INDIA

Continent: Asia Country: India Languages: Official: Assanese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri others: English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjab, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Teluga, Tulu, Urdu         CULTURE The culture of India is the way of living of the people of india. India's languages, religons, dance, music, architechture, food and customs differ from place to place within the country. The Indian culture, often labeled as an amalgation of several cultures, spans accross the Indian subcontinent and has been influenced by a history that is several millennia old. Many elements of India's diverse cultures, have had a profound impact across the world. POPULATION Indian people, also known as Bharatiya, are citizens of india and people of Indian heritage, the second most populous nation containing 17,5% of the world's population. HISTORY The Indian people established during the ancient and medieval period, some of the greatest Dynasties in South Asian history, like the Maurya Empire, Satavahana dynasty, Gupta Empire, Rashtrakuta dynasty, Western Chalukya Empire, Chola Empire, Vijayanagara Empire and Maratha Empire. The period of the Gupta Empire witnesses a Hindu religious and intellectual resurgence and is known as the classical or "Golden Age of india". During this period, aspects of Indian civilization, administration, culture and religion (Hinduism and Buddhism) spread to much of Asia, while kingdoms in Southern India has maritime business links with the Roman Empire from around AD 77. RELIGIONS India is the birthplace of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Indian religions are a major form of world religions along with Abrahamic ones. India is one of the most religiously diverse nations in the world, with some of the most deeply religious societies and cultures. Religion plays a central and definite role in the life of many of its people. LANGUAGES The rigvedic Sanskrit is one of the oldest attestations of any Indo-Aryan language and one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family. The discovery of Sanskrit by early European explorers of India led to the development of comparative philology. The scolars of the 18th century were struck by the far reaching similarity of Sanskrit, both in grammar and vocabulary, to the classical languages of Europe. Intensive scientific studies that followed have established that Sanskrit and many Indian derative languages belong to the family which includes: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Celtic, Greek, Baltic, Armenian, Persic and Tocharian among others. There are several languages in India, belonging to different language families; the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 75% of indians, and Dravidian languages spoken by Southern Indians. Others belong to the Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman and a few minor language families and isolates. INDIAN ART Indian art consists of a variety of art forms, includung plastic arts (pottery, sculpture...), visual arts (cave paintings...), and textile arts (woven silk...). Geographically, it spans the entire Indian subcontinent, including what is now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. A strong sense of design is characteristic of Indian art and can be observed in its modern and traditional forms. The origin of Indian art can be traced to pre-historic Hominid settlements in the 3rd millennium BC. Inspite of the complex mixture of religious traditions, generally the prevailing artistic style at any time and place has been shared by the major religious groups. In historic art, sculpture in stone and metal, mainly religious, has survived the Indian climate better than other media and provides most of the best remains. Source: Wikipedia