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.

Bṛhad-devatā

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Bṛhad-devatā literally means ‘a big work dealing with the Vedic deities’.

The sage Śaunaka (500 B.C.) has done yeomen service to the preservation of the Vedic literature by composing ten works, generally classed as ‘anukramaṇīs’.[1] These works are included in the celebrated work, Bṛhad- devatā. It is an index of the Vedic gods, more extensive than other similar works.

This treatise on the Vedic deities is in the form of verses in the anuṣṭubh meter spread over eight adhyāyas or chapters, corresponding to the eight aṣtakas[2] of the Ṛgveda. The first two chapters contain 125 verses of an introductory nature which discuss several aspects of Vedic grammar useful in the analysis or interpretation of the Vedic words. Then the book takes up the difficult task of determining and describing the devatās or deities of the various suktas of the Rgveda, often narrating interesting anecdotes also, related to those deities.

Some of the more ancient sages mentioned in this work are:

  1. Sākatāyana
  2. Yāska
  3. Sākapuṇi
  4. Gālava


References[edit]

  1. ↑ See ANUKRAMAṆĪ for details
  2. ↑ The more ancient method of dividing the Ṛgveda
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

Contributors to this article

Krishna Maheshwari, Deval Sancheti

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