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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.

Rati

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Rati literally means ‘one who gives enjoyment or pleasure’.

One of the specialties or peculiarities of the religion is that every aspect of life, good or not-so-good, is deified or has a presiding deity or spirit. If kāma or desire in general and sexual love in particular has been deified as Kāmadeva,[1] his feminine counterpart or consort is Rati.

The purāṇas describe her as one of the daughters of Dakṣa-prajāpati and married to Kāma, son of another Prajāpati, called Dharma. Prīti is her co-wife. In sculptures and paintings, she is shown in the company of Kāma or Manmatha. When sculptured independently she is shown as exceedingly beautiful, bedecked with several jewels and ornaments and in a dancing pose. She may also be shown as riding a parrot, holding in her two hands the sugarcane stalk as the bow and five kinds of flower-darts. Other objects shown in her hands are:

  1. Vīṇā - lute
  2. Daṇḍa - staff
  3. Akṣasutra - rosary

According to the Bhāgavata[2] and the Viṣṇupurāṇa,[3] she was reborn as Māyāvatī, a wife of the demon Sambara but was reunited with her husband Manmatha, now reborn as Pradyumna, the son of Kṛṣṇa and Rukmiṇī.


References[edit]

  1. ↑ He is also known as Anaṅga, Madana and Manmatha.
  2. ↑ Bhāgavata 10.55
  3. ↑ Viṣṇupurāṇa 5.27
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

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