2.01 #Heritage, Tradition and Culture of India(a Post under above Category)
Heritage: The practices of a people that have been handed down from time immemorial can be called heritage. Any characteristic or property that has been inherited from the ancients falls under this category. Physically, land, buildings, rights, books, art objects or culturally, knowledge, language, folk songs, etc. can also be called heritage.
Traditions: The patterns of ideas and actions that have been passed down through generations are called traditions. Any practice that has been in practice for a long time is called tradition. Any belief or behavior that has been inherited by a community or society is a tradition. Any established pattern of action or practice that is repeatedly performed and is accepted as legally correct is a tradition.
Culture: The mental inclinations and physical behaviors unique to a community or society are called the culture of that group. A community, along with its common functional traditions and beliefs during a historical period, is called culture.
Culture is the totality of the identity, characteristics and behaviour of a group of people, including their history, religion, religious practices, beliefs about good and evil, ethics, law, family life, organization, social business practices, customs, methods, marriage, festivals, their celebration and celebration, their food, dress, knowledge, language, literature, science, philosophy, art. It can be said that it is the totality of the identity, characteristics and behaviour of a group of people, including hundreds of things. Culture is the collective characteristic behaviors, mutual expressions, actions and understandings that are learned through socialization. Culture is the process by which a group’s own identity takes shape and grows over time under the unique social framework of a group of people.
Indian culture can be said to be the fusion of thousands of different and unique cultures of all religious communities in India. Although the different components of the above-mentioned culture are different in different regions of India, there is a common thread between them. There is unity in diversity. This fusion of Indian culture has an impact not only on India as a whole but also on the entire world.
Some of the above general issues are not discussed in the scope of this article. Some of the other issues will be discussed in detail elsewhere in this blog.
Brief History of India
The history of India is thousands of years old and the prehistory is hundreds of thousands of years old. After a long period of Stone Age hunting and gathering peoples, agricultural settlements were formed eight to ten thousand years ago.
Around 2700 B.C.E., the first civilization appeared in western India as the Indus Valley Civilization. It disappeared in 1500 B.C.E. and many small states and kingdoms arose all over India, which began a long history of petty battles and fierce wars. The major religions of the world, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, were established. Except for the Ashoka Empire of 272–232B.C.E. and the Mughal Empire of 1526–1707, the British Empire ruled India for the next century.
2. Indian Religions
The major religions of India, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, are all based on the concepts of Dharma and Karma. Non-violence is the core of these religions. The foreign-origin religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Parsi and Baha’i also exist in India. The atheism of the sixth century (BCE) Charvaka Maharishi has also been recognized as a religion. Some Buddhist and Jain sects do not accept the concepts of creation, worship and superstition. According to a 2012 WIN Gallup global survey, 81% of Indians are theists, 13% do not believe in religion, 3% are declared atheists and 3% did not respond.
Religious symbols
The swastika symbol comes from the word Swasti, which means good. It symbolizes well-being. It represents divinity and spirituality. It is a symbol of worshipping the Sun. It signifies prosperity and good fortune, and represents the four Vedas and the four constellations.
Om Kara is an eternal mantra that represents the entire universe. It is used as a symbol and mantra. It is considered to be the first sound when the universe was born. Om represents the Supreme Power, the sound of the omnipresent, all-powerful universe.
Shri Kara represents purity, power and the Mother Goddess. It represents wealth. It represents Goddess Lakshmi, the symbol of prosperity.
3. #Dharmashastras:
Dharmashastras are the Hindu scriptures on religion in Sanskrit. These scriptures, which originated from the studies called Vedanga during the Vedic period, number from about eighteen to one hundred. They date back to about the 1st millennium BCE. Hindu Smriti in verse form describes in detail the duties, responsibilities of an individual, the codes of conduct to be followed by the individual, the family and the society. It also describes the stages of the human life cycle, the varna system in society, the goal of life, personal qualities, duties and non-violence towards living beings, the Dharma Yudhdha etc. These Dharma Shastras are written on the basis of the Dharma Sutras narrated in the four Vedas of India namely Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharva Vedas. The Upanishads are written in prose form to interpret the verses in the Vedas. The Dharma Sutras can be said to be guidebooks on personal and social conduct, ethics, personal law, civil law and criminal law. They discuss marriage law, inheritance of property, polity and judicial systems. It goes on to explain the customs, transactions and penances, and also tells about investigations, legal procedures and penalties and punishments.
The religious texts were accepted as the law of the land by the British authorities in British-ruled India. Similarly, Sharia law was the official law for Muslims.
After India gained independence, the laws originating from the religious texts for Hindu and non-Muslim religions were abolished and a uniform civil code called the secular Uniform Civil Code was adopted by the Indian Parliament in 1950, but the same Muslim Personal Law (Sharia) Act 1937 was continued for Muslims. This situation has continued till today.
4. #Karma Theory and Belief
Here we should look at the meaning of the word karma in its spiritual basis. According to the theory of cause and effect, it is considered that a person’s intention or intention and action together affect that person’s future. The theory is that good intentions and good deeds together result in good karma and give happiness and joy in the future. On the contrary, evil thoughts and bad deeds become a source of hardship in the future. This goes further and nourishes the belief in reincarnation. It is that the karmas done in this life give their due results in the next life. This is the idea of good and bad deeds. It also gives rise to the belief in reincarnation. A person who does good deeds attains salvation without taking another birth. The principle is that one should continue to take births until the results of bad deeds are washed away.
5. Indian Philosophy
There are mainly two branches in Indian philosophy. One is traditional, the other is antithetical. Or it can be said as theistic, atheistic. These differences depend on the following factors. 1. Are the Vedas a suitable basis for knowledge or not? 2. Belief in Brahman and the soul 3. Belief in God and reincarnation
Traditional philosophy has the branches of Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta. In antithetical, there are the branches of Jainism, Buddhism, Ajivika, Ajna and Charvaka.
Indian philosophies believe in the same way in Dharma, Karma, Samsara, Rebirth, Dukkha, Sanyasa Meditation, Moksha and Nirvana. The differences are about the nature of existence and the path to ultimate liberation.
6. Indian Festivals
Indians celebrate three types of festivals.
National festivals: Republic Day on 26 January, Independence Day on 15 August and Gandhi Jayanti on 2 October
Religious festivals:
Maha Shivaratri, a festival celebrated to mark the marriage of Shiva and Parvati. The festival is celebrated by bathing the Ishwar Linga and fasting for the whole day.
Holi festival marks the arrival of spring. It is celebrated as the victory of good energy over evil energy, with the first day being a festival of burning lust and the next day being a festival of painting.
The lunar month of Ugadi is celebrated as the first day of the Hindu New Year.
Mahavir Jayanti, Basava Jayanti and Budhha Purnima are also celebrated to mark the jayantis of Mahavir, Basava and Buddha respectively.
Rakshabandhan is a festival of love between siblings, where the sister ties a rakshadar on the brother’s bracelet and the brother pledges his protection.
Krishna Janmashtami is celebrated as the birth festival of Krishna and a special adventure game called yogurt drinking is played on this day.
The first day of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival is the festival of Mother Swarnagauri. The next day is the festival of Lord Ganesha. Since the task of taking the mother back is a Ganesha, the day after the mother comes to earth, the father goes to the grandmother’s house, eats various dishes prepared by the grandmother’s house and returns with the mother.
This festival usually falls on the fourth day of Bhadrapada. There is a tradition that no one should look at the moon on that day.
Dussehra is a festival celebrating the victory of Lord Rama over Ravana, and a festival of Devi Puja during Navratri. A long festival that includes Saraswati Puja, Durgashtami, Mahanavami and Vijayadashami. This is celebrated as Durga Puja in North India, especially in Bengal.
Diwali is a festival that celebrates the destruction of Narakasura when he became the world’s tyrant. The festival of water filling, Naraka Chaturdashi for Abhyanjana Snan, Amavasya for Lakshmi Puja, Balipadyam, which is a symbol of the arrival of Bali Maharaja and his blessings, and a festival that turns darkness into light.
Wedding Celebrations In India, weddings are a very festive occasion. Therefore, there is a lot of decoration, color, elaborate clothing, jewelry, music and dance, as well as the sacredness of religious rituals. About one crore marriages are celebrated every year. Of these, 80% are Hindu marriages. Although there are many collective religious ceremonies related to religion in India, marriage is a very sacred and important ceremony for the individual woman and man. Hindu families celebrate it with special effort and bear the expenses. These wedding rituals and programs depend on the customs of the respective region, communities, and the economic conditions of the families. But the most important common rituals in every Hindu marriage are Kanyadan, Panigrahan, and Saptapadi. The gift of a daughter from the father, the new couple holding each other’s hands in the presence of fire as a witness, and taking seven steps around the fire together are symbolic and meaningful actions. After overcoming childhood and celibacy, the bride and groom choose a suitable partner and spend the rest of their lives together. In the marriage, the bride and groom make many kinds of vows and promises to each other, thereby starting a stable and happy life together. The marriage is performed as a blessing from the elders, a blessing from Akshata, a witness of the five elements, and a witness of seven steps. The seven steps symbolize seven births.. Taking a vow for each step of these seven steps, when they take the seventh step, both officially become husband and wife. The first step: for the increase of food. The bride and groom make a vow to each other about food and prosperity, the second step: for the increase of strength. The bride and groom take an oath of joint strength and mutual protection. The third step: To obtain wealth. The bride and groom make an agreement for the growth of joint wealth. The fourth step: To always be filled with happiness and joy between the husband and wife. The fifth step: To do good to others. The sixth step: To ensure that the married life runs smoothly without any conflicts or doubts. The seventh step: To pray to the fire god Agni to bless them with physically and mentally strong children.
10. Indian Languages
The Sanskrit language used in the Rigveda can be said to be the most ancient language of India. When the European explorers of the eighteenth century discovered the Sanskrit language in India, the subject of comparative linguistics was born and began to flourish. In their view, Sanskrit was recognized as being on a par with the classical languages of Europe in grammar and vocabulary, and the other Indian languages that emerged from Sanskrit had similarities with Western languages such as English, French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, and Persian.
The other classical language of India, Tamil, is said to have descended from the Dravidian languages spoken in South India during the third millennium BC, and Tamil literature is said to have existed for about two thousand years.
The development of language within India occurred in three periods: Old, Middle, and Modern. Sanskrit is the classical form of Old Indo-Aryan. It is a refined and correct language. In comparison, Prakrit is a language that was mixed by different regions and ethnic groups for the convenience of the common people who did not attach importance to correct pronunciation and grammar. From this Prakrit, Pali (the language of the early Buddhists and the Ashoka era in 200-300 BCE), Prakrit (the language of the Jain philosophers) and Apabhramsha (the final stage of language mixing) were derived. According to linguists, this Apabhramsha developed and took the form of the languages in use today, such as Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi, etc. All these languages have Sanskrit roots and stem structures. Thus, the Indian language has a history of three thousand years. Hindi, the language of the largest population of India, is a Sanskritized dialect called ‘Khadi Boli’. Hindi and it are several dialects. Early forms of the present-day North Hindustani language, which developed in the 7th–13th centuries, were influenced by Persian Hindi during Islamic rule in parts of India. Persian influence led to the development of Urdu, while modern standard Hindi has little Persian influence and is written in the Devanagari script.
Tamil, another classical language of India, is said to have descended from the Dravidian languages spoken in South India during the third millennium BCE, and Tamil literature is said to have existed for about two thousand years.
The development of language within India occurred in three periods: Old, Middle and Modern. Sanskrit is the classical form of the old Indo-Aryan. It is a refined and correct language. In comparison, Prakrit is a language that was mixed by different regions and ethnic groups for the convenience of the common people, without giving importance to correct pronunciation and grammar. From this Prakrit, the intermediate stage was the development of Pali (the language of the early Buddhists and the era of Ashoka in 200-300 BCE), Prakrit (the language of the Jain philosophers) and Apabhramsha (the final stage of linguistic mixing). According to linguists, it was this Apabhramsha that developed and took the form of the languages in use today such as Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali and Punjabi. All these languages have Sanskrit roots and stem structures. Thus, the Indian language has a history of three thousand years. Hindi, the most widely spoken language in India, is a Sanskritized dialect called ‘Khadi Boli’. Hindi and its many dialects. The early forms of the present-day North Hindustani language, which developed in the 7th-13th centuries, were influenced by Persian Hindi during the Islamic rule in parts of India. Persian influence led to the development of Urdu, while modern standard Hindi has little Persian influence and is written in the Devanagari script.
Similarly, the Dravidian languages of South India have borrowed some words directly from Sanskrit, such as ‘tatsama’, and some words in usage, such as ‘tadbhava’.
Another important classical Dravidian language, Kannada, is attested in inscriptions from the mid-1st millennium AD, and literary Old Kannada is known to have flourished during the Rashtrakuta dynasty of the 9th–10th centuries. Eastern Old Kannada, the language of the Banavasi country during the Kadamba period, has a history of 2000 years. The Ashoka Edict (c. 230 BCE) found at Brahmagiri is written in recognizable Kannada.
#Epics of India
The Mahabharata and the Ramayana are the oldest and best-preserved epics of India. Versions have been adopted as epics of Southeast Asian countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
The Ramayana, in seven cantos and 500 sargas, contains 24,000 verses and tells the story of Lord Rama, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, who is abducted by the Sri Lankan king Ravana, who abducts Rama’s wife Sita. The epic played a major role in establishing that religion is the main ideal guiding force for the Hindu way of life.
The Mahabharata, consisting of one hundred thousand verses of verse and written in eighteen books (parvas), is the largest single literary work in existence. Originally composed in the ancient language of Sanskrit between 400 BCE and 400 CE, it reflects Indian culture and history in the tenth century BCE.
The main story of the Mahabharata narrates the Kurukshetra War between two branches of the family – the Pandavas and the Kauravas – for the throne of Hastinapur. Essentially, the epic represents a comprehensive exploration of the responsibilities that emanate from the religious code. In addition to mentioning the heroic story, the Mahabharata also contains a collection of writings covering a wide range of humanities, including ethics, law, philosophy, history, geography, genealogy, etc.
11. Ethnic Clothing of India
The Indian women’s saree, which started out as an easy and comfortable to wear and incorporated into religious etiquette, has become popular as a very beautiful and elegant dress. Similarly, the kurta pajama for women and the sherwani for men are Indian ethnic clothing. In South India, men wear a white dhoti.
12. Indian Food
The food of India is as unique and varied as its culture. Although the method of cooking varies from region to region, there is one thing that is common throughout India. That is the spices and leaves used as a dhandi. Each region has its own special food. However, the staple foods throughout India are rice and wheat. The major types of cuisine are South Indian, North Indian, Gujarati, Rajasthani, Punjabi, Bengali, Kashmiri and Mughlai.
13. Indian Dances:
The different cultures of different regions of India are represented by their unique folk dances and classical dances. As mentioned in Natya Shastra, there are eight types of classical dances prevalent in India.
Bharatanatyam of Tamil Nadu
Kathakali of Kerala
Kathak of North, West and Central India
Mohiniyatyam of Kerala
Kuchipudi of Andhra Pradesh
Odissi of Odisha
Manipuri of Manipur
Sattriya of Assam
All of the above are mythological story dances and the dancers present the stories through their special dances, gestures and movements. The folk dances of the respective region also present folk tales that have been passed down from one generation to another.
E&OE
Errors and omissions excepted (suggestions welcome)
Sources Source:
Wikipedia
everyculture.com
livescore.com
betterindia.com Unesco
culture of India Wiki
Holidify.com
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Published by BN Yalamalli
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