INDIA

India

India

Introduction

For over 2,000 years, Westerners have been traveling to India and returning with incredible tales of a mysterious and exotic land. Many of the early descriptions came from adventurers who were also splendid storytellers, fond of weaving fascinating and fantasy-filled accounts of their exploits and experiences. Since that time, a rich and varied fabric of narratives and interpretations has been stitched together to form the legacy of Indian studies. One of the most formidable tasks for one seeking to understand an academic survey of Indian history, culture, and religion is the investigation and comprehension of the various threads that constitute this creation, so that they may be more accurately used in any contemporary study of the land and her people. In this context, the path resembles that of the ancient Indian sages who filled their days seeking to discriminate the real from the unreal. It must be remembered that the concept of objective recording and analysis by dispassionate observers, foundational in an academic study, is a relatively recent phenomenon, itself possessing a decidedly subjective quality (Wolpert, 1979) In the next section, we will examine the history, family structure, religion, political structure and educational system of India.

Discussion & Analysis

A Historical Overview

India is a large, populous, and ancient country with great geographical diversity. Inhabited by 1.2 billion people over 3,287,263 square kilometers, India has a long history in culture and in science and technology (S&T), dating back to at least 2,750 years BCE. Under British influence via the East India Company from 1600 to 1773 and thereafter the British Empire, India attained independence in 1947 and became a republic in 1950. Although the motive is debatable, the period under the British also saw the introduction of the English language, which opened a new window that certainly made a substantial difference to Indian science (Sharma, 1985).

India has an ancient and indigenous intellectual tradition, dating back to Vedic times. The earliest recorded accounts of the religious and social life in India come primarily from Brahmin and Buddhist scholars, each group having proffered a vast corpus of material covering a wide range of religious and secular topics. With the development of sectarian writings like the Puranas, the sectarian Upanishads, and the literature of the Tantric and the devotional schools, many additional viewpoints found their way into the corpus of sacred literature. The composers of all these early works had distinct agendas that motivated their perspectives and guided their writings. Beginning in the centuries just prior to the first millennium CE, Greek and then Roman traders made their way to India and began to reflect in writing about the land and its people. The earliest of these may have been the Greek Megasthenes, who was an ambassador to Chandragupta Maurya in the early 3rd century BCE. Although only fragments of his book, Indika, survive, they reveal details about prevalent customs, beliefs, mythology, and even geography (McKim, 1955).

In the fifth century CE, Chinese Buddhist scholar Fa-Hien traveled to India and spent close to 15 years studying Buddhism ...