We have created a very powerful search engine to help you find results supporting deep and complex searches in English and Tamil(தமிழ்). Following are some examples of the different features of the search:

Specific Paasuram

To access a specific paasuram, you can specify the short code followed by pathu(decade).thirumozhi(chapter).paasuram number. For eg: to access Thiruvaimozhi 3rd decade 5th chapter 8th paasuram, you can say within quotes “TVM 3.5.8”. Alternatively, you can specify in the URL as well as /divya-prabandam/TVM/3/5/8

Short Codes (SC) for Prabhandams are as follows:

Phrases:

Phrase Search allows you to search for documents containing an exact sentence or phrase rather than comparing a set of keywords in random order. To use phrase search use quotation marks (") around a specific phrase:

"Live Long (Pallāndu)! Live Long (Pallāndu)!"

Wildcards:

Search supports single and multiple-character wildcard searches within single terms (not within phrase queries).

To perform a single-character wildcard search use the "?" symbol.

To perform a multiple-character wildcard search use the "*" symbol.

The single-character wildcard search looks for terms that match that with the single character replaced. For example, to search for "come" or "came" you can use the search:

c?me

Multiple-character wildcard searches look for 0 or more characters. For example, to search for child or children, you can use the search:

child*

You can also use wildcard searches in the middle of a term.

flo*ers

Note: You cannot use a * or? symbol as the first character of a search.

Proximity search:

UVeda search supports finding words within a specific distance away. To do a proximity search use the tilde, "~", symbol at the end of a Phrase. For example to search for a "dark" and "flower" within 4 words of each other in a document use the search:

"dark flower"~4

Boolean:

Boolean operators allow terms to be combined through logic operators. Search supports AND, "+", OR, NOT, and "-" as Boolean operators (Note: Boolean operators must be ALL CAPS).

OR

The OR operator is the default conjunction operator. This means that if there is no Boolean operator between two terms, the OR operator is used. The OR operator links two terms and finds a matching document if either of the terms exists in a document. This is equivalent to a union using sets. The symbol || can be used in place of the word OR.

To search for documents that contain either "cow" or "flute" use the query:

cow flute

or

cow OR flute

AND

The AND operator matches documents where both terms exist anywhere in the text of a single document. This is equivalent to an intersection using sets. The symbol && can be used in place of the word AND.

To search for documents that contain "flower" and "flute" use the query:

"flower" AND "flute"

+ (plus)

The "+" or required operator requires that the term after the "+" symbol exist somewhere in the field of a single document.

To search for documents that must contain "flute" and may contain "flower" use the query:

+flute

NOT

The NOT operator excludes documents that contain the term after NOT. This is equivalent to a difference using sets. The symbol ! can be used in place of the word NOT.

To search for documents that contain "Ghee or Milk" but not "yogurt" use the query:

"ghee OR milk" NOT "yogurt"

Note: The NOT operator cannot be used with just one term. For example, the following search will return no results:

NOT "yogurt"

- (minus)

The "-" or prohibit operator excludes documents that contain the term after the "-" symbol.

To search for documents that contain "milk" but not "yogurt" use the query:

milk -yogurt

Grouping

Search supports using parentheses to group clauses to form sub-queries. This can be very useful if you want to control the boolean logic for a query.

To search for either "milk" and "ghee" or "yogurt" use the query:

milk AND (ghee OR yogurt)

Boosting:

The search engine provides the relevance level of matching documents based on the terms found. To boost a term use the caret, "^", symbol with a boost factor (a number) at the end of the term you are searching. The higher the boost factor, the more relevant the term will be.

Boosting allows you to control the relevance of a document by boosting its term. For example, if you are searching for

lakshmi chest

and you want the term "lakshmi" to be more relevant boost it using the ^ symbol along with the boost factor next to the term. You would type:

lakshmi^10 chest

This will make documents with the term lakshmi appear more relevant. You can also boost Phrase Terms as in the example:

"lakshmi seated"^4 chest

By default, the boost factor is 1. Although the boost factor must be positive, it can be less than 1 (e.g. 0.2)

Faceted search:

On top of all these types of searches, you can apply relevant filters (e.g. record type, hierarchy, author, ...) for currently shown search results.