CULTURAL HERITAGE
OF INDIA
The culture of India is the oldest culture of the world around 5,000 years. Indian culture is considered as the first and supreme culture of the world. There is a common saying about India that “Unity in Diversity” means India is a diverse country where people of many religions live together peacefully with their own separate cultures. People of various religions differ in their language, food tradition, rituals, etc however they live with unity.
The national language of India is Hindi however there are almost 22 official languages and 400 other languages are spoken daily in India in its various states and territories. According to the history, India has been recognized as the birthplace of the religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. Huge population of the India belongs to the Hindu religion. Other variations of the Hinduism are Shaiva, Shakteya, Vaishnava and Smarta.
India is a rich country of cultures
where people live in their culture. We respect and honour our Indian culture a
lot. The culture is everything like the way of behaving with other, ideas,
customs we follow, arts, handicrafts, religions, food habits, fairs, festivals,
music and dance are parts of the culture. India is a big country with high
population where people of various religions with unique culture live together.
Some of the major religions of country are Hinduism, Christianity, Islam,
Buddhism, Jainism, Shikhism, and Zoroastrianism. India is a country where
various languages are spoken in different parts of the country. People here are
generally used of varieties in costume, social beliefs, customs and
food-habits.
People beliefs and follow various customs and traditions
according to their own religions. We celebrate our festivals according to our
own rituals, keep fast, take bath in holy water of Gange, worship and pray to
God, sing ritual songs, dance, eat delicious dinner, wear colourful dresses and
other lots of activities. We also celebrate some National festivals by getting
together such as Republic Day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti, including
various social events. People of different religions celebrate their festivals
in various parts of the country with great zeal and enthusiasm without
interfering each other.
Some events like birthday of Gautama Buddha (Buddha Purnima),
Lord Mahavir birthday (Mahavir Jayanti), Guru Nanak Jayanti (Guruparv), etc is
celebrated conjointly by people of many religions. India is a famous country
for its various cultural dances like classical (Bharat Natyam, Kathak,
Kathakli, Kuchipudi) and folk according to the regions. Punjabis enjoy dancing
Bhangra, Gugaratis enjoy doing Garba, Rajasthanis enjoy Ghumar, Assamese enjoy
Bihu whereas Maharashtrian enjoy Lavoni.
The culture in India is everything such as inherited ideas,
way of people’s living, beliefs, rituals, values, habits, care, gentleness,
knowledge, etc. India is an oldest civilization of the world where people still
follow their old culture of humanity and care. Culture is the way we behave to
others, how softly we react to things, our understanding towards values,
ethics, principles, and beliefs. People of old generations pass their cultures
and beliefs to their next generations so, every child here behaves well to
others as he/she already learned about culture from parents and grandparents.
We can see culture here in everything like dance, fashion, artistry, music,
behavior, social norms, food, architecture, dressing sense, etc. India is a big
melting pot having various beliefs and behaviors which gave birth to different
cultures here.
Various religions here have their origin from very old age
almost five thousand years. It is considered as Hinduism was originated here
from Vedas. All the holy Hindu scriptures have been scripted in the sacred
Sanskrit language. It is also believed that Jainism has ancient origin and
their existence was in the Indus Valley. Buddhism is another religion which was
originated in the country after the teachings of Lord Gautama Buddha.
Christianity was brought here later by the French and Britishers who ruled here
for almost two centuries long time. In this way various religions were
originated in ancient time or brought to this country by any means. However,
People of each religion live here peacefully by getting together without
affecting their rituals and beliefs.
Variety of eras came and gone but no one was so powerful to
change the influence of our real culture. The culture of younger generations is
still connected to older generations through umbilical cord. Our ethnic culture
always teaches us to behave well, respect elders, care helpless people and
always help the needy and poor people. It is our religious culture that we
should keep fast, do worship, offer Gange Jal, do Surya Namaskar, touch feet of
elder in family, do yoga and meditation on daily basis, give food and water to
the hungry and disabled people. There is great culture of our nation that we
should always welcome our guests like a God very happily, that’s why India is
famous for a common saying like “Atithi Devo Bhava”. The basic roots of our
great culture are humanity and spiritual practices.
