Textbook of Indian Customs and Practices

Textbook "Indian Customs and Practices" by author Do Thu Ha (Associate Professor, PhD, Faculty of Oriental Studies) published by Hanoi National University Publishing House in 2012. India is a country with 5000 years of history with a civilization that shines brightly not only to the East but also to all of humanity. The important factor that contributes to the unity and diversity of this country is culture. However, to know and understand thoroughly one of the oldest cultures in the world like India is not easy, it requires effort and intelligence for research. This part only presents one aspect of that massive culture, which is the customs and practices in the daily life of the Indian people. Customs are what become customary law, deeply rooted, firmly rooted in the people, more powerful than laws. In the cultural traditions of ethnic groups, there are many good customs and practices necessary for human morality and social discipline. A revolution can change the political system quickly, followed by a series of changes in the legal system. Customs also constantly change according to the trend of social and cultural change, but they are more persistent and have their own rules, not easily followed by everyone, every family, every class overnight. Good customs will be imitated by many people, bad customs will be imitated by many people and gradually abandoned.⁽¹⁾. Customs themselves are also part of that social struggle, which is and will continue to be between the old and the new. Concepts of aesthetics are also constantly changing.⁽²⁾. For example, the tufted leg of men in Vietnam is clearly backward but it took a long struggle to disappear, but the black teeth of women in the past were praised as beautiful and charming in Vietnam, but a few years after the August Revolution, no one forced them to disappear naturally, giving way to white teeth. The movement to build a new cultural lifestyle in Vietnam or other Eastern countries today, does not simply rely on subjective thoughts but must know how to apply good customs to lifestyle, thinking, actions, and ways of dealing with others, in accordance with the evolutionary trend. There are traditional customs originating from practical experience in ancient life, which are no longer suitable for the times, becoming depraved customs, we also need to research to know the reasons, from there apply them appropriately to the present and the future, or find good customs to supplement and gradually eliminate bad ones. Of course, each individual must also live, communicate, and integrate with the social community. Fake styles that are contrary to customs, national identity, and contrary to the eyes of the masses will be eliminated and gradually eliminated. The same goes for customs. Restoring and promoting good customs will certainly be supported and welcomed by all classes of people; restoring and reviving depraved customs will be condemned by society. Before delving into specific issues regarding customs and practices of Indian people in daily life, we will review some basic concepts of a practical nature.

Purpose and meaning of the subject

The Department of Indology of the Faculty of Oriental Studies has just opened, so the teaching and research materials of the department are still very limited. Even domestic books and newspapers in Vietnamese written about Indology are very lacking and not systematic. This is a real difficulty for teachers and students of our Department. To contribute to solving these difficulties and help students have initial materials, we are trying to compile textbooks for the Department of Indology in general and for the subject of Indian Culture in particular. When studying Indology, our Department teaches a number of topics, of which the subject of Indian Customs and Practices is a subject that takes three credits. We plan to outline the main features of Indian customs and practices in funerals, weddings, house building, childbirth, pilgrimages, ancestor worship, etc. in order of the life cycle. To help students absorb the lecture more easily, we will outline some general features of the characteristics of Indian culture before going into details. We raise the above issue because there are other subjects in the Department that teach parallel aspects of Indology such as Indian Religion, Indian History, Indian Literature, Indian Ethnicity and Language, Indian Political Institutions and International Relations, Indian Cultural History Process... We do not want to repeat the information that has been given in depth and extensively on each topic, so we will only focus on customs, traditional rituals and cultural changes in the period of modernization and globalization that are taking place strongly in the daily life of the Indian people. When going into detail about the customs and rituals of India, we would like to focus on the customs and rituals of Hindus because they account for nearly 82% of the Indian population (2004 figure of BBC). However, in order to clarify the characteristics of Indian customs through specific examples, we will also compare the issues raised in the relationship with the ethnic groups in India, which are very large in number, very complex and rich in diversity, so that students can have a more general view. Another aspect that we also pay close attention to is that in India, customs are closely associated with religion. Customs in India have been closely mixed with religious rituals and ceremonies, so we are forced to present the issues and phenomena in Indian customs in a religious context. Certainly, the customs of Hindus or Muslims... cannot be separated from the ideology, rituals and ceremonies of these religions. Religious rituals and ceremonies have become an inseparable part of Indian customs and practices. Therefore, we are forced to present Indian customs and practices together with its rituals and ceremonies.

Research methods

In this course, we will try to explain cultural phenomena in the direction of “All history, all culture” as proposed by Indian researcher Bhagwat Saran Upadhyaya. This means that we will seek the origin of each cultural characteristic or phenomenon based on the foundation of religion, history, ethnicity, thinking... of the Indian people. We will try to apply interdisciplinary research methods, comparison, listing... to clarify our arguments.

Problem history

Up to now, there are not many books and newspapers about Indian culture in general and Indian customs and practices in particular in Vietnam. Looking back, we see that there have been some works as follows: In 1986, researcher Nguyen Thua Hi wrote two books: Understanding Indian culture (printed at the Culture Publishing House) and Understanding Indian culture (Education Publishing House, Hanoi), which mentioned many aspects of Indian culture with very interesting and accurate comments, targeting a wide range of readers and those interested in Indian culture in general. However, these two books did not mention anything about the customs and practices of ethnic groups in India but only focused on aspects such as literature, history, religion, etc. In 1993, talented researcher Cao Huy Dinh, after studying in India, published a series of works and articles about India, including the book Indian culture (Culture Publishing House, Hanoi, 1993). Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dinh Trung Kien introduced India in general through the book India, Yesterday and Today (National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, 1995). The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies also has a book India, Past and Present, published by the Social Sciences Publishing House in 1997 with 350 pages. In particular, Professor Nguyen Tan Dac has a monograph on Indian Culture published by Ho Chi Minh City Publishing House in 2000 - 342 pages with a lot of valuable information. From a different perspective of comparing and contrasting Indian culture with other cultures, researcher Cao Xuan Huy wrote the book Eastern Thought Suggesting Reference Points (Literature Publishing House, 1995) and the research group of Professor Luong Duy Thu published the book Outline of Eastern Culture (Education Publishing House, 1997). In particular, there is also a long work by researcher Nguyen Duc Dan on Indian Philosophical Thought and Cultural and Literary Life, Literature Publishing House, Hanoi, 1996. This is a relatively elaborate work, going into detail about aspects of Indian culture such as philosophy, religion, society, literature... Works by researchers around the world on Indian culture were also selected to be translated in Vietnam such as History of Indian Civilization by W. Durant translated by Nguyen Hien Le, Information Center of Ho Chi Minh City University of Education published in 1992 (Culture and Information Publishing House republished in the first quarter of 2004) or Discovery of India by J. Nehru translated by Pham Thuy Ba, Le Ngoc, Hoang Tuy and Nguyen Tam in 1990 published by Literature Publishing House, Hanoi; The book Mysterious India by P. Pruton (Literature Publishing House, Hanoi, 1993)... Besides, there are a number of articles specializing in aspects of Indian culture such as Ancient Indian Art (Fine Arts Magazine, No. 1, 1989)... However, we compiled this textbook only to introduce Indian customs and practices as a monograph, not to go broadly and spread out on all aspects like other authors. Regarding this approach, we find that a section of about 15 pages in the book India, Yesterday and Today by Associate Professor, Dr. Dinh Trung Kien seems closest to our point of view. While teaching this course, we will use some other documents that we have compiled, namely the section on Symbolism of Ancient India in the 2001 school-level scientific research work on Symbolism in the epics Mahabharata and Ramayana, the introduction to Indian culture in the work The Influence of Indian Culture on the Region - a lecture for graduate students at the Faculty of Oriental Studies in 2001 and the Textbook on the Historical Process of Indian Culture in 2010 to serve as a basis for a deeper understanding of the origins of Indian culture.

Course requirements

When studying this subject, students must master the main customs of India, their origins, and changes over time; what are the similarities and differences between Hindu customs and practices with those of other ethnic groups and religions, and finally, how to compare them with the reality in Vietnam. To achieve this research result, we would like to express our sincere and deep gratitude to the Faculty of Oriental Studies, the Board of Directors of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (under the Vietnam National University, Hanoi); the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR); the Asian Scholarship Foundation, Ford Foundation, etc. In particular, I would like to express my gratitude to Associate Professor, Dr. Ngo Van Doanh, who has made extremely valuable comments. It is thanks to the support and enthusiastic help, both material and spiritual, from all relevant parties that I have completed this textbook after nearly 10 years of research. Although we have tried our best, due to time and limited level, the textbook certainly still has many errors and shortcomings. We look forward to receiving guidance and contributions from readers near and far so that the next printings will have better quality. Sincerely thank you. ______¹Becker, Howard S, 1982, "Culture: A Sociological View," Yale Review, 71(4): 513-27.²Boyd, Robert and Peter J. Richerson, 1985, Culture and the Evolutionary Process, Chicago: University of Chicago Press .