a speech on India's heritage delivered by some famous personality

India has a rich cultural tradition. There is a harmonious blend of art, religion and philosophy in the Indian culture. They are so beautifully interwoven in the fabric of Indian way of life and thought that they are inseparable.

Indian culture is actually an outcome of continuous synthesis and has absorbed many external influences in the course of long jurney of history. The first stirring of civilisation occurred amongst the people of India some 4,000 years before the birth of Christ. From those ancient times till recent past, we were exposed to unbroken sequence of civilisations. It is only the dynamism and the flexibility of Indian culture that enabled it to survive these foreign invasions and retain its originality and traditional character even after imbibing the best of these external influences.  Indian art was influenced by the religious beliefs and the philosophical trends of the times. The temples of the south, the caves of Ajanta, Ellora and Khajuraho are living testimony to the artistic excellence achieved by the Indian artists, sculptors and architects in those gone by days. Foreign tourists experience a spiritual reawakening on visiting these temples.

Indian music is remarkable because of the continuity in its growth. Long before the Christian era, it had developed not only definite laws of theory and practice, but even comprehensive theories of appreciation. Like Indian dance, it is built on the concepts of ragas and fast. Each raga is regarded as appropriate to certain emotions a certain mood suitable for certain time of the day or night. There are two major schools of classical music—the Hindustani and the Karnataka. Both derive their rules from the classical treatises Natya Shastra of Bharata and Sangeet Ratnakarby Sarangdeva. There are about 250 ragas commonly used in north as well as south. Indian music has had great impact on the Western music. Great maestros like Pandit Ravi Shankar, Zakir Hussain, etc. have made valuable contribution towards popularising and promoting Indian music abroad.

Since independence, Indians themselves have become increasingly keen to promote their sense of national identity and cultural unity and in consequence there has been a revival of interest in indigenous folk arts, especially in the realm of music and dance. Now, it is up to our educational institutions to ensure that the younger generation imbibes the right values and tries to uphold the torch of spiritual and cultural renaissance for the rest of the world to see and emulate and not get carried away by the materialistic ideology of the West, where man has achieved astounding success in unraveling the -mysteries of nature but feels alienated and rootless in his own community and society. We must ensure that modern India does not at any stage forget its rich cultural heritage—a legacy of our ancient seers, philosophers and sages.

India has a rich cultural tradition. There is a harmonious blend of art, religion and philosophy in the Indian culture. They are so beautifully interwoven in the fabric of Indian way of life and thought that they are inseparable.

Indian culture is actually an outcome of continuous synthesis and has absorbed many external influences in the course of long jurney of history. The first stirring of civilisation occurred amongst the people of India some 4,000 years before the birth of Christ. From those ancient times till recent past, we were exposed to unbroken sequence of civilisations. It is only the dynamism and the flexibility of Indian culture that enabled it to survive these foreign invasions and retain its originality and traditional character even after imbibing the best of these external influences.  Indian art was influenced by the religious beliefs and the philosophical trends of the times. The temples of the south, the caves of Ajanta, Ellora and Khajuraho are living testimony to the artistic excellence achieved by the Indian artists, sculptors and architects in those gone by days. Foreign tourists experience a spiritual reawakening on visiting these temples.

Indian music is remarkable because of the continuity in its growth. Long before the Christian era, it had developed not only definite laws of theory and practice, but even comprehensive theories of appreciation. Like Indian dance, it is built on the concepts of ragas and fast. Each raga is regarded as appropriate to certain emotions a certain mood suitable for certain time of the day or night. There are two major schools of classical music—the Hindustani and the Karnataka. Both derive their rules from the classical treatises Natya Shastra of Bharata and Sangeet Ratnakarby Sarangdeva. There are about 250 ragas commonly used in north as well as south. Indian music has had great impact on the Western music. Great maestros like Pandit Ravi Shankar, Zakir Hussain, etc. have made valuable contribution towards popularising and promoting Indian music abroad.

Since independence, Indians themselves have become increasingly keen to promote their sense of national identity and cultural unity and in consequence there has been a revival of interest in indigenous folk arts, especially in the realm of music and dance. Now, it is up to our educational institutions to ensure that the younger generation imbibes the right values and tries to uphold the torch of spiritual and cultural renaissance for the rest of the world to see and emulate and not get carried away by the materialistic ideology of the West, where man has achieved astounding success in unraveling the -mysteries of nature but feels alienated and rootless in his own community and society. We must ensure that modern India does not at any stage forget its rich cultural heritage—a legacy of our ancient seers, philosophers and sages.