essay on belief systems in india

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Important Notes on Religions in India for Students

• Updated on  
• Aug 12, 2024

India is a diverse and secular country where people of different religions respect one another. These religions have been at the very core of India, where the vast majority of people practice Hinduism. Other religions practiced here include Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Christianity. In recent years, many communities have undergone significant changes and growth. In this section, we will discuss the religions in India. This is also a major part of the art and culture sections of various competitive exams, including, UPSC , SSC and EPFO . This will also help students learn about the religious diversity of their nation. Continue reading to learn more!

Table of Contents

• 3 Christianity
• 7 Other Religions in India

Hinduism is considered the oldest religion in the world, having originated in the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism originally dates back to 1500 BCE and is deeply rooted in the Vedic traditions of India.

• Hinduism has its core belief in the supreme being, Brahman.
• This religion is mainly known for its concepts of Dharma, Karma and Moksha. According to Hinduism, the cycle of rebirth (samsara) is influenced by one’s actions in life (Karma).
• Hinduism has many respectable gods and goddesses, with the most important being Lord Brahma, Lord Vishnu, and Lord Shiva. Goddesses like Saraswati Ji, Lakshmi Ji and Durga Ji are widely worshipped in this religion.
• Hindu practices include various rituals, meditation, yoga, visits to pilgrimage sites, chanting prayers and mantras and celebration of festivals such as Holi and Diwali.
• The Vedas and the Upanishads are the most sacred scriptures for Hindus. Other prominent holy books are the Mahabharata, Ramayana and the Bhagvad Gita .
• The caste system has influenced Hindu society, which is structured according to the person’s occupation.

Also Read: Difference Between Buddhism and Hinduism

Islam was introduced in India during the 7th century through trade or foreign invasions. Later, it got influenced by the Mughals, which established Islam as a significant religion in India.

• Islam believes in one god, Allah and emphasizes the teachings of their last prophet,  Prophet Muhammad.
• Muslims follow the Five Pillars of Islam: Shahada (faith), Salat (prayer), Zakat (charity), Sawm (fasting during Ramadan), and Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).
• Islam is majorly divided into two sects: Sunni and Shia. Sunni Muslims are the majority, while Shia Muslims are a minority. 
• Sufi Islam, known for its devotion, has a strong presence in India.
• Islam has influenced Indian culture, architecture, language and cuisine. Festivals like Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha are celebrated with great fervor across the country.

Christianity

Christianity is believed to have arrived in India with St. Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century CE. This religion gained importance during the colonial period under Portuguese, Dutch, French, and British rule.

• Christinaity follows the teachings of Jesus, who is believed to be the son of God.
• The Bible is the holy book of the christians and their key practices include church services, prayer and observances like baptism. Christmas and Easter are major Christian festivals celebrated 
• Christianity in India is diverse, with many denominations such as Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. 
• The Syrian Christians of Kerala are one of the oldest Christian communities in the world.
• Christian missionaries have played an important role in education and health care as they have established various schools and hospitals. Christian social work and charitable activities have also been prominent.

Sikhism was founded in the late 15th century by Guru Nanak in the Punjab region. This religion promotes equality, social justice and devotion to one god. Sikhism rejects casteism and encourages direct relationship with God.

• The core beliefs of Sikhism revolve around the teachings of ten Sikh gurus. Guru Granth Sahib is their holy book.
• This religion focuses on the service of others, honest living and Naam Japana. Sikh practices include daily prayers, community service and participation in the Guru’s langar. 
• They follow the 5 Ks: Kesh (uncut hair), Kara (steel bracelet), Kanga (wooden comb), Kachera (cotton undergarment), and Kirpan (ceremonial sword).
• Sikh places of worship are known as Gurudwaras. Gurudwaras serve free community meals to all, regardless of religion or background.

Buddhism originated in India in the 6th century BCE with the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama , also known as Buddha. It flourished in India but its presence declined after the 12th century.

• Buddhism follows the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path , which guide individuals to overcome suffering and achieve nirvana.
• Buddhists do not worship God but follow the teachings of Buddha.
• In India, there are two schools of Buddhism: Theravada and Mahayana. Theravada focuses on individual intelligence, while Mahyana focuses on Boddhisattava.
• Buddhism experienced a revival in India in the 20th century with the movement led by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, who converted to Buddhism as a rejection of caste systems.

Also Read: History of Zoroastrianism – Religion in India

Jainism is an ancient religion that dates back to the 7th–5th centuries BCE. It was established by a series of 24 Tiranthakaras. Mahavira is considered the founder of the modern Jain community.

• Jainism follows the principles of non-violence (Ahimsa), truth (Satya), non-stealing (Asteya), chastity (Brahmacharya), and non-possession (Aparigraha).
• Jains believe in the cycle of birth and death and achieving liberation through self-discipline.
• Jains practice strict vegetarianism and observe festivals like Paryushana and Mahavir Jayanti. Jain temples, which are known for their architecture, are the center of worship.
• Jainism has significantly influenced Indian philosophy, art, and culture. 

Other Religions in India

There are other religions in India that are followed by the people of India. Some of these religions are mentioned below.

• Zoroastrianism : It is also known as Parsiism which dates back to the 7th century. The religion is based on the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster. This religion is known for its contributions to the Indian industry, culture, and philanthropy.
• Judaism: Judaism is associated with the Jewish community, which dates back around 2,000 years. Indian Jews have preserved their religion, even in small numbers.
• Bahá’í Faith: The Bahá’í Faith was founded in the 19th century. India also has some of the Bahá’í temples, such as the Lotus Temple in New Delhi, which is a symbol of peace and unity.

Related Posts

There are four major religions in India: Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam and Christianity.

Islam was first introduced in India through the Arab invasion of Sind. Later, it got influenced by the Mughals, which established Islam as a significant religion in India.

This was all about the “ Religions of India ”. For more such informative blogs, check out our UPSC Exams Section and Study Material Section , or you can learn more about us by visiting our Indian exams page.

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Key findings about religion in India

India’s massive population is diverse as well as devout. Not only do most of the world’s Hindus, Jains and Sikhs live in India, but it also is home to one of the world’s largest Muslim populations and to millions of Christians and Buddhists.

A new Pew Research Center report , based on a face-to-face survey of 29,999 Indian adults fielded between late 2019 and early 2020 – before the COVID-19 pandemic – takes a closer look at religious identity, nationalism and tolerance in Indian society. The survey was conducted by local interviewers in 17 languages and covered nearly all of India’s states and union territories. Here are key findings from the report.

“Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation” is Pew Research Center’s most comprehensive, in-depth exploration of Indian public opinion to date. For this report, we completed 29,999 face-to-face interviews, in 17 languages, with adults ages 18 and older living in 26 Indian states and three union territories. The sample includes interviews with 22,975 Hindus, 3,336 Muslims, 1,782 Sikhs, 1,011 Christians, 719 Buddhists and 109 Jains. An additional 67 respondents belong to other religions or are religiously unaffiliated. Interviews for this nationally representative survey were conducted from Nov. 17, 2019, to March 23, 2020.

Respondents were selected using a probability-based sample design that would allow for robust analysis of all major religious groups in India as well as all major regional zones. Six groups were targeted for oversampling as part of the survey design: Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and those living in the Northeast region. Data was weighted to account for the different probabilities of selection among respondents and to align with demographic benchmarks for the Indian adult population from the 2011 census.

Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology .

Indians value religious tolerance, though they also live religiously segregated lives. Across the country, most people (84%) say that to be “truly Indian,” it is very important to respect all religions. Indians also are united in the view that respecting other religions is a very important part of what it means to be a member of their own religious community (80%). People in all six major religious groups overwhelmingly say they are very free to practice their faiths, and most say that people of other faiths also are very free to practice their own religion.

But Indians’ commitment to tolerance is accompanied by a strong preference for keeping religious communities segregated. For example, Indians generally say they do not have much in common with members of other religious groups, and large majorities in the six major groups say their close friends come mainly or entirely from their own religious community. That’s true not only for 86% of India’s large Hindu population, but also for smaller groups such as Sikhs (80%) and Jains (72%).

Moreover, roughly two-thirds of Hindus say it is very important to stop Hindu women (67%) or Hindu men (65%) from marrying into other religious communities. Even larger shares of Muslims oppose interreligious marriage: 80% say it is very important to stop Muslim women from marrying outside their religion, and 76% say it is very important to stop Muslim men from doing so.

For many Hindus, national identity, religion and language are closely connected. Nearly two-thirds of Hindus (64%) say it is very important to be Hindu to be truly Indian. Among Hindus who say it is very important to be Hindu to be truly Indian, 80% also say it is very important to speak Hindi to be truly Indian.

Hindus who strongly link Hindu and Indian identities express a keen desire for religious segregation. For instance, 76% of Hindus who say being Hindu is very important to being truly Indian feel it is very important to stop Hindu women from marrying into another religion. By comparison, 52% of Hindus who place less importance on Hinduism’s role in Indian identity hold this view about religious intermarriage.

Moreover, Hindus in the Northern (69%) and Central (83%) parts of the country are much more likely than those in the South (42%) to strongly link Hindu identity with national identity. Together, the Northern and Central regions cover the country’s “Hindi belt,” where Hindi, one of dozens of languages spoken in India, is most prevalent. The vast majority of Hindus in these regions strongly link Indian identity with being able to speak Hindi.

Among Hindus, views of national identity go hand-in-hand with politics. Support for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is greater among Hindus who closely associate their religious identity and the Hindi language with being truly Indian. In the 2019 national elections, 60% of Hindu voters who think it is very important to be Hindu and to speak Hindi to be truly Indian cast their vote for the BJP, compared with 33% among Hindu voters who feel less strongly about both these aspects of national identity. These views also map onto regional support for the BJP, which tends to be much higher in the Northern and Central parts of the country than in the South.

Dietary laws are central to Indians’ religious identity. Hindus traditionally view cows as sacred, and laws on cow slaughter have recently been a flashpoint in India . Nearly three-quarters of Hindus (72%) in India say a person cannot be Hindu if they eat beef. That is larger than the shares of Hindus who say a person cannot be Hindu if they do not believe in God (49%) or never go to a temple (48%).

Similarly, three-quarters of Indian Muslims (77%) say that a person cannot be Muslim if they eat pork, which is greater than the share who say a person cannot be Muslim if they do not believe in God (60%) or never attend mosque (61%).

Muslims favor having access to their own religious courts. Since 1937, India’s Muslims have had the option of resolving family and inheritance-related cases in officially recognized Islamic courts, known as dar-ul-qaza. These courts are overseen by religious magistrates known as qazi and operate under Shariah principles, although their decisions are not legally binding .

Whether or not Muslims should be allowed to go to their own religious courts remains a hotly debated topic . The survey finds that three-quarters of Muslims (74%) support having access to the existing system of Islamic courts, but followers of other religions are far less likely to support Muslim access to this separate court system.

Muslims are more likely than Hindus to say the 1947 partition establishing the separate states of India and Pakistan harmed Hindu-Muslim relations. More than seven decades after the Indian subcontinent was divided into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan at the end of British colonial rule, the predominant view among Indian Muslims is that the partition of the subcontinent was a bad thing for Hindu-Muslim relations (48%). Only three-in-ten Muslims say it was a good thing.

Hindus, however, lean in the opposite direction: 43% of Hindus say Partition was beneficial for Hindu-Muslim relations, while 37% say it was harmful. Sikhs, whose historical homeland of Punjab was split by Partition, are even more likely than Muslims to say the event was bad for Hindu-Muslim relations: Two-thirds of Sikhs (66%) take this position.

India’s caste system, an ancient social hierarchy with origins in Hindu writings , continues to fracture society. Regardless of whether they are Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist or Jain, Indians nearly universally identify with a caste. Members of lower caste groups historically have faced discrimination and unequal economic opportunities , but the survey finds that most people – including most members of lower castes – say there is not a lot of caste discrimination in India. The Indian Constitution prohibits caste-based discrimination, including untouchability, and in recent decades the government has enacted economic advancement policies like reserved seats in universities and government jobs for members of some lower-caste communities.

Still, a large majority of Indians overall (70%) say that most or all of their close friends share their caste. Much as they object to interreligious marriages, a large share of Indians (64%) say it is very important to stop women in their community from marrying into other castes, and about the same share (62%) say it is very important to stop men in their community from marrying into other castes. These figures vary only modestly across different castes.

Religious conversion is rare in India; to the extent that it is occurring, Hindus gain as many people as they lose. Conversion of people belonging to lower castes away from Hinduism to other religions, especially Christianity, has been contentious in India , and some states have laws against proselytism . This survey, though, finds that religious switching has a minimal impact on the size of religious groups. Across India, 98% of survey respondents give the same answer when asked to identify their current religion and, separately, their childhood religion.

An overall pattern of stability in the share of religious groups is accompanied by little net change from movement into, or out of, most religious groups. Among Hindus, for instance, any conversion out of the group is matched by conversion into the group: 0.7% of respondents say they were raised Hindu but now identify as something else, and roughly the same share (0.8%) say they were not raised Hindu but now identify as Hindu. For Christians, however, there are some net gains from conversion: 0.4% of survey respondents are former Hindus who now identify as Christian, while 0.1% were raised Christian but have since left Christianity.

Most Indians believe in God and say religion is very important in their lives. Nearly all Indians say they believe in God (97%), and roughly 80% of people in most religious groups say they are absolutely certain that God exists. The main exception is Buddhists, one-third of whom say they do not believe in God. (Belief in God is not central to Buddhist teachings .)

Indians do not always agree about the nature of God: Most Hindus say there is one God with many manifestations, while Muslims and Christians are more likely to say, simply, “there is only one God.” But across all major faiths, the vast majority of Indians say that religion is very important in their lives, and significant portions of each religious group also pray daily and observe a range of other religious rituals.

India’s religious groups share several religious practices and beliefs. After living side by side for generations, India’s minority groups often engage in practices or hold beliefs that are more closely associated with Hindu traditions than with their own. For instance, many Sikh (29%), Christian (22%) and Muslim (18%) women in India say they wear a bindi – the forehead marking often worn by married women – even though the bindi has Hindu origins. Meanwhile, Muslims in India are just as likely as Hindus to say they believe in karma (77% each), as do 54% of Indian Christians.

Some members of the majority Hindu community celebrate Muslim and Christian festivals: 7% of Indian Hindus say they celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid, and 17% celebrate Christmas.

Note: Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology .

• Beliefs & Practices
• Interreligious Relations

Jonathan Evans is a senior researcher focusing on religion research at Pew Research Center .

Neha Sahgal is Vice President of Research at Pew Research Center .

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Indian Culture

Religion has historically influenced Indian society on a political, cultural and economic level. There is a sense of pride associated with the country’s rich religious history as the traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism all emerged out of India. Moreover, while a majority of people in India identify as Hindu (79.8%), the medley of religions that exist within the country continually impact contemporary society.

In India, religion is more publicly visible than it is in most English-speaking Western countries. This becomes evident when considering the numerous spaces that are thought to be sacred and holy. Examples include ‘ ashrams ’ (monasteries or congregation sites) consisting of large communities of scholars or monastics, temples ( mandir ), shrines and specific landscapes such as the Ganges river. There is a rich religious history visible in architecture, and it is not uncommon to find various places of worship, such as a Hindu temple, Muslim mosque and Christian church, all next to each other.

The 2011 Indian census indicated that 79.8% of Indians identified as Hindu, 14.2% identified as Muslim and 2.3% identified as Christian. A further 1.7% of the population identified as Sikh, 0.7% identified as Buddhist and 0.37% identified as Jain. Due to the massive population size of India, religious minorities still represent a significant number of people. For example, although only 0.37% of India may identify with Jainism, that still equates to over 4 million people. While not all religions in India can be discussed in detail, the following provides an overview of the major religions in the country as well as sizable religions that originated in India.

Hinduism in India

Hinduism – the most widely followed religion in India – can be interpreted diversely. Pinpointing what constitutes Hinduism is difficult, with some suggesting that it is an umbrella term that encompasses various religions and traditions within it. Nonetheless, Hinduism in all its forms has been particularly influential in Indian society.

Hinduism continues to thrive in modern-day India. The religion affects everyday life and social interactions among people through the many Hindu-inspired festivities, artistic works and temples. There is also a continuing revival of the classical ‘epic' narratives of the Ramayana (Rama’s Journey) and the Mahabharata (The Great Epic of the Bharata Dynasty) through the medium of film and television. The Krishna Lila (The Playful Activities of Krishna) is another popular tale among many villages.

It is common to find images of gods and goddesses in public and private spaces at all times of the year. The elephant-headed god, known as Ganesh , is particularly popular due to his believed ability to remove obstacles. Natural landscapes are also venerated, such as particular trees or rivers. The Hindu pantheon of deities extends into the hundreds of thousands due to the localised and regional incarnations of gods and goddesses. There are also many festivals celebrated throughout the country dedicated to the many Hindu narratives and deities.

Social Structure

One influential component of Hinduism impacting India is the large-scale caste system , known as the ‘ varna ’ system. The varna caste system represented the Hindu ideal of how society ought to be structured. This form of organisation classified society into four ideal categories: brahmin (priestly caste), kshatriya (warrior, royalty or nobility caste), vaishya (commoner or merchant caste) and shudra (artisan or labourer caste).

It is a hereditary system in that people are believed to be born into a family of a specific caste. Each caste has specific duties (sometimes known as ‘ dharma ’) they are expected to uphold as part of their social standing. For instance, a member of the Brahmin caste may be expected to attend to religious affairs (such as learning religious texts and performing rituals) while avoiding duties outside of their caste, such as cleaning. In contemporary times, Brahmin men who have been trained as priests often tend to temples and perform ritual activities on behalf of other members of Hindu society.

Islam in India

Islam is the second most followed religion in India, influencing the country's society, culture, architecture and artistry. The partition of the subcontinent in 1947 led to mass emigration of roughly 10 million Muslims to Pakistan and nearly as many Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan into India. This event changed the demographics of both countries significantly and is continually felt throughout India.

Nonetheless, the Islamic community in India continues to play a considerable role in the development of the country. For example, the Muslim community in India has contributed to theological research and the establishment of religious facilities, institutes and universities. The mystical strain of Islam (Sufism) is also popular, with people gathering to watch Sufi dance performances. The majority of Muslims are Sunni, but there are also influential Shi'ite minorities in Gujarat. Most Sunnis reside in Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Kerala as well as major cities.

Sikhism in India

Originating in India, Sikhism is a monotheistic religion that promotes devotion to a formless God. The religion is centred on a tenet of service, humility and equality, encouraging its followers to seek to help those less fortunate or in need. For example, it is common for Sikhs to offer food to those visiting a gurdwara (the primary place of worship for Sikhs). One of the most recognised symbols of the Sikh community is a Sikh turban (known as a ‘ dastar ’ or a ‘ dumalla ’) worn by many men and some women. Since the partition of India and Pakistan, most Sikhs in India have resided in the Punjab region.

Buddhism in India

Buddhism originated as a countermovement to early Hinduism by presenting a universal ethic rather than basing ethical codes on an individual’s caste. The core doctrine of Buddhism, known as the ‘Four Noble Truths’, teaches that one can be liberated from the suffering that underpins the cycle of death and rebirth by practising the ‘Noble Eightfold Path’. Buddhism has become more widely practised in India over the last 30 years. This is partially due to the increased migration of exiled Buddhist monks from Tibet. However, its popularity has also increased as many from the 'untouchables' caste view it as a viable alternative to Hinduism in contemporary Indian society. Many Buddhists reside in the states of Maharashtra, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir.

Jainism in India

Jainism also originated as a countermovement that opposed some of the teachings and doctrines of early Hinduism. In modern-day India, layperson Jains usually uphold the ethical principle of ‘ ahimsa ’ (‘non-harm’ or ‘non-violence’). As such, Jains tend to promote vegetarianism and animal welfare. Another common practice in the Jain lay community is samayika , a meditative ritual intended to strengthen one's spiritual discipline. Samayika is often practised in a religious setting, such as a temple, before a monk, or in one's home. Most Jains reside in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan.

Christianity in India

Christianity is the third most followed religion in India, mostly concentrated in the far south and Mumbai. The most prominent denomination of Christianity in India is Roman Catholicism, but there are also localised Christian churches (such as the Church of North India and the Church of South India). Converts to Christianity have come mainly from traditionally disadvantaged minorities such as lower castes and tribal groups.

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Understanding traditional belief systems in Northeast India revisiting the oral world through literature

2019, Routledge

The life of tribal groups in the Northeast India abounds with the tradition of folklore, myth, superstition and a strong belief in the co-existence with the supernatural world. Writing in English has offered a global ground for the Northeast writers to express their rich culture, beliefs and knowledge, which in the past was limited to the community. The act of writing also serves another purpose as well, to preserve them. In the wake of mass conversion and political tension, certain beliefs and rituals of the oral past are perishing and in some parts of the region, lost. Therefore, the writers of this region are representing the fading tradition of their respective tribes prior to conversion to Christianity and the arrival of the script. This paper is an attempt to show the transition and, at the same time, to revisit and understand the important bearings of that oral past through their works.

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Kalyani Dutta

A large number of folklore related to religious groups, cults, personality based cults, exists these days in every region of the Indian sub continent. In India religious diversity is respected and encouraged. People from diverse cultures and backgrounds have always accommodated and amalgamated in Indian society. The growth of the folklore provides an interesting window to study the mixing of the legends, oral traditions, religious beliefs, culture and the actual history of the region. For instance in Eastern India there exists variety of folklore , folk literature, Mangal-Kavyas (Panchali) that deals generally with the religious cults, sects, traditions and stories of gods and goddesses , various forms of worship, it's beliefs, rituals and variety of practices etc. The folklore also shows how and why we worship Trees, Sacred Animals, Birds, Emblems, Pictures, Signs, and Motifs etc. The main reason to worship these manifestations is to show devotions to god and goddesses. It symbolizes the religious and cultural practices of both Aryan and non-Aryan traditions. It shows cultural synthesis and ongoing process of socio-anthropological development of the society. Therefore an assessment of Indian culture is possible through a careful study of the religion and folklore .

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Prakash Chandra Pradhan

As we know, the past is very important in our life. We cannot dismiss history, myth, orality, and tradition as irrelevant in our lives in the contemporary conditions where science and technology rule the roost. The chapters included in the anthology discuss how all these elements are significant for us, and show us the true value of our culture and tradition. The ‘pastness of the past in the present’, can lead us to move in new directions. The anthology has vividly illustrated the cultural and literary traditions in India from North to South, and East to West. India is a nation of cultural, linguistic, and social diversity. This diversity points to the plurality in the discourses of history and tradition. Myth and orality are the two vital components of these discourses that explain the diversity of India. The myths of Saptamatrika, Rama, Shiva, Adam, and others in this anthology show the infinite variety/versions of history and tradition in India. These varieties have permeated Indian society and passed on to future generations through orality. The oral narratives preserved the history of the pre-literate society in an infinite variety of myths and informed the common wisdom of society in India. This wisdom has intermittently provided insight into all social, cultural, political, and historic events. In the present century, the writers have revived India’s rich mythological past to comprehend the development, potential, and nature of issues and events of the concurrent times. They have revoked mythological figures such as Rama, Shiva, and Draupadi to mark significant changes in socio-cultural values, viewpoints, and belief systems. The contributors to this anthology have evaluated the re-telling, re-presentation, and reconceptualization of the mythological characters and events in the present context. In their evaluations, the authors of the chapters have addressed diverse issues concerning myths to capture the meaningful transformations that have taken place in Postcolonial India. At the center of the discourses present in the anthology, God, divinity, and humanity have occupied the dialectics of India’s relation with ethics, morality, politics, economy, and aesthetics from ancient times to the present. We anticipate that the anthology has presented a knowledge trove for the students, researchers, and educators in the field of history, myth, and orality in India.

Religion is an integral but very complicated part of human society. In different periods of human civilization religion played a great role as a unification force of human society. But the analysis of religion is not such simplistic in nature. It is also associated with multifaceted dynamisms, from where diverse social structures have originated. Different mythologies and folklores, those are related to some particular religion have indirectly provided validity to different forms of believe system that the particular religion has claimed. In Sasoni Merbil region of Upper Assam, folklore of a Jal Kowar is very famous and till today its impact can be seen in different rituals performed in the region. This research mainly focuses on the analysis of this folklore from a critical angle. As Sasoni region was once a famous learning centre of Neo Vaishnavite religious doctrine, a hidden but amazing link in between this religious doctrine and the famous folklore can be seen. The research is ...

Textos de História. Revista do Programa de Pós- …

shraddha N Kumbhojkar

Brill's Encuclopedia of the Religions of the Indigenous Peoples of South Asia

Harald Tambs-Lyche

I try here to give an overall view of the situation of the tribes of Western India, particularly in regard to religion. I stress the continuity between tribal religion and popular Hinduism in the region, but also point to various specific traits of the tribal religions. The present pressure from Hindu orgaizations is stressed, but in a erspective of continuous contact over the centuries.

ruchi bisht

This paper attempts to understand the aesthetic aspect of Oral tradition in the Jaunsari tribe of Central Himalayas. Language plays a vital role in the literature as it is the only medium to understand the beauty of literature. But when there is no proper medium to enhance the knowledge of any particular community, Oral tradition plays an important part in transmitting all the hidden treasure of human civilization to the next generation. Especially in the tribal society oral narratives are the only source to know about the particular tribe. As tribes are the creator, preserver and transmitter of their culture. Tribal societies are the real transmitter of the oral tradition as they assimilate the traditions in the life. For tribals, orality is not only a means of expressing the experiences of life, but it is the way of unique representation in the literate society. It is the medium through which one can understand the essence of any culture. The present paper discusses the importance...

International Journal of Hindu Studies

Andrea Acri , Andrea Farran

International Journal of Hindu Studies 17, 3 (2013): 223–230

Andrea Farran

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Knut Axel Jacobsen

The article compares the early stages of the revivals of Sāṃkhyayoga and Buddhism in modern India. A similarity of Sāṃkhyayoga and Buddhism was that both had disappeared from India and were revived in the modern period, partly based on Orientalist discoveries and writings and on the availability of printed books and publishers. Printed books provided knowledge of ancient traditions and made re-establishment possible and printed books provided a vehicle for promoting the new teachings. The article argues that absence of communities in India identified with these traditions at the time meant that these traditions were available as identities to be claimed.

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The Challenge of Understanding Religious Diversity in India

• First Online: 13 July 2022

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• Preeti Kapur 4 ,
• Girishwar Misra 5 &
• Nitin K. Verma 6  

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India has the distinct feature of being the birth place from where various religions, namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, have had its roots and have spread to the global level. Yet, the India also has several indigenous faiths and tribal religions, which have existed for centuries. Islam and Christianity came in later and are considered ‘minority’ religions in the Indian Constitution. The regional coexistence of several religious groups, large and small, in the country makes it social phenomenon worthy of studying. According to the Census of 2011, we note the following of six major religions and others clubbed together, Hindu 79.80%, Muslim 14.23%, Christian 2.30%, Sikh 1.72, Buddhist 0.70%, Jain, 0.37%, other religions 0.66%, and religion not stated as 0.24%. Since independence, these figures have more or less remained similar in nature. The religious communities that we see today have faced a continual process of description, interpretation, and categorization. In a multi-religious society like India, it is significant to understand the different worldviews that create the foundation for the organization of social life. Yet, presenting the Indian religious life is a formidable undertaking as India is a home for many religions/faiths. India presents a kaleidoscope —a matrix where many faiths are alive and thriving. And, the process continues even in contemporary India.

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Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi, India

Preeti Kapur

Department of Psychology, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India

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Bharati College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi, India

Nitin K. Verma

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Kapur, P., Misra, G., K. Verma, N. (2022). The Challenge of Understanding Religious Diversity in India. In: Psychological Perspectives on Identity, Religion and Well-Being. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-2844-4_3

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• Exploring Religion and Identity Politics in India

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The Pew Research Center’s largest study of India explores the intersection of religion and identity politics.

Bounded on the north by the Himalayas, east by the Ganges River and Bay of Bengal, west by the otherworldly salt marshes known as the Rann of Kutch, and south by the spice-scented Cardamom Hills, India’s 1.4 billion citizens revere deities as diverse as their nation’s topography: the elephant-headed Ganesha, Allah of Islam, the protector-god Vishnu, Jesus, the Sikhs’ Waheguru, and many more. 

And the great majority of the nation’s adults—84%—regard religion as “very important” in their lives, according to the largest single-country survey ever conducted by the Pew Research Center outside the United States. Even more say religious tolerance is central to what it means to be “truly Indian.”

Nine out of 10 of the nearly 30,000 adults interviewed for the study— “ Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation ,” released last June—say they feel “very free” to practice their faith, and many borrow from one another’s beliefs in ways that Westerners might find baffling. More than 3 in 4 Indian Muslims subscribe to the Hindu concept of karma, for example. A third of India’s Christians believe in the purifying properties of the Ganges River, and nearly 1 in 5 Jains and Sikhs celebrate Christmas.   

Yet the survey also reveals palpable religious differences in the vast, rapidly modernizing nation. The 232-page report notes that significant minorities of Indian adults say they would not be willing to accept people of other faiths in their neighborhoods. Most form close friendship circles within their own faith , and large majorities oppose interfaith marriage. 

“People in India’s major religious communities tend to see themselves as very different from others,” according to the study, which was conducted as India’s electoral politics have sharpened tensions between the 81% Hindu majority and the 14% Muslim population. The report found that two-thirds of Hindus view themselves as very different from Muslims, for example, while 64% of Muslims “return the sentiment.”  

In light of the controversial policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi—who has been in office since 2014 and is often described as promoting a Hindu nationalist ideology—these attitudes have particular relevance in the public life of modern India. In February 2020, after India’s parliament gave migrants of all South Asia’s major religions—except for Muslims—an expedited path to Indian citizenship, clashes between Hindus and Muslims in Delhi left more than 50 dead.

Hindus “tend to see their religious identity and Indian national identity as closely intertwined,” the survey found, with nearly two-thirds (64%) saying it is “ very important to be Hindu to be ‘truly’ Indian .” Of those who share that view, 80% also say it is equally important to speak Hindi—one of India’s two official languages, but just one of 22 constitutionally recognized languages—to be authentically Indian. And of those who share both views, the survey found that 60% voted with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in the last national election in spring of 2019.  

The survey was conducted as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project , a Pew partnership with the John Templeton Foundation that analyzes religious change and its impact on societies around the world. Undertaken between late 2019 and early 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, the survey was conducted entirely in face-to-face interviews among 29,999 adults in 17 languages and is the Pew Research Center’s most comprehensive, in-depth exploration of India.

“If you’re interested in studying the role of religion in statecraft and building identity around the world, there’s no better place to do it than India,” says Neha Sahgal , associate director of research at the Center. “This is a country where religion and identity politics are hugely important, but there’s hardly been any data informing its very emotional debates—let alone its policymaking. So the opportunity to make an impact was huge because data has the power to ground public debate in a set of facts.

“There’s one very surprising fact in the data, and that’s India’s unique concept of tolerance,” Sahgal continues. “For Indians, being tolerant of others and valuing tolerance is not antithetical to wanting to live a religiously segregated life.” As such, she says, “it couldn’t be more different from the American ‘melting pot’ model of pluralism. Indians instead favor a thali model of pluralism: a humongous plate containing bowls of different flavors that all remain separate.”

Several Indian scholars who helped develop the survey say they take comfort in findings that offer a seemingly contradictory “tolerant but separate” picture of Indian religiosity, noting that it challenges the media’s picture of a deeply divided nation. 

“This is very, very interesting—a new idea of India,” says Hilal Ahmed , associate professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi, where he researches political Islam and cultural perceptions of Muslims. “When people say that respecting each other’s religion is very important not merely for being a good Indian but a good Hindu, a good Sikh, a good Muslim, it means people have tremendous respect for minorities and want an inclusive society,” says Ahmed. “For me, this is the most important finding of the survey.”

Ravinder Kaur , professor of sociology and social anthropology whose work at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi focuses on kinship, migration, social change, and gender, says the findings give her optimism at this time of religious tension in her country. Politically driven Hindu nationalism, or hindutva, “cannot ultimately damage the fabric of our communities,” she predicts, “because our diversity and respect for tolerance are so great.”

Kaur, a Sikh, points to the northern city of Ayodhya, where tensions still simmer over a Hindu mob’s destruction of a centuries-old mosque in 1992. “And yet Hindus and Muslims there are still very intertwined, economically and politically,” she says, in subtle ways that even a detailed survey such as this one would find hard to capture. Ayodhya’s Muslim community, Kaur notes, has long provided much of the religious paraphernalia, such as garlands, that Hindus use in their religious ceremonies. “It’s a coexistence,” she says, “that’s been carrying on forever.” 

Nonetheless, the Pew survey found that a sense of differentness is “reflected in traditions and habits that maintain the separation of India’s religious groups.”  Religious conversions, and marriages across religious lines, are “exceedingly rare,” for example, with about two-thirds of Hindus and nearly 80% of Muslims saying it is “very important to stop people in their community from marrying into other religious groups.”

Indians also tend to socialize with members of their own religious group. “Hindus overwhelmingly say that most or all of their friends are Hindu,” according to the report, and 36% say they would not be willing to accept Muslims in their neighborhoods. About a quarter of Muslims say they would not accept Christians, Sikhs, or Buddhists as neighbors, and 16% of Muslims said the same of Hindus. 

Such pervasive self-segregating seems a measure of the value Indians place on their distinct religious identities, says Ajay Verghese , assistant professor of political science at Middlebury College. “One way to keep religion intact is to not come in contact with outside influences,” he notes—and it seems to be working. The survey found that despite the nation’s growing prosperity, “India’s population so far shows few, if any, signs of losing its religion.”

While one-third of Buddhists do not subscribe to belief in a deity, 97% of all Indians say they believe in God and roughly 80% are “absolutely certain” God exists. Slightly more than half the population (54%) say there is one God with “many manifestations,” a view held by 61% of Hindus and 54% of Jains. Two out of 3 Muslims and Christians, meanwhile, believe in “only one God.”

Westerners seeking to grasp why so many Indians adhere to religion should recognize that “the term ‘religion’ is way more expansive in India than in the West,” says Verghese, who studies Indian politics, ethnicity, religion, and political violence. “It’s much harder to secularize in a country where religion affects every aspect of your life, from what you eat and the clothes you wear to who you marry.” 

He points, however, to some tantalizing Pew data that may augur change. The survey found that only 69% of respondents in the nation’s wealthier, better-educated South say religion is “very important” to them, a figure well below the national average of 84%. Whether Indians in other regions will become less religious as they grow more prosperous “is an interesting question,” he says. 

But with interreligious marriage so unpopular, and nearly everyone agreeing it’s “highly important” to observe religious ceremonies for birth, marriage, and death, Verghese predicts that “religious identity will likely stay high” in India for the foreseeable future.

For all their religious self-segregating and identity politics, however, many Indians are highly eclectic in their spiritual beliefs and practices . More than half of Christians (54%) believe in karma and 29% believe in reincarnation, for example, and 31% of Christians and 20% of Muslims celebrate Diwali, the festival of lights traditionally celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains.

Roughly 7 in 10 Indians also say they believe in fate; 44% believe that the position of planets and stars can influence events in one’s life, and 39% believe lives can be influenced by magic, sorcery, or witchcraft. Many of these beliefs are highest among the less educated, though 29% of those with college degrees say they believe in the efficacy of magic.

Although focused on religion, the survey explored other important aspects of Indian life. Unemployment tops the list of national concerns, with 84% of all respondents calling it a “very big problem.” About 3 in 4 also cited crime, corruption, and violence against women. Ninety-five percent of Muslims say they are “very proud” to be Indian, and 85% agreed with the statement that “Indian people are not perfect, but Indian culture is superior to others.” 

About 30% of Indians identify as belonging to a grouping of higher castes known as “general category” caste, with the rest of the population saying they belong to protected castes that have historically been discriminated against known as “Scheduled Caste,” “Scheduled Tribe,” or “Other Backward Class.” Nearly half (46%) of Muslims and Sikhs identify as belonging to the general caste, as do 76% of Jains. Just 28% of Hindus, however, identify with the general castes. 

Nearly two-thirds of all Indians, and about 7 in 10 Muslims, say it is very important to stop people from marrying outside their caste . Only a third of Christians and half of college graduates agreed. 

Significantly, the survey found that despite Indians’ acute sense of religious difference, complaints of religious discrimination are relatively low.  Only 24% of the nation’s nearly 98 million Muslim adults report facing “a lot” of discrimination, although the numbers are notably higher—about 40%—among Muslims living in the north of the country, which includes the national capital territory of Delhi. Additionally, only about 1 in 5 Indians said there is “a lot” of discrimination against members of the lower castes. 

Those relatively low numbers were “a shock” to Verghese, whose research focuses on Hindus, because he had supposed discrimination in India to be more pervasive. “There are two ways to interpret” the survey’s findings on discrimination, he says. 

“One is that people don’t want to admit [to survey interviewers] that they’ve been discriminated against,” he says. “The other is that we [social scientists] may be incorrect about the extent of discrimination” in India. “If you work on discrimination questions you have to ask yourself:  ‘Why is it lower than we think?’”

That is what makes the findings such a rich starting point for further research about India, its religiosity, and its politics as the nation and its international influence grows.

“We will have to grapple with some of these statistics,” says Verghese. “A survey of this magnitude is something scholars who work on Indian religions have needed for a long time.”

David O’Reilly was the longtime religion reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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Religious Developments in Ancient India

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For well over 1,000 years, sacred stories and heroic epics have made up the mythology of Hinduism . Nothing in these complex yet colourful legends is fixed and firm. Pulsing with creation, destruction, love, and war , it shifts and changes. Most myths occur in several different versions, and many characters have multiple roles, identities, and histories. This seeming confusion reflects the richness of a mythology that has expanded and taken on new meanings over the centuries.

Hinduism stood for a wide variety of related religious traditions native to India . Historically, it involved the evolution since the pre-Christian epoch. In turn, it looked back to age-old belief of the Indus Valley Civilization followed by the Vedic religion .

Indus Valley Civilization

The Indus Valley Civilization ensued during the Bronze Age (3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE). It mostly spread along the Indus and the Punjab region, extending into the Ghaggar-Hakra river valley and the Ganga -Yamuna Doab, surrounding most of what is now Pakistan, the western states of modern-day India, as well as extending into south-eastern Afghanistan, and the easternmost part of Baluchistan, Iran.

The geography of the Indus Valley put the civilizations that arose there in a similar situation to those in Egypt and Peru, with rich agricultural lands being surrounded by highlands, desert, and ocean. Of late, Indus sites had been discovered in Pakistan's north-western Frontier Province as well. Other smaller isolated colonies were found as far away as Turkmenistan. Coastal settlements extended from Sutkagan Dor in Western Baluchistan to Lothal in Gujarat. An Indus Valley site was located on the Oxus River at Shortughai in northern Afghanistan,

By 2600 BCE, early communities turned into large urban centres. Such inner- city centres included Harappa, Ganeriwala, Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and Dholavira, Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi, Rupar, and Lothal in India. In total, over 1,052 cities and settlements have been found, mainly in the region of the Indus and the tributaries. Steatite seals had images of animals, people (perhaps gods), and other types of inscriptions, including the yet un-deciphered writing system of the Indus Valley Civilization. A number of gold , terra-cotta and stone figurines of girls in dancing poses showed the presence of some dance form. Also, these terra-cotta figurines included cows, bears, monkeys, and dogs. Sir John Marshall reacted with surprise when he saw the famous Indus bronze statuette of a slender-limbed dancing girl in Mohenjo-daro:

When I first saw I found it difficult to believe that they were prehistoric; they seemed to completely upset all established ideas about early art, and culture . Modelling such as this was unknown in the ancient world up to the Hellenistic age of Greece , and I thought, therefore, that some mistake must surely have been made; that these figures had found their way into levels some 3000 years older than those to which they properly belonged.

Now, in these statuettes, it was just this anatomical truth which was so startling; that made us wonder whether, in this all-important matter, Greek artistry could possibly have been anticipated by the sculptors of a far-off age on the banks of the Indus.

It was widely suggested that the Harappan people worshipped a Mother goddess symbolizing fertility. A few Indus valley seals displayed swastika sign which were there in many religions, especially in Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism . The earliest evidence for elements of Hinduism is before and during the early Harappan period. Phallic symbols close to the Hindu Shiva lingam was located in the Harappan ruins.

One famous seal displayed a figure seated in a posture reminiscent of the lotus position, surrounded by animals. It came to be labelled after Pashupati (lord of beasts), an epithet of Shiva. The discoverer of the Shiva seal (M420), Sir John Marshall and others have claimed that this figure is a prototype of Shiva, and have described it as having three faces, seated on a throne in a version of the cross-legged lotus posture of Hatha Yoga. Yogi's penis is erect, with both testicles prominently visible. The precise placement of both heels under the scrotum is an advanced Tantric Yoga technique known as Bandha, meaning knot or lock. It is normally used to sublimate and redirect sexual energy and can endow the practitioner with spiritual powers.

A large tiger rears upwards by the yogi's right side, facing him. This is the largest animal on the seal, shown as if warmly connected to the yogi; the stripes on the tiger's body, also in groups of five, highlight the connection. Three other smaller animals are depicted on the Shiva seal. It is most likely that all the animals on this seal are totemic or heraldic symbols, indicating tribes, people or geographic areas. On the Shiva seal, the tiger, being the largest, represents the yogi's people, and most likely symbolizes the Himalayan region. The elephant probably represents central and eastern India, the bull or buffalo south India and the rhinoceros the regions west of the Indus river. Heinrich Zimmer agrees that the Pashupati figure shows a figure in a yoga posture.

The people of the Indus Valley also appear to have worshipped a male god . The most important depiction of an imagined Hinduism god is seal number 420. Many other seals have been found depicting the same figure, but not in the same detail as number 420. The deity is wearing a headdress that has horns, the shape being reminiscent of the crescent moon that modern image of Siva shows on his forehead.

What are thought to be linga stones have been dug up. Linga stones in modern Hinduism are used to represent the erect male phallus or the male reproductive power of the god Siva. But again, these stones could be something entirely different from objects of religious worship. Even today, Siva is worshipped in both human form and that of the phallus. The deity sitting in a yoga-like position suggests that yoga may have been a legacy of the very first great culture that occupied India.

Religious Sign of Swastika

The earliest sure use of swastika motifs in the archaeological record goes to the Neolithic epoch. The symbol appears in the "Vinca script " of Neolithic Europe (Balkans, 6th to 5th millennium BCE. Another early attestation is on a pottery bowl found at Samarra, dated to as early as 4000 BCE. Joseph Campbell in an essay on The Neolithic-Palaeolithic Contrast cites an ornament on a Late Palaeolithic (10,000 BCE) mammoth ivory bird figurine found near Kiev as the only known occurrence of such a symbol predating the Neolithic. The swastika appears only very rarely in the archaeology of ancient Mesopotamia .

In Hinduism, the Swastika in two drawings symbolizes two forms of the creator god Brahma . Facing right it signifies the evolution of the universe; facing left it typifies the involution of the universe. The swastika is one of the 108 symbols of the Hindu deity Vishnu and represents the Sun's rays, upon which life depends. It is also seen as pointing in all four directions (north, east, south and west) and thus implies stability. Its use as a Sun symbol can first be seen in its image of the god Surya . The swastika is used in all Hindu yantras and religious designs.

Buddhism originated in the fifth century BCE and spread throughout the Indian subcontinent in the third century BCE. The swastika symbol (right-hand) was believed to have been stamped on Gautama Buddha 's chest by his initiates after his death . It is known as The Heart's Seal. With the spread of Buddhism, the Buddhist swastika reached Tibet and China . The symbol was also introduced to Balinese Hinduism by Hindu kings.

Well over 400 distinct Indus symbols, some say 600, have been found on seals, small tablets, or ceramic pots and over a dozen other materials, including a signboard that apparently once hung over the gate of an inner citadel.

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A large number of eminent scholars argue 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. Others have 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 moulds. No parallels to these mass-produced inscriptions are known in any other early ancient civilizations.

Mohenjo-daro

Mohenjo-daro or “heap of the dead” was the largest city excavated of the Indus Valley or Harappan Civilization. Mohenjo-daro was a Sindhi word in the locality meaning 'mound of the dead'.

The scholars Parpola and Asfaq identified another seal (M 430) found at Mohenjo-daro as the one relating to a unique ritual of equinox. It was a stellar ceremony marking the equinox at the star constellation of Krittika - Alcyon. The legend on the seal cited: the epoch ( Kali Yuga – the present epoch we live in) set off at the beginning of the sign of the goat on Wednesday at sunrise at Lanka.

To cut short a fascinating tale of astral importance with religious nuance, it was the city of Lanka which had the place of honour as the prime meridian passed through it in 3102 BCE.

One more narration in this regard was in the travel record of Hwen Tsang in 630-635 CE. He saw a palisade ( stupa ) of Mauryan times. It was one hundred feet high. Cunningham said of this pillar:

The principality of Middle Sind, which is generally known as Vichalo or 'Midland' is described by Hwen Tsang as only 2,500 li or 417 miles in circuit. The chief city, named 'O-fan-cha' was at 700 li or 117 miles from the capital of the upper Sind, and 50 miles from Pitasala, the capital of lower Sind. As the former was Alor, and the latter was almost certainly the Pattale of the Greeks or Haiderabad, the recorded distances fix the position of O-fan-cha in the immediate neighbourhood vicinity of the ruins of an ancient city called Bambhra-ka-Thul or simply Bambhar. This, according to tradition, was the site of the once famous city of Brahmanwas or Brahmanabad […]. The city can be located because the circumstances are narrated in detail. The king of the city had previously submitted, but the citizens withheld their allegiance, and shut their gates. By a stratagem, they were induced to come out, and a conflict ensued, in which Ptolemy was seriously wounded in the shoulder by a poisoned sword. The mention of Ptolemy's wound enables us to identify this city with that of Hermetalia, which Diodorus describes as the 'last town of the Brahmins on the river.

Hermes in Greek is the muted term for Brahma. The Chinese syllable fan is the well-known phrasing of Brahma. Hence, both O-fan-cha and Hermetalia is a direct wording of Bambhra-ka-thul or Brahma-sthal. From all these discussions, it seemed certain that what Hwen Tsang visited was the city of Mohenjo-daro and its real name was Brahma-sthal or Brahmanabad. The meaning of the name Mohenjo-daro is 'Heap of the Dead'. Such a name seems peculiar for a prosperous city like this.

The Hindi word was mohan jodad.o. This word jodad.o had cognates in many mleccha, meluhha languages. The Sindhi word d.a_r.o meant 'feast given to relatives in honour of the dead'. A number of scholars made out that meluhha was the Sumerian name for mleccha , meaning non-Vedic, barbarian. It was used by the Aryans much as the ancient Greeks used barbaros , indicating garbled speech of foreigners or native people of the country.

The city flourished between 2600 BCE and 1900 BCE, although the first signs of settlement in the area had been dated to the period of 3500 BCE. Excavation at this level was impossible due to the high water table that made even simple excavations of Mohenjo-daro difficult. The city covered around 200 hectares of land and at its height might have had a population of 85, 000 people. The site was located in the modern Larkana district of Sind province in Pakistan. Mohenjo-daro was the largest city in the southern portion of the Indus Valley Civilization and important for trade and governance of this area.

The Great Mound, or Citadel, stood out the west end of Mohenjo-daro. The mound rose 40 feet about the plain at present time; it would have been higher at the time Mohenjo-daro was inhabited. There was a gap between the mound and the lower city. Because of the large size and separation from the rest of the city, it was thought the mound might have been used for a religious or administrative purpose. This hypothesis was supported by the architecture found on the top of the mound. The mound at Mohenjo-Daro had two distinct features: the Great Bath and the Granary or Meeting hall. The Great Bath was a sunken tank on the top of the mound; the tank was 12 meters long, 7 meters wide and was sunk 2.4 meters below the depth of the mud bricks that enclosed it. The Great Bath was one of the first aspects of Indus Valley life that could be related to modern Hinduism. The Great Bath might also be linked to the concept of river worship, much like the worship of the River Ganga today.

Emergence of the Mitanni Kingdom

In northern Mesopotamia, a great power arose: the Mitanni kingdom. Whatever we could gather about it is from indirect sources. Those people were called Kharri . Some philologists believed that this term was the same as Arya. According to the Vedic Index of Names and Subjects , compiled by Macdonald and Keith, this was the normal designation in Vedic literature from the Rig- Veda onwards of an Aryan of the three upper classes. The Mitannian invasion of northern Mesopotamia and the Aryan influx into India represented two streams of wandering migrations from a common cultural axis.

In 1906-07 CE at Boghaz Keui (about eighty miles to the south east of Ankara, modern capital of Turkey ) Hugo Winckler discovered the great state archive of the Hittite Empire containing more than 10,000 cuneiform tablets written in Akkadian cuneiform. One tablet recorded a peace treaty concluded in about 1400 BCE between the Hittite Monarch Suppiluliumas and Mattiuaza, King of the Mitanni. Four gods were called upon as witness to this treaty in the records: In-da-ra , Uru-w-na , Mi-it-ra and Na-sa-at-ti-ia . These names were nearly identical with the Vedic gods Indra , Varuna , Mitra and Nasatya . According to the eminent Indologist Paul Thieme, during the time of the Boghaz Keui treaty, these gods were brought into Iranian mythology. The Avestan scholars affirmed that many Vedic gods were revived, though they were below the supreme god Ahura Mazda . The Mitannians of the upper Euphrates River worshipped them around this epoch.

When Vedic texts were the oldest surviving evidence of early Indo-European -speaking peoples, it was assumed that these texts preserved aspects of Proto-Indo-European culture with careful accuracy. Many ethnologists hoped to unify Indo-Iranian, Celtic , Norse, Greek and Roman into a Proto-Indo-European religion. Max Muller believed that Indo-Iranian religion began as sun worship. G. Dumézil stressed the tripartite social system of Indo-European religion and society. Later scholarship had moved away from considering all these religions near-identical. Instead, since early in the 20th century CE, following Meillet, Thieme and Kuiper, the social function of the Indo-Iranian Asura/Āditya deities was stressed; they were an innovative group not found in Indo-European religion.

Several scholars held that Indo-Aryans reached Assyria in the west and the Punjab in the east before 1500 BCE. The Hurrite speaking Mitanni rulers, influenced by Indo-Aryan, turned up from 1500 BCE in northern Mesopotamia, and the Gandhara grave culture emerged from 1600 BCE. Shaffer & Lichtenstein (in Erdosy 1995:139) stated that:

This shift by Harappan and, perhaps, other Indus Valley cultural mosaic groups, is the only archaeologically documented west-to-east movement of human populations in South Asia before the first half of the first millennium BC.

This could have been caused by ecological factors, such as the drying-up of the Ghaggar-Hakra River and increased aridity in Rajasthan and other places. The Indus River also began to flow east and flooding occurred.

Iron Age Vedic religion

The religion of the Vedic period (also known as Vedism or Vedic Brahmanism or, in a context of Indian antiquity, simply Brahmanism was a historical predecessor of Hinduism. Many scholars insisted that to call this period Vedic Hinduism was a contradiction in terms since Vedic religion was very different from what we generally called Hindu religion - at least as much as Old Hebrew religion was from medieval and modern Christian religion. However, Vedic religion was treatable as a predecessor of Hinduism.

According to traditional views, the hymns of the Rig-Veda and other Vedic hymns were divinely revealed to the rishis, who were considered to be seers or "hearers" (shruti meant "what was heard") of the Veda, rather than "authors". In addition, the Vedas were said to be "apaurashaya", a Sanskrit word meaning uncreated by man and which further revealed their eternal non-changing status.

Elements of Vedic religion reached back to a Proto-Indo-Iranian religion and an earlier Proto-Indo-European religion. The Vedic period was held to have ended around 500 BCE, Vedic religion with time evolving into the various schools of Hinduism. Vedic religion also influenced Buddhism and Jainism.

Proto-Indo-Iranian religion meant the religion of the Indo-Iranian peoples prior to the earliest Vedic (Indo-Aryan) and Zoroastrian (Iranic) scriptures. These shared a common inheritance of concepts including the universal force *rta (Vedic rta, Avestan asha), the sacred plant and drink *sauma (Vedic Soma , Avestan Haoma) and gods of social order such as *mitra (Vedic Mitra, Avestan and Old Persian Mithra , Miϑra), *bhaga (Vedic Bhaga, Avestan and Old Persian Baga). Proto-Indo-Iranian religion was an archaic offshoot of Indo-European religion.

The documented history of Indian religions began with historical Vedic religion, the religious practices of the early Indo-Aryans, which were collected and later redacted into the Samhitas, four canonical collections of hymns or mantras composed in archaic Sanskrit. These texts were the central shruti (revealed) texts of Hinduism. The period of the composition, redaction and commentary of these texts was known as the Vedic period, which lasted from roughly 1500 to 500 BCE.

The late Vedic period (9th to 6th centuries BCE) marked the beginning of the Upanisadic or Vedantic period. This period heralded the beginning of much of what became classical Hinduism, with the composition of the Upanishads , later the Sanskrit epics, still later followed by the Puranas.

The Sanskrit word véda "knowledge, wisdom" was derived from the root vid- "to know". This was reconstructed as being derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *u̯eid-, meaning "see" or "know".

The Rig-Veda was counted among the four canonical sacred texts ( śruti ) of Hinduism known as the Vedas . Some of its verses are still recited as Hindu prayers, at religious functions and other occasions, putting these among the world's oldest religious texts in continued use. The Rig-Veda was full of several mythological and poetical accounts of the origin of the world, hymns praising the gods, and ancient prayers for life, prosperity, etc.

It is one of the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language. Philological and linguistic evidence implies that the Rig-Veda was composed in the north-western region of India, roughly between 1700–1100 BCE (the early Vedic period). There were strong linguistic and cultural similarities with the early Iranian Avesta , deriving from the Proto-Indo-Iranian times.

The text is organized in 10 books, known as Mandalas , of varying age and length. The "family books": mandalas 2-7, were the oldest part of the Rig-Veda and the shortest books; they were arranged by length. Tradition linked a rishi (the composer) with each hymn of the Rig-Veda . In all, 10 families of rishis accounted for more than 95% of the hymns. The compilation by each family went on over a long period of time. Thus, the Rig-Veda was not one book compiled and put together by the sages: each mandala stood out on its own.

The Rig-Vedic hymns were dedicated to various deities, chief of whom being Indra, a heroic god praised for having slain his enemy Vrtra; Agni , the sacrificial fire; and Soma, the sacred potion or the plant it was made from. Equally prominent gods were the Adityas or Asura gods Mitra–Varuna and Ushas (the dawn). Also invoked were Savitr, Vishnu, Rudra, Pushan, Brihaspati or Brahmanaspati, as well as deified natural phenomena such as Dyaus Pita (the shining sky, Father Heaven ), Prithivi (the earth, Mother Earth), Surya (the sun god), Vayu or Vata (the wind), Apas (the waters), Parjanya (the thunder and rain), Vac (the word), many rivers (notably the Sapta Sindhu – the seven rivers starting with the Indus, and the Sarasvati River). The Adityas, Vasus, Rudras, Sadhyas, Ashvins , Maruts, Rbhus, and the Vishvadevas ("all-gods") as well as the "thirty-three gods" were the groups of deities mentioned.

The priests performed the solemn rituals for the noblemen ( Kshsatriya ) and some wealthy merchants ( Vaishyas ). They prayed for abundance of children, rain, cattle (wealth), long life and an afterlife in the heavenly world of the ancestors. This mode of worship had been preserved even now in Hinduism, which needed recitations from the Vedas by a purohita (priest).

The religious practices rested on a priest administering rites that often involved sacrifices. Homa (also known as homam or havan) was a Sanskrit word which referred to any ritual in which making offerings into a consecrated fire was the primary action. At present, the words homa/homam and havan were interchangeable with the word Yagna. Although a consecrated fire was the central element of every homa ritual, the procedure and items offered to the fire varied by what was the occasion of the ceremony, or by the benefit expected from the ritual. Procedures invariably involved

• the kindling and consecration of the sacrificial fire;
• the invocation of one or more divinities; and,
• making of offerings (whether real or visualized) to them with the fire as via media , amid the recitation of prescribed prayers(mantras).

The sacred fire formed the focus of devotion; it was often held on certain types of dung, wood, dried coconut and so on. The fire-altar (vedi or homa/havan kunda) was generally made of brick or stone or a copper vessel, and was almost always built especially for the occasion, being taken apart immediately afterwards. This fire-altar was always built in square shape. While very large vedis were seldom built for major public homas, the usual altar would be as small as 1 x 1 foot square and rarely exceeded 3 x 3 feet square.

In all events, the arrangement was in the middle of a space, which could be either outdoors or indoors. The principal people performing the ceremony and the priests who instructed them through the rituals seated themselves around the altar, while family, friends and other devotees formed a larger ring around that centre.

• Atharva Veda

Of these, the first three were the principal original division, also called "trayī vidyā", implying "the triple sacred science " of reciting hymns ( RV ), chanting ( SV ) and performing sacrifices ( YV ).

The Sama-Veda Samhita (from sāman , the term for a melody applied to metrical hymn or song of praise) consisted of 1549 stanzas, taken almost entirely (except for 78 stanzas) from the Rig-Veda .

The Yajur-Veda Samhita had archaic prose mantras and also in part of verses borrowed and adapted from the Rig-Veda. Its purpose was practical, in that each mantra must accompany an action in sacrifice but, unlike the Sama-Veda, it was compiled to apply to all sacrificial rites,

In the Vedic literature, the Veda was one – the Rig-Veda . It was not the Vedas as the foreign scholars cited quite often. From the narration about the composition of the Sama-Veda , it was the chanting of the hymns, taken almost entirely from the Rig-Veda . The Yajur-Veda contained the details of the platform to be made, dedicated to the deity in whose homage the homa was going to be recited. For every deity there were separate chanting and separate platform for the ritual of yagna. The prose hymns here were again taken from the Rig-Veda .

The Atharva-Veda embodied an independent parallel tradition to that of the Rig-Veda and Yajur-Veda . It added in much of early traditions of healing and magic that had parallel in other Indo-European literature.

The Atharva-Veda was less common than other Vedas as it was little used in solemn ritual. Its first part composed chiefly of spells and incantations, concerned with protection against demons and disaster, spells for the healing of diseases, for long life and for various desires or aims in life. The largely silent Brahman priest looked at the procedures of the ritual and mended it with two mantras and pouring of ghee when a mistake occurred. An early text, its status had been ambiguous due to its magical character.

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Essay on World Religions And Belief Systems

Students are often asked to write an essay on World Religions And Belief Systems in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on World Religions And Belief Systems

World religions.

There are many different religions in the world, each with its own beliefs and practices. Some of the major religions include Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism.

Belief Systems

A belief system is a set of beliefs that a person or group of people holds to be true. Belief systems can be religious or secular. Religious belief systems are based on the teachings of a particular religion, while secular belief systems are not based on any particular religion.

Diversity of Religions

The diversity of religions in the world is a reflection of the different ways that people have tried to understand the meaning of life and the universe. There is no one right way to believe, and people should be free to practice the religion that they feel is right for them.

It is important to be tolerant of people who have different religious beliefs. Tolerance means respecting the beliefs of others, even if you do not agree with them. Tolerance is essential for creating a peaceful and harmonious world.

250 Words Essay on World Religions And Belief Systems

What are world religions, christianity:.

Christianity is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ and revolves around the belief in a triune God consisting of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christians believe that Jesus is the Messiah who came to Earth to save humanity from sin. Christianity emphasizes love, forgiveness, and compassion.

Islam is founded on the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad and centers around belief in one God, Allah, and his messenger, Muhammad. It highlights the importance of submission to God’s will, known as Islam, and adherence to the Five Pillars of Islam. Muslims strive to live a life of devotion, prayer, fasting, charity, and pilgrimage to Mecca.

Hinduism is a complex and diverse belief system with no single founder. It originated in India and encompasses a variety of traditions, philosophies, and practices. Hinduism places great emphasis on dharma, or righteous living, and the concept of reincarnation, where the soul passes through a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.

Buddhism, founded by Siddhartha Gautama, or the Buddha, originated in India and focuses on the pursuit of enlightenment or nirvana. It emphasizes the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path as ways to overcome suffering and achieve liberation from the cycle of rebirth.

Judaism is the oldest monotheistic religion, dating back to the Hebrew patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It revolves around the belief in one God, Yahweh or Jehovah, and the sacredness of the Torah, the Hebrew Bible. Judaism emphasizes ethical behavior, ritual observance, and the covenant between God and the Jewish people.

500 Words Essay on World Religions And Belief Systems

Belief systems of world religions.

Belief systems of world religions are the sets of beliefs and practices that are followed by the members of that religion. These beliefs and practices can be about things like God or gods, the afterlife, and the meaning of life. They can also include things like rituals, ceremonies, and festivals.

Similarities among World Religions

Even though world religions have different beliefs and practices, they also share some similarities. For example, many religions believe in a higher power, or God. They also often have a sense of community and belonging. Additionally, many religions have a code of ethics that their members are expected to follow.

Differences among World Religions

Importance of understanding world religions.

It is important to understand world religions because they play a major role in the lives of many people around the world. They can help to shape people’s values, beliefs, and behaviors. They can also give people a sense of community and belonging. By understanding world religions, we can better understand the people who practice them and build bridges between different cultures.

World religions are belief systems that have a large number of followers all over the world. They often have a long history, and they have shaped the cultures of the regions where they are practiced. Belief systems of world religions are the sets of beliefs and practices that are followed by the members of that religion. They can be about things like God or gods, the afterlife, and the meaning of life. Even though world religions have different beliefs and practices, they also share some similarities.

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Essay on religion | india | sociology.

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Here is an essay on ‘Religion’ for class 11 and 12. Find paragraphs, long and short essays on ‘Religion’ especially written for school and college students.

Essay on Religion

Essay # 1. meaning of religion :.

Indian society is pluralistic in nature. India is a land of religious pluralism. Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism, Christianity, and several other religions have been coexisting and growing side by a side in Indian society since ancient times. The Hindus constitute the largest segment of population nearly 73%, the Muslim nearly 12% and the Sikhs about 2%.

Religious diversity is a feature of Indian social structure and it plays an important role in politics. The adoption of secularism incorporating the maxims ‘Equality of all religions’ and ‘Absence of a State religion’ testifies to this reality of Indian politics.

The presence of religious communalism too reflects the harmful side of religious diversity. It is indeed quite perplexing to find that no Indian religion advocates violence and exclusiveness, yet in the name of various religions violence often erupts in different parts of India. We regularly face the loss of human life and precious resources because of aggressive and biotic clashes between the forces of Hindu Communalism, Muslim Communalism and Christian Communalism.

The spirit of secularism and the process of secularisation of political culture are yet to secure a sizeable hold in the polity. Religious tolerance is preached by all yet it is not effectively practiced and cultivated. As such religious factor continues to act as a hindering and harmful factor in the harmonious process of socio-political development.

In sociology, the word religion is used in a wider sense than that used in religious books. It defines religion as those institutionalised systems of beliefs, symbols, values and practices that provide groups of men with solutions to their questions of ultimate being.

A common characteristic found among all religion is that they represent a complex of emotional feelings and attitudes toward mysteries and perplexities of life. As such religion comprises first, systems of attitudes, beliefs, symbols which are based on the assumption that certain kinds of social relations are sacred or morally imperative and second, a structure of activities governed or influenced by these system.

According to Radin, it consists of two parts—physiological and psychological. The physiological part expresses itself in such acts as kneeling, closing the eyes, touching the feet. The psychological part consists of supernormal sensitivity to certain beliefs and traditions. While belief in supernatural powers may be considered basic to all religions, equally fundamental is the presence of a deeply emotional feeling which Golden Weber called the “religious thrill”.

Different Definitions of Religion:

Religion is one of the most influential forces of social control. Different writers have defined religion in different ways.

Definition :

(1) According to Ogburn, “Religion is attitude towards super human powers.”

(2) James G. F. Frazer considered religion as a belief in “powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature of human life.”

(3) According to Maclver, “Religion, as we understand the term, implies a relationship not merely between man and man but also between man and some higher power.”

(4) W. Robertson maintained that religion is not a vague fear of unknown powers, nor the child of terror, but rather a relation of all the members of a community to a power that has well of community at heart, and protects its law and moral order.

(5) Durkheim defined religion as a “unified system of beliefs’ and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden.”

(6) According to Gillin and Gillin, “the social field of religion may be regarded as including the emotinalised belief prevalent in a social group concerning the super-natural plus the overt behaviour, material objects and symbols associated with such belief.”

(7) According to Sapir, “Religion is man’s never- ceasing attempt to discover a road to spiritual serenity across the perplexities and dangers of daily life.”

(8) According to Arnold W. Green, “Religion is a system of beliefs and symbolic practices and objects governed by faith rather than by knowledge, which relates man to an unseen supernatural realm beyond the known and beyond the controllable.”

(9) According to M. M. Johnson, “Religion is more or less coherent system of beliefs and practices concerning a supernatural order of beings, forces, places or other entities.” According to Malinowski, “Religion is a made of action as well as system of belief, and a sociological phenomenon as well as a personal experience.”

In this way there are numerous definitions of religion given by thinkers according to their own conceptions. As a matter of fact the forms in which religion express itself so much that it is difficult to agree upon a definition. Some maintain that religion includes a belief in supernatural or mysterious powers and that is expressing itself in overt activities designed to deal with those powers. Some regard religion as belief in the immortality of soil. While it is possible to define as belief in God or some supernatural powers, it is well to remember that there can also be a Godless religion as Buddhism is. The Buddhism rejects belief in the immortality of the soul and the life hereafter.

The ancient Hebrews did not have a definite concept of immortal soul. They seem to have had no conception of post-mortem rewards and punishments. Others regard religion as something very earthly and materialistic designed to achieve practical ends.

But as Ruth Benedict wrote, “Religion is not to be identified with the pursuit of ideal ends. Spirituality and the virtues are two social values which were discovered in the process of social life. They may well constitute the value of religion in man’s history just as the pearl constitutes the value of the oyster. Nevertheless the making of the pearl is a by-product in the life of oyster and it does not give a clue to the evolution of the oyster.” Summer and Keller asserted that “Religion in history from the earliest to very recent days has not been a matter of morality at all but of rites, rituals, observance and ceremony.”

Essay # 2. Relationship between Religion and the Constitution of India :

The constitution of India embodies secularism in letter and spirit and it is accepted as a principle affirming I. No religion of the state as such II Equality of all religions in the eyes of law III Freedom of religion for all citizen IV No discrimination on the basis of religion V Freedom of the individual to accept and follow voluntarily any religion or faith or creed VI freedom of the each religious group to establish and maintain religious and philanthropic institutions, with their own organisational set up VII prohibition of religious instructions in recognized, government and government aided educational institutions.

The role of state in religious matters has been kept limited to the preventing violations of public order, morality and health and for eliminating social evils being practised in the name of any religion. The Preamble of the constitution while defining the scope of the ideal of liberty holds that it includes liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship. Right to freedom of religion stands enhanced in the constitution as one of the Fundamental rights of an Indian citizen and as such enjoys a constitutional guarantee.

In spite of all these constitutional provisions, secular political culture has not been developed in Indian political system since independence. Unfortunately there is gap in theory and practice. The Indian state does not prefer any religion and yet maintains its relationship with all religions. Communalism in all its ugly forms continues to be present and even appears to be spreading its fangs. The emotional integration of people is yet to take place.

The role of religion can be analysed by focusing on the following points:

1. Existence of Religion based Political Parties :

Like every other liberal democratic constitution, the constitution of India guarantees to the citizens the freedom to form their associations as well as the right to freedom of religion. These two freedoms have, however, led to the organisation of several political parties on the basis of various religions. Muslim League, Hindu Maha Sabha, Shiv Sena, Akali Dal besides several other ‘Politically active Jamayats’ and other organisation, are at work in the environment of Indian political system. The parties, being organised on narrow foundations, tend to remain away to get partially and parochially attached to the national mainstream.

2. Religion and Electoral Politics :

Religion plays a crucial role in the Indian elections. Right from the process of political socialisation and leadership recruitment till the making of authoritative values, religious factor constitutes an important factor in Indian politics. It is operative in all spheres of electoral politics—the selection of candidates for contesting elections, the allocation of constituencies to various party candidates, the election campaigns organised by almost all political parties and even the independents, the casting of votes, the formation of ministries and the process of policy making. Ram Janam Bhumi vs. Babri Masjid issue was definitely an important issue in the November 1989 and June 1991 elections.

3. Appeasement of Religious Minorities :

The political parties in India try to develop their vote banks among the minority religious groups. These parties continuously follow the policy of appeasement of religious minorities. They support and encourage the forces of religious fundamentalism, which are always present in all religious groups, but more particularly in minority religious groups for furthering their chances of success in elections. The political parties always try to establish a rapport and connection with religious organisations, particularly the ones which are functioning in their respective areas.

The religious group which enjoys numerical majority feels greatly disturbed by the policy of appeasement of the minority religious groups and as a reaction or even otherwise tends to organise and support a party that commits itself to the majority religious tenets.

The success of the B. J. P in the November 1989 Lok Sabha elections and 1990 state elections has been largely due to this factor. In fact, in some of the States like Punjab which has been having religion based political parties; religion has been a determining factor of state politics. It acts as a major determinant of electoral behaviour.

4. Religion of Government-Making :

In the organisation of governments, both at the Centre and State levels, the political leaders always keep in mind the religious factor. They try to appease or accommodate religious leaders by giving ministerial berths to the candidates who stand elected as representatives of the people.

The search for inducting a Sikh minister or the exercise involved in the appointment of a Muslim to a high office tend to reflect the presence of religious factor in the process of government making. Shiv Sena Government in Maharashtra reflects an increasing role of religion in government making at least in some of the Indian states.

5. Religion as a Determinant of Voting Behavior :

All voting behaviour studies in India fully bring out the fact that religion always acts as an important determinant of people’s choice of candidates in elections. The political parties, both which are based on a particular religion as well’ as one which are secularist, do not hesitate to canvass for their candidates in the name of religion.

In Kerala communists have always used religious factor to gain majority in the state legislature. The voting behaviour of the minorities in particular is always determined by this factor. ‘Vote for Panth’ or ‘Islam is in danger’ etc. are the usual slogans which the electorate in Punjab and Kerala always listen during election days.

6. Religious Interest Group:

Religious interest/pressure groups play a key role in Indian Politics. Arya Samaj, Jamait-lslami, Sikh intellectual Forum, Sikh Students Federation, Hindu Suraksha Samiti, Anti-cow Slaughter Movement, Brahmin Sabhas etc. all act as interest/pressure groups in Indian political system. These are involved in all processes of politics as political socialisation, leadership recruitment, interest articulation, interest aggregation, political communication etc.

These groups use political parties for securing their interests and in turn political parties use them for strengthening their support basis. Some of these forces act as forces of religious fundamentalism and seriously strain the secular forces. The Muslim interest groups are currently engaged in safeguarding the interest of Muslims regarding Babri Masjid while Hindu interest groups are determined to build the Ram Janam Bhumi Temple in Ayodhaya. The issue of Ram Janam Bhumi vs. Babri Masjid has been a major active issue in Indian politics for the last ten years.

In this way it is clear that religion plays a very important role in the socio-political life of the people of India. This is something natural for a society inhabited by religious people believing in various religions. Unfortunately the religious symbols, practices, rituals and non-religious values serve as the basis of antagonism. All religions preach the gospel brotherhood of man and Fatherhood of God. All stand for human values and humanism. All uphold similar values and hence can safely co-exist and develop side by side.

The adoption of religious values over and above the religious symbols or rituals is what is needed most in Indian Society. This has been what Mahatma Gandhi had meant while advocating the need for making religion as the basis of politics. Unless and until it is accepted and adopted, the Indian policy shall continue to suffer from communalism and dangers of disintegration. The forces of religious fundamentalism must realise that progress and development can be possible only by accepting secularism.

The Muslims and the Hindus must accept that the religious factor was not the only factor behind the partition. The creation of Pakistan must bring home the fact those religious differences when got politicised lead to division and disintegration. The separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan must bring home the fact that religion alone cannot be the basis of nationhood. Ethnic wars among people belonging to the same religion and wars among people belonging to same religion but different nationalities must make us realise the limited nature of religion as a factor of nationhood.

Adoption of secularism as a principle of healthy and prosperous living and the integration of minorities in the national mainstream but neither by force nor by appeasement but voluntarily by dependence upon reason, science and education can go a long way to channelise the role of religion in a healthy direction. Religious fanaticism and fundamentalism must be met by recourse to the religious values and not by counter-fanaticism and counter- fundamentalism.

Religion is therefore, a reality and integral part of Indian social structure. It can neither be ignored nor overlooked nor even eliminated. But through secularisation and by cultivating a rational love for religious value, which fortunately happen to be same in all religions, the harmful and negative role of religion can be replaced by a positive, healthy and unifying role of religion in Indian society. Without doing this no one can or should expect a bright and better future of India.

Essay # 3. Social Functions of Religion in India:

One of the clearest formulations of the hypothesis of the social function of religion was made by Red Cliffe Brown in his work on the Andamanese (1922) and restated in his essay on “Religion and Society” (1952) where he says – “Stated in the simplest possible terms the theory is that an orderly social life amongst human beings depends upon the presence in the minds of members of a society of certain sentiments, which control the behaviour of the individual in his relation to others. Rites can be seen to be regulated symbolic expressions of certain sentiments. Rites can, therefore, be shown to have a specific social function, when and to the extent that, they have for the effect to regulate, maintain and transmit from one generation to another sentiment on which the constitution of the society depends.”

Taking two different types of religion, ancestor worship in ancient China and Australian Totemism, he shows how in both it is possible to demonstrate the close correspondence of the form of the religion and the form of social structure, and how in each case the religion contributes to the social cohesion of the society.

Because religion is a complex institution, the social functions it performs are quite diverse. If a religious function produces beneficial consequences, then we normally refer to it as a positive function—as, for example, when religion stimulates tolerance, peaceful cooperation or love.

Religion can also generate harmful or dysfunctional effects. The religiously approved human sacrifices practiced by some tribe are an obvious example. Thus religion can exert both a positive, cohesive and comforting influence and a negative, disintegrating influence. Furthermore, some religious functions are manifest—intended and immediately observable—and some are latent—unintended and not immediately discernible.

(i) Integrative Function:

Most sociologists of religion consider integrative function as most valuable social function. Kingsley Davis (1949) goes so far as to say that religion makes an “indispensable contribution to the social integration”. Any ongoing group is somewhat integrated if its members perform specialised but interrelated activities and are, therefore, dependent on one another. Religion often produces a special kind of group unity and a strong social cohesion. It can supply the bond or force that holds members of a group together, and it can give them strong, positive feelings toward the group.

(ii) Social Support:

Religion provides support, consolation and reconciliation. In doing so it strengthens group morale. Human beings need emotional support when they are uncertain and disappointed and they need reconciliation with their society when they are alienated from its goals.

Religion acts as a mechanism through which people adjust to the inevitable facts of human existence contingency, powerlessness and scarcity, frustration and deprivation, death , suffering and coercion, largely direct human lives. But the regular norms of society provide no comfort during these exigencies and no guide for correct behaviour to circumstances that seem neither just not meaningful. It is in these circumstances that religion provides support to the individual.

(iii) Social Control:

Religion not only defines moral expectations for members of the religious group but usually enforces them. In addition to supernatural sanctions in the afterlife, there are frequently supernatural sanctions in this life, such as the threat of disease for violators of magical property taboos. To the extent that moral norms supported within religious group are at the same time norms of the society, social control within the religious group has functional importance for the wider society as well.

(iv) Socialization:

Religion is an adjunct of the process of socialization. Because socialization is never perfect deviance from societal norms is frequent. Religion supports the norms and values of established society by making them divine laws. The deviant, when breaks a norm, is made to believe that he faces not only the anger of his fellow humans, but that he can also be punished by a supernatural all powerful being.

(v) Legitimization of Social Values:

Religion can forcefully help to legitimize society’s most cherished values. When religion justifies and affirms a system of values, a compelling dimension is added to value system. Religions endorse and reinforce our society’s norms of honesty and personal rights. Guides to action and standards for judging one’s own and others’ behaviour in the natural world are infused with beliefs about the supernatural. So, by offering the highest-order explanation for group values, religion can persuade members to agree with and accept the group norms and goals.

(vi) Legitimization of Power:

To use, Berger’s example, every society is faced with the necessity of distributing power, for which purpose political institutions emerge. In legitimizing these institutions, the society has to justify the use of physical violence, which underlies power. Religion mystifies the institution by giving it extra human qualities.

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“Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation”, a Pew Center report on religious attitudes in India stated that Indians value religious freedom, not integration.

• It is a major survey of religion across India.
• It is conducted by Pew Research Center.
• It is based on nearly 30,000 face-to-face interviews of adults conducted in 17 languages between late 2019 and early 2020.

Key Findings

• Religious Freedom: The report finds that Indians of all these religious backgrounds overwhelmingly say they are very free to practice their faiths. 

Image Courtesy: TH

• Tolerance: Indians see religious tolerance as a central part of who they are as a nation. Across the major religious groups, most people say it is very important to respect all religions to be “truly Indian.” Tolerance is a religious as well as civic value. 
• Not only do a majority of Hindus in India (77%) believe in karma, but an identical percentage of Muslims do, too. 
• A third of Christians in India (32%) – together with 81% of Hindus – say they believe in the purifying power of the Ganges River. 
• In Northern India, 12% of Hindus and 10% of Sikhs, along with 37% of Muslims, identity with Sufism, a mystical tradition most closely associated with Islam. 
• And the vast majority of Indians of all major religious backgrounds say that respecting elders is very important to their faith.
• The majority of Hindus see themselves as very different from Muslims (66%), and most Muslims return the sentiment, saying they are very different from Hindus (64%). 
• There are a few exceptions: Two-thirds of Jains and about half of Sikhs say they have a lot in common with Hindus. But generally, people in India’s major religious communities tend to see themselves as very different from others.
• Affinity to Own Group: Indians generally stick to their own religious group when it comes to their friends. Fewer Indians go so far as to say that their neighbourhoods should consist only of people from their own religious groups. Still, many would prefer to keep people of certain religions out of their residential areas or villages.
• Indians’ concept of religious tolerance does not necessarily involve the mixing of religious communities. 
• Indians seem to prefer a country more like a patchwork fabric, with clear lines between groups.

• Being Hindu important to Indian identity for many Hindus: Most Hindus think two dimensions of national identity – being able to speak Hindi and being a Hindu – are closely connected. An identical percentage of Muslims and Hindus (65 per cent each) saw communal violence as a very big national problem.
• The Partition sentiment: The survey found that while Sikhs and Muslims were more likely to say the Partition was a ‘bad thing’, Hindus were leaning in the opposite direction.
• Caste is another dividing line in Indian society, and not just among Hindus: Religion is not the only fault line in Indian society. In some regions of the country, significant shares of people perceive widespread, caste-based discrimination.
• Religious conversion in India: This survey finds that religious switching, or conversion, has a minimal impact on the overall size of India’s religious groups. Other groups display similar levels of stability. Changes in India’s religious landscape over time are largely a result of differences in fertility rates among religious groups, not conversion.
• Religion is very important across India’s religious groups: The vast majority of Indians, across all major faiths, say that religion is very important in their lives. And at least three-quarters of each major religion’s followers say they know a great deal about their own religion and its practices. 

(Image Courtesy: PewForum )

• India’s massive population is diverse as well as devout.
• Not only do most of the world’s Hindus, Jains and Sikhs live in India, but it also is home to one of the world’s largest Muslim populations and to millions of Christians and Buddhists.

Source : TH

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The development of Indian civilization from c. 1500 bce to c. 1200 ce

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The European scholars who reconstructed early Indian history in the 19th century regarded it as essentially static and Indian society as concerned only with things spiritual. Indologists, such as the German Max Müller , relied heavily on the Sanskritic tradition and saw Indian society as an idyllic village culture emphasizing qualities of passivity, meditation, and otherworldliness. In sharp contrast was the approach of the Scottish historian James Mill and the Utilitarians , who condemned Indian culture as irrational and inimical to human progress. Mill first formulated a periodization of Indian history into Hindu, Muslim, and British periods, a scheme that, while still commonly used, is now controversial. During the 19th century, direct contact with Indian institutions through administration, together with the utilization of new evidence from recently deciphered inscriptions, numismatics, and local archives, provided fresh insights. Nationalist Indian historians of the early 20th century tended to exaggerate the glory of the past but nevertheless introduced controversy into historical interpretation, which in turn resulted in more precise studies of Indian institutions. In more recent times, historians have reconstructed in greater detail the social, economic, and cultural history of the subcontinent—though politics has continued to influence the study of Indian history.

A major change in the interpretation of Indian history has been a questioning of an older notion of Oriental despotism as the determining force. Arising out of a traditional European perspective on Asia , this image of despotism grew to vast proportions in the 19th century and provided an intellectual justification for colonialism and imperialism. Its deterministic assumptions clouded the understanding of early interrelationships among Indian political forms, economic patterns, and social structures.

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A considerable change is noticeable during this period in the role of institutions. Clan-based societies had assemblies, whose political role changed with the transformation of tribe into state and with oligarchic and monarchical governments. Centralized imperialism, which was attempted under the Mauryan empire (c. 325–185 bce ), gave way gradually to decentralized administration and to what has been called a feudalistic pattern in the post-Gupta period—i.e., from the 7th century ce . Although the village as an administrative and social unit remained constant, its relationship with the mainstream of history varied. The concept of divine kingship was known but rarely taken seriously, the claim to the status of the caste of royalty becoming more important. Because conformity to the social order had precedence over allegiance to the state, the idea of representation found expression not so much in political institutions as in caste and village assemblies. The pendulum of politics swung from large to small kingdoms, with the former attempting to establish empires—the sole successful attempt being that of the Mauryan dynasty . Thus, true centralization was rare, because local forces often determined historical events. Although imperial or near-imperial periods were marked by attempts at the evolution of uniform cultures , the periods of smaller kingdoms (often referred to as the Dark Ages by earlier historians) were more creative at the local level and witnessed significant changes in society and religion. These small kingdoms also often boasted the most elaborate and impressive monuments.

The major economic patterns were those relating to land and to commerce. The transition from tribal to peasant society was a continuing process, with the gradual clearing of wasteland and the expansion of the village economy based on plow agriculture. Recognition of the importance of land revenue coincided with the emergence of the imperial system in the 4th century bce ; and from this period onward, although the imperial structure did not last long, land revenue became central to the administration and income of the state. Frequent mentions of individual ownership, references to crown lands, numerous land grants to religious and secular grantees in the post-Gupta period, and detailed discussion in legal sources of the rights of purchase, bequest , and sale of land all clearly indicate that private ownership of land existed. Much emphasis has been laid on the state control of the irrigation system; yet a systematic study of irrigation in India reveals that it was generally privately controlled and that it serviced small areas of land. ( See hydraulic civilization .) When the state built canals , they were mainly in the areas affected by both the winter and summer monsoons, in which village assemblies played a dominant part in revenue and general administration, as, for example, in the Cola (Chola) kingdom of southern India.

The urban economy was crucial to the rise of civilization in the Indus valley (c. 2600–2000 bce ). Later the 1st millennium bce saw an urban civilization in the Ganges (Ganga) valley and still later in coastal south India. The emergence of towns was based on administrative needs, the requirements of trade, and pilgrimage centers. In the 1st millennium ce , when commerce expanded to include trade with western Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, and Central and Southeast Asia , revenue from trade contributed substantially to the economies of the participating kingdoms, as indeed Indian religion and culture played a significant part in the cultural evolution of Central and Southeast Asia. Gold coins were issued for the first time by the Kushan dynasty and in large quantity by the Guptas ; both kingdoms were active in foreign trade . Gold was imported from Central Asia and the Roman Republic and Empire and later perhaps from eastern Africa because, in spite of India’s recurring association with gold, its sources were limited. Expanding trade encouraged the opening up of new routes, and this, coupled with the expanding village economy, led to a marked increase of knowledge about the subcontinent during the post-Mauryan period. With increasing trade, guilds became more powerful in the towns. Members of the guilds participated in the administration, were associated with politics, and controlled the development of trade through merchant embassies sent to places as far afield as Rome and China . Not least, guilds and merchant associations held envied and respectable positions as donors of religious institutions.

The structure of Indian society was characterized by caste . The distinguishing features of a caste society were endogamous kinship groups ( jati s) arranged in a hierarchy of ritual ranking, based on notions of pollution and purity, with an intermeshing of service relationships and an adherence to geographic location. There was some coincidence between caste and access to economic resources. Although ritual hierarchy was unchanging, there appears to have been mobility within the framework. Migrations of peoples both within the subcontinent and from outside encouraged social mobility and change. The nucleus of the social structure was the family, with the pattern of kinship relations varying from region to region. In the more complex urban structure, occupational guilds occasionally took on jati functions, and there was a continual emergence of new social and professional groups.

Religion in early Indian history did not constitute a monolithic force. Even when the royalty attempted to encourage certain religions, the idea of a state religion was absent. In the main, there were three levels of religious expression. The most widespread was the worship of local cult deities vaguely associated with major deities, as seen in fertility cults , in the worship of mother goddesses , in the Shakta-Shakti cult, and in Tantrism. ( See Shaktism .) Less widespread but popular, particularly in the urban areas, were the more puritanical sects of Buddhism and Jainism and the bhakti tradition of Hinduism . A third level included classical Hinduism and more abstract levels of Buddhism and Jainism, with an emphasis on the major deities in the case of the first and on the teachings of the founders in the case of the latter two. It was this level, endorsed by affluent patronage, that provided the base for the initial institutionalization of religion. But the three levels were not isolated; the shadow of the third fell over the first two, the more homely rituals and beliefs of which often crept into the third. This was the case particularly with Hinduism, the very flexibility of which was largely responsible for its survival. Forms of Buddhism, ranging from an emphasis on the constant refinement of doctrine on the one hand to an incorporation of magical fertility cults in its beliefs on the other, faded out toward the end of this period.

Sanskrit literature and the building of Hindu and Buddhist temples and sculpture both reached apogees in this period. Although literary works in the Sanskrit language continued to be written and temples were built in later periods, the achievement was never again as inspiring.

From c. 1500 to c. 500 bce

By about 1500 bce an important change began to occur in the northern half of the Indian subcontinent . The Indus civilization had declined by about 2000 bce (or perhaps as late as 1750 bce ), and the stage was being set for a second and more lasting urbanization in the Ganges valley. The new areas of occupation were contiguous with and sometimes overlapping the core of the Harappan area. There was continuity of occupation in the Punjab and Gujarat , and a new thrust toward urbanization came from the migration of peoples from the Punjab into the Ganges valley.

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• Indian Culture and Tradition Essay

Essay on Indian Culture and Tradition

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Indian Culture and Tradition

India enjoys a wide variety of cultural and traditional presence amongst the 28 states. Indian origin religions Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism are all based on dharma and karma. Even, India is a blessed holy place which is also a native place for most of the religions. Recently, Muslim and Christianity also practised working amongst the whole India population. The pledge also added the line, ‘India is my country, and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage.’  

Indians are great with cooking; their spices are special for medicinal purposes, so visitors are difficult to adjust to with such heavy spices. The cricketers touring Indian pitches are out due to such food. Frequently, it's been observed that the sportsperson arrived in India either with cooking skills or with a cook. Spices such as cumin, turmeric and cardamom have been used for a long period, to make the dishes more delicious and nutritional. Wheat, rice and pulses help to complete the meal. The majority of the population is a vegetarian one due to their religious aspects.

Talking about the language, India is blessed with a wide range of languages used. Each state has its own language. A major part of the state is unable to speak other languages than the native one. Gujrathi, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Punjabi, Telugu and many more are the representative languages of the respective state. It's easy to recognize the person with the language he spoke. There are 15 regional languages but almost all of them Hindi is the national language of the country. Sanskrit is considered an ancient and respected language. And most of the legendary holy texts are found in Sanskrit only. Along with these, most of the people are aware of plenty of foreign languages. 

Indian clothing is adorable to most of the foreigners. Woman wearing a sari is the pride of a nation. These create a pleasant effect and she looks so beautiful that a majority of foreign country’s female want to be like her. The origin of the sari is from the temple dancers in ancient times. Sari allows them to maintain modesty and freedom of movement. On the other hand, men traditionally wear a dhoti and kurta. Actually, Dhoti is a type of cloth without any further attached work done on it. The great Mahatma Gandhi was very fond of it and in their dignity, most of the people used to wear the same. 

Apart from all the above facts, Indians are legends with arts and studious material. Shah-rukh Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Dhirubhai Ambani, Amitabh Bachchan Rajnikant, Sundar Pichai are many more faces of India who are shining and representing India on a global scale. There are 20-30 grand festivals celebrated every year in which every festival pops up with history and respect to the respective religion. Even in terms of business, India is not behind. Agriculture is the best occupation of 70% of people in India. It’s our duty to protect the wonderful culture that we have. 

Indian culture is one of the oldest and most unique cultures known across the globe. It has various kinds of traditional values, religion, dance, festivals, music, and cloth, which varies from each state or town even. Indian art, cuisine, religion, Literature, Education, Heritage, Clothes etc has a huge impact on the whole world where everyone admires and follows it. It is known as the land of cultural diversity.  India thrives on a variety of languages, religions, and cultures due to the diverse race of people living in the country. It can be referred to as one of the world’s most culturally enriched countries. When one thinks of India, they picture colors, smiling faces of children running in the streets, bangle vendors, street food, music, religious festivals etc. 

Religion 

India is a land where different religious beliefs are followed. It is the land of many religions such as Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism.  Four Indian religions namely Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, and Buddhism were born in India while others are not of Indian origin but have people following those faiths. The people of India keep a solid belief in religion as they believe that following a faith adds meaning and purpose to their lives as it is the way of life. The religions here are not only confined to beliefs but also include ethics, rituals, ceremonies, life philosophies and many more.

Families 

Family plays a vital role in every Indian household. Indians are known to live together as a joint family with their grandparents, uncles and aunts, and the next generation of offspring as well. The house gets passed down from family to family throughout the generations. But with the new modern age, nuclear families are starting to become more common as children go out of town into cities for work or studies and get settled there, also everyone now prefers to have their own private life without any interference. But still, the concept of family get together and family gatherings are not lost as everyone does come together frequently. 

Indian Festivals

India is well known for its traditional festivals all over the world. As it is a secular country with diversity in religions, every month some festival celebration happens. These festivals can be religious, seasonal or are of national importance. Every festival is celebrated uniquely in different ways according to their ritual as each of them has its unique importance. National festivals such as Gandhi Jayanti, Independence Day and Republic Day are celebrated by the people of India across the entire nation. Religious festivals include Diwali, Dussehra, Eid-ul-Fitr, Eid-ul-Zuha, Christmas, Ganesh Chaturthi, etc. All the seasonal festivals such as Baisakhi, Onam, Pongal, Bihu etc are celebrated to mark the season of harvest during two harvesting seasons, Rabi and Kharif. 

Festivals bring love, bond, cross-cultural exchange and moments of happiness among people.

Indian cuisine is known for a variety of spicy dishes, curry, rice items, sweets etc. Each cuisine includes a wide range of dishes and cooking techniques as it varies from region to region. Each region of India cooks different types of dishes using different ingredients, also food varies from every festival and culture as well. Hindus eat mostly vegetarian food items such as pulao, vegetables, daal, rajma etc whereas people from Islamic cultural backgrounds eat meat, kebabs, haleem etc. In the southernmost part of India, you will find people use a lot of coconut oil for cooking purposes, they eat a lot of rice items such as Dosa, Idli, Appam etc with Coconut chutney, sambhar.

Indian Clothing is considered to be the epitome of modesty and every style is very different in each region and state. But the two pieces of clothing that represent Indian culture are dhoti for men and saree for women. Women adorn themselves with a lot of bangles and Payal that goes around their ankles. Even clothing styles varied from different religions to regions to cultures. Muslim women preferred to wear salwar kameez whereas Christian women preferred gowns. Men mostly stuck to dhoti, lungi, shalwar and kurta.In modern days, people have changed their sense of style, men and women now wear more modern western clothes. Indian clothes are still valued but are now in more trendy and fashionable styles. 

There is no single language that is spoken all over India; however , Hindi is one common language most Indians know and can speak or understand. Every region has a different language or dialect. As per the official language act, Hindi and English are the official languages in India. Other regions or state wise languages include- Gujarati, Marathi, Bangla, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Kashmiri, Punjabi etc. 

FAQs on Indian Culture and Tradition Essay

1. What are the Popular Spices in India?

Popular spices in India include - Haldi(Turmeric), Chakri Phool(Star Anise), Til (Sesame seeds/ Gingili seeds), Saunf(Fennel Seeds), Kesar(Saffron), Laal Mirch(Red chilli), Khas(Poppy seeds), Jayphal(Nutmeg), Kalonji(Nigella Seeds), Rai/Sarson(Mustard Seeds), Pudina(Mint), Javitri(Mace), Patthar ke Phool​(Kalpasi), Kala Namak/ Sanchal/ Sanchar powder(Black salt/ Himalayan rock salt/ Pink salt), Sonth(Dry ginger powder), Methi dana(Fenugreek seeds), Suva Bhaji/ Sua Saag(Dill)

Kadi Patta(Curry Leaves), Sukha dhania(Coriander seeds), Laung(Cloves), Dalchini(Cinnamon), Sabza(Chia seeds), Chironji(Charoli), Ajwain(Carom seeds, thymol or celery seeds), Elaichi(Cardamom), Kali Mirch(Black Pepper (or White Pepper), Tej Patta(Bay Leaf), Hing(Asafoetida), Anardana(Pomegranate seeds), Amchoor(Dry mango powder)

2. What is the Language Diversity Available in India?

The Indian constitution has 22 officially recognized languages. Apart from it, there are around 60 languages that are recognized as smother tongue with more than one million speakers. India also has around 28 minor languages spoken by over one hundred thousand and one million people. Apart from these, there are numerous dialects spoken by a various sect of people based on their region of origin. 

3. Who are Some of the Most Famous Indian Celebrities Popular Across the Globe? 

India has people excelling in all aspects of art and activities. Few prominent celebrities to garner global fame include - Sudha Murthy, Amitabh Bacchan, Virat Kohli, Saina Nehwal, Sania Mirza, Priyanka Chopra, MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Mohanlal, A R Rehman, Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata, Narayana Murthy, Kiran Majumdar Shah, Narendra Modi, Amith Shah. all these people have received great accolades in their respective area of expertise globally and getting recognition to India on a global level. 

4. How to Improve Writing and Reading Skills for Producing Good Essays?

Writing an essay becomes a tedious task when the mind and hand do not coordinate. It is important for you to be able to harness your mental ability to think clearly and reproduce the same on paper for a good essay. Always remember the first few thoughts that you get as soon as you see an essay topic is your best and purest thoughts. Ensure to note them down. Later you can develop your essay around these points. Make sure your essay has an introduction, body and the final conclusion. This will make the reader understand the topic clearly along with your ability to convey the any information without any hesitation or mistake. 

5. How many religions are there in India? 

As of now, there are a total of 9 major religions in India with Hinduism being the majority. The remaining religion includes- Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism and the Baha'i Faith. 

6. Which is the oldest language in India? 

Indian classical oldest language is Sanskrit, it belongs to the Indo- Aryan branch of Indo- European languages. 

7. What are the few famous folk dances of India? 

Folk dances are the representation of a particular culture from where they are known to originate. Eight famous classical dances are- Bharatnatyam from Tamil Nadu, Kathakali from Kerala, Kathak from North, West and Central India, Mohiniyattam from Kerala, Kuchipudi from Andhra Pradesh, Odissi from Odisha, Manipuri from Manipur, Sattriya from Assam. 

8. How many languages are spoken in India? 

Other than Hindi and English there are 22 languages recognised by the constitution of India. However, more than 400 languages and dialects in India are still not known as they change after every town. Over the years, about 190 languages have become endangered due to very few surviving speakers. 

9. Describe the Indian Culture. 

Indian culture is very diverse and the people of India are very warm and welcoming. They have a strong sense of family and firmly believe in unity in diversity. In India, there's a saying saying 'Atithi Devo Bhava'  means 'the guest is equivalent to god'. So if one visits India, they will never feel unwanted.

Essay on Indian Education System for Students and Children

500+ words essay on indian education system for students and children.

The Indian education system is quite an old education system that still exists. It has produced so many genius minds that are making India proud all over the world. However, while it is one of the oldest systems, it is still not that developed when compared to others, which are in fact newer. This is so as the other countries have gone through growth and advancement, but the Indian education system is still stuck in old age. It faces a lot of problems that need to be sorted to let it reach its full potential.

Problems with Indian Education System

Our Indian education system faces a lot of problems that do not let it prosper and help other children succeed in life . The biggest problem which it has to face is the poor grading system. It judges the intelligence of a student on the basis of academics which is in the form of exam papers. That is very unfair to students who are good in their overall performance but not that good at specific subjects.

Moreover, they only strive to get good marks not paying attention to understanding what is taught. In other words, this encourages getting good marks through mugging up and not actually grasping the concept efficiently.

Furthermore, we see how the Indian education system focuses on theory more. Only a little percentage is given for practical. This makes them run after the bookish knowledge and not actually applying it to the real world. This practice makes them perplexed when they go out in the real world due to lack of practical knowledge.

Most importantly, the Indian education system does not emphasize enough on the importance of sports and arts. Students are always asked to study all the time where they get no time for other activities like sports and arts.

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How Can We Improve Indian Education System?

As the Indian Education System is facing so many problems, we need to come up with effective solutions so it improves and creates a brighter future for students . We can start by focusing on the skill development of the students. The schools and colleges must not only focus on the ranks and grades but on the analytical and creative skills of children.

In addition, subjects must not be merely taught theoretically but with practical. This will help in a better understanding of the subject without them having to mug up the whole thing due to lack of practical knowledge. Also, the syllabus must be updated with the changing times and not follow the old age pattern.

Other than that, the government and private colleges must now increase the payroll of teachers. As they clearly deserve more than what they offer. To save money, the schools hire teachers who are not qualified enough. This creates a very bad classroom environment and learning. They must be hired if they are fit for the job and not because they are working at a lesser salary.

In conclusion, the Indian education system must change for the better. It must give the students equal opportunities to shine better in the future. We need to let go of the old and traditional ways and enhance the teaching standards so our youth can get create a better world.

FAQs on Indian Education System

Q.1 What problems does the Indian Education System face?

A.1 Indian education is very old and outdated. It judges students on the basis of marks and grades ignoring the overall performance of the student. It focuses on academics side-lining arts and sports.

Q.2 How can we improve the Indian education system?

A.2 The colleges and schools must hire well and qualified teachers. They must help students to understand the concept instead of merely mugging up the whole subject.

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