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
Bookings are closed for this event.
Prashant Keshavmurthy
Prashant Keshavmurthy is Associate Professor of Persian-Iranian Studies in the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University. He is the author of Persian Authorship and Canonicity in Late Mughal Delhi: Building an Ark (Routledge, 2016) and co-translator of Sohrab Sepehri, The Eight Books: A Complete English Translation (Brill, 2022). He has completed a full translation into English blank verse of Amir Khusraw’s mixed genre poem from 1318, The Nine Skies (excerpted here https://wordpress-884969-4089061.cloudwaysapps.com/nine-skies/), and is writing a monograph on craving and craft in the quintet of the great twelfth century poet Niẓāmī of Ganja.You can view his encyclopaedia entry on Mullā Masīḥ’s Dāstān-i Rām o Sitā here: https://iranicaonline.org/articles/ram-wa-sita
