The Paramacharya's stay in Madras in 1957-58 produced a treasure trove of words of eternal wisdom, which were reported in The Hindu then and were later, in 1964 and 1968, brought out in book form, in two volumes. These books have been out of print for long, and The Hindu reports are not available to the general reader.

As part of the centenary celebrations of Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati, the Acharyas of the Kamakoti Peetam, Sri Jayendra Saraswati and Sri Vijayendra Saraswati, launched a programme of making available the Paramacharya's discourses as widely as possible in the form of books/booklets and audio-video cassettes. It was their desire that the Madras discourses, made nearly forty years ago, be reprinted, and The Hindu's publisher, Sri S. Rangarajan, and Editor, Sri. N. Ravi, readily agreed to underwrite the publication.

The original two volumes have been completely revised and reset. The earlier chronological order has been changed to subject-wise regrouping. Some minor editing has been done, taking out some portions which are now out of date. All this was done under the guidance of Sri Vijayendra Saraswati, who also set a timeframe for the work. I consider it my good fortune and a blessing that this task was, by chance, entrusted to me. And in fulfilling it, valuable assistance was rendered by Sri N.S. Parthasarathi, who took care of the technical aspects of the production, so ably done by Sri Maruthy Laser Printers. Sri. T.T. Vasu was of great help in procuring rare photographs, which have also been drawn from The Hindu Library, and from the collections of Sri Kumar (Vignesh) and Sri Om Subramaniam, photographers. The cover was designed by Sri Uday Shankar while Sri. R. Ranga Rao and Sri Vijay Anand worked on the layout for the picture pages and Sri, P.C. Jayaraman assisted in correcting the proofs Sri. N. Sivaramakrishnan, son of Acharyasevaratna K. Nilakantan of B.G. Paul and Co., who brought out the late V. Ramakrishna Aiyer's reports in book form for the Kamakoti Kosasthanam, readily consented to the reprint of the volumes.

K. Narayanan

Madras

February 1995

Book Compiled by

V. Ramakrishna Aiyer

Retired Deputy Chief Reporter

The Hindu, Madras

Sri Kamakoti Peetam

Sri Sankaracharya Swami Mutt

1, Salai Street, Kanchipuram – 631 502