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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.

Māsabhakṣaṇa

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Māsabhakṣaṇa literally means ‘eating of flesh’.

It has been a subject discussed in the dharmaśāstras. During the early Vedic period, and also during the period of the Upaniṣads, flesh-eating, including beef, seems to have been quite common. It was a part of the madhuparka usually offered to an honored guest[1].

Apart from the kṣattriya kings even the sages like Yājñavalkya have been mentioned as consuming meat[2]. Animals immolated in sacrifices like horse, ox, goat and ram were cooked and eaten[3].

However, as the Aryans moved towards the Indo-Gangetic plains and cultivation of food-crops picked up in momentum, eating of the flesh of animals gradually reduced and was even looked down upon. The growth of Jainism and Buddhism also delivered a powerful blow to this practice.

Development of the doctrine of ahinsā, gradual replacement of the Vedic sacrificial religion by the paurāṇic modes of worship and the Bhāgavata-sect, contributed to the disappearance or minimization of the practice of eating meat. Protection of the cow, the roots of which are found even in the Ṛgveda[4], became an article of faith with the whole society. Now, even those who have been meat eaters for ages, have either given it up or take it only occasionally and not daily.

References[edit]

  1. ↑ Aśvalāyana Gṛhyasutra 1.24.25
  2. ↑ Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 3.1.2.21
  3. ↑ Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 6.8
  4. ↑ Ṛgveda 1.164.27; 4.1.6; 8.69.21
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

Contributors to this article

Apurva Mahendra Bhangdia, Deval Sancheti

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