Glimpses:
A Cultural Heritage
Lifetsyles
An
ancient repository of the arts, the culture of
Jammu & Kashmir is closely linked with the
lifestyles of its people. In the aesthetic
environment of their homesteads, all items of
daily use and all furnishings are created with the
help of cottage industry crafts, mostly within the
house itself. The beautiful carpets, the carved
walnut furniture, the delicately embroidered
shawls, papier mache objets d' art, silver and
gold jewellery and the beautiful samawar are all
expressive of the art the people of the region
bring to their daily lives.
Planting rice in the
paddy fields of the valley
The
communities are largely agrarian based, and in the
simple village lifestyles of the people of the
state, governed by changing seasons, adaptation to
natural conditions has been an essential aspect.
This then has dictated the proliferation of the
cottage crafts, the development of a classic
cuisine, and resulted in a strong faith in
religion and in the simple religious beliefs of
the people.
Though the
state's artisans go back to several generations,
the arts gained eminence with the advent of the
Muslim rulers to the state. A great exchange took
place between the two cultures of which historian
Sir J. Marshall recounts, "Seldom in the
history of mankind has the spectacle been
witnessed of two civilizations, so vast and so
strongly developed, yet so radically dissimilar,
as the Hindus and Muslims, meeting and mingling
together."
On the
following pages are some aspects of the culture of
the state now translated into a modern heritage.
| 
