In a manner of speaking, culture is everything in a particular society, and one can as easily speak of the culture of Hindustani music and Bengali bhadralok society as one can of the culture of the working-class, Hindi film-viewers, rickshaw-pullers, and India's modernizing elites. Indian culture is no easy composite of varying styles and influences.

In the matter of cuisine, for instance, the North and the South share little, and these broad categorizations say little about the distinctions between the peppery hot food of Andhra and the coastal, largely coconut-based, cuisine of Kerala.

In thinking of architecture, one's mind traverses from the great temple cities of the South -- Chidambaram, Rameswaram, Kanchipuram, Madurai, and numerous others -- to the architectural splendors of the Vijaynagar empire and the erotic sculptures of Khajuraho to the grand Mughal architecture of Delhi, Agra, and Fatehpur Sikri.
And what of modest roadside shrines, the step-wells of Gujarat, or the havelis of Jaisalmer with their impeccable lattice work? But culture is not only a matter of music, dance, art, and cinema, for marriage customs, death rites, patterns of pilgrimage to holy cities, modes of raising children, treatment of elders, and innumerable other aspects of everyday life are stitched into the meaning of culture.

India. Birthplace of civilizations, cradle of religions, still home to almost a quarter of the world's people.

India has dominated the world stage through most of human history, as the home of mighty empires, as a powerful trading nation, and as a wellspring of culture and civilization.

India has always intrigued and fascinated the rest of the world.
The "fabulous Indies".
Rumours of its empires and its wealth brought traders and travelers.
Alexander the Great marched across Asia to India.
Arab and Jewish traders sailed here.

At one time Roman soldiers were barracked here.
The ancient Greeks had trading colonies.
Columbus wasn't looking for America.
He hoped to find a new route to India.
European history dramatically favoured nations with an India connection.

India excelled in international trade.
Five thousand years ago the thriving cities of the Indus Valley traded with Mesopotamia.

Indian traders spread their goods and influence through South East Asia.
The Hindu island of Bali is one surviving remnant of a great trading empire.

Spices, gems, pearls and silks flowed out of India into the rest of the world.
Crafts, textiles, and exotic birds and animals were also traded.
Hannibal's elephants came from India.
So did many of the lavish fabrics craved by Roman nobility.
At one point, so much gold was leaving Rome for India that the Roman economy was seriously weakened.

India was the 'Japan' of the ancient world, dominating trade relationships.
Ideas and culture spread with trade goods.
India gifted a numbering system and mathematics to the world.
Philosophy, sciences, and medicine reached unrivalled heights, enriching the great scientific achievements of China and the Arab world.
The influences of Indian thought can be found in early European culture, and still today, Indian philosophy is influencing modern global cultures.

India has had an epic history. Great empires rose and fell.
Colossal armies clashed -hundreds of thousands of soldiers, thousands of elephants and horses, thundering cannons - often at the whims of capricious rulers.
Great fortresses and palaces were built and destroyed.
War, pestilence, or invaders shattered long periods of prosperity and peace.

The colonial era brought new and different challenges to India, culminating in an Independence Movement without parallel, that has left an indelible mark on non-violent struggles for freedom and justice throughout the modern world.

During this dramatic history, society in India wove an intricate web of relationships, rituals, and duties, yet remained astonishingly tolerant and diverse.
Great religions developed and spread from India.
Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs trace their roots from India.
India has the second largest Muslim population in the world and is home to Animists, Christians, Zoroastrians, Bah'a'is, Jews, and others.

This elaborate history and culture is slowly finding its expression on the World Wide Web.
Many of the best sites on India have been built by educational institutions around the world.
There are increasing numbers of sites developed in India by Indians, reflecting both the techological skills here and the keen interest in projecting an Indian presence on the Net.

The term culture refers to a state of intellectual development or manners.
The social and political forces that influence the growth of a human being is defined as culture.

Indian culture is rich and diverse and as a result unique in its very own way.
Our manners, way of communicating with one another, etc are one of the important components of our culture.

Even though we have accepted modern means of living, improved our lifestyle, our values and beliefs still remain unchanged.
A person can change his way of clothing, way of eating and living but the rich values in a person always remains unchanged because they are deeply rooted within our hearts, mind, body and soul which we receive from our culture.

Indian culture treats guests as god and serves them and takes care of them as if they are a part and parcel of the family itself.

Even though we don’t have anything to eat, the guests are never left hungry and are always looked after by the members of the family. Elders and the respect for elders is a major component in Indian culture.

Elders are the driving force for any family and hence the love and respect for elders comes from within and is not artificial.
An individual takes blessings from his elders by touching their feet.
Elders drill and pass on the Indian culture within us as we grow.
“Respect one another” is another lesson that is taught from the books of Indian culture. All people are alike and respecting one another is ones duty.
In foreign countries the relation between the boss and the employee is like a master and slave and is purely monetary whereas in Indian culture the relation between the boss and the employee is more like homely relations unlike foreign countries.

Helpful nature is another striking feature in our Indian culture.
Right from our early days of childhood we are taught to help one another in need of help and distress.

If not monetary then at least in kind or non-monetary ways.
Indian culture tells us to multiply and distribute joy and happiness and share sadness and pain.

It tells us that by all this we can develop co-operation and better living amongst ourselves and subsequently make this world a better place to live in.
Even though India is a country of various religions and caste our culture tells us just one thing 'phir bhi dil hai hidustani '.

India is a land of great diversity, more heterogenous than any other country in the world.
Four major racial groups have met and merged in India resulting in a complex demographic profile.

The pale-skinned Europoid entered from the western mountain passes, encountering settled populations of Dasyu, the dark skinned ones of Rig Vedic description.

The Aryans established a dominant presence in the northwest and the Gangetic plain, but the people of Mongoloid descent remained undisturbed in the Himalayan region and the highlands of the northeast.

Their affinity with the southeast Asian world is remarkable and is reflected in the motifs used in the crafts.
Though the Mongoloid people influenced the racial pattern of tribes in the eastern provinces of Orissa and Bihar, by and large, they stayed within central India.

Southerners in peninsular India might have had a link with Negroid racial elements, as deduced from contemporary populations with dark skins and tightly curled hair.

But the only true Negrito are isolated in the Andaman Islands.
The ethnic diversity is reflected in the variety of languages and dialects used in India - 17 major languages and 900 dialects or closely related subsidiary languages.

The Indo-European group, particularly the sub-branch of the Indic languages, concentrated as dialects of northwest India and the Gangetic plains, share a linguistic pool with modern French, English, Greek and Persian, indicative of migrations of Europoid people.

The Dravidian language family alone consists of 23 languages. Tamil is spoken in TamilNadu, Telugu in Andhra Pradesh, Kannada in Karnataka and Malayalam in Kerala.

Tribal groups of Oraon, Munda and Santhal scattered through the highlands of eastern and central India use the languages of the Austro-Asiatic family, but many of the dialects with only oral traditions have lost.

Less than one per cent of modern India's population - comprising the Mizo, Naga, Lushai and Khasi , to name a few tribes - is inheritor to the languages of the Tibeto-Burman family.

Secluded by geography and, later, protected by policy, their ethnological and linguistic identity has survived. Christian missionaries have contributed to the standardization of some of these languages.