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Indophile
Indomania or Indophilia refer to the special interest that India, Indians and their cultures and traditions have generated across the world, more specifically among the cultures and civilisations of the Indian subcontinent, as well those of the Arab and Western worlds (particularly in Germany). The initial British interest in governing their newly absorbed territories awoke the interest in India, in particular its culture and ancient history. Later the people with interests in Indian aspects came to be known as Indologists and their subject as Indology. Its opposite is Indophobia. History Historically, Indian civilization which is one of the ancient great powers has been widely regarded as an amalgamation of diverse range of rich cultures. Due to its ancient civilization and contributions, there are accounts of notable people who visited the nation and reviewed it with praises. Philostratus, in his book Life of Apollonius of Tyana, recognized the experience of Apollonius ...
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India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations average to between 73–55 ka.", "Modern human beings—''Homo sapiens''—originated in Africa. Then, int ...
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Al-Biruni
Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) commonly known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian in scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the "founder of Indology", "Father of Comparative Religion", "Father of modern geodesy", and the first anthropologist. Al-Biruni was well versed in physics, mathematics, astronomy, and natural sciences, and also distinguished himself as a historian, chronologist, and linguist. He studied almost all the sciences of his day and was rewarded abundantly for his tireless research in many fields of knowledge. Royalty and other powerful elements in society funded Al-Biruni's research and sought him out with specific projects in mind. Influential in his own right, Al-Biruni was himself influenced by the scholars of other nations, such as the Greeks, from whom he took inspiration when he turned to the study of philosophy. A gifted linguist, he was conversant in Khwarezmian, Persian, Ar ...
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Indianized Kingdom
Greater India, or the Indian cultural sphere, is an area composed of many countries and regions in South and Southeast Asia that were historically influenced by Indian culture, which itself formed from the various distinct indigenous cultures of these regions. Specifically Southeast Asian influence on early India had lasting impacts on the formation of Hinduism and Indian mythology. Hinduism itself formed from various distinct folk religions, which merged during the Vedic period and following periods. The term ''Greater India'' as a reference to the Indian cultural sphere was popularised by a network of Bengali scholars in the 1920s. It is an umbrella term encompassing the Indian subcontinent, and surrounding countries which are culturally linked through a diverse cultural cline. These countries have been transformed to varying degrees by the acceptance and induction of cultural and institutional elements from each other. Since around 500 BCE, Asia's expanding land and maritime ...
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Indianization Of Southeast Asia
Dating back to the first century, Indian culture started making its way into the region of Southeast Asia. The expansion of Indian culture into these areas was given the term ''Indianization''. The term was coined by French archaeologist, George Coedes in his work ''Histoire ancienne des états hindouisés d'Extrême-Orient'' (The Indianized States of Southeast Asia). He defined it as the expansion of an organized culture that was framed upon Indian originations of royalty, Hinduism and Buddhism and the Sanskrit dialect. A large number of nations came under the influence of the Indosphere becoming a part of Greater India, the cultural expansion caused the Sanskritization of South East Asia, the rise of Indianized kingdoms, spread of Hinduism in Southeast Asia and the Silk road transmission of Buddhism. Indian honorifics were adopted into the Malay, Thai, Filipino and Indonesian languages. The Indian diaspora, both historical (PIO or Person of Indian-Origin) and current (NRI or Non ...
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Silk Road Transmission Of Buddhism
Buddhism entered Han China via the Silk Road, beginning in the 1st or 2nd century CE. The first documented translation efforts by Buddhist monks in China were in the 2nd century CE via the Kushan Empire into the Chinese territory bordering the Tarim Basin under Kanishka. These contacts transmitted strands of Sarvastivadan and Tamrashatiya Buddhism throughout the Eastern world. Theravada Buddhism developed from the Pāli Canon in Sri Lanka Tamrashatiya school and spread throughout Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, Sarvastivada Buddhism was transmitted from North India through Central Asia to China. Direct contact between Central Asian and Chinese Buddhism continued throughout the 3rd to 7th centuries, much into the Tang period. From the 4th century onward, Chinese pilgrims like Faxian (395–414) and later Xuanzang (629–644) started to travel to northern India in order to get improved access to original scriptures. Between the 3rd and 7th centuries, parts of the land route connecting ...
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Hinduism In Southeast Asia
Hinduism in Southeast Asia had a profound impact on the region's Culture of Southeast Asia, cultural development and its History of Southeast Asia, history. As the Brahmic scripts, Indic scripts were introduced from India, people of Southeast Asia entered the historical period by producing their earliest inscriptions around the 1st to 5th century CE. Today, Hindus in Southeast Asia are mainly Non-resident Indian and person of Indian origin, Overseas Indians and Balinese people, Balinese. There are also Javanese people, Javanese (also other minorities of Indonesia) and Balamon Chams, Cham minority in Cambodia and southern Vietnam who also practice Hinduism. Hinduism, Hindu civilization, which itself formed from various distinct cultures and peoples, including also early Southeast Asian, specifically Mon Khmer influence, was adopted and assimilated into the indigenous social construct and statehood of Southeast Asian regional polity. Through the formation of Indianized kingdoms, ...
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Greater India
Greater India, or the Indian cultural sphere, is an area composed of many countries and regions in South and Southeast Asia that were historically influenced by Indian culture, which itself formed from the various distinct indigenous cultures of these regions. Specifically Southeast Asian influence on early India had lasting impacts on the formation of Hinduism and Indian mythology. Hinduism itself formed from various distinct folk religions, which merged during the Vedic period and following periods. The term ''Greater India'' as a reference to the Indian cultural sphere was popularised by a network of Bengali scholars in the 1920s. It is an umbrella term encompassing the Indian subcontinent, and surrounding countries which are culturally linked through a diverse cultural cline. These countries have been transformed to varying degrees by the acceptance and induction of cultural and institutional elements from each other. Since around 500 BCE, Asia's expanding land and maritime ...
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Indosphere
Indosphere is a term coined by the linguist James Matisoff for areas of Indian linguistic and cultural influence in South Asia and Southeast Asia. It is commonly used in areal linguistics in contrast with Sinosphere. Influence The Tibeto-Burman family of languages, which extends over a huge geographic range, is characterized by great typological diversity, comprising languages that range from the highly tonal, monosyllabic, analytic type with practically no affixational morphology, like the Loloish languages, to marginally tonal or atonal languages with complex systems of verbal agreement morphology, like the Kiranti group of Nepal. This diversity is partly to be explained in terms of areal influences from Chinese on the one hand and Indo-Aryan languages on the other. Matisoff proposed two large and overlapping areas combining cultural and linguistic features – the "Sinosphere" and the "Indosphere", influenced by China and India respectively.Robert M. W. Dixon, Y. Alexandra ...
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Indian Cultural Zone
Greater India, or the Indian cultural sphere, is an area composed of many countries and regions in South and Southeast Asia that were historically influenced by Indian culture, which itself formed from the various distinct indigenous cultures of these regions. Specifically Southeast Asian influence on early India had lasting impacts on the formation of Hinduism and Indian mythology. Hinduism itself formed from various distinct folk religions, which merged during the Vedic period and following periods. The term ''Greater India'' as a reference to the Indian cultural sphere was popularised by a network of Bengali scholars in the 1920s. It is an umbrella term encompassing the Indian subcontinent, and surrounding countries which are culturally linked through a diverse cultural cline. These countries have been transformed to varying degrees by the acceptance and induction of cultural and institutional elements from each other. Since around 500 BCE, Asia's expanding land and maritim ...
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Muslim Rule Of India
Muslim rule in the Indian subcontinent began in the course of a gradual Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent, beginning mainly after the conquest of Sindh and Multan led by Muhammad ibn al-Qasim. Following the perfunctory rule by the Ghaznavids in Punjab, Sultan Muhammad of Ghor is generally credited with laying the foundation of Muslim rule in Northern India. From the late 12th century onwards, Turko-Mongol Muslim empires began to establish themselves throughout the subcontinent including the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal India, who adopted local culture and intermarried with natives. Various other Muslim kingdoms, which ruled most of South Asia during the mid-14th to late 18th centuries, including the Bahmani Sultanate, Bengal Sultanate, Deccan Sultanates, Gujarat Sultanate and Mysore Sultanate were native in origin. Sharia was used as the primary basis for the legal system in the Delhi Sultanate, most notably during the rule of Firuz Shah Tughlaq and Alauddin Khilji, who rep ...
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Al-Masudi
Al-Mas'udi ( ar, أَبُو ٱلْحَسَن عَلِيّ ٱبْن ٱلْحُسَيْن ٱبْن عَلِيّ ٱلْمَسْعُودِيّ, '; –956) was an Arab historian, geographer and traveler. He is sometimes referred to as the "Herodotus of the Arabs". A polymath and prolific author of over twenty works on theology, history (Islamic and universal), geography, natural science and philosophy, his celebrated magnum opus '' Murūj al-Dhahab wa-Ma'ādin al-Jawhar'' ( ar, مُرُوج ٱلذَّهَب وَمَعَادِن ٱلْجَوْهَر, link=no), combines universal history with scientific geography, social commentary and biography, and is published in English in a multi-volume series as '' The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems''. Birth, travels and literary output Apart from what Al-Mas'udi writes of himself little is known. Born in Baghdad, he was descended from Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud, a companion of Muhammad. He mentions many scholar associates met on his travels thr ...
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Indian Religions
Indian religions, sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions, are the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent. These religions, which include Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism,Adams, C. J."Classification of religions: Geographical", ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 2007. Retrieved 15 July 2010 are also classified as Eastern religions. Although Indian religions are connected through the history of India, they constitute a wide range of religious communities, and are not confined to the Indian subcontinent. Evidence attesting to prehistoric religion in the Indian subcontinent derives from scattered Mesolithic rock paintings. The Harappan people of the Indus Valley civilisation, which lasted from 3300 to 1300 BCE (mature period 2600–1900 BCE), had an early urbanized culture which predates the Vedic religion. The documented history of Indian religions begins with the historical Vedic religion, the religious practices of the early Indo-Iranians ...
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