Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children is now freely available.
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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.


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.

Tripurā

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Tripurā literally means ‘one endowed with three bodies or forms’.

Significance of Goddess Tripurā[edit]

Tripurā is the most popular form of the Mother-goddess associated with the creation, sustenance and destruction of the world. She is known as Tripurā because she has a threefold form of:

  1. Bindu - primeval ‘drop’
  2. Bīja - primordial ‘seed’
  3. Nāda - original sound-vibration

The triangle is her symbol.

Other Characteristics[edit]

  • She is the totality of the three guṇas and their operation:
  1. Sattva
  2. Rajas
  3. Tamas
  • She is sometimes included among the ten goddesses called Daśamahāvidyās and identified with Tripurasundarī.
  • She is the totality of Vāṇī (Sarasvatī), Ramā (Lakṣmī) and Rudrāṇī (Pārvatī) as also of Brahma, Viṣṇu and Maheśvara (Śiva).

Iconographic Representation[edit]

Her iconographic description given in the work Tripurārahasya is as follows:

  • She has twelve arms carrying the characteristic weapons of all the three deities.
  • She has ten faces with three eyes each.
  • She is extremely beautiful.


References[edit]

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

Contributors to this article

Deval Sancheti

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