ments, retaining strong Hindu traditions. There
are, however, some common patterns of Hindu-
ism in the sites where Hindu immigrants more
recently settled, such as the United Kingdom and
the United States.
In these countries the home often remains a
central site of Hindu practice. Families frequently
set aside space in the home for a PUJA (worship)
room, in which they install images of the deities.
Worship there may range from daily practice to
rituals associated with important Hindu festivals
and life events. Because religious specialists are
harder to find outside India, many Hindus living
abroad learn how to perform practices for which
they would have hired a priest if they had been
living in India.
Members of the community often believe
that their children need to see people outside the
family engaged in Hindu practice. This is one of
several reasons why many overseas Hindus regu-
larly participate in one or more religious activities
outside the home. Some participate in informal
groups of families from similar backgrounds who
meet to perform the same ritual on a regular basis.
Many overseas Hindus also participate in temple
activities, which may encompass the traditions of
a wider variety of Hindu practices. Transnational
religious movements such as the SWAMINARAYAN
group have highly developed organizations that
tend to the needs of members living both in
India and abroad. Other, smaller organizations
send gurus abroad to tend to the needs of Hindu
householders and their communities. Hindus
living abroad often return to India for short peri-
ods, most often for visits to family members, but
sometimes for religious pilgrimages.
It is important to note that the Hindu Diaspora
properly speaking includes people who are not
of South Asian descent but who have accepted
Hindu practices as integral to their lives. This
includes, for example, the many members of the
INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR KRISHNA CONSCIOUS-
NESS, popularly known as the Hare Krishnas, who
are not of South Asian descent.
See also AFRICA; BALI; EUROPE; INDONESIA;
MALAYSIA; SCANDINAVIA; SOUTH EAST ASIA.Further reading: Roger Ballard, ed., Desh Pardesh: The
South Asian Presence in Britain (London: Hurst, 1994);
Crispin Bates, ed., Community, Empire, and Migration:
South Asians in Diaspora (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001);
H. Coward, J. R. Hinnells, and R. B. Williams, eds., The
South Asian Religious Diaspora in Britain, Canada, and
the United States (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2000); Roger Daniels, History of Indian Immigra-
tion to the United States: An Interpretive Essay (New
York: Asia Society, 1989); John Kelly, “Fiji’s Fifth Veda:
Exile, Sanatan Dharm, and Countercolonial Initiatives
in Diaspora.” In P. Richman, ed., Questioning Rama-
yanas: A South Asian Tradition (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2001); Madhulika S. Khandelwal,
Becoming American, Being Indian: An Immigrant Commu-
nity in New York City (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 2002); Prema Kurien, “Becoming American by
Becoming Hindu: Indian Americans Take Their Place
at the Multicultural Table.” In R. A. Warner and J. G.,
Wittners, eds., Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Com-
munities and the New Immigration (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1998); ———, “Gendered Ethnicity:
Creating a Hindu Indian Identity in the United States.”
American Behavioral Scientist 42, no. 4 (1999): 648–
670; Bhikhu Parekh, “Some Reflections on the Hindu
Diaspora.” New Community 20, no. 4 (July 1994):
603–620; Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different
Shore: A History of Asian Americans (New York: Penguin
Books, 1989); Raymond Brady Williams, Religions of
Immigrants from India and Pakistan: New Threads in the
American Tapestry (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1988); Raymond Brady Williams, ed. A Sacred
Thread: Modern Transmission of Hindu Tradition in India
and Abroad (Chambersburg, Pa.: Anima, 1992).Digambara
Digambara is one of the two main divisions of
the Jain tradition (see JAINISM). It literally means
“those wearing the sky as a garment,” a refer-
ence to the complete nudity of the monks of thisDigambara 133 J