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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.


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Kapāla

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Kapāla literally means ‘that which protects the head’.

Kapāla is skull. Some deities like Kaṅkāla Bhairava, Bhikṣāṭanamurti[1] and Kālī are shown carrying skull-cups or skull-pots. They carry it either for receiving alms or for drinking the blood of their victims.

The story connected with the Bhikṣāṭanamurti aspect of Śiva narrates how Śiva nipped the fifth head of the arrogant Brahmā and how the skull stuck to his finger. Because of this sin, he had to roam about the earth as a mendicant for expiating that sin. He finally got rid of that skull (head) at Kāśi or Vārāṇasi.

Vampires and cemetery spirits (Vetālas) are believed to carry the skulls of their victims and drink their blood in them.

The sect of the Kāpālikas has made the kapāla as a part of its paraphernalia. Burnt pot-sherds used for baking puroḍāśas[2] are also called ‘kapālas’.


References[edit]

  1. ↑ Both are the terrible aspects of Śiva.
  2. ↑ Puroḍāśas are the rice-cakes.
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

Contributors to this article

Krishna Maheshwari, Deval Sancheti

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