By Prithwis Mukerjee
(As Interpreted from A Fistful of Memories)
The Chronos Trilogy is not merely a work of science fiction. It is, as Prithwis Mukerjee suggests in his memoir, a metaphysical offering — a literary yantra designed to explore the convergence of consciousness, technology, and time. Though the trilogy remains largely undiscovered in the mainstream literary world, its conceptual ambition places it in a rare category: fiction as philosophical architecture.
The trilogy is structured around three Sanskrit concepts — Tantra, Yantra, and Mantra — each representing a stage in the evolution of both the narrative and the reader’s own awareness. Chronotantra, the first volume, lays the metaphysical foundation. It asks the reader to consider a universe not as a machine governed by blind laws, but as a mandala — a patterned field of consciousness in which time is not linear but recursive, and in which the self is not an emergent property of matter, but the very substrate of reality. Drawing from Advaita Vedanta, quantum mysticism, and the Upanishadic vision of Brahman, Chronotantra is less a novel than a philosophical initiation. Characters function not as personalities but as archetypes, and the plot unfolds more like a ritual than a sequence of events. It is a book to be read slowly, symbolically, and with the patience of a seeker.
Chronoyantra, the second volume, shifts from metaphysics to mechanism. Here, the speculative premise becomes civilizational: what would a society look like if it were designed not by Enlightenment rationalism, but by the principles of Sanatan Dharma? Could artificial intelligence be dharmic? Could blockchain mirror the karmic ledger? In this volume, Mukerjee imagines a world where ancient Indic cosmology informs the architecture of modern systems — where temples are not just places of worship, but data centers of sacred geometry, and where algorithms are not tools of control, but instruments of harmony. The tone is more grounded, the narrative more geopolitical, but the philosophical stakes remain high. Chronoyantra is not a dystopia. It is a blueprint for a future that is neither Western nor technocratic, but rooted in a different civilizational imagination.
The final volume, Chronomantra, completes the arc by returning to the source — not through theory or structure, but through vibration. If Chronotantra is the principle and Chronoyantra the device, then Chronomantra is the invocation. It explores the idea that the final evolution of intelligence is not artificial but spiritual, and that the future is not a place but a frequency. Drawing on the Yoga Sutras, tantric sound theory, and the mythic figure of Kalki — the final avatar — this volume envisions a world where consciousness awakens not through conquest, but through resonance. It is a book meant to be read aloud, to be felt as much as understood. The boundary between reader and text begins to dissolve, and what remains is not a conclusion, but a transformation.
Taken together, the Chronos Trilogy is not a story in the conventional sense. It is a philosophical journey, a speculative cosmology, and a civilizational thought experiment. It does not offer heroes or villains, but patterns and harmonics. It does not explain — it reveals.
In Chapter 22 of A Fistful of Memories, Mukerjee writes with disarming humility: “I have no illusions of literary greatness. But I do believe that these books are important — not because they are mine, but because they are necessary.” That necessity is not commercial. It is cultural. In an age dominated by Western techno-futures and dystopian collapse narratives, the Chronos Trilogy dares to imagine a different kind of tomorrow — one shaped not by fear or control, but by dharma, awareness, and the timeless rhythm of mantra.
It is, in the truest sense, a fistful of memory — and a handful of prophecy.
