The west has been fascinated with India since contact between the two was first made and its reactions have differed depending on the circumstances of history and the setting. The complex and, in some ways, contradictory Indian civilisation has been both an object of great interest and violent criticism. Impartial scientific observation of the country and its people has only been a recent development and still today expectations, prejudices and clich?s colour the ...
The history of Indian culture has its epicentre in the north of the country. It is here, in the Ganges plain and neighbouring areas, that the great spiritual movements that gave life to the complex Hindu universe and alternative beliefs of Buddhism and Jainism were developed. It was in northern India that the first sultanates and the great Moslem empire of the Moguls arose and here that the Sikh congregation was created. History has left its mark everywhere in ...