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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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Nārāyaṇabali

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Nārāyaṇabali literally means ‘offering to please Nārāyaṇa’.

Significance of Nārāyaṇabali[edit]

The people believe that performing obsequal rites with proper offerings will help the souls or spirits of dead persons in relieving their sufferings and guiding them to the next destination. This becomes all the more necessary if a person has met with an unnatural death by suicide or accidents. Nārāyaṇabali is a rite connected with this.

Procedure of Nārāyaṇabali[edit]

It is performed generally on the eleventh day of the bright half of a month and involves the worship of Viṣṇu and Yama.[1] Ten piṇḍas[2] are placed on the darbha[3] laved with honey. The details of the rite are similar to the ekoddiṣṭa-śrāddha.

Other Procedure[edit]

According to some other works like the Antyestipaddhati of Nārāyaṇabhaṭṭa,[4] five kalaśas[5] are to be placed on a quantity of rice spread over a leaf on which five images of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Śiva, Yama and that of the dead person are to be drawn. Worship is to be offered through certain mantras of the Ṛgveda.[6] Ten piṇḍas are to be offered and then cast in a river.


References[edit]

  1. ↑ Yama means the god of death.
  2. ↑ Piṇḍas means rice-balls.
  3. ↑ Darbha means grass Saccharum cylindricum or Poa cynosuroides.
  4. ↑ He lived in A. D. 1513-1570.
  5. ↑ Kalaśas means the pitchers of water.
  6. ↑ Ṛgveda 10.90
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

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