India: My Motherland
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Now-a-days, the name of our country is “India” (Hindustan) and we are Indians (Hindus). The word “Hindu “was coined by Persians, for the people of India due to their terrestrial presence (living on the east of the river, Sindhu, the modern Indus). At a later stage, the Greeks pronounced it as “Indos” and from which the word “India” was derived.
Indian religion is the Sanatan Dharma or the Eternal Religion. It teaches what unites Man with Nature is God and the World is Divine. There are two main reasons; one would bear in mind, while thinking about India. 1. It is no doubt a vast country in size and population [ 1.237 billion (2012) ]. 2. It’s long past running into more than five thousand years back. The above facts are the causes for the diversity of Indian cultures and lives. From the bright silvery Himalayan peaks in the north to the Cape Comorin or Kanya Kumari in the far south on the Indian Ocean (a length of about 3220 km) and from the Assam forests on the Burma boarders in the east to the desert land of Rajasthan and the wonderful natural valley of Kashmir on the Pak boarder in the west (a distance of 2897 km.), India has a wide varieties of human race, culture, language, caste, creed, climate, flora and fauna. The long history spreading over 5000 years past, has influenced on the vast land and it’s people from many angles and different levels such as; illumination and darkness, knowledge and ignorance, freedom and subjection, victory and defeat, prosperity and adversity etc. It has been taught by the earliest leaders and thinkers that the main goal of life is not just pains and pleasures but acquiring knowledge and lesions for leading a pure and Vedic life. India has been a land of philosophers and philosophic minds. The great saints like Ram and Krishna of prehistoric age, Buddha and Sankara of historic age and Ramakrishna and Vivekananda of modern age have taught us the lesions of compassion and humanism and the spirit of tolerance and peace. The Indian people follow the outlooks of their forefathers and believe that without the paths shown by them a long life would become a long existence only. |