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

In this book, we analyze the psycho-social consequences faced by Indian American children after exposure to the school textbook discourse on Hinduism and ancient India. We demonstrate that there is an intimate connection—an almost exact correspondence—between James Mill’s colonial-racist discourse (Mill was the head of the British East India Company) and the current school textbook discourse. This racist discourse, camouflaged under the cover of political correctness, produces the same psychological impacts on Indian American children that racism typically causes: shame, inferiority, embarrassment, identity confusion, assimilation, and a phenomenon akin to racelessness, where children dissociate from the traditions and culture of their ancestors.


This book is the result of four years of rigorous research and academic peer-review, reflecting our ongoing commitment at Hindupedia to challenge the representation of Hindu Dharma within academia.

Kaivalya

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Kaivalya literally means 'being all alone’.

Liberation from the endless cycle of birth and death has been posited by all the six systems of philosophy as the final goal of life. This goal has been variously described as:

  1. Mukti
  2. Mokṣa
  3. Kaivalya
  4. Nirvāṇa

Kaivalya is a technical word used mostly by the Sāṅkhya and Yoga philosophies. Literally it means ‘kevalatva’ or ‘being all alone’. The puruṣa or the individual soul in the bondage due to his association and identification with pradhāna or prakṛti[1] realizes by the practice of yoga that he is absolutely different and separate from it. This knowledge is called as ‘vivekakhyāti’. It frees him from the bondage and becomes himself once again. He becomes ‘all alone’ who is never under the slavery of prakṛti.[2]


References[edit]

  1. Prakṛti means the insentient nature, matrix of material creation.
  2. Yogasutras 4.34
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore