RAVI
S. VARMA
Introduction
Before launching into the vast ocean of Indian Culture and making a bid for its salient features, it will be useful if we have a clear conception of what we mean by culture. The term ‘Culture’ is perhaps the most widely used (abused?) one in our day-to-day conversation. Generally, the arts, music, dance, sports and other entertainments which add joy to life pass under the name of national culture even to the exclusion of more important things which give definite and unique shape to the culture of a place.
What is Culture?
A
civilized society living at a particular place often develops a way of life.
This way of life, conditioned by its natural surroundings and its climate, is
held in high regard by the members of the group and is transmitted to the next
generation with all the additions made by the present one. The sum total of
this way of life built up by the group for generations is called its culture.
“Culture,
in the technical sense of social organization, is often defined as the complex
of ideas, conceptions, developed qualities, and organised relationships and
courtesies that exist generally in a society” says K. M. Panikkar. Prof. R.
Firth includes under culture all learned behaviour which has been socially
acquired.
In
studying culture we are concerned with ideas and values such as are found in
religious and moral codes, in literature, science, philosophy, art and music.
According to C. Rajagopalachari, the culture of a people is what is desired and
expected by the best among them actually to prevail and govern their daily
life. It is an accepted predictable standard of conduct and deportment which
the people strive to reach every day.
Culture
in an individual expresses itself through overt actions and comes to notice
more clearly than virtue. Character is the inside of a man;
culture is external and has to do with behaviour, speech, conduct and the way
of living. A cultured man is an embellishment to the society; he not only makes
his life sweet but also delights others. Culture is a definite addition to
personality.
Salient Features of
Indian Culture
Great
civilizations of the past–of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria and Persia–have
disappeared from the face of the earth and only their sepulchres remain. But
the civilization of India has lived through so many cataclysms throughout the
centuries and in the midst of dire vicissitudes has preserved the thread of its
continuity. And the reason is not far to seek. The former civilizations failed
to develop a culture of their own and necessarily culture is less pervasive
than the machinery of civilization. But the case of India is different. Here
culture is almost as pervasive as civilization itself.
Indian
culture has often been misunderstood not only by her foreign critics but also
by Indians trained in the Western tradition and blinded by a rationalistic
bias. Very often, even the existence of such a thing as Indian Culture has been
denied. But the truth is otherwise. Though there is no need to defend our
culture today, still, it is imperative that we should ourselves have a clear
idea of what our ancestors had achieved for themselves and for humanity.
India
has been the meeting place of conflicting races and civilizations. She has
tried to achieve a unity out of the heterogeneous elements which make the
totality of her life. She has a life-view of her own. This makes up her culture
which extends over more than three thousand years and has found expression in
her art and literature and philosophy.
Let
us now make an attempt to analyse the salient features of Indian Culture which
is so vast and varied and has such a long and continuous history.
An
important characteristic of Indian Culture is its attitude of toleration which
has fostered simultaneous development of different strands. Jews and
Zoroastrians sought and found asylum in India. Christian colonies flourished
here in second century A. D. Forty-five million followers of Islam live here in
perfect peace and harmony. India has successfully upheld her tradition of
religious and social toleration by her unending insistence on the peculiar
character of the state.
Whenever
Indian religion has been challenged from inside or from outside, it has met the
challenge with an open mind. Buddha has been accepted as one of the avataras.
The old texts of Hinduism were re-interpreted in the light of the impact of
Islam in the 14th and 15th centuries and of Christianity in the 18th and 19th
centuries. And this re-interpretation has given birth to vital movements of
reform and put new vigour into the body of Hinduism. This spirit of tolerance
is responsible for the richness and variety of Indian life and the complex
pattern of Indian Culture.
India’s
power of assimilation, too, has always been remarkable. Her culture has flowed
in one continuous process of gradual change and acceptance and assimilation of
ideas totally different from its own.
When
the Aryans came to India, they took much from the Dravidians and built their
culture on its basis. This process has been a continuous one, and very epoch
has made its contribution and all these contributions have been fused into an
integral whole. Today India represents a true meeting ground of East and West.
Indian
people have a firm faith in the belief that there is a connection between the
individual soul - Jivatma - and the universal soul - Paramatma. This
philosophical outlook has fostered a feeling of universal brotherhood which has
expressed itself in tolerance and willingness to effect a synthesis of diverse
influences. It has also engendered a deep respect for the individual.
Indian
Culture had an open attitude to science. Indian religion never preached a
dogmatic view about the material aspects of the universe. The Indian mind never
had a distrust of science and the ideas about the roundness of the earth and
evolution, etc., found ready acceptance in India. A strong intellectuality
marked the whole ancient spirit. “The mass of the intellectual production
during the period from Asoka well into the Mohammedan epoch is something truly
prodigious,” said Sri Aurobindo. And this intellectual vitality has enabled us
in the present day to catch up with the modern world without having to deny any
essential aspect of our culture
Indian
Culture has sought to achieve harmony with Nature. Mountains, rivers, trees,
and flowers have a special significance for the Indian people who never had to
carry a struggle for existence against the ruthlessness of Nature.
Another
distinguishing feature of Indian Culture is its insistence on the unity of all
Nature and community of living beings. This feeling of kinship
with Nature has given birth to the doctrine of Ahimsa which is another name for
tenderness for all living beings. The doctrine of re-incarnation has reiterated
belief in Ahimsa for we see the soul of our departed relations
in the animals and insects and avoid cruelty to them.
Expression in Conduct
and Norms of Behaviour
Culture
is not a matter of mere ideas. It finds expression through conduct and
behaviour in society. Almost all the cultures emphasise reverence towards
elders and teachers, respect and affection towards relatives, courtesy towards
strangers, honour towards womanhood and tenderness towards children. But in
Indian Culture parents and gurus are recipients of special reverence.
The
large joint family forms a special pattern of our culture. Here every member
has his place with its fixed rights and duties and an accepted code of conduct
towards others. The Indian attitude towards womanhood has always been one of
essential reverence. Worship of shakti in the form of Durga and Kali has
had a large following in the country.
Marriage
among the Indians is a family affair and an inviolable contract of partnership.
Even death does not part the couple once they are tied together before the holy
fire.
According
to C. Rajagopalachari “Indian culture is predominantly ‘self-restraint’:
sharing your sustenance with the poor, chastity, the rigours of widowhood,
austerity, sanyas, all-round religious tolerance–these forms and aspects of
restraint make up Indian Culture.” Indian Culture lays special emphasis on
three cardinal virtues–dama, daana and daya which are
different forms of self-restraint.
Rich Artistic Heritage
Art
is the creative expression of great cultures and a significant characteristic
of Indian Culture is the world of beauty in music, literature, architecture and
other arts which she has created as embodying her ideals.
Indian
art is in fact identified in its spiritual aim and principle with the rest of
Indian Culture. The temples of Ellora, reliefs at Sanchi and Amravati and
frescoes at Ajanta present a haunting world of beauty and are without parallel.
Indian art tradition crossed the frontiers of India and spread to Java, Siam
and Cambodia.
The
greatness and glory of Indian music is being slowly recognised by the people of
the world in the present day.
Indian
Culture is deeply linked with Sanskrit literature whose importance as a whole
consists in its originality. This vast literature embodies a noble civilization
and is practically unsurpassed and unequalled in every field–epic, poetry,
drama or lyrical expression.
Spiritual Background
Civilizations
can be and are generally materialistic, but there is no culture which is not
essentially spiritual. The pre-eminence of Hinduism in India gives to Indian
Culture its special characteristics. Indian Culture has undoubtedly a religious
background like all other cultures, still it is not a religious culture, but an
essentially secular one.
Indian
Culture made spiritual truth the grand uplifting idea of life, the core of all
thinking, the foundation of all religions, the secret sense and declared
ultimate aim of human existence.
Indian
Culture has succeeded in stamping spiritual truths on the earthly life through
its insistence the two conceptions of purusharthas and the ashramas, which
lie at the root of the Indian way of life. The purusharthas or the
objectives of our life on this earth are Dharma, Artha, Kaama, and Moksha.
Dharma here means the fundamental moral law governing the functioning of
the universe. It is just another name for insistence on high moral life. Artha
covers productive and gainful occupations and the promotion of social
welfare. Kaama is not only desire or lust, it signifies physical it and
artistic enjoyment, the life of the senses in the broadest sense. Poetry,
drama, song, dance, music, etc., were all made instruments of the culture of
the spirit.
The
aim of the social system was a harmony of Artha, Kaama and Dharma, and
this self-perfecting process raised the life of the individual beyond this
level to the supernal height of spiritual freedom, Moksha. Moksha completes
the picture and was to be attained as a result of a full life of Dharma,
Artha and Kaama.
And,
for this, the individual was provided a framework, a gradation, for his life.
Individual life was divided into four successive stages, called the Aashramas:
the life of the student, acquiring knowledge, developing self-discipline and
self-control and continence; the life of the house-holder; the life of the
recluse or the elder statesman, who had attained a certain poise and
objectivity, and could devote himself to public work without the selfish desire
to profit by it; and lastly the life of the super-social man who lived a life
largely cut off from the world’s activities. Through these stages
“they adjusted the two opposing tendencies which often exist side by side in
man–the acceptance of life in its fullness, and the rejection of it”–Jawaharlal
Nehru.
What
has been stated in the foregoing paragraphs may be summarised as follows in the
eloquent language of Sri Aurobindo: “So founded, so
trained, the ancient Indian race grew to astounding heights of culture and
civilization, lived with a noble, well-founded, ample and vigorous order and
freedom, developed a great literature, sciences, arts, crafts, industries, rose
to high ideals of knowledge and culture, arduous greatness and heroism...
discovered the profoundest truths of self and the world.”