Jay Protacio M. ---> My Teaching Notes & Lectures

Philo 101 Tips

2007-10-05T01:45:00.000-07:00

Concentrate on the following:

1. All the topics and philosophies discussed during the prelim, midterm and final period.

2. Communism

3. Socialism

4. Social Classes

5. Plato

6. Aristotle

7. Karl Marx

8. Nitzche

HUM 102 Tips

2007-10-05T01:41:00.000-07:00

Concentrate on the following:

1. China, Japan, India health care services particularly the statistical data on hospital beds, Japan Health Insurance, medical personnel.

2. Indian Literature.

3. Hinduism

4. Mahatma Gandhi's Education

Karl Marx ( A brief lecture and note for My PHI 101 class 1st Sem. AY 2007-2008)

2007-09-25T19:20:00.000-07:00

Karl Marx, 1818-1883
The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion to the devaluation of the world of men. Labour produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity -- and does so in the proportion in which it produces commodities generally.
Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844)
The philosopher, social scientist, historian and revolutionary, Karl Marx, is without a doubt the most influential socialist thinker to emerge in the 19th century. Although he was largely ignored by scholars in his own lifetime, his social, economic and political ideas gained rapid acceptance in the socialist movement after his death in 1883. Until quite recently almost half the population of the world lived under regimes that claim to be Marxist. This very success, however, has meant that the original ideas of Marx have often been modified and his meanings adapted to a great variety of political circumstances. In addition, the fact that Marx delayed publication of many of his writings meant that is been only recently that scholars had the opportunity to appreciate Marx's intellectual stature.
Karl Heinrich Marx was born into a comfortable middle-class home in Trier on the river Moselle in Germany on May 5, 1818. He came from a long line of rabbis on both sides of his family and his father, a man who knew Voltaire and Lessing by heart, had agreed to baptism as a Protestant so that he would not lose his job as one of the most respected lawyers in Trier. At the age of seventeen, Marx enrolled in the Faculty of Law at the University of Bonn. At Bonn he became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, the daughter of Baron von Westphalen , a prominent member of Trier society, and man responsible for interesting Marx in Romantic literature and Saint-Simonian politics. The following year Marx's father sent him to the more serious University of Berlin where he remained four years, at which time he abandoned his romanticism for the Hegelianism which ruled in Berlin at the time.
Marx became a member of the Young Hegelian movement. This group, which included the theologians Bruno Bauer and David Friedrich Strauss, produced a radical critique of Christianity and, by implication, the liberal opposition to the Prussian autocracy. Finding a university career closed by the Prussian government, Marx moved into journalism and, in October 1842, became editor, in Cologne, of the influential Rheinische Zeitung, a liberal newspaper backed by industrialists. Marx's articles, particularly those on economic questions, forced the Prussian government to close the paper. Marx then emigrated to France.
Arriving in Paris at the end of 1843, Marx rapidly made contact with organized groups of émigré German workers and with various sects of French socialists. He also edited the short-lived Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher which was intended to bridge French socialism and the German radical Hegelians. During his first few months in Paris, Marx became a communist and set down his views in a series of writings known as the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844), which remained unpublished until the 1930s. In the Manuscripts, Marx outlined a humanist conception of communism, influenced by the philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach and based on a contrast between the alienated nature of labor under capitalism and a communist society in which human beings freely developed their nature in cooperative production. It was also in Paris that Marx developed his lifelong partnership with Friedrich Engels (1820-1895).
Marx was expelled from Paris at the end of 1844 and with Engels, moved to Brussels where he remained for the next three years, visiting England where Engels' family had cotton spinning interests in Manchester. While in Brussels Marx devoted himself to an intensive study of history and elaborated what came to be known as the materialist conception of history. This he developed in a manuscript (published posthumously as The German Ideology), of which the basic thesis was that "the nature of individuals depends on the material conditions determining their production." Marx traced the history of the various modes of production and predicted the collapse of the present one -- industrial capitalism -- and its replacement by communism.
At the same time Marx was composing The German Ideology, he also wrote a polemic (The Poverty of Philosophy) against the idealistic socialism of P. J. Proudhon (1809-1865). He also joined the Communist League. This was an organization of German émigré workers with its center in London of which Marx and Engels became the major theoreticians. At a conference of the League in London at the end of 1847 Marx and Engels were commissioned to write a succinct declaration of their position. Scarcely was The Communist Manifesto published than the 1848 wave of revolutions broke out in Europe.
Early in 1848 Marx moved back to Paris when a revolution first broke out and onto Germany where he founded, again in Cologne, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. The paper supported a radical democratic line against the Prussian autocracy and Marx devoted his main energies to its editorship since the Communist League had been virtually disbanded. Marx's paper was suppressed and he sought refuge in London in May 1849 to begin the "long, sleepless night of exile" that was to last for the rest of his life.
Settling in London, Marx was optimistic about the imminence of a new revolutionary outbreak in Europe. He rejoined the Communist League and wrote two lengthy pamphlets on the 1848 revolution in France and its aftermath, The Class Struggles in France and The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. He was soon convinced that "a new revolution is possible only in consequence of a new crisis" and then devoted himself to the study of political economy in order to determine the causes and conditions of this crisis.
During the first half of the 1850s the Marx family lived in poverty in a three room flat in the Soho quarter of London. Marx and Jenny already had four children and two more were to follow. Of these only three survived. Marx's major source of income at this time was Engels who was trying a steadily increasing income from the family business in Manchester. This was supplemented by weekly articles written as a foreign correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune.
Marx's major work on political economy made slow progress. By 1857 he had produced a gigantic 800 page manuscript on capital, landed property, wage labor, the state, foreign trade and the world market. The Grundrisse (or Outlines) was not published until 1941. In the early 1860s he broke off his work to compose three large volumes, Theories of Surplus Value, which discussed the theoreticians of political economy, particularly Adam Smith and David Ricardo. It was not until 1867 that Marx was able to publish the first results of his work in volume 1 of Capital, a work which analyzed the capitalist process of production. In Capital, Marx elaborated his version of the labor theory value and his conception of surplus value and exploitation which would ultimately lead to a falling rate of profit in the collapse of industrial capitalism. Volumes II and III were finished during the 1860s but Marx worked on the manuscripts for the rest of his life and they were published posthumously by Engels.
One reason why Marx was so slow to publish Capital was that he was devoting his time and energy to the First International, to whose General Council he was elected at its inception in 1864. He was particularly active in preparing for the annual Congresses of the International and leading the struggle against the anarchist wing led by Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876). Although Marx won this contest, the transfer of the seat of the General Council from London to New York in 1872, which Marx supported, led to the decline of the International. The most important political event during the existence of the International was the Paris Commune of 1871 when the citizens of Paris rebelled against their government and held the city for two months. On the bloody suppression of this rebellion, Marx wrote one of his most famous pamphlets, The Civil War in France, an enthusiastic defense of the Commune.
During the last decade of his life, Marx's health declined and he was incapable of sustained effort that had so characterized his previous work. He did manage to comment substantially on contemporary politics, particularly in Germany and Russia. In Germany, he opposed in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, the tendency of his followers Karl Liebknecht (1826-1900) and August Bebel (1840-1913) to compromise with state socialism of Lasalle in the interests of a united socialist party. In his correspondence with Vera Zasulich Marx contemplated the possibility of Russia's bypassing the capitalist stage of development and building communism on the basis of the common ownership of land characteristic of the village mir.
Marx's health did not improve. He traveled to European spas and even to Algeria in search of recuperation. The deaths of his eldest daughter and his wife clouded the last years of his life. Marx died March 14, 1883 and was buried at Highgate Cemetery in North London. His collaborator and close friend Friedrich Engels delivered the following eulogy three days later:
On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep -- but for ever.An immeasurable loss has been sustained both by the militant proletariat of Europe and America, and by historical science, in the death of this man. The gap that has been left by the departure of this mighty spirit will soon enough make itself felt.Just as Darwin discovered the law of development or organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means, and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.But that is not all. Marx also discovered the special law of motion governing the present-day capitalist mode of production, and the bourgeois society that this mode of production has created. The discovery of surplus value suddenly threw light on the problem, in trying to solve which all previous investigations, of both bourgeois economists and socialist critics, had been groping in the dark.
Two such discoveries would be enough for one lifetime. Happy the man to whom it is granted to make even one such discovery. But in every single field which Marx investigated -- and he investigated very many fields, none of them superficially -- in every field, even in that of mathematics, he made independent discoveries.Such was the man of science. But this was not even half the man. Science was for Marx a historically dynamic, revolutionary force. However great the joy with which he welcomed a new discovery in some theoretical science whose practical application perhaps it was as yet quite impossible to envisage, he experienced quite another kind of joy when the discovery involved immediate revolutionary changes in industry, and in historical development in general. For example, he followed closely the development of the discoveries made in the field of electricity and recently those of Marcel Deprez.For Marx was before all else a revolutionist. His real mission in life was to contribute, in one way or another, to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the state institutions which it had brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the modern proletariat, which he was the first to make conscious of its own position and its needs, conscious of the conditions of its emancipation. Fighting was his element. And he fought with a passion, a tenacity and a success such as few could rival. His work on the first Rheinische Zeitung (1842), the Paris Vorwarts (1844), the Deutsche Brusseler Zeitung (1847), the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (1848-49), the New York Tribune (1852-61), and, in addition to these, a host of militant pamphlets, work in organisations in Paris, Brussels and London, and finally, crowning all, the formation of the great International Working Men's Association -- this was indeed an achievement of which its founder might well have been proud even if he had done nothing else.And, consequently, Marx was the best hated and most calumniated man of his time. Governments, both absolutist and republican, deported him from their territories. Bourgeois, whether conservative or ultra-democratic, vied with one another in heaping slanders upon him. All this he brushed aside as though it were a cobweb, ignoring it, answering only when extreme necessity compelled him. And he died beloved, revered and mourned by millions of revolutionary fellow workers -- from the mines of Siberia to California, in all parts of Europe and America -- and I make bold to say that, though he may have had many opponents, he had hardly one personal enemy.His name will endure through the ages, and so also will his work.
Marx's contribution to our understanding of society has been enormous. His thought is not the comprehensive system evolved by some of his followers under the name of dialectical materialism. The very dialectical nature of his approach meant that it was usually tentative and open-ended. There was also the tension between Marx the political activist and Marx the student of political economy. Many of his expectations about the future course of the revolutionary movement have, so far, failed to materialize. However, his stress on the economic factor in society and his analysis of the class structure in class conflict have had an enormous influence on history, sociology, and study of human culture.

Steven Kreis

Basic Lesson on: Constructing a Critical Essay (For my lit. criticism class BSEDIV)

2007-09-24T21:02:00.000-07:00

The first thing to note about constructing a critical essay is that it is not synonymous with doing a "close reading", though the two tasks are similar. The distinction is simply that while a close reading is meant to generate ideas and possible interpretations, a critical essay must utilize those ideas and interpretations to make an argument about the text as whole. Any good critical essay should arise out of one or more close readings of particular passages from the text, which can then be organized, into a coherent argument.
A critical essay usually consists of the following elements, each of which is explained in more detail below:
1. 1. The Thesis: a basic statement of the overall argument of the paper, usually contained within the first paragraph and sometimes re-stated later in the paper.
2. 2. Topic Sentences: each paragraph should contain a statement of the main idea of that paragraph. Taken together, these topic sentences should lay out the reasoning for the overall thesis of the paper.
3. 3. Evidence and Illustration: usually details uncovered in a close reading that lend support to each part of the argument. Every paragraph should contain both reasoning (topic sentences) and evidence or illustration..
4. 4. Questions or counter-arguments: used sparingly, and at critical moments in your argument, asking and answering potentially challenging questions can lend credibility to your paper. It lets the reader know that you aren't ignoring obvious complications or contradictions in the text.
5. 5. Conclusion: the conclusion brings together the evidence collected and explains how your thesis has evolved through the preceding paragraphs. It should explain the implications of your argument for further thinking about the text or issue.
The Thesis:
The thesis is the single most important element of your paper, so make sure you understand what a good thesis is. A good thesis must make an argument about the text that is original, complex, and arguable. That is to say, it cannot be a simple statement of fact, an argument drawn from another source, or an argument that is obvious from a surface reading of a text. It must be complex enough to require further elaboration in the body of the paper.
For example, the following is not a good thesis:1) "Frederick Douglass's narrative is a heart-wrenching account of the cruelties and hardships of slavery."--this is a statement of fact, and not one with which anyone is likely to argue.--the body of such a paper would likely just recount the events in the narrative, which is unnecessary. You can assume that your reader has read and understood the text.
This is also not a good thesis:2) "Learning to read and write becomes Douglass's way out of slavery and its oppression of the mind."--this is not an original argument, and is fairly obvious from Douglass's own statements in the text.
Here's a thesis that might hold up:3) "Frederick Douglass's pursuit of knowledge and his physical resistance to his overseers arise out of his own notions of 'manhood' and his perception of the psychological sources of the master's power over the slave."--this thesis is a statement of opinion, and one that might be intelligently argued by another reader (i.e. I might say that Douglass's resistance is driven by cultural or literary definitions of 'manhood' and that there are other more important sources of the masters' power like economics, religious authority, or access to technology, etc.).--while perhaps not completely original, it does allow for some original combination of evidence and illustration as well as individual reasoning.--it requires further elaboration in the body of the paper (see below)
Topic sentences
If you list your topic sentences in order (this is called a "skeleton outline") they should lay out the reasoning needed to support your thesis. You might try organizing possible topic sentences before you start writing.
For example, here are some possible topic sentences for the "good" thesis (number 3) given above:
"For Douglass, 'manhood' suggests both the ability to control his own body and the ability to communicate his thoughts through speaking and writing."
"Douglass recognizes that in order to have mastery over the body, one must first have mastery over the mind."
"Douglass realizes that once his mind has been set free, he can only suffer all the more acutely unless he can also free himself from the physical oppression."
Note: there would need to be more topic sentences (and paragraphs) than this in the final paper, but these can serve as examples. Note how each one elaborates on and refers back to the original thesis. They are, in effect, "sub-theses" that are needed in order to fully explain the larger argument.
Evidence and illustration
To support each topic sentence, you will want to utilize the details uncovered during your close reading: images, metaphors, allusions, the use of language and multiple meanings, interpretations of mood, tone, etc. These may come from a single passage (which has the benefit of unifying the paper into a tight, rich reading ) or from several passages (which allows for larger patterns of meaning that run throughout the text).
Organizing your evidence will require culling out things that don't add to your argument, taking a stance on particular interpretations, and explaining to your reader why you interpret the passage the way that you do. Don't assume that the reader agrees with you--convince them!
I can't provide a full listing of possible evidence and illustrations for the topic sentences above, but here are some suggestions as to where you might look:
Look at both the passages where Douglass learns to read and the passages describing his fight with Covey. What do these passages tell us about his notions of 'manhood'? How does he seem to define it? He seems to be talking about being "human" and being "masculine", and maybe the two ideas are merged? Cite passages for details.
Particularly in the passages about reading and writing, Douglass seems to equate "being a man" (or just a "human"?) with the ability to think, speak, read, and write. When he is later reduced to the state of a "brute", he seems to lose his ability to do these things (cite passage).
We see that after Douglass learns to read and write he experiences the very misery that the master says is the inevitable fate of an educated "nigger" (cite passage). In the scene with Covey, Douglass finds that mental freedom alone is meaningless without physical freedom (cite passage). So in these passages, "being a man" becomes a matter not only of communicating but also physically resisting (cite passage).
Make sure that in citing passages, you make proper use of quotations and in-text citations. See your assigned grammar and usage handbook for proper format.
Questions or counter-arguments
While you don't want to waste a lot of time going off on tangents unrelated to your topic, you should be prepared to answer potential questions or challenges to your thesis. Read over your paper with a critical eye, asking yourself if you've covered all the bases. Often, allowing a peer to read over the paper will also help identify these potential problems.
Once you've identified possible questions or counter-arguments, try to answer them in your paper. You can even include the question and then answer it, to show your reader that you're aware of the alternate possibilities and have thought it out.
Here are some questions one might ask about our working thesis (see above):
Does Douglass develop his own sense of "manhood" apart from the society around him, or are his ideas, in fact, the ideas that he acquires both from his own (slave) culture, and from white society?
Isn't there a potential conflict between defining "manhood" in terms of "mental freedom" and "physical freedom"? Which should be a slave's priority? Which does Douglass find more important?
Is there anything sexist in Douglass's notion of "manhood"? Are the same means of achieving "humanity" equally open to male and female slaves?
What place do emotional and familial bonds play in Douglass's quest for "manhood"? Are they important to him at all?
You needn't try to address every possible question or counter-argument--only the ones that seem critical to your paper. Do so sparingly and strategically.
Conclusion
Your conclusion should remind the reader of what your original thesis was and show how you've proven it. You want to restate it, but in a way that elaborates it with the evidence that you've provided.
Here's a possible beginning to the conclusion of the hypothesized paper above:
"I have argued that Douglass's discovery of 'the white man's power to enslave the black man' is both a realization of the mental oppression inherent in slavery and a recognition of the physical subjugation that is needed to enforce it. His quest for 'manhood' involves freeing both his mind and his body from captivity, and one cannot happen without the other."
The conclusion may also suggest why this argument is important to our understanding of the text as a whole, or point out further topics or questions that might now be important to pursue. It should convince the reader that the thesis has been worth pursuing. For example:
"Understanding the interdependence of mental and physical in Douglass's narrative allows us to see the true depth and extent of slavery's effect on the individuals who suffered it. It can also help us to recognize the importance of various forms of 'resistance' that may have been less dramatic than Douglass's fight with Covey, but no less necessary or effective."

Poetry Lecture on the uses and design part 1

2007-09-24T00:24:00.000-07:00

The purpose of Poetry is to instruct while it gives pleasure; instruction being the end, and pleasure the means—Illustrated by examples from different species of Poetry—The Didactic—Epic—Tragic—Lyric—the lighter kinds of Poetry, which are calculated as well for the amusement of our leisure as for the ornament and improvement of literature—Sacred Poetry; whence a transition to the immediate object of these Lectures.Though our present meeting be, on some accounts, rather earlier than I could have wished, yet I cheerfully embrace the opportunity which it affords me of assuring you, Gentlemen, that to this undertaking (whether considered as a duty imposed, or as a favour conferred upon me) I bring, if no other accomplishment, at least industry and inclination. I could, indeed, more patiently bear to be accused of wanting genius, fluency, or elegance, than of wanting diligence in the exercise of that office to which your authority has called me, or gratitude in the acceptance of that favour, which (whatever it be in itself) is undoubtedly great, since conferred on me by you. For to judge rightly of obligations of this kind, regard must be had, not only to the favour itself, but to the persons who confer it, and to the person on whom it is conferred. When, therefore, I reflect, that the station to which I am invited, has been adorned by men of the first rank in genius and earning; when I regard you, whose favour can add dignity to the most respectable characters; when, in fine, I consider myself, who could never have expected or hoped from my own merits for any public testimony of your approbation; I receive this appointment as an honour, for which the utmost exertions of labour and assiduity will be but a very inadequate return. This part of my duty, however, though feebly and imperfectly, I would wish you to believe I most willingly perform: for to an ingenuous mind nothing can be more agreeable than the expression, or even the sense of gratitude; and the remembrance of the obligation will rather stimulate than depress. Other considerations have, I must confess, rendered me not a little solicitous: I am appointed to superintend a particular department of science, which you have constantly distinguished by your presence and attention; and a subject is to be discussed, which not only you have judged worthy of your cultivation, and the public countenance of the University, but which has hitherto received in this place all the embellishments of grace and elegance of which it is naturally susceptible. Should it, therefore, fall into neglect or disrepute hereafter, I fear that I shall be compelled to acknowledge the fault to have been mine, and not that of the institution itself.

British-India (My student's report for HUM 102, Asian Civilizations 1st Sem AY 2007-2008)

2007-09-21T00:12:00.001-07:00

British India

Anthem
“God Save The King”
Capital
Calcutta (until 1912), New Delhi (after 1912)
Language(s)
Hindustani, English and many others
Government

Emperor of India

Viceroy
Monarchy

1858-1901 -Victoria
1901-1910 -Edward VII
1910-1936 -George V
1936 - Edward VIII
1936-1947 - George VI

1858-1862 - The Viscount Canning
1947 - The Viscount Mountbatten of Burma
Historical era
New Imperialism
Established - August 2, 1858
Disestablished - August 15, 1947
Currency
British Indian rupee

Company Rule in India

On 31 December 1600 Queen Elizabeth I of England granted a royal charter to the British East India Company to carry out trade with the East. Ships first arrived in India in 1608, docking at Surat in modern-day Gujarat. Four years later, British traders defeated the Portuguese at the Battle of Swally, gaining the favour of the Mughal emperor Jahangir in the process. In 1615, King James I sent Sir Thomas Roe as his ambassador to Jahangir's court, and a commercial treaty was concluded in which the Mughals allowed the Company to build trading posts in India in return for goods from Europe. The Company traded in such commodities as cotton, silk, saltpetre, indigo, and tea.
By the mid-1600s, the Company had established trading posts or "factories" in major Indian cities, such as Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras in addition to their first factory at Surat (built in 1612). In 1670 King Charles II granted the company the right to acquire territory, raise an army, mint its own money, and exercise legal jurisdiction in areas under its control.
`By the last decade of the 17th century, the Company was arguably its own "nation" on the Indian subcontinent, possessing considerable military might and ruling three presidencies.
The British first established a territorial foothold in the Indian subcontinent when Company-funded soldiers commanded by Robert Clive defeated the Nawab of Bengal - Siraj Ud Daulah at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Bengal became a British protectorate directly under the rule of the East India Company. Bengal's wealth then flowed to the Company, which attempted to enforce a monopoly on Bengali trade (though smuggling was rife). Bengali farmers and craftsmen were obliged to render their labour for minimal remuneration while their collective tax burden increased greatly. Some believe that as a consequence, the famine of 1769-1773 cost the lives of 10 million Bengalis. A similar catastrophe occurred almost a century later, after Britain had extended its rule across the Indian subcontinent, when 40 million Indians perished from famine. The Company, despite the increase in trade and the revenues coming in from other sources, found itself burdened with massive military expenditures, and its destruction seemed imminent.
Building the Raj: British expansion across India
Lord North's India Bill, The Regulating Act of 1773, by the British Parliament granted Whitehall, the British government administration, supervisory (regulatory) control over the work of the East India Company but did not take power for itself. This was the first step along the road to government control of India. It also established the post of Governor-General of India, the first occupant of which was Warren Hastings. Further acts, such as the Charter Act of 1813 and the Charter Act of 1833, further defined the relationship of the Company and the British government.
Hastings remained in India until 1784 and was succeeded by Cornwallis, who initiated the Permanent Settlement, whereby an agreement in perpetuity was reached with zamindars or landlords for the collection of revenue. For the next fifty years, the British were engaged in attempts to eliminate Indian rivals.
At the turn of the 19th century, Governor-General Lord Wellesley (brother of the Duke of Wellington) began expanding the Company's domain on a large scale, defeating Tippoo Sultan (also spelled Tipu Sultan), annexing Mysore in southern India, and removing all French influence from the subcontinent. In the mid-19th century, Governor-General Lord Dalhousie launched perhaps the Company's most ambitious expansion, defeating the Sikhs in the Anglo-Sikh Wars (and annexing the Punjab with the exception of the Phulkian States) and subduing Burma in the Second Burmese War. He also justified the takeover of small princely states such as Satara, Sambalpur, Jhansi, and Nagpur by way of the doctrine of lapse, which permitted the Company to annex any princely state whose ruler had died without a male heir. The annexation of Oudh in 1856 proved to be the Company's final territorial acquisition, as the following year saw the boiling over of Indian grievances toward the so-called "Company Raj".
Indian Rebellion
On 10 May 1857 soldiers of the British Indian Army (known as "sepoys," from Urdu/Persian sipaahi or sepaahi = "soldier"), drawn from the Indian Hindu and Muslim population, rose against British in Meerut, a cantonment sixty five kilometres northeast of Delhi. The soldiers marched to Delhi to offer their services to the Mughal emperor, and soon much of north and central India was plunged into a year-long insurrection against the British East India Company. Many Indian regiments and Indian kingdoms joined the uprising, while other Indian units and Indian kingdoms backed the British commanders and the HEIC.
Causes of the rebellion
The rebellion or the war for independence had diverse political, economic, military, religious and social causes.
The policy of annexation pursued by Governor-General Lord Dalhousie, based mainly on his "Doctrine of Lapse", which held that princely states would be merged into company-ruled territory in case a ruler died without direct heir. This denied the Indian rulers the right to adopt an heir in such an event; adoption had been pervasive practice in the Hindu states hitherto, sanctioned both by religion and by secular tradition. The states annexed under this doctrine included such major kingdoms as Satara, Thanjavur, Sambhal, Jhansi, Jetpur, Udaipur, and Baghat. Additionally, the company had annexed, without pretext, the rich kingdoms of Sind in 1843 and Oudh in 1856, the latter a wealthy princely state that generated huge revenue and represented a vestige of Mughal authority. This greed for land, especially in a group of small-town and middle-class British merchants, whose parvenu background was increasingly evident and galling to Indians of rank, had alienated a large section of the landed and ruling aristocracy, who were quick to take up the cause of evicting the merchants once the revolt was kindled.
The justice system was considered inherently unfair to the Indians. The official Blue Books — entitled East India (Torture) 1855–1857 — that were laid before the House of Commons during the sessions of 1856 and 1857 revealed that Company officers were allowed an extended series of appeals if convicted or accused of brutality or crimes against Indians.
The economic policies of the East India Company were also resented by the Indians. Most of the gold, jewels, silver and silk had been shipped off to Britain as tax and sometimes sold in open auctions, ridding India of its once abundant wealth in precious stones. The land was reorganised under the comparatively harsh Zamindari system to facilitate the collection of taxes. In certain areas farmers were forced to switch from subsistence farming to commercial crops such as indigo, jute, coffee and tea. This resulted in hardship to the farmers and increases in food prices. Local industry, specifically the famous weavers of Bengal and elsewhere, also suffered under British rule. Import tariffs were kept low, according to traditional British free-market sentiments, and thus the Indian market was flooded with cheap clothing from Britain. Indigenous industry simply could not compete, and where once India had produced much of England's luxury cloth, the country was now reduced to growing cotton which was shipped to Britain to be manufactured into clothing, which was subsequently shipped back to India to be purchased by Indians. This extraordinary quantity of wealth, much of it collected as 'taxes', was absolutely critical in expanding public and private infrastructure in Britain and in financing British expansionism elsewhere in Asia and Africa.
The spark that lit the fire was the result of a British blunder in using new cartridges for the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle that were greased with animal fat, rumoured to now be a combination of pig-fat and cow-fat. This was offensive to the religious beliefs of both Muslim and Hindu sepoys, who refused to use the cartridges and, under provocation, finally mutinied against their British officers.
The rebellion soon engulfed much of North India, including Oudh and various areas that had lately passed from the control of Maratha princes to the company. The unprepared British were terrified, without replacements for the casualties. However, after getting reinforcements, the British army was able to suppress the uprising and restore British control over these areas.
It was a monumental event in history, for both Indians and British alike. The Rebels had achieved (at that time) the impossible in uniting and overthrowing (if only temporarily) an apparently unbeatable army and a now semi-despotic ruling power. Heroic defences of British bases such as the Siege of Lucknow, Siege of Cawnpore and the retaking of rebel held cities as in the Siege of Delhi also passed into history.
Isolated uprisings also occurred at military posts in the centre of the subcontinent. The last major sepoy rebels surrendered on June 21, 1858, at Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh), one of the principal centres of the revolt. A final battle was fought at Sirwa Pass on May 21, 1859, and the defeated rebels fled into Nepal.
Aftermath of the 1857 Rebellion and the formal initiation of the Raj
The rebellion was a major turning point in the history of modern India. In May 1858, the British exiled Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II (r. 1837–57) to Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar), after executing most of his family, thus formally liquidating the Mughal Empire. Bahadur Shah Zafar, known as the Poet King, contributed some of Urdu's most beautiful poetry, with the underlying theme of the freedom struggle. The Emperor was not allowed to return and died in solitary confinement in 1862. The Emperor's three sons, also involved in the 1857 Rebellion, were arrested and shot in Delhi by Major William Stephen Raikes Hodson of the British Indian Army.
Cultural and religious centres were closed down, properties and estates of those participating in the uprising were confiscated. At the same time, the British abolished the British East India Company and replaced it with direct rule under the British Crown. In proclaiming the new direct-rule policy to "the Princes, Chiefs, and Peoples of India", Queen Victoria (upon whom the British Parliament conferred the graciously accepted title "Empress of India" in 1877) promised equal treatment under British law, which never materialized.
Many existing economic and revenue policies remained virtually unchanged in the post-1857 period, but several administrative modifications were introduced, beginning with the creation in London of a cabinet post, the Secretary of State for India. The governor-general (called viceroy when acting as representative to the nominally sovereign "princely states" or "native states"), headquartered in Calcutta, ran the administration in India, assisted by executive and legislative councils. Beneath the governor-general were the governors of Provinces of India, who held power over the division and district officials, who formed the lower rungs of the Indian Civil Service. For decades the Indian Civil Service was the exclusive preserve of the British-born, as were the superior ranks in such other professions as law and medicine. This continued until the 1880s when a small but steadily growing number of native-born Indians, educated in British schools on the Subcontinent or in Britain, were able to assume such positions. However, a proposal by Viceroy Ripon and Courtenay Ilbert in 1883 that Indian members of the Civil Service have full rights to preside over trials involving white defendants in criminal cases sparked an ugly racist backlash (see below re "White Mutiny"). Thus an attempt to further include Indians in the system and give them a greater stake in the Raj, ironically, instead exposed the racial gap that already existed, sparking even greater Indian nationalism and reaction against British rule.
The Viceroy of India announced in 1858 that the government would honour former treaties with princely states and renounced the "Doctrine of Lapse", whereby the East India Company had annexed territories of rulers who died without male heirs. About 40 percent of Indian territory and 20–25 percent of the population remained under the control of 562 princes notable for their religious (Islamic, Hindu, Sikh and other) and ethnic diversity. Their propensity for pomp and ceremony became proverbial, while their domains, varying in size and wealth, lagged behind socio-political transformations that took place elsewhere in British-controlled India. A more thorough re-organisation was effected in the constitution of army and government finances. Shocked by the extent of solidarity among Indian soldiers during the rebellion, the government separated the army into the three presidencies. The Indian Councils Act of 1861 restored legislative powers to the Presidencies (elite provinces), which had been given exclusively to the governor-general by the Charter Act of 1833.
British attitudes toward Indians shifted from relative openness to insularity and racism, even against those with comparable background and achievement as well as loyalty. British families and their servants lived in cantonments at a distance from Indian settlements. Private clubs where the British gathered for social interaction became symbols of exclusivity and snobbery that refused to disappear decades after the British had left India. In 1883 the government of India attempted to remove race barriers in criminal jurisdictions by introducing a bill empowering Indian judges to adjudicate offences committed by Europeans. Public protests and editorials in the British press, however, forced the viceroy George Robinson, First Marquess of Ripon, (who served from 1880 to 1884), to capitulate and modify the bill drastically. The Bengali "Hindu intelligentsia" learned a valuable political lesson from this "white mutiny": the effectiveness of well-orchestrated agitation through demonstrations in the streets and publicity in the media when seeking redress for real and imagined grievances.
Effects on economy
Some of the modernization assoicated with the industrial revolution did benefit India during this period. Foreign investors set up jute mills around Calcutta, and Indian merchants set up cotton textile factories in Gujrat and around Bombay. However, this was accompanied by the collapse of traditional industry, which was faced with the ferocious competition of cheap British-made goods.
Post-1857 India also experienced a period of unprecedented calamity when the region was swept by a series of frequent and devastating famines, among the most catastrophic on record. Approximately 25 major famines spread through states such as Tamil Nadu in South India, Bihar in the north, and Bengal in the east in the latter half of the 19th century, killing 30–40 million Indians.
Contemporary observers of the famines such as Romesh Dutt as well as present-day scholars such as Amartya Sen attributed the famines both to uneven rainfall and British economic and administrative policies, which since 1857 had led to the seizure and conversion of local farmland to foreign-owned plantations, restrictions on internal trade, inflationary measures that increased the price of food, and substantial exports of staple crops from India to the United Kingdom (Dutt, 1900 and 1902; Srivastava, 1968; Sen, 1982; Bhatia, 1985). On the other hand some other scholars have argued that, whilst the famines may have been exacerbated by British policy, they were primarily caused by drought and ecological factors.
Some British citizens such as William Digby agitated for policy reforms and better famine relief, but Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, son of the poet Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton and the governing British viceroy in India, opposed such changes in the belief that they would stimulate shirking by Indian workers. The famines continued until independence in 1947, with the Bengal Famine of 1943–44 — among the most devastating — killing 3–4 million Indians during World War II. Famine relief methods were inefficient as they often involved making undernourished people do heavy labor on public works. However, there were some famines (ex. 1874 and 1907) in which English officials acted effectively. During the famine of 1897-1902 the Curzon administration spent £10,000,000 (money of the day) and at its peak 4,500,000 people were on famine relief. From the 1880s onwards British administrators built a series of irrigation canals in India, much of it for the purpose of famine prevention. After 1902 there was not a single famine in India until 1943 in Bengal. 'What the British added was above all the power of a unified an authoritarian state, which acted because it saw the danger of drought and famine to its rule'.[6]. After the major famines the British government conducted "serious investigations" (PJ Marshall, Cambridge History of the British Empire) into the famine. Lord Lytton's administration was particularly negligent when it came to famine relief, with disastrous results. It was Lord Lytton's belief that market forces would see that food got into famine stricken areas, therefore government aid would not be necessary and in fact would inhibit famine relief efforts (Niall Ferguson, Empire and Lady Beatty Balfour, Lord Lytton's Indian Administration). As a result of the calamity of 1877 Lord Lytton lost his job but not before he established the Famine Insurance Grant. The results of this was that the British prematurely assumed that the problem of famine had been solved forever ("The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj" by David Gilmour page 116). This, sadly, proved not to be the case and the complacency that resulted from it contributed to the lack of action by the Elgin. Curzon abhorred the seeming indifference many Britons at home had towards famine in India ("Curzon: Imperial Statesman" by David Gilmour page 261). 'It was the tradegy of 1876-1878 that led to the establishment of a general famine commission under Richard Strachey and the consequent adoption of a famine code' (Dilmour, "Curzon", page 115). A famine code was not adopted in Bengal however, which contributed to the disaster in 1943. In order to limit the effects of famine ‘’Successive British governments were anxious not to add to the burden of taxation”
Beginnings of self-government
The first steps were taken toward self-government in British India in the late 19th century with the appointment of Indian counsellors to advise the British viceroy and the establishment of provincial councils with Indian members; the British subsequently widened participation in legislative councils with the Indian Councils Act of 1892. Municipal Corporations and District Boards were created for local administration; they included elected Indian members.
The Government of India Act of 1909 — also known as the Morley-Minto Reforms (John Morley was the secretary of state for India, and Gilbert Elliot, fourth earl of Minto, was viceroy) — gave Indians limited roles in the central and provincial legislatures, known as legislative councils. Indians had previously been appointed to legislative councils, but after the reforms some were elected to them. At the centre, the majority of council members continued to be government-appointed officials, and the viceroy was in no way responsible to the legislature. At the provincial level, the elected members, together with unofficial appointees, outnumbered the appointed officials, but responsibility of the governor to the legislature was not contemplated. Morley made it clear in introducing the legislation to the British Parliament that parliamentary self-government was not the goal of the British government.
The Morley-Minto Reforms were a milestone. Step by step, the elective principle was introduced for membership in Indian legislative councils. The "electorate" was limited, however, to a small group of upper-class Indians. These elected members increasingly became an "opposition" to the "official government". Communal electorates were later extended to other communities and made a political factor of the Indian tendency toward group identification through religion.
For Muslims it was important both to gain a place in all-India politics and to retain their Muslim identity, objectives that required varying responses according to circumstances, as the example of Muhammed Ali Jinnah illustrates. Jinnah, who was born in 1876, studied law in England and began his career as an enthusiastic liberal in Congress on returning to India. In 1913 he joined the Muslim League, which had been shocked by the 1911 annulment of the partition of Bengal into cooperating with Congress to make demands on the British. Jinnah continued his membership in Congress until 1919. During this dual membership period, he was described by a leading Congress spokesperson, Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, as the "ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity".
After World War I
India's important contributions to the efforts of the British Empire in World War I stimulated further demands by Indians and further response from the British. The Congress Party and the Muslim League met in joint session in December 1916. Under the leadership of Jinnah and Pandit Motilal Nehru (father of Jawaharlal Nehru), unity was preached and a proposal for constitutional reform was made that included the concept of separate electorates. The resulting Congress-Muslim League Pact (often referred to as the Lucknow Pact) was a sincere effort to compromise. Congress accepted the separate electorates demanded by the Muslim League, and the Muslim League joined with Congress in demanding self-government. The pact was expected to lead to permanent and constitutional united action.
In August 1917 the British government formally announced a policy of "increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire." Constitutional reforms were embodied in the Government of India Act 1919, also known as the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms (Edwin Samuel Montagu was the United Kingdom's Secretary of State for India; the Viscount Chelmsford was viceroy). These reforms represented the maximum concessions the British were prepared to make at that time. The franchise was extended, and increased authority was given to central and provincial legislative councils, but the viceroy remained responsible only to London.
The changes at the provincial level were significant, as the provincial legislative councils contained a considerable majority of elected members. In a system called "dyarchy", based on an approach developed by Lionel Curtis, the nation-building departments of government — agriculture, education, public works, and the like — were placed under ministers who were individually responsible to the legislature. The departments that made up the "steel frame" of British rule — finance, revenue, and home affairs — were retained by executive councillors who were often (but not always) British, and who were responsible to the governor. The act indirectly increased the number of elected Indian members in district boards and municipal corporations, since the authority to regulate local government bodies was placed in the hands of the popularly elected ministers, whose constituients naturally wanted more democracy. Later, tariff protection was finally given to Indian industry.
The 1919 reforms did not satisfy political demands in India. The British repressed opposition and re-enacted restrictions on the press and on movement. An apparently unwitting example of violation of rules against the gathering of people led to the massacre at Jalianwala Bagh in Amritsar in April 1919. This tragedy galvanized such political leaders as Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 – 1964) and Mohandas Karamchand "Mahatma" Gandhi (1869 – 1948) and the masses who followed them to press for further action.
The Allies' post-World War I peace settlement with Turkey provided an additional stimulus to the grievances of the Muslims, who feared that one goal of the Allies was to end the caliphate of the Ottoman sultan. After the end of the Mughal Empire, the Ottoman caliph had become the symbol of Islamic authority and unity to Muslims in the British Raj. A pan-Islamic movement, known as the Khilafat Movement, spread in India. It was a mass repudiation of Muslim loyalty to British rule and thus legitimated Muslim participation in the Indian nationalist movement. The leaders of the Khilafat Movement used Islamic symbols to unite the diverse but assertive Muslim community on an all-India basis and bargain with both Congress leaders and the British for recognition of minority rights and political concessions.
Muslim leaders from the Deoband and Aligarh movements joined Gandhi in mobilising the masses for the 1920 and 1921 demonstrations of civil disobedience and non-cooperation in response to the massacre at Amritsar. At the same time, Gandhi endorsed the Khilafat Movement, thereby placing many Hindus behind what had been solely a Muslim demand.
Despite impressive achievements, however, the Khilafat Movement failed. Turkey rejected the caliphate and became a secular state. Furthermore, the religious, mass-based aspects of the movement alienated such Western-oriented constitutional politicians as Jinnah, who resigned from Congress. The movement was given a final blow when the Amir of Afghanistan closed off its borders and many of the participants of the Khilafat movement perished to lack of food and exposure to the elements. Other Muslims also were uncomfortable with Gandhi's leadership. The British historian Sir Percival Spear wrote that "a mass appeal in his Gandhi's hands could not be other than a Hindu one. He could transcend Hindu caste but not community. The Hindu devices he used went sour in the mouths of Muslims". In the final analysis, the movement failed to lay a lasting foundation of Indian unity and served only to aggravate Hindu-Muslim differences among masses that were being politicised. Indeed, as India moved closer to the self-government implied in the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms, rivalry over what might be called the spoils of independence sharpened the differences between the communities.
World War II and the end of the Raj
By 1942, Indians were divided over World War II, as the British had unilaterally and without consultation entered India into the war. Some wanted to support the British during the Battle of Britain, hoping for eventual independence through this support. Others were enraged by the British disregard for Indian intelligence and civil rights, and were unsympathetic to the travails of the British people, which they saw as rightful revenge for the enslavement of Indians. The British Indian army, with a strength of 2,250,000 by the end of the war, came to be the largest all-volunteer army in the history of the world . However, even during the war, in July 1942, the Indian National Congress had passed a resolution demanding complete independence from Britain. The draft proposed that if the British did not accede to the demands, massive civil disobedience would be launched. In August 1942 the Quit India Resolution was passed at the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) marking the start of what was the Quit India Movement. The movement was to see massive, and initially peaceful demonstrations and denial of authority, undermining the British War effort. Large-scale protests and demonstrations were held all over the country. Workers remained absent en masse and strikes were called. The movement also saw widespread acts of sabotage, Indian under-ground organization carried out bomb attacks on allied supply convoys, government buildings were set on fire, electricity lines were disconnected and transport and communication lines were severed.
The movement soon became a leaderless act of defiance, with a number of acts that deviated from Gandhi's principle of non-violence. In large parts of the country, the local underground organizations took over the movement. However, by 1943, Quit India had petered out.
However, at the time the war was at its bloodiest in Europe and Asia, the Indian revolutionary Subhash Chandra Bose had escaped from house arrest in Calcutta and ultimately made his way to Germany, and then to Japanese South Asia, to seek Axis help to raise an army to fight against the British control over India. Bose formed what came to be known as the Azad Hind Government as the Provisional Free Indian Government in exile, and organized the Indian National Army with Indian POWs and Indian expatriates in Southeast Asia with the help of the Japanese. Its aim was to reach India as a fighting force that would inspire public resentment and revolts within the Indian soldiers to defeat the Raj. The INA fought hard in the forests of Assam, Bengal and Burma, laying siege to Imphal and Kohima with the Japanese 15th Army. It would ultimately fail, owing to disrupted logistics, poor arms and supplies from the Japanese, and lack of support and training. However, Bose's audacious actions and radical initiative energized a new generation of Indians.
Many historians have argued that it was the INA and the mutinies it inspired among the British Indian Armed forces that was the true driving force for India's independence [8][9] [10]. The stories of the Azad Hind movement and its army that came to public attention during the trials of soldiers of the INA in 1945, were seen as so inflammatory that, fearing mass revolts and uprisings — not just in India, but across its empire — the British Government forbade the BBC to broadcast their story. Newspapers reported at the time a summary execution of INA soldiers held at Red Fort. During and after the trial, mutinies broke out in the British Indian Army, most notably in the Royal Indian Navy; these found public support throughout India, from Karachi to Bombay and from Vizag to Calcutta.
These revolts, faced by the weakened post-war Raj, coupled with the fact that the faith in the British Indian Armed forces had been lost, ultimately shaped the decision to end the Raj. By early 1946, all political prisoners had been released. British openly adopted a political dialogue with the Indian National Congress for the eventual independence of India. On 15 August 1947 the transfer of Power took place. At midnight on 14 August 1947 Pakistan (including modern Bangladesh) was granted independence. India was granted independence the following day.
Most people would give these dates as the end of the British Raj. However, some people argue that it continued until 1950 in India when it adopted a republican constitution.
Nationalist India Movement
The first spurts of nationalistic sentiment that rose amongst Congress members were when the desire to be represented in the bodies of government, to have a say, a vote in the lawmaking and issues of administration of India. Congressmen saw themselves as loyalists, but wanted an active role in governing their own country, albeit as part of the Empire. This trend was personified by Dadabhai Naoroji, who went as far as contesting, successfully, an election to the British House of Commons, becoming its first Indian member.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak was the first Indian nationalist to embrace Swaraj as the destiny of the nation. Tilak deeply opposed the British education system that ignored and defamed India's culture, history and values. He resented the denial of freedom of expression for nationalists, and the lack of any voice or role for ordinary Indians in the affairs of their nation. For these reasons, he considered Swaraj as the natural and only solution. His popular sentence "Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it" became the source of inspiration for Indians.
In 1907, the Congress was split into two. Tilak advocated what was deemed as extremism. He wanted a direct assault by the people upon the British Raj, and the abandonment of all things British. He was backed by rising public leaders like Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai, who held the same point of view. Under them, India's three great states - Maharashtra, Bengal and Punjab shaped the demand of the people and India's nationalism. The moderates, led by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta and Dadabhai Naoroji held firm to calls for negotiations and political dialogue. Gokhale criticized Tilak for encouraging acts of violence and disorder. But the Congress of 1906 did not have public membership, and thus Tilak and his supporters were forced to leave the party.
But with Tilak's arrest, all hopes for an Indian offensive were stalled. The Congress lost credit with the people, while Muslims were alarmed with the rise of Tilak's Hindu nationalism, and formed the All India Muslim League in 1906, considered the Congress as completely unsuitable for Indian Muslims. A Muslim deputation met with the Viceroy, Lord Minto (1905–10), seeking concessions from the impending constitutional reforms, including special considerations in government service and electorates. The British recognised some of Muslim League's petitions by increasing the number of elective offices reserved for Muslims in the Government of India Act 1909. The Muslim League insisted on its separateness from the Hindu-dominated Congress, as the voice of a "nation within a nation."

India: The Aryan Settlement and the Vedic Age

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The Aryan Settlement and the Vedic Age

About 1500 BC, India was invaded by Indo European people. These people came from area between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea. Between 2500 and 2000 BC, many Indo Europeans migrated all over Eurasia. Some went to Europe and became the Romans and the Greeks, some settled in Turkey and became the Hittites. Others migrated south east instead. Some of them stopped in Iran, while others continued southeast to Pakistan and India. The slow migration did not arrive in northern India until about 1500 BC. In India the Indo Europeans are called the Aryans. The Aryans, a nomadic people from Central Asia, settled in the upper reaches of the Indus, Yamuna and Gangetic plains. Some people have disputed the arrival of the Indo Europeans. Some may say it did not happen. But there are written records of the language that these people brought with them to India, Sanskrit. We can read Sanskrit and we can easily see that many words in Sanskrit are basically the same as in other Indo European languages. In addition recent genetic evidence supports the arrival of the Indo Europeans. In addition to their language the Aryans also brought their gods with them to India. These Gods form the basis of the Vedas. The Aryans are important to Indian history because they originated the earliest form of the sacred Vedas ( orally transmitted texts of hymns and devotions to gods, manuals of sacrifice for their worship, and philosophical speculation.

The Aryans first settled along the Indus River, in the same place where the Harappa people had lived. They settled down and mixed with the local Indian people. They lived their from about 1500 to 800 BC. About 800 BC the Aryans learned how to use iron for weapons and tools. They probably learned to work iron from the people of West Asia, the Assyrians, who had learned it from the Indo European Hittites. Once they learned how to use their new weapons to conquer more of India and moved to the south and east into the Ganges river valley. They settled their not long after 800 BC. After the Aryans moved into the Ganges Valley about 800 BC, they were further from West Asia and has less contact with West Asian people. They began to mix more with the Indian people and the Indian gods became mixed with the Aryan gods. The Aryan conquest of the Ganges is remembered in the Mahabharata, first told about this time. But still the Aryans did not control all India. Southern India was ruled by a bunch of independent kings who did not have to what the Aryans wanted. Stories of fights between the Aryans and southerners are told in the Ramayana.

The Vedas, which are considered the core of Hinduism, provide much information about the Aryans. The major gods of the Vedic peoples remain in the pantheon of present-day Hindus; the core rituals surrounding birth, marriage, and death retain their Vedic form. The Vedas also contain the seeds of great epic literature and philosophical traditions in India. Some examples are the Mahabharata and Ramayana as mentioned above. Another example is the Upanishads, philosophical treatises that were composed between the 8th and 5th century.

As the Aryans slowly settled into agriculture and moved southeast through the Gangetic Plain, they relinquished their seminomadic style of living and changed their social and political structures. Instead of a warrior leading a tribe, with a tribal assembly as a check on his power, an Aryan chieftain ruled over territory, with its society divided into hereditary groups. This structure became the beginning of the caste system, which has survived in India until the present day. The four castes that emerged from this era were the Brahmans (priests), the Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), the Vaisyas (merchants, farmers, and traders), and the Sudras (artisans, laborers, and servants).

In the 500’s BC, part of north western India (modern Pakistan) was conquered by the Persians under their kings Cyrus and Darius. The Persians were also Indo Europeans, but they had left their homeland later and settled in modern Iran. But the Persians never really controlled India much, they made the Indians pay tribute gold to Persia. but they did not really tell them what to do. Meanwhile, the Aryans continued to rule north eastern India in the 400’s BC.

Indian Literature (My student's report for HUM 102, Asian Civilizations, 1st Sem AY 2007-2008)

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I. Beginnings
The earliest Indian literary works that survive are religious and heroic texts written in Sanskrit or in languages related to it. These texts were produced between about the 16th century bc and the 1st century ad by a people known as the Aryans. The Aryans were cattle herders who were originally nomadic, traveling from place to place. They eventually settled and became cultivators of the land, establishing kingdoms in north India.

A Religious Texts

Mathura Buddha Many of the earliest texts of Indian literature were religious writings of Buddhism. This Buddha figure carved out of sandstone is from Mathura, a city in northern India that was at the center of Buddhist sculptural activity from the 2nd century bc to the 6th century ad.Corbis/Angelo Hornak

The sacred Vedas were composed in Old Sanskrit by Aryan poet-seers between about 1500 bc and about 1000 bc. The Vedas are compilations of two major literary forms: hymns of praise to nature deities and ritual chants to accompany Aryan religious rituals. There are four Vedas: the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda. Considered divine revelations received by the poets, the Vedas constitute the fundamental scripture of the Hindu religion and are used in the sacramental rites of Hinduism.

The Vedas were passed from generation to generation by the spoken word, not by the written word, because Hindus believe that mantras, the utterances of the Vedic hymns out loud, are sacred cosmic powers embodied in sound. The Vedas were not written down until long after they were originally composed. Priests in modern India still recite the Vedas out loud.

After the Vedas were compiled, the Hindu priests composed the Brahmanas, which detail information about rituals. Appended to the Brahmanas are theological texts known as Aranyakas, and attached to these are the Upanishads. The Upanishads were composed between the 8th century bc and the 5th century bc by a group of sages who questioned the usefulness of ritual religion. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (Upanishad of the Great Forest, 8th century bc?), an important early Upanishad, consists of dialogues between teachers and their students about the individual soul’s unity with a divine essence that pervades the universe. The Upanishads are India’s oldest philosophical treatises and form the foundational texts of major schools of Hindu philosophy (see Indian Philosophy).

The major religious texts of Buddhism were compiled in three collections known as the Tipitaka (meaning “three baskets”). The Tipitaka, written in the Pali language, includes the teachings of the Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. The most important of these texts include the Jatakas (Stories of the Births of the Buddha), which tell 547 stories of Buddha’s former births. In the tales, Buddha recounts how he was reborn in the form of animals, human beings, and nature deities as he worked toward enlightenment and, ultimately, toward release from the cycle of rebirths. This release is the aspiration of all Buddhists. The Jatakas and the major narratives and philosophical texts of early Buddhism eventually spread along with Buddhism to Sri Lanka, China, Japan, and the countries of Southeast Asia, including Thailand and Vietnam.

India’s third ancient religion was Jainism, which was founded by Mahavira. The early literature of Jainism flourished mainly in Prakrit dialects. Buddhist and Jain authors wrote many works in Sanskrit as well.

B. Heroic Texts

The most celebrated ancient heroic texts of India are the Mahabharata (The Great Epic of the Bharata Dynasty) and the Ramayana (The Way of Rama). These epics were composed in Sanskrit verse over several centuries and transmitted orally by bards. They describe how the Aryans established control over India and depict Aryan-Hindu life in northern India.

The written version of the Mahabharata is attributed to the legendary poet-editor Vyasa, but it took shape over several centuries from 400 bc to ad 400. The epic tells the tale of a dispute between two branches of the Bharata clan over the right to rule the kingdom. The dispute leads to a great war that involves all the Aryan clans and nearly results in their total destruction. The poet Valmiki, who lived around the 3rd century bc, put the Ramayana into form. This epic tells the story of the hero Rama, prince of Ayodhya and incarnation of the god Vishnu. Rama willingly accepts exile in the forest to redeem a promise made by his father. Rama’s wife Sita is then kidnapped, and Rama rescues her by slaying her abductor, the demon king Ravana.

The Mahabharata and the Ramayana provided the themes for important later literary works in Indian and Southeast Asian languages. These epics have been kept alive through various performance forms—from Ramlila plays in the Hindi language in north India (see Asian Theater) to the Kathakali dance-drama of Kerala (in south India) to the Wayang puppet plays of the island of Java. Recently, Hindi versions of both epics were made for Indian television, and the epics continue to be the most popular traditional literary texts in India.

A major reason for the popularity of the epics is that their characters—heroes and gods in human form—convey the central ethical teachings and cultural values of Hinduism. These teachings and values are encapsulated in the term dharma, meaning “that which is right.” In fact, the Bhagavad-Gita (Song of the Lord), the authoritative text of religious ethics in Hinduism, forms part of the Mahabharata. In this dramatic dialogue, the god Krishna, incarnation of Vishnu, teaches the warrior Arjuna the right way to act in an ethical crisis. Arjuna, he says, should follow the guidelines of unselfish action and duty according to his place in society.

II. CLASSICAL LITERATURE

Gupta Dynasty Emerging around ad 320, the Gupta Empire united much of northern India. It reached its height in the late 300s, and flourished for nearly a century. Hinduism became a more coherent and codified religion because of the efforts of the Gupta kings, who fused elements of Buddhism with Hinduism and emphasized the theistic nature of the religion, particularly the role of the god Vishnu.© Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

The dominant classical literary tradition in India developed in the Sanskrit language in the first few centuries ad. This literature had its great flowering in the era of the Gupta dynasty of north India, from 320 to 550. This was a time of great achievement in philosophy, the sciences, and the arts. Primarily reflecting the values of Hinduism, classical Sanskrit literature was nurtured at courts of kings and aristocrats and in scholarly gatherings; it expressed the interests of warriors (kshatriya) and scholars and priests (brahman), the elite of the four social classes (varna) of Hindu society. The other two social classes are merchants (vaisya) and laborers (sudra). (In Hinduism, a person’s social class is determined by birth. Each social class is further subdivided into communities called caste. Each caste is ranked as more pure or less pure than other castes. The caste system has been a traditional part of Indian society for centuries, although in modern times it has lost some force.)

Kavya was the major form of classical literature in Sanskrit. The term kavya denoted works that were composed primarily for pleasure and that employed complex literary conventions and elaborate metrical schemes. Kavya works aimed to depict the spheres of politics, commerce, and erotic pleasure. At the same time, these works subordinated these realms of human experience to the ethical ideals of dharma and the Hindu religious goal of moksha, liberation from karma and rebirth. Also important in kavya literature is the idea of rasa (mood), the experience of the essential mood or flavor of a work of art. The major kavya genres—epic, lyric, drama, and various types of fiction—were similar to the chief genres of premodern European literature.

Kalidasa, who lived in the late 4th century and early 5th century, is considered India’s preeminent classical poet. His epic poems include Raghuvamsa (Dynasty of Raghu) and Meghaduta (The Cloud Messenger), which is a beautiful lyric poem about separated lovers. The most famous of Kalidasa’s works is his poetic drama Shakuntala (also known as Abhijnanashakuntala, Shakuntala and the Ring of Recollection). This drama tells the story of a love affair between a king and a woodland maiden named Shakuntala. Yet it is more than that. In this work, the poet transforms a simple tale into a lyrical and universal drama of the passion, separation, suffering, and reunion of lovers. Shakuntala had a profound impact on German author Johann Wolfgang Goethe and on other European writers who encountered it in translation in the 18th century.

Sanskrit drama, a rich pageant of mime, dance, music, and lyrical texts set in the courts of kings and aristocrats, was a productive classical genre. In addition to Kalidasa’s plays, noteworthy classical dramas include the lively urban comedy Mrichchhakatika (The Little Clay Cart) by the 5th-century writer Shudraka and the romantic Malati-Madhava (Malati and Madhava) by the 8th-century writer Bhavabhuti.

Foremost among the works of fiction in classical Sanskrit is the Panchatantra (The Five Strategies) by Vishnusharman. This work is a collection of stories in prose and verse that were composed between the 3rd century bc and the 4th century ad. The stories, which feature animals as the characters, teach lessons about human conduct. Two major 7th-century prose romances are Kadambari by Bana and Dashakumaracharita (The Adventures of the Ten Princes) by Dandin. The popular work Kathasaritsagara (Ocean to the Rivers of Stories), by the 11th-century writer Somadeva, is a collection of witty tales in verse about the love affairs and schemes of merchants, princes, and other adventurers. The Panchatantra and the Kathasaritsagara both use the technique of telling stories within the framework of a main story. This approach, and the technique of using animals as characters, later migrated to European literature through Arab translators and travelers.

Kalidasa Kalidasa was one of the great Sanskrit-language writers of ancient India. He is best known for Shakuntala (Shakuntala and the Ring of Recollection), a lyrical play about a king and his love for a woodland maiden.Dinodia Picture Agency

The brief lyric verse form called the muktaka (independent verse) is perhaps the quintessential genre of classical Sanskrit poetry. A muktaka is a short poem consisting of four lines of verse, each with an identical pattern of syllables. (A line in a muktaka is called a pada, meaning “quarter” in Sanskrit.) Sanskrit poets composed such poems in a variety of meters. The 7th-century writer Bhartrihari wrote epigrams on wisdom and worldly conduct in this genre. The 7th-century writer Amaru used the muktaka form for his erotic vignettes in the Amarusataka (The Century of Love). The verses of these works are still memorized by people interested in Sanskrit literature.

Along with the courtly literature, Sanskrit also nurtured the Puranas, a genre of mythological narratives that were written well into the medieval era. According to tradition, each Purana is supposed to deal with five topics: the creation of the universe, the destruction and re-creation of the universe, the genealogy of the gods and holy sages, the reigns of the Manus (legendary Hindu figures), and the histories of the kings who trace their ancestry to the sun and moon.

In southern India, beginning in the 1st century ad, a magnificent body of nonreligious poetry was written in the Tamil language. The Tamil poets—both men and women—treat sexual love and the heroic ideals of the Tamil people through symbolic landscape images, powerful language, and delicate psychological touches. The early Tamil poems became the foundation of literary traditions in other languages of south India. They later influenced medieval poetry of religious devotion in all the Indian languages.

The literature produced in Tamil between the 3rd and 6th centuries ad is dominated by Jain and Buddhist values combined with Tamil views of the sacred. Tirukkural (The Sacred Short Sayings, 4th century ad?), containing Tiruvalluvar’s brief verses on ethical behavior, has a strongly Jain flavor; it remains a treasured Tamil classic. In the epic Cilappatikaram (The Narrative of the Ankle Bracelet, 5th century?), the Jain monk Ilanko depicts the transformation of the chaste wife Kannaki into a goddess after she avenges the unjust death of her husband. In the Buddhist poet Cattanar’s long poem Manimekalai (The Girdle of Gems, 6th century?), the beautiful heroine Manimekalai rejects worldly life and becomes a Buddhist nun.

Poet-saints called Nayanars and Alvars, who led popular movements of devotion for the Hindu gods Shiva and Vishnu, wrote the Tevaram and the Nalayira Divya Prabandham, respectively, between the 6th and 8th centuries. These hymns served the cause of bhakti, a new aspect of religion that dominated Indian literature in the medieval period. Bhakti literature is discussed below. The hymns of the Nayanar and Alvar poets are sung in temple rituals in southern India to this day.

III. MEDIEVAL LITERATURE: THE RISE OF THE REGIONAL LANGUAGES

By the 10th century the older Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages and dialects had grown into full-blown languages. Each region also began to develop its own distinctive culture. As a result, regional literatures developed in each of the new regional languages, under the patronage of local rulers.

Buddhism had weakened as a religious force in India, but the philosophies of Hinduism and Jainism were still strong. From the 12th century onwards, Indian literature shows the influence of yet another religion, Islam. During medieval times, a succession of Islamic dynasties conquered many territories in north and central India. Some Indian languages were influenced by Islamic religion and culture as well as by the Persian and Arabic languages and the literatures of these two tongues. These influences affected the development of the Hindi language, resulting in the emergence of Urdu, a particular form of Hindi. The Urdu language has a large number of Persian and Arabic words, and is written in the Arabic script.

Although the literatures of the regional languages were as diverse as the languages and subcultures they represented, they also shared a number of characteristics. For example, the older Sanskrit myths, epics, and kavya poems served as sources for some of the best works in the new languages. But also, for the first time in Indian literature, unique versions of local myths, legends, romances, and epics emerged.

A Bhakti: Devotional Literature

Indian Miniature Painting This piece, Radha and Krishna in a Pavillion (1760?), from India’s Punjab Hills, is an illustration of a traditional story of Krishna, a Hindu god, and his lover, Radha. Krishna, the eighth incarnation of the supreme Hindu god Vishnu, serves as one of the central deities in Hinduism. It is an example of the style of Indian miniature painting that was popular from the 16th to the 19th century.Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

The most important genre of the medieval era was the lyric poetry of authors who belonged to Hindu movements dedicated to bhakti. Bhakti was an aspect of religion that involved passionate, emotional devotion to a particular god. Bhakti authors, who are revered as saints, addressed the devotional poems that they wrote to the major Hindu gods and goddesses, especially Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna, Rama, and the Goddess (Devi). These poems are among the earliest and most popular literary works in each of the regional languages.

Mira Bai Legend holds that 16th-century Indian poet Mira Bai was so devoted to the god Krishna that when she died, her body flowed into an image of the god. Her writings demonstrate her love for Krishna.Dinodia Picture Agency

Bhakti lyric poems share a number of characteristics. Unlike earlier Indian literature in Sanskrit, they are works of a personal and emotional character. Sung by devotees, the poems often speak from the perspectives of marginalized and excluded groups in Indian society, voicing social criticism. Some of the major bhakti poets were women, and men of the lower castes were also represented.

Notable early bhakti writers include the poets Basava and Mahadevi of the Virashaiva sect. In their Kannada-language poems of devotion to the god Shiva, called vacanas (utterances), these authors criticize social injustice and conventional morality. Other bhakti writers were Tukaram and Bahinabai, who composed poems in the Marathi language; Kabir, Tulsidas, and Surdas, who wrote in dialects of Hindi; and the Vaishnava poets Vidyapati and Chandidas, who wrote devotional poems in Bengali, celebrating the love of Krishna and his beloved, Radha. One of India’s best-known female poets is the bhakti poet Mira Bai, a 16th-century writer who composed poignant songs in Rajasthani-Hindi about her love for the god Krishna.

B Other Literary Forms

The great literary works of medieval India include biographies on the bhakti saints. The Tamil work Periyapuranam (Great Narrative), by the 12th-century writer Cekkilar, tells about the lives of the Tamil Nayanar saints. Chakradhara’s Lilacharitra (Narrative of the Divine Play, 1280?) in Marathi is about the Mahanubhava saints. Palkuriki Somanatha’s Basavapurana (Narrative of Basava, 13th century) in Telugu is about the Virashaiva saints.

The Mahabharata and the Ramayana epics provided the themes for some of the best works in the regional languages. The 12th-century Tamil Iramavataram (Descent of Rama) by Kampan and the 16th-century Hindi Ramcharitmanas (The Holy Lake of the Acts of Rama) by Tulsidas are literary masterpieces of their languages. Both of these works are retellings of the Ramayana story.

Each Indian regional language has romances, folk epics, and ballads focusing on local heroes, heroines, gods, and goddesses. Some of these works are transmitted mainly in oral traditions and are not attributed to any individual. Works of this type include the epics of the heroes Pabuji and Devnarayan in the Rajasthani language, and the Hindi epics Candayan and Dhola. The Pabuji epic describes the exploits of the Rajput warrior Pabuji, who dies in battle and is later worshiped as a god. The Dhola epic treats the themes of the exploits of King Nal and the birth of his son Dhola, the adventures of Dhola, and the beautiful princess Maru’s love for Dhola. The principal characters in many of the oral narratives belong to the lower castes in the Hindu caste system. In the Devnarayan story, Devnarayan, an incarnation of the god Vishnu, is born as a cowherd and fights against Rajput warriors to avenge the deaths of heroes of the cowherd caste. Chandaini, also known as Lorik-Chanda, describes the love affair of the heroine Chandaini, a married woman, with the cowherd Lorik, who is also married.

Some epics are attributed to specific authors. The Hindi Prthviraj Raso (Heroic Narrative of King Prthviraj), by Chand Bardai, sings the exploits of the 12th-century King Prithviraj Chauhan of Delhi, including his resistance to the invader from Central Asia, Muhammad of Ghur. Padumavat (1540), a Hindi romance based on Hindu legends but written by the Sufi Muslim poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi, illustrates the blurring of boundaries between Hindu and Muslim cultures in this period.

Medieval India

The Gupta Empire faced many challengers. Until about ad 500 it was able to defeat internal and external enemies. In the mid-5th century the White Huns, a nomadic people from Central Asia, moved onto the Indian plains and were defeated by the Guptas. The Huns invaded India again in ad 510, when Gupta strength was in decline. This time the invasion was successful, forcing the Guptas into the northeastern part of their former empire. The Huns established their rule over much of northwest India, extending to present-day western Uttar Pradesh. However, they in turn were defeated by enemies to the west a short time later. The Buddhist monasteries and the cities of this region never recovered from the onslaught of the Huns. By ad 550 both the Hun kingdom and the Gupta Empire had fallen.

The absence of these centralizing powers left India to be ruled by regional kingdoms. These kingdoms often warred with each other and had fairly short spans of power. They developed a political system that emphasized the tribute of smaller chieftains. Later, starting in the 11th century and especially in the south, they legitimized this rule by establishing great royal temples, supported by grants of land and literally hundreds of Brahmans. Literature and art continued to flourish, particularly in south and central India. The distinctive style of temple architecture and sculpture that developed in the 7th and 8th centuries can be seen in the pyramid-shaped towers and heavily ornamented walls of shrines at Māmallapuram (sometimes called Mahabalipuram) and Kānchipuram south of Chennai, and in the cave temples carved from solid rock at Ajanta and Ellora in Mahārāshtra. The religious tradition of bhakti (passionate devotion to a Hindu god), which emerged in Tamil Nādu in the 6th century and spread north over the next nine centuries, was expressed in poetry of great beauty. With the decline of Buddhism in much of peninsular India (it continued in what is now Bangladesh), Hinduism developed new and profound traditions associated with the philosophers Shankara in the early 800s and Ramanuja in about 1100.

The regional kingdoms were not small, but only Harsha, who ruled from 606 to 647, attempted to create an expansive empire. From his kingdom north of Delhi, he shifted his base east to present-day central Uttar Pradesh. After extending his influence as far west as the Punjab region, he tried to move south and was defeated by the Chalukya king Pulakeshin II of Vātāpi (modern Bādāmi) in about 641. By then the Pallava dynasty had established a powerful kingdom on the east coast of the southern Indian peninsula at Kānchipuram. During the course of the next half century the Pallavas and the neighboring Chalukyas of the Deccan Plateau struggled for control of key peninsular rivers, each alternately sacking the other’s capital. The eventual waning of the Pallavas by the late 8th century allowed the Cholas and the Pandya dynasty to rule virtually undisturbed for the next four centuries.

Elsewhere in India, the 8th century saw continued power struggles among states. Harsha died in 647 bc and his kingdom contracted to the west, creating a power vacuum in the east that was quickly filled by the Pala dynasty. (The Palas ruled the Bengal region and present-day southern Bihār state from the 8th through the 12th centuries.) Harsha’s capital of Kanauj was conquered by the Gurjara-Pratiharas, who were based in central India, and who managed to extend their rule west to the borders of Sind (in what is now Pakistan). The Gurjara-Pratiharas fought with the Rashtrakutas for control of the trade routes of the Ganges. The Rashtrakutas controlled the Deccan Plateau from their capital in Ellora, near present-day Aurangābād. Their frequent military campaigns into north and central India kept the small kingdoms ruled by Muslims in Sind and southern Punjab confined. The Western Chalukyas also fought with, and were finally overthrown by, the Rashtrakutas in the 8th century.

The kingdoms persisted despite this protracted warfare because they were more or less equally matched in resources, administrative and military capacities, and leadership. Although particular dynasties did not last long, these kingdoms, which shifted the center of rule in India to areas south of the Vindhya Range, had a remarkable stability, lasting in one form or other in particular regions for centuries.

The kingdoms of the south, especially the Pallavas and Cholas, had links with Southeast Asia. Temples in the style of the early-8th-century Pallavas were built in Java soon after those in the Pallava kingdom. In pursuit of trade, the Cholas made successful naval expeditions at the end of the 10th century to Ceylon, the region of Bengal, Sumatra, and Malaya. They also established direct trade with China. By the 12th century the cities of the southwestern coast of India, in what is now Kerala and southern Karnātaka, housed Jewish and Arab traders who drew on a network centered in the Persian Gulf and reaching through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea and Italy.

India's Religion (My student's report for HUM 102 --> Asian Civilizations, 1st Sem. AY 2007-2008)

2007-09-21T00:06:00.000-07:00

The Islamic sultanates

After the Arab-Turkic invasion of India's ancient northern neighbor Persia, expanding forces in that area were keen to invade India, which was the richest classical civilization, with the only known diamond mines in the world. After resistance for a few centuries by various north Indian kingdoms, short lived Islamic empires invaded and spread across the northern subcontinent over a period of a few centuries.

The initial entry of Islam into South Asia came during the life time of Prophet Muhammad. Islam was practiced across India during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad. In Later years, the Umayyad caliph in Damascus sent an expedition to Balochistan and Sindh in 711 led by Muhammad bin Qasim (for whom Karachi's second port is named). The expedition went as far north as Multan but was not able to retain that region and was not successful in expanding Islamic rule to other parts of India. Coastal trade and the presence of a Muslim colony in Sindh, however, permitted significant cultural exchanges and the introduction into the subcontinent of religious teachers. Muslim influence grew with conversions.

Almost three centuries later, the Turkics, Persians and the Afghans spearheaded the Islamic conquest in India through the traditional invasion routes of the northwest. Mahmud of Ghazni (979-1030) led a series of raids against Rajput kingdoms and rich Hindu temples and established a base in Punjab for future incursions.

Prior to Turkic invasions, Muslim trading communities flourished throughout coastal South India, particularly in Kerala, where they arrived in small numbers through trade links via the Indian Ocean with the Arabian peninsula, however, this marked the largescale introduction of western religion into the primarily dharmic culture of India, often in puritanical form. Bahmani Sultanate and Deccan sultanates flourished in the south.

Delhi sultanate

In the 12th and 13th centuries, Arabs, Turks and Afghans invaded parts of northern India and established the Delhi Sultanate at the beginning of the 13th century, from former Rajput holdings. The subsequent Slave dynasty of Delhi managed to conquer large areas of northern India, approximate to the ancient extent of the Guptas, while the Khilji Empire was also able to conquer most of central India, but were ultimately unsuccessful in conquering most of the subcontinent. The Sultanate ushered in a period of Indian cultural renaissance. The resulting "Indo-Muslim" fusion left lasting monuments in architecture, music, literature, and religion. It is surmised that the language of Urdu (literally meaning "horde" or "camp" in various Turkic dialects) was born during the Delhi Sultanate period as a result of the mingling of Sanskritic prakrits and the Persian, Turkish and Arabic favored by the Muslim rulers. The Delhi Sultanate is the only Sultanate to stake a claim to possessing one of the few female rulers in India, Razia Sultan (1236-1240).

The Delhi Sultanate or Sultanat-e-Hind or Sultanat-e-Dilli refers to the many Muslim dynasties that ruled in India from 1206 to 1526. Several Turkish and Afghan dynasties ruled from Delhi: the Mamluk dynasty (1206-90), the Khilji dynasty (1290-1320), the Tughlaq dynasty (1320-1413), the Sayyid dynasty (1414-51), and the Lodhi dynasty (1451-1526). In 1526 the Delhi Sultanate was absorbed by the emerging Mughal Empire.

During the last quarter of the twelfth century, Muhammad Ghori invaded the Indo-Gangetic plain, conquering in succession Ghazni, Multan, Sindh, Lahore, and Delhi. Qutb-ud-din Aibak, one of his generals, proclaimed himself Sultan of Delhi and established the first dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate, the Mamluk dynasty (mamluk means "slave born to free parents") after Muhammad Ghori's death in 1206. By the early 20th centuary, northern India from the Khyber Pass to Bengal was under control of the Sultanate, although the northwest was contested with the Mongols. Iltutmish (1210-35), and Balban (1266-87) were among the dynasty's most well-known rulers. Faced with revolts by conquered territories and rival families, the Mamluk dynasty came to an end in 1290.

The Khilji or Khalji dynasty, who had established themselves as rulers of Bengal in the time of Muhammad Ghori, took control of the empire in a coup which eliminated the last of the Mamluks. The Khiljis conquered Gujarat and Malwa, and sent the first expeditions south of the Narmada River, as far south as Tamil Nadu. The Delhi Sultanate rule continued to extend into southern India, first by the Delhi Sultans, then by the breakaway Bahmani Sultanate of Gulbarga, and, after the breakup of the Bahmani state in 1518, by the five independent Deccan Sultanates. The kingdom of Vijayanagar united southern India and arrested the Delhi Sultanate's expansion for a time, until its eventual fall to the Deccan Sultanates in 1565.

In the first half of the 14th century, the Sultanate introduced a monetary economy in the provinces (sarkars) and districts (parganas) that had been established and founded a network of market centers through which the traditional village economies were both exploited and stimulated and drawn into the wider culture. State revenues remained based on successful agriculture, which induced Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq (1325-51) to have village wells dug, offer seed to the peasants and to encourage cash crops like sugar cane.

The Delhi Sultanate is the only Sultanate to stake a claim to possessing one of the few female rulers in India, Princess Razia Sultana (1236-1240). While her reign was unfortunately short she is regarded well in the eyes of historians. Princess Razia Sultana was very popular and more intelligent than her brothers. She was the very first queen of the Muslim world in the early Muslim history of sub-continent. She ruled from the east Delhi to the west Peshawar and from the North Kashmir to the South Multan. The Rebels of her government killed her and her Husband Malik Altuniya, and buried them outside Delhi.

The Sultans of Delhi enjoyed cordial, if superficial, relations with other Muslim rulers in the Near East but owed them no allegiance. The Sultans based their laws on the Qur'an and the sharia and permitted non-Muslim subjects to practice their religion only if they paid jizya or head tax. The Sultans ruled from urban centers--while military camps and trading posts provided the nuclei for towns that sprang up in the countryside. Perhaps the greatest contribution of the Sultanate was its temporary success in insulating the subcontinent from the potential devastation of the Mongol invasion from Central Asia in the thirteenth century.

The Sultanate ushered in a period of Indian cultural renaissance. The resulting "Indo-Muslim" fusion left lasting monuments in architecture, music, literature, and religion. The Sultanate suffered from the sacking of Delhi in 1398 by Timur (Tamerlane), and soon other independent Sultanates were established in Awadh, Bengal, Jaunpur, Gujarat and Malwa. The Delhi Sultanate revived briefly under the Lodhis before it was conquered by the Mughal emperor Babur in 1526.

During the last quarter of the twelfth century, Muhammad of Ghor invaded the Indo-Gangetic plain, conquering in succession Ghazni, Multan, Sindh, Lahore, and Delhi. Qutb-ud-din Aybak, one of his generals proclaimed himself Sultan of Delhi. In the 13th century, Shams ud din Iltumish (1211 - 1236), a former slave-warrior, established a Turkic kingdom in Delhi, which enabled future sultans to push in every direction; within the next 100 years, the Delhi Sultanate extended its way east to Bengal and south to the Deccan, while the sultanate itself experienced repeated threats from the northwest and internal revolts from displeased, independent-minded nobles. The sultanate was in constant flux as five dynasties rose and fell: the Slave dynasty (1206-90), Khalji dynasty (1290-1320), Tughlaq dynasty (1320-1413), Sayyid dynasty (1414-51), and Lodi dynasty (1451-1526). The Khilji dynasty, under Ala ud din (1296 - 1316), succeeded in bringing most of South India under its control for a time, although conquered areas broke away quickly. Power in Delhi was often gained by violence -- nineteen of the thirty-five sultans were assassinated -- and was legitimized by reward for tribal loyalty. Factional rivalries and court intrigues were as numerous as they were treacherous; territories controlled by the sultan expanded and shrank depending on his personality and fortunes.

Both the Qur'an and sharia (Islamic law) provided the basis for enforcing Islamic administration over the independent Hindu rulers, but the sultanate made only fitful progress in the beginning, when many campaigns were undertaken for plunder and temporary reduction of fortresses. The effective rule of a sultan depended largely on his ability to control the strategic places that dominated the military highways and trade routes, extract the annual land tax, and maintain personal authority over military and provincial governors. Sultan 'Ala ud-Din made an attempt to reassess, systematize, and unify land revenues and urban taxes and to institute a highly centralized system of administration over his realm, but his efforts were abortive. Although agriculture in North India improved as a result of new canal construction and irrigation methods, including what came to be known as the Persian wheel, prolonged political instability and parasitic methods of tax collection brutalized the peasantry. Yet trade and a market economy, encouraged by the free-spending habits of the aristocracy, acquired new impetus both inland and overseas. Experts in metalwork, stonework, and textile manufacture responded to the new patronage with enthusiasm. In this period Persian language and many Persian cultural aspects became dominant in the centers of power in India.

Southern dynasties

Bahmani Sultanate and Deccan sultanates

The sultans' failure to hold securely the Deccan and South India resulted in the rise of competing southern dynasties: the Muslim Bahmani Sultanate (1347-1527) and the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire (1336-1565). Zafar Khan, a former provincial governor under the Tughluqs, revolted against his Turkic overlord and proclaimed himself sultan, taking the title Ala-ud-Din Bahman Shah in 1347. The Bahmani Sultanate, located in the northern Deccan, lasted for almost two centuries, until it fragmented into five smaller states, known as the Deccan sultanates (Bijapur, Golconda, Ahmednagar, Berar, and Bidar) in 1527. The Bahmani Sultanate adopted the patterns established by the Delhi overlords in tax collection and administration, but its downfall was caused in large measure by the competition and hatred between deccani (domiciled Muslim immigrants and local converts) and paradesi (foreigners or officials in temporary service). The Bahmani Sultanate initiated a process of cultural synthesis visible in Hyderabad where cultural flowering is still expressed in vigorous schools of deccani architecture and painting.

Founded in 1336, the Vijayanagara Empire (named for its capital Vijayanagara (Vijayanagar), "City of Victory," in present-day Karnataka) expanded rapidly toward Madurai in the south and Goa in the west and exerted intermittent control over the east coast and the extreme southwest. Vijayanagara rulers closely followed Chola precedents, especially in collecting agricultural and trade revenues, in giving encouragement to commercial guilds, and in honoring temples with lavish endowments. Added revenue needed for waging war against the Bahmani sultans was raised by introducing a set of taxes on commercial enterprises, professions, and industries. Political rivalry between the Bahmani and the Vijayanagara rulers involved control over the Krishna-Tungabhadra river basin, which shifted hands depending on whose military was superior at any given time. The Vijayanagar rulers' capacity for gaining victory over their enemies was contingent on ensuring a constant supply of horses--initially through Arab traders but later through the Portuguese--and maintaining internal roads and communication networks. Merchant guilds enjoyed a wide sphere of operation and were able to offset the power of landlords and Brahmans in court politics. Commerce and shipping eventually passed largely into the hands of foreigners, and special facilities and tax concessions were provided for them by the ruler. Arabs and Portuguese competed for influence and control of west coast ports, and, in 1510, Goa passed into Portuguese possession.

The city of Vijayanagara itself contained numerous temples with rich ornamentation, especially the gateways, and a cluster of shrines for the deities. Most prominent among the temples was the one dedicated to Virupaksha, a manifestation of Shiva, the patron-deity of the Vijayanagar rulers. Temples continued to be the nuclei of diverse cultural and intellectual activities, but these activities were based more on tradition than on contemporary political realities. (However, the first Vijayanagara ruler--Harihara I--was a Hindu who converted to Islam and then reconverted to Hinduism for political expediency.) The temples sponsored no intellectual exchange with Islamic theologians because Muslims were generally assigned to an "impure" status and were thus excluded from entering temples. When the rulers of the five Deccan sultanates combined their forces and attacked Vijayanagara in 1565, the empire crumbled at the Battle of Talikot.

The Mughal era

The Mughal Empire was an empire that at its greatest territorial extent ruled most of the Indian Subcontinent between 1526 and 1857. The empire was founded by the Mongol leader Babur in 1526, when he defeated Ibrahim Lodi, the last of the Delhi Sultans at the First Battle of Panipat. The word "Mughal" is the Indo-Aryan version of Mongol.

In 1926, Babur, a Timurid (Turco-Persian) descendant of Timur, swept across the Khyber Pass and established the Mughal Empire, which lasted for over 200 years. The Mughal Dynasty ruled most of the Indian subcontinent by 1600; it went into a slow decline after 1707 and was finally defeated during the 1857 war of independence also called the Indian rebellion of 1857. This period marked vast social change in the subcontinent as the Hindu majority were ruled over by the Mughal emperors, some of whom showed religious tolerance, liberally patronising Hindu culture, and some of whom destroyed historical temples and imposed taxes on non-Muslims. During the decline of the Mughal Empire, which at its peak occupied an area slightly larger than the ancient Maurya Empire, several smaller empires rose to fill the power vacuum or themselves were contributing factors to the decline. The Mughals were perhaps the richest single dynasty to have ever existed.

During the Mughal era, the dominant political forces consisted of the Mughal Empire, its tributaries, and later on the rise of its successor states, including the Maratha confederacy, who fought an increasingly weak and disfavoured Mughal dynasty.The Mughals, while often employing brutal tactics to subjugate their empire, had a policy of integration with Indian culture, which is what made them successful where the short-lived Sultanates of Delhi had failed. Akbar the Great was particularly famed for this. Akbar declared "Amari" or non-killing of animals in the holy days of Jainism. He rolled back the Jazia Tax for non-Muslims. The Mughal Emperors married local royalty, allied themselves with local Maharajas, and attempted to fuse their Turko-Persian culture with ancient Indian styles, creating unique Indo-Saracenic architecture. It was the erosion of this tradition coupled with increased brutality and centralisation that played a large part in their downfall after Aurangzeb, who unlike previous emperors, imposed relatively non-pluralistic policies on the general population, that often inflamed the majority Hindu population.

The Mughal Empire

Babur

Claiming descent from both Genghis Khan and Timur, Babur combined strength and courage with a love of beauty, and military ability with cultivation. Babur concentrated on gaining control of northwestern India. He did so in 1526 by defeating the last Lodhi sultan at the First battle of Panipat, a town north of Delhi. Babur then turned to the tasks of persuading his Central Asian followers to stay on in India and of overcoming other contenders for power, mainly the Rajputs and the Afghans. He succeeded in both tasks but died shortly thereafter in 1530. The Mughal Empire was one of the largest centralized states in premodern history and was the precursor to the British Indian Empire.

The Fugitive King: Humayun (1508-1556)

Babur’s favorite son Humayun took the reins of the empire after his father succumbed to disease at the young age of forty-seven. However, he lacked his father’s craftiness and athleticism. Though he could be a formidable warrior when he chose to be, he was more laid back and indolent. He also was addicted to opium and depended on it for solace much more than a king with insecure borders should indulge in. He also made the mistake of trusting his three brothers, which served as a lesson to future Mughal rulers, who would not repeat this folly. Humayun made his brother Prince Kamran the regent in Kabul, who quickly added Panjab under his control. Humayun, appearing to be weak, did not object and this emboldened his two other brothers, Askari and Hindal to seek more independence.

Humayun’s first campaign was to confront a Sher Khan Sur, an Afghan, who was quietly expanding his territory in the east. Half way through the counter offensive Humayun had to abandon it and concentrate on Gujarat, where a threat from Ahmed Shah had to be squelched. In this he succeeded and annexed Gujarat and Malwa. Champaner and the great fort of Mandu followed next. Following this great triumph, Humayun made another tactical error in installing his brother Prince Askari in Ahmadabad instead of the defeated Ahmed Shah as a feudatory. To savor his victory, Humayun celebrated in Mandu fort for many months, binging on opium and spending too much time in the company of his favourites. When he finally headed home to Agra, he found his brother Askari at his doorstep making a serious bid for the throne. Though his older brother thwarted this effort, Askari was pardoned, which only exhibited royal weakness to his loyal subjects.

Humayun again fell into one of his many periods of laziness and lassitude and resorted to his pipe and playmates. All this time he also neglected to confront Sher Khan Sur, who was gathering land and feudatories in the east. As an administrator Sher Khan was far superior to Humayun. In 1539, Humayun and Sher Khan met in battle in Chausa, between Varanasi and Patna. Humayun barely escaped with his own life and in the next year, in 1540, his army of 40,000 lost to the Afghan army of 15,000 of Sher Khan. Humayun’s brothers refused to help him and he found himself a fugitive in Rajastan and Sindh.

Finally, the Shah of Iran, Shah Tamasp, gave him refuge in Persia. Of course, Humayun put his famous diamond to full diplomatic use because Shah Tamasp was a lover of diamonds. Koh-I-Noor, would serve as the bribe that the Shah Tamasp needed to support Humayun with a large Persian military offensive on Sher Khan Sur in 1544. Humayun found fraternal opposition again in Kandahar, where he was stalled for eight years but eventually won back Afghanistan.

Sher Khan had now become the monarch in Delhi under the name Sher Shah Sur and ruled from 1540 to 1545. He consolidated his kingdom form Panjab to Bengal (first one to enter Bengal after Ala-ud-din Khilji did more than two centuries earlier). But Sher Shah died in an accidental explosion of gunpowder during an offensive in Kalinjar. A superb administrator, he was credited to have organized the government and military in such a way that future Mughal kings used it as their own models. He also added to the fort in Delhi (supposed site of Indraprastha), first started by Humayun, and now called the Purana Qila or the old fort. He built the mosque Qila-I-Kuhna there that was a masterpiece of the period, though only parts of it have survived.

The charred remains of Sher Shah were taken to a tomb in Sahasaram, midway between Varanasi and Gaya. Although rarely visited, it is another glorious triumph in architecture that the future great Mughal builders like Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan tried to emulate. Massive in scale, three stories and fifty meters high, it appears as much a palace as a mausoleum. Sher Shah’s son Islam Shah held on to power until 1553 and following his death the Sur dynasty lost most of its clout due factious strife and severe famine.

In 1554, Humayun attacked the confused and divided state of Sur rulers and in 1555 claimed Delhi again. But in 1556 tragedy struck the Mughals when Humayun tripped and fell to his death while descending the steps after gazing at the stars (he was a keen astronomer) from the rooftop of Sher Shah’s Delhi palace. Thus Humayun ruled in India barley for ten years and died at the age of forty-eight, leaving behind a thirteen-year-old boy, Akbar as his heir. As a tribute to his father, Akbar later built the Humayun’s tomb in Delhi (completed in 1571), from red sandstone, of majestic outline that would become the precursor of future Mughal architecture. Akbar’s mother and Humayun’s wife Hamida Begum personally supervised the building of the tomb.

A True Monarch: Akbar The Great (1543-1605)

Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun (r. 1530-40 and 1555-56), whose rule was interrupted by the Afghan Sur Dynasty, which rebelled against him. It was only just before his death that Humayun was able to regain the empire and leave it to his son. In restoring and expanding Mughal rule, Akbar based his authority on the ability and loyalty of his followers, irrespective of their religion. In 1564 the jizya on non-Muslims was abolished, and bans on temple building and Hindu pilgrimages were lifted.

Akbar's methods of administration reinforced his power against two possible sources of challenge--the Afghan-Turkish aristocracy and the traditional interpreters of Islamic law, the ulama. He created a ranked imperial service based on ability rather than birth, whose members were obliged to serve wherever required. They were remunerated with cash rather than land and were kept away from their inherited estates, thus centralizing the imperial power base and assuring its supremacy. The military and political functions of the imperial service were separate from those of revenue collection, which was supervised by the imperial treasury. This system of administration, known as the mansabdari, was based on loyal service and cash payments and was the backbone of the Mughal Empire; its effectiveness depended on personal loyalty to the emperor and his ability and willingness to choose, remunerate, and supervise.

Akbar declared himself the final arbiter in all disputes of law derived from the Qur'an and the sharia. He backed his religious authority primarily with his authority in the state. In 1580 he also initiated a syncretic court religion called the Din-i-Ilahi (Divine Faith). In theory, the new faith was compatible with any other, provided that the devotee was loyal to the emperor. In practice, however, its ritual and content profoundly offended orthodox Muslims. The ulama found their influence undermined. The concept of Islam as a superior religion with a historic mission in the world appeared to be compromised. The syncretism of the court and its tolerance of both Hindus and unorthodox Shia sects among Muslims triggered a reaction among Sunni Muslims. In the fratricidal war of succession that closed the reign of Akbar's grandson Shah Jahan in 1658.

The World Conqueror: Jahangir (1569-1627)

Prince Salim, who would later be known as Emperor Jahangir showed signs of restlessness at the end of a long reign by his father Akbar. During the absence of his father from Agra he pronounced himself as the king and turned rebellious. Akbar was able to wrestle the throne back but the prince was showing no signs of remorse. There was also an unconfirmed story of strained relationship between father and son due to Salim’s amorous advances to an ordinary dancing girl. Deeply in love and enchanted by the dancing girl, Anarkali, who was of common birth, Salim was ready to make her his queen. This union, surprisingly, was said to have been unacceptable to Akbar and the girl was abducted and executed. Though the historians do not mention the existence of such a girl called Anarkali, the folklore certainly has survived. This also might have exacerbated the strain between the monarch and the prince.

Salim did not have to worry about his sibling’s aspirations to the throne. His two brothers, Murad and Daniyal, had both died early from alcoholism. Ironically a similar fate would await Salim at the end of his reign when he also succumbed to the ill effects of excessive drinking. But his challenge came from a surprising member of his family. His son Khusrau was favoured by the nobles and made an attempt to unseat Salim, who by 1602 had proclaimed himself as the emperor and renamed himself Jahangir (World Conqueror). Khusrau laid siege to Lahore but was captured by Jahangir and blinded. The cruelty of the previous Sultans of Delhi had now pervaded into the Mughal emperors. Hitherto unknown fraternal and filial murder and torture at the time of succession was to become the norm and almost expected in the kingdom. Jahangir explained that a king should consider no man his relation and sovereignty did not regard the relation between father and son. Treacherous perfidy during succession would not shock any future Mughal heirs.

Jahangir began his era as a Mughal emperor after the death of Akbar in the year 1605. He considered his third son Prince Khurram (future Shah Jahan-born 1592 of Hindu Rajput princess Manmati), his favourite. Rana of Mewar and Prince Khurram had a standoff that resulted in a treaty acceptable to both parties. Khurram was kept busy with several campaigns in Bengal and Kashmir. Jahangir claimed the victories of Khurram – Shah Jahan as his own. However, Kandahar, which had been won by Akbar, was lost to Persia’s Shah Abbas. Further defeats were handed in Northern Afghanistan. Some success was at hand in the Deccan when an African slave, Malik Ambar, brought from Baghdad, serving under the sultante of Ahmadnagar, helped Khurram-Shah Jahan.

The monarch meanwhile was basking in the glory of his son’s victories. He also had unlimited sources of revenue largely due to a systematic organization of the administration by his father, Akbar. The opulence of the Mughals had reached its pinnacle during Jahangir and Shah Jahan’s rule, thanks to Akbar’s foresight. Jahangir built his famous gardens in Kashmir and spent much time relaxing and delegating his work to others. One such person was Jahangir’s wife, Nur Jahan, whom he married in 1611. She was the thirty-year-old widow of one of his Afghan nobles. Her father, Persian born Itimad-ud-Daula became a minister and closest advisor to the emperor. Very able Nur Jahan along with her father and brother Asaf Khan, who was a successful general, ran the kingdom. Jahangir was the monarch in absentia. Addicted to alcohol, he was content to let his wife govern.

After the fiasco in Kandahar, the relationship between Khurram and Jahangir soured. Khurram suspected that Nur Jahan favoured her son-in-law Prince Shariyar (son of Jahangir from a slave), who was married to her daughter Ladli Begum, from her first marriage. Khurram was in rebellion with his father and in this the African slave Malik Ambar and Nur Jahan’s brother Asaf Khan aided him. Khurram- Shah Jahan was married to Asaf Khan’s daughter Mumtaz Mahal. Prince Shariyar was murdered and Nur Jahan spent her last years building a tomb for her father Itimad-ud-Daula in Agra. She could have little influence over the willful Shah Jahan or her niece Mumtaz Mahal.

Jahangir had kept a diary that can pass marginally as memoirs. He describes inane and insignificant details of his garden and daily happenings around the palace. It only serves to give a glimpse of the emperor’s life in a superficial way. Though not a soldier, Jahangir was an ardent patron of Mughal art and an avid builder. He built Akbar’s five-tiered tomb in Sikandra. The emperor kept busy building in Lahore, Allahabad and Agra. While the de facto emperor, Nur Jahan was attending to administrative details, Jahangir found solace in loitering in his gardens and appreciating art and nature.

The darkest incident of his rule perhaps was the disposition of a peaceful leader of newly formed religion called Sikhism. Akbar had watched the blossoming of the new religion founded by Guru Nanak, with fascination. Jahangir, in a controversy with its leader, was responsible for the death of Sikh Guru Arjan Singh (who was placed on a hot iron until he died, unwilling to convert to Islam) and this would have lasting consequences for future Mughal emperors. The peaceful religion of Sikhism would turn militant later when Jahangir’s grandson Aurangzeb murdered the ninth Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur. Jahangir, the laid back emperor died in 1627 from alcohol abuse and Prince Khurram–Shah Jahan’s reign as the emperor began.

King of the World: Shah Jahan

Prince Khurram, who would later be known as Emperor Shah Jahan, ascended to the throne after a tumultuous succession battle worthy of a Mughal Prince. His own father, Jahangir, had already handicapped Khusrau, when the son aspired to unseat the father. Younger brother Prince Khurram promptly had him killed, as fraternal ambitions were not to be encouraged, even though the wretched Prince Khusrau was blind. Prince Shariyar, Nur Jahan’s son-in-law had lost his bid to the throne and murdered by Khurram’s father-in-law, Asaf Khan (also Nur Jahan’s brother). Another brother Parwiz was of no consequence.

With the wealth created by Akbar, the Mughal kingdom was probably the richest in the world. Prince Khurram gave himself the title of Shah Jahan, the ‘King of the World’ and this was the name that was immortalized by history. With his imagination and aspiration, Shah Jahan gained a reputation as an aesthete par excellence. He built the black marble pavilion at the Shalimar Gardens in Srinagar and a white marble palace in Ajmer. He also built a tomb for his father, Jahangir in Lahore and built a massive city Shahajanabad in Delhi but his imagination surpassed all Mughal glory in his most famous building Taj Mahal. It was in Shahajanabad that his daughter Roshanara built the marketplace called Chandni Chowk. His beloved wife Arjuman Banu (daughter of Asaf Khan and niece of Nur Jahan) died while delivering their fourteenth child in the year 1631. The distraught emperor started building a memorial for her the following year. The Taj Mahal, named for Arjuman Banu, who was called Mumtaz Mahal, became one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The beauty of the white marble structure is unsurpassed. Almost four hundred years later it still is the awe inspiring place where lovers hold hands and swoon over each other. The thrill one feels at the first sight of Taj Mahal through its main archway is beyond description.

The great Juma Masjid built by him was the largest in India at the time. Shah Jahan also built or renovated forts in Delhi and in Agra. White marble chambers that served as living quarters and other halls for public audiences are examples of classic Mughal architecture. Here in Agra fort, Shah Jahan would spend eight of his last years as a prisoner of his son, Aurangzeb shuffling between the hallways of the palace, squinting at the distant silhouette of his famous Taj Mahal on the banks of River Jamuna.

Shah Jahan’s earlier years were spent in doing his father’s bidding in various campaigns and territorial expansion. However, the territories gained were significant only in a symbolic way. In fact, land and prestige was lost in Kandahar and Northern Afghanistan. The dream of Babur to extend the empire into and beyond Afghanistan into the homeland of the Timurs in Samarkhand was permanently shelved by his progeny, after the humiliating defeats in Kandahar at the hands of a Persian king. Never again would a Mughal venture into the northwest. In Deccan, Shah Jahan at first had defeats at the hands of an African habshi (Negro) slave from Baghdad, named Malik Ambar, who served the Bijapur sultan. Later, however, he joined Shah Jahan and helped him quell the threat from his brothers who had aspirations to conquer the throne. Golconda (Hyderabad) and Bijapur (Karnataka), two powerful states of the south were forced to become vassal states but were left alone to govern as they pleased. At least on paper Shah Jahan’s empire had extended deep into the south in Deccan and beyond. The cover of Mughal suzerainty only helped the southern sultanates to extend their borders well into Chola heartland of Tamil Nadu and Mysore. Muslim rule, now effectively extended to the mouth of Kaveri River.

Though Khurram was the favoured son of Jahangir in his earlier days, the influence of Nur Jahan on the emperor had a deleterious effect on his relationship with his father. She was trying to prop up her own son-in-law, a brother of Shah Jahan as the legal heir. This alarmed Shah Jahan and with the help of his father-in-law and Malik Ambar he was able to muscle his way into Delhi and pronounce himself the emperor. In September of 1657, Shah Jahan, in his waning years, suffered from acute constipation and rumours of his imminent death spread rapidly through the land. The potential successors to the throne, four brothers, were alarmed and moved with haste to claim the throne. His third son Aurangzeb eventually claimed the empire, in the year 1658. Shah Jahan would recover from his illness only to spend his last days as an old and decrepit man, imprisoned by his son Aurangzeb, in the fort in Agra. There he was to remain in house arrest for eight years watching the magnificent monument he had built for his beloved wife Mumtaz. Shah Jahan died in the year 1666, at age seventy-four, eight years after losing his throne to his son. He was interned in the Taj Mahal, next to his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal. The aristocracy supported the austere military commander Aurangzeb against his learned and eclectic brother Dara Shikoh, whom Aurangzeb defeated in battle and later had decapitated in 1662.

Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb

Aurangzeb's reign ushered in the decline of the Mughal Empire. Aurangzeb, who in the latter half of his long rule assumed the title "Alamgir" or "world-seizer," was known for aggressively expanding the empire's frontiers and for his militant enforcement of orthodox Sunni Islam. During his reign, the Mughal empire reached its greatest extent (the Bijapur and Golconda Sultanates which had been reduced to vassaldom by Shah Jahan were formally annexed), although it is likely that his policies also led to its dissolution. Still, there is some belief that his policies may have slowed the decline of the Empire rather than precipitated it. Although he was an outstanding general and a rigorous administrator, Mughal fiscal and military standards declined as security and luxury increased. Land rather than cash became the usual means of remunerating high-ranking officials, and divisive tendencies in his large empire further undermined central authority.

Extent of Mughal empire in the late 1600s:

The Mughals ruled all but the southern tip of the subcontinent. In 1679 Aurangzeb reimposed the hated jizyah on Hindus. Coming after a series of other taxes, and other discriminatory measures favoring Sunni Muslims, this action by the emperor, incited rebellion among Hindus and others in many parts of the empire--Jat, Sikh, and Rajput forces in the north and Maratha forces in the Deccan. The emperor managed to crush the rebellions in the north, but at a high cost to agricultural productivity and to the legitimacy of Mughal rule. Aurangzeb was compelled to move his headquarters to Daulatabad in the Deccan to mount a costly campaign against Maratha guerrilla fighters led by Shivaji, which lasted twenty-six-years until he died in 1707 at the age of ninety. Aurangzeb, oppressed by a sense of failure, isolation, and impending doom, lamented that in life he "came alone" and would "go as a stranger."
In the century- and one-half that followed, effective control by Aurangzeb's successors weakened. Succession to imperial and even provincial power, which had often become hereditary, was subject to intrigue and force. The mansabdari system gave way to the zamindari system, in which high-ranking officials took on the appearance of hereditary landed aristocracy with powers of collecting rents. As Delhi's control waned, other contenders for power emerged and clashed, thus preparing the way for the eventual British takeover.

Later Mughals

When Aurangzeb died close to the age of ninety, there were seventeen legitimate claimants to the throne that included not only his sons but also his grandsons and great grandsons. After the death of the emperor two brothers fought near Agra (in the same battle site that Aurangzeb had fought his brother Dara Shikoh. Prince Muazzam prevailed and killed his brother Prince Azam Shah and assumed the title Bahadur Shah I (or Shah Alam I). Another brother entered the fight a year later and was killed. Bahadur Shah was well in his sixties when he took control of the empire and soon died in 1712. During those five years he was busy fighting the insurgents in Rajastan and Panjab. Then in 1708 the last Sikh guru, Gobind Singh disappred by his spiritual power. Sikhs under Guru Gobind Singh had already transformed into a radical group after the execution of Guru Teg Bahadur by Aurangzeb. A year later a Banda Bahadur relentlessly stormed Muslim towns and became a thorn on the Mughal emperor’s side.
Bahadur Shah’s son Jahandar Shah succeeded after his death. However, during his tenure he gained a reputation as a womanizing drunk whose outrageous mistress Lal Kunwar took full advantage of the emperor’s condition and enriched herself as well as her brood. Jahandar Shah was killed in 1713 and then Bahadur’s grandson Farrukhsiyar acceded to the throne. With the help of two brothers called Saiyids, Farrukhsiyar restored some sanity to the Mughal rule. Later the Saiyids became intolerable to the emperor and one of them was sent away from Delhi to Deccan and the other was kept in constant watch in Delhi. In Deccan Saiyid Husain Ali Khan colluded with the Marathas and attacked Delhi and using trickery and intrigue seized Farrukhsiyar in the Red Fort. The emperor was blinded and caged and later poisoned as well as stabbed to death. However, prior to his death, Farrukhsiyar had the dubious distinction of aiding the British to have a firm foothold in India, by signing the much-coveted farman (an imperial directive) that would seal the future of British takeover of India.

A wretched youth, Shah Jahan II was made to occupy the throne after the murder of Farrukhsiyar but his rule lasted only three months. The Saiyids enthroned another pawn, Muhammad Shah as the Mughal emperor. He had an unexpected reign of close to thirty years. The Saiyids were disposed off but the emperor had little penchant for ruling. It was during his rule the notorious raids of Delhi by Nadir shah of Persia and the Afghan Ahmad Shah Abdali took place.

Marathas were now constantly attacking Delhi. Of more consequence and humiliation was the plunder of Delhi by Nadir Shah. A Timur descendent, Nadir Shah usurped the throne in Persia and seized Kandahar and Kabul. He marched through Panjab and was invited by Muhammad Shah as a guest to Delhi (only because he had neither the will nor the resources to fight him). Within forty-eight hours, using a lame excuse, Nadir Shah ordered a general massacre of Delhi citizens and looted every bit of wealth they could extort out of the royalty as well as Delhi’s citizenry. Nadir Shah remained in Delhi for forty eighty days and departed with millions worth of gold, jewelry and coins. Even the emperor’s throne, the bejeweled peacock throne of Shah Jahan was packed on elephants and carried away to Persia. Another prize, the Koh-I-nur diamond (Humayun’s diamond now passed back into Persian hands). To add insult to injury, the Shah humiliated the emperor by re-crowning him as the Mughal emperor in an ignoble celebration. Later an Afghani, Ahmad Shah Abdali started his incursions into Delhi just for the purpose of looting the capital. In a series of attacks starting in 1748 until 1761, Abdali would not only pillage and loot Delhi, he also cleaned out Mathura, Kashmir and cities in Panjab. From the east the British defeated the Nawab of Bengal and occupied the state of Bengal. The vast Mughal Empire was coming undone at its seams. The fortunes of the British in India were intertwined with the misfortunes of the Mughals.

The raids by Nadir Shah and repeated incursions of Abdali resulted in quick disposal of the next two emperors Ahmad Shah and Alamgir II until in 1759 Shah Alam II ascended the throne. His reign would last several decades. However, he would preside over more loss of territory to the British. When the Nawab of Bengal lost to Robert Clive, Shah Alam II was forced to recognize Clive as a diwan (chancellor) and Bengal slipped to the British hands permanently. Shah Alam II ruled well until his eighties and died as sightless wretch dressed in rags when an army from Bengal led by General Gerald Lake stormed Delhi and Agra. The Marathas like Scindias, Holkars and the Nagpur Bhonsles also had to relinquish power to the British and the British would now boast that they were complete masters of the whole of India.

In 1806 Shah Alam’s son Akbar Shah II acceded to the much diminished empire of the Mughals and ruled until 1837. His son Bahadur Shah Zafar II would be the last emperor of Mughals before the British deposed him in 1858 and the Mughal dynasty would officially come to a dishonourable end. During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Bahadur Shah II was forced to take the side of the mutineers though he had no power to affect the outcome of the events. The mutineers had outwitted his British sponsors and now the emperor neither had the troops nor the competence. He had no choice but to join the winning side. However, the success of the mutineers was soon reversed and the octogenarian (he was eighty-two years old) was relieved of his empire and deposed in 1858. The British also unleashed a flurry of revenge attacks on Delhi as well as luckless Bahadur Shah. Two of his sons and a grandson were shot while in custody. The emperor was then exiled to Rangoon in Burma where he died in obscurity in 1862.

The glory of the Mughal kingdom established in 1526 by the tiger from Kabul, Babur would end in 1858 and India’s fate was in the hands another expansionist foreign force, the imperial British.

Post-Mughal regional kingdoms

The post-Mughal era was dominated by the rise of the Maratha suzerianity as other small regional states (mostly post-Mughal tributary states) emerged, and also by the increasing activities of European powers. The Maratha Kingdom was founded and consolidated by Shivaji. By the 18th century, it had transformed itself into the Maratha Empire under the rule of the Peshwas. By 1760, the Empire had stretched across practically the entire subcontinent. This expansion was brought to an end by the defeat of the Marathas by an Afghan army led by Ahmad Shah Abdali at the Third Battle of Panipat (1761). The last Peshwa, Baji Rao II, was defeated by the British in the Third Anglo-Maratha War.

Mysore was a kingdom of southern India, which was founded around 1400 AD by the Wodeyar dynasty. The rule of the Wodeyars was interrupted by Hyder Ali and his son Tippu Sultan. Under their rule Mysore fought a series of wars sometimes against the combined forces of the British and Marathas, but mostly against the British with some aid or promise of aid from the French. Hyderabad was founded by the Qutb Shahi dynasty of Golconda in 1591. Following a brief Mughal rule, Asif Jah, a Mughal official, seized control of Hyderabad declaring himself Nizam-al-Mulk of Hyderabad in 1724. It was ruled by a hereditary Nizam from 1724 until 1948. Both Mysore and Hyderabad became princely states in British India.

The Punjabi kingdom, ruled by members of the Sikh religion, was a political entity that governed the region of modern day Punjab. This was among the last areas of the subcontinent to be conquered by the British. The Anglo-Sikh wars marked the downfall of the Sikh Empire. Around the 18th century modern Nepal was formed by Gorkha rulers, and the Shahs and the Ranas very strictly maintained their national identity and integrity.

The Marathas

The tale of the Marathas' rise to power and their eventual fall contains all the elements of a thriller: adventure, intrigue, and romanticism. Maratha chieftains were originally in the service of Bijapur sultans in the western Deccan, which was under siege by the Mughals.

Shivaji Bhonsle (1627-80) a tenacious and fierce fighter recognized as the "father of the Maratha nation," took advantage of this conflict and carved out his own principality near Pune, which later became the Maratha capital. Adopting guerrilla tactics, he waylaid caravans in order to sustain and expand his army, which soon had money, arms, and horses. Shivaji led a series of successful assaults in the 1660s against Mughal strongholds, including the major port of Surat. In 1674 he assumed the title of "Lord of the Universe" at his elaborate coronation, which signaled his determination to challenge the Mughal forces as well as to reestablish a Hindu kingdom in Maharashtra, the land of his origin. Shivaji's battle cries were swaraj (translated variously as freedom, self-rule, independence), swadharma (religious freedom), and goraksha (cow protection). Aurangzeb relentlessly pursued Shivaji's successors between 1681 and 1705 but eventually retreated to the north as his treasury became depleted and as thousands of lives had been lost either on the battlefield or to natural calamities. In 1717 a Mughal emissary signed a treaty with the Marathas confirming their claims to rule in the Deccan in return for acknowledging the fictional Mughal suzerainty and remission of annual taxes. Yet the Marathas soon captured Malwa from Mughal control and later moved east into Orissa and Bengal; southern India also came under their domain. Recognition of their political power finally came when the Mughal emperor invited them to act as auxiliaries in the internal affairs of the empire and still later to help the emperor in driving the Afghans out of Punjab.

The Marathas, despite their military prowess and leadership, were not equipped to administer the state or to undertake socioeconomic reform. Pursuing a policy characterized by plunder and indiscriminate raids, they antagonized the peasants. They were primarily suited for stirring the Maharashtrian regional pride rather than for attracting loyalty to an all-India confederacy. They were left virtually alone and without supplies before the invading Afghan forces, headed by Ahmad Shah Abdali (later called Ahmad Shah Durrani), who routed them on the blood-drenched battlefield at Third Battle of Panipat or Panipat in 1761. The shock of defeat hastened the break-up of their loosely knit confederacy into five independent states and extinguished the hope of Maratha dominance in India.

The Nizams of Hyderabad

Maratha raids into Berar, Kandesh, Gujarat and Malwa resumed after the death of Aurangzeb, and loosened Mughal control in the Deccan. In 1724 Asaf Jah, the Mughal Nizam ul Mulk, or viceroy, of the Deccan, defeated several contenders for control of the Mughal southern provinces, and established himself of ruler of an independent state with its capital at Hyderabad. He and his successors ruled as hereditary Nizams, and their state, known as Hyderabad after the capital, outlasted the Mughal empire, persisting until it was incorporated into newly-independent India in 1948. Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jahi was a strong ruler and established an orderly system of administration. He also attempted to reform the revenue system. The dynasty founded by him came to be known as the Asaf Jahi dynasty.

The Sikhs

The Afghan defeat of the Maratha armies accelerated the breakaway of Punjab from Delhi and helped the founding of Sikh overlordship in the northwest. Rooted in the bhakti movements that developed in the second century B.C. but swept across North India during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the teachings of the Sikh gurus appealed to the hard-working peasants. Facing extended persecution from the Mughals, the Sikhs, under Guru Gobind Singh formed the Khalsa (Army of Pure). The khalsa rose up against the economic and political repressions in Punjab toward the end of Aurangzeb's rule. Guerrilla fighters took advantage of the political instability created by the Persian and Afghan onslaught against Delhi, enriching themselves and expanding territorial control. By the 1770s, Sikh hegemony extended from the Indus in the west to the Yamuna in the east, from Multan in the south to Jammu in the north. But the Sikhs, like the Marathas, were a loose, disunited, and quarrelsome conglomerate of twelve kin-groups. It took Ranjit Singh (1780-1839), an individual with modernizing vision and leadership, to achieve supremacy over the other kin-groups and establish his kingdom in which Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims lived together in comparative equality and increasing prosperity. Ranjit Singh employed European officers and introduced strict military discipline into his army before expanding into Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Ladakh.

Colonial era
Arrival of the Europeans

Vasco da Gama led the first documented European expedition to India, sailing into Calicut on the southwest coast in 1498. In 1510 the Portuguese captured Goa, which became the seat of their activity. Under Admiral Alfonso de Albuquerque, Portugal successfully challenged Arab power in the Indian Ocean and dominated the sea routes for a century. Jesuits came to convert, to converse, and to record observations of India. The Protestant countries of the Netherlands and England, upset by the Portuguese monopoly, formed private trading companies at the turn of the seventeenth century to challenge the Portuguese.

Mughal officials permitted the new carriers of India's considerable export trade to establish trading posts (factories) in India. The Dutch East India Company concentrated mainly on the spice trade from present-day Indonesia. Britain's East India Company carried on trade with India. The French East India Company also set up factories.

An engraving titled "Sepoy Indian troops dividing the spoils after their mutiny against British rule" gives a contemporary view of events from the British perspective.

During the wars of the 18th century, the factories served not only as collection and transshipment points for trade but also increasingly as fortified centres of refuge for both foreigners and Indians. British factories gradually began to apply British law to disputes arising within their jurisdiction. The posts also began to grow in area and population. Armed company servants were effective protectors of trade. As rival contenders for power called for armed assistance and as individual European adventurers found permanent homes in India, British and French companies found themselves more and more involved in local politics in the south and in Bengal. Plots and counterplots climaxed when British East India Company forces, led by Robert Clive, decisively defeated the larger but divided forces of Nawab Siraj-ud-Dawlah at Plassey (Pilasi) in Bengal in 1757.

Religions in India

Religion in India ranks among the world's most ancient and varied. The Indian subcontinent spawned the Dharmic religions, which compose one of the world's three major schools of religion. Vedic religion gave rise to what is now the oldest extant and third-largest religion, Hinduism; almost 900 million of its one billion adherents live in the Republic of India. The other major Dharmic religions, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, each have millions of Indian followers. The Abrahamic religions of Islam and Christianity, spread by missionary activity and conquest over many centuries, are the two largest non-native religions.

More than four-fifths of Indians practice Hinduism. Islam, practised by around one-sixth of the population, is the most prevalent minority religion. Christianity and Sikhism are each practised by around 2% of Indians. About 1.1% practice Buddhism and 0.4% practice Jainism. Zoroastrianism and Judaism have a centuries-long history in India; each has several thousand Indian adherents.

More than nine-tenths of Indians state that religion plays a key role in their lives. Though inter-religious marriages are generally taboo, Indians are generally tolerant of other religions and retain a secular outlook. Inter-community clashes have never found widespread support in the social mainstream, and it is generally perceived that its causes are political rather than ideological in nature. India's religious diversity extends to the highest levels of government; the Prime Minister of India is a Sikh, the President of India is a Hindu, and the chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is a Christian. The Constitution of India declares the nation to be a secular republic that must uphold the right of citizens to freely worship and propagate any religion or faith.

Law

The preamble to the Constitution of India proclaimed India a "sovereign socialist secular democratic republic". The word secular was inserted into the Preamble by the Forty-second Amendment Act of 1976. It mandates equal treatment and tolerance of all religions. India does not have an official state religion; it enshrines the right to practice, preach, and propagate any religion. No religious instruction is imparted in government-supported schools. In S. R. Bommai vs. Union of India, the Supreme Court of India held that secularism was an integral tenet of the Constitution.

The right to freedom of religion is a fundamental right according to the Indian Constitution. The Constitution also recommends establishment of a uniform civil code for its citizens as a Directive Principle. However this has not been implemented until now. The Supreme Court has stated that the enactment of a uniform civil code all at once may be counterproductive to the unity of the nation, and only a gradual progressive change should be brought about. In Maharishi Avadesh v Union of India (1994) the Supreme Court dismissed a petition seeking a writ of mandamus against the government to introduce a common civil code, and thus laid the responsibility of its introduction on the legislature.

Religious communities continue to be governed by their own personal laws. Apart from Muslims, designated religious codes apply to Hindus, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Jews; for legal purposes, Buddhists and Sikhs are classified as Hindus and are subject to Hindu personal law. Civil laws for Muslims are based on Sharia law. The Code of Criminal Procedure is uniformly applied to all Indian citizens.

Aspects

Religion plays a major role in the Indian way of life. Rituals, worship, and other religious activities are very prominent in an individual's daily life; it is also a principal organizer of social life. The degree of religiosity varies among individuals; in recent decades, religious orthodoxy and observances have become less common in Indian society, particularly among young urban-dwellers.

Hinduism in India

India is the birthplace of Hinduism. Hinduism is seen by many non-Hindus a set of practices of the people of India. The word Hindu is derived from the word Sindhu and signifies a person coming from the land of the river Sindhu. The name Sindhu is what the Hindus called the Indus River. India is the home to the largest number of Hindus. Hinduism has origins of around 2500 BCE. Presently there are around 800 million Hindus living in India and several million Hindus of Indian origin living abroad (notably the USA and South Africa).

A Hindu is a person who practices good karma and bhakti for the achievement of moksha or mukti.

Hinduism is the largest religion in India, counting approximately 900 million adherents, comprising 80.4% of the population. Often considered a "way of life" rather than a religion, it arose in the Indian subcontinent during the period 2000-1500 BCE.

Hinduism differs from many religions in not having a single founder, a specific theological system, a single system of morality, or a central religious organization. The religion is ideologically tolerant and inclusive—qualities which have enabled it to co-exist with other religions over its long history. The main holy books of Hinduism are the Vedas (its foundation) and the Upanishads. Hindus are allowed to worship (or practice their bhagavat-dharma) God in any form and so many Hindus has even had a specific Purana for their deity.

Astika is a Sanskrit adjective (and noun) that is derived from asti ("it is or exists") meaning "believing" or "pious"; or "one who believes in the existence (of God, of another world, etc.)." Nastika (na (not) + āstika) is its negative, literally meaning "not believing" or "not pious". As used in Indian philosophy nastika refers to belief in Vedic-derived discipline, not belief or lack of belief in theism. In popular language the term nastika also means "atheist".

The followers of Tantra are often branded as Nāstika by the upholders of the Vedic tradition. The term Nāstika does not denote an atheist. It is applied only to those who do not believe in the Vedas. The Sāṅkhyas and Mīmāṃsakas do not believe in God, buth they believe in the Vedas and hence they are not Nāstikas. Many Buddhists, Jains, and Cārvākas do not believe in the Vedic principles; hence they are Nāstikas.

Hinduism is, in fact, an immense synthesis, deriving its elements from a hundred different directions, and incorporating every conceivable motive of religion. The motives of Hindu religion are manifold. Earth-worship, sun-worship, nature-worship, sky-worship, honour paid to heroes and ancestors, mother-worship, father-worship, prayers for the dead, the mystic association of certain plants and animals: and all these and more are included within Hinduism. And each marks some single age of the past, with its characteristic conjunction or invasion of races formerly alien to one another. They are all welded together now to form a great whole. Now and again in history a great systematizing impulse has striven to cast all or part of recognized belief into the form of an organic whole.
Hinduism is polytheist because many of it consists of practitioners who worship different forms of God, although it is monotheist because it advocates the belief in one God, it is pantheistic because it believe all things of the universe, including the Devtas are a part and parcel of God.

Hinduism advocates that God has three major aspects; to create, sustain and destroy. Hinduism teaches that both God and the soul are eternal, although God is infallible and that it is the aim of the human to reach God.

It follows the Vedic calender. The Rig Veda is the foundation of Hinduism, although a Hindu does not require to believe that Veda is the central source of knowledge, rather each Hindu is to seek out spiritual knowledge wherever they can.

Present state

Today, Hinduism and Islam play pivotal roles in politics, with political parties siding with one community, often at the expense of the other through votebank politics. However, radical Islamic and Hindu elements are still evident in some sensitive areas like Godhra, Mathura, Ayodhya, Mumbai, etc. There are 800 million Hindus(80% of Population) living in India right now, which is the majority of the world's Hindu population.

A Votebank is a loyal bloc of voters from a single community, who consistently back a certain candidate or political formation in democratic elections. Such behaviour is often the result of an expectation of real or imagined benefits from the political formations, often at the cost of other communities.
Votebank politics is the practice of creating and maintaining votebanks through divisive policies. As this brand of politics encourages voters to vote on the basis of narrow communal considerations, often against their better judgement, it is considered inimical to democracy.

Islam in India

Islam is the second-most practiced religion after Hinduism. There are approximately 138,188,240 Muslims in India (according to government census 2001), i.e 13.4% of the population. India has the second largest population of Muslims in the world (the largest being Indonesia).

Islam arrived in India as early as the 8th century A.D. During the following years, Islam contributed greatly to the cultural enhancement of an already rich Indian culture, shaping not only the shape of Northern Indian classical music (Hindustani, a melding of Indian and Middle Eastern elements) but encouraging a grand tradition of Urdu (a melding of Hindi, Arabic and Persian languages) literature, both religious and secular. There are about 75 sects of Islam followed in India.

Conversion controversy

Considerable controversy exists both in scholarly and public opinion about the conversions to Islam typically represented by the following schools of thought:
The bulk of Muslims are descendants of migrants from the Iranian plateau or Arabs.
Muslims sought conversion through jihad or political violence.
Conversions occurred for non-religious reasons of pragmatism and patronage such as social mobility among the Muslim ruling elite or for relief from taxes.
Conversion was a result of the actions of Sunni Sufi saints and involved a genuine change of heart.
Conversion came from Buddhists and the en masse conversions of lower castes for social liberation and as a rejection of the oppressive Hindu caste strictures.
A combination, initially made under duress followed by a genuine change of heart.
As a socio-cultural process of diffusion and integration over an extended period of time into the sphere of the dominant Muslim civilization and global polity at large.
Embedded within this lies the concept of Islam as a foreign imposition and Hinduism being a natural condition of the natives who resisted, resulting in the failure of the project to Islamicize the Indian subcontinent and is highly embroiled within the politics of the partition and communalism in India. An estimate of the number of people killed, based on the Muslim chronicles and demographic calculations, was done by K.S. Lal in his book Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, who claimed that between 1000 CE and 1500 CE, the population of Hindus decreased by 80 million. His work has come under criticism by historians such as Simon Digby (School of Oriental and African Studies) and Irfan Habib for its agenda and lack of accurate data in pre-census times. Lal has responded to these criticisms in later works. Historians such as Will Durant contend that Islam was spread through violence. Sir Jadunath Sarkar contends that several Muslim invaders were waging a systematic jihad against Hindus in India to the effect that "Every device short of massacre in cold blood was resorted to in order to convert heathen subjects." Hindus who converted to Islam were not immune to persecution due to the Muslim Caste System in India established by Ziauddin al-Barani in the Fatawa-i Jahandari., where they were regarded as an "Ajlaf" caste and subjected to discrimination by the "Ashraf" castes.
Disputers of the "Conversion by the Sword Theory" point to the presence of the large Muslim communities found in Southern India, Sri Lanka, Western Burma, Bangladesh, Southern Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines coupled with the distinctive lack of equivalent Muslim communities around the heartland of historical Muslim Empires in the Indian Sub-Continent as refutation to the "Conversion by the Sword Theory". The legacy of the Muslim conquest of South Asia is a hotly debated issue and argued even today. Different population estimates by economics historian Angus Maddisonand by Jean-Noël Biraben also indicate that India's population did not decrease between 1000 and 1500, but increased by about 35 million during that time.
Not all Muslim invaders were simply raiders. Later rulers fought on to win kingdoms and stayed to create new ruling dynasties. The practices of these new rulers and their subsequent heirs (some of whom were borne of Hindu wives) varied considerably. While some were uniformly hated, others developed a popular following. According to the memoirs of Ibn Batuta who travelled through Delhi in the 14th century, one of the previous sultans had been especially brutal and was deeply hated by Delhi's population, Batuta's memoirs also indicate that Muslims from the Arab world, Persia and Turkey were often favored with important posts at the royal courts suggesting that locals may have played a somewhat subordinate role in the Delhi administration. The term "Turk" was commonly used to refer to their higher social status. S.A.A. Rizvi (The Wonder That Was India - II), however points to Muhammad bin Tughlaq as not only encouraging locals but promoting artisan groups such as cooks, barbers and gardeners to high administrative posts. In his reign, it is likely that conversions to Islam took place as a means of seeking greater social mobility and improved social standing.

Discrimination

Despite being a sizeable minority, Muslims in India face substantial discrimination in the Hindu-majority country due to their religious affiliation. The partition of India based on religious lines was a controverial arrangement, and is still the cause of much tension between Hindus and Muslims. Further, since dalits converted to Islam to escape the caste system, many upper-caste Hindus look down upon Muslims as they had for generations looked down upon dalits. Many Muslims are denied housing in Hindu-dominated modern residential complexes. Institutionalized discrimination also occurs in India's government, where 90-95% of jobs are held by Hindus. Many Muslims adopt seperate "Hindu" identities and maintain a Hindu appearance in order to obtain work or maintain businesses, fearing their careers would be at risk if Hindus, the vast majority of their customers, realized that they were Muslims.

Christianity in India

Christianity is India's third-largest religion, following Hinduism and Islam. Christianity underwent major transformation following European contact and British colonisation. The 2001 census recorded over 24 million Indian Christians, comprising 2.3% of the country's population. There are three main regional concentrations of Christian population, namely in South India, in Konkan Coast and among tribal people in East, Central and North-East India.

Christianity, according to tradition arrived in India in the first century (c.52-85AD) through the apostle Thomas. The chronicle of his mission in India is recorded in the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, and the lesser-known Apocalypse of Thomas. In these books, Judas Thomas is regarded as the "Twin" of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, alleging that since this Thomas was identical in look to Christ, he was equal in piety. The apostle completed the conversion of a Malabar prince, and founded a church on the prince's grounds. According to the Gospel of Thomas, he later was buried in the foundation of that building, located by tradition near Mumbai (formerly Bombay).

Christianity was later consolidated in India, by the arrival of Syriac Jewish-Christians now known as Knanaya people in the second century A.D. This ancient ethnic Christian community of Kerala is known as Nasrani or Syrian Christian. The Nasrani people and especially the Knanaya people within the Nasranis have strong Jewish historical ties. Their form of Christianity is one of the most ancient: Syriac Christianity which is also known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and referred to in India as Saint Thomas Christians. It should be noted that the term "Saint Thomas Christians" is a loose term that many non-Nasranis Christians in Kerala are often labelled.

Roman Catholicism reached India during the period of European colonization, which began in 1498 when the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrived on the Malabar coast. There are over 17 million Catholics in India, which represents 1.5% of the total population. Christian missionary activity increased in the early 1800s. Today Christianity is the third largest religion of India making up 2 - 2.9% of the population. Christianity is prevalent in South & North-east India. Christians make up majority population in the states of Meghalaya, Nagaland and Mizoram. All these states are tribal and have extremely low population when compared to the larger states in India.

Hindu-Christian Conflict

Historically, Hindus and Christians have lived in relative peace since the arrival of Christianity in India from the early part of the first millennium. The arrival of European colonialists brought about large scale missionary activity in South India and North-East India. Many indigenous cultures were converted to Christianity. Sometimes they were voluntary, and other times they were violent and forced. The Goa Inquisition was an example of forced conversions imposed on Hindus, Muslims and Jews in India.

Hindus who converted to Christianity typically retained their social customs, including caste practices. Aggressive proselytizing by Christian missionaries under British rule was a cause of resentment among Hindus and Muslims in the 19th century, who felt that their cultures were being attacked. This was one of the causes of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 against the British Raj. Also, many Christian ideals prompted reform movements within the Hindu society in the 19th century, the most notable being the Brahmo Samaj, which was influenced by British Christian Unilateralism. Also, Indian Christians have retained Hindu customs and practices, and have combined Hindu customs with Christianity to achieve a unique brand of Indian Christianity. For instance, many Christians in India celebrate the Hindu festival of Diwali. This form of syncretism has been a source of frustration among the more radicalized and Eurocentric Christian missionaries who wanted a stronger brand of Christian Exclusivism among Indian Christians. For the most part, Indian Christians rejected religious exclusivism and have chosen to coexist with Hindus in peace.

In more contemporary periods, Hindu-Christian amity is sometimes challenged by partisan politics and extremism from both communities. Christian missionary activity among lower-caste Hindus has created groups of Crypto-Christians, particularly among Dalits. Unfortunately, among catholics, discrimination against Dalit Christians remain strong among certain sections of the Catholic Church in certain regions, perpetrated by upper-caste Christian clergy in India. As a response, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has successfully converted several Indian Christians back to Hinduism. As a response to allegedly aggressive missionary activity four Indian states (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu mainly) have passed laws restricting or prohibiting religious conversion. This has created some resentment in the Indian Christian community.

In October 2002, the governor of Tamil Nadu issued an ordinance aimed at preventing people from converting to Christianity, on the grounds that such conversions occur due to fraud. The accused may be sentenced to up to three years in jail if convicted of such a crime. The majority of instances of controversies with Christians in India do not involve the native Saint Thomas Christians or the Latin Rite Roman Catholics but the Protestants, evangelicals, Fundamentalist Christians and others. This ordinance was reportedly later repealed.

In July, 2006, BJP-dominated Madhya Pradesh government passed legislation requiring people who desire to convert to a different religion to provide the government with one-month's notice, or face fines and penalties.

In August, 2006, Chhattisgarh State Assembly (also BJP-dominated) passed similar legislation requiring anyone who desires to convert to another religion to give 30 days' notice to, and seek permission from, the district magistrate.

There have been some instances of violence between Hindu Nationalists groups and Christians. Human Rights groups like Human Rights Watch allege that there is large-scale violence being perpetrated by Hindutva Hindu Nationalists against Christians.

Dara Singh allegedly associated with the Bajrang Dal was involved in the murder of an Australian missionary named Graham Staines and the murderers sympathies from Hindu nationalist organization. In addition, there have been sporadic instances of violence between Hindu Nationalist groups like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Christians, although they have also worked together in many enterprises. For instance, the Hindu Nationalist group Sewa Bharati has collaborated with relief groups, such as the Catholics Bishops Conference of India to conduct relief operations in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Activities included building shelters for the victims, providing food, clothes and medical necessities. Also, and some Christian priests have come out in support of the RSS.

Fundamentalist Christian groups have emerged into prominence in their polemical attacks on Hinduism and Hindus. The case of a virulently anti-Hindu book names Haqeeqat (reality) launched by an evangelical named M.G. Matthew achieved prominence in Rajasthan.

The Government of the state of Tripura has uncovered evidence to support the assertion that the Baptist Church of Tripura has been supporting the terrorist group National Liberation Front of Tripura, a violent separatist group that has attacked and killed Hindus in the region and that has banned Hindu festivals by force.[13] The Baptist Church of Tripura was initially set up by missionaries from New Zealand in the 1940s. Despite their efforts, even until the 1980s, only a few thousand people in Tripura had converted to Christianity.

In the aftermath of one of the worst ethnic riots, the NLFT was born in 1989—allegedly with the help of the Baptist Church. Since then, the NLFT has been advancing its cause through armed rebellion. As of 2002, many members of NLFT have surrendered to Indian forces and the movement has split into two groups. Other Fundamentalist Christian terror groups include the Nagaland Rebels (1947-present), active in predominantly Christian state of Nagaland in Hindu majority India. They were involved in several bombings in 2004.

Muslim - Christian Conflict

Muslims in India who convert to Christianity have been known to be subjected to harassment, intimidation, and attacks. In Kashmir, a Christian convert named Bashir Tantray was killed, allegedly by militant Islamists in 2006.

A Christian priest, K.K. Alavi, who is a convert from Islam, recently raised the ire of his former Muslim community and has received many death threats. An Islamic terrorist group named "The National Development Front" actively campaigned against him.

Indian Jews are a religious minority of India. Judaism was one of the first foreign religions to arrive in India and assimilate with local traditions through cultural diffusion. The Jewish population in India is hard to estimate since each Jewish community is distinct with different origins; some arrived during the time of the Kingdom of Judah, others are seen by some as descendants of Israel's Lost Ten Tribes. Of the total Jewish population in India, about half live in Mizoram and a quarter live in the city of Mumbai. Unlike many parts of the world, Jews have historically lived in India without anti-Semitism from Indians (though they have been victims of anti-Semitism from the Portuguese and the Christian Goa Inquisition during their colonial rule). The majority Hindu community have been very tolerant towards most other religions in India. Jews have held important positions under Indian princes in the past and even after independence from British Rule, they have risen to very high positions in government, military and industry. Anti-Semitism in India has manifested itself through the rhetoric of Islamist outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba, who have declared Jews and Hindus to be enemies of Islam.

Sikhism in India

According to Sikhism in India "About 2% of India's population are Sikhs. Even so, the Sikhs, because of their unique appearance sometimes stand for India. Traditionally the men keep their hair and do not shave their beard or moustache. They gather their head hair in a turban. Sikhism is comparatively a new religion in India. This religion was established by Guru Nanak. Nanak was born into a Hindu family in 1469 in the Punjab region. Since childhood he loved to travel, learn and preach humanity. In those days people who taught and preached were titled Guru meaning teacher, his followers became to be known as Sikhs meaning learners. And so Guru Nanak developed a new religion and it also included beliefs from the two dominant religions in the Punjab region, Hinduism and Islam. Some claim that Guru Nanak tried to developed a new religion and included in it what he thought were the good beliefs of these two religions.

The creators of Sikhism tried to abolish some of the Indian customs such as the caste system and Sati (practice) - burning of the widow. In Sikhism everyone has equal rights irrespective of caste, creed, color, race, sex or religion. Sikhism rejects pilgrimage, fasting, superstitions and other such rituals. Sikhism does not have a clergy class as it considers this as a gateway to corruption. However, they have readers and singers in their temples.

Sikhism is a religion which began in sixteenth century Northern India with the teachings of Nanak and nine successive human gurus. This system of religious philosophy and expression has been traditionally known as the Gurmat (literally the teachings of the gurus) or the Sikh Dharma. Sikhism comes from the word Sikh, which in turn comes from the Sanskrit root śiṣya meaning "disciple" or "learner", or śikṣa meaning "instruction." Sikhism is the fifth-largest organised religion in the world.

Sikhism, was founded in India's northwestern Punjab region about 400 years ago and Sikhs form the majority population in the state of Punjab. As of 2001 there were 19.3 million Sikhs in India. Many of today's Sikhs are situated in Punjab, the largest Sikh province in the world and the ancestral home of Sikhs. There are also significant populations of Sikhs in the neighboring states of Haryana and New Delhi. The most famous Sikh temple is the Golden Temple, located in Amritsar, Punjab. Many Sikhs serve in the Indian Army. The current prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh, is a Sikh. Punjab is the spiritual home of Sikhs and is the only state in India where Sikhs form a majority.

The principal belief in Sikhism is faith in one God—Vāhigurū—represented using the sacred symbol of ēk ōaṅkār. Sikhism advocates the pursuit of salvation through disciplined, personal meditation on the name and message of God. The followers of Sikhism are ordained to follow the teachings of the ten Sikh gurus, or enlightened leaders, as well as the holy scripture—the Gurū Granth Sāhib—which includes the selected works of many authors from diverse socioeconomic and religious backgrounds. The text was decreed by Gobind Singh, the tenth guru, as the final guru of the Khalsa Panth. Sikhism's traditions and teachings are distinctly associated with the history, society and culture of the Punjab.

Adherents of Sikhism are known as Sikhs (students or disciples) and number over 23 million across the world. However, most Sikhs live in the state of Punjab in India; prior to partition, millions of Sikhs lived in what is now the Punjab province of Pakistan. Sikhs are now spread all over the world, though most Sikhs live in India. The Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh is a practising Sikh. Most Sikh men wear a turban, and are often mistaken for Muslims or Arabs. Interestingly, most turban sporting men in the West happen to be Sikhs.

The Sikh Gurdwara

A Sikh place of worship is called Gurdwara. Sikhism does not support pilgrimage to holy sites because according to Sikhism, God is everywhere and not in any certain place. But Sikhism has a few important sites, of which, the Hari Mandir, also known as the 'Golden Temple' in Amritsar in Punjab is the most important site and is considered the holiest shrine of Sikhism.

Sikhism emphasis community services and helping the needy. One of the distinct features of Sikhism is the common kitchen called Langar. In every Gurdwara there is a Langar. Every Sikh is supposed to contribute in preparing the meals in the free kitchen. The meals are served to all and are eaten sitting on the floor and this is to emphasis the point that all are equals. Sikhism does not believe in holding fasts for body is God's present to human being and therefore humans must foster, maintain and preserve it in good sound condition, unless fasting is done to foster the human body like healthy diets.

Guru Nanak who established Sikhism was its first Guru. After him there were nine more Gurus who were the highest religious authority. The last Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, proclaimed that after him the Guru of the Sikhs would be the holy book of Sikhism, Guru Granth Sahib.

Guru Granth Sahib is written in Gurmukhi script. It includes the writings of the Sikh Gurus and the writings of Hindu and Muslims saints. But out of humility Guru Gobind Singh did not include his own writings in the book he had proclaimed as the permanent Guru of the Sikhs. His writings appear in a separate book called Dasam Granth. Guru Gobind Singh is also the Guru behind the unique appearance of Sikh men.

Creating an Identity for the Sikhs

In order to make it easier for his followers to recognize each other, Gobind Singh, chose five marks, some of which even today symbolize the Sikhs. The five signs were, uncut hair; comb; sword or dagger; bracelet on the right wrist and shorts. The religious Sikhs dress according to Guru Gobind Singh's order, carrying a sword. Most of the Sikhs even today have uncut hair and gather it in a turban. But some easygoing Sikhs cut their hair or they do not gather their uncut hair in a turban.

The emphasis on militant tradition and community service in Sikhism continues even today and many Sikhs serve in the Indian army or police. The Sikhs also have a reputation as experts in steering, from cars to airplanes.They were among the first communities in India who dared to drive vehicles specially lorries. India being a vast country needed drivers who could also travel at nights. But many Indians believed in superstitions like ghosts and haunted places, while the Sikhs rejected these kinds of beliefs and therefore traveled at nights, since then their reputation as steering masters of India."
Buddhism in India

Buddhism, also known as Buddha Dharma "the teachings of the awakened one", is a dharmic, non-theistic religion, a way of life, a practical philosophy, and arguably a form of psychology. Buddhism focuses on the teachings of Siddharta Gautama, known as Gautama Buddha, who was born in Kapilavastu, ancient India which now falls under modern day Nepal, with the name Siddhārtha Gautama around the fifth century BCE. Buddhism spread throughout the Indian subcontinent in the five centuries following the Buddha's passing, and propagated into Central, Southeast, and East Asia over the next two millennia. It is originated in northern India in the 6th century BCE, and rapidly gained adherents during the Buddha's lifetime. Since, the religion was adopted mostly by the upper classes, its numbers in India remained small—in the hundreds of thousands. While the exact cause of the decline of Buddhism in India after the 9th century CE is not known, Vedanta reform movements, which incorporated Buddhist elements into Hinduism, are thought to have contributed to it, as did Islamic invasions of India, which devastated Buddhist monasteries, libraries, and statuary.

The 20th century saw a resurgence of Buddhism in India. In 1956, B. R. Ambedkar, the main architect of the Indian constitution, and thousands of his Dalit followers converted to Buddhism to protest the Indian caste system. Buddhists form majority populations in the Indian states of Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, and the Ladakh region of Jammu & Kashmir. In all, around 11 million Buddhists live in India today.

Most of the Buddhists in India have Hindu names.

Today, Buddhism is divided primarily into three traditions: Theravāda (Sanskrit: Sthaviravāda), Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna. Buddhism continues to attract followers worldwide, and it is considered a major world religion. According to one source, "World estimates for Buddhists vary between 230 and 500 million, with most around 350 million." However, estimates are uncertain for several countries.

Buddhism is the fourth-largest organised religion in the world, and the monks' order Sangha is amongst the oldest organisations on earth.

Most Buddhists also believe that the Dharma as taught by the Buddha predates the Tripitaka. Buddhists believe in a long lineage of Buddhas in the world, with Kassapa Buddha, Konagamana Buddha, and Kakusandha Buddha appearing in the world previous to the present Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha.

Doctrine

Few things can be said with certainty about Mahayana Buddhism, especially its early Indian form, other than that that the Buddhism practiced in China, Korea, Tibet, and Japan is Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana can be described as a loosely bound bundle of many teachings, which was able to contain the various contradictions found between those differing teachings.

Mahayana is a vast religious and philosophical structure. It constitutes an inclusive faith characterized by the adoption of new Mahayana Sutras, in addition to the traditional Pali canon or Aghama texts, and a shift in the basic purpose and concepts of Buddhism. Mahayana sees itself as penetrating further and more profoundly into the Buddha's Dharma. In the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, for instance, the Buddha tells of how his initial teachings on suffering, impermanence and non-Self were given to those who were still like "small children", unable to digest the full "meal" of Truth, whereas when those spiritual students "grow up" and are no longer satisfied by the preliminary ingredients of the Dharmic meal fed to them and require fuller sustenance, they are then ready to assimilate the full and balanced fare of the Mahayana teachings (Mahaparinirvana Sutra).

Mahayana Buddhist schools de-emphasize the traditional Theravada ideal of the release from suffering and attainment of Awakening. In Mahayana, the Buddha is seen as an eternal, immutable, inconceivable, omnipresent Being. In addition, most Mahayana schools believe in a pantheon of quasi-divine Bodhisattvas that devote themselves to personal excellence, ultimate knowledge and the salvation of humanity and all other sentient beings (animals, ghosts, demigods etc.). Zen Buddhism is a school of Mahayana which often de-emphasizes the pantheon of Bodhisattvas and instead focuses on the meditative aspects of the religion. In Mahayana, the Buddha is seen as an idealized example, present in all times, in all beings and in all places, and the Bodhisattvas come to represent the universal ideal of altruistic excellence.

The fundamental principles of Mahayana doctrine were based around the possibility of universal liberation from suffering for all beings (hence "great vehicle") and the existence of Buddhas and Bodhisattva embodying transcendent Buddha-nature - the eternal Buddha essence present but hidden and unrecognised in all beings - who strive to achieve such a goal. Some Mahayana schools simplify the expression of faith for the common lay people, by allowing salvation to be alternatively obtained through the grace of the Buddha Amitabha by having faith and devoting oneself in chanting to Amitabha. This devotional lifestyle of Buddhism is most strongly emphasized by the Pure Land schools and has greatly contributed to the success of Mahayana in East Asia, where spiritual elements traditionally relied upon chanting of a buddha's name, of mantras or dharanis, reading of Mahayana sutras and mysticism.

There is a tendency in Mahayana sutras to regard the adherence to Mahayana sutras as generating spiritual benefits greater than those which arise from being a follower of the non-Mahayana approaches to Dharma. Thus in the Srimala Sutra it is asserted by the Buddha that devotion to Mahayana is inherently superior in its virtues to the following of the sravaka or pratyekabuddha path:

" ...just as the magnificence of the finest thorough-bred among cattle outshines the rest of the herd in height and weight and so on, so even to uphold the Saddharma [True Dharma] of the Mahayana, even a little, is greater and vaster than all the wholesome dharmas of the Shravaka and Pratyekabuddha yanas [vehicles]."
Mahayana Buddhism can in general be characterized by:

Universalism, in that everyone will become a buddha
Bodhicitta as the main focus of realization
Compassion through the transferral of merit;
Salvation - as opposed to liberation - supported by a rich cosmography, including celestial realms and powers, with a spectrum of bodhisattvas, both human and seemingly godlike, who can assist followers.

Transcendental immanence, in that the immortal Buddha Principle is present within all beings.

“Philosophical” Mahayana tends to focus on the first three characteristics (universalism, enlightened wisdom, compassion) and, in some schools, the Buddha-nature, without showing much interest in supernatural constructions, while “devotional” Mahayana focuses mainly on salvation towards other-worldly realms (see, for example, the Sukhavati sutras).

Universalism

Mahayana traditions generally consider that attainment of the level of an arhat is not final. This is based on a subtle doctrinal distinction between the Mahayana and the early Buddhist schools concerning the issues of nirvana-with-remainder and nirvana-without-remainder.

The early schools considered that nirvana-without-remainder always follows nirvana-with-remainder (buddhas first achieve enlightenment and then, at 'death', mahaparinirvana) and that nirvana-without-remainder is final; whereas the Mahayana traditions consider that nirvana-without-remainder is always followed by nirvana-with-remainder – the state of attainment of the Hinayana arhat is not final, and is eventually succeeded by the state of buddhahood, or total Awakening.

This distinction is most evident regarding doctrinal concerns about the capability of a buddha after nirvana (which is identified by the early schools as being nirvana-without-remainder). Most importantly, amongst the early schools, a samyaksambuddha is not able to directly point the way to nirvana after death. This is a major distinction between the early schools and the Mahayana, who conversely state that once a samyaksambuddha arises, he or she continues to directly and actively point the way to nirvana until there are no beings left in samsara. Because the views of early schools and Mahayana differ in this respect, this is exactly why the Mahayana do not talk about a bodhisattva postponing nirvana, and exactly why the early schools do.

For example, the early schools held that Maitreya will not attain nirvana while Gautama Buddha's teachings still exist. In contrast, some Mahayana schools hold that Maitreya will be the next buddha manifest in this world and will introduce the dharma when it no longer exists; he is not postponing his nirvana to do so, and when he dies (or enters mahaparinirvana), he will likewise continue to teach the dharma for all time. Moreover, some Mahayana schools argue that although it is true that for this world-system, Maitreya will be the next buddha to manifest, there are an infinite number of world-systems, many of which have currently active buddhas or buddhas-to-be manifesting.

So, based on the doctrinal distinctions between the early schools and the Mahayana concerning the meaning of nirvana-without-remainder, we see two distinct views concerning the path of the bodhisattva, with the early schools stating that bodhisattvas postpone their own nirvana, whereas the Mahayana schools state that bodhisattvas attempt to reach nirvana as soon as possible, just as sravakas do, but with the motive to continue to effortlessly benefit all beings for all time due to the distinction of views regarding the ability of a buddha after mahaparinirvana.

Because the Mahayana traditions assert that eventually everyone will achieve samyaksambuddhahood or total enlightenment, the Mahayana is labelled universalist, whereas because the Nikaya traditions assert that there are three routes to nirvana, which are distinct, they are considered not to be universalist.

Distinguishing features of Vajrayana

Vajrayana Buddhism claims to provide an accelerated path to enlightenment. This is achieved through use of tantra techniques, which are practical aids to spiritual development, and esoteric transmission (explained below). Whereas earlier schools might provide ways to achieve nirvana over the course of many lifetimes, Vajrayana techniques are said to make full enlightenment or buddhahood possible in a shorter time, perhaps in a single lifetime. Vajrayana Buddhists do not claim that Theravada or Mahayana practices are invalid; in fact, the teachings from those traditions are said to lay an essential foundational practice on which the Vajrayana practices may be built. While the Mahayana and Theravada paths are said to be paths to enlightenment in their own right, the teachings from each of those vehicles must be heeded for the Vajrayana to work. The Vajrayana path is considered to be a path within the Mahayana which employs special means or practices to "accelerate" the process of awakening. It should also be noted that the goal of the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions is to become a Buddha by following the bodhisattva path, whereas an alternative, and more common, goal for Theravada practice is 'simply' liberation from the cycle of rebirth (samsara) by achieving nirvana. In fact the distinction between these traditions is not always rigid: the tantra sections of editions of the Kangyur sometimes include material not usually thought of as tantric outside the Tibetan tradition, such as the Heart Sutra and even versions of material found in the Pali Canon.

Tantra techniques

According to the Vajrayana tradition, at certain times during sex, death, meditation and dreaming and at other liminal states, the bodymind is in a very subtle state which can be used by advanced practitioners to transform the mindstream. According to the Vajrayana tradition it is possible to attain enlightenment in a single lifetime by practicing certain techniques.

Guru yoga (or 'teacher practice') is a practice where the practitioner focuses on their guru as deity during meditation. The Guru or spiritual teacher is essential as a guide during tantra practice, without his example, blessings and help, genuine progress is said to be impossible. Many tantric texts contain phrases like "Guru is Buddha, Guru is Dharma and Guru is Sangha" to reflect his importance for the disciple.

Deity yoga (or 'deity practice') is the fundamental practice in Tantra in which meditators visualize themselves as the deity. The purpose of Deity yoga is to bring the meditator to the realization that the deity and oneself are in essence the same. It allows the meditator to release themselves from worldly attachments and to practice compassion and wisdom simultaneously. Together with images (statues, murals or thangkas) of the deities, mandalas are often used as visualization aids in Deity yoga. Mandalas are artwork that represent the deity and the deity’s palace. In the book, The World of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama describes them thus: “This is the celestial mansion, the pure residence of the deity.”

Death yoga (or 'death practice') is another important aspect of Tantra techniques. Although it is called Death yoga, most of the practice actually happens during life. It is the accumulation of meditative practice that helps to prepare the practitioner for what they need to do at the time of death. At the time of death the mind is in a state (clear light) that can open the mind to enlightenment, when used very skillfully. It is said that masters like Lama Tsong Khapa used these techniques to achieve enlightenment during the death process. Actually, there are three stages at which it is possible to do this; at the end of the death process, during the bardo (or 'inbetween period') and during the process of rebirth. During these stages, the mind is in a very subtle state, and an advanced practitioner can use these natural states to make significant progress on the spiritual path. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is an important commentary for this kind of traditional practice.

This Death yoga should not be confused with normal meditation on death, which is a common practice within Buddhist traditions. In most non-tantra traditions it is done to reduce attachment and desire, and not to use the death process itself as a means to practice.

Relationship with Mahayana

While tantra and esoterism distinguish Vajrayana Buddhism, it is, from the Tibetan Buddhist point of view, nonetheless primarily a form of Mahayana Buddhism. Sutras important to Mahayana are generally important to Vajrayana, although Vajrayana adds some of its own. The importance of bodhisattvas and a pantheon of deities in Mahayana carries over to Vajrayana, as well as the perspective that Buddhism and Buddhist spiritual practice are not intended just for ordained monks, but for the laity too.

The Japanese Vajrayana teacher Kūkai expressed a view contrary to this by making a clear distinction between Mahayana and Vajrayana. Kūkai characterises the Mahayana in its entirety as exoteric, and therefore provisional. From this point of view the esoteric Vajrayana is the only Buddhist teaching which is not a compromise with the limited nature of the audience to which it is directed, since the teachings are said to be the Dharmakaya (the principle of enlightenment) in the form of Mahavairocana, engaging in a monologue with himself. From this view the Hinayana and Mahayana are provisional and compromised aspects of the Vajrayana - rather than seeing the Vajrayana as primarily a form of Mahayana Buddhism.

Some aspects of Vajrayana have also filtered back into Mahayana. In particular, the Vajrayana fondness for powerful symbols may be found in weakened form in Mahayana temples where protector deities may be found glaring down at visitors.

The Vajrayana has a rich array of vows of conduct and behaviour which is based on the rules of the Pratimoksha and the Bodhisattva code of discipline. The Ornament for the Essence of Manjushrikirti states:

Distance yourself from Vajra Masters who are not keeping the three vows who keep on with a root downfall, who are miserly with the Dharma, and who engage in actions that should be forsaken.
Those who worship them go to hell and so on as a result.
This as well as other sources express the need to build the Vajrayana on the foundation of the Pratimoksha and Bodhisattva vows. Lay persons can follow the lay ordination. The Ngagpa Yogis from the Nyingma school keep a special lay ordination.

Besides this, there are also special tantric vows that need to be kept when practicing the highest levels of tantra, which can vary somewhat depending on the specific practice.

History of Vajrayana

There are differing views as to where Vajrayana began. Some believe it originated in Bengal, now divided between the Republic of India and Bangladesh, with others claiming it began in Uddiyana, located by some scholars in the modern day Swat Valley in Pakistan, or in South India. In the Tibetan tradition, it is claimed that the historical Shakyamuni Buddha taught tantra, but as these are 'secret' teachings outside the teacher/disciple relationship, they were written down generally long after the Buddha's other teachings, known as sutras.

The earliest texts appeared around the early 4th century. Nalanda University in northern India became a center for the development of Vajrayana theory, although it is likely that the university followed, rather than led, the early Tantric movement. India would continue as the source of leading-edge Vajrayana practices up through the 11th century.

(Vajrayana) Buddhism had mostly died out in India by the 13th century, its practices merging with Hinduism, and both tantric religions were experiencing pressure from invading Islamic armies. By that time, the vast majority of the practices were also made available in Tibet, where they were preserved until recently, although the Tibetan version of tantra differs from the original Indian form in many respects.

In the second half of the 20th century a sizable number of Tibetan exiles fled the oppressive, anti-religious rule of the Communist Chinese to establish Tibetan Buddhist communities in northern India, particularly around Dharamsala. They remain the primary practitioners of Tantric Buddhism in India and the entire world.

Jainism in India

Jainism, along with Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism, is one of the four major Dharmic religions originating in India. Dating back to the first millennium BCE, the religion was well in place during the lifetime of its 24th tirthankar, Mahavira. Today, Jains are extremely well-represented in the major professions, despite comprising only 0.4% (around 4.2 million) of India's population. According to the 2001 Census of India, Jains have the highest literacy rate of any religious group—94.1%, in contrast to the national average of 64.8%.

Because Jainism is a Dharmic religion, it has significantly been influence by Hinduism. Principles such as moksha, nirvana, vegetarianism and others apply to the religion. Many Jains practice Hinduism; they believe in Moksha and practice bhakti on Hindu deities.

All Jains whether Hindu or not, carry Hindu names.

Jainism, traditionally known as Jain Dharma, is one of the oldest religions and philosophies originating in ancient India. A minority in modern India, with growing immigrant communities in the United States, Western Europe, Africa, the Far East and elsewhere, Jains continue to sustain the ancient Shraman or ascetic tradition.

Jains have significantly influenced the religious, ethical, political and economic spheres in India for about three millennia. Jainism stresses spiritual independence and equality of all life with particular emphasis on non-violence. Self-control is vital for attaining Keval Gyan and eventually moksha, or realization of the soul's true nature.

The Jain Sangha, or community, has four components: monks, nuns (sadhvi), laymen, or Shravakas, and laywomen, (Shravikas). A Shravaka follows basic principles or "Niyam".

Perhaps the smallest, Jainism has survived and co-existed with the vedic religion. It is a religious system which does not recognize a Godhead, and which reveres liberated souls known as Siddhas. The followers of Jainism firmly reject the Vedas, but strongly adhere to dharma, moksha and nirvana. The concepts of karma, bhagwan, moksha, avtara, dharma, tattvas and devas, although occurring in both Hinduism and Jainism, are viewed by Jains as distinct in meaning and connotation between the two faiths.
Jains believe that Jainism is a religion predating the Vedas. According to their sacred texts, the Jain Agamas, the first Jain Tirthankar, Adinath (in the present "kaal"-see infra), was the father of human civilization who later developed the Vedic religions and other traditions. Further, Jain theology believes the universe to be self-sustaining and without any external entity as its benefactor. Thus, Jains do not believe in "God" as the creator of the Universe, or its sustainer or destroyer. Further, another very interesting facet is the Jain belief of time, according to which in each "Avsarpini" and "Utsarpini" "kaal" (Sanskrit for "time period") there is a "Chaubisi" (the set of 24 tirthankars). Thus, per the Jains' scriptures, the universe is much older than the present "Chaubisi" (with Lord Rishabh as the 1st, and Lord Mahaveer as the 24th); there have been infinite "Chaubisis" in previous times, and there would be infinite more, in times to come.

Jains believe all souls are equal because they all possess the potential of being liberated and attaining Moksha. Tirthankars are role models only because they have attained Moksha. Jains believe that every human is responsible for his/her actions and all living beings have an eternal soul, jīva. It insists that we live, think and act respectfully and honor the spiritual nature of all life. Jains view God as the unchanging traits of the pure soul of each living being, chiefly described as Infinite Knowledge, Perception, Consciousness, and Happiness (Ananta Jnana, Ananta Darshana, Ananta Caritra, and Ananta Sukha). Jains do not believe in an omnipotent supreme being, creator or manager (karta), but rather in an eternal universe governed by natural laws.

Jain scriptures were written over a long period of time, but the most cited is the Tattvartha Sutra, or Book of Reality written by the monk-scholar, Umasvati almost 1800 years ago. The primary figures are Tirthankaras. There are two main sects called Digambar and Svetambar, and both believe in ahimsa (or ahinsā), asceticism, karma, sanskar, and jiva.

Compassion for all life, human and non-human, is central to Jainism. Human life is valued as a unique, rare opportunity to reach enlightenment. To kill any person, no matter what crime they committed, is considered unimaginably abhorrent. It is the only religion that requires monks and laity, from all its sects and traditions, to be vegetarian. Some Indian regions have been strongly influenced by Jains and often the majority of the local non-Jain population has also become vegetarian. History suggests that various strains of Hinduism became vegetarian due to strong Jain influences. In many towns, Jains run animal shelters. For example, Delhi has a bird hospital run by Jains.

Jainism's stance on nonviolence goes much beyond vegetarianism. Jains refuse food obtained with unnecessary cruelty. Many are vegan due to the violence of modern dairy farms, and others exclude root vegetables from their diets in order to preserve the lives of the plants from which they eat. Potatoes, garlic and onions in particular are avoided by Jains. Devout Jains do not eat, drink, or travel after sunset.

Anekantavada, a foundation of Jain philosophy, literally means "The Multiplicity of Reality", or equivalently, "Non-one-endedness". Anekantavada consists of tools for overcoming inherent biases in any one perspective on any topic or in reality in general. Another tool is The Doctrine of Postulation, Syādvāda. Anekantavada is defined as a multiplicity of viewpoints, for it stresses looking at things from others' perspectives.

Jains are usually very welcoming and friendly toward other faiths and often help with interfaith functions. Several non-Jain temples in India are administered by Jains. A palpable presence in Indian culture, Jains have contributed to Indian philosophy, art, architecture, science, and to Mohandas Gandhi's politics, which led to the mainly non-violent movement for Indian independence.

Jain contributions to Indian culture

While Jains represent only 0.4% of the Indian population, their contributions to culture and society in India are considerable. Jains have wielded great influence on the culture and language of Karnataka and Southern India. Jainism has influenced Gujarat most significantly. The earliest known Gujarati text, Bharat-Bahubali Ras, was written by a Jain monk. Some of the most important people in Gujarat's Jain history were Acharya Hemacandra Suri and his pupil, the Calukya ruler Kumarapala.

Jains are both among the wealthiest of Indians and the most philanthropic. They run numerous schools, colleges and hospitals and are some of the most important patrons of the Somapuras, the traditional temple architects in Gujarat. Jains have greatly influenced Gujarati cuisine. Gujarat is predominantly vegetarian, and its food has a mild aroma as onions and garlic are omitted.

Jains encourage their monks to do research and obtain higher education. Jain monks and nuns, particularly in Rajasthan, have published numerous research monographs. This is unique among Indian religious groups and parallels Christian clergy. The 2001 census states that Jains are India's most literate community and that India's oldest libraries at Patan and Jaisalmer are preserved by Jain institutions.

Other Religions in India

Judaism

Trade contacts between the Mediterranean region and the west coast of India probably led to the presence of small Jewish settlements in India as long ago as the early first millennium B.C. In Kerala a community of Jews tracing its origin to the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 has remained associated with the cities of Kodungallur (formerly known as Cranganore) and Kochi (formerly known as Cochin) for at least 1,000 years. The Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi, rebuilt in 1568, is in the architectural style of Kerala but preserves the ritual style of the Sephardic rite, with Babylonian and Yemenite influence as well. The Jews of Kochi, concentrated mostly in the old "Jew Town," were completely integrated into local culture, speaking Malayalam and taking local names while preserving their knowledge of Hebrew and contacts with Southwest Asia. A separate community of Jews, called the Bene Israel, had lived along the Konkan Coast in and around Bombay, Pune, and Ahmadabad for almost 2,000 years. Unlike the Kochi Jews, they became a village-based society and maintained little contact with other Jewish communities. They always remained within the Orthodox Jewish fold, practising the Sephardi rite without rabbis, with the synagogue as the centre of religious and cultural life. Following trade routes established by the expansion of the British Empire, a third group of Jews, the Baghdadi Jews immigrated to India, settling primarily in Bombay and Calcutta. Many of the Baghdadi traders became wealthy and participated prominently in the economic leadership of these growing cities. As a result of religious pressure elsewhere, including the forced conversions of Mashhad (see Muslim Jew), their numbers were increased by religious refugees. The Baghdadis came mostly from the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and Afghanistan.

The population of the Kochi Jews, always small, had decreased from 5,000 in 1951 to about fifty in the early 1990s. During the same period, the Bene Israel decreased from about 20,000 to 5,000, while the Baghdadi Jews declined from 5,000 to 250. Emigration to Australia, Israel, the United Kingdom, and North America accounts for most of this decline. According to the 1981 Indian census, there were 5,618 Jews in India, down from 5,825 in 1971. The 1991 census showed a further decline to 5,271, most of whom lived in Maharashtra and Kerala.

The Knanaya and Nasrani Christian groups also have strong historical ties to Judaism.

Ayyavazhi

Ayyavazhi is a religion which originated in south India in the 19th century. Officially, in India, it is considered a sect within Hinduism, and its followers are counted as Hindus in the census. Ayyavazhi is also viewed as a Hindu Renaissance. Ayyavazhi has transformed itself into a distinctive and recognizable religion, having made its presence felt in southern India starting in the mid 1830s. Ayyavazhi served initially also as a reformatory system in the society of Travancore, which was noted, unlike any other part of India, for the rule of caste order. It has more than 8000 worship centers throughout India, mostly in the southern parts of Tamil Nadu and south Kerala.

Although it shares ideas with Hinduism, the Ayyavazhi scriptures reformulate them into versions distinct from Hinduism. The religion has separate mythology, theology, holy places, worship centers and religious headquarters.

Followers of Ayyavazhi differ from other Hindus in that they recognize a Satan-like figure, Kroni, who is the primordial manifestation of evil and who manifests in various forms, (for example, Ravana and Duryodhana) in different ages or yugas. God, as Vishnu, becomes incarnate in his avatars, including Rama, Krishna and eventually Ayya Vaikundar, to destroy the foremost evil.

Kali, the evil spirit of Kali Yuga, is said to be omnipresent in this age and this is one of the reasons why the followers of Ayyavazhi, like other Hindus, believe that the current yuga, Kali Yuga, is decadent. This evil spirit is been destroyed by Vaikundar and transform the world to Dharma Yukam the 'world of rightiousness.

Charity is Ayyavazhi's primary mission and Anna Dharmam (offerings of food) can be seen in Ayyavazhi centres of worship at least once a month.

Beliefs

Followers of Ayyavazhi believe in reincarnation and the following Dharma Yukam, which is the eighth, final, yukam in which Ayya Vaikundar will rule the world with the Santror. However, they condemn the Indian caste system. They also reject the use of standard Hindu murti in worship. However, as a point of focus, a non-anthropomorphic symbol had been introduced to be used as a point of devotional and meditational focus. This symbol, the Elunetru, which is placed in the Palliyarai, is considered a seat of God rather than God himself. The same is true of the Elunetru's alternative name, Asanam, which means "seat." Behind this asana, a mirror is installed to reflect the worshipper which implies, "God is yourself (or) God is within you”, revealing an idea on God similar to Advaita theology.

Teachings and Impact

While the majority of Ayyavazhi's key teachings can be found in the book Akilattirattu Ammanai, some other teachings are collected from various books which are believed to be written by the disciples composed in Arul Nool. As Dharma the other teachings of Ayyavazhi too proceeds in two ways, one in sociological and other in mystical. While social teachings are highly implemented in breaking out inequalities and discriminations in society, the mystical teachings are devoted for revealing supreme knowledge unbounded to space and time. The teachings also drive out fearsome aspects of people towards god and feed them to maintain a close relationship with God. By teaching to refer God as Ayya, (dear father) their intimacy and affection to towards God is strengthened.

Ayyavazhi on its social teachings clearly and explicitly condemns the caste system. It also served from its beginning as an institution for social reform, particularly in the area of Travancore. Travancore was noted for its unusually strong caste system culture.There, in addition to the untouchables which is to be found throughout India, they also had groups of people who were regarded as the "unapproachable" and "unseeable". In this social contest, the intermingling of the castes brought about in Ayyavazhi centres was one of the vital elements in the transformation of that society.

The three Kumbas mounted above the roof of the Sanctum sanctorium of Swamithope pathi, symbolizing the existence of Trinity within Narayana who incarnated as Vaikundar.

Ayyavazhi beliefs are closely related to those of Smartism and Advaita Vedanta, especially in the beliefs related to Trimurthi. Hence, Ayyavazhi's followers believe that Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are different aspects of the same God.[60] While some claim that the beliefs of Akilattirattu are related to Dvaita and Vishishtadvaita, Ayyavazhi endorses the concept of Ultimate Oneness.

Ayyavazhi mystics highly focus on supreme oneness. In the midst of all variations the theology always maintains this oneness sharply. And the teachings goes that, the evil of Kali is the one which blocks that ultimate or supreme oneness prevailing between individual souls and the universe, and gives an individuality and extreme pride to each souls and make them departing from the quality of the supreme oneness and motivating against it. The 'over-soul' or the supreme soul, Ekam is termed as the whole existence with change less nature, which is viewed by individual souls as, 'one which undergoes different changes with respect to 'space and time' because of the evil force, maya influencing them.
All creations are evolved from this Ekam, the supreme consciousness. So all the qualities of Ekam are within each souls, which evolved from it. So individual souls are related to Ekam, the universal consciousness. It also says that every souls as reflections or mirrors of this supreme and absolute, Ekam. This is the spiritual meaning of the mirror worship in Ayyavazhi. So far human and all other souls are restricted to the limits of the evil Kali, individual souls are not eligible to attain the supreme bliss and so this souls are considered secondary to Ekam the supreme soul. Once a soul overcome the influence of maya it gets unified with Ekam. Its individuality is no more and thereby it's Ekam. On the other hand this supreme consciousness is termed as Paramatma (over-soul). By this personification, God is the taught to be the 'Husband' while all other souls are his consorts. The Thirukkalyana Ekanai in Akilam fifteen symbolises this clearly as if God (Ekam) is marrying or unifying into himself the individual souls.

Also, the philosophy applies a common formula for the creationism of human beings and the rest of the universe, so whatever exists externally to human beings exists also internally.

Ayyavazhi theology
The theology of Ayyavazhi differs from other monistic religions. It speaks of Ekam, the ultimate Oneness from which all that which exists formed. It also speaks of an oneness that exists behind all differences. The Ekam itself is remaining unaffected by maya deep inside every changeable matters as an absolute constant. So as per the theology, God is, in the highest sense, one, formless, infinite, genderless, beyond Time and space etc. Also, it's notable that the term Ekam in Tamil gives simply the meaning, "one and the incomparable supreme". This is some sort of monistic definition about god from Ayyavazhi theology.

Narrating through mythology, Sivam and Sakthi evolved from Ekam. The Natham(voice), Trimurthi, other lesser gods and all the universe further evolved. Siva is considered to be the supreme power till Kali Yuga. For a series of reasons, Vishnu is considered to be the supreme from the advent of Kali Yuga. Then from the incarnation of Vaikundar, again the powers of all god-heads, including Vishnu is transformed to Vaikundar. Also Ekam, the supreme power take a place within Vaikundar and hence for the present age, Vaikundar is said to be the only worshippable and supreme power. But on the other hand this supreme oneness (Ekam) itself is said to be created by Vaikundar, who is a personified universal power. Regarding this, Ayyavazhi is more monotheistic than a monistic. But no other god-heads, even the Father of Vaikundar, Narayana hasn't gained an equal or greater status than Ekam.

In Ayyavazhi mythology, Kroni was personified as a devil, and was fragmented into six and was finally destroyed by a final judgement which is followed by the god-ruled Dharma Yukam. This narration gives some dualistic dimension to Ayyavazhi theology. But since the teachings of Arul Nool and since the final fragment of Kroni is said as 'Kalimayai' (the evil spirit) it was commonly accepted that the destruction of Maya is symbolised in such a way, which contrast the dualistic view on Ayyavazhi. Apart from all these, there are also separate quotes in Ayyavazhi scriptures which give pantheistic and panentheistic definition to Ayyavazhi theology.

Rituals

In addition to the philosophical concepts and mythology, the rituals of Ayyavazhi evolved in their own way. Most of the rituals have both different operational and historical meanings. Historically, the rituals were used or viewed as an attempt break the case based inequalities prevailed in the then society and to strengthen and uplift the sociologically downtrodden and ill-treated. Examples of this include the physical as well as spiritual cleanliness through Thuvayal Thavasu, eliminating untouchability through Thottunamam, self-respect and courage through headgear, and unifying various castes through Muthirikkinaru. But they reveal on the other hand, high philosophical ideas preached in a ritual language.

The Muthirikkinaru and Thirunamam is treated religiously as if the 'Patham and Namam' of it has the power to heal all sorts of mental as well as physical illness. Thuvayal thavasu is suggested to be followed as a training to reach the ultimate aim of Dharma Yukam. The usage of head-gear as the crown to reveal that 'all are kings', visualising some sort of ideology similar to advaita. Also Ayyavazhi scriptures succeeded very much in making understand this commonly insensible things (Philosophical ideas) to the common mass. The individual rituals and symbols, the unique features of worship, the ecstatic mode of religiosity, and the ritual healing - all these elements of the ritual corpus of Ayyavazhi contributed to the formation of an emancipatory ideation and a social discourse. It attempts to uplift and treat the disenfranchised.

Another important thing to be noted is the alternative phrases religiously used in Ayyavazhi universe different from Hinduism to represent certain practices.

Ahmadiyya

Ahmadiyya is a relatively small messianic movement founded in 1899 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. The majority of Ahmadis live in northern India, although many are found in New Delhi, Kashmir, and Uttar Pradesh. There are approximately one million Ahmadis in India. The Ahmadiyya's identify themselves as Muslims and there has been a court decision in which this was upheld.

Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism was founded by the Magi known as Zoroaster. His religion was popular on the Greater Iran.

Subsequent to the fall of the Persian Empire, after which Zoroastrianism was gradually supplanted by Islam, many Zoroastrians fled to other regions in the hope of preserving their religious tradition. Among them were several groups who migrated to Gujarat, on the western shores of the Indian subcontinent, where they finally settled. The descendants of those refugees are today known as the Parsis.

In contrast to their co-religionists elsewhere, in India the Zoroastrians enjoyed tolerance and even admiration from other religious communities. From the 19th century onward, the Parsis gained a reputation for their education and widespread influence in all aspects of society, partly due to the divisive strategy of British colonialism which favored certain minorities. As such, Parsis are generally more affluent than other Indians and are stereotypically viewed as among the most Anglicised and "Westernised" of Indian minority groups. They have also played an instrumental role in the economic development of the country over many decades; several of the best-known business conglomerates of India are run by Parsi-Zoroastrians, including the Tata, Godrej, and Wadia families.

As of the census of 2001, the Parsis represent approximately 0.06% of the total population of India, with a concentration in and around the city of Mumbai (previously known as Bombay).

Zoroastrianism is the religion and philosophy based on the teachings ascribed to the prophet Zoroaster (Zarathustra, Zartosht). Mazdaism is the religion that acknowledges the divine authority of Ahura Mazda, proclaimed by Zoroaster to be the one uncreated Creator of all (God).

As demonstrated by Zoroastrian creed and articles of faith, the two terms are effectively synonymous. In a declaration of the creed — the Fravarānē — the adherent states: "…I profess myself a devotee of Mazda, a follower of Zarathustra."

Some scholars have suggested that Zoroastrianism was where the first prophet of a monotheistic faith arose, claiming Zoroastrianism as being "the oldest of the revealed credal religions, which has probably had more influence on mankind directly or indirectly, more than any other faith".

Zoroastrianism was once the dominant religion of much of Greater Iran. As of 2007 the faith has dwindled to small numbers; some sources suggest that it is practiced by fewer than 200,000 worldwide with its largest centers in India and Iran.

Basic beliefs

There is one universal and transcendental God, Ahura Mazda, the one uncreated Creator and to whom all worship is ultimately directed.

Ahura Mazda's creation - evident as asha, truth and order - is the antithesis of chaos, evident as drug, falsehood and disorder. The resulting conflict involves the entire universe, including humanity, which has an active role to play in the conflict.
Active participation in life through good thoughts, good words and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep the chaos at bay. This active participation is a central element in Zoroaster's concept of free will, and Zoroastrianism rejects all forms of monasticism.

Ahura Mazda will ultimately prevail, at which point the universe will undergo a cosmic renovation and time will end. In the final renovation, all of creation - even the souls of the dead that were initially banished to "darkness" - will be (re)united in God.

In Zoroastrian tradition, the malevolent is represented by Angra Mainyu, the "Destructive Principle", while the benevolent is represented through Ahura Mazda's Spenta Mainyu, the instrument or "Bounteous Principle" of the act of creation. It is through Spenta Mainyu that Ahura Mazda is eminent in humankind, and through which the Creator interacts with the world. According to Zoroastrian cosmology, in articulating the Ahuna Vairya formula, Ahura Mazda made his ultimate triumph evident to Angra Mainyu.

As expressions and aspects of Creation, Ahura Mazda emanated seven "sparks", the Amesha Spentas, "Bounteous Immortals" that are each the hypostasis and representative of one aspect of that Creation.

Bahá'í Faith

About 2.2 million people in India follow the Bahá'í Faith. They are the largest community of Bahá'ís in the world. The Lotus Temple in New Delhi is one of the main symbols of the Bahá'í Faith in India. Bahá'ís are spread all over India and have recently increased in number. The Bahai see the icons of all religions whether they be Krishna or Mohammed, as the avatar or incarnation of God.

Rituals

A puja performed on the banks of the overflowing Shipra River in Ujjain during the summer monsoon.

The vast majority of Indians engage in religious rituals on a daily basis. Most Hindus observe religious rituals at home. However, observation of rituals greatly vary among regions, villages, and individuals. Devout Hindus perform daily chores such as worshiping at the dawn after bathing (usually at a family shrine, and typically includes lighting a lamp and offering foodstuffs before the images of deities), recitation from religious scripts, singing hymns in praise of gods etc. A notable feature in religious ritual is the division between purity and pollution. Religious acts presuppose some degree of impurity or defilement for the practitioner, which must be overcome or neutralised before or during ritual procedures. Purification, usually with water, is thus a typical feature of most religious action. Other characteristics include a belief in the efficacy of sacrifice and concept of merit, gained through the performance of charity or good works, that will accumulate over time and reduce sufferings in the next world. Devout Muslims offer five daily prayers at specific times of the day, indicated by adhan (call to prayer) from the local mosques. Before offering prayers, they must ritually clean themselves by performing wudu, which involves washing parts of the body that are generally exposed to dirt or dust. A recent study by the Sachar Committee found that 3-4% of Muslim children study in madrasas (Islamic schools).

Dietary habits are significantly influenced by religion. Almost one-third of Indians practise vegetarianism; it came to prominence during the rule of Ashoka, a promoter of Buddhism. Vegetarianism is much less common among Muslim and Christians. Jainism requires monks and laity, from all its sects and traditions, to be vegetarian. Hinduism bars beef consumption, while Islam bars pork.

Ceremonies

A Hindu marriage.

Occasions like birth, marriage, and death involve what are often elaborate sets of religious customs. In Hinduism, major life-cycle rituals include annaprashan (a baby's first intake of solid food), upanayanam ("sacred thread ceremony" undergone by upper-caste youths), and shraadh (paying homage to a deceased individual). For most people in India, the betrothal of the young couple and the exact date and time of the wedding are matters decided by the parents in consultation with astrologers.

Muslims practice a series of life-cycle rituals that differ from those of Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists. Several rituals mark the first days of life—including whispering call to prayer, first bath, and shaving of the head. Religious instruction begins early. Male circumcision usually takes place after birth; in some families, it may be delayed until after the onset of puberty. Marriage requires a payment by the husband to the wife and the solemnisation of a marital contract in a social gathering. On the third day after burial of the dead, friends and relatives gather to console the bereaved, read and recite the Quran, and pray for the soul of the deceased. Indian Islam is distinguished by the emphasis it places on shrines commemorating great Sufi saints.

Pilgrimages

India hosts numerous pilgrimage sites belonging to many religions. Hindus worldwide recognise several Indian holy cities, including Allahabad, Haridwar, Varanasi, and Vrindavan. Notable temple cities include Puri, which hosts a major Vaishnava Jagannath temple and Rath Yatra celebration; Tirumala - Tirupati, home to the Tirumala Venkateswara Temple; and Katra, home to the Vaishno Devi temple. The Himalayan towns of Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, and Yamunotri compose the Char Dham (four abodes) pilgrimage circuit. The Kumbh Mela (the "pitcher festival") is one of the holiest of Hindu pilgrimages that is held every four years; the location is rotated among Allahabad, Haridwar, Nashik, and Ujjain.

Among the Eight Great Places of Buddhism, seven are in India. Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar are the places where important events in the life of Gautama Buddha took place. Sanchi hosts a Buddhist stupa erected by the emperor Ashoka. Several Tibetan Buddhist sites in the Himalayan foothills of India have been built, such as Rumtek Monastery and Dharamsala. For Muslims, the Dargah Shareef of Khwaza Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer is a major pilgrimage site. Other Islamic pilgrimages include those to the Tomb of Sheikh Salim Chishti in Fatehpur Sikri, Jama Masjid in Delhi, and to Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai. Dilwara Temples in Mount Abu, Palitana, Pavapuri, Girnar and Shravanabelagola are notable pilgrimage sites (tirtha) in Jainism.

The Golden Temple in Amritsar is the most sacred shrine of Sikhism, while the Thalaimaippathi at Swamithope is the leading pilgrim center for Ayyavazhi's. Lotus Temple in Delhi is a prominent house of worship of the Bahá'í faith.

Festivals

Diwali, celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains, symbolises the triumph of good over evil.
Religious festivals are widely observed and hold great importance for Indians. In keeping with India's secular governance, no religious festival has been accorded the status of a national holiday. Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi, Holi, Durga puja, Ugadi, Dussehra, and Sankranthi/Pongal are the most popular Hindu festivals in India. Among Muslims, the Islamic Eid festivals of Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Adha are the most celebrated. Christmas, Buddha Jayanti, and Guru Nanak's Birthday are key holidays among the remaining religious groups. A number of festivals are common to most parts of India, and many states and regions have local festivals depending on prevalent religious and linguistic demographics. For example, fairs and festivities associated with specific temples or Dargahs associated with Sufi masters are common.

Muharram is a unique festival in the sense that it is not celebrated; it is a mournful commemoration of the death of Muhammad's grandson Imam Husain in 680 CE. A taziya, which is a bamboo replica of Husain's tomb, is paraded through the city. Muharram is observed with great passion in Lucknow, the centre of Indian Shia Islam.

Refuge from Religious Persecution

India, with its traditional tolerance, has served as a refuge for groups that have encountered persecution elsewhere.

Parsi: The Zoroastrians from Iran arrived in India fleeing from religious persecution in their native Iran in the 9th century. They flourished in India and in 18-19th centuries intervened on behalf of their co-religionists in still in Iran. They have produced India's pioneering industrialist house of Tatas and one of the only two Indian Field Marshals in S. F. Manekshaw.

Jews: Jews in India were granted lands and trading rights and lived unmolested unlike almost everyother country in the world.
Tibetan Buddhists: India is now home to the Dalai Lama, the revered head of the Vajrayana Buddhism of Tibet.

Religious Disturbances and conflicts in India

Incidents of religious intolerance, conflicts and riots have occurred at several points in time.
Islamic invaders such as Mahmud of Ghazni committed iconoclasm and genocide of Hindus.
Various rulers of the Mughal era (such as Aurangzeb) are regarded as perpetrators of religious intolerance towards Hindus through acts such as imposition of jizya.
The Goa Inquisition perpetrated by Christians was an incidence of massive genocides on the Hindu, Muslim and Jewish populations of Goa by Christian Missionaries.
The Jews of Kerala were nearly exterminated by the Portuguese in the 16th century.
The National Liberation Front of Tripura, an organization (presently almost disbanded), regarded as a Christian/Nationalist terrorist group operating in Northeastern India, have committed mass-murders on the Hindu population of the region.
The Ghanchi Muslims of Gujarat have frequently carried out pogroms against Hindus, most notably the Sindhi riots in the 1960s and the Godhra Train Burning in 2002.
The murder of Indira Gandhi had triggered a riot against the Sikhs, often regarded as a Congress Party and its then leader Rajiv Gandhi supported pogrom.
The BJP government of Gujarat siding against the Muslims during recent riots against Muslims in Gujarat, triggered by the event above and of not assisting in persecution of the guilty.
Hindus in Kashmir have frequently been murdered and ethnically cleansed from the region by Islamic extremists.

India's Economy (Mystudent's report--- HUM 102 Asian Civilizations --> 1st Sem, AY 2007-2008)

2007-09-21T00:03:00.001-07:00

INDIA’S ECONOMIC ACTIVITY

Since independence the Indian government has attempted to pursue a mixed economic policy with features of both a free market and socialist planning. Major industries such as railroads, automobile manufacturing, and banking are government run. At the same time, many consumer-goods industries and agriculture are in private hands. Despite significant economic growth since independence, however, many of India’s gains have been offset by its increasing population.

MANUFACTURING AND MINING

Under British rule industrial growth in India was inhibited. Since independence, however, the country has achieved near industrial self-sufficiency. Today, India produces most of its own chemicals, automobiles, steel, textiles, and even computers and television sets. Steel production has more than doubled since 1960. India is self-sufficient in iron and coal but is heavily dependent on foreign oil. India’s chief energy sources are coal (26 percent), petroleum (49 percent), and electricity (25 percent). Some 156 billion KWh of electricity were generated in 1987, which is still far short of demand. Only 65 percent of India’s villages are electrified, and electrical outages are common in urban areas.

AGRICULTURE

The majority of Indians earn their livelihood from the land, and agriculture accounts for about 35 percent of national income. About half of the land is arable, and two crops a year are normal where water and climate permit. The chief summer monsoon (kharif) crops are rice and millet. The major winter (rabi) crops are wheat and pulses. India is the world’s second largest rice producer and ranks fourth in wheat production. In addition to food crops, commercial crops such as cotton, jute, sugarcane, tea, coffee, oilseeds, and tobacco are grown. India is the world’s leading producer of tea and sugar. Although Indian cattle are poor producers, India is the largest Asian producer of milk and butter, as well as hides.

The so called Green Revolution, which introduces new seed varieties and farming techniques to increase yields, has had a major impact on Indian agriculture since 1967. Total food grain production for 1986 was 150 million metric tons and India remains self sufficient in food production despite of two recent monsoon failures. Theoretically, landlordism has been abolished and there are ceilings on land holdings in most states. Government attempts to land reform, however, have been largely circumvented by the entrenched and politically powerful landlord class becomes increasingly mechanized, more small farmers will lose their land and join the millions of landless migrants already flocking to such cities as Calcutta, Bombay, and Delhi each year in a largely unsuccessful search for employment.

FORESTRY AND FISHING

Forestry and fishing account for only about 1.3 percent and 0.8 percent of the national income but are locally important in some stated. Fish production has tripled since 1947.

TRANSPORTATION AND TRADE

The volume of railroad and road traffic has increased greatly since independence. Inland navigable waterways are also important avenues of transportation. Air services now reach most large cities, and government-owned Air India is a regularly scheduled international airline. Major exports include cotton goods, iron, raw jute and jute products, coffee, electrical goods, leather, handicrafts, diamonds, and chemicals. India is now the world’s leading importer of rough diamonds and exporter of gem diamonds. In recent years, India has also exported engineers and technicians (especially to the Middle East) and thousands of medical doctors and nurses serving in hospitals in the United States and Great Britain. The country’s major imports include heavy machinery, petroleum, copper, and zinc.

My Students Report on Ancient India (HUM 102 -Asian Civilizations -->1st Sem AY 2007-2008)

2007-09-20T23:54:00.000-07:00

ANCIENT INDIA

Archaeological excavations have brought to light the remains of a highly developed urban civilization in ancient India that stretched across approximately 1520 kilometers, extending from the area on the upper Sutlaj in contemporary Punjab to Lothal in Gujarat. Historians are of the view that this civilization flourished in the third millennium before the birth of Christ.
It is known by the name of the two of its great cities - Harappa and Mohenjodaro situated on the left and the right bank respectively of the river Ravi in Punjab. The two cities were built on a similar plan - houses constructed with standard burnt bricks arranged in squares, along roads intersecting at right angles. The houses varied in size but were all based on the same plan - a small courtyard surrounded by rooms with entrances in side alleys, often multistoried with no windows opening out to the street. The houses had bathrooms and the drains flowing out were connected to covered sewers with soak-pits. This unique sewage system is amongst the most impressive achievements of the Indus people and sets them apart from all other ancient civilizations.
By about 1500 B.C. an important change began to occur in the northern half of the Indian sub-continent. The Harappa culture in the Indus Valley had declined by about 1750 B.C, and the stage was being set for a second and more continuous urbanization in the Ganges Valley.
The earliest literary source that sheds light on India's past is the Rig Veda. It is difficult to date this work with any accuracy on the basis of tradition and ambiguous astronomical information contained in the hymns. It is most likely that Rig Veda was composed between 1,500 B.C. and 1,000 B.C.
The people who composed these evocative hymns to nature and celebrated life exuberantly referred to themselves as Aryas usually anglicized as Aryan meaning 'superior'.
The 6th Century B.C. was a period of great ferment in India. The kingdom of Magadh -one of the 16 great janapadas - polities - had established paramountcy over other kingdoms of the Ganges Valley. This was the time when Buddhism and Jainism emerged as popular protestant movements to pose a serious challenge to Brahmanic orthodoxy. The fluid political situation, made it possible for Chandragupta Maurya (reign - 322 - 298 B.C.) to oust the oppressive ruler of Magadh and found his own dynasty.
The most famous of the Mauryas is Ashoka the Great (reign - 273 - 232 B.C.). He extended the boundaries of his empire considerably - stretching from Kashmir and Peshawar in the North and Northwest to Mysore in the South and Orissa in the East - but his fame rests not so much on military conquests as on his celebrated renunciation of war. After witnessing the carnage at the battle field of Kalinga (269 B.C.) in Orissa, Ashoka resolved to dedicate himself to Dhamma - or righteousness.
Ashoka died around 232 B.C. and the empire began to disintegrate under weak successors. Pushyamitra Shunga, a Brahmin general usurped the throne after slaying the last Maurya king and presided over a loosely federal polity. In subsequent centuries India suffered a series of invasions, and in the absence of a strong central authority, often fell under the spell of foreign rulers - Indo Bactrians, the Sakas and others.
For the next four hundred years, India remained politically disunited and weak. It was repeatedly raided and plundered by foreigners. Stability was restored by the Guptas. Exploits of Samudra Gupta (reign - 335 - 380 A.D.) - an illustrious ruler of this line - are recorded on a stone inscription at Allahabad.
It was Chandra Gupta II (reign - 380 - 412 A.D.) - Samudra Gupta's successor - who finally defeated the Sakas and re-established a strong central authority. His reign registered the high watermark in Indian culture. His accomplishments in war and peace were glorious enough for him to claim the title Vikramaditya - the resplendent, great and good king of legends. Fa-hien, a Chinese traveler who was in India from 399 - 414 A.D. has left an interesting account of contemporary India. This age of peace and prosperity witnessed an unprecedented flowering of art, literature and the sciences.
Kalidas, the famous Sanskrit poet and dramatist, author of Abhijnana Shankuntalam, Kumarsambhavam and Meghadutam is believed to have adorned the Gupta court. Mathematicians like Aryabhatta and astronomers like Varahmihir lived during this period. The dazzling wall paintings of Ajanta too are traced back to this era. This period also saw the beginning of Hindu temple architecture.
The twilight of the Gupta Empire saw the setting in of decay. Powerful feudal governors in the provinces declared their independence. Trade and commerce suffered and social evils crept in. There was only a brief afterglow in the time of Harshavardhan (reign - 604 - 647 A.D.) - of Kannauj - who is famous for his philanthrophy and patronage of Buddhism. Himself an accomplished writer, he encouraged eminent dramatists like Bana. A Chinese traveler Huen-tsang visited India from (629 - 645 A.D.) during the rule of Harshavardhan. His account gives us an opportunity to note the changes that had taken place in the lives of the Indian people since the days of the Guptas.
In the Deccan, the Cholas ruled over what today are the districts of Thanjavur and Tiruchirapally. In the 2nd Century B.C. a Chola prince conquered Sri Lanka. The Pandyas reigned around present day Tirunelvelli and Madurai. A Pandyan king sent an ambassador to the court of the Roman emperor Augustus in first Century B.C. The territory under the Cheras was what constitutes the present day central and northern Kerala.
Pallavas of Kanchi rose to prominence in the 4th Century A.D. and ruled unchallenged for about four hundred years. The Nayanar and Alvar saint poets belong to this period. The gemlike shore temples at Mahabalipuram date to this period.
The Cholas overthrew the Pallavas in the 9th Century and regained political primacy in south India. The exquisitely crafted Chola bronzes - the resplendent Natraja - the Dancing Shiva - have introduced the world to the glory of the Cholas. The tide of political fortunes turned once again in the 13th Century to make the Pandyas dominant. Their kingdom became a great centre of international trade. Art, literature and culture flourished under generous patronage. The 15th Century saw the decline of the Pandyas.
Foreign invasions had little impact on the life in southern India and this region remained unaffected by political upheavals that convulsed the north.

INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION
The Indus Valley Civilization abbreviated IVC, was an ancient civilization that flourished in the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra river valleys primarily in what is now Pakistan and western India, parts of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. Another name for this civilization is the Harappan Civilization, after the first of its cities to be excavated, Harappa. Although the IVC might have been known to the Sumerians as Meluhha, the modern world discovered it only in the 1920s as a result of archaeological excavations.
The IVC is a likely candidate for a Proto-Dravidian culture. Alternatively, Proto-Munda, Proto-Indo-Iranian or a "lost phylum" are sometimes suggested for the language of the IVC
The civilization is sometimes referred to as the Indus Ghaggar-Hakra civilization or the Indus-Saraswati civilization. The appellation Indus-Saraswati is based on the possible identification of the Ghaggar-Hakra River with the ancient Saraswati river of the Rig Veda, but this usage is disputed.
Early Harappan
The Early Harappan Ravi Phase, named after the nearby Ravi River, lasted from circa 3300 BCE until 2800 BCE. It is related to the Hakra Phase, identified in the Ghaggar-Hakra River Valley to the west, and predates the Kot Diji Phase, named after a site in northern Sindh, Pakistan, near Mohenjo Daro. The earliest examples of the "Indus script" date from around 3000 BCE.[2]
The mature phase of earlier village cultures is represented by Rehman Dheri and Amri in Pakistan. Kot Diji (Harappan 2) represents the phase leading up to Mature Harappan, with the citadel representing centralised authority and an increasingly urban quality of life. Another town of this stage was found at Kalibangan in India on the Hakra River.
Trade networks linked this culture with related regional cultures and distant sources of raw materials, including lapis lazuli and other materials for bead-making. Villagers had, by this time, domesticated numerous crops, including peas, sesame seeds, dates and cotton, as well as various animals, including the water buffalo.
Mature Harappan
By 2600 BCE, the Early Harappan communities had been turned into large urban centers. Such urban centers include Harappa and Mohenjo Daro in Pakistan and Lothal in India. In total, over 1,052 cities and settlements have been found, mainly in the general region of the Ghaggar and Indus Rivers and their tributaries.
By 2500 BCE, irrigation had transformed the region.
Science
The people of the Indus Civilization achieved great accuracy in measuring length, mass and time. They were among the first to develop a system of uniform weights and measures. Their measurements were extremely precise. Their smallest division, which is marked on an ivory scale found in Lothal, was approximately 1.704 mm, the smallest division ever recorded on a scale of the Bronze Age. Harappan engineers followed the decimal division of measurement for all practical purposes, including the measurement of mass as revealed by their hexahedron weights.
These brick weights were in a perfect ratio of 4:2:1 with weights of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500 units, with each unit weighing approximately 28 grams, similar to the English Imperial ounce or Greek uncia, and smaller objects were weighed in similar ratios with the units of 0.871. However, actual weights were not uniform throughout the area. The weights and measures later used in Kautilya's Arthashastra (4th century BC) are the same as those used in Lothal.
Unique Harappan inventions include an instrument which was used to measure whole sections of the horizon and the tidal dock. In addition, Harappans evolved new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze, lead and tin. The engineering skill of the Harappans was remarkable, especially in building docks after a careful study of tides, waves and currents.
In 2001, archaeologists studying the remains of two men from Mehrgarh, Pakistan made the discovery that the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation, from the early Harappan periods, had knowledge of proto-dentistry. Later, in April 2006, it was announced in the scientific journal Nature that the oldest (and first early Neolithic) evidence for the drilling of human teeth in vivo (i.e. in a living person) was found in Mehrgarh. Eleven drilled molar crowns from nine adults were discovered in a Neolithic graveyard in Mehrgarh that dates from 7,500-9,000 years ago. According to the authors, their discoveries point to a tradition of proto-dentistry in the early farming cultures of that region."
A touchstone bearing gold streaks was found in Banawali, which was probably used for testing the purity of gold (such a technique is still used in some parts of India).

Arts and culture
Various sculptures, seals, pottery, gold jewelry and anatomically detailed figurines in terracotta, bronze and steatite have been found at the excavation sites.
A number of gold, terracotta and stone figurines of girls in dancing poses reveal the presence of some dance form. Sir John Marshall is known to have reacted with surprise when he saw the famous Indus bronze statuette of a slender-limbed "dancing girl" in Mohenjo-daro.
Many crafts "such as shell working, ceramics, and agate and glazed steatite bead making" were used in the making of necklaces, bangles, and other ornaments from all phases of Harappan sites and some of these crafts are still practiced in the subcontinent today. Some make-up and toiletry items (a special kind of combs (kakai), the use of collyrium and a special three-in-one toiletry gadget) that were found in Harappan contexts have similar counterparts in modern India. Terracotta female figurines were found which had red color applied to the "manga" (line of partition of the hair), a tradition which is still seen in India.
Seals have been found at Mohenjo-daro depicting a figure standing on its head, and another sitting cross-legged in a yoga-like pose (see image, Pashupati, below right).
A harp-like instrument depicted on an Indus seal and two shell objects found at Lothal indicate the use of stringed musical instruments. The Harappans also made various toys and games, among them cubical dices (with one to six holes on the faces) which were found in sites like Mohenjo-Daro.
Trade and transportation
The Indus civilization's economy appears to have depended significantly on trade, which was facilitated by major advances in transport technology. These advances included bullock carts that are identical to those seen throughout South Asia today, as well as boats. Most of these boats were probably small, flat-bottomed craft, perhaps driven by sail, similar to those one can see on the Indus River today; however, there is secondary evidence of sea-going craft. Archaeologists have discovered a massive, dredged canal and docking facility at the coastal city of Lothal.
During 4300 - 3200 BC of chalcolithic period ( copper age ), Indus Valley Civilization area shows ceramic similarities with southern Turkmenistan and northern Iran which suggest considerable mobility and trade. During Early Harappan period about 3200–2600 BCE, similarities in pottery, seals, figurines, ornaments etc. document intensive caravan trade with Central Asia and the Iranian plateau.
Judging from the dispersal of Indus civilisation artifacts, the trade networks, economically, integrated a huge area, including portions of Afghanistan, the coastal regions of Persia, northern and central India, and Mesopotamia.
There was an extensive maritime trade network operating between the Harappan and Mesopotamian civilisations as early as the middle Harappan Phase, with much commerce being handled by "middlemen merchants from Dilmun" (modern Bahrain and Failaka located in the Persian Gulf). Such long-distance sea-trade became feasible with the innovative development of plank-built watercraft, equipped with a single central mast supporting a sail of woven rushes or cloth.
Several coastal settlements like Sotkagen-dor (astride Dasht River, north of Jiwani), Sokhta Koh (astride Shadi River, north of Pasni) and Balakot (near Sonmiani) in Pakistan along with Lothal in India testify to their role as Harappan trading outposts. Shallow harbours located at the estuary of rivers opening into the sea, allowed brisk maritime trade with Mesopotamian cities.
Agriculture
Post 1980 studies indicate that food production was largely indigenous to the Indus Valley. It is known that the people of Mehrgarh used domesticated wheats and barleyand the major cultivated cereal crop was naked six-row barley, a crop derived from two-row barley. Archaeologist Jim G. Shaffer writes that the Mehrgarh site "demonstrates that food production was an indigenous South Asian phenomenon" and that the data support interpretation of "the prehistoric urbanization and complex social organization in South Asia as based on indigenous, but not isolated, cultural developments."
Indus civilization agriculture must have been highly productive; after all, it was capable of generating surpluses sufficient to support tens of thousands of urban residents who were not primarily engaged in agriculture. It relied on the considerable technological achievements of the pre-Harappan culture, including the plough. Still, very little is known about the farmers who supported the cities or their agricultural methods. Some of them undoubtedly made use of the fertile alluvial soil left by rivers after the flood season, but this simple method of agriculture is not thought to be productive enough to support cities. There is no evidence of irrigation, but such evidence could have been obliterated by repeated, catastrophic floods.
The Indus civilization appears to contradict the hydraulic despotism hypothesis of the origin of urban civilization and the state. According to this hypothesis, all early, large-scale civilizations arose as a by-product of irrigation systems capable of generating massive agricultural surpluses.
It is often assumed that intensive agricultural production requires dams and canals. This assumption is easily refuted. Throughout Asia, rice farmers produce significant agricultural surpluses from terraced, hillside rice paddies, which result not from slavery but rather the accumulated labor of many generations of people. Instead of building canals, Indus civilization people may have built water diversion schemes, which—like terrace agriculture—can be elaborated by generations of small-scale labour investments. It should be noted that only the easternmost section of the Indus Civilisation people could build their lives around the monsoon, a weather pattern in which the bulk of a year's rainfall occurs in a four-month period; others had to depend on the seasonal flooding of rivers caused by snow melt at high elevations.
Writing or symbol system
Well over 400 distinct Indus symbols have been found on seals or ceramic pots and over a dozen other materials, including a "signboard" that apparently once hung over the gate of the inner citadel of the Indus city of Dholavira. Typical Indus inscriptions are no more than four or five characters in length, most of which (aside from the Dholavira "signboard") are exquisitely tiny; the longest on a single surface, which is less than 1 inch (2.54 cm) square, is 17 signs long; the longest on any object (found on three different faces of a mass-produced object) has a length of 26 symbols.
While the Indus Valley Civilization is often characterized as a "literate society" on the evidence of these inscriptions, this description has been challenged on linguistic and archaeological grounds: it has been pointed out that the brevity of the inscriptions is unparalleled in any known premodern literate society. Based partly on this evidence, a controversial paper by Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel argues that the Indus system did not encode language, but was instead similar to a variety of non-linguistic sign systems used extensively in the Near East and other societies. It has also been claimed on occasion that the symbols were exclusively used for economic transactions, but this claim leaves unexplained the appearance of Indus symbols on many ritual objects, many of which were mass produced in molds. No parallels to these mass-produced inscriptions are known in any other early ancient civilizations.
Photos of many of the thousands of extant inscriptions are published in the Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions, edited by A. Parpola and his colleagues. Publication of a final third volume, which will reportedly republish photos taken in the 1920s and 1930s of hundreds of lost or stolen inscriptions, along with many discovered in the last few decades, has been announced for several years, but has not yet found its way into print. For now, researchers must supplement the materials in the Corpus by study of the tiny photos in the excavation reports of Marshall, Mackay , Wheeler, or reproductions in more recent scattered sources.

Religion
In view of the large number of figurines found in the Indus valley, it has been suggested that the Harappan people worshipped a Mother goddess symbolizing fertility; however, this interpretation is not unanimously accepted. Some Indus valley seals show swastikas which are found in other later religions and mythologies. In the earlier phases of their culture, the Harappans buried their dead; however, later, especially in the cemetery H culture of the late Harrapan period, they also cremated their dead and buried the ashes in burial urns. Many Indus valley seals show animals; for example, a seal showing a figure seated in a yoga-like posture and surrounded by animals has been compared to the "lord of creatures," Pashupati.

EDUCATION IN INDIA
Structure

Indian Education System comprises stages called Nursery,Primary,Secondary,Higher Secondary,Graduation & Post Graduation. Some students go in different stream after Secondary for 3 Years Technical education called Polytechnics
There are broadly four stages of school education in India, namely primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary(or high school). Overall, schooling lasts 12 years, following the "10+2 pattern". However, there are considerable differences between the various states in terms of the organizational patterns within these first 10 years of schooling. The government is committed to ensuring universal elementary education (primary and upper primary) education for all children aged 6-14 years of age. Primary school includes children of ages six to eleven, organized into classes one through five. Upper Primary and Secondary school pupils aged eleven through fifteen are organized into classes six through ten, and higher secondary school students ages sixteen through seventeen are enrolled in classes eleven through twelve. In some places there is a concept called Middle/Upper Primary schools for classes between six to eight. In such cases classes nine to twelve are classified under high school category. Higher Education in India provides an opportunity to specialize in a field and includes technical schools (such as the Indian Institutes of Technology), colleges, and universities.
Preprimary Education
Preprimary education in India is not a fundamental right, with a very low percentage of children receving preschool educational facilities. The largest source of provision is the so called Integrated Child Development Services (or ICDS), however, the preschool component in the same remains weak. In the absence of significant government provisions, private sector (reaching to the relatively richer section of society) has opened schools. Provisions in these kindergartens is divided into two stages- lower kindergarten (LKG) and upper kindergarten (UKG). Typically, an LKG class would comprise children 3 to 4 years of age, and the UKG class would comprise children 4 to 5 years of age. After finishing upper kindergarten, a child enters Class 1 (or, Standard 1) of primary school. Often kindergarten is an integral part of regular schools. Younger children are also put into a special Toddler/Nursery group at the age of 2–2½. It is run as part of the kindergarten. However, creches and other early care facilities for the underprivilaged sections of society are extremely limited in number. There are some organized players with standardized curriculums such as the Shemrock Preschools which cover a very small share of the population. Overall, the % enrollment is pre-primary classes to total enrollment (primary) is 11.22 (DISE, 2005-06).
Elementary Education
During the eighth five-year plan, the target of "universalizing" elementary education was divided into three broad parameters: Universal Access, Universal Retention and Universal Achievement i.e., making education accessible to children, making sure that they continue education and finally, achieving goals. As a result of education programs, by the end of 2000, 94% of India's rural population had primary schools within one km and 84% had upper primary schools within 3 km. Special efforts were made to enroll SC/ST and girls. The enrollment in primary and upper-primary schools has gone up considerably since the first five-year plan. So has the number of primary and upper-primary schools. In 1950-51, only 3.1 million students had enrolled for primary education. In 1997-98, this figure was 39.5 million. The number of primary and upper-primary schools was 0.223 million in 1950-51. This figure was 0.775 million in 1996-97.
In 2002/2003, an estimated 82% of children in the age group of 6-14 were enrolled in school. The Government of India aims to increase this to 100% by the end of the decade. To achieve this the Government launched Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
However, the poor infrastructure of schools has resulted in fairly high dropout rates. Thus, according to the DISE 2005-6 data 9.54% of the schools remain single classroom schools and 10.45% schools lack classrooms. The average pupil teacher ratio for the country is 1:36, with significant variations to the upper end and 8.39% schools are single teacher schols and 5.30% schools have more than 100 children for each teacher; 30.87% schools lack female teachers. Only 10.73% schools have a computer.
While the education system has undoubtedly undergone significant progress, a lot still needs to be done to enhance the learning of children from scheduled caste (or Dalit) families, scheduled and primitive tribes and religious minorities. Girls' enrollment continues to lag behind that of boys.
Non-graduation market
While availability of primary and upper primary schools has been to a considerable extent been created, access to higher education (especially in rural areas) remains a major issue in rural areas (especially for girls). Government high schools are usually taught in the regional language, although some (especially urban) schools are English medium. These institutions are heavily subsidised. Study materials (such as textbooks, notebooks and stationary) are sometime but not always subsidised. Government schools follow the state curriculum. There are also a number of private schools providing secondary education. These schools usually either follow the State or national curriculum. Some top schools provide international qualifications and offer an alternative international qualification, such as the IB program or A Levels.
Higher Education
Higher education in India has evolved in distinct and divergent streams with each stream monitored by an apex body, indirectly controlled by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. and funded by the state governments. Most universities are administered by the States, however, there are 18 important universities called Central Universities, which are maintained by the Union Government. The increased funding of the central universities give them an advantage over state competitors.
The Indian Institutes of Technology were placed 50th in the world and 2nd in the field of Engineering (next only to MIT) by Times Higher World University Rankings although they did not appear in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Academic Ranking of World Universities. The National Law School of India University is highly regarded, with some of its students being awarded Rhodes Scholarships to Oxford University, and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences is consistently rated the top medical school in the country. Indian School of Business, Hyderabad and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are the top management institutes in India.
The private sector is strong in Indian higher education. This has been partly as a result of the decision by the Government to divert spending to the goal of universalisation of elementary education.
History
India has a long history of organized education. The Gurukul system of education is one of the oldest on earth but before that the guru shishya system was extant, in which students were taught orally and the data would be passed from one generation to the next. Gurukuls were traditional Hindu residential schools of learning; typically the teacher's house or a monastery. Education was free (and often limited to the higher castes), but students from well-to-do families payed Gurudakshina, a voluntary contribution after the completion of their studies. At the Gurukuls, the teacher imparted knowledge of Religion, Scriptures, Philosophy, Literature, Warfare, Statecraft, Medicine Astrology and "History" ("Itihaas" — actually mythology). Only students belonging to Brahmin and Kshatriya communities were taught in these Gurukuls. However, the advent of Buddhism and Jainism brought fundamental changes in access to education with their democratic character. The first millennium and the few centuries preceding it saw the flourishing of higher education at Nalanda, Takshashila University, Ujjain, & Vikramshila Universities. Art, Architecture, Painting, Logic, Grammar, Philosophy, Astronomy, Literature, Buddhism, Hinduism, Arthashastra (Economics & Politics), Law, and Medicine were among the subjects taught and each university specialized in a particular field of study. Takshila specialized in the study of medicine, while Ujjain laid emphasis on astronomy. Nalanda, being the biggest centre, handled all branches of knowledge, and housed up to 10,000 students at its peak. British records show that education was widespread in the 18th century, with a school for every temple, mosque or village in most regions of the country. The subjects taught included Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Theology, Law, Astronomy, Metaphysics, Ethics, Medical Science and Religion. The schools were attended by students representative of all classes of society. Traditional structures were not recognized by the British government and have been on the decline since. Gandhi is said to have described the traditional educational system as a beautiful tree that was destroyed during the British rule.
But scholars have questioned the validity of such an argument. The village pathshalas were often housed in shabby dwellings and taught by ill-qualified teachers. Instruction was limited mainly to the three Rs and the native mahajanilzamindari accounts. Printed books were not used, and most writing was done on palm leaf, plantain leaf, or on sand. There was no fixed class routine, timetable, or school calendar. There was no annual examination, pupils being promoted whenever the guru was satisfied of the scholar's attainments. There were no desks, benches,blackboards, or fixed seating arrangements. The decline probably started in the mid- 1700s. By the 1820s neither the village schools nor the tols or madrasas were the vital centers of learning. In 1823, Raja Rammohan Roy wrote to the governor-general, Lord Amherst, requesting that he not spend government funds on starting a Sanskrit College in Calcutta but rather employ "European Gentlemen of talent and education to instruct the natives of India in Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Anatomy and other useful sciences."The current system of education, with its western style and content, was introduced & founded by the British in the 20th century, following recommendations by Macaulay.
Up to the 17th century
The first millennium and the few centuries preceding it saw the flourishing of higher education at Nalanda, Takshila, Ujjain, & Vikramshila Universities. Art, Architecture, Painting, Logic, Grammar, Philosophy, Astronomy, Literature, Buddhism, Hinduism, Arthashastra (Economics & Politics), Law, and Medicine were among the subjects taught and each university specialized in a particular field of study. Takshila specialized in the study of medicine, while Ujjain laid emphasis on astronomy. Nalanda, being the biggest centre, handled all branches of knowledge, and housed up to 10,000 students at its peak.this is
Education under British Rule
British records show that indigenous education was widespread in the 18th century, with a school for every temple, mosque or village in most regions of the country. The subjects taught included Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Theology, Law, Astronomy, Metaphysics, Ethics, Medical Science and Religion. The schools were attended by students representative of all classes of society. But scholars have questioned the validity of such an argument. They argue that proponents of indigenous education fail to recognize the importance of the widespread use of printed books in the West since the sixteenth century, which led to a remarkable advancement of knowledge. Printed books were not used in Indian schools till the 1820s or even later. There were institutions such as Gresham's college in London that encouraged scientific learning. In fact, there were a number of such academic and scientific societies in England, often supported by Puritan and non-Conformist merchants, the like of which probably did not exist in India. The entire claim of indigenous education proponents is based on the thesis advocated by Dharampal which says that there was a general decline in Indian society and economy with the coming of British rule. In the process, indigenous education suffered. This, however, is too broad a generalization, and the exact impact of British rule on different regions at different times has to be studied more carefully before we conclude that the curve everywhere steadily declined. He argues that pre-British schools and colleges were maintained by grants of revenue-free land. The East India Company, with its policy of maximizing land revenue, stopped this and thus starved the Indian education system of its financial resources. Again, we need more detailed evidence to show how far inam lands were taken over by the government. More often, military officers, zamindar.~,and talukdars were deprived of revenue-free land rather than temples, mosques, madrasas. Recent research has revealed that inam lands continued to exist well into the nineteenth century, much more than was previously suspected.
The current system of education, with its western style and content, was introduced & funded by the British in the 19th century, following recommendations by Macaulay. Traditional structures were not recognized by the British government and have been on the decline since. Gandhi is said to have described the traditional educational system as a beautiful tree that was destroyed during British rule.
The British established many colleges like St. Xavier's College, Sydenham College, Wilson College and Elphinstone College in India.
According to Prof. Emeritus M.G. Sahadevan, F.R.C.P. (London), the first medical college of Kerala was started at Calicut, in 1942-43, during World War II. Due to shortage of doctors to serve the military, the British Government decided to open a branch of Madras Medical College in Malabar, which was under Madras Presidency then. After the war, the medical school at Calicut was closed and the students continued their studies at Madras Medical College.
After Independence
After independence, education became the responsibility of the states. The Central Government's only obligation was to co-ordinate in technical and higher education and specify standards. This continued till 1976, when the education became a joint responsibility of the state and the Centre.
Education Commission
The Education Commission under the Chairmanship of Dr. D. S. Kothari, the then Chairman, University Grants Commission, began its task on October 2,1964. It consisted of sixteen members, eleven being Indians and five foreign experts. In addition, the Commission had the benefit of discussion with a number of internationally known as consultants in the educational as well as scientific field----.
After 1976
In 1976, education was made a joint responsibility of the states and the Centre, through a constitutional amendment. The center is represented by Ministry of Human Resource Development's Department of Education and together with the states, it is jointly responsible for the formulation of education policy and planning.
NPE 1986 and revised PoA 1992 envisioned that free and compulsory education should be provided for all children up to 14 years of age before the commencement of 21st century. Government of India made a commitment that by 2000, 6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will be spent on education, out of which half would be spent on the Primary education.
The 86th Amendment of the Indian constitution makes education a fundamental right for all children aged 6-14 years. The access to preschool education for children under 6 years of age was excluded from the provisions, and the supporting legislation has not yet been passed.
In November 1998, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee announced setting up of Vidya Vahini Network to link up universities, UGC and CSIR.
Recent developments
The Indian Education System is generally marks-based. However, some experiments have been made to do away with the marks-based system which has led to cases of depression and suicides among students. In 2005, the Kerala government introduced a grades-based system in the hope that it will help students to move away from the cut-throat competition and rote-learning and will be able to focus on creative aspects and personality development as well. iDiscoveri education started by Alumni of Harvard, XLRI is a pioneer in this field. This organization has already developed 5 model schools.
Outdoor Education in India
Outdoor education is relatively new to schools in India, though it is quite well established abroad. Acceptance is slowly increasing with a few schools advocating outbound adventure based programmes among students, to enhance personal growth through experiential learning and increase awareness about various subjects like the environment, ecology, wildlife, history, archaeology, geography and adventure sports. Some organisations that currently offer such programmes for schools are OETS and Wide Aware in Mumbai.Youreka& Ozonewho offer open summer programs based out of Delhi in north and Bangalore in South.
Expenditure on Education in India
The Government expenditure on Education has greatly increased since the First five-year plan. The Government of India has highly subsidized higher education. Nearly 97% of the Central Government expenditure on elementary education goes towards the payment of teachers' salaries.

Non-Formal Education
In 1979-80, the Government of India, Department of Education launched a program of Non-Formal Education (NFE) for children of 6-14 years age group, who cannot join regular schools. These children include school drop-outs, working children, children from areas without easy access to schools etc. The initial focus of the scheme was on ten educationally backward states. Later, it was extended to urban slums as well as hilly, tribal and desert areas in other states. The program is now functional in 25 states/UTs. 100% assistance is given to voluntary organizations for running NFE centers.
Bal Bhavans
Bal Bhavans centers, which are operational all over India, aim to enhance creative and sports skills of children in the age group 5-16 years. There are various State and District Bal Bhavans, which conduct programs in fine-arts, aeromodeling, computer-education, sports, martial arts, performing arts etc. They are also equipped with libraries with books for children. New Delhi alone has 52 Bal Bhavan centers. The National Bal Bhavan is an autonomous institution under the Department of Education. It provides general guidance, training facility and transfer of information to State and District Bal Bhavans situated all over India.
Distance education
India has a large number of Distance education programmes in Undergraduate and Post-Graduate levels. The trend was started originally by private institutions that offered distance education at certificate and diploma level. By 1985 many of the larger Universities recognized the need and potential of distance education in a poor and populous country like India and launched degree level programs through distance education. The trend caught up, and today many prestigious Indian Universities offer distance programs. Indira Gandhi National University, one of the largest in student enrollment, has only distance programs with numerous local centers that offer supplementary contact classes.

Lecture on Basic Poetry

2007-09-09T02:41:00.000-07:00

Lecture on Basic Poetry

Figurative language -- is a tool that an author employs (or uses) to help the reader visualize (or see) what is happening in a story or poem. Some common types of figurative language are: simile, metaphor, alliteration, onomatopoeia, idiom, puns, and sensory language. Below are some ways to introduce these concepts to your class and some activities. There are also links to other sites for more help.

THE SIMILE

A simile is a comparison using like or as. It usually compares two dissimilar objects.
For example: His feet were as big as boats. We are comparing the size of feet to boats.
Using the poem below underline all of the similes. Decide which items are being compared.

THE METAPHOR

A metaphor states that one thing is something else. It is a comparison, but it does NOT use like or as to make the comparison.
For example: Her hair is silk. The sentence is comparing (or stating) that hair is silk.
Take a piece of blank white paper and fold it into fourths. In one block, write a simile and illustrate it. In the block immediately to the right, write the same sentence as a metaphor. Do the same for the other two blocks.

ALLITERATION

Alliteration is the repetition of the initial consonant. There should be at least two repetitions in a row.
For example: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. The first letter, p, is a consonant. It is repeated many times. (If you use a syllable rather than a consonant, it is assonance.)

Personification

Personification is giving human qualities, feelings, action, or characteristics to inanimate (non-living) objects.
For example: The window winked at me. The verb, wink, is a human action. A window is an inanimate object. Therefore, we have a good example of personification.

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia is the imitation of natural sounds in word form. These words help us form mental pictures about the things, people, or places that are described. Sometimes the word names a thing or action by copying the sound. For example: Bong! Hiss! Buzz!
Students, work in groups of three to four. Brainstorm for approximately 5 minutes. List all the onomatopoeia words that you can. Swap lists between groups. The other group should write a person's name, a place or a thing that first comes to their mind when they hear the word.

Hyperbole
Recognize and be able to use hyperboles.

A hyperbole is a type of figurative language. It is often confused with a simile or a metaphor because it often compares two objects. The difference is a hyperbole is an exaggeration. For example: His feet were as big as a barge. It looks like a simile. It is comparing foot size to the size of a barge. Everyone knows that a barge is approximately 700 feet long. Imagine getting a pair of shoes that big!

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