“FIVE SONGS of RASA” is Artist Mumbiram’s English translation of the celebrated “Rasapanchadhyayi” from the Tenth Canto of Shri Vyasadeva’s authoritative work, Shrimad Bhagavatam in Sanskrit, composed nearly 5000 years ago.
Shri Vyasdeva is also the composer of the four Vedas as well as the epic Mahabharata. Since all that brilliant literary achievement failed to bring him peace, his spiritual preceptor, Sage Narada, inspired him to compose the Shrimad Bhagavatam especially to extol the personality of Krishna. Vyasdeva is venerated as the literary incarnation of Krishna.

Linguistic Aura of Eternal Rasa

“Rasapanchadhyayi” is about the irresistible charm of the personality of Krishna through the eyes of the bewitched damsels that are his paramours. The Sanskrit compositions are songs composed according to certain rules of meters. Mumbiram’s translation more than lives up to the challenge of conjuring up appropriate linguistic aura that brings the verses of Vyasadeva’s epic into contemporary idiom. Each verse reads like an anthem of Love and leads to a climax of an ecstatic Rasa Triumph.

Graceful Devanagari Script

The “Five Songs of Rasa” contains the original Sanskrit verses in the graceful Devanagari script. To those who are not familiar with the script it creates a wonderfully exotic ambience that the original work aspires to inspire. Those who will eventually introduce themselves to the entirely phonetic Devanagari script, as well as to those connoisseurs who have some familiarity with the Sanskrit language, this book is for keeps, to be proudly handed to the next generation.

Flagship Masterpiece of Rasa Renaissance:
“Forest Women visit Krishna and the Gopis”

The juxtaposition of details from Mumbiram’s Rasa masterpiece oil-painting: “Forest Women visit Krishna and the Gopis” next to the verses of the classics adds an entirely new dimension to this classic. This masterpiece is considered Mumbiram’s magnum opus and the flagship of Rasa Renaissance for different reasons that all add up. It is loaded with a threefold impact: in art, theology and society.
It is inspired by one verse of Rasapanchadhyayi and brings out confidential knowledge in Krishna Theology. Only those critics who are well-versed with the Rasa-Siddhanta can do justice to this masterpiece. Yet it is attractive even to a layman. It transcends mere cultural variety and puts one on the sublime plane of the universal aesthetics of Rasa.

See Sample Pages and Prelude

of “Five Songs of Rasa”