NCERT Book Class 6 Social Science Indias Cultural Roots PDF Download

Chapter 7: India's Cultural Roots

That which cannot be stolen; that which cannot be confiscated by rulers; ... that which is not a burden as it does not weigh anything; that which, though it is used, only grows every day - that is the greatest wealth of all, the wealth of true knowledge."

- Subhashita (Wise Saying)

[Figure: A rishi (from Hampi, Karnataka), The Buddha (from Bhutan), Mahavira (from Bihar), See in your textbook]

Indian culture, by any estimate, is several millenniums old. Like any ancient tree, it has many roots and many branches. The roots nurture a common trunk. And from the trunk emerge many branches, which are different manifestations of Indian culture, yet united by a common trunk.

Some of these branches are about art, literature, science, medicine, religion, the art of governance, martial arts, and so on. There are also 'schools of thought', by which we mean groups of thinkers or spiritual seekers who share similar ideas about human life, the world, etc.

Many archaeologists and scholars have pointed out that some of India's cultural roots go all the way to the Indus or Harappan or Sindhu-Sarasvati civilisation (which we visit in Chapter 6). Later on, over time, hundreds of schools of thought emerged in India. We will see here a few early schools, which have shaped India into a country with a unique personality. By understanding them and their roots, we can understand 'India, that is Bharat' better.

The Vedas and Vedic Culture

a. What are the Vedas?

The word "Veda" comes from the Sanskrit vid which means 'knowledge' (hence vidya, for instance). We briefly mentioned the Rig Veda in earlier chapters. In fact, there are four Vedas - the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda and the Atharva Veda. They are the most ancient texts of India, and indeed among the most ancient in the world. The Vedas consist of thousands of hymns - prayers in the form of poems and songs - that were recited orally, not written. Those hymns were composed in the Sapta Sindhava region (which we visit in Chapter 5). It is difficult to say when exactly the Rig Veda, the most ancient of the four, was composed; experts have proposed dates ranging from the 5th to the 2nd millennium BCE. So, for anything between 100 and 200 generations, these texts have been committed to memory through rigorous training and passed on orally with hardly any alterations!

Don't Miss Out

This meticulous transmission over thousands of years explains why, in 2008, UNESCO recognised Vedic chanting as 'a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity'.

Teacher's Note

The Vedas were memorized and passed down by mouth for over 100 generations without written records. This shows how important oral tradition was in ancient India, and it is why UNESCO recognized it as a world heritage. When you study the Vedas, remember that they were composed as poems and songs to be spoken aloud and heard - not just read silently on a page.

The Vedic hymns were composed by rishis (male seers or sages) and rishikas (female ones) in an early form of the Sanskrit language. They were addressed in poetical form to many deities (gods or goddesses), such as Indra, Agni, Varuna, Mitra, Sarasvati, Ushas, and many more. Together with the seers, these deities sustained ritam, or truth and order in human life and in the 'cosmos'.

The early rishis and rishikas saw those gods and goddesses as one, not separate beings. As one famous hymn puts it,

ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti ...

The Existent [that is, the supreme reality] is one, but sages give it many names.

Teacher's Note

This famous verse shows that Vedic thinkers believed in one ultimate reality (called Brahman) but understood that people might call it by different names. This idea of unity within diversity is a key theme in Indian philosophy. In exams, you may be asked what this verse means; it is saying that all the different gods and names point to the same underlying truth.

In this worldview, some values were especially important, beginning with 'Truth', which was often another name for God. The last mantras (verses) of the Rig Veda also call for unity among people:

Key Points

• The Vedas are the four most ancient texts of India, composed between the 5th and 2nd millennium BCE as hymns and songs that were recited orally and memorized for hundreds of generations.
• The Vedic hymns were written by rishis and rishikas and addressed many deities, all of which were seen as manifestations of one supreme reality rather than separate beings.
• Core Vedic values included Truth (often identified with God), order and harmony in the cosmos, and unity among people.

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