Now Reading: Morari Bapu starts 9-day Ramcharitmanas recital at Harvard
-
01
Morari Bapu starts 9-day Ramcharitmanas recital at Harvard
Indian spiritual leader Morari Bapu has begun a nine-day recital of the Ramcharitmanas at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre in Cambridge. Titled 'Manas Guru Prasad', it runs from August 15 to 23. A three-day scholarly discussion was also held from August 16 to 18.
Harvard faculty director Prof Diana Eck said Ram, Sita and Lakshmana could be seen as 'primordial pilgrims' whose exile journey through India turned places into sacred sites, inspiring Ramlila traditions across Thailand, Indonesia and Cambodia. UK House of Lords member Dolar Popat noted Harvard’s motto 'Veritas' resonated with the values of Satya, Prem and Karuna.
The programme also marked Tulsi Jayanti on August 19. Bapu said the gathering focused on the 'Tribhuvana Sutras' of Satya, Prem and Karuna. He has delivered over 980 Kathas at more than 900 locations, including the Vatican, the UN and Cambridge University in 2023.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The venue, Harvard’s Sanders Theatre, matters as much as the recital: it marks the Ramcharitmanas’s first full nine-day cycle at an Ivy League campus, a setting far removed from the riverbank pandals of Chitrakoot or Ayodhya. The participation of scholars from those Indian pilgrimage towns, alongside a Harvard faculty director, signals a quiet institutional shift: Indian religious texts are being studied not just as scripture but as living public-performance traditions. Watch whether this Harvard engagement prompts similar invitations from other global universities, and whether the event’s material, photographs, recordings, scholarly papers, feeds into academic curricula on South Asian humanities.
Source: hindustantimes.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above. Methodology and corrections.
