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Mumbiram
Mumbiram, leader of the Rasa Renaissance movement of aesthetics
Bornc. 1949 (age c. 76)
Pune, Maharashtra, India
Known forArtist (charcoal, paint), author, translator of Sanskrit literature
Notable workPrema Vivarta ("Deluges of Ecstasy"), High Five of Love
MovementRasa Renaissance
Spouse(s)
Nadine, alias Vrinda
​
​
(m. 2002)​
Children2
Websitewww.mumbiram.com

Dhananjay Paranjpe (born c. 1949),[1][note 1] known professionally as Mumbiram, is an Indian painter and author known for his association with the Rasa Renaissance art movement.[2] He is best recognized for his charcoal and color renderings depicting India’s rural and tribal communities in everyday life. Mumbiram is also noted for his poetic-philosophical work, "Deluges of Ecstasy", composed during his 12-year stay in the United States, which explores themes of prema vivarta, or the transformations of divine love.

Early life

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Mumbiram was born in the Mandai vegetable market of downtown Pune, Maharashtra, to lawyer and public figure Ramdas Paranjpe and Anjani Paranjpe. His mother was the daughter of the watercolor artist S. H. Godbole, who served as a secretary of the Bombay Art Society in the 1930s.[citation needed] Anjani was also the granddaughter of Shri Vartak, the first Indian Chief Engineer of the colonial Bombay Presidency. Mumbiram's father was a nephew of spiritual master Shri Ramdasanudas of Wardha and of R. P. Paranjpye, the first Indian to top the Mathematical Tripos exam at Cambridge.[citation needed]

Mumbiram was a child artist who won prizes in children's art competitions. As a teenager, he was attracted to math and science and received his bachelor's degree in Telecommunication Engineering in 1967. Mumbiram attended the University of California, where he got his M.S. in Mathematical Systems in 1968 and a Ph.D. in 1973 for a dissertation in Mathematical Economics. [3]

Time in America

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Rasa Renaissance Masterpiece "Forest Women visit Krishna and the Gopis" Oil on canvas, by Mumbiram, 1985
Rasa Renaissance Masterpiece Forest Women visit Krishna and the Gopis. Oil on canvas, by Mumbiram, 1985

Mumbiram traveled in America for six more years, with significant periods spent on Capitol Hill in Seattle in Potomac, Maryland, and in Cambridge at Boston. He developed a hands-on approach to painting, with charcoal and ink-and-brush as his forte.[citation needed] Much of his work from these years remains with unknown individuals.[citation needed]

The two works, Alice Cooper Washing Mumbiram's Hair and Red-Haired Amateur Palmist Girl Reading Krishna's Fortune near Govardhan, represent his work in this period. His poetic work "Prema Vivarta" or "Deluges of Ecstasy" was composed during this period. In this work, the prema vivarta mood is revealed as the art of reconciling the mundane and the transcendental on the path to self-realization. All five of these literary works comprise the ensemble High Five of Love and are lavishly illustrated with Mumbiram's art, inspired by the same ideals.[4] He soon returned to India.

Visit to Japan: The Gokula painting

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Mumbiram's search for classical Sanskrit literature brought him to Krishna's Vrindavan in the summer of 1987. There he met Sachiko Konno, a student from the Tokyo School of Design who was attracted to Vrindavan in search of an aesthetic ideal. Konno was now known by her spiritual name Gokula. Their friendship brought Mumbiram to Japan a few months later. Mumbiram made several oil paintings on canvas during his stay, renderings of a sari-clad young Japanese woman, passionately in love with India. Gokula is said to have modeled for these paintings set in Vrindavan, India. These are landmark paintings representing the confluence of two cultures.[5]

Literary flagships of Rasa Renaissance: High Five of Love (1995–2005)

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Before his landmark house was torn down in 2005, Mumbiram completed a project undertaken after he visited Vrindavan in 1987: rendering four great Rasa (transl. ’emotional fulfillment’ or ‘nectar’) classics in English. Vyasa's "Rasa Panchadhyayi", Jayadeva's "Gita Govinda", and Vishvanath Chakravarty’s "Prema Samput" appear as "Five Songs of Rasa",[6] "Conjugal Fountainhead",[7] and "Jewel-Box of Highest Secrets of True Love",[8] respectively. A folk version in Vraja Bhasha of Rupa Gosvami's "LalitMadhava" is rendered as "Vrindavan Diaries".[9] Mumbiram's English renderings of Eastern classics are comparable in scope to Edward FitzGerald’s translation "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", Richard Francis Burton's "Arabian Nights", or Edwin Arnold’s "The Light of Asia". Mumbiram's fifth original work, "Deluges of Ecstasy",[4] was written in the Prema Vivarta mood of Love in Separation that he had composed in America. These are published as a five-volume ensemble, High Five of Love, by Distant Drummer Publishing of Germany, reminiscent of works by William Blake and Khalil Gibran.

Involvement with rag-pickers and tribals in the 'prema vivarta' mood

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According to Vaishnavism theology, Krishna is 'Rasaraj', the supreme source of all rasas; depictions of incidents in Krishna's biography are attractive subjects for Rasa Art.[10]

In the ‘prema vivarta’ mood of attachment to Krishna, everything appears to the lover of Krishna as a déjà vu related to Krishna.[11] Many Rasa masterpieces by Mumbiram are made in the prema vivarta mood. The theme of these renderings is from adolescent Krishna's activities enacted by forest tribals and urban rag-pickers. Ashok Gopal quotes Mumbiram: "My raven-dark rambunctious, roaming, rag-picking girlfriends remind me of Krishna and his boys in the forests of Vrindavan."[12] The hills of India are inhabited by tribals that subsist on wild grains, fruit, berries, herbs, honey, fodder, and firewood gathered from the forest. At the end of the day, men and women come home with heavy loads. These scriptures describe how the gopis, the cowherd damsels, waited for the adolescent Krishna and his friends to return from the forest with the cows.[13]

The charcoal renderings "Encounter on the Way back from the Forest" and "I let him persuade me" are examples of this theme. Mumbiram believes the civilized world of city people misses the beautiful and touching human side of the lives of tribals that is close to nature. Their life is close to the life of adolescent Krishna, the ultimate object of meditation by the scriptures of India.[13] These renderings show how enlightenment and aesthetic are intertwined in the Rasa masterpieces of Mumbiram. Sudhir Sonalkar's article "Banishing tourist-type Visions" notes this aspect of Mumbiram's art.[14]

  • Encounter on the Way back from the Forest; Mumbiram, Charcoal, 1985, Pune
    Encounter on the Way back from the Forest; Mumbiram, Charcoal, 1985, Pune
  • I let him persuade me; Mumbiram, Charcoal, 1986, Pune
    I let him persuade me; Mumbiram, Charcoal, 1986, Pune

Notes

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  1. ^ The 25 June 2009 article "Artist married to German moves HC for child's school admission" lists Mumbiram's age as sixty at the time. This puts his approximate birth year at 1949 and age at around 76 (in 2025).

References

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  1. ^ "Artist married to German moves HC for child's school admission". The Indian Express. 25 June 2009. Retrieved 28 May 2025.
  2. ^ "Mumbiram - leading Rasa Renaissance in Art". Mumbiram. Retrieved 31 May 2025.
  3. ^ "Mumbiram in America". Mumbiram. Retrieved 13 May 2025.
  4. ^ a b Mumbiram (6 April 2011). Deluges of Ecstasy. Distant Drummer Publications. ISBN 978-3-943040-04-3.
  5. ^ Mumbiram, Artist (5 October 2007). The Gokura Auction - New Era of Japan-India Relations. Distant Drummer. ISBN 978-3-943040-11-1.
  6. ^ Mumbiram, Artist (6 April 2011). Five Songs of Rasa. Distant Drummer. ISBN 978-3-943040-00-5.
  7. ^ Mumbiram, Artist (6 April 2011). Conjugal Fountainhead. Distant Drummer. ISBN 978-3-943040-01-2.
  8. ^ Mumbiram, Artist (6 April 2011). Jewelbox of Highest Secrets of True Love. Distant Drummer. ISBN 978-3-943040-02-9.
  9. ^ Mumbiram, Artist (6 April 2011). Vrindavan Diaries. Distant Drummer. ISBN 978-3-943040-03-6.
  10. ^ Goswami, Rupa (1932). Ujjwalanilamani. Bombay: Nirnaya Sagar Press.
  11. ^ Goswami, Krishnadas Kaviraj. Shri Chaitanya Charitamritam. Vrindavan: Harinam Press.
  12. ^ Gopal, Ashok (24 July 1988). "Waiting in the Wings". Sunday Maharashtra Herald.
  13. ^ a b Vyasadev, Shri. Shrimad Bhagavatam. Gorakhpur: Gita Press.
  14. ^ Sonalkar, Sudhir (11 December 1988). "Banishing tourist-type visions". The Sunday Observer, Mumbai.
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