Tripura Rahasya (World Wisdom Books)

Tripura Rahasya, a favourite of Sri Ramana Maharshi from which he often quoted, is an ancient Sanskrit work and one of the greatest classics of Hindu spirituality. It has been compared by the great scholar, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, to Plato's Republic, inasmuch as it outlines the ideal city-state of a characteristically Indian utopia. This is the "City of Resplendent Wisdom" ruled by a philosopher-king, understood in Hindu terminology as the man who is liberated in this life (jivanmukta). The citizens of this city, seen allegorically, are all of the human faculties which have been illuminated aby the supreme Goddess.