Dignitaries, including our Kalyanji, at the Rang Barsey cultural program, HSMN’s grand Holi celebration held on March 22, 2025, at the Eden Prairie Central Middle School.

In a landmark event symbolizing the confluence of ancient wisdom and contemporary education, the Hindu University of America (HUA) and the Hindu Society of Minnesota (HSMN) have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). This partnership, formalized by HUA President Kalyan Viswanathan and HSMN President Shajive Jeganathan, marks a significant step in the ongoing Dharma Renaissance – a movement dedicated to reviving and integrating timeless Hindu knowledge systems into the modern world.

Under this collaboration, HSMN community members are offered scholarships to courses at HUA, HUA will partner with HSMN’s annual summer camp and bring the Bhagavad Gita Pariksha to Minnesota, and we will expand HSMN’s vaunted Hindu Temple American School (HATS). This initiative aims to make the profound teachings of Hindu philosophy, culture, and civilization more accessible to the community.​

HUA is not merely an academic institution; it represents a cultural and intellectual revolution. By nurturing the next generation of thinkers, leaders, and changemakers rooted in Dharma, HUA seeks to provide education that transcends conventional degrees, fostering deeper understanding, self-realization, and a commitment to serving humanity.​

President of HSMN Shajive Jeganathan on the left, Chairman Ganesh Ram, and Kalyan Viswanathan.

Reflecting on the significance of this alliance, HUA President Kalyan Viswanathan stated, “HUA greatly appreciates its relationships with mandirs and looks forward to our relationship with HSMN. We hope this relationship becomes a model for many other mandirs across America.”​

HUA students have also expressed enthusiasm about the collaboration. Kaustubh Patil, the Education Chari at HSMN and a current student of HUA, shared, “Studying at HUA has deepened my understanding of Hindu Dharma and I just can’t get enough of the courses. This partnership with HSMN will allow more students to embark on this transformative journey.” Arun Narayanan, another student of HUA and Minnesota local, added, “The integration of HUA’s courses with the HSMN community will strengthen our collective cultural and spiritual foundation.”​

HSMN leaders echoed these sentiments. President Shajive Jeganathan remarked, “This MOU with HUA aligns perfectly with our mission to provide religious, spiritual, educational, social, and cultural activities for all generations of the Hindu community.” Chairman Ganesh Ram added, “We are excited about the opportunities this partnership presents for our members to delve deeper into Hindu studies and contribute meaningfully to our society.”​

The MOU signing took place during the Sunday HATS program, a day after the vibrant Rang Barsey cultural program, HSMN’s grand Holi celebration held on March 22, 2025, at the Eden Prairie Central Middle School. The Rang Barsey event featured a bustling bazaar from 2 pm to 4 pm, a cultural program showcasing dazzling performances from 4 pm to 6 pm, and concluded with a communal dinner starting at 6 pm. HUA hosted an informational booth alongside other cultural organizations and vendors, engaging with attendees and sharing insights about their programs and initiatives.

President of HUA Kalyan Viswanathan lighting the lamp at the opening ceremony.

In addition to the educational collaboration, the event marked the launch of the Friends of HUA Minnesota chapter. This initiative aims to build a supportive community of HUA alumni, students, and well-wishers in Minnesota, fostering connections and promoting the university’s mission within the region.​

This partnership between HUA and HSMN exemplifies the spirit of the Dharma Renaissance – a revival of timeless Indic wisdom, reimagined for a global future. It underscores a commitment to learning that transcends the pursuit of degrees, emphasizing deeper understanding, self-realization, and dedicated service to humanity.​

As HUA and HSMN embark on this collaborative journey, they set a precedent for other institutions and communities to follow, bridging the gap between ancient traditions and contemporary education, and illuminating the path for future generations to embrace and embody the profound teachings of Hindu Dharma.

Along with HUA students Arun Narayanan and Kaustabh Patil, Ankur Patel Director of Outreach joined President Kalyanji to introduce HUA to a thriving and growing community of Hindus in Minnesota.

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Plenary sessions like “The Global Hindu Experience”, “Hindu Dharma and Its Promise for the 21st Century”, and “A Dharmic Approach to Mental Health” expanded the theme of education and advocacy, with discussions on how Hindu Americans are navigating modern challenges while rooted in Dharma.

One key breakout session was “Defining Hinduphobia on Campus” led by Dr. Indu Viswanathan, Director of Education at HUA. Dr. Viswanathan introduced her experience of growing up in the American education system and some of the nuanced subtleties of Hinduphobia that so many Hindu students in America face, often without being able to clearly define why they feel discriminated against. Dr. Viswanathan said, “The purpose of this initiative of Understanding Hinduphobia is to clear a path for young Hindu scholars to contribute.”

There is currently a strong negative reaction to Hindu joy from across the political spectrum, partially due to the subtle Hinduphobia that permeates American and European academia, media, and politics. Three key components of Hinduphobia are Stereotypes, Erasure, and Epistemic Injustice. Dr. Viswanathan walked through each with recent examples punctuated by an interaction with a student who said they hadn’t experienced it because they were a STEM major. “Did you ever learn about Hindu contributions to STEM?” Documenting Erasure is difficult to prove, but that is what the next Understanding Hinduphobia Conference will explore. Dr. Viswanathan is also planning to offer a course on Understanding Hinduphobia at HUA starting in January.

While navigating, explaining, and engaging the students in these tricky mechanisms that animate Hinduphobia, Dr. Viswanathan invited a representative from the Northwestern Yuva Chapter to share their experience. “They were basically saying none of us should exist.” The language used to argue that Hindu clubs shouldn’t be on campus “puja promotes Hindu fascism” reeks of ignorance, and is also an opportunity for education. While each chapter and campus has a unique dynamic, the Northwestern Student Senate may define Hinduphobia in their next session.

Dr. Viswanathan outlined what we can learn from other communities, what challenges we have within the community, and emphasized “It is about being effective, not about being right.”

The development of the Hindu ecosystem is going to take a lot of collaboration across Hindu institutions and requires intergenerational organizing. It is clear that Western academia lacks a Hindu perspective, and while Yuva can provide a Hindu presence on campus, it is going to take faculty, professors, researchers, and an institution like Hindu University of America giving intellectual-academic support for our community to be properly represented on campuses and in classrooms. To continue fostering a culture of collaboration and partnership, HUA is proud to offer Yuva Scholarships for Courses, Paid and Unpaid Internships, Work Letters for Optional Practical Training (OPT), and Faculty for the Speaker on Campus initiative.

With the success of this Summit, Hindu YUVA has solidified its role as a leading force in fostering collaboration and leadership among Hindu youth at universities across North America. Sankalp has set a new benchmark for engagement, paving the way for continued growth and unity across the campus life of Hindu student

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The event began with bhajans and Vedic chanting and an address by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Padma Bhushan Professor Ved Nanda. He welcomed and commended the graduating students as well as the chief guest of the event, Shri Anupam Kher. Dr. Nanda said that America was very receptive to Hindu ideas and thought, and that he was confident that Hindu University is on its way to fulfilling the expectations of not only the immigrant Hindu community, but also of many other Americans. The students, who received their degrees to appreciative applause, spoke briefly but movingly about the gift of knowledge that they had received from their teachers and guides. The graduating class of MA Sanskrit students deeply appreciated the precious gift that they now possessed, i.e., a direct access to the Shastras that contained the Hindu knowledge systems.

The graduating students enumerated in the table above, Zoomed in along with over 100 family members, HUA supporters, and even Padma Bhushan and Chair of the HUA Board of Trustees Ved Nanda.

Swami Sarvapriyananda, the resident Swami and head of the Vedanta Society of New York City, was also a featured speaker at the event.  He spoke about the need for the ‘Hindu community to build institutions that can transmit Santana Dharma systematically to the next generation of Hindu Americans.’ He added that ‘Hindus in North America have been great temple builders… but the younger generation is interested in the meaning and philosophy behind the rituals… it is good that Hindus have made large donations to Harvard and Columbia, but when you make a contribution to Hindu University of America, it is a matter of great merit, (punya), and you will be contributing to the protection and transmission of this Dharma – without making such investments, we run the risk of losing an entire generation to meaninglessness and rootlessness’.

The President of Hindu University of America, Shri Kalyan Viswanathan acknowledged the graduating students of the university. He read out the Mission and Vision of the University, laying out the need for protecting this small emerging university. He recalled how near his ancestral hometown, there is this great temple for Shiva, called the Brighadeeshwara Temple, in Tanjore, Tamil Nādu. He said, ‘This temple has stood for more than 1000 years and will probably stand for many 1000’s more’ and wondered if ‘we too could imagine building a university that could live for more than 1000 years?’

Shri Kalyan Viswanathan, President of HUA

Dr. Jashvant Patel, Member of the Board of Trustees of HUA, and the Chair of the Finance committee of HUA, conferred the honorary Doctor of Philosophy to Shri Anupam Kher, and recognized his extraordinary contributions to the world of art, films, and culture, and in particular to world cinema. Dr. Patel spoke of Shri Anupam Kher’s courageous and righteous stand for Hindu philosophy and thought, adding that  ‘the world may not know this – but Anupam Kher began his life in great adversity when he and his family had to leave Kashmir valley under difficult circumstances and start life afresh in a new town. And his journey from Shimla to Chandigarh, to Mumbai, and then to USA, is a true inspiration for millions of people worldwide.’ 

Dr. Padma Bhushan Anupam Kher who attended the event in person in New York City said ‘I am honored and humbled to be awarded this honorary Doctoral degree from Hindu University of America and I accept it with pride.’ He added that ‘I am a proud Hindu, because in thousands of years, Hindus have never invaded any other country – India has never colonized any other country through military dominance – and even though many hundreds of thousands of my fellow Kashmiris were forced to live in refugee camps, it is due to the Hindu philosophy of non-violence that no one picked up a gun or any weapon to settle any scores through violence. We believe in resurrecting our lives by resurrecting our minds.’

Dr. Jashvant Patel Chair of Finance Committee and Dr. Anupam Kher

Established in 1993, Hindu University of America is a School of Theology, offering a Master’s and Doctoral Program in Hindu Studies, and a Master of Arts in Sanskrit. In addition, it offers a variety of Certification and continuing education courses. In the Fall 2021 quarter beginning in the first week of October 2021, the university has announced more than 30 courses. After enrolling more than 500 students in each of the past 3 quarters, HUA anticipates sustained growth over the next year.

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(Morrisville, NC) – On August 24th, Fifty-One (51) students from North Carolina, mostly from the Triangle Area participated in this year’s Bhagavad Gītā Pariksha (BGP) competition. Over 200 members of the community attended to cheer the students and a $10,000 prize pool was awarded to the winners who showed exemplary knowledge and understanding of the Bhagavad Gītā.

In the Elementary Section, Srikeerthi Tirumalapeddinti (age 7) and Renusri Palemkota (age 9) tied for First Place with Riaan Patel (age 9) Winning Third Place. In the Junior Section, Jayanth Avula (age 13) was the First Place winner, with his twin brother Jathin Avula (age 13) the Second Place finisher, and Akshaj Vemuri (age 12) the Third Place winner. In the Senior Section, Maithili Kulkarni (age 20) was the First Place finisher with Amishi Gupta (age 14) in Second Place and Ayush Tripathi (age 14) in Third Place. The prizes, including participatory certificates and medals awarded by Dr. Raj Polavaram and Dr. Kishor Trivedi in a closing celebratory session.

Kalyan Viswanathan, President of Hindu University, said, “We hope this pilot program catches on and more Hindu Temples in North America come forward to create this competition in their communities in partnership with HUA. We aspire to enable young Hindus to grow up with the Bhagavad Gītā as a companion resource for the rest of their lives.”

Dr. Kalika Uttarkar, Faculty at HUA who served as a judge and test writer for the BGP shares that “We are trying to inculcate into the students that knowledge without application is redundant, so philosophy of Gītā needs behavioral application. This competition helps parents open the doors of culture to their children.” She went further into the depth and purpose of the BGP, “Language is a window, isn’t it? Not being able to transfer their wisdom through English, it is important for Indian born parents to find ways to share cultural history and heritage.”

The competition included three categories: Elementary (K-4th grade), Junior (5th-8th grade) and Senior (9th grade and above). In the Elementary competition, participants chanted five shlokas from a selected set of 25 shlokas and explained their meaning. The Junior and Senior competitors took a written exam in the morning with the five top scorers in each category interviewed on their understanding of the concepts of the Bhagavad Gītā during the afternoon finals. In between the morning and afternoon sessions, families had lunch, students participated in the unique game of Gītā Shloka Antakshari, and also chanted Adhyayas 16 and 17.

The Second Annual Gītā Pariksha was hosted by the Hindu Society of North Carolina (HSNC) in a joint effort with Sri Venkateswara Temple of NC, Radio Nyra, and Bharat FM. Co-Sponsors organized volunteers, raised funds, and created a unique competition that elevated and shared discourse around the Bhagavad Gītā.

Shri Manoj Pandya, President of HSNC added, “There are lots of tests for chanting but we wanted to emphasize the meaning as well.” Dr. Raj Polavaram, Chair of Friends of Hindu University of America, NC Chapter, said “People these days glamorize temporary, transient things, but what if we make the good things like Gītā more fun? So that’s why we came up with this idea of the Gītā Pariksha. We started this initiative last year, are very extremely pleased with the response this year, and look forward to creating regional competitions and making it a national competition next year!”

Hindu University of America provides education in knowledge systems based in Hindu thought involving critical inquiry, ethics, and self-reflection. HUA is committed to fostering the culture and traditions of Hindu Dharma in an atmosphere of academic excellence, through community education courses, and local events designed to energize the community. Dr. Uttarkar will be teaching a course on Hindu Parenting starting in October. If you think your children and community would enjoy such a Gītā Pariksha competition in your city, reach out to Director of Outreach, Ankur Patel.

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Ayurveda is a system of traditional, and holistic healthcare practice that originated in India. Dr. Marc Halpern founded the California College of Ayurveda in 1995 with the vision of bringing Ayurveda to the United States to transform the consciousness and well-being of society. Over the past 29 years, he has nurtured the college and witnessed the profession’s growth. “CCA began modestly by conducting a weekend program out of my remodeled garage and eventually became the most recognized college of Ayurveda outside of India. CCA’s graduates have been at the forefront of the profession’s development” added Dr. Halpern, remarking that “Our vision for this merger is to harmoniously blend the best of the East with the best of the West, ensuring a promising future for all. This is truly a remarkable development.” 

Dr. Jashvant Patel, Chairman of the Board of Hindu University of America, stated “As a medical doctor practicing western medicine and surgery, I have often tried to incorporate alternative and complementary modes of treatment. This merger will enable us to focus on the benefits of integrative health, bringing scientific rigor and discipline to the development of this field. This is a monumental milestone for HUA, and I am very excited to be a part of this phase of growth and expansion. Ayurveda and Allopathic medicine need not be antagonistic to each other. They can be complementary. I foresee HUA along with CCA making an important contribution to the field of healthcare and to humanity by expanding Ayurveda education and research.”

Kalyan Viswanathan, President of Hindu University of America, added, “The knowledge systems that originated in India, have always given primacy to the spiritual realm over the material realm. At HUA, it will be a priority for us to demonstrate the contemporary value of Ayurveda, consistent with the practices of modern science, even as we explore the possibilities of holistic healthcare. The HUA family has just grown considerably, and so have the opportunities in front of us. We wholeheartedly welcome the CCA community into the HUA family and to further advancing the field.”

Click here to visit the California College of Ayurveda’s website.

Click here to visit HUA’s Ayurveda and Integrative Health courses.

For questions or comments, please contact Ankur Patel at info@hua.edu or +1-818-470-4019.

For more information, please visit https://www.hua.edu or https://www.ayurvedacollege.com/.

About Hindu University of America (HUA)

Founded in 1989, authorized in 1993, and based near Orlando, Florida, Hindu University of America (HUA) offers outstanding education in the traditional knowledge systems based in Hindu thought, that originated in ancient India. HUA’s vision is centered on promoting dialogue across disciplines, cultures and civilizations while enabling self-discovery, conscious evolution, and harmony.

About California College of Ayurveda (CCA)

Established in 1995, and based in Nevada City, California, the California College of Ayurveda (CCA) is dedicated to transforming human consciousness by providing the highest quality education, health care, and research in the field of Ayurveda. It is the oldest, and most recognized state-approved college in the West offering education, healthcare, and research in the field of Ayurveda.

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Friends of Hindu University of America – Bay Area hosted a HUA Awareness Gala on Saturday, April 22nd, 2023 at Falcon X Hall in Milpitas. Nearly 200 members of the Bay Area community attended the engaging and informative event

The gala featured a keynote address from Swami Paramatmananda Saraswati (visiting from Rajkot, India) who declared that “Hinduism is a vision of the truth” and made the case why HUA is an institution of great importance to the Hindu community at large. The Bay Area community also heard a distinguished panel discussion on the need for a University that strives to provide top notch academic experience with a Hindu Dharma perspective. The event concluded with a keynote address from HUA President Sri Kalyan Viswanathan about HUA, its current state of strong rejuvenation and a roadmap outlining vision for the University’s continued growth and development. Smt. Annapoorna Malyala, HUA student and Sri. Ankur Patel, Director of HUA Advancement, emceed the program.

From left to right during a panel discussion on the need for HUA: Dr. Kundan Singh, Smt. Savitha Nanjangud, Smt. Jyoti Yelagalawadi, and Sri Sree Iyer

Sri Kalyan Viswanathan, President of HUA said, “Following a successful Gala event in Houston in March, I am pleased to see a strong level of interest in and engagement with HUA in the Bay Area. The need for an academic institution that provides a platform for a distinctively Hindu Dharma oriented immersion in study leading to an effective engagement with the broader academia on equal footing has never been greater. With the blessing of our Acharyas from varied lineages and sampradayas and supported by a growing body of practicing Hindus committed to learning and teaching, HUA seeks to become the premier University for the benefit of current and future generations of Sanatanis.”

The event was hosted at Falcon X Hall, organized by the local Friends of HUA – Bay Area chapter, with excellent volunteer support from the local community.

You may support and participate in HUA’s mission by going to: http://hua.edu/BayArea

About Hindu University of America (HUA)

Hindu University of America was founded with the vision of promoting dialogue across disciplines, cultures and civilizations while enabling self-discovery, conscious evolution, and harmony. Its mission is to provide education in knowledge systems based in Hindu thought involving critical inquiry, ethics, and self-reflection. Committed to fostering the culture and traditions of Hindu Dharma in an atmosphere of academic excellence and freedom, it prepares students for service, leadership, and global engagement.

Since Oct 2019, more than 2600 students have taken courses at HUA and close to 75 students are currently enrolled in Master’s and Doctoral programs. HUA currently offers 15 different continuing education programs with over 150 courses taught by more than 70 faculty members. The motto of HUA is that Vidya or true Knowledge is that which liberates.

Established in 1989 and authorized by the Govt of Florida in 1993, HUA has been offering online courses since 2019 in various aspects of Hindu Dharma, tradition and culture. For more information, please visit www.hua.edu or contact +1-407-205-2118.

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The Hindu University of America family is proud to announce that the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Government of India awarded HUA Professor Vishwa Adluri the “Distinguished Indologist Award” (2019) at a ceremony held at India House, the Consulate General of India, New York, on June 28, 2022. The award was instituted in 2015 during the First World Indology Conference and recognizes the outstanding contributions of “foreign scholars” to research and teaching in the field of Indian studies. (The conferring of the 2019 award was delayed due to the pandemic.) In addition to Dr. Vishwa Adluri, Shri Rajiv Malhotra also received the award for the year 2020.

Dr. Vishwa Adluri currently serves as a Core Doctoral Faculty at Hindu University of America, in addition to his teaching responsibilities at Hunter College, New York. He was honored by ICCR for a lifetime of distinguished service to the profession, publications that have changed the field of Indology, and the students whose careers he has championed. In felicitating Prof. Adluri, the Consul for Political, and Press, Information and Culture, Shri Vipul Dev, of the Indian Consulate, New York City, said “Along the way, he encountered tremendous obstacles as an Indian and as a classicist who dared to reclaim the intellectual heritage of India. You can imagine the resistance Professor Adluri faced when he tried to show that the Mahābhārata – which Western Indologists think was veritable chaos – was a sacred text. Let us all celebrate returning the itihāsa to its rightful place in Indian studies.”

Professor Adluri was recognized as the foremost scholar on the Mahābhārata and celebrated for his contributions to Western and Indian philosophy. He teaches a 6-course graduate level sequence called the Mahābhārata Certificate at Hindu University of America. It is a first such program in the world and seeks to unfold Maharishi Veda Vyasa’s entire itihāsa as the founding text of classical Hinduism: According to Dr. Adluri, in the Mahābhārata we find fully enunciated for the first time, central ideas of temple worship such as the theology of the Goddess, the Trimūrti, avatāra and the four vyūhas, and arcana. Indeed, the very name of India that is Bhārat, is derived from the text. Dr. Vishwa Adluri and his student, Dr. Joydeep Bagchee, wrote a critical analysis of German Indology, exposing German pretensions, passing off their racist and historicist speculations as somehow scientifically authoritative, in their monumental work titled “The Nay Science: A History of German Indology”. The year 2014, when this book was published must be remembered as significant, for multiple reasons, not the least of them being that German Indology will not be the same again, after this moment.

In his acceptance speech, Professor Adluri expressed gratitude to those who have taught, guided, and supported him along the way. “Throughout my life, I have believed that knowledge and the seeking of knowledge is the holiest of human endeavors and I thank God for blessing me with a life of study and for the grace of providing me with outstanding teachers.”

In his closing remarks, Dr. Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, President of the ICCR, noted that the critical responsibility of Indologists today is to communicate the full truth about the core idea of India, which he described as the core of Indology, in language that the global community understands.

Dr. Vishwa Adluri with MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe at the award ceremony on June 29th, 2022

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WHOSE COMMON ERA?

Students are taught a one-sided history, no matter the school or state. 

Millennia of history, written by winners of wars and purveyors of ethnocide, is unravelling. Disrespect and erasure of non-European civilizations has been etched into the fabric of the English-speaking world at all levels, especially in the public education system. In elementary school, the history of this settler colonial state starts with Christopher Columbus sailing West across the Atlantic Ocean in three tiny ships to trade with Indians. No discussion of the fact that India was prosperous [1] and complex with a Vedic literature [2] that plausibly seeded Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and Democritus. Instead, there is a mention that India had nice spices.

We get pablum on how the Christian/Catholic Capitalist Settler Colonizers used brutal violence to expand their Dominion in their New World, while the Native American Indian was nearly eradicated. Instead of 500 years of attempted genocide against the Indigenous people of this land, children are taught that Indians helped the Pilgrims at Thanksgiving. We are going from Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 to Columbus sold 9-year-old girls into slavery, to be raped. It is written in the words of his men [3] and his own words [4]. I will not hold back my words.

Starting with the word “Indian” itself, Europeans mislabeled a diversity of cultures and civilizations, which has stuck. The ancient people of the Americas were diverse and complicated, but nearly wiped out and replaced. The mislabeling of an oppressed people by the oppressor in the oppressor’s language, is part of the conceptual framing of colonization and ethnocide. Fundamentals of the way society is organized in the English-speaking world, are about to change.

The resurgence and rejuvenation of indigenous human civilizations shall be crucial to transcending the European colonizer’s Christian narrative that used Manifest Destiny to conquer, destroy, and create the modern world. The strategic pre-meditated systematic assimilation and then destruction of numerous indigenous civilizations needs to be recognized and reconciled if this truly shall be humanity’s common era.

Mahmud of Ghazni [4] is very much like Christopher Columbus in that he documented his ruthless barbarity in his own words, in his own journals, and in the letters shared with his people. Plenty of Muslim mosques are known to have been built using materials from razed Hindu mandirs to express social order and religious hierarchy under Islam. We were never even given a hint at the numbers of Hindus who were erased — murdered, captured, enslaved, raped and/or forced to convert — to create the Mughal Empire and then the British Raj. In that same way, winners of wars project a heroic accounting of history to justify the spoils of their barbarity.

There was no lesson on the rapacity of the East India Company [5] and how $45 trillion in wealth was extracted from India through a sophisticated colonization plan [6]. The colonial roots go deep in America’s education system and it is no accident that winners write the history and then project their narrative. In high school, the first Advanced Placement class many students take is European History. For teenagers in America, it is the one-sided history, the accumulating micro-aggressions in popular culture, and the continued bullying of Hindu youth to this day [7], that illustrates the fact that we are only scratching the surface of Hindudvesha [8].

The Mughal Empire was a unique civilization where a minority of Muslims dominated the more numerous Hindu, Jain, Buddhist plurality, and under which Sikhism grew along with a sophisticated government that codified apartheid. Europeans learned Sanskrit to interpret Hindu texts, especially the Vedas [9] and then proceeded to tell Hindus what their ancient texts really mean while laying the groundwork for conversion to Christianity – the ultimate gaslighting. Both Muslims and Christians co-opted key parts of Hindu culture to facilitate their control of the land, resources, and people.

William Jones “discovered” Hinduism, James Mill denounced it, Thomas Macaulay disrupted it, Max Mueller digested it, and Jawaharlal Nehru regurgitated the colonizer’s narrative about Sanatana Dharma. At the crux of the battle for history is the specious speculation of European Christians like Max Mueller and Mortimer Wheeler that Vedic civilization was seeded by Aryan invasions [10], later changed to migrations [11]. The Aryan empire, especially the hypothesized Aryan invasion seeding Vedic culture around 1,500 years Before Christ (fitting the literal Biblical timeline) has been thoroughly refuted [12][13].

Across multiple disciplines such as archeology [14], linguistics [15], astro-archeology [16][17], genetics [18][19], and through common sense, the evidence shows there was no Aryan invasion or large-scale migration bringing Vedic civilization to India. Yet, academics and some European Indologists still believe, regurgitate, and defend weak positions, while avoiding debate. The alternative is the more coherent and parsimonious explanation that Vedic civilization grew out of India [20].

As we discover more ancient archeological sites [21] we get a fuller version of history that shows that the Indus River Valley Civilization was flourishing millennia before a fictional Aryan people migrated. Harappa was robust with representation of Vedic knowledge systems in the form of altars, rituals, idols, figurines, and urban planning 5,000 years ago [22].

Because generations of people have been indoctrinated in the Eurocentric global education system with a whitewashed history, the critical period of 1453 to 1492 needs attention as a fulcrum of civilizational battle between the Abrahamic peoples. We are on the verge of the refutation of the Eurocentric global economy dependent on violence and exploitation since Inter Caetera in 1493 and the other Papal Bulls of the 1400s.

The crescendo of Muslim jihad forced the Catholic Church to reformulate their crusade in 1453 when Constantinople was claimed as Istanbul by Mehmet II of the Ottoman Empire. On one side of the world, the Roman empire evolved and spawned the English-speaking United Kingdom, which created and distributed the self-reproducing colonial project across the planet in competition with the equally rapacious Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonial projects, all supported by an unbroken line of Catholic Popes.

Colliding into it, was the Muslim world which assimilated [23] and then tried to erase thousands of years of Hindu contributions, expanded the scope of slavery in Africa [24], and stretched from the Great Wall of China to the Steppes of Europe. There is a pervasive oppressive denigration of all things indigenous, and with the conflation of the Hindu and Indian identities, the complicated genocidal-existential tension that exists across civilizations continues through modern day geo-politics.

Our global economy has evolved from blatant slavery, mass murder, dispossession of land, and genocide through “civilizing colonization” to a complicated geo-political framework where independent and semi-dependent nation states and non-state actors with layers of religious, economic, geographic, genetic, cultural, political, and historical identities are constantly triangulating against each other and for their people.

The systematic effort to marginalize, disrespect, and trivialize Hinduism has been an ongoing project of Europe for nearly three centuries. Most Americans are not aware of this, and some subconsciously buy into simplified false narratives that depict Hindus as tribal, superstitious, hierarchical, oppressive, violent, and dangerous. The British creation and enumeration of caste [25] still shapes public consciousness, while stereotypes and generalizations supported by anecdotes regurgitated by a biased media are held up by a colonial academic framework and continue to poison public discourse.

Hindus throughout the common era have been a huge, fractious, and diverse population. Divide and conquer was used expertly by claiming Varna as a system of hierarchy and oppression where the Brahmins ruled, dominated, and oppressed the others. Do public intellectuals, teachers, and spiritual leaders oppress wide swaths of society today? Could that even be possible?

It is the epitome of hypocritical anti-intellectualism to claim that educators and curators of knowledge, wisdom, and indigenous culture were the ones oppressing laborers, exploiting merchants, and manipulating soldier/administrators to subjugate society. The insidious genius of English colonization was to undermine, destroy, and denigrate all forms of Hindu knowledge systems, language, and culture to the point that a section of Indians, including a former Prime Minister, participate in and support the devaluation of Hindu knowledge, tradition, culture, and contributions.

History from different perspectives presents different theories, facts, experiences, biases, and even timelines. There are forces on all sides that would use religion, violence, economics, and knowledge systems as tools for power and control. Throughout ancient history with modern warfare no outlier, lies and manipulation buttressed by ideologues have led to hundreds of millions of unnecessary human deaths and the destruction of cities. Instead of the cycle of violence, let us elevate Vedic thought and dharmic principles towards enlightenment for those who seek it, while moving all of us towards peace, comfort, opportunity, and a new common era founded on the unflinching truth.

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