An influential thinker from the 20th century stated that culture cannot be abridged to only its tangible products, because culture is continuously evolving and constantly evolving. According to the international community, the main attributes of a culture were limited to tangible cultural expressions, and their significance was evaluated on the basis of their artistic, aesthetic, architectural, visual, scientific, and economic value.
However, the essence of intangible elements in a culture cannot be overlooked, because these elements can be employed to accomplish the task of transferring knowledge, to the next of kin, of preservation of their own culture. Experts were of the view that in this era with a rich cultural variety of humanity moving towards uniformity. This can be dangerous because uniformity can lead to disintegration of cultural heritage.
But, Bharata is a land that includes thousands of living traditions, with each community striving hard to preserve their heritage. These include Kumbh Mela, Mysore Dasara, Karagam, Durga Puja, chanting and more.
CSP celebrates heritage week from the 19th to 25th November, and on the culminating day, we celebrate the intangible heritage of chanting with a Vedic and Buddhist scholar. Both Vedic and Buddhist chanting of Ladakh were recognised by UNESCO and added to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Join us on November 25th, at 7PM IST, as we explore and celebrate the heritage of chanting.
We will hear from experts on the importance of chanting in both Vedic and Buddhist traditions.