Hindu Monastics Program
While the study of Hinduism and South Asia have long been a part of Harvard, the steady presence of Hindu monastics in HDS classes and community is a relatively recent development. Starting in 2019, donor support enabled the Divinity School to begin bringing visiting Hindu monastics to do coursework on campus for a year, a program modeled after HDS’s longstanding Buddhist Ministry Initiative visiting fellows program. It has continued through donor support and unrestricted funds directed by the Dean. “As a Divinity School, we're concerned about the critical understanding of religion, but also about the lived practice,” said Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology, at an event featuring the inaugural visiting monastics. “What does it mean to be a member of a community, to be a practitioner?” The visiting monastics—nine of them so far—are illuminating answers to those questions and more throughout their time at HDS.
Through this program, the monastics gain knowledge and experiences they can bring back to their communities and religious practice, including the opportunity to explore their traditions through an academic lens. “In Sarangpur, I was a student of Vedanta, so I studied the Upanishads from a Swaminarayan perspective,” said Sadhak Akshar, a 2019-20 visiting monastic from the BAPS, Swaminarayan's Sanskrit mahavidyalaya, or learning institution, in Sarangpur, Gujarat, India. He continues, “Here, I’m taking a course with Professor Clooney on the Upanishads, so I’m studying it from many different perspectives.”
At the same time, their presence enriches the HDS community through classroom discussion, community events like Diwali services, and public talks like “Why Hindu Monasticism? Inspirations and Insights” featuring the 2024-25 visiting monastics, Brahmacharini Durga of the Ramakrishna Order, and BK Sudarshan Sundar of the Brahmakumaris Order. Another notable talk featuring the visiting monastics from 2019-20—Sadhak Akshar, Brahmacharini Shweta Chaitanya, and Swami Sarvapriyananda—reached an audience well beyond the HDS community with more than 160,000 views on HDS’s YouTube channel.
Sometimes, profound and unexpected friendships are forged. Breana Noris, MTS ’23, was the commencement speaker for her graduating class and recounted how she became good friends with Sadhak Vandan, a visiting Hindu monastic, with whom she discovered a surprising number of similarities. Breana stated that her friendship with Vandan “is the most unique one I've had at HDS and in life. I believe it could only have happened at a place like Harvard Divinity School, at this moment in its history, a moment of open doors and people with open hearts.”
Unrestricted support is instrumental in creating unique opportunities that foster community and facilitate sharing from world religions, including the visiting Hindu monastics program. Because of HDS’s multireligious nature, it is uniquely positioned to develop ministry programming that reflects the religiously pluralistic world in which we live—programming that complements the School’s academic focus and helps to prepare students for careers in ministry, chaplaincy, and other spiritual vocations. With current ministry offerings in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christian denominations, HDS is now poised to develop similar programming for Jewish and Muslim ministry. We also seek to raise funds that specifically sustain and grow these initiatives going forward.
—by Sarah Rubin