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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.

Pratiyogi

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Pratiyogi literally means ‘that which is the opposite’.

This is a technical term used in philosophical systems like the Vaiśeṣika of the sage Kaṇāda where abhāva or non-existence of a thing is also considered as a padārtha or category.

In a particular place which is empty there is no ghata or pot. Hence we should accept that there is the abhāva[1] of the ghaṭa. The opposite of the ghaṭābhāva[2] is the pot, which is brought and kept there. Once this is done, the ghaṭābhāva disappears. Hence the pot is called the ‘pratiyogi’ of the absence of the pot.


References[edit]

  1. Abhāva means nonexistence.
  2. Ghaṭābhāva means the absence of the pot.
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

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