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In this book, we analyze the psycho-social consequences faced by Indian American children after exposure to the school textbook discourse on Hinduism and ancient India. We demonstrate that there is an intimate connection—an almost exact correspondence—between James Mill’s colonial-racist discourse (Mill was the head of the British East India Company) and the current school textbook discourse. This racist discourse, camouflaged under the cover of political correctness, produces the same psychological impacts on Indian American children that racism typically causes: shame, inferiority, embarrassment, identity confusion, assimilation, and a phenomenon akin to racelessness, where children dissociate from the traditions and culture of their ancestors.


This book is the result of four years of rigorous research and academic peer-review, reflecting our ongoing commitment at Hindupedia to challenge the representation of Hindu Dharma within academia.

Ākṛtidahana

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Burning the effigy of a person religiously, is called ākṛtidahana. It has been recommended by the dharmaśāstras in the cases where there is enough evidence to believe that a person might have died and neither the body nor its parts were available for cremation.

Rituals for Ākṛtidahana[edit]

  • An effigy is prepared out of palāśa[1] stalks and leaves, 360 in number.
  • These stalks are used in the prescribed manner that 40 pieces for the head, 20 for the chest, 30 for the abdomen and so on.
  • If he had preserved the Vedic fires, then his sacrificial vessels are also consigned to the fire, as it is done in regular cremation when the body is available.
  • In case, the person were alive and returned later, then all the sanskāras or sacraments had to be repeated again including remarrying his own wife.


References[edit]

  1. ↑ Scientific name of palāśa is Butea frondosa.
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

Contributors to this article

Krishna Maheshwari, Deval Sancheti

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