Indian Culture

Course Content

8 sections • 14 lectures • 02h 20m total length

	Tamil Nadu Traditional Wear Elegance, Grace, and Unique Traditional attire of Tamil Nadu. Find out About South India, Learn About South India, and get Information on SouthIndia.		10min
	Different Costumes South Indian dresses are known for its simple and graceful look. The four South Indian states, namely Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are famous for many reasons. Traditionally the dress for Indian women devoid of caste, creed and culture is sari. Sari (saree) is a four to nine-yard unstitched garment draped in different styles and worn on an stitched garment called choli/blouse. Though sari is popularly believed to be the traditional dress for Indian women, there are other dresses that are either region specific or culture specific which are also considered to be part of Indian traditional dresses. In Tamil Nadu the traditional mode of wearing style differed from Iyers to Iyangars and in Kerala an older version of sari called Mundum Neriyathum is the traditional dress, where Mundu forms the lower garment and Neriyathu is the upper garment. In other parts of the country the most popular traditional dress is sari which is draped in a variety of styles.		10min

	Vegetarian Banana Leaf Meal		10min

	Indian Music Instruments		10min

	Hindu Temples		10min

	Indian Dance		10min

	Ancient Indian Architecture		10min
	Indian Architecture		10min
	Indian Architecture		10min
	Indian Paintings types Indian Paintings types		10min
	Cave Architecture		10min

	Types of Indian Sculpture		10min

	Indian Literature Indian Literature		10min
	Characteristics of Indian Philosophy Characteristics of Indian Philosophy		10min

Requirements

No special Requirements.

Description

Language

India has 28 states and seven territories, according to the World Health Organization. There is no official language in India, according to a Gujarat High Court ruling in 2010, though Hindi is the official language of the government. The Constitution of India officially recognizes 23 official languages.

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 Hindi in India, 59 percent of India residents speak something other than Hindi, according to The Times of India. Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil and Urdu are some other languages spoken in the country.

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 English, French, Farsi and Russian languages. New DNA research in 2017 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," said study co-author Martin Richards, an archaeogeneticist at the University of Huddersfield in England. "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." [Aryan Invasion May Have Transformed India's Bronze-Age Population]

Religion

India is identified as the birthplace of Hinduism and Buddhism, the third and fourth largest religions. About 84 percent of the population identifies as Hindu, according to the "Handbook of Research on Development and Religion," edited by Matthew Clarke (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013). There are many variations of Hinduism, and four predominant sects — Shaiva, Vaishnava, Shakteya and Smarta.

About 13 percent of Indians are Muslim, making it one of the largest Islamic nations in the world. Christians and Sikhs make up a small percentage of the population, and there are even fewer Buddhists and Jains, according to the "Handbook."

The CIA cited similar figures. According to its World Factbook, around 80 percent of the population is Hindu, 14.2 percent is Muslim, 2.3 percent is Christian, 1.7 percent is Sikh and 2 percent is unspecified.

Food

When the Moghul Empire invaded during the sixteenth century, they left a significant mark on the Indian cuisine, according to Texas A&M University. Indian cuisine is also influenced by many other countries. It is known for its large assortment of dishes and its liberal use of herbs and spices. Cooking styles vary from region to region.

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

Many Hindus are vegetarian, but lamb and chicken are common in main dishes for non-vegetarians. The Guardian reports that between 20 percent and 40 percent of India's population is vegetarian.

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