Miscellaneous Topics discussion

[acharya]

PRIYAJANS, NOT "DALITS"!
Hinduism is under siege currently. There is a terroristic onslaught from all the sides. From the destruction of Bamiyan Buddhas, ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits, Godhra carnage, attack on Akshar-Dham Mandir, Diwali bombings in Delhi, attack on Ram Janma Bhumi Mandir in Ayodhya, attack on Sankat Mochan Mandir in Varanasi, 7/11 Mumbai train blasts and heinous acts of terroristic killings in Jammu and Kashmir, the Hindu polity has become seriously concerned about this never-ending stream of assaults on Hinduism. The conversion from Hinduism is shaking the very foundations of Hinduism. It is also contributing to a dangerous demographic decline of Hindus in their own country. At no point in time during the history of Hinduism, the need to reform Hinduism from within has been so urgent as it is now. It is high time that the Hindus discard the old, outdated, fossilized laws of Manu and adopt a more egalitarian and avant garde Manavavadi system of core human and social values. Hindus need to strive towards a Hindu Samaj devoid of hereditary varna, jati, color of skin, national origin divisions. Let your Karma speak for itself, instead of your Varna. Hinduism should be like a big tent under which everyone gets shade, shelter and respite. No one should feel excluded.

Hindus today in the 21st century CE sincerely need to learn from the reformist movements e.g. Arya Samaj and Rashtriya Swyam Sevak Sangh that have traditionally taken more egalitarian approach and have effectively banished all the jati and varna divisions amongst their hierarchy and day to day functioning. The recent advocacy of training temple priests and Archakas from the so-called "dalit" sections by the RSS chief KS Sudarashan is a very welcome step. The Hindus must allow entry into the sanctum sanctorum (Garbha Griha) of all Hindu Mandirs of all Hindus from any background. There must not be any DISCRIMINATION.

MK Gandhi did a great service to Hinduism by understanding the plight of the weaker sections of the Hindu society and by truly embracing them by heart. His one great act of changing the then prevalent pejorative word "Achhut" (untouchables) to Harijan was the bravest as well as the kindest act of social contrition. This single act of Mohandas Gandhi led to social EMPOWERMENT and acceptance of the downtrodden classes into the mainstream Hindu-fold and rightly challenged the rigid, inflexible biases of the upper class Hindus. His insistence on staying in "Harijan Bastis" instead of hotels or houses of upper caste Hindus was a very powerful tool of social engineering in changing the attitudes of the upper castes. He presented himself truly as a genuine role model for the process of human empowerment.

Alas, in the 1970s, the "Dalit Panthers" in the Maharashtra Republican party politics supplanted the word Harijan by "dalit" (broken down) taking inspiration from the USA-based "Black Panthers Organization". The focus was suddenly shifted from acceptance and embracement to perceived victim-hood and continued victimization. This very cleverly changed the social context and the atmospherics of the social system from harmonious embracement to deliberate and contrived segregation attempts based on political calculations and malicious maneuverings. Since then the word Harijan has almost disappeared from the social lexicon and has been totally supplanted by the grossly insulting and socially divisive word "dalit'. It is high time that the Manu's code is given a public funeral by all the 21 st century Hindus. Unlike some of the Abrahamic religions, modernity has never been anathema to Hinduism. It is high time that the mischievous "divide and rule policy" of political lackeys and hired operatives is rejected and the 21st century Hindus refuse to use derogatory terms like "dalits" to describe our own flesh and blood. Even, the Bahujan Samaj Party refuses to use the pejorative and socially divisive term "dalit". The BSP uses the term "Bahujan" because it finds the name-word Harijan somewhat patronizing.

If the 21st century Hindus cannot go back to "Harijan" and yet can not live with this highly insulting and pejorative expression "dalit" because of its divisive connotations, we the 21st century Hindus should use the term: PRIYAJANS instead of "DALITS". You love your own flesh and blood, your own kith and kins with the same Hindu DNA. In the Indian villages, you always dine with your loved ones (Priyajans) and you marry your own! Priyajans are our own. Let us not abandon our own. Hinduism cares for the people. Hinduism stands for the people.

Let all the 21st century Hindus get rid of this small minded "us versus them" mentality. Let us truly cherish "Ayam Nijah Paroveti Ganana Laghu Chetasam, Udaar Charitanam Tu Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam" ! Let us transform our value system from the ancient Manu's code. Let us accept our past mistakes. Let a thousand new flowers bloom in the Hindu Samaj. Let us give up Manu's code once for all in the 21 st century. Let us move on to confront the foreign-inspired terroristic threats faced by the entire Hindu Samaj in a unified manner. United we stand, divided we fall. Let not the foreign-inspired terminology like "dalit" confine us in the shackles of hatred, hostility and humiliation. Social harmony will only prevail in the 21 st century Hindu Samaj when we all, indeed, become Priyajans instead of Dalits, Pandits, Vanchits or Deekshits!

Is that too much to ask?

Aryaputra
18 Jan. 2008

[acharya]

http://www.haindavakeralam.com/HKPage.aspx...eID=5193&SKIN=I

The youngest nation on the globe should become the brightest to lead the comity of nations on the path of dharma. - Dr.S.Kalyanaraman
25/12/2007 04:49:52 By B.R.Haran for Haindavakeralam




Dr.S.Kalyanaraman was born on 20th October 1939. Despite belonging to a Tamil Brahmin Family, he had his school & undergraduate education in Telugu & Sanskrit in Andhra Pradesh. He is very well conversant with Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Sanskrit and Hindi languages, apart from English. He graduated from Annamalai University in Economics & Statistics. He has a Doctorate in Public administration from the University of Phillipines. After having served as a Member of the Indian Railway Accounts Service from 1962, he joined The Asian Development Bank in 1978 based at Manilla, Phillipines. Since 1995, after his return from Phillipines, he has been working on Sarawathi River Research Project through his "Saraswathi Sindhu Research Center" based in Chennai. He has also presented a Paper on his research findings in the 10th World Sanskrit Conference. He has devoted himself to promote the projects for the revival of Saraswathi River. He has authored several volumes on Saraswathi Culture and Civilisation.

Dr.Kalyanaraman's Master Piece is "An Etymological Dictionary of South Asian Languages" published by Asian Development Bank, Manilla, Phillipines, which can be called as a "Landmark" in the world of languages, linguistics and culture. It is considered as a lexicon & encyclopaedia. His other notable work is Indian Alchemy:Soma in the Veda. He has also contributed to Professor Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya's multi-volume work on History of Science and Technology in Ancient India. In simple words, Dr.Kalyanaraman is a Great Cultural Archealogist!

He has been spearheading the Rameshwaram Rama Sethu Protection Movement right from the beginning and we caught up with him in Chennai for an exclusive interview for Haindvakeralam.



Namaste Dr.Kalyanaraman ji! First of all, Please accept our hearty & sincere congratulations for all that you have done for the Protection of Rama Sethu.

HK: Rameshwaram Rama Sethu Protection Movement has come a long way in the last one year. Can you briefly tell us what led to the formation of this movement and how it got started?


S.Kalyana Raman(SKR):Swayamsevaks were performing their seva work among the coastal people of India to enable them to overcome the disastrous consequences of the devastating tsunami which struck on Dec. 26, 2004. While this seva was continuing, the Central Government inaugurates a Setusamudram Channel Project in Madurai on 2 July 2005 with a lot of fanfare, despite opposition to it by the marine people. This led to an intolerable situation of adding insult to injury as the people realized that the project disaster was being put on the fast track with little care for the fisherfolks' livelihood.

What added to the hurt of the people was the choice of a channel alignment cutting through Rama Setu, the only living monument in memory of Sri Rama. When even 35 lakh signatures of concerned people submitted to the President of India, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam evoked no response, the Rameshwaram Rama Setu Protection Movement began.

[Guest]

[center]<b>Heroics of 4 Bari youths forgotten on Republic Day</b>[/center]
26 Jan 2008, PTI

JAJPUR (ORISSA): As the country remembers sacrifices of freedom fighters on the occasion of Republic day on Saturday, the heroics of four youths from Bari block in Jajpur district of Orissa remains mostly unnoticed.

<b>Saunti Mallik of Srirampur, Sananda Swain and Hadibandhu Panda of Krushna Nagar and Mayadhar Bhuyan of Hatasahi under Bari block had valiantly fought the Britishers and fell to bullets in the 1942 'Quit India' struggle.</b>

Terming them as 'unsung heroes', 84-year old Gandhian leader Bhikari Mohanty of Serapur village recalled how on a rain-swept Rakhi Purnima day on August 26, 1942, the British police had launched a manhunt in Kalamatia and Kaipara villages to arrest them on charges of setting the local post office on fire.

As the message spread in the area, the youths gheraoed the armed policemen and fought a pitched battle.

"Mayadhar valiantly fought against the armed police but fell to the bullets. I have seen the killing", Mohanty claims.

Influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, over 100 youths from Bari area, work place of Sarvodaya leaders Gopabandhu Choudhury and Rama Devi, had plunged into the freedom movement and were imprisoned by the British.

Nineteen people from Krushna Nagar of Bari, famous as 'Sangrami' village, had joined the freedom movement and undergone jail terms. Two of them still alive are Mohanty and Surendra Sukla.

Though a statue in memory of the martyrs was built by the villagers, many people in the district hardly know their heroics against the Britishers, local historians lament.

[acharya]

Washington State senate opens with Vedic chants

Silicon Valley (PTI): Vedic mantras filled the Washington State Senate chamber as it opened its session with a Hindu prayer for the first time.

Saffron-clad Rajan Zed, prominent Hindu chaplain, spoke in Sanskrit and English and recited "Om" as lawmakers listened on Friday.

Washington was the latest of six Western state senates that Zed has opened in Hindu prayer, each reportedly for the first time, in the past eight months.

Zed had also opened the US Senate session with Hindu prayers in July that drew protests from the gallery. He had sought permission in August to open Washington State Senate with Hindu prayers and was allowed, the Seattle Post Intelligencer reported.

Zed, 54, who was born in India and handles public relations for the Hindu Temple of Northern Nevada, declined to elaborate about his purpose.

"Everyone can use prayer," he said. Later, he issued a statement decribing Friday as "a great day for Washington and historic day of honour for us (Hindus)."

Zed sounds as if he's "kind of on a mission," Brian Dirks, spokesman for Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, said. "That's fine with us. We certainly welcome diversity in prayer requests."

Prayers should not last longer than two minutes, refer to specific legislation or require participation. Clergy are not required to submit the prayer texts for approval.

Zed's prayer, which ran nearly four minutes, included portions of the Rig-Veda, the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita.

Zed has recited prayers to the state senates in Nevada, California, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. He is scheduled to pray before lawmakers in Oregon on Tuesday and in Arizona next month.

[acharya]

The Hinduization Of America : there is an ongoing process of Hinduizing Sacred Space


http://www.indolink.com/displayArtic...d=060305110343

USA, June 5, 2005: From Hindu temples in Juneau, Alaska, to
Tallahassee, Florida, and to Kauai, Hawaii, there is an ongoing
process of Hinduizing the American sacred space. Hindu Americans have
begun to cultivate the strains within their own religious tradition
that foster a sense of the sacred earth through myth, ritual,
ceremonies, and spirit power that more or less reflects Native
American or American Indian cultures, says Francis C. Assisi in this
lengthy article. Now, Hindu Americans are locating, establishing and
embellishing sacred spaces in America by commingling the waters of
the Ganga and the Kaveri with the Mississippi and Rio Grande, and by
invoking the holy Indian rivers into the local waters. In the past
twenty five years, the American landscape, with its rich abundance of
rivers, mountains, forests, animals, ancestral graves and relics, is
becoming sacred space to Indian Americans as it has been for American
Indians through the millennia. They have enhanced and spiritually
empowered America's sacred landscape with more than 1,500 places of
worship in North America.

Professor Vasudha Narayanan, an authority on diasporic Hinduism and
professor at the University of Florida's Department of Religion,
claims that Hindu rituals are part of the many ways in which the
local landscape is being transformed to be sacred liturgical space
for immigrant American Hindus. The point that Professor Narayan has
made is that Indians have made the land of the Americas ritually
sacred in at least four ways: composing songs and pious Sanskrit
prayers extolling the American state where the temples are located;
identifying America as a specific dvipa or island as noted in the
Hindu Puranas; physically consecrating the land with waters from
sacred Indian and American rivers; and literally recreating the
physical landscape of certain holy places in India, as in Pittsburgh
or Barsana Dam, Texas.

One way Hindus in America enhance the sacredness of their temples is
to try to either recognize and rediscover resemblances between
American physical landscape and distinctive sacred spots in India, or
to recreate that similarity. The earliest attempt was at the
Venkateswara Temple in Pittsburgh. Devotees voiced the similarity
between the sacred place in India where the rivers Ganga, Yamuna and
the underground Saraswati meet, and the confluence of three local
rivers. According to Prof Narayanan, some of the most sustained
attempts in recreating the landscape are in Barsana Dham, Texas, and
at the Iraivan Temple to Siva, in Kauai, Hawaii. Barsana Dham
resembles Barsana in Northern India, said to be the hometown of
Radha, the beloved of Lord Krishna. Here, all the important landmarks
of Krishna and Radha's homeland were recreated. At Iraivan Temple in
Hawaii, not only are the names reminiscent of India, but the similar
environment of tropical India meshes with the local Hawaiian land to
create a unique milieu.

The Pittsburgh temple, the Barsana Dham in Texas, and the Iraivan
Temple in Hawaii have become new pilgrimage destinations for millions
of Indians living in North America. Even visitors from India make it
a point to include these temples in their itinerary according to the
late Dr. Sambamurthy Sivachariyar, who was an important priest of a
large temple in Madras, India. He presided as chief priest for the
stone-laying ceremony of Iraivan Temple in 1995 and said, "I am too
old to go on pilgrimage to the holy sites in the Indian Himalayan
mountains, where, according to Hinduism, God Himself resides and
gives His grace to pilgrims. That was a life-long dream of mine. But
now that I have come to the most beautiful place in the world, Kauai,
to this sacred land, I feel my dream has been fulfilled. I have come
to the home of God." Interestingly, the ancient Hawaiians called the
temple site, which is at the foot of Mount Waialeale near the sacred
Wailua River, Pihanakalani, "where heaven touches earth." To read the
article in its entirety, click on "source" above.

__________________
Hare Krsna Hare Krsna
Krsna Krsna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

[acharya]

The Hinduization of America

The Hinduization of America
By Francis C. Assisi
Like so many Americans who like to play "Indian", Indian-Americans
too have been traversing America's sacred landscape without
connecting with the deeply held beliefs of its ancient inhabitants,
the American Indians.

But not anymore. They are becoming grounded on American soil. And
from Hindu temples in Juneau, Alaska, to Tallahassee, Florida, and
to Kauai, Hawaii, they are chanting praises such as this: America
vasa jaya govinda or Victory to Govinda who lives in America.

That's because there is an ongoing process of Hinduizing the
American sacred space. Hindu Americans have begun to cultivate the
strains within their own religious tradition that foster a sense of
the sacred earth through myth, ritual, ceremonies, and spirit power
that more or less reflects Native American or American Indian
cultures. Indeed, Hindu Americans would not be doing this if they
did not realize the land was sacred in some intrinsic way, something
the Native American Indians knew for thousands of years.

Now, Hindu Americans are locating, establishing and embellishing
sacred spaces in America by co-mingling the waters of the Ganga and
the Kaveri with the Mississippi and Rio Grande, and by invoking the
holy Indian rivers into the local waters. Even if this ritual is not
viewed as purifying one of all sins it is a palpable affirmation of
an emerging Hindu cosmology transplanted in America.

At the simples level there is a notion of transference – an idea
that the sacredness attached to the India's sacred rivers will
physically attach itself to the local rivers. It's a pattern that
has grown with the earlier diasporas in Malaysia, Singapore,
Mauritius, South Africa, Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad, and the later
migrations to Australia, Britain, Europe, Canada and the United
States. Perhaps the stage was set when Hindu culture spread to
Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia in its earliest phase.

SACRED LAND

In America itself the phrase "sacred land" is used frequently, but
it's meaning remains elusive to many non-Natives, who relate to land
mostly through property lines or hiking trails. This difference
highlights perhaps the widest gulf between the two cultures – Native
Americans and European Americans. On the one hand is the Judeo-
Christian belief that humans were meant to have dominion over
nature; on the other is the belief in land as a living network, not
as fragments they could purchase. "How can you 'save the Earth' if
you have no spiritual relationship with the Earth?" asks Tonya
Gonnella Frichner of the Onondaga Nation. "There is an intellectual
abstraction about the environment but no visceral participation with
the Earth."

Perhaps one of the most pervasive concepts among American Indians is
the belief that land is alive. Every particular form of the land is
the locus of qualitatively different spirit beings. Their presence
gives life to and sanctifies the land in all its details and
contours. Thus, it's when people recognize a shared spiritual
essence in the world around them that their interactions with the
land take on a quality of reverence and respect.

Seeing what a specific place means to a specific culture can help
non-Natives understand how land plays not an auxiliary or symbolic
role, but is a central, necessary force in many Native traditions.
The rivers, the mountains, the air, the wind, animals, all living
and non-living things, everything in the ecology - becomes
meaningful because they are interconnected. This is a theme that is
central to India's holistic vision.

In his "Afterword" to the volume America in 1492, Vine Deloria, Jr.,
encourages us to reflect on the degree to which non-Native
Americans "have responded to the rhythms of the land--the degree to
which they have become indigenous." In the context of immigrant
Indian Americans, "becoming indigenous" means knowing the land where
they live and showing it respect. One way this is happening is by
placing a relationship to the land in a religious context, as
opposed to just an economic context. It helps Indian Americans
experience the life force of the land, enabling them to see the land
of their adoption as a distinct being deserving of respect.

Which is why, in the past twenty five years, the American landscape,
with its rich surfeit of rivers, mountains, forests, animals,
ancestral graves and relics, is becoming sacred space to Indian
Americans as it has been for American Indians through the millennia.
They have enhanced and spiritually empowered America's sacred
landscape with more than 1500 places of worship in North America.

DR VASUDHA NARYANAN

Professor Vasudha Narayanan, an authority on diasporic Hinduism
claims that Hindu rituals are part of the many ways in which the
local landscape is being transformed to be sacred liturgical space
for immigrant American Hindus. Dr. Narayanan, a former President of
the American Academy of Religions and professor at the University of
Florida's Department of Religion, has looked at how post-1965
immigrant Hindus perceive the land of the Americas and how they
consecrate the ground on which they build their temples. She has
outlined this in a paper presented at the American Academy of
Religion and titled "Victory to Govinda who lives in America: Hindu
Ritual to Sacralize the American Landscape."

Narayanan is the author and editor of five books and more than 80
articles, chapters and encyclopedia entries. Her book "The Hindu
Traditions in the United States: Temple Space, Domestic Space, and
Cyberspace" was be published by Columbia University Press in 2004.
She is currently working on Hindu temples and Vaishnava traditions
in Cambodia.

The point this distinguished Hindu American has made is that Indians
have made the land of the Americas ritually sacred in at least four
ways: composing songs and pious Sanskrit prayers extolling the
American state where the temples are located; identifying America as
a specific dvipa or island as noted in the Hindu Puranas; physically
consecrating the land with waters from sacred Indian and American
rivers; and literally recreating the physical landscape of certain
holy places in India, as in Pittsburgh or Barsana Dham, Texas. Thus,
Prof. Naryanan discerns "a process by which land or shrines held
sacred by the native inhabitants is coopted by Hindus and the
sacrality is re-articulated with Hindu motifs."

For example, devotees at the Sri Venkateswara Temple in Penn Hills,
Pennsylvania, praised Lord Venkateswara, a manifestation of Lord
Vishnu, in song: America vasa jaya govinda, Penn Hills nilaya radhe
govinda, sri guru jaya guru, vithala govinda, which means, "Victory
to Govinda who lives in America; Govinda who with Radha resides in
Penn Hills. Victory to Govinda, Vithala, the sacred Teacher."
Singing about a place expresses its sacredness and makes it a
palpable spot of holiness, explains Prof. Narayanan.

Also, a statement put out by the Venkateshwara temple noted:
Pittsburgh, endowed with hills and a multitude of trees as well as
the confluence of the three rivers, namely, the Allegheny, the
Mongahela, and the sub-terrainean river (brought up via the 60 foot
high fountain at downtown) to form the Ohio river is indeed a
perfect choice for building the first and most authentic temple to
house Lord Venkateswara. The evergrowing crowds that have been
coming to the city with the thriveni Sangama of the three rivers to
worship at the Temple with the three vimanas reassure our belief
that the venerable Gods chose this place and the emerald green
hillock to reside in.

Dr. J. Sethuraman, professor of statistics at the Florida State
University in Tallahassee, who is now retired, went one step
further. The Madras-born Sanskrit scholar composed an elegant poem
called Sri Venkatesha America Vaibhava Stotram, "Praise of the
Appearance of Lord Venkatesha in America." It is in classical
Sanskrit, in the style of a traditional kavya, or poem, replete with
exquisite literary flourishes and ornate verses: "Such a Venkatesha,
the ocean of nectar of kindness, has come to the hilltop at the well-
known city of Pittsburgh, surrounded by the three rivers, Allegheny,
Monongahela and the Ohio, to remove the miseries of the people." Dr.
Sethuraman then proceeds to glorify Lord Vishnu; in his
manifestation as Venkatesha, as the deity in more than 20 American
towns, and describes with local imagery the different places in the
United States where Venkatesha is enshrined.

As Prof. Narayanan explained: "While all temples go through formal
ceremonies of vivification with pitchers of sanctified waters, the
devotees' songs promulgate the sacredness of the land; the terrain
is now internalized in landscape of devotion. Many Hindu devotees
celebrate the lord's accessibility more than his supremacy, and to
make himself accessible, he is said to abide in a local shrine close
to the devotee. Thus, Venkateswara (also known as Venkatesha in
songs) is totally present in Tiru Venkatam, India, and this is
important; but even more important is that this deity is now
perceived as abiding in a local shrine at Penn Hills, Malibu,
Chicago, Dayton, Atlanta, etc. The devotees in Pittsburgh, just as
the many Hindu saints celebrated it, see the lord as being
physically close to them sanctifying the land they live in."

Another example of making America a sacred home is evident in
the "declaration of intention," done at the beginning of every
ritual. The land is usually identified with one of the dvipas,
or "islands" from the Puranas.. Thus, Hindus in India begin most
rituals with the line, "in this island of the Rose-Apple
(Jambudvipa), in the fragment of land called Bharata, south of Mount
Meru." In Canada and America there are new parameters. Almost all
temples state that America is located in the Krauncha (Egret or
Heron) island, which is west of Mount Meru. In the intention recited
in Tallahassee, Dr. Sethuraman chanted: "In this island of Krauncha,
in the delightful continent, in the sacred province of the cows that
is east of the Mississippi River, in the sacred land called
Tallahassee."

Interestingly, according to the Puranic Encyclopedia of Vettam Mani,
Krauncha is the fifth of seven islands in Indian mythology.
Surrounded by milk, and guarded by the god Varuna, it is also said
to contain a mountain, where a haughty and arrogant asura, also
named Krauncha, was leading a wicked life.

SACRED RIVERS

Hindus think of rivers as capable of spiritually cleansing all those
who bathe in them. But why should they mingle the sacred waters
brought from India's rivers with the local waters of the Mississippi
and the Suwannee? On the simplest level, the belief is that the
sacredness of the Ganga, the Kaveri and other rivers will physically
attach itself to the local rivers of America. But there is more
going on here than just spiritually or physically invoking the holy
Indian rivers into the local waters. Just as the supreme being makes
itself accessible through an incarnation or manifestation on earth,
the sanctity of the remote site in India is made accessible in this
country to the devotees, claims Prof. Naryanan.

Another way Hindus in America enhance the sacredness of their
temples is to try to either recognize and rediscover resemblances
between American physical landscape and distinctive sacred spots in
India, or to recreate that similarity. The earliest attempt was at
the Venkateswara Temple in Pittsburgh. Devotees voiced the
similarity between the sacred place in India where the rivers Ganga,
Yamuna and the underground Saraswati meet, and the confluence of
three local rivers.

According to Prof Narayanan, some of the most sustained attempts in
recreating the landscape are in Barsana Dham, Texas, and at the
Iraivan Temple to Siva, in Kauai, Hawaii. Barsana Dham resembles
Barsana in Northern India, said to be the hometown of Radha, the
beloved of Lord Krishna. Here, all the important landmarks of
Krishna and Radha's homeland were recreated. At Iraivan Temple in
Hawaii, not only are the names reminiscent of India, but the similar
environment of tropical India meshes with the local Hawaiian land to
create a unique milieu.

As expected, the Pittsburgh temple, the Barsana Dham in Texas, and
the Iraivan Temple in Hawaii have become new pilgrimage destination
for millions of Indians living in North America. Even visitors from
India make it a point to include these temples in their itinerary.
Dr. Sambamurthy Sivachariyar, an important priest of a large temple
in Madras, India, who presided as chief priest for the stone-laying
ceremony of Iraivan Temple in 1995 said, "I am too old to go on
pilgrimage to the holy sites in the Indian Himalayan mountains,
where, according to Hinduism, God Himself resides and gives His
grace to pilgrims. That was a life-long dream of mine. But now that
I have come to the most beautiful place in the world, Kauai, to this
sacred land, I feel my dream has been fulfilled. I have come to the
home of God."

Interestingly, the ancient Hawaiians called the temple site, which
is at the foot of Mount Waialeale near the sacred Wailua River,
Pihanakalani, "where heaven touches Earth."

Last December, Prof Seetharaman put final touches to his version of
the Sri-Venkatesha-America-Vaibhava-Stotram by including all the
traditional style Hindu temples in North America and concluded with
the following shloka:

"It is no wonder that you have many such divine residences; Oh Lord,
Oh kind One; in spite of all this, do shower me with your grace and
please come with Sri Devi and Bhuu Devi and reside in my house. This
resident of Tallahassee, Sethuraman, requests that you give a mind,
calmed of the raging fires of desire, to the devotees who think
again and again of your divine residences, contemplate again and
again on your divine form, and praise you with these slokas."

indiaspora@...
http://www.indolink.com/displayArtic...d=060305110343

[acharya]

Another Indian student murdered in US (4th in 3 months)

Friends,
USA is in deep recession and these incidents will rise 100 fold in the future and many go un reported..After becoming a Doctor / Engineer from the good colleges please don't come here ..It's waste ...If you are from a third grade college and obsolutely not sure of your future in India ...Yes then you can expect great future here ...

Thanks

by Nandu on Mar 04, 2008 07:15 PM
Why are Indians hated everywhere ? Even at personal and political levels, India and Indians are shunned and ill treated everywhere.

In Iraq there is a saying 'A kurd has no friend'.

I guess now we have to say 'An Indian has no friend'.

by kumar on Mar 04, 2008 07:06 PM
That's because we hate ourselves.
If you spend some time around these forums, you'll find plenty of people abusing other Indians in the name of caste,region,religion etc.
If we cant respect ourselves and treat each other like crap, how can we expect foreigners to treat us with respect ?

[Guest]

Nothing to do with recession or slow down.
There is an increase in number of Indian students enroll in US universities, plus now student who come here have very different attitude. Same problem is with those who come here on short term project and their behavior is I can easily say pathetic. New generation is over confident, rude and arrogant.

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Sikhs choose daggers over event with pope</b>
March 5, 2008

Followers of a major Indian religion have been frozen out of an upcoming interfaith meeting with Pope Benedict XVI because of the group's insistence on wearing ceremonial daggers.

The meeting, scheduled for April 17 at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center near Catholic University, originally included Sikhs, as well as Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist guests. But a guest list released yesterday by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops substituted followers of another India-based religion — the Jains — in place of the Sikhs.

According to Sikh leaders, at issue was the Secret Service forbidding the wearing of the "kirpan," a dagger that is required dress for all Sikhs. Its followers liken its importance to their faith in the same way Orthodox Jewish men are required to wear a yarmulke.

Anahat Kaur, secretary general of the World Sikh Council/America Region near San Francisco, said Pope John Paul II met with kirpan-bearing Sikhs at the Vatican in January 2002.

"We were pretty disappointed," she said. "At an event meant to promote understanding between faiths, we would have had to renounce a fundamental tenet of our faith to attend. The Secret Service had every opportunity to investigate and vet the people coming and see whether we were safe to be there. We thought that would be enough."

Kirpans are only used in self-defense as a last resort, she added. Because kirpans are not allowed on airplanes, she said, many Sikhs will drive instead of fly. Numbered at more than 20 million adherents, Sikhism is the world's fifth largest religion. It has about 250,000 members in the United States.

A spokesman for the Secret Service said no weapon, no matter how sanctified its purpose, could be allowed within striking distance of a head of state.

"We have every respect for it as a religious artifact," said Eric Zahren, "but it's by definition a weapon even though that is not the intended use. And we have to answer for the security of the Holy Father while he is here."

Negotiations with the Sikhs had gone on for several months, he added.

"We have really tried to be accommodating, but this is a pretty standard and basic security measure," he said.

Sister Mary Ann Walsh of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said the group feels "bad about this" but that the groups involved "came to an impasse."

Ten to 15 Sikhs were to attend the papal audience, most of them veterans of a Catholic-Sikh dialogue begun in 2006. Catholic and Sikh youth met at a retreat at St. Paul's College in Northeast last fall.

The kirpan was instituted in 1699 by Guru Gobind Singh, the last of the 10 Sikh gurus who established the religion in northwest India. Men acquire the kirpan during a baptism ceremony whereby the dagger is used to stir a mixture of water and sugar crystals that each initiate must drink. He or she then pledges to live by the religion's moral standards.

From then on, a Sikh is expected to carry a kirpan at all times. In 2004, Kuldeep Singh, then chairman of the World Sikh Council, was refused admittance to the White House when he refused to give up his kirpan. A similar incident happened on May 31, 2006, when Sikh representatives were denied entrance to the European Union parliament in Brussels.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[acharya]

http://www.salagram.net/not-a-cult.html

[acharya]

HINDU AMERICAN FOUNDATION
LECTURE SERIES

The Hindu American Foundation invites you to attend a lecture and discussion with Professor S. N. Balagangadhara

Date: Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Time: 3pm-5pm.
Location: Altos Room of Foothill College, 12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos, CA, 94022
The forum is small and will be able to engage in discussions with the Professor Bala.

Biography:

Over the past twenty years, Professor Balagangadhara (Balu) has developed a research program for the study of the cultural differences between Asia and the West. His “The Heathen in his Blindness...”: Asia, the West and the Dynamic of Religion (Leiden, 1994) was hailed as one of the major contributions to the debate on the concept of religion and to the study of the western culture through its understanding of India. His current research addresses issues such as the theological nature of western political and ethical thought, the impact of colonialism on the Indian intelligentsia and the decolonization of the human sciences. He is a Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Research Center Vergelijkende Cultuurvetenschap at Ghent University in Belgium.

Here is some background information about the focus of his lecture:

How to Compare Cultures? The Case of India and the West
The comparative study of cultures and cultural differences is beoming more and more important at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Yet, we do not really know how to go about “comparing cultures.” We can compare any two objects and list their commonalities and differences, but what have we learned by doing so? What have we really learned by stating that “many Indians believe in reincarnation, while most westerners do not”; “Indians are more family-oriented, while westerners are more individualistic”; “India has a caste system, while the West is more egalitarian”;....? I will argue that comparison can be approached differently and more productively. Taking India and the West, I will suggest that (a) in order to understand the Indian culture, we first have to study the western culture and (b) in order to understand the western culture, we have to examine the way in which the West has seen other cultures like India.

RSVP: Arjun Bhagat 650-465-1023

The Hindu American Foundation is a 501©(3), non-profit, non-partisan organization promoting the Hindu and American ideals of understanding, tolerance and pluralism. Contact HAF at 1-301-770-7835 or on the web at www.HAFsite.org.

www.HAFsite.org

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sikh leadership complicated turban issue: Dr Rai
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, November 7

<b>Dr Jasdev Singh Rai, International Adviser to Jathedar Akal Takht, has given firsthand information about the series of meetings he had with the Government of France to resolve the turban issue. </b>

He alleged that divergent views of Sikh leadership, submitted to France especially from America and India, had complicated this issue.

Dr Rai alleged that “continuing interventions from India, stating that ‘turban is an unremovable religious item and must be accommodated’ made the entire exercise difficult.

The Sikhs in the USA and some of their representatives in France continued to deal with the press without any prior preparations or joint position. Their position was that the Sikhs would die for the turban and that it was holy.”

Interestingly, Bibi Kiranjot Kaur, executive member of the SGPC and a delegation of Sikhs from France, had accused Dr Rai of complicating the issue.

Giving chronology of his meetings with representatives of the French Government, Dr Rai claimed that the matter had almost been resolved due to his efforts, but the decision of certain Sikhs from France to move court complicated the problems.

Dr Rai alleged that some Sikh groups, especially in the USA, imagined the worst and started a campaign prematurely. They threatened to take France to the European Court, he said.

Dr Rai further claimed that he had immediately arranged a meeting with the Religious Affairs Head, Mr Roudaut, at the French Foreign Ministry through the Ambassador for Human Rights. Ambassador Keller was also present at the meeting.

“I reminded them of para 67 achieved at the ‘World Conference against Racism’ in Durban that accepted that the situation of the Sikhs was unique”, he said.

They immediately arranged further meetings with Mr Sevaistre, Chief of Bureau, Cultural Affairs at the French Interior Ministry.

“Mr Sevaistre put the French position clearly and diplomatically,” he said.

Dr Rai said he contended that turban was not an “ostensible” sign, therefore the law did not apply to the Sikhs.

<b>“I argued that when a member of the Christian, Islamic and Jewish faith adorn an obvious sign, they have taken a conscious decision to be religious, gone through some initiation ceremony and are announcing that fact to the world through their sign. In contrast, the vast majority of Sikhs who wear turbans have not taken ‘amrit’, the equivalent of Christian baptism. How can the turban be an ostensible sign then?”, he said.</b>

Dr Rai claimed that his logic was accepted by the French Government. Mr Sevaistre and Mr Jouve were keen to find a solution.

He alleged that when solution was about to be found, problems started arising from the USA and India. Neither party tried to reach a consensus approach. They continued to push the simplistic principle that the turban was an important religious sign. He claimed that French pointed out the confusion to him.

Dr Rai alleged that USA Sikh groups were politicising the issue. They were not willing to listen to anyone.

On his criticism that he had not taken Sikhs from France into confidence and complicated the matter, Dr Rai claimed that he took Mr Iqbal Singh from France to the first three meetings. At the meetings, except the last one, French Sikhs had accompanied him, he said.

“We then had further meetings with Mr Jouve and finally had a meeting with the Minister for Education, Mr Luc Ferry. The meeting was attended by five representatives from different gurdwaras in France and a representative from the United Sikhs, who had failed to liaise with me before.”

Dr Rai claimed that the meeting was constructive and the minister promised to find a solution.

<b>The French position began to change as the issue in the press continued to stress turban as an important “religious” item. This sounded like “ostensible” to the press, he said.
</b>
With the help of the ministry, the majority of students went to school. Problem remained with a mere four students.

The government had offered to put them in private schools at its expense, as long as the arrangement remained discreet. However, a group of Sikhs decided to tell the press, he said

The government had to retract this arrangement in public when the press accused it of partiality towards the Sikhs. The arrangement broke down.

The legal action taken by certain Sikhs had put a stop to the dialogue.

<b>Dr Rai, however, denied that he had dubbed turban “cultural symbol”. “My position was to show that the law did not apply to the Sikhs, because both the intention of it and the issue of ‘ostensibility’ did not apply to the Sikhs,” he concluded.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

I am looking for Ramayana Prashnavli, whole chart and shlokas.
I remember inside Ramayana there are three pages. I don't have access to Ramayana. If possible please paste pdf or any link.

[acharya]

http://www.cycleoftime.com/articles_view...dArtigo=48


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Shri 108 and Other Mysteries

The Golden Ratio, 1.618033989, is at the basis of stock-market data, petal patterns of flowers, and even the planet periods. It is the ratio obtained by dividing consecutive elements, the larger by the smaller, of the Fibonacci series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21... where the next term is the sum of the preceding two terms. The Golden Ratio is the solution to the equation x = 1 + 1/x. When raised to the powers -3, -1, 0, 1, 5, 7, the Golden Ratio gives the periods of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in years, suggesting that the solar system must be viewed as a single whole.

For the physicist, the number 137, the inverse of the fine structure constant, is more mysterious. It is a dimensionless ratio that equals the product of the Planck's constant and the speed of light divided by the square of the electron's charge. Actually, the number is slightly larger (137.0359895), but it is sufficiently close to the integer 137 that people have wondered if it is related to some deep property of nature. This number shows up at many places in atomic physics, and it has been even seen in the motions of Jupiter's satellites. Some of the greatest minds of the physics of the last century have sought formulae for it. One theorist considered it particularly significant that 137 equals 128+8+1, each of which factor is a power of 2.

A less esoteric and more interesting number is 108, the number of beads of a rosary and of many other things in Indian cosmology. I first heard of it in the title of swamis in India, as in Shri 108 so-and-so, which irked me not only because of its pretentiousness but also because no one seemed to know why it was 'holy'. I also had heard of 1,008, another equally mysterious number used by swamis.

Much, much later, I asked professors about these numbers. One gentleman told me that its secret lay in the 'holiness' of the number 18, as evidenced by the eighteen Puranas, and the eighteen chapters of the Bhagavad Gita; and the number 108 was obtained from 18 by slipping a zero in between, and doing this again led to 1,008. But this explanation didn't convince me. Why is 18 holy, to begin with? And if it is, why doesn't slipping a zero in between 1 and 8 destroy that holiness? If it doesn't for whatever reason, leading to 108 and 1,008 in two stages, why doesn't it lead to 10,008 and other larger numbers?

Another gentleman said that 108 was 27 times 4, that is 27 nakshatras (constellations in the moon's monthly circuit) multiplied by four of the four cardinal directions. But why should this be important? Also, in reality, the moon takes 27 and one-third days to complete its circuit, and not exactly 27.

I ultimately found the answer to the mystery of these numbers while researching early Indian astronomy. I discovered that the Indians took this to be the distance between the earth and the sun in sun-diameter units, and the distance between the earth and the moon in moon-diameter units.

Three facts that any book on astronomy will verify:

* Distance between earth and sun = 108 times sun-diameter,

* Distance between earth and moon = 108 times moon-diameter, and most remarkably,

* Diameter of the sun = 108 times the earth diameter.

That the Indians knew of the first two shouldn't surprise, because it can be calculated by anyone without the need for any instruments. Take a pole, mark its height, and then remove it to a place 108 times its height. The pole will look exactly of the same angular size as the moon or the sun.

I don't believe Indians knew the third fact, that the sun is 108 times as large as the earth, because there is no evidence of that in the old astronomy manuals. If they did, it would be as amazing a coincidence as the knowledge of the correct speed of light before modern measurements.

Indian thought takes the outer cosmology to be mirrored in the inner cosmology of the human. Therefore, the number 108 is also taken to represent the 'distance' from the body of the devotee to the God within. The chain of 108 'links' is held together by 107 joints, which is the number of marmas, or weak spots, of the body in Ayurveda.

We can understand that the 108 beads of the rosary (japamala) must map the steps between the body and the inner sun. The devotee, while saying beads, is making a symbolic journey from the physical body to the heavens.

The number 108 joined to the name is merely a boast that one is a spiritual adept, a master of the journey of 108 steps through the intermediate regions of danger.

The other number 1,008 has a slightly different basis. Early Indian astronomy divides the kalpa -- the total period within a creation, the day of Brahma, which is part of an infinite cycle -- into 1,008 yugas. The use of this number as a title is to boast that one knows the mystery of time from creation to annihilation.

The number 108 appears in many settings in the Indian tradition. The Natya Shastra of Bharata speaks of the 108 karanas -- combined movements of hand and feet -- of dance. A few months ago in Chennai, Padma Subramaniam, the great dancer and dance theorist, told me a story of discovery connected with this number.

In the 1960s, Padmaji had come to the realization that the four hands of the Shiva figures in Thanjavur represented animation. Then, in 1980, Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Swamigal, the Shankaracharya of the Kanchi Peetham -- who was to pass away at the age of 100, fourteen years later -- asked her to design a fresh set of karana figures for the panels of the new Uttara Chidambaram Nataraja Mandir in Satara, Maharashtra, based on the Natya Shastra descriptions. Each panel had to show Shiva and Parvati.

She first had to decide whether to use Shiva with four arms as at Thanjavur or Shiva with two arms as at Kumbakonam, together with Parvati with two arms as at Chidambaram. She took pictures for advice to the Swamiji, but he said there was to be no copying of existing images. Ultimately, she chose four arms for Shiva and two for Parvati, and created the 108 new designs.

Later in the 1990s, Padmaji was approached by Alessandra Iyer, an Italian scholar, who wished to study the influence of the Natya Shastra on the Far East. They discovered that the Satara temple panels of Padmaji were similar in form to the 53 surviving dance panels of the 9th century Prambanam temple of Java, Indonesia, that was largely destroyed by earthquake in the 15th century.

This established that Padmaji's choices were right and her understanding of the four-armed poses as frozen movements was correct. Since her reconstruction were based on brief description, it also suggests that the karanas are archetypes of motion.

The idea of archetypes brings me to Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung who, in a book they wrote in 1952 called The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, argued that our discoveries are a consequence of the preexisting patterns in our mind. Pauli wrote once, “I prefer to say that mind and matter are governed by common, neutral ordering principles 'that are not in themselves determinable'.” The idea of archetype, borrowed by Jung from Yoga, makes it possible for us to see how different people can come to the same discovery independently. Parenthetically, Jung took the idea of divinity as male-female (Harihara), suggesting that each man had a female within (anima), and each woman had a male within (animus).

In his contribution to the book, Pauli indicated how the great Kepler had come by his three laws of planetary motion upon the use of Fibonacci sequences. From there the next step was the Newtonian synthesis that viewed the universe as a machine. But now we have come full circle in our realization that if the universe is a machine, it is one where the components are all connected together -- it is a holistic machine.

Reading: To get an overview of the astronomy and cosmology of the ancient world, see Subhash Kak, The Astronomical Code of the Rgveda. Munshiram, 2000.


› www.ee.lsu.edu/kak <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[acharya]

Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
Bureau of Justice Assistance

Diversity Series: Religions, Cultures and Communities (NCJ 212664)
http://www.archive.org/details/gov.doj.ncj.212664.v1.7

The Chicago Police Department

Disc 1: Religions (Disc 2: Cultures)

Part 7: Hinduism

There are 8 parts to this disc: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

This item is part of the collection: Open Source Movies

Producer: Chicago Police Department
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Language: English
Keywords: usdoj.gov

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Rare snake god masks stolen in Himachal Pradesh
March 5th, 2008 Shimla (IANS)

Half a dozen rare wooden masks of the snake god (naag devta) studded with precious stones and jewels, believed to be over 600 years old, have gone missing from a temple in Himachal Pradesh, the police said Wednesday. Temple priest Prakash Sharma and caretaker Ravinder Pujari noticed the theft when they opened the doors of the temple near Urhgosh village in the snow-covered Lahaul valley, some 450 km from here.

After being closed for four months in winter, the temple doors were opened Tuesday for worship, and it was found that the masks were missing, the priest claimed.

Police suspect the theft may have taken place in late autumn last year before the high passes leading to the snowbound Lahaul valley were closed to traffic due to heavy snowfall.

Villagers recall a group of western foreigners visited the temple to photograph of the masks, a few days before it was closed.

The case is being investigated, said Hira Singh Thakur, a police official.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-dhu+Apr 7 2008, 11:26 AM-->QUOTE(dhu @ Apr 7 2008, 11:26 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Rare snake god masks stolen in Himachal Pradesh
March 5th, 2008 Shimla (IANS)

Half a dozen rare wooden masks of the snake god (naag devta) studded with precious stones and jewels, believed to be over 600 years old, have gone missing from a temple in Himachal Pradesh, the police said Wednesday. Temple priest Prakash Sharma and caretaker Ravinder Pujari noticed the theft when they opened the doors of the temple near Urhgosh village in the snow-covered Lahaul valley, some 450 km from here.

After being closed for four months in winter, the temple doors were opened Tuesday for worship, and it was found that the masks were missing, the priest claimed.

Police suspect the theft may have taken place in late autumn last year before the high passes leading to the snowbound Lahaul valley were closed to traffic due to heavy snowfall.

Villagers recall a group of western foreigners visited the temple to photograph of the masks, a few days before it was closed.

The case is being investigated, said Hira Singh Thakur, a police official.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
[right][snapback]80425[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->If the police can't do anything, then, with the good Naga Devatas' blessings for their many Hindu devotees throughout Bharatam, I am sure the masks will bring the greedy christothieves as much 'fortune' as the Hope diamond and other stolen Hindu sacred items brought their thieving christobritish forebears. And then the masks will return, unaffected by the thieving terrorists who tried to sully them. But better than waiting for the sacred treasures to return would be to send people after it...
I recall reading how christo colonials also used to make a practise out of stealing sacred Buddhas from village temples in E and SE Asia in order to net a profit from the bejewelled vigrahams (sometimes the vigrahams themselves were made of gold, sometimes of emerald or was it jade).

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-Husky+Apr 7 2008, 02:39 PM-->QUOTE(Husky @ Apr 7 2008, 02:39 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->I recall reading how christo colonials also used to make a practise out of stealing sacred Buddhas from village temples in E and SE Asia in order to net a profit from the bejewelled vigrahams (sometimes the vigrahams themselves were made of gold, sometimes of emerald or was it jade).
[right][snapback]80431[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

There are many monasteries in Nepal along the Everest trekker routes which give similar evidence of Buddha theft. Many monasteries have lines of golden Buddhas, of which a few are invariably stolen by westerners. This has been documented by television programs.

[Shambhu]

We need hindus/buddhists who will steal jeebus statues from churches and leave a copy of Caesar's Messiah instead of the jeebus.

[Guest]

I myself have seen underground trading of artifacts in London. They have very nice catalogues. When I was in London, massive product from Afghanistan and Jammu & Kashmir was available. I suspect lot came from museums in Afghanistan. Indian stuff was mainly from temples or Museums. I was shocked they were very expensive and rare.
Traders were westerners. There is a huge demand and supply is very low.