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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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Manvantara

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Manvantara literally means ‘period of rule or epoch of a Manu’.

The concept of time as given in the purāṇas is mind blowing. Each day of Brahmā, the creator,[1] includes one thousand Mahāyugas. Each Mahāyuga includes the four well-known yugas:

  1. Krtayuga
  2. Tretāyuga
  3. Dvāparayuga
  4. Kaliyuga

This day or kalpa is divided into fourteen manvantaras, epochs of Manu or periods of time, ruled by a Manu. Each manvantara has a little more than 71 Mahāyugas.

Classification of Manus[edit]

The fourteen Manus ruling over these manvantaras of the present kalpa are:

  1. Svāyambhuva
  2. Svārociṣa
  3. Uttama
  4. Tāmasa
  5. Raivata
  6. Cākṣuṣa
  7. Vaivasvata
  8. Sāvarṇi
  9. Daksa-sāvarni
  10. Brahma-sāvarṇi
  11. Dharma-sāvarṇi
  12. Rudra-sāvarṇi
  13. Ruci
  14. Bhauma

Present Manu[edit]

The Manu of the present age is Vaivasvata. He is the son of Surya. He is also known as Srāddhadeva. Each Manu has his own set of gods, Indra, ṛṣis and others. The name of the present Indra is Purandara. The Saptarṣis or the Seven Sages of this manvantara are:

  1. Vasiṣtha
  2. Kaśyapa
  3. Atri
  4. Jamadagni
  5. Gautama
  6. Viśvāmitra
  7. Bharadvāja

In terms of human years, one Mahāyuga is of the 43,20,000 years duration. Hence the period of a manvantara comes to 308 million human years.

References[edit]

  1. ↑ It is called ‘kalpa’ by the purāṇas.
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

Contributors to this article

Apurva Mahendra Bhangdia, Deval Sancheti

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