Siṃhī: The Becoming
सिंही
Siṃhī: The Becoming · Written and Illustrated by Mateo Rose
There was in a dense and vast forest a sweet and beautiful young lioness. She loved to hunt with her mother, Gāyatrī, the golden huntress. One day a great storm began, and she became separated from her pride.
Some books are read. Some are told.
Siṃhī: The Becoming is the story of a young lioness who loses her mother in a storm and finds shelter in a cave — where a wise snake, knowing she is afraid, begins to tell her a story. And in that story, there is another story. And in that one, another still.
Written in the tradition of the Hitopadeśa — the ancient art of nested wisdom stories, passed from parent to child, teacher to student, around fires for thousands of years — this book grows as Simṃhī grows. The earliest pages are spare and close to the ground. By the final pages, the sentences have grown long and the silences between them longer still. This is not accident. It is the shape of becoming.
The Sanskrit lives inside it, carried the way it has always been carried: in the sound before the meaning.
A father reading to a daughter. A mother to a son. A seeker reading alone at night who finds, in the young lioness, something they recognize.
First Edition, 2026 · Published by Embody Healing Center LLC, Ashland, Oregon
ISBN: 9798252046259 · Available in hardcover and Kindle