“Royal Righteousness in the Ramayana? Faithful Leadership in India’s Mythic Masterpiece,” by Benjamin B. DeVan

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Posted on June 8th, 2012 | Filed under Academic, Featured
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Reading revered, sacred, classic, and popular religious texts and stories together is one significant way to enrich inter-religious relationships. This essay explores the Ramayana as a Hindu resource for inter-religious conversation by examining the virtues or dharma espoused and exemplified by its leading characters. How do the Ramayana’s royal exemplars personify qualities essential to faithful leadership? What among their virtues might inter-religious and other leaders apply in their own spheres of influence? Doubling as a companion or discussion guide, this article utilizes R.K. Narayan’s user-friendly Penguin Classics edition as one succinct and accessible narrative for multi-faith settings. Read more of this article here.

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The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue™ is a forum for academic, social, and timely issues affecting religious communities around the world. It is designed to increase the quality and frequency of interchanges between religious groups and their leaders. The Journal seeks to build an inter-religious community of scholars, in which people of different traditions learn from one another and work together for the common good.


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Contributing Scholars

Ben MatonBen Maton
Ben is a husband of one, father of three, a member of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Charlottesville, VA, and a PhD candidate in "Scripture, Interpretation, and Practice" at the University of Virginia.
Allana TaylorAllana Taylor
Allana Taylor completed her Masters degree in Divinity at the University of Chicago in 2012 and is currently living in Norman, Oklahoma with her wonderful husband Kyle and their one-year old gift, Isaac. She served as the Communications intern for the Council for a Parliament of the World's religions in 2010-2011. In the fall of 2012 she was a participant in the Middle Prairie Institute for Religion and Public Life's, a non-partisan think tank, annual session. Though her academic interests focus on Islamic Law and the modern state, she has also done research on the intersection of law and culture and questions of institutional justice versus morality. She identifies as an atheist, but is committed to inter-religious engagement and dialogue and is determined to be part of that conversation.
EnverEnver
Enver Rahmanov was born in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan and studied in Kiev, Ukraine before moving to the United States to work at the United Nations in New York. Currently, he is a student in Interreligious Studies at the Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley, California) and the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, and a graduate assistant at the Mangalam Research Center for Buddhist Languages. Enver believes that the wisdom of peace, compassion and right actions is truly universal and has no borders but only different languages and interpretations. He is inspired by the Dalai Lama’s ethics beyond religion and his call for education of the heart by bringing the indispensability of inner values of love, compassion, justice, and forgiveness into education. Enver promotes interfaith dialogue by building personal heart to heart connections across religious borders and through his facilitation of Beyond Words: An Interfaith Ritual for Peace.