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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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Nrttamurti

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Nrttamurti literally means ‘icon in the dancing posture’.

Some deities of the pantheon are sometimes shown in the posture of dancing.[1] They are hence called ‘nṛttamurtis’. The deities thus represented are:

  1. Śiva
  2. Gaṇapati
  3. Kṛṣṇa
  4. Apsaras[2]

Occasionally we come across some stories in the purāṇas describing the reasons for such dancing. They are:

  • Śiva danced the tānḍava dance to please the gods who had assembled in Kailāsa and had requested him to exhibit it to them.
  • Gaṇapati was immensely pleased and started dancing when the four-faced Brahmā, the creator, bowed down low before him in great reverence.
  • Kṛṣṇa’s dancing is connected with his subjugating the terrible serpent Kāliya who was residing in the river Yamunā making it's water highly poisonous.
  • For the apsaras like Rambhā and Urvaśī, dancing is a part of their professional discipline.


References[edit]

  1. ↑ Nṛtta means dancing.
  2. ↑ Apsaras means celestial nymphs.
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

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