Thursday, August 3, 2023
Dear Members of the Georgetown University Community:
With deep appreciation for the profound impact he has made on our community, I write to inform you that Acharya Vrajvihari Sharan, Ph.D., has announced that he will be stepping down from his position of Director for Dharmic Life.
Since his arrival as the university’s first full-time Hindu chaplain in 2016, Dr. Sharan has worked to develop Dharmic Life into a premier spiritual resource for members of our Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Sikh and indigenous Asian communities through an expansive array of religious services, retreats, festival celebrations, student organization activities and co-curricular program offerings, including international immersion experiences in Delhi and Mumbai. The programs and activities of Dharmic Life have significantly increased the visibility and understanding of the breadth and depth of Dharmic traditions.
As an instructor in the departments of Asian Studies, Linguistics and Theology, Dr. Sharan has also made significant contributions to the academic formation of students. Of particular note is the innovative College Global Seminar he designed and led in Kathmandu this past spring focused on the lived pluralism of Nepal. Dr. Sharan has likewise served as a critical resource to faculty and staff, and a key partner in interreligious dialogue both within and beyond the university.
Over the course of his time at Georgetown, Dr. Sharan worked with our university community to establish a Dharmic Meditation Center. In 2021, we celebrated the establishment of the Dharmālaya, a donor-funded, first-of-its-kind sacred space with consecrated shrines to the major Dharmas, which hosts a broad range of weekly services and gatherings.
We are working to arrange interim support for Dharmic Life while we prepare to undertake a more formal process to envision the future and the search for Dr. Sharan’s successor. We will keep you informed of those developments.
There will be an Āratī service at 11:30 a.m. this coming Monday, August 7, in the Dharmic Meditation Center as a blessing for Dr. Sharan. I hope many of you will be able to join us. Āratī will be followed by lunch (RSVP here). In the meantime, please join me in expressing our deepest gratitude to Dr. Sharan for all the ways he has helped us to more fully realize our institutional commitment, first articulated by our founder, Bishop John Carroll in 1787, to become a spiritual home for those of every religious identity.
All good things,
Fr. Mark Bosco, S.J., Ph.D.
Vice President for Mission & Ministry