UWest is pleased to welcome Prajwal Bajracharya, founder, of Dance Mandal, for a guest lecture on the “Sacred Dance of Nepal” on Thursday, December 2, 2021 at 6:00pm PST.

Mr. Bajracharya is a priest from one of the Vajrayana Buddhist lineages of Nepal. He is also a ritual master of both the Charya Nritya dance tradition and other ritual forms performed by the Newar Vajracharya lineage.

For the lecture, Mr. Bajracharya will discuss Charya Nritya–from Sanskrit meaning “dance as a spiritual discipline”–is an ancient Vajrayana Buddhist dance tradition that until recently was unknown outside the circles of initiates who perform it. This sacred dance is one of the religious arts of the Tantric Buddhist priests of the Kathmandu Valley, who perform it as part of their esoteric meditation and rituals since before the time of the Buddha. Each dance, through bodily gesture and energy-directed movement, invokes a different deity, such as Manjushri, Avalokiteshvara, Vajrayogini, or Vajrapani.

This lecture is organized by the Department of Religious Studies and the Religious Studies Graduate Council.

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