India's great epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana will be taught at Harvard University's Harvard Divinity School, US starting this month.
The course titled ‘Indian Religions Through Their Narrative Literatures’ has been offered to Harvard students to create an understanding of religious tradition in South Asia.
The course will be taught by Anne E. Monius, the Professor of South Asian Religions at the University.
Professor Monius told NDTV, the course will teach students about Indian religions from the poetic visions of Vyasa and Valmiki and to modern performances of the epics in urban street theatres and television serials.
The course will also look into dance performances, shadow puppet plays, modern fictional retelling, and televised renditions of the stories.
While talking about the universality of the two epics, Anne E. Monius said, "The Indian epics are long and complex narratives that speak to virtually every aspect of human experience. While the Mahabharata is a sobering tale of cataclysmic war and loss, the Ramayana is one of India's great love stories."
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Once the course is over, her students would be able to appreciate the richness of the texts and develop varied lenses with which to examine the different practices and traditions that make up what scholars have called Hinduism," Anne E. Monius said.
Rajan Zed, president of Universal Society of Hinduism, in a statement, commended Harvard University for highlighting Hindu heritage.
He urged major universities across the world to frequently offer Hinduism focused classes, thus sharing rich philosophy-concepts-symbols-traditions of this oldest religion with the rest of the world.
If they needed any assistance, he or other Hindu scholars would gladly help, Zed added.
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