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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.


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Ṣaḍadhvā

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Ṣaḍadhvā literally means ‘six paths leading to the Divine’.

This is a special technical term of the Śakti sect, the sect of the Divine Mother. Adhvā means a path and sat means six. According to the sect of the Divine Mother, there are six paths of spiritual discipline that lead to the Divine Mother. They are:

  1. Varṇādhvā - letters of the alphabet
  2. Padādhvā - words made up of these letters
  3. Mantrādhvā - mantras comprising the words
  4. Kalādhvā - aspects such as vidyā or knowledge, śānti or peace and so on
  5. Tattvādhvā - the thirty six categories of Śāktāism
  6. Bhuvanādhvā - various worlds

Alternatively, it can mean the worship of the six deities:

  1. Śiva
  2. Viṣṇu
  3. Durgā
  4. Sūrya
  5. Gaṇapati
  6. Indusambhava<ref.It is a Jain deity.</ref>

By worshiping these six deities in his earlier lives, the śākta-sādhaka becomes fit to worship the Divine Mother. Divine Mother Lalitā is described[1] in the Lalitāsahasranāma to be beyond these six adhvās.[2]


References[edit]

  1. ↑ Lalitāsahasranāma 991
  2. ↑ Six adhvās means ṣaḍadhvātīta-rūpiṇī.
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

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