NEW YORK: In view of the expanding interest in Hinduism, India and Yoga among Americans, Hinduism classes are being offered at local Truckee Meadows Community College, one of the prestigious institutions of Nevada, USA, in the coming months of November and December.
The famous Hindu chaplain Rajan Zed, who read the historical first Hindu prayer in United States Senate in July, will teach the Bhagavad-Gita, besides "Hinduism", "Hindu Gods and Goddesses", "History and philosophy of Yoga", and "The Life, Experiments and Philosophy of Gandhi". Currently, there are about 800 Hindu religious centers in the US, concentrated in California, New York, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, and New Jersey.
From 1700 people in 1900, the Hindu population of Indian origin in America grew to an estimated two million now, in addition to about one million practicing Hindu-Americans of non-Indian origin. Interest in Hinduism in North America began in 1830s with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau studying Hindu scriptures like Upanishads and Bhagavad-Gita. Swami Vivekananda made a strong impression at World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893.
Vedanta Society built the first Hindu Temple in the US in San Francisco in 1906. In 1886, a certain Joshee lectured before Theosophical societies in America, the first Hindu teacher on record. First Hindu students arrived in 1901 and Theosophical Society was founded in New York in 1877. In 1886, Emma Curtis Hopkins helped form the New Thought Movement, partly inspired by Hindu teachings.
Protap Chunder Mozoomdar of Brahmo Samaj delivered his first American address on September 2, 1883 in the parlor of the widow of Ralph Waldo Emerson in Concord, Massachusetts. Ram Mohan Roy’s first book, The Percepts of Jesus (1820), reprinted in America in 1825, aroused a great deal of controversy but found some acceptance among early Unitarians.
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