2. FACTS:
• World’s second most populous
nation
• Seventh largest in area
• 3,000 km wide
• Shoreline of about 7,000 km
• India and Bharat are both official
names.

4. FACTS:
• Early settlers called their land
“Bharat Varsha” or “Bharat”.
• During medieval times, it was
known as “Hind.”

5. “INDIA”
Indus River

6. FACTS:
• Earliest Indian civilization grew up in
the Indus Valley from 4000 to 2500
BC.
• 1500 BC --- Aryan invaders entered
India.
• Hinduism and the Caste system were
the foundations of the Indian society.

7. Northern
Plains
Himalayan
Peninsular
Mountain
India
System
Main
topographic
regions

8. HIMALAYAS
• Form parts of India’s borders
• WEST --- Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tibet
• EAST --- Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet
• Topographically complex and divided into
prominent elongated valleys and
mountain ranges
• Highest mountain --- Karakoram Range

9. NORTHERN PLAINS
• Part of a vast lowland extending across the
subcontinent from Pakistan in the west to
Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) in the
east
• Bordered on the north by foothills of the
Himalayas, south of the Bramaputra
basin, south of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, east
of the Brahmaputra, and in the rest of India by
the Ganges.

10. LANGUAGES
• More than 200 languages are spoken
• Linguistic diversity provides an important key
to understanding Indian civilization.
• Four major linguistic groups were
represented.
• Most important are the Indo-Arab branch of
the Indo-European group and the Dravidian
language group.

11. • 4th most widely
HINDI spoken
language in the
world
(official • Language of
language) 30% of the
population

12. RELIGIONS IN
INDIA
JAINISM
HINDUISM SIKHISM
BUDDHISM

13. Indian Caste System

14. GREAT PEOPLE :
• MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND
GANDHI
• Leader of the Indian Nationalist
movement
• Known as Mahatma (great soul)
• Pioneered on civil disobedience or the
philosophy of nonviolent confrontation
• Born on October 2, 1869, Porbandar

15. INDIAN
LITERATURE

16. FACTS:
• Mostly written in Sanskrit
(oldest extant Aryan language)
• A small portion was written in
Prakrit (vernacular form of
Sanskrit)

17. PERIODS OF LITERATURE
VEDIC SANSKRIT
• 1500 BC-200BC • 200 BC-present
•Principally • Many types of
religious and literature achieved
distinction
lyric

18. RELIGIOUS WORKS
• Oldest sacred literature is
found in the four Vedas.

19. RIG VEDA
SAMA VEDA
ATHARVA VEDA
YAJUR VEDA

20. • RIG VEDA --- an anthology of 1028 hymns
to various gods
• SAMA VEDA --- (Book of Chants) liturgies,
mostly repetitions of hymns in the Rig
Veda
• ATHARVA VEDA --- (Prayer Book)
additional many prose formulas
• YAJUR VEDA --- (Book of Spells)
incantations, notions about demonology
and witchcraft

21. PROSE
• Commentaries on the Vedic
BRAHMANAS hymns
• Collection of 108 discourses
UPANISHADS on the Brahman religion
• Often unintelligible treatises
SUTRAS concerning rituals

22. EPICS
• Mahabharata --- written by Vyasa
• Longest poem in the world
• About 200,000 lines, nearly 8 times as
long as the Iliad and the Odyssey
• Greatest epic of India
• Circa 500 BC

23. EPICS
• Ramayana --- written by Valmiki
• Circa 500 BC to 200 AD
• About 96,000 lines, in seven
books

24. DRAMAS
• The Toy Clay Cart --- attributed to King
Sundra; has three acts; a courtesan saves
the life of a merchant because of his
former kindness and generosity
• Sakuntala or the Fatal Ring --- attributed
to Kalidasa (the Hindu Shakespeare)

25. TALES
• The Jatakas --- imaginative legends concerning
the 550 births of Buddha and his early life
• The Panchanatantra --- (Five Books); probably
intended as a manual of instruction for kings’
sons
• The Hitopdesa --- (Book of Good Counsels),
forty-three tales
• The Sukasaptati --- (Seventy Stories of a
Parrot) fairy tales

26. POETS
• Kalidasa --- leading lyricist famous for
a large number of poems of
sentiment; India’s foremost Sanskrit
dramatist and poet
• Javadeva --- author of the
Gitagovinda (love-making of Krishna)

27. • Rabindranath Tagore --- Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1913
• Famous collection--- Song
Offerings (Gitanjali)
• Wrote 3,000 poems, 2,000
songs, 8 novels, 40 volume essays
and short stories, and 50 plays

28. Thank you…