Description

• Synthesizes ancient mythologies across time, space, and cultures to resacralize the human experience

• Written as a novella interspersed with metered quatrains in the tradition of medieval Persian belles-lettres

• Includes full-color paintings of key figures and motifs, including Sita, Yggdrasil, the Minotaur, Quetzalcoatl, and the Three Marys

In this globe-spanning chronicle, Pir Zia Inayat Khan, leader of the Inayatiyya, sets forth an astonishing sequence of legends revealing little-known connections between ancient cultures and spiritual lineages.

Framed as a dialogue between the Iranianepic poet Firdausi and his tutelary daimon, this novella follows the tradition of medieval Persian belles-lettres in which prose passages are punctuated with metered verses. The daimon reveals to the hitherto depressed poet the inner history of the world as reflected in the missions of a succession of sages moving through Earth’s lands and ages. Readers will learn of the creation of the universe, the war of the angels and the jinns, the exile of Adam and Eve, and the deeds of Melchizedek and Enoch. They will also explore the rise of the Nephilim, the advent of ancient civilizations, the origins of the Abrahamic faiths, and the history of the Grail and Emerald Tablet. Beautiful paintings by Amruta Patil bring the legends to life.

The cumulative effect of the traditions synthesized here is a resacralization of the human experience across time, space, and cultures, achieved through an unexpected marriage of myth and history.