.geocities.com/ramya475/ . Please visit this web site and also bring it to the notice of our young and old generation that may be interested. P.R.Ramachander I am sure that you will find the above site very informative and useful. I just got one more thing left to say.. Just like the great VAyuputran Hanuman who has Sri Rama ,who is verily SachhidAnanda Rathnam in his heart, May the lord shower us his grace to have these great sthothra rathas lingering in our hearts. Many Thanks ,Sri P.R Ramachander for maintaining such a wonderful website. SRI PATTAABHIRAMACHANDRAARRPANAMASTHU JAI SRI PURANDHRA VITHALA