Mumbiram has completed another ambitious project that he had undertaken after his first visit to Vrindavan in 1987.
He has rendered four great Rasa Classics in graceful English and contemporary idiom.Those were Sanskrit Literature of Vyasa’s “Rasa Panchadhyayi“, Jayadeva’s “Gita Govinda” and Vishvanath Chakravarty’s “Prema Samput” as well as a juicy folk version in Vraja Bhasha of Rupa Gosvami’s “LalitMadhava“. As English renderings of great eastern classics these are in the same league as Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Richard Francis Burton’s “Arabian Nights” or Edwin Arnold’s “Light of Asia”.
The fifth is Mumbiram’s original work “Deluges of Ecstasy” in the lofty Prema Vivarta mood of Love in Separation that he had composed in America.
All five of them are embellished with his masterpieces of Rasa Art.
These are published as a five volume ensemble “High Five of Love” by Distant Drummer Publishing of Germany. As literary classics illustrated by the author himself they are reminiscent of works of William Blake and Khalil Gibran.
These five Art Quality Books are flagships of Rasa Renaissance.
Here Mumbiram has introduced for the first time the noble ideals of Rasa Renaissance. Here we have the prime proponent of an artistic movement matching his painterly virtuosity with his literary flourish.
It is a fusion of great Rasa Art and great Rasa Literature that brings the enduring wisdom of ancient India to contemporary international readership in a highly aesthetic popular new avatar.
These books take us to a brave new world of a brave new idiom and brave new images.
Mumbiram’s Art of Rasa Renaissance thus ensconced in Classics of Rasa Literature rekindles our hopes for an Aesthetic Renaissance.
These books bring us the good-tidings that the barren void in Art and Spirituality will once again resound with the passionate calls of cuckoos maddened by mango blossoms and hordes of bumblebees lusting after honey.
They are a great solace to the souls thirsting for Rasa or juicy climax of emotional fulfillment that we are all seeking from love, relationships, art and literature.
As an ensemble they are a festival.
Clicking on any book cover below, will bring you to the listing of that book on the publisher’s site www.distantdrummer.de
“FIVE SONGS of RASA”
… is a favourite selection from the Tenth Canto of Shri Vyasadeva’s authoritative work, Shrimad Bhagavatam, composed nearly 5000 years ago, at the beginning of the present Kali Yuga. Vyasadeva also composed the great epic Mahabharata. Shrimad Bhagavatam is all about Krishna the real hero of the Mahabharata. Vyasadeva is considered to be the literary incarnation of Krishna himself. The five selections here together are famously known as “Rasapanchadhyayi”.
“Conjugal Fountainhead”
… is the celebrated “Gita Govinda” of 12th century poet Shri Jayadev. It is about intense longings and consummate unions of the lovers Radha and Krishna in the spring season in Vrindavan. Shri Jayadeva’s melodious Sanskrit compositions of Gita Govinda have been inspiring singers and dancers of India since the 12th century. These remain unsurpassed examples of perfect harmony of poetic excellence and musical virtuosity.
“The Jewel-Box of Highest Secrets of True Love”
… tells of a delightfully witty and touching episode when Krishna appears as an exquisitely beautiful demi-goddess in the company of Radha and her sakhis, only to lustily criticize Krishna’s miserable failure as a True Lover. Radha then reveals the most confidential secrets of True Love. Shri Vishvanath Chakravarti, who is considered to be a re-incarnation of Rupa Gosvamiji, lived in Vrindavan in the 17th century. This “Jewel-box” is Chakavartiji’s “Prema Samput” in English translation.
“VRINDAVAN DIARIES”
…give us intimate accounts of happenings in the woods of Vrindavan, in the local Vraja dialect of Vrindavan. These folk-accounts that are passed on in oral traditions are traceable to Shri Rupa Gosvami’s early 16th century Sanskrit plays. The scholars of Vrindavan and the folk-people of Vraja have a very innate on-going symbiotic rapport. Rupa Gosvami is considered to be the original exponent of raganuga bhakti (spontaneous attachment to Krishna) as distinct from vaidhi bhakti (attachment cultivated by practice of scriptural injunctions).
