India

Country, South Asia. It fronts the Bay of Bengal on the southeast and the Arabian Sea on
the southwest. Area: 1,222,559 sq mi (3,166,414 sq km). Population (2005 est.):
1,103,371,000. Capital: New Delhi. The peoples of India comprise widely varying
mixtures of ethnic strains drawn from peoples settled in the subcontinent before the dawn
of history or from invaders. Languages: Hindi, English (both official), and other Indo-
European languages, including Bengali, Kashmiri, Marathi, and Urdu; Dravidian
languages; hundreds from several other language families. Religions: Hinduism; also
Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism. Currency: rupee. India has three major
geographic regions: the Himalayas, along its northern border; the Indo-Gangetic Plain,
formed by the alluvial deposits of three great river systems, including the Ganges
(Ganga); and the southern region, noted for the Deccan plateau. Agricultural products
include rice, wheat, cotton, sugarcane, coconut, spices, jute, tobacco, tea, coffee, and
rubber. The manufacturing sector is highly diversified and includes both heavy and high-
technology industries. India is a republic with two legislative houses; its chief of state is
the president, and the head of government is the prime minister. India has been inhabited
for thousands of years. Agriculture in India dates to the 7th millennium BC, and an urban
civilization, that of the Indus valley, was established by 2600 BC. Buddhism and Jainism
arose in the 6th century BC in reaction to the caste-based society created by the Vedic
religion and its successor, Hinduism. Muslim invasions began c. AD 1000, establishing
the long-lived Delhi sultanate in 1206 and the Mughal dynasty in 1526. Vasco da Gama's
voyage to India in 1498 initiated several centuries of commercial rivalry between the
Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French. British conquests in the 18th and 19th centuries
led to the rule of the British East India Co., and direct administration by the British
Empire began in 1858. After Mohandas K. Gandhi helped end British rule in 1947,
Jawaharlal Nehru became India's first prime minister, and Nehru, his daughter Indira
Gandhi, and his grandson Rajiv Gandhi guided the nation's destiny for all but a few years
until 1991. The subcontinent was partitioned into two countries — India, with a Hindu
majority, and Pakistan, with a Muslim majority — in 1947. A later clash with Pakistan
resulted in the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. In the 1980s and '90s, Sikhs sought to
establish an independent state in Punjab, and ethnic and religious conflicts took place in
other parts of the country as well. The Kashmir region in the northwest has been a source
of constant tension

India, or Hindustan, was named by the Greeks after the Indus valley. Its dominant
civilization was Hindu and Buddhist but, from the 11th cent., it was subject to conquest
from the Islamic north. The most famous of its conquerors were the Mughals, who
established their empire in 1526. In the age of exploration, the first Europeans to arrive
were the Portuguese who developed a sea-borne empire centred on Goa. In the early 17th
cent., the Dutch displaced the Portuguese, but India was peripheral to their principal
interests in Java. The English East India Company established its presence from the
1610s and the French arrived in the 1660s. From the 1720s, the power of the Mughal
empire started to decline. In Europe, France and England found themselves at war in this
period and their respective companies carried on the conflict by constructing alliances
with the successor states. At first, the French under Dupleix had the upper hand. But,
from the late 1740s, the English company's fortunes began to turn as Robert Clive won a
series of military victories. The major threat posed by the French was eliminated after the
battle of Wandewash in 1760. For the next 30 years, there was some hesitancy in British
circles at building on these foundations. But, during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic
wars, the opportunity was seized and by 1818, with the defeat of the Maratha empire, the
East India Company had gained supremacy. After the Indian mutiny of 1857, however,
the company was abolished and sovereignty passed to the British crown. In the 19th
cent., India was undoubtedly Britain's most important colony. After the First World War,
both its military and economic status began to decline and a mass nationalist movement
emerged under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. As early as 1920, the British began to
clear the way for ‘responsible self-government’and, by 1935, had drawn up plans for
India's eventual conversion into a dominion. However, the Second World War cut short
this programme of devolution and promoted an extremely hasty retreat. British India was
partitioned into the separate states of Pakistan and India, which became independent on
15 August 1947.
The classical dance forms of India and Pakistan evolved as vehicles for portraying the
characters and stories of the gods. Shiva is known as the Lord of the Dance and according
to Hindu legend created heaven and earth when he performed his Dance of Creation.
Bharata's treatise the Natya Shastra was written c.200 BC-AD 300 and its guidelines on
dance, drama, and music acquired the status of holy writ. The main dance forms are
bharata natyam from S. India, kathakali from SW India, manipuri from NE India,
kuchipudi from SE India, odissi from Orissa, and kathak from N. India. While these
ancient dance forms were frequently degraded under colonial rule, the 20th century saw a
major renaissance of standards in both teaching and performance. Pavlova learnt Indian
dance from Uday Shankar and performed the duet Radha and Krishna with him in 1923,
but the most influential performer in the West for many years was Ram Gopal. On his
many tours from the late 1930s through to the 1970s he initiated a new international
audience to the aesthetic of Indian dance and also performed with Markova. Today
classical Indian dance is taught and performed in many countries and a new generation of
artists has begun to evolve contemporary versions of classical forms. British-based
Shobana Jeyasingh has brought aspects of Western modern dance to her choreographic
idiom while Chandralekha has turned to martial arts and yoga for new influences. Among
 younger choreographers based in India there is wide experimentation with new music, a
marked modernization of costume and stage manner, and a tendency to work with
ensembles rather than soloists.

Although Buddhism originated in India it now flourishes predominantly in other parts of

Asia. Pockets of Buddhism have always existed in the northern extremities of the
subcontinent in the Tibetan-influenced regions of Ladakh, Sikkim, and Bhutan. There has
also been a limited revival of Buddhism in India in the 20th century, due partly to an
influx of refugees from Tibet, and the conversion of the so-called ‘Ambedkar Buddhists’
who became Buddhists in an attempt to improve their former low status as members of
the untouchable caste.

Leaving modern developments to one side, the history of Buddhism in India (used here as
a geographical term for the whole of the subcontinent rather than simply the territory of
the present republic) extends from the 5th century BCE to the 15th century CE, and perhaps
somewhat later. Buddhism originates with the teachings of the Buddha, who lived at the
beginning of the Magadhan period (546-324 BCE) when the kingdom of Magadha was
undergoing rapid expansion. In the year of the Buddha's death the Council of Rājagṛja
compiled a canon, and some hundred years later the Council of Vaiśālī resolved a dispute
over monastic practice, indicating the beginning of sectarianism among the originally
unified community. Towards the end of the period north-west India had been colonized
by Alexander the Great, and by this time Buddhist monks had established the foundations
of their canonical writings and organized themselves into monastic communities. The
Mauryan period (324-187 BCE) is dominated by the figure of Aśoka and witnessed the
expansion of Buddhism throughout India under his patronage. The Edicts of Aśoka
carved on rock provide the first tangible historical evidence of Buddhism, and record that
the emperor dispatched missions abroad to promote Buddhism. This period was marked
by dissension among the monks, and the schism of the Mahāsaṃghikas split the early
community into two rival parties (see Council of Pāṭaliputra I). The period of the Śuṇgas
and Yavanas (187-30 BCE) brought mixed fortunes: in the region of the Ganges Basin
Buddhism encountered hostility and persecution under Puṣyamitra Śuṇga, but this period
also sees the construction of great stūpa complexes such as those at Sāñcī, Bhārhut, and
Amarāvatī. In the north-west Buddhism flourished under Indo-Greek monarchs such as
Menander (see Milindapañha). The Śakas and Pahlavas (100 BCE-75 CE) who succeeded
the Greeks in the north-west also favoured Buddhism, as did the ruler of the later Kuṣāṇa
dynasty, Kaniṣka I, who is said to have supported Buddhism and convened the ‘fourth
council’ in Gandhāra (see Council of Kaniṣka).

The early centuries of the Christian era saw the rise of the Mahāyāna, a broad-based
movement emphasizing inclusivity and an expanded role for the laity. The early
understanding of the Buddha was reworked in the new doctrine of his ‘three bodies’
(trikāya), and the figure of the Bodhisattva came to prominence, replacing the early ideal
of the Arhat. New sūtras, purportedly also the word of the Buddha, began to appear,
notably in the Perfection of Insight literature (see Prajñā-pāramitā Sūtras) and other
profoundly influential texts such as the Lotus Sūtra. New philosophical schools, notably
the Madhyamaka and the Yogācāra, arose to interpret this material, and in doing so they
offered radical reinterpretations of the early teachings. A final wave of new literature
known as tantras appeared around the 7th century promoting radical forms of practice,
including rituals and meditation techniques for accelerating spiritual progress. This form
of tantric Buddhism became known as the ‘diamond vehicle’ or Vajrayāna.

The intellectual vigour of Buddhism during this period attracted large numbers of
students to monastic centres of learning. The most famous of these (at least among
Mahāyānists) was Nālandā, founded in the second century and later patronised by
Kumāra Gupta I, 414-455 CE (see Gupta Dynasty). It was reputed to have been home to
10,000 students, with admission being gained through an oral exam at the main gateway.
Through continuing royal patronage, such as that of King Harṣa and the rulers of the Pāla
dynasty (650-950 CE), other major centres of learning such as Vikramaśīla and Odantapurī
also flourished. It was these institutions that produced the great generation of Indian
Buddhist scholars like Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla, who would play a vital role in the
transmission of Buddhism to Tibet.

A less fortunate consequence of the growth of monastic centres was that monks became
increasingly specialized in abstruse doctrines and began to lose touch with the world
outside the cloister. Although little is known about popular Buddhism in ancient India, it
can be conjectured that unlike Hinduism, which has always had roots at the village level,
Buddhism became concentrated in a few key institutions of higher learning. This proved
to be its undoing when Muslim raiding parties began to enter India from the 11th century.
Undefended Buddhist monasteries, often containing valuable treasures, proved irresistible
targets to raiders bent on booty in the name of holy war. The Turkic general Mahmud
Shabuddin Ghorī sacked Nālandā in 1197 and Vikramaśīla in 1203, burning their libraries
and destroying priceless literary and artistic treasures. These traumatic events effectively
marked the end of the history of Buddhism in India until modern times although some
limited activity continued in the south: there were Buddhist monasteries in Orissa and
south India in the 15th century, and Buddhist teachers went from India to Tibet even later.
Land

The southern half of India is a largely upland area that thrusts a triangular peninsula
(c.1,300 mi/2,090 km wide at the north) into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal
on the east and the Arabian Sea on the west and has a coastline c.3,500 mi (5,630 km)
long; at its southern tip is Kanniyakumri (Cape Comorin). In the north, towering above
peninsular India, is the Himalayan mountain wall, where rise the three great rivers of the
Indian subcontinent—the Indus, the Ganges, and the Brahmaputra.

The Gangetic alluvial plain, which has much of India's arable land, lies between the
Himalayas and the dissected plateau occupying most of peninsular India. The Aravalli
range, a ragged hill belt, extends from the borders of Gujarat in the southwest to the
fringes of Delhi in the northeast. The plain is limited in the west by the Thar (Great
Indian) Desert of Rajasthan, which merges with the swampy Rann of Kachchh to the
south. The southern boundary of the plain lies close to the Yamuna and Ganges rivers,
where the broken hills of the Chambal, Betwa, and Son rivers rise to the low plateaus of
Malwa in the west and Chota Nagpur in the east.
The Narmada River, south of the Vindhya hills, marks the beginning of the Deccan. The
triangular plateau, scarped by the mountains of the Eastern Ghats and Western Ghats, is
drained by the Godavari, Krishna, and Kaveri rivers; they break through the Eastern
Ghats and, flowing east into the Bay of Bengal, form broad deltas on the wide
Coromandel Coast. Further north, the Mahanadi River drains India into the Bay of
Bengal. The much narrower western coast of peninsular India, comprising chiefly the
Malabar Coast and the fertile Gujarat plain, bends around the Gulf of Khambat in the
north to the Kathiawar and Kachchh peninsulas. The coastal plains of peninsular India
have a tropical, humid climate.

The Deccan interior is partly semiarid on the west and wet on the east. The Indo-Gangetic
plain is subtropical, with the western interior areas experiencing frost in winter and very
hot summers. India's rainfall, which depends upon the monsoon, is variable; it is heavy in
Assam and West Bengal and along the southern coasts, moderate in the inland peninsular
regions, and scanty in the arid northwest, especially in Rajasthan and Punjab.

The republic is divided into 28 states: Andhra Pradesh; Arunachal Pradesh; Assam;
Bihar; Chhattisgarh; Goa; Gujarat; Haryana; Himachal Pradesh; Jammu and Kashmir (see
Kashmir); Jharkhand; Karnataka; Kerala; Madhya Pradesh; Maharashtra; Manipur;
Meghalaya; Mizoram; Nagaland; Orissa; Punjab; Rajasthan; Sikkim; Tamil Nadu;
Tripura; Uttaranchal; Uttar Pradesh; and West Bengal (see Bengal). There are also seven
union territories: the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; Chandigarh; Dadra and Nagar
Haveli; Daman and Diu; Delhi; Lakshadweep; and Puducherry. Kashmir is disputed with
Pakistan.

In 1991, India had 23 cities with urban areas of more than 1 million people: Ahmadabad,
Bangalore (Bengaluru), Bhopal, Chennai (Madras), Coimbatore, Delhi, Hyderabad,
Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kochi (see under Cochin), Kolkata (Calcutta), Lucknow,
Ludhiana, Madurai, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Pune, Surat, Vadodara (see under Baroda),
Varanasi, and Vishakhapatnam.

People and Culture

India is the world's second most populous nation (after China). Its ethnic composition is
complex, but two major strains predominate: the Aryan, in the north, and the Dravidian,
in the south. India is a land of great cultural diversity, as is evidenced by the enormous
number of different languages spoken throughout the country. Although Hindi (spoken in
the north) and English (the language of politics and commerce) are used officially, more
than 1,500 languages and dialects are spoken. The Indian constitution recognizes 15
regional languages (Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam,
Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu). Ten of the major
states of India are generally organized along linguistic lines.

Although the constitution forbids the practice of “untouchability,” and legislation has
been used to reserve quotas for former untouchables (and also for tribal peoples) in the
legislatures, in education, and in the public services, the caste system continues to be
influential. About 80% of the population is Hindu, and 14% is Muslim. Other significant
religions include Christians, Sikhs, and Buddhists. There is no state religion. The holy
cities of India attract pilgrims from throughout the East: Varanasi (formerly Benares),
Allahabad, Puri, and Nashik are religious centers for the Hindus; Amritsar is the holy city
of the Sikhs; and Satrunjaya Hill near Palitana is sacred to the Jains.

With its long and rich history, India retains many outstanding archaeological landmarks;
preeminent of these are the Buddhist remains at Sarnath, Sanchi, and Bodh Gaya; the
cave temples at Ajanta, Ellora, and Elephanta; and the temple sites at Madurai,
Thanjavur, Abu, Bhubaneswar, Konarak, and Mahabalipuram. For other aspects of Indian
culture, see Hindu music; Indian art and architecture; Indian literature; Mughal art and
architecture; Pali canon; Prakrit literature; Sanskrit literature.

Economy

Economically, India often seems like two separate countries: village India, supported by
traditional agriculture, where tens of millions—one fourth of population—live below the
poverty line; and urban India, one of the most heavily industrialized areas in the world,
with an increasingly middle-class population and a fast-growing economy. Agriculture
(about 50% of the land is arable) makes up some 20% of the gross domestic product
(GDP) and employs about 60% of the Indian people. Vast quantities of rice are grown
wherever the land is level and water plentiful; other crops are wheat, sugarcane, potatoes,
pulses, sorghum, bajra (a cereal), and corn. Cotton, tobacco, oilseeds, and jute are the
principal nonfood crops. There are large tea plantations in Assam, Karnataka, Kerala, and
Tamil Nadu. The opium poppy is also grown, both for the legal pharmaceutical market
and the illegal drug trade; cannabis is produced as well.

Fragmentation of holdings, inefficient methods of crop production, and delays in

acceptance of newer, high-yielding grains were characteristic of Indian agriculture in the
past, but since the Green Revolution of the 1970s, significant progress has been made in
these areas. Improved irrigation, the introduction of chemical fertilizers, and the use of
high-yield strains of rice and wheat have led to record harvests. The subsistence-level
existence of village India, ever threatened by drought, flood, famine, and disease, has
been somewhat alleviated by government agricultural modernization efforts, but although
India's gross food output has been generally sufficient for the the needs of its enormous
population, government price supports and an inadequate distribution system still
threaten many impoverished Indians with hunger and starvation.

India has perhaps more cattle per capita than any other country, but their economic value
is severely limited by the Hindu prohibition against their slaughter. Goats and sheep are
raised in the arid regions of the west and northwest. Water buffalo also are raised, and
there is a large fish catch.

India has forested mountain slopes, with stands of oak, pine, sal, teak, ebony, palms, and
bamboo, and the cutting of timber is a major rural occupation. Aside from coal, iron ore,
mica, manganese, bauxite, and titanium, in which the country ranks high, India's mineral
resources, although large, are not as yet fully exploited. The Chota Nagpur Plateau of S
Jharkhand and the hill lands of SW West Bengal, N Orissa, and Chhattisgarh are the most
important mining areas; they are the source of coal, iron, mica, and copper. There are
workings of magnesite, bauxite, chromite, salt, and gypsum. Despite oil fields in Assam
and Gujarat states and the output (since the 1970s) of Bombay High offshore oil fields,
India is deficient in petroleum.

Industry in India, traditionally limited to agricultural processing and light manufacturing,

especially of cotton, woolen, and silk textiles, jute, and leather products, has been greatly
expanded and diversified in recent years; it employs about 12% of the workforce. There
are large textile works at Mumbai and Ahmadabad, a huge iron and steel complex
(mainly controlled by the Tata family) at Jamshedpur, and steel plants at Rourkela,
Bhilainagar, Durgapur, and Bokaro. Bangalore has electronics and armaments industries.
India also produces large amounts of machine tools, transportation equipment, chemicals,
and cut diamonds (it is the world's largest exporter of the latter) and has a significant
computer software industry. Its large film industry is concentrated in Mumbai, with other
centers in Kolkata and Chennai. In the 1990s the government departed from its traditional
policy of self-reliant industrial activity and development and worked to deregulate Indian
industry and attract foreign investment. Since then the service industries have become a
major source of economic growth and in 2005 accounted for more than half of GDP;
international call centers provide employment for an increasing number of workers.

Most towns are connected by state-owned railroad systems, one of the most extensive
networks in the world. Transportation by road is increasing, with the improvement of
highways, but in rural India the bullock cart is still an important means of transportation.
There are international airports at New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Chennai. The
leading ports are Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Kochi, and Vishakhapatnam. The leading
exports are clothing and textiles, gems and jewelry, engineering products, chemicals,
leather goods, computer software, cotton thread, and handicrafts. The chief imports are
crude oil, machinery, gems, fertilizers, and chemicals. India's major trade partners are the
United States, China, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Great Britain, and
Switzerland.

Government

India is a federal state with a parliamentary form of government. It is governed under the
1949 constitution (effective since Jan., 1950). The president of India, who is head of
state, is elected for a five-year term by the elected members of the federal and state
parliaments; there are no term limits. Theoretically the president possesses full executive
power, but that power actually is exercised by the prime minister (head of the majority
party in the federal parliament) and council of ministers (which includes the cabinet),
who are appointed by the president. The ministers are responsible to the lower house of
Parliament and must be members of Parliament.

The federal parliament is bicameral. The upper house, the Council of States (Rajya
Sabha), consists of a maximum of 250 members; the great majority are apportioned by
state—each state's delegates are chosen by its elected assembly—and 12 members are
appointed by the president. In addition, one member represents the union territory of
Puducherry. Members serve for six years, with one third retiring every other year. The
lower house, the People's Assembly (Lok Sabha), is elected every five years, although it
may be dissolved earlier by the president. It is composed of 545 members, 543
apportioned among the states and two chosen by the president. There is a supreme court
consisting of a chief justice and 25 associate justices, all appointed by the president.

State governors are appointed by the president for five-year terms. States have either
unicameral or bicameral parliaments and have jurisdiction over police and public order,
agriculture, education, public health, and local government. The federal government has
jurisdiction over any matter not specifically reserved for the states. In addition the
president may intervene in state affairs during emergencies and may even suspend a
state's government.

Until the 1990s the Congress party generally dominated Indian politics. Other major
parties include the Janata Dal party, the Bharatiya Janata party, the Communist party of
India/Marxist, and the Communist party of India. There are also significant regional
parties. Administratively, India is divided into 28 states and seven union territories.

History

The historical discussion that follows deals, until Indian independence, with the Indian
subcontinent, which includes the regions that are now Bangladesh and Pakistan, and
thereafter concentrates on the history of India.

From the Indus Valley to the Fall of the Mughal Empire

One of the earliest civilizations of the world, and the most ancient on the Indian
subcontinent, was the Indus valley civilization, which flourished c.2500 B.C. to c.1700
B.C. It was an extensive and highly sophisticated culture, its chief urban centers being
Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. While the causes of the decline of the Indus Valley
civilization are not clear, it is possible that the periodic shifts in the courses of the major
rivers of the valley may have deprived the cities of floodwaters necessary for their
surrounding agricultural lands. The cities thus became more vulnerable to raiding activity.
At the same time, Indo-Aryan peoples were migrating into the Indian subcontinent
through the northwestern mountain passes, settling in the Punjab and the Ganges valley.

Over the next 2,000 years the Indo-Aryans developed a Brahmanic civilization (see
Veda), out of which Hinduism evolved. From Punjab they spread east over the Gangetic
plain and by c.800 B.C. were established in Bihar, Jharkhand, and Bengal. The first
important Aryan kingdom was Magadha, with its capital near present-day Patna; it was
there, during the reign of Bimbisara (540–490 B.C.), that the founders of Jainism and
Buddhism preached. Kosala was another kingdom of the period.
In 327–325 B.C., Alexander the Great invaded the province of Gandhara in NW India that
had been a part of the Persian empire. The Greek invaders were eventually driven out by
Chandragupta of Magadha, founder of the Mauryan empire (see Maurya). The Mauryan
emperor Asoka (d. 232 B.C.), Chandragupta's grandson, perhaps the greatest ruler of the
ancient period, unified all of India except the southern tip. Under Asoka, Buddhism was
widely propagated and spread to Sri Lanka and SE Asia. During the 200 years of disorder
and invasions that followed the collapse of the Mauryan state (c.185 B.C.), Buddhism in
India declined. S India enjoyed greater prosperity than the north, despite almost incessant
warfare; among the Tamil-speaking kingdoms of the south were the Pandya and Chola
states, which maintained an overseas trade with the Roman Empire.

Indian culture was spread through the Malay Archipelago and Indonesia by traders from
the S Indian kingdoms. Meanwhile, Greeks following Alexander had settled in Bactria (in
the area of present-day Afghanistan) and established an Indo-Greek kingdom. After the
collapse (1st cent. B.C.) of Bactrian power, the Scythians, Parthians, Afghans, and
Kushans swept into NW India. There, small states arose and disappeared in quick
succession; among the most famous of these kingdoms was that of the Kushans, which,
under its sovereign Kanishka, enjoyed (2d cent. A.D.) great prosperity.

In the 4th and 5th cent. A.D., N India experienced a golden age under the Gupta dynasty,
when Indian art and literature reached a high level. Gupta splendor rose again under the
emperor Harsha of Kanauj (c.606–647), and N India enjoyed a renaissance of art, letters,
and theology. It was at this time that the noted Chinese pilgrim Hsüan-tsang visited India.
While the Guptas ruled the north in this, the classical period of Indian history, the Pallava
kings of Kanchi held sway in the south, and the Chalukyas controlled the Deccan.

During the medieval period (8th–13th cent.) several independent kingdoms, notably the
Palas of Bihar and Bengal, the Sen, the Ahoms of Assam, a later Chola empire at Tanjore,
and a second Chalukya dynasty in the Deccan, waxed powerful. In NW India, beyond the
reach of the medieval dynasties, the Rajputs had grown strong and were able to resist the
rising forces of Islam. Islam was first brought to Sind, W India, in the 8th cent. by
seafaring Arab traders; by the 10th cent. Muslim armies from the north were raiding
India. From 999 to 1026, Mahmud of Ghazna several times breached Rajput defenses and
plundered India.

In the 11th and 12th cent. Ghaznavid power waned, to be replaced c.1150 by that of the
Turkic principality of Ghor. In 1192 the legions of Ghor defeated the forces of Prithivi
Raj, and the Delhi Sultanate, the first Muslim kingdom in India, was established. The
sultanate eventually reduced to vassalage almost every independent kingdom on the
subcontinent, except that of Kashmir and the remote kingdoms of the south. The task of
ruling such a vast territory proved impossible; difficulties in the south with the state of
Vijayanagar, the great Hindu kingdom, and the capture (1398) of the city of Delhi by
Timur finally brought the sultanate to an end.

The Muslim kingdoms that succeeded it were defeated by a Turkic invader from
Afghanistan, Babur, a remote descendant of Timur, who, after the battle of Panipat in
1526, founded the Mughal empire. The empire was consolidated by Akbar and reached
its greatest territorial extent, the control of almost all of India, under Aurangzeb (ruled
1659–1707). Under the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal empire a large Muslim following
grew and a new culture evolved in India (see Mughal art and architecture); Islam,
however, never supplanted Hinduism as the faith of the majority.

The Arrival of the Europeans

Only a few years before Babur's triumph, Vasco da Gama had landed at Calicut (1498)
and the Portuguese had conquered Goa (1510). The splendor and wealth of the Mughal
empire (from it comes much of India's greatest architecture, including the Taj Mahal)
attracted British, Dutch, and French competition for the trade that Portugal had at first
monopolized. The British East India Company (see East India Company, British), which
established trading stations at Surat (1613), Bombay (now Mumbai; 1661), and Calcutta
(now Kolkata; 1691), soon became dominant and with its command of the sea drove off
the traders of Portugal and Holland. While the Mughal empire remained strong, only
peaceful trade relations with it were sought; but in the 18th cent., when an Afghan
invasion, dynastic struggles, and incessant revolts of Hindu elements, especially the
Marathas, were rending the empire, Great Britain and France seized the opportunity to
increase trade and capture Indian wealth, and each attempted to oust the other. From 1746
to 1763, India was a battleground for the forces of the two powers, each attaching to itself
as many native rulers as possible in the struggle.

India under British Rule

Robert Clive's defeat of the Nawab of Bengal at Plassey in 1757 traditionally marks the
beginning of the British Empire in India (recognized in the Treaty of Paris of 1763).
Warren Hastings, Clive's successor and the first governor-general of the company's
domains to be appointed by Parliament, did much to consolidate Clive's conquests. By
1818 the British controlled nearly all of India south of the Sutlej River and had reduced to
vassalage their most powerful Indian enemies, the state of Mysore (see Haidar Ali and
Tippoo Sahib) and the Marathas. Only Sind and Punjab (the Sikh territory) remained
completely independent.

The East India Company, overseen by the government's India Office, administered the
rich areas with the populous cities; the rest of India remained under Indian princes, with
British residents in effective control. Great Britain regarded India as an agricultural
reservoir and a market for British goods, which were admitted duty free. However, the
export of cotton goods from India suffered because of the Industrial Revolution and the
production of cloth by machine. On the other hand, the British initiated projects to
improve transportation and irrigation.

British control was extended over Sind in 1843 and Punjab in 1849. Social unrest, added
to the apprehensions of several important native rulers about the aggrandizing policies of
Governor-General Dalhousie, led to the bloody Indian Mutiny of 1857. It was
suppressed, and Great Britain, determined to prevent a recurrence, initiated long-needed
reforms. Control passed from the East India Company to the crown. The common
soldiers in the British army in India were drawn more and more from among the Indians,
and these troops were later also used overseas. Sikhs and Gurkhas became famous as
British soldiers. Native rulers were guaranteed the integrity of their domains as long as
they recognized the British as paramount. In 1861 the first step was taken toward self-
government in British India with the appointment of Indian councillors to advise the
viceroy and the establishment of provincial councils with Indian members. But the power
of Britain was symbolized and reinforced when Queen Victoria was crowned empress of
India in 1877.

India Moves toward Independence

With the setting up of government universities, an Indian middle class had begun to
emerge and to advocate further reform. Among the leaders who organized the Indian
National Congress in 1885 were Allan Octavian Hume, retired from the Indian Civil
Service, Dadabhai Naoroji, Pherozeshah Mehta, and W. C. Bonnerjee. Later in the
century, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Surendranath Banerjea, Gopal Krishna Gokhale,
Rabindranath Tagore, and Aurobindo Ghose also rose to prominence. The nationalist
movement had been foreshadowed earlier in the century in the writings of Rammohun
Roy.

Popular nationalist sentiment was perhaps most strongly aroused when, for administrative
reasons, Viceroy Curzon partitioned (1905) Bengal into two presidencies; newly created
Eastern Bengal had a Muslim majority. (The partition was ended in 1911.) In the early
1900s the British had widened Indian participation in legislative councils (the Morley-
Minto reforms). Separate Muslim constituencies, introduced for the first time, were to be
a major factor in the growing split between the two communities. Muslim nationalist
sentiment was expressed by Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Muhammad Iqbal, and Muhammad
Ali.

At the outbreak of World War I all elements in India were firmly united behind Britain,
but discontent arose as the war dragged on. The British, in the Montagu declaration
(1917) and later in the Montagu-Chelmsford report (1918), held out the promise of
eventual self-government. Crop failures and an influenza epidemic that killed millions
plagued India in 1918–19. Britain passed the Rowlatt Acts (1919), which enabled
authorities to dispense with juries, and even trials, in dealing with agitators. In response,
Mohandas K. Gandhi organized the first of his many passive-resistance campaigns. The
massacre of Indians by British troops at Amritsar further inflamed the situation. The
Government of India Act (late 1919) set up provincial legislatures with “dyarchy,” which
meant that elected Indian ministers, responsible to the legislatures, had to share power
with appointed British governors and ministers. Although the act also provided for
periodic revisions, Gandhi felt too little progress had been made, and he organized new
protests.

Imperial conferences concerning the status of India were held in 1930, 1931, and 1932,
and led to the Government of India Act of 1935. The act provided for the election of
entirely Indian provincial governments and a federal legislature in Delhi that was to be
largely elected. In the first elections (1937) held under the act, the Congress, led by
Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, won well over half the seats, mostly in general
constituencies, and formed governments in 7 of the 11 provinces. The Muslim League,
led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, won 109 of the 485 Muslim seats and formed governments
in three of the remaining provinces. Fearing Hindu domination in a future independent
India, Muslim nationalists in India began to argue for special safeguards for Muslims.

World War II found India by no means unified behind Great Britain. There was even an
“Indian national army” of anti-British extremists, led by Subhas Bose, which fought in
Myanmar on the Japanese side. To procure India's more wholehearted support, Sir
Stafford Cripps, on behalf of the British cabinet, in 1942 proposed establishing an Indian
interim government, in which Great Britain would maintain control only over defense
and foreign policy, to be followed by full self-government after the war. The Congress
adamantly demanded that the British leave India and, when the demand was refused,
initiated civil disobedience and the Quit India movement. Great Britain's response was to
outlaw the Congress and jail Gandhi and other leaders. Jinnah gave conditional support to
the war but used it to build up the Muslim League.

Independence and the India-Pakistan Split

The British Labour government of Prime Minister Attlee in 1946 offered self-government
to India, but it warned that if no agreement was reached between the Congress and the
Muslim League, Great Britain, on withdrawing in June, 1948, would have to determine
the apportionment of power between the two groups. Reluctantly the Congress agreed to
the creation of Pakistan, and in Aug., 1947, British India was divided into the dominions
of India and Pakistan. The princely states were nominally free to determine their own
status, but realistically they were unable to stand alone. Partly by persuasion and partly
by coercion, they joined one or the other of the new dominions. Hyderabad, in S central
India, with a Muslim ruler and Hindu population, held out to the last and was finally
incorporated (1948) into the Indian union by force. The future of Kashmir was not
resolved.

Nehru became prime minister of India, and Jinnah governor-general of Pakistan. Partition
left large minorities of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan and Muslims in India. Widespread
hostilities erupted among the communities and continued while large numbers of people
—about 16 million in all—fled across the borders seeking safety. More than 500,000
people died in the disorders (late 1947). Gandhi was killed by a Hindu fanatic in Jan.,
1948. The hostility between India and Pakistan was aggravated when warfare broke out
(1948) over their conflicting claims to jurisdiction over the princely state of Kashmir.

India became a sovereign republic in 1950 under a constitution adopted late in 1949. In
addition to staggering problems of overpopulation, economic underdevelopment, and
inadequate social services, India had to achieve the integration of the former princely
states into the union and the creation of national unity from diverse cultural and linguistic
groups. The states of the republic were reorganized several times along linguistic lines.
India consolidated its territory by acquiring the former French settlements (see
Puducherry) in 1956 and by forcibly annexing the Portuguese enclaves of Goa and
Daman and Diu in Dec., 1961. In 1987, Goa became a separate state and Daman and Diu
became a union territory. In world politics, India has been a leading exponent of
nonalignment.

Problems on India's Borders

The republic's major foreign problems have been a border dispute with China that first
surfaced in 1957 and continual difficulties with Pakistan. The Chinese controversy
climaxed on Oct. 20, 1962, when the Chinese launched a massive offensive against
Ladakh in Kashmir and in areas on the NE Indian border. The Chinese announced a
cease-fire on Nov. 21 after gaining some territory claimed by India. In the late 1960s
there was friction with Nepal, which accused India of harboring Nepalese politicians
hostile to the Nepalese monarchy. In Aug., 1965, fighting between India and Pakistan
broke out in the Rann of Kachchh frontier area and in Kashmir. The United Nations
proclaimed a cease-fire in September, but clashes continued. India's Prime Minister
Shastri, who succeeded Nehru after the latter's death in 1964, and Pakistan's President
Ayub Khan met (1966) under Soviet auspices in Tashkent, USSR (now in Uzbekistan), to
negotiate the Kashmir problem. They agreed on mutual troop withdrawals to the lines
held before Aug., 1965.

Shastri died in Tashkent and was succeeded, after bitter debate within the Congress party,
by Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter. The Congress party suffered a setback in the
elections of 1967; its parliamentary majority was sharply reduced and it lost control of
several state governments. In 1969 the party split in two: Mrs. Gandhi and her followers
formed the New Congress party, and her opponents on the right formed the Old Congress
party. In the elections of Mar., 1971, the New Congress won an overwhelming victory.
Rioting and terrorism by Maoists, known as Naxalites, flared in 1970 and 1971. The
situation was particularly serious in West Bengal.

In Pakistan, attempts by the government (dominated by West Pakistanis) to suppress a

Bengali uprising in East Pakistan led in 1971 to the exodus of millions of Bengali
refugees (mostly Hindus) from East Pakistan into India. Caring for the refugees imposed
a severe drain on India's slender resources. India supported the demands of the Awami
League, an organization of Pakistani Bengalis, for the autonomy of East Pakistan, and in
Dec., 1971, war broke out between India and Pakistan on two fronts: in East Pakistan and
in Kashmir. Indian forces rapidly advanced into East Pakistan; the war ended in two
weeks with the creation of independent Bangladesh to replace East Pakistan, and the
refugees returned from India. India's relations with the United States were strained
because of U.S. support of Pakistan.

India in the Late Twentieth Century

In mid-1973, India and Pakistan signed an agreement providing for the release of
prisoners of war captured in 1971 and calling for peace and friendship on the Indian
subcontinent. Also in 1973, India's ties with the USSR were strengthened by a new aid
agreement that considerably increased Soviet economic assistance; at the same time,
relations with the United States improved somewhat. In 1974, India became the world's
sixth nuclear power by exploding an underground nuclear device in the Thar Desert in
Rajasthan state. Also in 1974, Gandhi's position was put under intense pressure by
opponents who criticized her government for abusing its powers and in 1975 her 1971
election to the Lok Sabha was invalidated.

Despite the declaration of a state of emergency and the initiation of several relatively
popular public policy programs, the opposition campaign and the growing power of her
son Sanjay Gandhi contributed to a 1977 election defeat for Gandhi and the New
Congress party at the hands of a coalition known as the Janata (People's) party. The
Janata party soon became fractured, however, and in Jan., 1980, Indira Gandhi and her
new Congress (Indira) party won a resounding election victory. Less than six months later
Sanjay Gandhi, expected by many to be his mother's successor, was killed in a plane
crash.

In 1982, Sikh militants began a terrorism campaign intended to pressure the government
to create an autonomous Sikh state in the Punjab. Government response escalated until in
June, 1984, army troops stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Sikh's holiest shrine
and the center of the independence movement. Sikh protests across India added to the
political tension, and Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh members of her
personal guard in October. The resulting anti-Sikh riots (some incited by local Congress
party leaders) prompted the government to appoint Indira's eldest son, Rajiv Gandhi,
prime minister. Rajiv moved quickly to end the rioting and thereafter pursued a domestic
policy emphasizing conciliation among India's various conflicting ethnic and religious
groups. In 1989 he was defeated by the Janata Dal party under the leadership of
Vishwanath Pratap Singh.

While India's economic performance was generally stable in the 1980s, it experienced
continuing problems politically, including border and immigration disputes with
Bangladesh, internal agitation by Tamil separatists, violent conflicts in Assam, strife
caused by the Sikh question, and continued antagonism between Hindus and Muslims.
From 1987 to 1990, the Indian military occupied the northern area of Sri Lanka in an
unsuccessful attempt to quell the Tamil separatist insurgency.

In 1990, Singh resigned as prime minister and called for new elections. The following
year Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated during an election rally and was succeeded as head of
the Congress party by P. V. Narasimha Rao. The Congress party won the ensuing election
and Rao became prime minister. He immediately instituted sweeping economic reforms,
moving away from the centralized planning that had characterized India's economic
policy since Nehru to a market-driven economy, greatly increasing its foreign investment
and trade.

Religious conflict sparked by militant Hindus and exploited by Hindu political parties
was a persistent problem in the 1980s and led to bloody riots in 1992. In early 1996 a
bribes-for-favors corruption scandal dating back to the early 1990s, described by some as
the worst since independence, hit the Rao administration. Several ministers were forced
to resign, and the Congress party, which had governed the country for all but four years
since 1947, found itself in crisis. Rao himself was rumored to be involved in the scandal,
and the main opposition political group, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party
(BJP), was also implicated.

The May, 1996, general elections proved a debacle for the Congress party, which finished
third, its worst ever electoral showing. The BJP won the most parliamentary seats but fell
well short of a majority, and the government it formed lasted for less than two weeks. An
uneasy coalition government of leftist, regional, and lower-cast parties was then formed
under the prime ministership of H. D. Deve Gowda. In Deve Gowda's United Front
government, lower-caste Indians, southerners, and religious minorities assumed more
important roles than ever before, but the coalition was dependent on the tacit support of
the Congress party. Less than a year later, in Apr., 1997, the leadership changed hands
again, and I. K. Gujral became prime minister; he resigned seven months later. Following
elections held early in 1998, the BJP and its allies won the most seats and BJP leader Atal
Bihari Vajpayee was named prime minister. His government fell after losing a vote of
confidence in Apr., 1999, but following a solid victory in the elections in September, he
formed a new coalition government.

In May, 1998, India detonated three underground nuclear explosions, after which the
United States imposed economic sanctions. Two more blasts followed, and Pakistan
followed suit by conducting its own nuclear tests. In May, 1999, India launched a military
campaign against Islamic guerrillas who were occupying strategic positions in the Indian-
held part of Kashmir, and who India denounced as being sponsored by Pakistan; the
rebels withdrew by the end of July. Portions of W Gujarat (in W India) were devastated
by an earthquake early in 2001.

Talks in July, 2001, between Vajpayee and Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military
ruler, ended sourly, without any progress concerning Kashmir. In September the
economic sanctions imposed by the United States were removed, as the Bush
administration pursued closer relations with India. Relations with Pakistan, in contrast,
were further aggravated by the suicide bombing of Kashmir's state assembly building by
Pakistani-supported militant Muslim guerrillas in October, and reached a crisis point and
diplomatic break in December after guerrillas launched a terror attack on the Indian
parliament. India insisted the Pakistan end all such attacks. The border with Pakistan was
closed, and Indian troops were mobilized along it.

Tensions eased somewhat when Pakistan moved to shut down the groups responsible for
most terror attacks in India (although most arrested militants were later released) and
Musharraf subsequently announced (Jan., 2002) that Pakistan would not tolerate any
groups engaging in terrorism. Localized Hindu-Muslim violence, centered mainly in
Gujarat and unrelated to events in Kashmir, erupted in early 2002, and BJP members and
the BJP government there was accused of complicitiy in the riots.
War with Pakistan again loomed as a possibility in May, 2002, when attacks by Muslim
guerrillas once again escalated. The chance that such a conflict might turn into a nuclear
confrontation prompted international efforts to defuse the crisis. A pledge by Musharraf
to stop infilitration across the line of control in Kashmir led to the apparent end of active
government sponsorship of such infilitration, although it did not stop it. The move eased
the crisis, and in October the two nations began a troop pullback. Diplomatic relations
were restored in May, 2003, and situation slowly improved during the rest of 2003 and
the following year. Also in 2003, India signed a border pact with China that represented
an incremental improvement in their relations; a new agreement two years later called for
the two nations to define their disputed borders through negotiations.

Indian parliamentary elections in the spring of 2004 resulted in an unexpected victory for
the Congress party, which subsequently formed a 20-party coalition government. Sonia
Gandhi, Congress's leader, declined to become prime minister, perhaps in part because of
concerns over her foreign birth. Instead, Manmohan Singh, a technocrat and former
finance minister, led the new government. In Dec., 2004, India's SE coast and Andaman
and Nicobar Islands were devastated by an Indian Ocean tsunami. More than 16,000
people died, and hundreds of thousands were made homeless. By Apr., 2005, relations
with Pakistan had improved to the point that Pakistani president Musharraf visited India,
and during the subsequent months the two nations increased cross-border transport links,
including in Kashmir, and improved intergovernmental cooperation and trade relations.
Although the devastation from the Oct., 2005, earthquake in N Pakistan was much greater
there, Indian Kashmir, where more than 1,300 died, and other parts of India were also
affected by the temblor. After the earthquake India and Pakistan eased border crossing
restrictions in Kashmir.

In Mar., 2006, India reached an agreement with the United States that ended a U.S.
moratorium on reactor fuel and components sales to India. Under the pact India agreed to
open most of its nuclear reactors to international inspections for the first time. U.S. critics
of the deal pointed out, however, that the Indian military was permitted to retain
uninspected control of fast-breeder reactors, enabling it to increase its production of
plutonium for nuclear weapons. The Communist allies of the Congress party also
objected to the deal on the grounds that it infringed on India's sovereignty, and their
objections to it threatened to bring down the government in 2007.

A series of bomb attacks on the Mumbai rail system on July 11, 2006, killed some 200
people and injured 700; it was initially unclear who mounted them, though the police
suspected a Muslim terror group. India-Pakistan peace talks were suspended as a result of
the attack. In Sept., 2006, Indian police said that Pakistan's intelligence agency was
involved in planning the attack, a charge Pakistan denied, but the Indian prime minister
said the he would provide Pakistan with evidence of the agency's involvement. The peace
talks resumed in Nov., 2006, and in Feb., 2007, an agreement intended to prevent an
accidental nuclear war between the two nations was signed. The monsoons of 2007
brought serious flooding in parts of India, especially Assam, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh.
Assam was particularly hard-hit, experiencing three waves of flooding that affected some
12 million people.
The founder's meeting of the Indian Psychoanalytic Society took place in Calcutta in
1922 with Girindrashekhar Bose, a young Bengali doctor who had read the English
translations of Freud's work, in the chair. Of the fifteen original members, nine were
college teachers of psychology or philosophy and five belonged to the medical corps of
the Indian Army, including two British psychiatrists. In the same year, Bose wrote to
Freud in Vienna. Freud was pleased that his ideas had spread to such a far-off land and
asked Bose to write Ernest Jones, then President of the International Psychoanalytic
Association, for membership of that body. Bose did so and the Indian Psychoanalytic
Society, with Bose as its first president (a position he was to hold till his death in 1953)
became a fully-fledged member of the international psychoanalytic community.

Cut off from the debate, controversy, and ferment of the psychoanalytic centers in
Europe, and dependent upon often difficult to acquire books and journals for outside
intellectual sustenance, Indian psychoanalysis was nurtured through its infancy primarily
by the enthusiasm and intellectual passion of its progenitor. In the informal meetings of
eight to ten people held on Saturday evenings at the president's house—which was was to
become the headquarters of the Indian Society after Bose's death—Bose read most of the
papers and led almost all the discussions.

Although psychoanalysis attracted some academic and intellectual interest in the 1930s
and 1940s, mostly in Calcutta, the number of analysts was still small (fifteen) when in
1945 a second training center, under the leadership of an Italian expatriate, Emilio
Servadio, was started in Bombay.

To judge from the record of publications of its members, the small Indian society was
fairly active up through the 1940s. There was a persistent concern with the illumination
of Indian cultural phenomena as well as attempts to register the "Indian" aspects of the
patients' mental life. By the early 1950s, however, the interest in comparative and cultural
aspects of mental life, as well as the freshness of the papers written by the pioneering
generation of Indian psychoanalysts, was lost. Thereafter, most Indian contributions, to
judge from the official journal of the Indian Society, have been neither particularly
distinctive nor original.

In the public arena, psychoanalysis has generally had an indifferent, if not hostile,
reception. At first glance, the Indian indifference to psychoanalysis seems surprising,
given the fact that there has rarely been a civilization in human history that has concerned
itself so persistently over the millennia with the nature of the "self" and with seeking
answers to the question, "Who am I?" As a colonized people, however, reeling under the
onslaught of a conquering European civilization that proclaimed its forms of knowledge
and its political and social structures as self-evidently superior, Indian intellectuals in the
early twentieth century felt the need to cling doggedly to at least a few distinctive Indian
forms in order to maintain intact their civilization's identity. The Indian concern with the
"self," its psycho-philosophical schools of "self-realization," often appearing under the
label of Indian metaphysics or "spirituality," has become one of the primary ways of
salvaging self-respect, even a means of affirming a superiority over a materialistic
Western civilization. Psychoanalysis was seen to be a direct challenge to the Indian
intellectual's important source of self-respect; it stepped on a turf the Indian felt was
uniquely his own.

Another reason for the rejection of Freudian concepts had to do with their origins.
Derived from clinical experience with patients growing up in a cultural environment very
different from that of India, some of the concepts, when transposed, did not carry much
conviction. The different patterns of family life and the role of multiple caretakers in
India seemed to push in the direction of modifications of psychoanalytical theory.
Similarly, Freudian views of religion, derived from the Judeo-Christian monotheistic
tradition, with its emphasis on a father-god, had little relevance for the Indian religious
tradition of polytheism where mother-goddesses often constituted the deepest sub-stratum
of Indian religiosity.

Because of its relative isolation, Indian psychoanalysis has been decisively marked by the
stamp of the first Indian analyst, Girindrashekhar Bose (1886-1953). Without
experiencing the benefits of training analysis himself, it was Bose who "analyzed" the
other members in a more or less informal manner. He developed a method of his own,
similar to the active therapy and forced fantasy method of Sándor Ferenczi, which calls
for a more active, didactic stance from the analyst, and which came dangerously close to
what a lawyer is forbidden to do in the courtroom, namely "lead the witness," increasing
the chances of suggestion. In hindsight, Bose's important contribution to psychoanalysis
was less his "theory of opposite wishes" and more his questioning of some presumed
psychoanalytic universals, based on his clinical experience. In his letters to Freud, Bose
points out differences in the castration reactions of his Indian and European patients and
notes that the desire to be a female is more easily unearthed in Indian male patients than
in European. Since cultural relativism was not on the psychoanalytic agenda in the 1930s
when Bose communicated his observations, they received little attention.

The question of cultural relativism versus the universality of many psychoanalytic

concepts and theories is very much at the heart of contemporary analyst Sudhir Kakar's
work. Based on clinical and cultural data from India, Kakar has highlighted the cultural
aspects of the psyche in his many books and papers, trying to show that mental
representations of the culture play a significant role in psychic life.

The Indian Psychoanalytic Society has published a journal, Samiksa, the Journal of the
Indian Psychoanalytical Society, since 1946.

Many occult beliefs and practices stem from the complex religious and mystical concepts
of India and her people. It might be said that the mysticism of the Hindus was a reaction
against the austere religion and practical ceremonial of the sacred scriptures, the Vedas. If
its trend were summarized it might justly be said that the Vedas point champion
detachment; the pantheistic identification of the subject and object, worshiper and
worship, aimed at ultimate absorption in the Infinite; inculcating transcendence from the
material world through the most minute self-examination, the cessation of physical
powers; and belief in the spiritual guidance of the guru or mystical adept.
For the Indian theosophist there is only one Absolute Being, the One Reality. However, in
popular Hinduism, the pantheistic doctrine of Ekam advitiyam "the One without Second"
supposes a countless pantheon of gods, great and small, and a rich demonology, but these
should be understood ultimately as merely illusions of the soul and not realities. Upon the
soul's coming to fuller knowledge, its illusions are totally dispelled. According to such a
theory, to the ordinary man and woman the impersonality of the Absolute being is too
remote, and they require a symbolic deity to bridge the gulf between the impersonal
Absolute and the very material self, hence the numerous gods of Hinduism regarded by
the initiated merely as manifestations of the Supreme Spirit.

In this way, even the everyday forms of temple idols can be seen as possessing higher
meaning. As Sir Alfred Lyall stated, "It [Brahminism] treats all the worships as outward
visible signs of the same spiritual truth, and is ready to show how each particular image
or rite is the symbol of some aspect of universal divinity. The Hindus, like the pagans of
antiquity, adore natural objects and forces,—a mountain, a river, or an animal. The
Brahmin holds all nature to be the vesture or cloak of indwelling divine energy which
inspires everything that produces all or passes man's understanding."

A life time of asceticism has from the remotest times been regarded in India as a true
preparation for communion with the deity. Asceticism has been extremely prevalent
especially in connection with the cult of the god Siva, who is in great measure regarded
as the prototype of this class.

The yogis (disciples of the yoga philosophy) practice mental abstraction, and are
popularly supposed to attain to superhuman powers. In some cases their extreme ascetic
practices have resulted in madness or mental vacancy and many claimed paranormal
powers, as in Spiritualism, have turned out to be jugglery and conjuring. Charlatans, of
course, exist in all religions. The authentic prerequisites of the training of a yogi preclude
such imposture and warn against the vanity of displaying supernatural powers.

The paramahamsas, that is "supreme swans," are believed to have achieved communion
with the world-soul through spiritual disciplines and meditation. They are said to be
equally indifferent to pleasure or pain, insensible to heat or cold, and incapable of satiety
or want. The sannyasis are those who renounce the world and live as wandering monks or
residents in an ashram or spiritual retreat. The dandis, or staff-bearers, are worshipers of
Siva in his form of Bhairava the Terrible.

J. C. Oman in Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India (1903) said of these sadhus or holy
men, " Sadhuism, whether perpetuating the peculiar idea of the efficacy of asceticism for
the acquisition of far-reaching powers over natural phenomena, or bearing its testimony
to the belief in the indispensableness of detachment from the world as a preparation for
the ineffable joy of ecstatic communion with the Divine Being, has undoubtedly tended
to keep before men's eyes, as the highest ideal, a life of purity, self-restraint, and
contempt of the world and human affairs. It has also necessarily maintained amongst the
laity a sense of the righteous claims of the poor upon the charity of the more affluent
members of the community. Further, Sadhuism, by the multiplicity of the independent
sects which have arisen in India has engendered and favoured a spirit of tolerance which
cannot escape the notice of the most superficial observer."

Of the three main branches of Hinduism, the most esoteric is the Shaktas. The Shaktas are
worshipers of the shakti or the female principle as a creative and reproductive agency.
Each of the principal gods possesses his own Shakti, through which his creative acts are
performed. The Shaktas or Tantrics developed an elaborate picture of the subtle anatomy
of the individual, proposing that each person had a secondary body composed of
spiritual/psychic energies. In Tantra, sexual energy in the yogi is manifested in a pure
form as kundalini, a psycho-physiological force resting like a coiled snake at the base of
the spine. When awakened, the kundalini travels up the spine to the several psychic
centers called chakras and eventually to the top of the head. The rise of the kundalini to
the highest chakra brings higher consciousness and spiritual enlightenment.

Tantrics usually can be divided into two distinct groups. The original self-existent gods
were supposed to divide themselves into male and female energies, the male half
occupying the right-hand and the female the left-hand side. From this conception we have
the two groups of "right-hand" observers and "left-hand" observers. In distinction to the
ascetic world-denying approach to the religious life, Tantra does not offer enlightenment
as a result of denying the material world, but from using it. Tantric practice takes things
specifically denied to the ascetic and accepts them as the means "of overcoming the
world and gaining enlightenment. The righthand path does this symbolically, the left hand
path actually eats denied food and participates in denied activities. Most controversial of
all is sexual activity, for which tantrics have been most frequently criticized. The left-
hand path of Tantra involves participation in sexual intercourse as a means of union with
the goddess.

The right hand tantrism was expounded by Sri Aurobindo and Pandit Gopi Krishna.
Lefthand tantrism has found a major exponent in Swami Satyananda Saraswati whose
students have moved to the west.

Brahmanism

Brahmanism is a system originated by the Brahmans, the sacerdotal caste of the Hindus,
at a comparatively early date. It is the mystical religion of India par excellence, and
represents the older beliefs of its peoples. It states that the numerous individual existences
of animate nature are only so many manifestations of the one eternal spirit towards which
they tend as their final goal of supreme bliss. The object of life is to prevent oneself
sinking lower in the scale, and by degrees to raise oneself in it, or if possible to attain the
ultimate goal immediately from such state of existence as one happens to be in.

The socio-religious Code of Manu concludes "He who in his own soul perceives the
supreme soul in all beings and acquires equanimity towards them all attains the highest
state of bliss." Mortification of animal instincts, absolute purity and perfection of spirit,
were the moral ideals of the Brahman class. But it was necessary to pass through a
succession of four orders or states of existence before any hope of union with the deity
could be held out. These were: that of brahmacharin, or student of religious matters;
grihastha, or householder; varnaprastha or hermit; and sannyasin or bhikshu, religious
mendicant.

Virtually every man of the higher castes practiced at least the first two of these stages,
while the priestly class took the entire course. Later, this was by no means the rule, as the
scope of study was intensely exacting, often lasting as long as forty-eight years. The
neophyte had to support himself by begging from door to door.

He was most often guided by a spiritual preceptor. After several years of his tuition he
was married. It was considered absolutely essential that he should leave a son behind him
to offer food to his spirit and to those of his ancestors. He was then said to have become a
"house-holder" and was required to maintain the fire perpetually that he brought into his
house upon his marriage day.

Upon growing older, the time arrived for him to enter the third stage of life. Having
fulfilled his dharma (social and religious obligations) he now became aware of the
transitory nature of the material life and found it necessary to become preoccupied with
more eternal spiritual truth. He consequently cut himself off from family ties except (if
she wished) his wife, who might accompany him, and went into retirement in a lonely
place, carrying with him his sacred fire, and the instruments necessary for his daily
sacrifices. Scantily clothed, the anchorite lived entirely on food growing wild in the forest
—roots, herbs, wild grain, and similar primitive nourishment. He was not permitted to
accept gifts unless absolutely necessary. His time was spent in studying the metaphysical
portions of the Vedas under the guidance of a guru, in making offerings, and in practicing
austerities with the object of producing entire indifference to worldly desires.

In this way he fitted himself for the final and most exalted order, that of religious
mendicant or bhikshu. This consisted solely of meditation. He took up his abode at the
foot of a tree in entire solitude and only once a day at the end of his labors might he go
near the dwellings of men to beg a little food. In this way he waited for death, neither
desiring extinction nor existence, until at length it reached him, and was absorbed in the
eternal Brahma.

The doctrines of Brahmanism are to be found in the vedanta philosophic system, which
recognizes the Vedas, a collection of ancient Sanskrit hymns, as the revealed source of
religious belief through the visions of the ancient rishis or seers. The Upanishads are later
scriptures (after 1000 B.C.E.). The Vedas and Upanishads are the most widely accepted
holy writings in India. A large number of later writings are also accepted by various
groups as sacred scripture. Among the most popular of these later scriptures is the
Bhagavad-Gita.

As before noted, the Hindu regarded the entire gamut of animated nature as being
traversed by the one soul, which journeyed up and down the scale as its actions in its
previous existence were good or evil. To the Hindu the vital element in all animate beings
appears essentially similar, and this observation gave credence to the Brahmanical theory
of reincarnation that took such a powerful hold upon the Hindu mind.

Demonology

A large and intricate demonology appears as part of Hindu mythology. The gods were at
constant war with demons. Vishnu slew more than one demon, but Durga appeared to
have been a great enemy of the demon race. The asuras, probably a very ancient and
aboriginal pantheon of deities, later became demons in the popular imagination, and the
rakshasas may have been cloud-demons. They were described as cannibals, could take
many forms, and were constantly menacing the gods. They haunted cemeteries, disturbed
sacrifices, animated the dead, and harried and afflicted mankind in all sorts of ways.
There were in fact somewhat similar to the vampires of Slavonic countries—assisting the
conjecture that the Slavonic vampires were originally cloud-spirits.

We find the gods constantly harassed by demons, and on the whole may be justified in
concluding that just as the Tuatha-dedanaan harassed the later deities of Ireland, so did
these aboriginal gods lead an existence of constant warfare with the divine beings of the
pantheon of the immigrant Aryans.

Popular Witchcraft & Sorcery

The popular witchcraft and sorcery of India resembles that of Europe. The Dravidian or
aboriginal peoples of India have always been strong believers in sorcery, and it is
possible that this is an example of the mythic influence of a conquered people. They are
nonetheless extremely reticent regarding any knowledge they possess of it.

It seems possible that the demands made upon the popular religious sense by
Brahmanism crushed the superstitions of the popular occult practices of the very early
period, and confined the practice of minor sorcery, (malevolent magic), to the castes of
Dravidian or aboriginal stock. Witchcraft seems most prevalent among the more isolated
peoples like the Kols, Bhils, and Santals.

The nomadic peoples were also strong believers in sorcery, one of the most dreaded
forms of which was the Jigar Khor, or liver-eater, of whom Abul Fazl (1551-1602) stated:
"One of this class can steal away the liver of another by looks and incantations. Other
accounts say that by looking at a person he deprives him of his senses, and then steals
from him something resembling the seed of a pomegranate, which he hides in the calf of
his leg; after being swelled by the fire, he distributes it among his fellows to be eaten,
which ceremony concludes the life of the fascinated person. A Jigar Khor is able to
communicate his art to another by teaching him incantations, and by making him eat a bit
of the liver cake. These Jigar Khors are mostly women. It is said they can bring
intelligence from a long distance in a short space of time, and if they are thrown into a
river with a stone tied to them, they nevertheless will not sink. In order to deprive any
one of this wicked power, they brand his temples and every joint of his body, cram his
eyes with salt, suspend him for forty days in a subterranean chamber, and repeat over him
certain incantations."

The witch does not, however, devour the man's liver for two and a half days, and even if
she has eaten it, and is put under the hands of an exorcizer, can be forced to substitute a
liver of some animal in the body of the man whom she victimized. Folk tales also exist
about witches taking out the entrails of people, sucking them, and then replacing them.

All this undoubtedly illustrates, as in ancient France and Germany, and probably also in
the Slavonic countries, the manner in which the witch and vampire were believed to be
essentially one and the same. In India the archwitch Ralaratri, or "black night" has the
joined eyebrows, large cheeks, widely-parted lips, and projecting teeth, of the Slavonic
werewolf and is a veritable vampire. But she also possesses the powers of ordinary
witchcraft— second-sight, the making of philters, the control of tempests, the evil eye,
and so forth.

Witches also took animal forms, especially those of tigers, and stories of trials are related
at which people gave evidence that they had tracked certain tigers to their lairs, which
upon entering they had found tenanted by a notorious witch or wizard. For such witch-
tigers the usual remedy was to knock out their teeth to prevent their doing any more
mischief.

Strangely enough, the Indian witch, like her European prototype, was very often
accompanied by a cat. The cat, said the jungle people, is aunt to the tiger, and taught him
everything but how to climb a tree. Zalim Sinh, the famous regent of Kota, believed that
cats were associated with witches, and imagining himself enchanted ordered that every
cat should be expelled from his province.

As in Europe, witches were known by certain marks. They were believed to learn the
secrets of their craft by eating offal of all kinds. The popular belief concerning them was
that they were often very handsome and neat, and invariably applied a clear line of red
lead to the parting of their hair. They were popularly accused of exhuming dead children
and bringing them to life to serve occult purposes of their own. Witches could not die as
long as they were witches and until (as in Italy) they could pass on their knowledge of
witchcraft to someone else.

They recited charms backwards, repeating two letters and a half from a verse in the
Quran. If a certain charm was repeated "forwards," the person employing it would
become invisible to his neighbor, but if he repeated it backwards, he would assume
whatever shape he chose.

A witch could acquire power over her victim by getting possession of a lock of hair, the
paring of nails, or some other part of his body, such as a tooth. For this reason Indian
people were extremely careful about the disposal of these particular body parts, burying
them in the earth in a place covered with grass, or in the neighborhood of water, which
witches universally disliked. Some people even cast the cuttings of their hair into running
water.

Like the witches of Europe, these witches also made images of persons out of wax,
dough, or similar substances, and tortured them with the idea that the pain would be felt
by the person whom they desired to injure.

In India the witches" familiar was known as a bir or the "hero," who aided her to inflict
injury upon human beings. The power of the witch was greatest on the 14th, 15th, and
29th of each month, and in particular on the Feast of Lamps (Diwali) and the Festival of
Durga.

Witches were often severely punished amongst the isolated hill-folk and diabolical
ingenuity was shown in torturing them. To nullify their evil influence, they were beaten
with rods of the castor-oil plant and usually died in the process. They were often forced to
drink filthy water used by couriers in the process of their work. If not, their noses were
cut off, or they were put to death. It has also been reported that their teeth were often
knocked out, their heads shaved and offal thrown at them. In the case of women, their
heads were shaved and their hair was attached to a tree in some public place. They were
also branded, had a ploughshare tied to their legs or were made to drink the water of a
tannery.

During the Mutiny, when British authority was relaxed, the most atrocious horrors were
inflicted upon witches and sorcerers by the Dravidian people. Pounded chili peppers were
placed in their eyes to see if they would bring tears, and the wretched beings were
suspended from a tree head downwards, being swung violently from side to side. They
were then forced to drink the blood of a goat, and to exorcize the evil spirits that they had
caused to enter the bodies of certain sick persons. The mutilations and cruelties practiced
on them were severe; but one of the favorite ways of counteracting the spells of a witch
was to draw blood from her, and the local priest would often prick the tongue of the witch
with a needle and place the resulting blood on some rice and compel her to eat it.

In Bombay state, the Tharus people were supposed to possess special powers of
witchcraft, so that the "Land of Tharus" is a synonym for witch-land. In Gorakhpur,
witches were also very numerous and the half-gypsy banjaras, or grain-carriers, were
notorious believers in witchcraft. In his Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern
India (1896) William Crooke, who did much to elucidate India's popular mythology,
stated regarding the various types of Indian witches: "At the present day [ca. 1895] the
half-deified witch most dreaded in the Eastern Districts of the North-western Provinces is
Lona, or Nona, a Chamarin or woman of the currier caste. Her legend is in this wise. The
great physician Dhanwantara, who corresponds to Luqman Hakim of the Muhammadans,
was once on his way to cure King Parikshit, and was deceived and bitten by the snake
king Takshaka. He therefore desired his sons to roast him and eat his flesh, and thus
succeed to his magical powers. The snake king dissuaded them from eating the unholy
meal, and they let the cauldron containing it float down the Ganges. A currier woman,
named Lona, found it and ate the contents, and thus succeeded to the mystic powers of
Dhanwantara. She became skilful in cures, particularly of snake-bite. Finally she was
discovered to be a witch by the extraordinary rapidity with which she could plant out rice
seedlings. One day the people watched her, and saw that when she believed herself
unobserved she stripped herself naked, and taking the bundle of the plants in her hands
threw them into the air, reciting certain spells. When the seedlings forthwith arranged
themselves in their proper places, the spectators called out in astonishment, and finding
herself discovered, Nona rushed along over the country, and the channel which she made
in her course is the Loni river to this day. So a saint in Broach formed a new course for a
river by dragging his clothes behind him… "Another terrible witch, whose legend is told
at Mathura, is Putana, the daughter of Bali, king of the lower world. She found the infant
Krishna asleep, and began to suckle him with her devil's milk. The first drop would have
poisoned a mortal child, but Krishna drew her breast with such strength that he drained
her life-blood, and the fiend, terrifying the whole land of Braj with her cries of agony, fell
lifeless on the ground. European witches suck the blood of children; here the divine
Krishna turns the tables on the witch.

"The Palwar Rajputs of Oudh have a witch ancestress. Soon after the birth of her son she
was engaged in baking cakes. Her infant began to cry, and she was obliged to perform a
double duty. At this juncture her husband arrived just in time to see his demon wife
assume gigantic and supernatural proportions, so as to allow both the baking and nursing
to go on at the same time. But finding her secret discovered, the witch disappeared,
leaving her son as a legacy to her astonished husband. Here, though the story is
incomplete, we have almost certainly, as in the case of Nona Chamarin, one of the
Melusina type of legend, where the supernatural wife leaves her husband and children,
because he violated some taboo, by which he is forbidden to see her in a state of nudity,
or the like."

The aborigines of India lived in great fear of ghosts and invisible spirits, and a
considerable portion of their time was given up to averting the evil influences of these.
Protectives of every description littered their houses, and the approaches to them, and
they wore numerous amulets for the purpose of averting evil influences. Regarding these,
W. Crooke stated: "Some of the Indian ghosts, like the ifrit of the Arabian Nights, can
grow to the length of ten yojanas or eighty miles. In one of the Bengal tales a ghost is
identified because she can stretch out her hands several yards for a vessel. Some ghosts
possess the very dangerous power of entering human corpses, like the Vetala, and
swelling to an enormous size. The Kharwars of Mirzapur have a wild legend which tells
how long ago an unmarried girl of the tribe died, and was being cremated. While the
relations were collecting wood for the pyre, a ghost entered the corpse, but the friends
managed to expel him. Since then great care is taken not to leave the bodies of women
unwatched. So, in the Punjab, when a great person is cremated the bones and ashes are
carefully watched till the fourth day, to prevent a magician interfering with them. If he
has a chance, he can restore the deceased to life, and ever after retain him under his
influence. This is the origin of the custom in Great Britain of waking the dead, a practice
which 'most probably originated from a silly superstition as to the danger of a corpse
being carried off by some of the agents of the invisible world, or exposed to the ominous
liberties of brute animals.' But in India it is considered the best course, if the corpse
cannot be immediately disposed of, to measure it carefully, and then no malignant Bhut
can occupy it.

"Most of the ghosts whom we have been as yet considering are malignant. There are,
however, others which are friendly. Such are the German Elves, the Robin Goodfellow,
Puck, Brownie and the Cauld Lad of Hilton of England, the Glashan of the Isle of Man,
the Phouka or Leprechaun of Ireland. Such, in one of his many forms, is the
Brahmadaitya, or ghost of a Brahman who has died unmarried. In Bengal he is believed
to be more neat and less mischievous than other ghosts; the Bhuts carry him in a
palanquin, he wears wooden sandals, and lives in a Banyan tree."

Psychical Research and Parapsychology

While Madame Blavatsky's Theosophist movement did find its way to India, the
scientific study of psychical phenomena in India really belongs to the period following
independence (1948). A small beginning took place in 1951 at the Department of
Philosophy and Psychology of Benares Hindu University under Bhikhan L. Atreya, when
parapsychology was included as a postgraduate subject, but it did not make much
progress. Other Indian scholars such as C. T. K. Chari and S. Parthasarthy of Madras, and
Prof. & Mrs. Akolkar of Poona did become interested in psychical phenomena. Prof.
Chari took a special interest in scientific and statistical approaches and published papers
in the Journal of the American Society of Psychical Research.

Another pioneer was K. Ramakrishna Rao, professor and head of the Department of
Psychology and Parapsychology at Andhra University who worked for several years at
Duke University, North Carolina, and then established the department at Andhra
University and collaborated with B. K. Kanthamani. Rao subsequently became president
of the Parapsychological Association for 1965 and 1978, and was later director of the
Institute for Parapsychology, Durham, North Carolina.

In North India, Dr. Sampurananand first became interested in parapsychology when

Education Minister, and later initiated study of the paranormal at the University of
Lucknow in conjunction with Kali Prasad, head of the Department of Philosophy and
Psychology. When Sampurananand was appointed Governor of Rajasthan, he helped to
establish a department of parapsychology at the Rajasthan University at Jaipur, although
this was subsequently closed. Since then, however, there has been interest in the subject
for postgraduate degrees in Lucknow and Agra Universities.

In 1962-63, the Bureau of Psychology in Allahabad took up a research project in

parapsychology, studying (ESP) Extra sensory perception in schoolchildren. The results
were published in the International Journal of Parapsychology in the Autumn 1968 issue.

In 1964, Jamuna Prasad, president of the Indian Institute of Parapsychology, Allahabad,

assisted Ian Stevenson who visited India to investigate reported cases of reincarnation
first hand. A group of researchers took part in this project, which involved a Specific Trait
Questionnaire designed to assess the possible impressions of past experiences carried
over to another incarnation. With the formal establishment of the Indian Institute of
Parapsychology, another valuable project on "Paranormal Powers Manifested During
Yogic Training" was undertaken with a grant from the Parapsychology Foundation.

Of a slightly different nature was "Project Consciousness" inaugurated in December 1966

by Karan Singh, Minister of Health and Family Planning. This project, conducted by the
National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bangalore, was largely
concerned with exploration of the ancient Hindu concept of kundalini as a psycho-
physiological force in humans related to sexual energy, and in a sublimated form, to
levels of higher consciousness. Interest stemmed from the work of Pandit Gopi Krishna,
one of several modern spiritual teachers who revived interest in the subject through his
writing and teaching activity. The project languished after a change of government.

Indian publications concerned with parapsychology have included: Darshana

International (quarterly journal of philosophy, psychology, psychical research, religion
and mysticism); Psychics International (quarterly journal of psychic and yoga research);
Parapsychology (an Indian journal of parapsychological research from the department of
parapsychology; Rajasthan University, Jaipur), discontinued with the closure of the
Department of Parapsychology at Rajasthan University; and the Journal of Indian
Psychology (Andhra University).

The journal Kundalini (formerly Kundalini & Spiritual India) was devoted to the study of
consciousness evolution arising from the work of Gopi Krishna and embodying more the
mystical realm than parapsychological. In this connection, a Central Institute for
Kundalini Research was established at Srinagar, Kashmir, although it became inactive
following the Gopi Krishna's death in 1984. The influence of the mysticism and gurus
from India have been a strong influence in America for decades, particularly since the
1950s.

Sources:

Abbott, John. The Keys of Power: A Study of Indian Ritual and Belief. London, 1932.
Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1974.

Atreya, B. L. An Introduction to Parapsychology. Banaras, India: International Standard

Publications, 1957.

Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical
Research. New York: Paragon House, 1991.

Bernard, Theos. Philosophical Foundations of India. London: Rider, 1945.

Crooke, William. The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India. Allahabad,
India: Government Press, 1894. Reprint, 2 vols. London: A. Constable, 1896.

Garrison, Omar. Tantra—The Yoga of Sex. New York: Causeway Books, 1973.
Gervis, Pearce. Naked They Pray. London: Cassell, 1956.

Gopi Krishna, Pandit. The Biological Basis of Religion & Genius. New York: Harper &
Row, 1971.

——. Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man. London: Stuart & Watkins, n.d.
Reprint, Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala, 1967.

Oman, J. Campbell. Cults, Customs & Superstitions of India. London: T. Fisher Unwin,
1908.

——. The Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1903.

Sanyal, J. M., trans. The Srimad Bhagavatam. 2 Vols., New Delhi, India: Munshiram
Manocharlal, 1973.

Washington, Peter. Madame Blavatsky's Baboon, A History of the Mystics, Mediums, and
Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism to America. New York: Schocken Books, 1993.