India is known for its cultural diversity. There is an amalgamation of various cultures, each having their traditions millennia old. Indian cultural is “oldest of all living civilization on Earth”, as considered by many historians. Every culture has their rituals performed, their festivals celebrated, their art preserved, and likely a different language spoken.
Celebration of festivals in whole India is the best example of India believing in “Vasudev Kutumbakam”. There are many popular festivals which are being celebrated throughout India like Diwali; Holi; Dussera, Navaratri and Durga Puja; Ganesh Chaturthi; Onam; Krishna Janmastami; Pushkar Camel Fair and Kerala Temple Festival. Besides there are also festivals like Muharram, Eid-ul-Adha, Good Friday and Christmas, that are being celebrated. Each festival has a story behind it, and each festival is celebrated with a ritual. Festivals help providing information about India. Every state, every province has their own way of celebrating the festival, but the celebrations are done all together.
Adding to the pride, art and dance form helps knowing about India more. There are eight classical type dance form being performed: sattriya famous dance style of Assam; yakshagana, practiced mainly in Karnataka; kuchipudi in Andhra Pradesh; Manipuri in Manipur; bharatanatyam in Tamil Nadu; kathakin Uttar Pradesh; and kathakali and mohiniattam in Kerala. Besides dance, Drama and theatre, Music and Visual art forms like Sculpting, Painting and Architecture, are also the art forms which India is remembered for. Red Fort, Situated in Delhi, Fatehpur Sikari, Gol Gumbaz, Taj Mahal and Qutub Minar are the best example Visual arts in India. Many martial arts and sports are also being played in India. India has world championship title in cricket. Kabaddi, Kho-Kho, Hockey and Gilli-Danda are games which are played in India.
India has 28 states, including 7 Union Territories. Every state has its own language spoken in majority by population of state. Knowing more about India, there are many languages spoken India, out of which Sanskrit is the oldest of all. Then after Pali (language spoken during Ashoka era and Buddhist), Apabhramsa (language spoken by central Indo-Aryan) and Pali (Jain Philosophers used this language). Now according to the census taken in 2001, most spoken language is Hindi; Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali and Urdu come thereafter.
In all, India is a land of cultural diversity and actually signifies “Vasudeva Kutumbakam”. Every art, every ritual, each and every thing provides information about India. Each language, each state, every union territory articulates more about India.