The Making Of Regional Culture

Manipravalam is a language. The literal meaning of ‘Manipravalam’ is ‘diamonds and corals’ which refers to the two important languages - ‘Sanskrit’ and the regional language ‘Malayalam’. The book written in that language is Lilatilakan, dealing with grammar and poetics. This book was composed during 14th century.

The Mughal emperors and their nobles were the first major patrons of Kathak. Subsequently, Kathak developed into dance forms with two ‘gharanas’ -one of Rajasthan (Jaipur) and other of Awadh (Lucknow). Under the patronage of Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Awadh, Kathak grew into a major Art form. By the third quarter of 19th century Kathak found its patronage extended to areas of the present day Punjab, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.

Bengal witnessed the temple building spree during the period from 15th to 19th century. Bengal developed a typical style in temple architecture. The distinctive or important architectural features found in the temples of Bengal are –

• The double-roofed (dochala) or four-roofed (chauchala) structure of the thatched huts, resembling the ‘Bangla Dome’ which became the Bengali style in Temple Architecture.
• In the four-roofed structures, which are comparatively more complex, four triangular roofs placed on the four walls move up to converge on a curved line or a point.
• Built in a square platform.
• The interior walls are relatively plane
• The outer walls are generally decorated with paintings, ornamental tiles or terracotta tablets.

In the ancient days the minstrels occupied an important position in the society and they used to record and preserve the stories of Rajput heroes in the form of poems and songs. These stories and poems recited by minstrels were of great emotions, such as- loyalty, friendship, love, valour and anger etc. Ordinary people were attracted by these stories, poems and songs sang by the minstrels. Their poems and songs were expected to inspire others to follow the examples of the Rajput heroes. So, the minstrels used to sang about only those brave warriors who choose death on the battle field rather than accept defeat.

India has got a very rich diversified culture of her own. The cultural traditions of our country are very ancient which has got a specific purpose to solve. Moreover, there were many great rulers who ruled our country and also established their kingdoms on the Indian soil. So from time-to-time the people of our country have been intermixing local traditions along with old cultural beliefs. Also, the cultural traditions of a region used to be closely linked and thus, developed according to the ideals and aspirations of the rulers of that region. Henceforth it becomes necessary to know about the rulers than those of the ordinary people who can get only inspirations from those great rulers.

At Puri, in Orissa the importance of Jagannatha temple increased continuously as a center of pilgrimage since when it was built by Ananthavarman. Its authority in social and political matters also increased simultaneously. The conquerors such as Mughals, Marathas and the English East India Company tried to control the temple of Jagannatha at Puri mainly because of the above reasons as these would make the local people accept their rules. Moreover, by gaining control over the temple they could access the huge wealth of the temple collected from the donations of the pilgrims.