greater than Earth; father is higher than heaven.”

2) “In what one thing is all dharma summed up? What single thing

constitutes all fame? What sole means takes one to heaven?” “Skill in the

discharge of one’s duties sums up all dharma; giving sums up all fame;

truthfulness is the sole road to heaven and good conduct is the one means

to happiness”.

3) “What is the foremost wealth?” “Learning”.

4) “What is the best gain?” “Health”.

5) “What is the supreme happiness?” “Contentment”.

6) “What is superior to all other dharmas in the world?” “Benevolence”

7) “Whose control leads to absence of sorrow?” “The control of mind”.

8) “Which friendship ages not?” “That with good souls”.

9) “By abandoning what thing does man become rich?” “Desire”.

10) “By giving up what, does one become happy?” “Avarice”.

11) “What is penance?” “Penance is the observance of one’s own obtained

duty.”

12) “What is self –control?” “Control of the mind”.

13) “What is forbearance?” “Putting up with opposites”. (pleasure and

pain, profit and loss)

14) “What is shame?” “Aversion to do reprehensible act is shame”.

15) “What is straight forwardness?” “Equanimity”.

16) “Who is the enemy hard to be won?” “Anger”.

17) “What is the endless disease?” “Avarice”.

18) “Who is said to be a good man?” “He who is benevolent to all things”.

19) “Who is a bad man?” “He who is barren of sympathy”.

20) “What is the best path?” “To cast away all mental dirt”.

21) “What is gift?” “Protection of life”.

22) “What is the wonder of the world?” “Every day live beings enter the

abode of death; those who remain think that they will survive; what

greater wonder is there than this?”

23) “What is the news of the world?” “With Earth as the pot, the firmament

as the covering lid, the sun as the fire, day and nights as faggots and

the seasons and months as the stirring ladle. Time cooks all beings; this

is the great news”.

Extract from Mahabharata

Romayana (adventures of Rama) is the earliest of the two great

Sanscrit epics, the incidents of which precede the Mahabharata by about

150 years. Rama was a king before he became translated into a deity. In

course of time, his story and epic became sacred and the belief became

established that spiritual and other blessings would be conferred on its

knowers ramayana became popular in India in every Hindy home. The story is

told in 7 books (96 000 lines).

At instigation of his second queen Dasaratha sends Rama, his eldest

son, into exile for 14 years. He is accompanied by Sita, his young Wife and

Lakshmana, his younger brother, when they are living happily in the forest,

Sita is abduced by Ravana (King of Lanka) Rama and Lakshmana go through

many adventures, battles, etc in their pursuit of Ravana, in which they’re

assisted by Sugriva, the monkey king and his general, Hanuman. Eventually,

Lanka is stormed and set fire to by Hanuman; Ravana is killed; Sita is

rescued and victorious party returns to Ayodhya, their capital city. Later

because her chastity is suspected (because she stayed in Ravana’s house),

Sita proves her innocence voluntarily undergoing an ordeal by fire.

Rama accepts her but for the same reason banishes her (again) the next

time. She goes away to Valmiki’s ashram, where her twin sons are born and

brought up. She prays to the earth goddess to take her away if she is

innocent who seated on her throne appears out of the earth and seating Sita

on her lap takes her away for good.

The epics Ramayana and Mahabharrata arose to supplement and reinforce

the teaching of the Vedas, particularly in respect of the moral, religious

and spiritual ideas of men and women. Since remote times, the two epics

have been the two eyes of the nation guiding it and holding up before it

the ideas of the truth and righteousness of Rama and Yudhishthira and of

chastity and wifely devotion of Sita, as also of the negative example of

Ravana and other characters who came to grief because of their lust,

avarice and wickedness.

These epics were expected to fulfil the mission of placing before the

people examples of how virtue triumphed and vicefell.

This was also an age of advance in mathematics, science, and medicine.

Our so called Arabic numerals originally came from India. Indian

mathematicians were among the first to use negative numbers, the decimal,

and the zero. Centuries before Isaac Newton, Indian Scientist developed

their own theories of gravity. Indian astronomers knew that the earth was

round and that it rotated on its axis. If in need of medical attention, the

people of the Gupta Empire could go to free hospitals where Indian

physicians were able to perform many surgical procedures and mention 300

different operations and 20 instruments.

Customs in India

India has many customs. The practice of self-information by fire has a

strange and terrible place in the lore of India, and it brings to mind the

practice of suttee, widow burning. This barbaric survival of ancient

customs lasted in India to a late day.

In 1817 there were 706 cases of suttee in Bengal alone. This was at a

time when the British authorities were making efforts to stop the practice.

They were afraid to prohibit window burning entirely in the face of

fanatical.

Hindu addiction to tradition, and resorted to intensive persuasion. No

suttee was permitted until the prospective, victim had been examined by a

magistrate, who made sure that she was proceeding of her own free will and

urged her to give up her ghastly intention.

The great source of information in that period is a massive volume

“Hindu Manners, Customs and ceremonies” by the Abbe Dubois, a French

missionary who spent years in India at the end of the eighteenth century

and the beginning of the nineteenth. He writes:

The last king of Tanjore, who died in 1801, left behind him four

lawful wives. The Brahmins decided that two of these should be burnt with

the body of their husband, and selected the couple that should have the

preference. It would have been the everlasting shame to them and the

grossest insult to the memory of the deceased had they hesitated to accept

this singular, honor, so they seemed perfectly ready to yield to the

terrible lot which awaited them. The necessary preparations for the

obsequies were completed in a single day.

Three or four leagues from the royal residence a square pit of no

great depth, and about twelve to fifteen feet square, was excavated

Within it was erected a pyramid of sandalwood, resting on a kind of

scaffolding of the same wood. The posts which supported it were so arranged

that they could easily be removed and would thereby cause the whole

structure to collapse suddenly. At the four courners of the pit were placed

huge brass jars filled with ghee, to be thrown on the wood in order to

hasten combustion .

The following was the order of the procession as it wended its way to

the pyre. It was headed by a large force of armed soldiers. Then followed a

crowd of musicians chiefly trumpeters, who made the air ring with the

dismal sound of their instruments. Next came the king’s body borne in a

splendid open palanquin, accompanied by his guru, his principal officers,

and his nearest relatives, who were all on foot and wore no turbans in

token of mourning.

Then came two victims, each borne on a richly decorated palanquin.

They were loaded rather than decked, with jewels. Several ranks of soldiers

surrounded them to preserve order and to keep back the great crowds that

flocked in from every side.

The two queens were accompanied by some of their favorite women, with

whom they occasionally conversed.

Then followed relatives of both sexes, to whom the victims had made

valuable presents before leaving the palace. An innumerable multitude of

Brahmins and persons of all castes followed in the rear.

On reaching the spot where their fate awaited them, the victims were

required to perform the ablutions and other ceremonies proper on such

occasions and they went through the whole of them without hesitation and

without the least sign of fear. When, however, it came to walking round the

pyre, it was observed that their features underwent a sudden change.

During this interval the body of the king had been placed on the top

of the pyramid of sandalwood. The two queen, still wearing their rich

attire and ornaments, were next compelled to ascend the pyre. Lying down

beside the body of the deceased prince, one on the right and other on the

left, they joined hands across the corpse.

The officiating Brahmins then sprinkled the pile with holy water, and

emptied the jars of ghee over the wood, setting fire on it at the same

moment. The flames quickly spread and the props being removed, the whole

structure collapsed and in its fall must have crushed to death the two

unfortunate victims. Thereupon all the spectators shouted aloud for joy.

During the sixth century the Gupta Empire collapsed under the repeated

attacks of the White Huns (perhaps related to the Huns who plagued the

Roman Empire during the fifth century) India again entered a period of

political disorder; the country became divided into small warring kingdoms.

Waves of foreign invaders again entered the land; but as in the past,

Hinduism absorbed these foreign elements into Indian society. However, the

history of India took a dramatic turn when northern India fell under the

domination of Muslims who brought with them a religion and culture as

strong as Hinduism.

After years of constant raids, Muslim warriors conquered much of

northern India, where they established a Muslim kingdom in 1206 near the

city of Delhi. Almost immediately a conflict arose between the Muslim and

Hindu elements within Indian society. This was a struggle not only between

two religions, but between two distinct ways of line. The Hindus believed

in many gods, but the Muslims acknowledged only one.

The Hindus followed the rigid caste system while the Muslims believed

in the equality of all men before their god, Allah.

Although Muslim control of northern India ended at the close of the

fourteenth century, the hostilities between Hindus and Muslims in Indian

society have continued to the present.

Muslims contributed to the development of Indian culture. They left

the valuable monument of art, the great masterpiece – Taj Mahal.

Taj Mahal

Of the seven Wonders of the Ancient World, two were dedicated to

sentiment in marriage: the Mausoleum, monument of a wife’s devotion to the

memory of her husband; the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, erected by a husband

for the happiness of a favourite wife. Among the wonders of the modern

world, one of the most famous commemorates a husband’s devotion to a wife.

It is, of course, the incomparable Taj Mahal, the tomb that Shah Jehan

created for the beauteous Mumtaz Mahal, at the city of Agra, in India. The

French traveler Francois Bernier, who toured the East three centuries ago,

was in Agra during the 1660s, saw the building when it had been up for less

than twenty years, and wrote in his journal: “Possibly I have acquired an

Indian taste, but I am of the opinion that this monument has much more

right to be included among the wonders of the world than the pyramids of

Egypt”. Some critics have gone beyond him, declaring the Taj Mahal to be

the most beautiful edifice ever erected by man. Shah Jehan was one of the

Mogul emperors who reigned over India in golden splendour. A Moslem, he

practiced the polygamy ordained in the Koran, which permitted four wife not

counting the concubines whom it was customary for an Islamic potentate to

have in his harem. Mumtaz Mahal, young dainty, and beautiful, was the

favourite wife. Taj Mahal, therefore, is a monument to romantic sentiment

in the harem, a husband’s devotion in polygamous family life.

The Taj Mahal is the masterpieces of Mohammedan Art. That it arose on

Indian soil is explained by history. The Moglus came originally from

Central Asia, their name being a variant of the world “Mongol”. They were

Moslems, and they conquered India.

The founder of the Mogul Empire was one of the remarkable men of all

time. In martial ardor and ability to command, Baber may have been a

typical princeling of Iartary, but he was also a man of culture, the author

of perhaps best political memoirs ever written by a reigning monarch. In

December of 1525 he led his army into India. The battle took place on April

12, 1526, and proved to be one of the decisive conflicts of world history

for Baber won the victory, that gave him a permanent foothold in the land

that was to be ruled by this descendants.

Baber did not finish the work of integrating an imperial domain. But

the Moguls were lucky in the next representative of their dynasty Akbar,

known to history as Akbar The Great. He introduced a new system of

government, bringing ale the land under his direct authority naming his own

viceroys, setting up a comprehensive tax levy, keeping the provincial

military forces in the pay of the central treasury to prevent local

rebellious before they could get started.

At his death (1605) he left behind an empire so closely knit and

organized that it could continue in much the same form for another century.

By patronizing artists and architects he forwarded the development of

style and skill to the point where under his grand son, the miracle of the

Taj Mahal became possible. Akbar was succeeded by his son Sahangir, the

potentate to whom the title of “The Great Mogul” was first applied. The

imagination of the west was inflamed, by stories of the beauty, power,

luxury and oriental splendour of the Mogul Empire. Merchants, travellers,

ambassadors, missionaries – all helped to fill in the picture of the Great

Mogul and his kingdom.

Iahangir died in 1627 and the throne passed to his son, Shah Jehan.

Under his popular rule the Mogul Empire reached its height. His reign was

remembered for its order, security and justice. In 1612 he had married

Argumand Banu a cousin, and their wedded bliss until her death in 1631

constitutes one of the great love stories of the world. It was not dimmed

by the fact that Shah Jehan, in Moslem fashion, had a harem of other wives.

She was his favourite, the one he called Mumtaz Mahal, or Ornament of the

Palace”. A powerful influence with him, she was largely responsible for his

orthodox Mohammedanism, for she held strictly to the tenets of Islam Mumtaz

Mahal bore her husband fourteen children, the last of which caused her

death on June 17, 1631.

Shah Ielah reacted to the tragedy as did Artemisia on the death

Mausolus. He was so inconsolable that it was feared he would die of grief.

In fact he never recovered from the shock, although he did rouse himself

because he wanted to venerate the memory of his wife, with a suitable

monument. The greatest thing he did during the rest of his reign was to

build the Taj Mahal. As a site he chose a high bank of the Yumna River, one

of the holy rives of Hundustan, where it bends around at Agra. He summoned

the finest architects and craftsmen from all over his empire and had them

submit plans for the proposed buildings. The Portuquese Iesuists in Agra

reported that the man who won was a Venetian Geronimo Verroneo, and that

this Westerner actually erected the Taj. But that story has been rejected

by some later scholars on the grounds that the building shows no European

influence. Other accounts name a Turk or a Persian.

The basic material used was wite marble, with the wall and gates of

red sandstone, a colour scheme, that has the remarkable effect of showing

different tints at different times of the day. The building stands on a 186-

foot square with the angles cut to form on octagon. Beneath it is a raised

marble platform, extending all around and marked by delicate minarets at

each corner. Above swells the great dome, about two thirds of a sphere,

surmounted by a crescent and flanked by smaller domes, each of the walls is

cut by arches of a similar but not at all mono fonous pattern, rather, they

contribute to the unity of the whole, Light enters through marble screens.

There is an old saying that “The Moguls built like titans and finished

like jewelers”. The Taj Mahal proves the truth of the remark. Looked from a

distance, its appearance is indeed dreamlike, with a grare and balance that

make us wonder how human beings ever achieved so miraculous a result from

marble and sandstone.

After Shah Jehan the Mogul Empire had no place to go except downward.

This great ruler lived to see the first bitter fruits of failure, for his

sons rebelled against him, and the one who came out on top, Aurangzeb,

deposed him and threw him into prison.

Then Aurangzeb moved the capital of the Mogul Empire from Agra to

Delhi. For seven years Shah Jehan remained in a cell in the fort at Agra,

protesting against the unfilial behaviour of the new emperor, and spending

much of his time gazing across at the Taj Mahal where the symbol of his

best days lay Buried. Shah Iahan died in 1658 and finally left prison to

lie by the side of Mumtaz Mahal in her glorious tomb. Aurangzeb maintained

his throne for fifty years, the last Mogul of any consequence. On his death

in 1767 fierce fighting among his sons broke out. Final ruin came in 1739

when the powerful king of Persia, Nadir Shah, invaded Hundustan. From then

on the Mogul Empire of Akbar, Yahangir, and Shah Jehan, was but a memory,

but it had left behind a colorful page of history climaxed by the enduring

monument that attracts and charms visitors to this day that wonder the

modern world, the Taj Mahal.

But India is famous not only for this monument of art – It has other

wonderful masterpieces of architecture.

Art of India

Indian civilization was one of the oldest and most original in the

East. Her contribution to world culture was great. In the ancient times,

India was famed for her wonderful miracles, vast natural resources and

craft works.

In the 3rd century b.c. almost the whole Hindostan peninsula and some

neighbouring countries, were united into one gigantic empire under the

powerful king, Ashoch (273).

Only stone edifies in that period have survived till nowadays: temples

and cells, stone-shrines. Shrines were erected of brick and stone in the

form of hemisphere, surrounding by the fence with 4 gates in it.

Stone statues served as adornments of architecture and more often were

created in the form of scenic relief. Motions, gestures and poses of the

people on the relief are extremely expressive and graceful. That was under

the influence of the dance art, widely spread and popular in India.

Religious architecture of the Ashoch period is represented by cave

complexes and temples. Such temples were usually carved in the picturesque

and secluded places out of the solid rock massif. Excavations in the North

– West India brought the discovery of the wonderful statues created in the

1st century a.d.. These were mainly the statues of Buddha. Influence of

the Greco-Roman art was great here.

Figures of Buddha resemble much statues of the Roman emperors and some

of the Greek gods. They were made by Greek masters who lived in Indian and

adopted Indian religions. Later on the Indian apprentices of Greek masters

started sculpting Buddha according to the notion of the Indian people:

sitting with his legs crossed. Period of the blossoming Indian culture

dates back to the 4th –6th centuries a.d. Remarkable specimen of the

ancient Indian painting have survived in Buddhist temples and monasteries

in Adjanta. Walls, ceilings, pillars in these temples are painted with the

scenes from Buddhist legends and are decorated with statues and carving.

Murals in Adjanta are the visual encyclopaedia of life of the ancient

Indian people.

Conclusion

The Indian civilization was one of the oldest and most original in the

last. Its contribution to the culture of human kind is immense. At a very

early stage, ancient India maintained close cultural contacts with many

countries of the ancient Orient and with the Greco-Roman World.

Ancient traditions are highly viable in India and it is therefore not

surprising that many achievements of the ancient Indian civilization long

outlived the epoch of antiquity becoming an important component of the

country’s modern culture and of world civilizations.

Bibliography

1. “A Crown of Eagles” by Anne Covell.

2. “The Indians” by Blecker Sonia

3. “Across the Centuries” by S. Armento. G.B. Nash

4. “The story of Ancient Times” by Meclure C.H.

5. “People and Nations World History” by Mazour Anatol

6. “Lands and Peoples” by Bulliet Richard W.

7. “Investigations Man’s World” by Hanna Paul

8. ‘The West Indies” by Harman Carter

9. “Southeast Asia” by Karnow Stanley

10. “People” by Frederick King

11. “World History Atlas”

12. “Atlas of World and Environmental” by Middleton Nick

13. “World History” by David A. Fisher

14. “Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies” by Abbe Dubois

15. Encyclopedia “India”

16. “The New and Wander Book of Explorations and Discoveries” by D.

Sweet

17. New English – Russian Dictionary (1999 Moscow)

18. Oxford Russian – English, English – Russian (Oxford)

19. English – Romanian, Romanian – English Dictionary by Andre Bantash

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