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Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children is now published after academic peer-review and available through open access.

In this book, we analyze the psycho-social consequences that Indian American children face after they are exposed to the school textbook discourse on Hinduism and ancient India. We show that there is an intimate connection―an almost exact correspondence―between James Mill’s ( a prominent politician in Britain and head of the British East India Company) colonial-racist discourse and the current school-textbook discourse. Consequently, this archaic and racist discourse, camouflaged under the cover of political correctness, produces in the Indian American children the same psychological impact as racism is known to produce: shame, inferiority, embarrassment, identity confusion, assimilation, and a phenomenon similar to racelessness where the children dissociate from the tradition and culture of their ancestors

This book is an outcome of 4 years of rigorous research as a part of our ongoing commitment at Hindupedia to challenge the representation of Hindu Dharma within Academia.

Grāvastut

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Grāvastut literally means ‘one who praises the stone used for crushing the soma stalks’.

Vedic sacrifices are of several varieties. Somayāgas, the sacrifices in which the soma juice has to be offered as oblation, are an important type among them.

The soma juice has to be extracted by using stone crushers called ‘grāvan’ specially meant for this purpose. The crushing or pressing[1] takes place three times a day. They are:

  1. Prātas-savana
  2. Mādhyandinasavana
  3. Tṛtīya-savana

The grāvastut is a priest who is an assistant of the hotṛ priest. During the mādhyandina-savana; he enters the havirdhānamaṇṭapa,[2] and wears a special turban. Then he recites the grāvastotra.[3] He is entitled for a share in the soma juice.


References[edit]

  1. ↑ The procedure of crushing the soma stalk is called ‘savana’.
  2. ↑ Havirdhānamaṇṭapa is a shed housing the two carts loaded with soma stalks.
  3. ↑ Āśvalāyana Srautasutra 5.12.9-25
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

Contributors to this article

Krishna Maheshwari, Deval Sancheti

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