Efforts to date our civilisation began with the Harappan culture in 2500 BC, the migration of Aryans to India in 1500 BC, the rise of Budhisim and Jainism around 486 and 468 BC, the invasion of Alexander the Great in 326 BC and the rise of the Great empires in North and South India thereafter, such as the Mauryas, the
Do British observers agree with Indian culture?
While a great many British observers did not agree with such views of India, and some non-British ones did, it is an approach that contributes to some confusion about the culture of India.
Curatorial approach:
- it attempts to observe
- classify and record the diversity of Indian culture in different parts of India
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Literature and the arts
It was also in the matha (monastery) and the ghatika (assembly hall), attached to the temples, that the influential philosophical debates were conducted in Sanskrit.
Foremost among the philosophers were Shankara (8th–9th century), Ramanuja (d. 1137), and Madhva (13th century).
The discussions centred on religious problems, such as whether knowledge or devotion was the more effective means of salvation, and problems of metaphysics, including that of the nature of reality.
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Overview
Apart from the political events of the time, a common development in the subcontinent was the recognizable decentralization of administration and revenue collection.
From the Cola kingdom there are long inscriptions on temple walls referring to the organization and functioning of village councils.
Villages that had been donated to Brahmans had councils called sabhas; in the non-Brahman villages the council was called the ur.
Eligibility qualifications generally relating to age and ownership of property were indicated, along with procedural rules.
The council was divided into various committees in charge of the different aspects of village life and administration.
Among the responsibilities of the council was the collection of revenue and the supervision of irrigation.
References to village bodies and local councils also occur in inscriptions from other regions.
A more recent and much-contested view held by some historians holds that the Cola state was a segmentary state with control decreasing from the centre outward and a ritual hierarchy that determined the relations between the centre and the units of the territory.
The nature of the state during this period has been the subject of widespread discussion among historians.
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Religion
The local nucleus of the new culture led to a large range of religious expression, from the powerful temple religion of Brahmanism to a widespread popular bhakti religion and even more widespread fertility cults.
The distinctions between the three were not clearly demarcated in practice; rites and concepts from each flowed into the other.
The formal worship of Vishnu and Shiva had the support of the elite.
Temples dedicated to Vaishnava and Shaiva deities were the most numerous.
But also included were some of the chief deities connected with the fertility cult, and the mother goddesses played an important role.
The Puranas had been rewritten to incorporate popular religion; now the upa-puranas were written to record rites and worship of more-localized deities.
Among the more-popular incarnations of Vishnu was Krishna, who, as the cowherd deity, accommodated pastoral and erotic themes in worship.
The love of Krishna and Radha was expressed in sensitive and passionate poetry.
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Social mobility
Historians once believed that the post-Gupta period brought greater rigidity in the caste structure and that this rigidity was partially responsible for the inability of Indians to face the challenge of the Turks.
This view is now being modified.
The distinctions, particularly between the Brahmans and the other castes, were in theory sharper, but i.
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The Delhi sultanate
The decline of the Ghaznavids after 1100 was accentuated by the sack of Ghazna by the rival Shansabānīs of Ghūr in 1150–51.
The Ghūrids, who inhabited the region between Ghazna and Herāt, rose rapidly in power during the last half of the 12th century, partly because of the changing balance of power that resulted from the westward movement of the non-Muslim Qara Khiṭāy (Karakitai) Turks into the area dominated by the Seljuq Turks, who had been the principal power in Iran and parts of Afghanistan during the previous 50 years.
The Seljuq defeat in 1141 led to a struggle for power among the Qara Khiṭāy, the Khwārezm-Shahs, and the Ghūrids for control of parts of Central Asia and Iran.
By 1152 Ghazna had been captured again by the Ghūrid ruler, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn.
After his death the Ghūrid territory was partitioned principally between his two nephews, Ghiyāth al-Dīn Muḥammad and Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Sām, commonly called Muḥammad of Ghūr.
Ghiyāth al-Dīn ruled over Ghūr from Fīrūz-Kūh and looked toward Khorāsān, while Muḥammad of Ghūr was established in Ghazna and began to try his luck in India for expansion.
The Ghūrid invasions of north India were thus extensions of a Central Asian struggle.
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The economy
Cultivation was still carried out by the peasants, generally Shudras, who remained tied to the land.
Since the revenue was now to be paid not to the king but to the samanta, the peasants naturally began to give more attention to his requirements.
Although the samantas copied the life-style of the royal court, often to the point of setting up miniature courts in imitation of the royal model, the system also encouraged parochial loyalties and local cultural interests.
One manifestation of this local involvement was a sudden spurt of historical literature such as Bilhana’s Vikramankadevacarita, the life of the Calukya king Vikramaditya VI, and Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, a history of Kashmir.
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What influenced Indian culture?
India's languages, religions, dance, music, architecture, food and customs differ from place to place within the country.
Indian culture, often labelled as a combination of several cultures, has been influenced by a history that is several millennia old, beginning with the Indus Valley civilization and other early cultural areas.
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What is Indian culture?
Indian culture is the heritage of social norms and technologies that originated in or are associated with the ethno-linguistically diverse India.
The term also applies beyond India to countries and cultures whose histories are strongly connected to India by immigration, colonisation, or influence, particularly in South Asia and Southeast Asia.
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What is the history of India?
Sports and recreation Media and publishing History India from the Paleolithic Period to the decline of the Indus civilization The early prehistoric period The Indian Paleolithic Mesolithic hunters The earliest agriculturalists and pastoralists Neolithic agriculture in the Indus valley and Baluchistan Developments in the Ganges basin .
