Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children Book Cover.webp

Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children is now published after academic peer-review and available through open access.

In this book, we analyze the psycho-social consequences that Indian American children face after they are exposed to the school textbook discourse on Hinduism and ancient India. We show that there is an intimate connection―an almost exact correspondence―between James Mill’s ( a prominent politician in Britain and head of the British East India Company) colonial-racist discourse and the current school-textbook discourse. Consequently, this archaic and racist discourse, camouflaged under the cover of political correctness, produces in the Indian American children the same psychological impact as racism is known to produce: shame, inferiority, embarrassment, identity confusion, assimilation, and a phenomenon similar to racelessness where the children dissociate from the tradition and culture of their ancestors

This book is an outcome of 4 years of rigorous research as a part of our ongoing commitment at Hindupedia to challenge the representation of Hindu Dharma within Academia.

Bālā

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Bālā literally means ‘the girl-child’.

Worship of Śakti or the Mother Goddess is a very ancient practice. Out of the several aspects of the Divine Mother Pārvatī, Lalitā or Lalitā-Tripurasundarī is very important and popular.

Bālā (also called Bālā-Tripurasundari) is an aspect of this Lalitā. Sometimes she is described as the daughter of Lalitā who helped her to destroy the army of the demon Bhaṇḍāsura.

As her very name suggests, Bālā is pictured as an eternal girl of nine years. Iconographical works describe her as red in color like hibiscus flower. She has four arms carrying the following:

  1. Akṣamālā - Rosary
  2. Pāśa- Noose
  3. Aṇkuśa- Goad
  4. Pustaka- Book

Bālā is specially worshipped by those desiring psychic powers.


References[edit]

  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

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