Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children is now freely available.
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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.

Puruṣārthas

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Puruṣārthas literally means ‘ends to be striven for by human beings’.

Recognizing the basic needs and cravings of a human being, the ancient sages have given a fourfold ideal to be striven for by everyone which is called the puruṣārthas or the ends to be striven for in life.

Classification of Puruṣārthas[edit]

There are four types of puruṣārthas. They are the following:

  1. Dharma - righteousness
  2. Artha - wealth
  3. Kāma - desires of the flesh
  4. Mokṣa - liberation from trans-migratory existence

Significance of Puruṣārthas[edit]

Ordinary enjoyments of the world are centered around artha and kāma. However, in this world of cut-throat competition, unless some higher norms and standards for the right rules for a good and a fair game are set up, the big fish will eat up the smaller ones and the jungle-law will prevail. These rules that are indicated by the dharma.

Puruṣārthas Delineated for a King[edit]

As applied to a king, the four puruṣārthas recommended are:

  1. Desire for wealth that he does not have
  2. Protecting the wealth that he already has
  3. Developing

Delineation of Puruṣārthas[edit]

Every person is free to pursue the path of artha and kāma, comfort and pleasure, but always within the perimeters of dharma. However, life teaches everyone that neither artha nor kāma can ever be satiated and there must be a much higher goal to be sought after. This is mokṣa or total liberation from the transmigratory cycle of birth and death. It is being reinstated in one’s original state, the state of eternal bliss which can be attained through spiritual evolution under the guidance of expert spiritual masters. Sometimes, the first three are grouped as one unit called as ‘trivarga’ and the last as ‘apavarga’.[1]


References[edit]

  1. ↑ Apavarga means ‘that which is beyond the three’.
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

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