The Glory of Indian Heritage (An Old and Rare Book)

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The book The Glory of Indian Heritage is a collection of essays which aims at presenting perspectives of different aspects of Indian culture and development. It has essays on Indian classical music and dance, Painting. Ayurveda and Yoga which are traditional and indigenous system of health, physical fitness, and physical and mental well-being, astrology, language. philosophy, recent advances made by India in socio-economic development, and excellence achieved by Indians in the different branches of science and social sciences. It also includes profiles of selected eminent personalities of our time.

It goes without saying that to try to present in a volume of moderate size. a holistic perspective of India which has at least 5,000 years of documented history. is to attempt the impossible. However, the themes chosen for the Present. Volume are expected to be of interest to the general reader who would like to have authentic information about India of today.

The papers in this volume are written by scholars who are experts in their respective fields. The objective of this book is to make it interesting as well as tractable to the reader. The different papers serve as introductions, though limited, to the selected themes to those readers in particular who are not sufficiently familiar with the Indian scene.

Has India of this century lived up to its great inheritance? The different essays in the present book provide in part the answer. It may be said here that India has achieved several distinctions in the different branches of science, philosophy. literature, fine arts etc., of which one could be justly proud.

It is hoped that this book will be welcomed by the general readers as also scholars who are interested in the Indian heritage.

K. Mahadevan is Professor and former Dean of Arts and Education, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati. He has authored 28 books on Development, Health, Population, Communication, Methodology, Policy, Women Studies and so on and has edited seven books on Asian Countries and two books on China and India on a comparative perspective. He is an internationaly reputed Population Scientist.

V.K. Madhavan Kutty is a veteran journalist and former Deputy Editor of Mathrubhumi and is currently with ASIANET. He has authored a book, V.K. Krishna Menon.

Kiran Ramachandran N. is on the Faculty, Department of Communication and Journalism, Sri Padmavati Mahila University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh.

J. Ouseparampil is a Scholar of Sanskrit Studies and is currently with the Centre for Advanced Studies in Sanskrit, Bhandarkar Institute, Pune, Maharashtra.

India has a living and dynamic culture of unbroken continuity since its beginnings in the distant past. Inspite of the many ups and downs and upheavals in her long history, India has managed to survive and sustain herself because of her inherent strength and capacity to absorb and assimilate new and disparate influences without losing her essential identity. Indian culture is like a deep and perennially flowing river which takes into its bosom countless tributaries in its progress towards the vast sea. It is no accident that the ever-flowing river Ganga has been an archetypal image of the Indian consciousness.

The present book, which is a collection of essays, aims at presenting perspectives of different aspects of Indian culture and development today. It has essays on Indian classical music and dance, painting, Ayurveda and Yoga which are traditional and indigenous system of health, physical fitness, and physical and mental well-being, astrology, language, philosophy, recent advances made by India in socio-economic development, and excellence achieved by Indians in the different branches of science and social sciences. The volume also includes profiles of selected eminent personalities of our time. It does not pretend to be comprehensive, much less aim at it. It goes without saying that to try to present in a volume of moderate size, a holistic perspective of India which has at least 5,000 years of documented history, is to attempt the impossible. The themes chosen for the present volume are expected to be of interest to the general reader who would like to have authentic information about India of today. Several other interesting and important aspects of Indian life and culture could have been included in it, but they had to be left out only to make it a handy book. While the papers in this volume are written by scholars who are experts in their respective fields, they have not been able to cover all the salient. aspects of their subjects obviously due to the inevitable restriction of space. Our objective has been to make the volume interesting as well as tractable to the reader. It is our belief that the different papers serve as introductions, though limited, to the selected themes to those readers in particular who are not sufficiently familiar with the Indian scene.

We wish to make it clear that we have not been prompted by any chauvinistic and jingoistic intentions in bringing out this volume. It is our desire to dispel certain wrong notions about India which have persisted in some parts of the world. For instance, India is viewed as a country of utterly poor, illiterate and unhygienic, slum-dwellers, and that Indians are an otherwordly impracticable lot, irrational and superstitious, incapable of scientific temper and attitude (we are aware that this latter view was held till very recently by some educated Indians too). Verifiable facts show that such views as these and many others have to be reconsidered and revised. At the socio economic level, for example, in spite of her very large and growing population (844 millions, next only to China in 1991) living in just 2.4 per cent of the land area of the globe and with a density of 267 persons per kilometre, few die of hunger in India. It is certainly true that the standard of living of 30 percent of her people is very much low, compared to that of the people in the developed countries of the world. It is also true that there are conspicuous inequalities, social and economic, and that poverty and prosperity are seen jostling together. But yet, there has been unmistakable develop-ment in this country which can be perceived by any unprejudiced eye. What is more, democracy has come to stay and stay securely, in this vast country.

**Contents and Sample Pages**