Mosaic culture of India

 

Wonderful process of assimilation of different castes, linguistic, regional and social identities and religious groups and fusion/intermixing of their cultures for centuries – a continuous process of the India civilization – presents a mosaic culture. More than anywhere else in the world, it holds a multitude of thoughts because of co-existence, inter-mixing and cultural mingling of varied beliefs. The mosaic culture of India consists of –

• Groups belonging to faiths originated in India like Hinduism, or Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism or,

• Groups, who migrated to India due to persecution or oppression in their homeland, like Jews, Bahais, Zoroastrians, or Tibetans, or

• Groups converted to alien religion like Christianity and Islam, religions of conquerors.

Cultures of Hindus, Islam and Christians had received substantial state patronage for sufficiently long period at different points of time. In the beginning a cultural synthesis took place, when Vedic culture came into being due to intermixing of culture of Aryan invaders with culture of indigenous tribal people of India during 2nd century BC to 650 AD. Then, a major cultural synthesis took place during 6th and 10th century, between Vedic Hindu culture, Buddhism and Dravidian culture. Another assimilation was seen after 10th century, when thinking of Arabs, Turks and Afghan, mainly guided by reason, influenced Indian thought. Once again, during the period between 18th century to 20th century, a major cultural synthesis took place with modernization and industrialization ushered in by the British.