Indian Cultures: Traditions and Customs of India

Indian Cultures 

The Cultures of India All over the world are the oldest Culture; and about 4600 years ago the civilization was began in India. There are any sources described it as "Sa Prathama Sanskrati Vishvavara" the first and the supreme culture in the world, according to the All World Gyatrii Pariwark (AWGP) organization.

According to an anthropologist “ Christina De Rossi at Barnet and Southgate College in London, the Culture of India did not always favorably seen by the Western societies. Early anthropologists once considered cultures diverse with the passage of time and cultures considered as an evolutionary process, and "every aspect of human development was seen as driven by evolution," she told Live Science. "In this view, societies outside of Europe or North America, or societies that did not follow the European or Western way of life, were considered primitive and culturally inferior if they don’t follow American cultures. Essentially this included all the colonized countries and people, such as Far East, African countries and India."

According to the CIA World Factbook Today, India is a very diverse country with more than 1.2 billion people, However, Indians have made significant advances and have developed in mathematics (the invention of zero) and medicine (Ayurveda) and India have developed and advanced their architecture like a big example is here (Taj Mahal), having more than 1.2 billion population India the second most populous nation after China. Every region of the India is having their distinct religion, cultures, Language, arts and food. The arts are just some of the various aspects of Indian culture. 

A brief overview the Indian cultures are described here in the next paragraphs.                                       

Languages: / how many languages are spoken in India?  

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) India has seven territories and 28 states, and according to the Gujrat High Court ruling in 2010, there is no any kind of language is officially spoken within the India, though the official language of the India Government is the Hindi language. But mostly Hindi is spoken by the people within India.  There are 24 languages are officially used in the Constitution of India.

Many people living in India write in Devanagari script. In fact, it is a misconception that the majority of people in India speak Hindi. Though many people speak 41% Hindi language in India and 59 percent of Indian people speak something other than Hindi, according to the times of India. Marathi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil and Urdu are some other languages spoken in the India.  

Sanskrit, an ancient Indo-European language usually referred to in action movies, came from Northern India. How the language started has been a point of argument amongst linguists. It shares many similarities with French, English, Russian and Farsi languages. New DNA research in 2019 found that an Aryan invasion may have introduced the beginnings of Sanskrit. "People have been debating the arrival of the Indo-European languages in India for hundreds of years, an archaeogeneticist at the University of Huddersfield in England" said study co-author Martin Richards, "There's been a very long-running debate about whether the Indo-European languages were brought from migrations from outside, which is what most linguists would accept, or if they evolved indigenously."

Religion: How many religions are there in India?

Mostly Indian people are the Hindu and following the Buddhism. However, India is identified as the birthplace of Hinduism and Buddhism, which is the third and fourth largest religion. According to the "Handbook of research on Development and Religion," edited by Matthew Clarke (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013) About 82% of the population identified that is following the Hinduism, There are many variations of Hinduism, and there are four predominant sects( Vaishnava, Shaiva, Shakteya and Smarta). There are 15% peoples are the Muslims within the india making it one of the largest Islamic nations in the world. There are a small number of Sikhs and Christians are living in the India, and there are even fewer Buddhists and Jains, according to the "Handbook." The same figures are cited by CIA. According to its World Factbook, around 80 percent of the population of India is Hindu, 14.2 percent are Muslims, 2.3 percent are Christians, 1.7 percent Sikhs and 2 percent is unspecified.

Food/Cuisines of India:

During the 16^th Century when the Moghul Empire invaded, they left a significant mark on the Indian cuisine, according to Texas A&M University. The Indian cuisines are also influenced by many other countries. There are very different Cuisines from region to region in the India mostly people like Spicy things that’s why it is known for its large assortment of dishes and its liberal use of herbs and spices.

Basmati rice, Wheat, and pulses with chana (Grimes) are important staples of the Indian diet. As mentioned before people like spicy things the food of the Indian’s is rich with spices and curries, including ginger, turmeric , coriander, cardamom,  dried hot peppers, and cinnamon, among others. Chutneys — thick condiments and spreads made from assorted fruits and vegetables such as mint, tamarind and tomatoes, cilantro and other herbs — are used generously in Indian cooking.

Lamb and chicken are the most common dishes for the non-vegetarians. Many Hindus are vegetarian. It is reported by the Guardian that between 20 percent and 40 percent of the population of the India is vegetarian.

Much of Indian food is eaten with fingers or bread used as utensils. Including naan, chapati a leavened, oven-baked flatbread; and bhatoora, a fried, fluffy flatbread are  common in North India and eaten with chickpea curry there is a wide array of breads served with meals.

Art and Architecture:

“Taj Mahal” is the most well-known example of Indian architecture,  that was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to honor his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It combines elements from Islamic, Turkish, Persian, Ottoman and Indian architectural styles. And there are many old and ancient temples in the India.

India has promoted through its film industry, which is often referred to as Bollywood. The country's movie history began in 1896 when the art of cinema in Mumbai demonstrated by the Lumière brothers, according to the Golden Globes. Today, the films are known for their elaborate singing and dancing. 

More than 2,000 years the Indian music, dance and theater traditions span back. According to Nilima Bhadbhade, author of "Contract Law in India" (Kluwer Law International, 2010). The major classical dance traditions — Bharata Natyam,  Kuchipudi, Kathak, Manipuri, Odissi, Mohiniattam and Kathakali — draw on themes from literature and  mythology and have rigid presentation rules.

In 2016 A research was published in the Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology found that some Indian horns have many similarities with horns made in Ireland. This study may suggest that during the Bronze Age two countries may have exchanged their techniques and ideas in making musical instruments. "Some horns are frankly shockingly similar, to the point where it is like witnessing time travel," study author Billy Ó Foghlú, an archaeologist and doctoral student in Canberra, at the Australian National, told Live Science. "If I was to find one of these modern Indian instruments in an Irish archaeological excavation and I didn't know what I was looking at, I would likely assume it was a Late Bronze Age Irish artifact."[Surprising Echo of Ancient Irish Horns in Indian instruments].

Clothing:

Indian Women mostly wears colorful and fast silk colors. And dhoti is a traditional piece of clothing for men in the India , that is tied around the waist and legs an unstitched piece of cloth. Men also wear a loose shirt, kurta, that is worn about knee-length. Men wear a achkan or sherwani in very special events which is a long coat that is having no lapel with a collar. It is buttoned down to the knees and up to the collar. A shorter version of a sherwani is called a Nehru jacket. It is named after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's prime minister from 1947 to 1964, but Nehru never wore a jacket. According to Tehelka, an Indian newspaper he always preferred the achkan. That was primarily Marketed in the Westerners.

The largest and the most important holiday in India is Diwali that is the also a very important event in India, according to National Geographic. It is called the festival of lights and it is a five-day festival. It called lights festival because of the lights during the celebration to symbolize the inner light that protects them from spiritual darkness. And there is also another very important event is the Holii, that is the festival of colors, also called the festival of love, and celebrated popular in the spring. The country also celebrates Independence Day (Aug. 15), Republic Day (Jan. 26), and Mahatma Gandhi's birthday (Oct. 2).

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