Vishwadarshan a Glimpse of the Universe by Rupa Srikumar

Fingerprint! Publishing is happy to announce the release of its latest title Vishwadarshan, A Glimpse Of  The Universe, the first ever English translation of Mahatma Ram Ratna Thapliyal’s spiritual treatise by  bestselling and award winning author AK Srikumar and Rupa Srikumar.

Vishwadarshan, as the title suggests, is an insight into the workings of life, and the universe. It is a  repository of knowledge, an illumination of realms unknown. This work came as a smriti–divine  revelation–to Mahatma Ram Ratna Thapliyal, following his seventeen-year long penance in the great  Himalayas. The treatise is exceptionally perceptive and profound.

Concepts such as the Supreme Element, the Supreme Consciousness, Supreme Nature, Supreme Pure  Merit and the Supreme Merit of Passion are explained in relation to creation and nature, how one  influences and leads to the other, impelling the cycle of creativity and destruction and recreation. The  authors discuss time and change, and their bright and dark facets. The seeming constancy of what is  actually inconstant, constantly changing, is revealed, of how every substance and being in the universe  undergoes change, through stages of childhood, youth and old age.

About the book

Srikumar Vishwadarshan is an insight into the workings of life and the universe, its inception, creation, and cessation, received as a revelation by Mahatma Thapaliyal as a consequence of his seventeen-year-long penance in the Himalayas. From the tiny ant living on Earth to intuitive revelations about the solar and lunar systems, this work touches various universal aspects. The seer brings a fresh perspective to how the ever-constant Supreme Consciousness and Prakriti together conceive the universe, in the form of Brahma and Saraswati, how sustenance of the universe is taken care of by Maha Vishnu and Maha Laxmi, and its ultimate destruction by Shiva and Mahakali. Mahatma Thapaliyal’s work comes highly recommended by the likes of Sri Aurobindo, Gurudev Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, and Madan Mohan Malaviya. They, and others, considered this smriti to be unique in the annals of philosophy and spirituality. Rupa and A.K. Srikumar’s lucid English translation makes this seminal work a must-read, particularly in this harrowing time when mankind is searching for its moorings.

About the author

Rupa Srikumar is a poet, translator, and novelist. She has also written for the radio and the stage. With her husband A.K. Srikumar, she translated Yasmin Khalid Rafi’s Mohammad Rafi: My Abba A Memoir (Westland) from Hindi to English. Her adaptation of Jai Shankar Prasad’s Hindi play Ajatasatru was staged in Delhi University some years ago. Rupa’s first novel Mahaveer (jointly authored with A. K. Srikumar) was published by Rupa Publications in 2019.

A.K. Srikumar is a novelist, translator, poet, and playwright. Some of Srikumar’s poetry has been published by The Times of India. His play Bhishma was staged in Ahmedabad (1984). His short stories have been featured in esteemed publications such as Femina and Children’s World. Srikumar’s novels The Wonderful World of Nilayam Swamy (1981) and Conversations with a Motor cycle (1984) were published by Writers’ Workshop, Kolkata. His historical novel The Begum’s Secret (Penguin, 2010) was long listed for the Vodafone Crossword Literary Prize. A.K. Srikumar and Rupa live in Mumbai. Their son S. Shankar is a filmmaker and screenwriter, and daughter Rohini a Hindustani vocalist and social scientist.

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