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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.

Aparārka

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

The life of an average person, even today, is influenced, if not guided, by the class of works known as dharmaśāstras. Even the law-courts are guided by them, especially in cases of family disputes.

The dharmaśāstras comprise a large body of religious literature based on the smṛtis (secondary scriptures based on the śrutis or Vedas) :

  1. The gṛhyasutras - Aphoristic works dealing with the family life
  2. The dharmasutras - Aphoristic works dealing with dharma

Both at the individual level and at the social level comprise of several commentaries and digests based on them. Aparārka or Aparāditya (12th cent A.D.) is one of the writers of such literature. He has composed a voluminous commentary in verse, on the well-known smṛti of Yājñavalkya. It is later than the Mitāksarā, the most celebrated commentary on the same by Vijñāneśvara (circa A. D. 1120) more voluminous but less renowned than the same, was published.

Aparāditya was a king of the Silāhāra dynasty whose territory existed in the region of modern Surat and Thānā (Maharashtra State). His work is more in the nature of a digest than a commentary on the Yājñavalkya Smrti. He quotes profusely from earlier works and often comments on the same. Though he does not mention the Mitāksarā by name, the latter’s views come in for criticism.


References[edit]

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

Contributors to this article

Krishna Maheshwari, Deval Sancheti

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