Thapar Institute Hosts Three-Day International Symposium on Bhakti Traditions

Patiala, Punjab — July 24th, 2026: The Thapar School of Liberal Arts and Sciences (TSLAS) concluded a three-day symposium titled "Reading Bhakti as Relating to the Divine" on Friday, bringing together scholars from India and abroad to examine devotional traditions across Indian religious and literary history. The symposium was held from July 22 to July 24 at the TSLAS Auditorium.

The symposium opened on July 22 with an inaugural session that included a welcome address by Prof. Vinay Kumar, Dean of TSLAS, followed by remarks from Prof. Ajay Batish, Pro Vice-Chancellor of TIET, and Prof. Padmakumar Nair, Vice-Chancellor of TIET.

Over the course of ten sessions held across the three days, more than twenty scholars presented papers spanning a wide range of Bhakti traditions and disciplinary approaches, from philosophy and theology to literature, performance studies, and intellectual history. Presentations examined devotional strands within Vārkari, Vaiṣṇava, Jain, Śrīvidyā, and Sufi traditions, as well as readings of figures such as Tyagaraja, Lal Ded, Waris Shah, Rabindranath Tagore, and Swami Vivekananda. A dedicated session on July 23 featured presentations by student scholars.

Organisers described the symposium as an effort to move beyond the fragmented study of Bhakti that has often treated it through the separate lenses of sociology, theology, or literary criticism. The event built on a planning workshop held in June 2024 at the India International Centre, New Delhi, in collaboration with the Raza Foundation, where participating scholars had worked through translations of foundational Bhakti texts, including Utpala's Śivastotrāvalī, Yāmuna's Stotraratna, Kamba's Iramavatāram, and Tyagaraja's compositions, among others — as a starting point for the collaborative project that culminated in this symposium.

The programme concluded on July 24 with a final session followed by closing remarks.