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.