India has always been diverse in terms of culture, this is so because of many invasions and different rulers having influence over the Indian subcontinent. After each invasion or change in power, new kingdoms brought in their respective cultures which added itself to the Indian culture. We can say every religion, kingdom and person has some or the other in making India's culture as diverse as it is today.
India has different dances, languages, religions, dances, music, food, architecture and rituals in nearly every region of the country. Rice cultivation was brought to India from South East Asia through the north-eastern entry of India. Now rice cultivation is a major part of Indian agriculture.
Sanskrit and Pali were the originally spoken languages in India; later other languages such as Hindi, Urdu, and English came into use after foreign invasions or the development of the manuscript; for example, the Devanagari script.
WHILE there is no dearth of books dealing with the cultural history of India, it is difficult to find a handy volume giving the general reader a connected account of the development of Indian culture and its expansion to South East Asia and the Far East. Scholarly works there are, which deal with Indology in South East Asia, but these seldom reach the lay reader. Hence this work is mainly intended to serve as a hand-book for the layman interested in the culture that developed in India and, spreading outside, enriched the civilisations of the north and east.
While the history of India prior to the Muslim conquest is something of a patchwork sewn out of accounts of travellers, stray inscriptions, speculations of archaeologists and meagre references in indigenous literature, that of the countries of South East Asia is even more scrappy. The archaeologist and the epigraphist are only now beginning to unfold the history of these regions, and our knowledge of the races and cultures of South East Asia, prior to the arrival of the Europeans in this region, is based on stray references in Chinese annals and inscribed eulogies of kings which are poor records of historical facts. Hence the present work is more of a story intended to evoke interest than a sound work on history.
A detailed treatment of the subject in a book like this is practically impossible as it involves the history of a dozen countries, each of which capable of claiming a volume. Hence a bare outline of Indian cultural development and its expansion abroad is all that is attempted here.
As far as India itself is concerned, the emphasis is on those developments that had an inter-national appeal; for instance, Jainism may be more important to present day India than Buddhism in as much as the former has a large following in India and the latter practically none, but since Jainism never spread outside India to any appreciable extent, I have mentioned little about this religion in the book and a good deal about Buddhism.
The cultural expansion of India practically ceased with the Muslim conquest of the country, which was, in consequence, isolated from her ancient cultural commonwealth; as such I have made no efforts to pursue in any detail developments in or outside India after this event.
A list of the more important of the works have consulted will be found in the biblio-graphy appended to the book. I have also drawn freely from several of my own articles published in the Illustrated Weekly of India, Bombay, and March of India, New Delhi, and my apologies are due to the Editors of these journals for the liberty I have taken. Finally I must acknowledge the help I received from Mr. P. A. Joseph for reading the proofs and Mr. N. V. Andrew for preparing the index.
"
Hindu (933)
Agriculture (118)
Ancient (1085)
Archaeology (754)
Architecture (563)
Art & Culture (911)
Biography (702)
Buddhist (544)
Cookery (167)
Emperor & Queen (565)
Islam (242)
Jainism (307)
Literary (896)
Mahatma Gandhi (373)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist