with one’s feet. Certain ascetic centers
have a long history of a continuous fire.
One such example is the sacred village
Triyuginarayanin the Himalayas, where
a fire is claimed to have been burning for
the past three cosmic ages (yugas).
Dhupa
(“incense”) The eleventh of the sixteen
traditional upacharas (“offerings”)
given to a deityas part of worship,
which follows the model of treating a
deity as an honored guest. In this offer-
ing, the deity is offered incense to enjoy
the scent. The underlying motive here,
as for all the upacharas, is to show one’s
love for the deity and minister to the
deity’s needs.
Dhushmeshvar
Another name for the form of the
god Shivaknown as Ghrneshvar. This
is one of the twelve jyotirlingas, a group
of sacred sites (tirthas) deemed
especially holy to Shiva, and at which
Shiva is believed to be uniquely present.
This site is located in Maharashtrastate.
See Ghrneshvar.
Dhvani
(“echo”) In poetics—whether secular or
sacred—the suggestion or connotation
brought out by the poet’s language.
Indian literary theorists paid great
attention to this notion, since attention
to it allowed the poet to exercise much
greater emotive depths than the surface
meanings of the words would indicate
and pack a much deeper range of
images and associations into even a very
short verse.
Dhyana
(“meditation”) In the ashtanga yoga
(eight-point discipline) first arranged by
the philosopher Patanjali, dhyana is the
seventh of the eight elements of yoga
practice. Along with dharana (“concen-
tration”) and samadhi (“trance”),
dhyana is one of the three parts known
as the “inner discipline” (samyama), the
culmination of yogic training. Dhyana is
described as an extension of dharana, in
which the fixed concentration upon an
object acquired in dharana is continued
and extended without break. In more col-
loquial modern usage, the word dhyana
can be used to describe any sort of
focused meditation.Dhyanashloka
(“meditation verse”) A verse or verses
specifying the physical attributes of a
deity to give the worshiper a mental
image upon which to meditate.
Dhyanashlokas are particularly impor-
tant in the esoteric ritual tradition
known as tantra, in which one of the
aims is to replace all outward acts of
worship with mental activities. In
this highly ritualized context, the
dhyanashlokas provide both a form and
a focus for one’s interior worship.Diaspora Populations
Although the vast majority of Hindus
live in their traditional homeland of
South Asia, particularly in India and
Nepal, there is also a long history of
Hindus settling in other lands. By about
the fourth century C.E., Hindu traders
had spread Indian influence throughout
Southeast Asia, where the monuments
at the Angkor temple complex and the
culture of Balibear witness to its pres-
ence. In the past century, poverty and
overcrowding in certain parts of India
(especially Bihar) led many of these
traders to sign up as agricultural con-
tract laborers in Fiji, South Africa, East
Africa, the West Indies, Mauritius, and
even Sri Lanka. All of these places have
substantial Hindu communities,
although their local status differs. In
some of these places Indians are consid-
ered equal citizens with the indigenous
peoples, and in others, such as Fiji, they
suffer legal obstacles. Aside from agri-
cultural labor, another possibility for
mobility and advancement came
through serving in the British army orDhupa