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.

Bhutaśuddhi

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Bhutaśuddhi literally means ‘purification of the elements’.

Pujā or worship of a deity, whether in a temple or at home, is an elaborate ritual. This pujā can be based either on the Vedic traditions or on the tāntric. One of the preliminary processes in a tāntric pujā is ‘bhutaśuddhi’ or purification of the elements, making up the body of the worshiper.

The worshiper has to raise his own self, the jīvātman, first to the feet of the Lord (Paramaśiva or Paramātman) dwelling in the sahasrāra or thousand petaled lotus in the head. Then, uttering the mantra yam, has to imagine that the dross in his body has dried up. This should be followed by the burning up this dross through the mantra ram. The dross-less body is then to be bathed in ambrosia, uttering the mantra varh and completely regenerated by the mantra lam. This purified and regenerated body is now fit to worship the Lord. This whole process is called ‘bhutaśuddhi.’

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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