Talks
Rāma prefiguring Muhammad: A 17th Century Persian Ramayana
Prashant Keshavmurthy
Two Pages from the Ramayana Made for Akbar’s mother, Hamidah Banu Begum, Mughal India, ink, gold and opaque watercolour on paper, 37.8 x 24.9cm (page), MSS 955.1–2
Rāma’s tale was retold around fifty-one times in the Persian language. One of the versions, admired in its time for its metaphors, is Mullā Masīḥ Pānīpati’s Dāstān-i Rām o Sitā, completed in the 1600s and dedicated to the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. It is a masnavī or poem in end-rhymed couplets that traces, in 132 chapters, the main plotline of Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa.
Join us for an illustrated talk by Prashant Keshavmurthy, an associate professor of Persian-Iranian Studies in the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University. He will shed light on Masīḥ’s Persian Ramayana, how the text portrays Rama as a prophet prefiguring prophet Muhammad. The talk will compare passages from Masīḥ’s Persian version with those from Vālmīki, and incorporate Mughal paintings from various Persian Rāmāyaṇas.
Bookings
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