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.

Animā

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Animā literally means ‘minuteness’.

Acquisition of and mastery over superhuman powers has always fascinated human beings. The Yogasutras of Patañjali, matchless basic work on the science of yoga, calls such powers ‘siddhis.’ Apart from other methods of obtaining such siddhis as auṣadhi (drugs) or tapas (austerity), the basic method is to practise the eight steps of yoga leading to samādhi (trance).

When the pañca- bhṅtas (the five elements like earth, water etc.) are chosen as the objects of meditation and samādhi is obtained through them in the prescribed way[1] it leads to the acquisition of the eight supernatural powers called aṣṭasiddhis[2].

Aṇimā is the first of these siddhis. As the very name suggests, it is the power to become minute like an ‘aṇu’ or atom in size. Hanumān is said to have possessed this power.


References[edit]

  1. ↑ Yogasutras 3.44
  2. ↑ ibid. 3.45
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

Contributors to this article

Krishna Maheshwari, Deval Sancheti

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