Impressions from India - School Prayer

In a suburb of Jodhpur in Rajasthan, India, I had the opportunity to witness the school prayer which all attending children have to perform each morning before going to class.

I shot this footage with a Canon XH A1 in HDV 1080i/25F.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Marcus
• Claessen
• school
• prayer
• children
• India
• Rajasthan
• culture

[rh001YT]

as an american and Indologist let me say that I find this beautiful. anti-religious americans tend to cause social problems, deny that they are doing so, and then promote even more problems in subsequent generations. many americans do not understand that this morning prayer helps to clam the minds of the children so they are better able to abosrb the day's lessons. Indian children are "sweeter" than american children. Jai Ho

[vimoh]

@sweetsweatyfeet Besides, most of the prayers in the video are to no gods at all. One goes thus;

Asato ma sad gamaya,

Tamaso ma jyotirgamaya,

Mrityorma amritam gamaya

It means:

From falsehood lead me to the truth

From darkness lead me to the light

From death lead me to immortality.

[vimoh]

@sweetsweatyfeet It's not odd in India for Hindus to participate in Christian festivals and for people from Islam or Christianity to take part in Hindu festivals. There are Muslim sects here who consider Hindu gods to be prophets.

Saraswati is just a symbol for knowledge. Call it wisdom if you want. The end result remains the same. Try to think of it like inculcating respect for learning in the student. Force is a strong word. Would you say text books are forced on students? :)

[sweetsweatyfeet]

@vimoh What if students are christian or don't believe in gods at all---is that permitted? Why is religion forced on students?

[vimoh]

@sweetsweatyfeet The prayer above is to Saraswati, the embodiment of wisdom and knowledge. So it kind of suits the school theme. Everyone here has come to learn, so respect to the idea is what this prayer is about.

[sweetsweatyfeet]

@UnhappyDreamer Don't shoot down the West, you have no idea how much better it is. India is plagued by extreme poverty and social problems; people die in the streets like dogs and nobody gives a shit. The culture is predicated on a (religiously based) class system resulting in many people being treated like garbage.

The "west" is not perfect (nothing is) but it IS better here in most ways.

[sweetsweatyfeet]

Mandatory religion--what if someone has different beliefs or no belief? Are they forced to pretend? What is the state of religious freedom in India?

[UnhappyDreamer]

When I was a kid growing up in India, this was our norm... we took it for granted by that was what instilled this discipline in all of us at the time... in West we don't have this and look what has gone wrong w/ society... :)

[jaiPawanPutraHanuman]

awesome. I was in Kendriya Vidyalaya school.

We used to sing 'Daya kar Dan, Vidya ka' every morning.

I still remember the prayer and the pledge.

Can't go wrong in the day after the peaceful prayer in the morning.