The Africans Who Mapped the Universe: Tirumular by Ajarn Shaman Shu
By Ajarn Shaman Shu (Robert S. Shumake) · Buddha University Press · On Google Play and Apple Books
"Love is God." Few sages said it more simply, or mapped the path to it more completely, than Tirumular.
The Africans Who Mapped the Universe: Tirumular is a volume of the series by Ajarn Shaman Shu, who also publishes as Robert S. Shumake. It is a study of Tirumular, also spelled Thirumoolar or Tirumoolar, one of the 18 Siddhars of Tamil tradition.
The Tirumantiram
Tradition names Tirumular as the author of the Tirumantiram, a vast sacred work of some 3,000 verses on yoga, mantra, the body, and the union of the soul with God. It is revered as a foundation of Shaiva Siddhanta, and it teaches that the body is not an obstacle to the divine but its temple. In this book, Ajarn Shaman Shu, with Shri Surya Nuranyana Swamikal, explores Tirumular's teachings and traces their roots back to what the book presents as the African origins of the inner sciences.
What the book explores
- Who Tirumular was in Siddha lineage and legend, including the story of how he entered the body of the cowherd Mulan
- The Tirumantiram: its structure, its themes and why it remains a living scripture
- The Book of the Body: the body as temple, and the Siddha science of preserving and perfecting it
- Mantra and sacred sound as tools of transformation
- Yoga, breath and the subtle body as mapped by the Siddhars
- Divine union: Shiva, love and the realization that God dwells within
- The book's argument for an African thread connecting the earliest inner sciences to Tirumular's teaching.
Who it is for
The book is part history, part spiritual teaching and part reclamation. It is written for readers of Siddha and Tamil mysticism, students of Shaivism and yoga philosophy, practitioners of mantra, meditation and breathwork, and anyone curious about the book's argument for African origins in world spirituality.
Get the book
- Google Play Books: Tirumular
- Apple Books: Tirumular
- The Africans Who Mapped the Universe: Tirumular: He Wrote the Book of the Body and God, Mantra, Divine Union and the Tirumantiram on robertshumake.co
robertshumake.co · Shiva University, Thirumular
About the author
Robert S. Shumake, publishing as Ajarn Shaman Shu, has lived two lives in one: the builder and the priest. In business, he rose from a Ford factory floor to become founding president and CEO of Inheritance Capital Group, a Black Enterprise-ranked private equity firm. He served as honorary consul for Botswana and Tanzania. He wrote Detroit's Proposal E, the 2021 ballot initiative that decriminalized entheogenic plants. In spirit, he received the name Ajarn Shaman Shu from the traditions that initiated him, including the Tamil Siddha line.
This page describes a book about a sacred text. The African-roots thesis is the author's interpretation, presented as the book presents it. Reading about a tradition is study, not initiation.