Few countries in the world have such an ancient and diverse culture as India's. Stretching back in an unbroken sweep over 5000 years, India's culture has been enriched by successive waves of migration which were absorbed into the Indian way of life.
It is this variety which is a special hallmark of India. Its physical, religious and racial variety is as immense as its linguistic diversity. Underneath this diversity lies the continuity of Indian civilization and social structure from the very earliest times until the present day.
Modern India presents a picture of unity in diversity to which history provides no parallel. Here is a catalogue of everything Indian. Indian religions, festivals, rituals, artifacts, monuments, costumes, music and dance, language and literature. Come and discover a little more of India's culture by selecting any of these topics.
The roots of Indian civilisation stretch back in time to pre-recorded history. The earliest human activity in the Indian sub-continent can be traced back to the Early, Middle and Late Stone Ages (400,000-200,000 BC). Implements from all three periods have been found from Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bihar, parts of what is now Pakistan and the southern most tip of the Indian Peninsula.
These Paleolithic people were semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers for many millennia. Five main races of people were in existence when the move to an agricultural lifestyle took place, in the middle of the 9th millennium BC. These were the Negrito race, the Proto-Australoid; the Mediterranean race, the Mongloids and the Alpine people.
The first evidence of agricultural settlements on the western plains of the Indus is roughly contemporaneous with similar developments in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Persia. These settlements gradually grew and the inhabitants started to use copper and bronze, domesticated animals, made pottery and began trade activities.
The
Indus Valley Civilization
Settlements
From the beginning of the 4th millennium BC, the individuality of the early village cultures began to be replaced by a more homogenous style of existence. By the middle of the 3rd millennium, a uniform culture had developed at settlements spread across nearly 500,000 square miles, including parts of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Baluchistan, Sind and the Makran coast.
This earliest known civilisation in India, the starting point in its history, dates back to about 3000 BC. Discovered in the 1920s, it was thought to have been confined to the valley of the river Indus, hence the name given to it was Indus Valley civilisation. This civilisation was a highly developed urban one and two of its towns, Mohenjodaro and Harappa, represent the high watermark of the settlements. Subsequent archaeological excavations established that the contours of this civilisation were not restricted to the Indus valley but spread to a wide area in northwestern and western India. Thus this civilisation is now better known as the Harappan civilisation. Mohenjodaro and Harappa are now in Pakistan and the principal sites in India include Ropar in Punjab, Lothal in Gujarat and Kalibangan in Rajasthan.
Urban Development
The emergence of this civilisation is as remarkable as its stability for nearly a thousand years. All the cities were well planned and were built with baked bricks of the same size; the streets were laid at right angles with an elaborate system of covered drains. There was a fairly clear division of localities and houses were earmarked for the upper and lower strata of society. There were also public buildings, the most famous being the Great Bath at Mohenjodaro and the vast granaries. Production of several metals such as copper, bronze, lead and tin was also undertaken and some remnants of furnaces provide evidence of this fact. The discovery of kilns to make bricks support the fact that burnt bricks were used extensively in domestic and public buildings.
Occupations
Evidence also points to the use of domesticated animals, including camels, goats, water buffaloes and fowls. The Harappans cultivated wheat, barley, peas and sesamum and were probably the first to grow and make clothes from cotton.Trade seemed to be a major activity at the Indus Valley and the sheer quantity of seals discovered suggest that each merchant or mercantile family owned its own seal. These seals are in various quadrangular shapes and sizes, each with a human or an animal figure carved on it. Discoveries suggest that the Harappan civilisation had extensive trade relations with the neighbouring regions in India and with distant lands in the Persian Gulf and Sumer (Iraq).
Society and Religion
The Harappan society was probably divided according to occupations and this
also suggests the existence of an organized government.
The figures of deities on seals
indicate that the Harappans worshipped gods and goddesses in male and female
forms and has also evolved some rituals and ceremonies. No monumental
sculpture survives, but a large number of human
figurines have been discovered, including a steatite bust of a man thought to be
a priest, and a striking bronze dancing girl. Countless terra-cotta statues of
Mother Goddess have been discovered suggesting that she was worshipped in nearly
every home.
By about 1700 BC, the Harappan culture was on the decline, due to repeated flooding of towns located on the river banks and due to ecological changes which forced agriculture to yield to the spreading desert. Some historians do not rule out invasions by barbarian tribes of the northwest as the cause of the decline of the Harappan civilisation. When the initial migrations of the Aryan people into India began about 1500 BC, the developed Harappan culture had already been practically wiped out.
The Aryans are said to have entered India through the fabled Khyber pass, around 1500 BC. They intermingled with the local populace, and assimilated themselves into the social framework. They adopted the settled agricultural lifestyle of their predecessors, and established small agrarian communities across the state of Punjab.
The Aryans are believed to have brought with them the horse, developed the Sanskrit language and made significant inroads in to the religion of the times. All three factors were to play a fundamental role in the shaping of Indian culture. Cavalry warfare facilitated the rapid spread of Aryan culture across North India, and allowed the emergence of large empires.
Sanskrit is the basis and the unifying factor of the vast majority of Indian languages. The religion, that took root during the Vedic era, with its rich pantheon of Gods and Goddesses, and its storehouse of myths and legends, became the foundation of the Hindu religion, arguably the single most important common denominator of Indian culture.
The Aryans did not have a script, but they developed a rich tradition. They composed the hymns of the four vedas, the great philosophic poems that are at the heart of Hindu thought. As the Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore expressed it, "The hymns are a poetic testament of a people's collective reaction to the wonder and awe of existence....A people of vigorous and unsophisticated imagination awakened at the very dawn of civilisation to a sense of inexhaustible mystery that is implicit in life."
A settled lifestyle brought in its wake
more complex forms of government and social patterns. This period saw the
evolution of the caste system, and the emergence of kingdoms and republics. The
events described in the two great Indian epics, the
Ramayana and the
Mahabharata, are thought to have occurred around this
period. (1000 to 800 BC).
The Aryans were divided into tribes which had settled in different regions of northwestern India. Tribal chiefmanship gradually became hereditary, though the chief usually operated with the help of advice from either a committee or the entire tribe. With work specialisation, the internal division of the Aryan society developed along caste lines. Their social framework was composed mainly of the following groups : the Brahmana (priests), Kshatriya (warriors), Vaishya (agriculturists) and Shudra (workers). It was, in the beginning, a division of occupations; as such it was open and flexible. Much later, caste status and the corresponding occupation came to depend on birth, and change from one caste or occupation to another became far more difficult.
The greatest empire in the fourth century AD was the Gupta empire, which ushered in the golden age of Indian history. This empire lasted for more than two centuries. It covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, but its administration was more decentralised than that of the Mauryas. Alternately waging war and entering into matrimonial alliances with the smaller kingdoms in its neighbourhood, the empire's boundaries kept fluctuating with each ruler.
The Gupta rulers patronised the Hindu religious tradition and orthodox Hinduism reasserted itself in this era. However, this period also saw the peaceful coexistence of Brahmins and Buddhists and visits by Chinese travellers like Fa Hien. The exquisite Ajanta and Ellora caves were created in this period.
This era saw the emergence of the classical art forms and development of various aspects of Indian culture and civilisation. Erudite treatises were written on a multiplicity of subjects ranging from grammar, mathematics, astronomy and medicine, to the Kamasutra, the famous treatise on the art of love. This age registered considerable progress in literature and science, particularly in astronomy and mathematics. The most outstanding literary figure of the Gupta period was Kalidasa whose choice of words and imagery brought Sanskrit drama to new heights. Aryabhatta, who lived during this age, was the first Indian who made a significant contribution to astronomy.
The invasions of the White Huns signalled the end of this era of history, although at first, they were defeated by the Guptas. After the decline of the Gupta empire, north India broke into a number of separate Hindu kingdoms and was not really unified again until the coming of the Muslims.
While kingdoms rose and fell in the north of India, the south remained generally unaffected by these upheavals. Religions like Jainism and Buddhism gradually became popular in the centre and north of India, but Hinduism continued to flourish in the south.
The prosperity in the southern parts of the country was based upon the long-established trade links of India with other civilisations. The Egyptians and Romans had trade relations with southern India through sea routes and later, links were also established with South-East Asia. Other outside influences in the south included the arrival of Saint Thomas in Kerala in 52 AD, who brought Christianity to India.
Great dynasties that rose in the south were the Cholas, Pandyas, Cheras, Chalukyas and Pallavas. These empires constantly vied with each other for supremacy. The Chalukyas ruled mainly over the Deccan region of central India, although at times, their reign extended further north. Further south, the Pallavas pioneered Dravidian architecture with its exuberant, almost baroque style. They also took Indian art forms and Hinduism to Java in Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia.
In 850 AD, the Cholas rose to power and gradually superseded the Pallavas. They too were great builders, and their architectural styles can be witnessed at the temples in Thanjavur. Under the rule of Raja Raja Chola, the Chola empire spread all over southern India, the Deccan, Sri Lanka, parts of the Malay peninsula and Sumatra.
In Kerala, the Cheras acted host to an influx of Arab traders who had discovered a fast sea route to India using the monsoon winds. Some of them settled here permanently, and were allowed to freely practice their religion.
The Delhi Sultanate
An event of immense and lasting impact in Indian history was the advent of the Muslims in the north-west. Lured by tales of the fertile plains of the Punjab and the fabulous wealth of Hindu temples, Mahmud of Ghazni first attacked India in 1000 AD. Other raiders from Central Asia followed him, but these invasions were no more than banditry. It was only in 1192 that Muslim power arrived in India on a permanent basis. In that year, Mohammed of Ghori, who had been expanding his power all across the Punjab broke into India and took Ajmer. The following year his general Qutb-ud-din Aibak took Varanasi and Delhi and after Mohammed Ghori's death in 1206, he became the first of the Sultans of Delhi. Qutb-ud-din Aibak founded the so called Slave Dynasty in India at Delhi, setting up the nucleus of the Delhi Sultanate, or the rule of Turkish and Afghan sultans, the Khiljis, the Tughlaqs and the Lodis.
Impact of Islam
The impact of Islam on Indian culture has been inestimable. It permanently influenced the development of all areas of human endeavour - language, dress, cuisine, all the art forms, architecture and urban design, and social customs and values. Conversely, the languages of the Muslim invaders were modified by contact with local languages, to Urdu, which uses the Arabic script, and the more colloquial Hindustani, which uses the Devnagri script. Both are major Indian languages today.
Kabir and Nanak
The synthesis of Hinduism and Islam is exemplified by the emergence, at this time, of the ideas of two great saints, Kabir and Nanak. Drawing on the devotional Hindu Bhakti and the mystical Islamic Sufi cults, the tolerance of Hinduism and the ideas of equality in Islam, they preached religions that advocated simple living and practical common sense. Kabir emphasised the oneness of the Divine in memorable couplets - "Hari is in the east, Allah in the west; look within your heart for there you will find both Karim and Ram." The followers of Guru Nanak founded the Sikh religion, which has a large following.
The Great Mughals
|
Babur |
Akbar |
Jehangir |
Shahjahan |
The most important Islamic empire was that of the
Mughals, a Central Asian dynasty founded by Babur early in the sixteenth
century. Babur was succeeded by his son Humayun and under the reign of Humayun's
son , Akbar the Great (1562-1605), Indo-Islamic culture attained a peak of
tolerance, harmony and a spirit of enquiry.
The nobles of his
court belonged to both the Hindu and the Muslim faiths, and Akbar himself
married a Hindu princess. Leaders of all the faiths were invited to his court at
Fatehpur Sikri to debate religious issues at the specially built 'Ibadat
Khana'. Akbar tried to consolidate religious tolerance by founding the
Din-e-Ilahi religion, an amalgam of the Hindu and the Muslim faiths.
Mughal culture reached its zenith during the reign of Akbar's grandson Shahjehan, a great builder and patron of the arts. Shahjehan moved his capital to Delhi and built the incomparable Taj Mahal at Agra.
Aurangzeb, the last major Mughal, extended his empire over all but the southern tip of India, though he was constantly harried by Rajput and Maratha clans.
The power that came closest to imperial pretensions was that of the Marathas. Starting from scratch, the non-Brahmin castes in the Maharashtra region had been organised into a fighting force by their legendary leader, Shivaji. Dimunitive in height, clever beyond his enemy's imagination, Shivaji led everyday of his life like a drama in which he was always a step ahead of his adversaries. The Marathas moved like lightning and appeared in areas where least expected, at times hundreds of miles away from their home. They always went back with their hands full of plunder.
Gradually, states began to pay them vast amounts in "protection money," insurance aginst their plundering raids. By the third quarter of the 18th century, the Marathas had under their direct administration or indirect subjection enough Indian territory to justify use of the term "the Maratha Empire", though it never came near the dimensions of the Mughal empire. The Marathas also never sought to formally substitute themselves for the Mughals; they often kept the emperor under their thumb but paid him formal obeisance.
When Nadir Shah of Persia attacked Delhi in 1739, the declining Mughals were even further weakened, but the expansion of the Maratha power came to an abrupt halt in 1761 at Panipat. There the Marathas were defeated by Ahmad Shah Durrani from Afganisthan. Their expansion to the west halted, they nevertheless consolidated their control over central India and their region known as Malwa. Soon, however, they were to fall to India's final imperial power, the British.
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