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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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Sāmidhenī

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Sāmidhenī literally means ‘related to samidh or sacrificial fuel-stick’.

When the Darśapurṇamāsa sacrifice is being performed, at a particular stage, eleven or fifteen mantras from the Ṛgveda are chanted to kindle the fire. These are known as the sāmidhenī verses. They are:

  1. Ṛgveda 3.27.1
  2. Ṛgveda 6.16.10-12
  3. Ṛgveda 3.27.13- 15
  4. Ṛgveda 1.12.1
  5. Ṛgveda 3.27.4
  6. Ṛgveda 5.28.5-6

Though these are the eleven mantras, by repeating the first and the last verses twice each, the total becomes fifteen. All of them are addressed to the deity Agni requesting him to burn more brilliantly and carry the offerings to the Vedic gods. A samidh[1] is offered into the fire after each mantra.


References[edit]

  1. ↑ Samidh means fuel-stick.
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

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