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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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Gopis

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Gopis literally means ‘cow herdesses’.

The gopīs or cow herdesses of Vṛndāvana are well-known in mythological and devotional literature. They are famous as the supreme example of madhurabhakti and their love towards God as their beloved.

Literature about Gopis[edit]

Though the Mahābhārata is the earliest record of Kṛṣṇa’s life, it does not contain accounts of his childhood and boyhood days. The record of gopis has been accounted in the

  1. Harivamśa
  2. Visnupurāna
  3. Bhāgavata purāna

Gopis as per Purāṇas[edit]

These purāṇas give a fairly detailed account of the early life of Kṛṣṇa which also contain a lot of material about the gopis of Vṛndāvana. Their love for Kṛṣṇa was intense. They very well knew that Kṛṣṇa was not human but the Supreme Lord himself.[1] They were actually goddesses of heaven reborn on earth to play their role in the Lord’s life.[2]

Gopis as per Philosophy[edit]

Medieval schools of philosophy of the Kṛṣṇa cults have pictured these gopis as manifestations of the Śakti or the divine power of God. If Lakṣmī and Bhudevī represent the aiśvaryaśakti, the gopīs represent the mādhuryaśakti.

Gopis as per Acintya-bhedābheda School[edit]

In the Acintya-bhedābheda school of Caitanya (A. D. 1485-1533), Rādhā, the chief of the gopis stands for the hlādinī-śakti of Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme God.


References[edit]

  1. ↑ Bhāgavata 10.31.3, 9
  2. ↑ Bhāgavata 10.1.23
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

Contributors to this article

Krishna Maheshwari, Deval Sancheti

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