About Us…The Story so far
Pandit Duraiswami Aiyangar’s scholarly pursuits straddled the arena of science (through his study of Ayurveda), the creative spaces of literature (through his translation of Kalidasa), and the fascinating field of philosophy (through his commentaries on Vedantic texts). Proficient in Tamil, his mother tongue, Sanskrit, his preferred language of expression, Malayalam and Manipravalam, languages he picked up along the way, and English, the language of western communication, he was born to be a translator and commentator.
Yet despite his phenomenal contribution to the field of Ayurveda and literature, popularising esoteric texts and complex literary works, he was almost entirely unknown outside the tight-knit community of Ayurvedic doctors or Sanskrit scholars. Many of his works, unpublished and in manuscript form only, have been lost forever. The other lies in ancient libraries which offer little access.
It was only when one of his grand-daughters, Malavika Muralidharan decided to follow a trail of his writings, that discoveries started tumbling out of archives, libraries, and unknown collectors of ancient manuscripts. It has taken fifteen years of dedicated and diligent effort in pursuing pointers, conversing with librarians, reaching dead-ends, and picking up the strands again, to arrive at a point where at least a small portion of Pandit Duraiswami’s effort has come to light.
After collecting and compiling many of Pandit Duraiswami Aiyangar’s works, Malavika approached her cousin Vivek Ragavan, whose father M.D. Vijayaraghavan was Pandit Duraiswami Aiyangar’s eldest son. Together, these two grandchildren of Pandit Duraiswami Aiyangar decided to establish the Vaidyacharya Trust with
The express purpose of collecting, translating, and otherwise making these books available for posterity. The Trust has already embarked upon an ongoing project of locating all the works of Pandit Duraiswami, gathering them in one place, translating them into English, and uploading them to this website so that they are available for the general public. We hope that through this effort, researchers, scholars, interested students, as well as a wider audience, will be granted a treasure trove of translations and commentaries which will enable scholarship to thrive, insights to be created, and greater light is thrown on the wisdom and heritage of an ancient civilization which still has so much to contribute to mankind.
Trustees
VIVEK RAGAVAN
Vivek Ragavan is Pandit Duraiswami Aiyangar’s grandson (the son of Pandit Duraiswami’s first son, Vijayaraghavan) and has, together with Malavika been passionate about preserving the works of his grandfather for future generations.
Vivek has always shown keen interest in embarking on the intellectual journey of exploring the works of ancient Indian philosophy, science, literature, and music and to his delight, discovered through Malavika’s diligent work, a treasure trove of manuscripts written by his own grandfather on these subjects. Realizing that this was the need of the hour, Vivek, with inputs from his cousins, decided to create a website containing the digitized versions of these manuscripts.
But Vivek and Malavika went further. Knowing that there was a vast English reading audience thirsting for a sip of ancient India’s contribution to the world of medicine and literature, and for whom the Sanskrit language was an impregnable barrier, they began commissioning the translation of these works into English. As each text is finalized, it will be added to the website, enriching and enhancing its value constantly.
Vivek is a telecommunications networking industry veteran and seasoned entrepreneur with more than 35 years of high-technology leadership experience. He has served as President and CEO of private and public companies and as a board member of many private companies in this industry. He currently serves on the Advisory Council of the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University, as a board member of the Akanksha Fund in the USA, and as a trustee of the Motivation for Excellence (MFE) Initiative.
Vivek received his B.Sc. in electrical engineering from Northwestern University, his M.Sc. in electrical engineering from Cornell University, and currently resides in the San Francisco Bay area.
Malavika Muralidharan
Malavika is the daughter of Vaijayanti – the third child of Pandit Duraiswami Aiyangar. She was born when her grandfather was translating Kavi Kalidasa’s Malavika Agnimitram and owes her name to the heroine of Kalidasa’s play.
A librarian by profession, Malavika’s interest in her grandfather’s work was sparked when she stumbled upon references to several of his works on the internet. From that little kindling of curiosity, it has been one long but exciting journey for her, across continents, combing the by-lanes of little-known districts of Tamil Nadu in India, contacting libraries in the United States and India, trying to discover what her grandfather wrote, locating his published works, pursuing scholars who could translate them into English, and even tracing the arduous route her grandfather took from his birth in the village of Melpakkam near the Uttarmerur temple, to his culmination as a doctor in the province of Madras, as it was then known.
All through her career, Malavika has worked in libraries, starting at the TIFR Library and Indian Institute of Geomagnetism in Mumbai and then the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. She later went on to head the British Council Library in Mumbai. Currently, Malavika works at the Arizona State Library, Phoenix, AZ, USA.
Other Major Contributors
Chandrika, Malavika’s sister, whose love for writing must have come from her grandfather, corrected, edited, and put into words all that was inchoate so far. She shares their appreciation of and admiration for their grandfather.
The greatest treasures are often found in the most astounding of ways. After a vain search for years to locate someone who not only knew English, Sanskrit and Tamil but was computer savvy as well, all of a sudden the fates conspired to lead Malavika to Dr. S. Usha from Chennai in Tamil Nadu. She is a doctorate in Sanskrit and Sri. Vaishnavism, the ablest person to undertake the task of translation as she is proficient both in language and content. At present, she has translated Hamsa Sandesham and the Presidential Address with the same dedication and attention to detail that was the hallmark of Pandit Duraiswami. Best of all, she brings to her work a spirit of reverence, realizing the immense value of Pandit Duraiswami’s contribution to the world of ideas.