The two main traditions of classical music which have been Carnatic music, found predominantly in the peninsular regions and Hindustani music, found in the northern and central parts. While both traditions claim Vedic origin, history indicates that the two traditions diverged from a common musical root since c. 13th century.
Hindustani music
Hindustani music is an Indian classical music tradition that goes back to Vedic times (around 1000 BC), and further developed circa the 13th and 14th centuries AD with Persian influences and from existing religious and folk music. The practice of singing based on notes was popular even from the Vedic times where the hymns in Sama Veda, a sacred text, was sung as Samagana and not chanted. Developing a strong and diverse tradition over several centuries, it has contemporary traditions established primarily in India but also in Pakistan and Bangladesh. In contrast to Carnatic music, the other main Indian classical music tradition (originating from the South), Hindustani music was not only influenced by ancient Hindu musical traditions, Vedic philosophy and native Indian sounds but also enriched by the Persian performance practices of the Mughals. Besides pure classical, there are also several semi-classical forms such as thumri and tappa.
Carnatic music
The present form of Carnatic music is based on historical developments that can be traced to the 15th - 16th centuries AD and thereafter. From the ancient Sanskrit works available, and the epigraphical evidence, the history of classical musical traditions can be traced back about 2500 years. Carnatic music is completely melodic, with improvised variations. The main emphasis is on vocal music; most compositions are written to be sung, and even when played on instruments, they are meant to be performed in a singing style (known as gāyaki). Like Hindustani music, Carnatic music rests on two main elements: rāga, the modes or melodic formulæ, the rhythmic cycles.
Purandara Dasa is credited with having founded today's Carnatic Music. He systematized the teaching method by framing a series of graded lessons such as swaravalis, janta swaras, alankaras, lakshana geetas, prabandhas, ugabhogas, thattu varase, geetha, sooladis and kritis. He introduced the Mayamalavagaula as the basic scale for music instruction. These are followed by teachers and students of Carnatic music even today. Another of his important contributions was the fusion of bhava, raga and laya in his compositions.
Purandara Dasa was the first composer that started commenting on the daily life of the people in compositions. He incorporated in his songs popular folk language and introduced folk ragas in the mainstream. The most important contribution he made was the fusion of bhava, raga and laya into organic units.
He also composed a large number of lakshya and lakshana geetas, many of which are sung to this day. His sooladis exhibit his mastery of the techniques of music, and are considered an authority for raga lakshana. Scholars attribute the standardization of varna mettus entirely to Purandaradasa.
Purandaradasa's era was probably the beginning of Carnatic music's movement towards krithi based classical music (one of its distinguishing characteristics compared to Hindustani). The peripatetic dasas who followed him are believed to have followed the systems he devised, as well as orally passing down his compositions.
Purandaradasa was a performer, a musicologist and the father of Carnatic musical pedagogy. He is credited with having elevated Carnatic music from religious and devotional music into the realm of a performing art. For all these reasons and the enormous influence that he had on Carnatic music, musicologists call him the "Sangeeta Pitamaha" or the grandfather of Carnatic music.
Bauls
The Bauls of Bengal were an order of musicians in 18th, 19th and early 20th century India who played a form of music using a khamak, ektara and dotara. The word Baul comes from Sanskrit batul meaning divinely inspired insanity. They are a group of mystic minstrels. They are thought to have been influenced greatly by the Hindu tantric sect of the Kartabhajas as well as by Sufi sects. Bauls travel in search of the internal ideal, Maner Manush (Man of the Heart).
Bhangra
Bhangra is a lively form of music and dance that originated in the Punjab region to celebrate Vaisakhi the festival of the Sikhs. As many Bhangra lyrics reflect the long and often tumultuous history of the Punjab, knowledge of Punjabi history offers important insights into the meaning of the music. While Bhangra began as a part of harvest festival celebrations, it eventually became a part of such diverse occasions as weddings and New Year celebrations. Moreover, during the last thirty years, Bhangra has enjoyed a surge in popularity worldwide, both in traditional form and as a fusion with genres such as hip-hop, house, and reggae, and in such forms it has become a pop sensation in the United Kingdom and North America. Rabbi Shergill is not a Bhangra artist, but is a Punjabi singer, and is a great example.
The first issue of The Hindu was published on September 20, 1878, by a group of six young men, led by G. Subramania Aiyer, a radical social reformer and school teacher from Thiruvaiyyar near Thanjavur. Aiyer, then 23, along with his 21-year-old fellow-tutor and friend at Pachaiyappa's College, M. Veeraraghavachariar of Chingleput, and four law students, T.T. Rangachariar, P.V. Rangachariar, D. Kesava Rao Pant and N. Subba Rao Pantulu were members of the Triplicane Literary Society. The British-controlled English language local newspapers had been campaigning against the appointment of the first Indian, T. Muthuswami Iyer, to the Bench of the Madras High Court in 1878. "The Triplicane Six," in an attempt to counter the dominant attitudes in the English language press started The Hindu on one British rupee and twelve annas of borrowed money. Aiyer was the editor and Veeraraghavachariar the Managing Director. The first editorial declared, "[the] Press does not only give expression to public opinion, but also modifies and moulds it."
Three of the students soon left the paper and took up careers in law, while Pantulu continued to write for The Hindu. The founders of the newspaper maintained a neutral stance regarding British rule, and occasionally, as in an editorial of 1894, held that British rule had been beneficial to Indian people. "However, it was equally convinced that the Anglo-Indian Press should be challenged, despotic bureaucrats condemned, and the abuse of power exposed," writes historian S. Muthiah
Initially printing 80 copies a week at the Srinidhi Press in Mint Street, Black Town, The Hindu was published every Wednesday evening as an eight-page paper, each a quarter of today's page size and sold for four annas (1/4 Rupee). After a month of printing from the Srinidhi Press, the newspaper switched to the Scottish Press, also in BlackTown. The earliest available issue of the paper is dated June 21, 1881. In 1881, it moved to Ragoonada Row's 'The Hindu Press' of Mylapore, with the intention of making it tri-weekly. This plan did not materialize until it moved to the Empress of India Press, where, starting on October 1, 1883, is was published on every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening; it continued maintaining the same size as before.
The offices moved to rented premises at 100 Mount Road on December 3, 1883. The newspaper started printing at its own press there, christened "The National Press," which was established on borrowed capital as public subscriptions were not forthcoming. The building itself became The Hindu's in 1892, after the Maharaja of Vizianagaram, Ananda Gajapathi Raju, gave The National Press a loan both for the building and to carry out needed expansion.
Its assertive editorials earned The Hindu the nickname, the Maha Vishnu of Mount Road. "From the new address, 100 Mount Road, which to remain The Hindu's home till 1939, there issued a quarto-size paper with a front-page full of advertisements - a practice that came to an end only in 1958 when it followed the lead of its idol, the pre-Thomson Times - and three back pages also at the service of the advertiser. In between, there were more views than news." After 1887, when the annual session of Indian National Congress was held in Madras, the paper's coverage of national news increased significantly, and led to the paper becoming an evening daily starting April 1, 1889.
The partnership between Veeraraghavachariar and Subramania Aiyer was dissolved in October 1898. Aiyer quit the paper and Veeraraghavachariar became the sole owner and appointed C. Karunakara Menon as editor. However, The Hindu's adventurousness began to decline in the 1900s and so did its circulation, which was down to 800 copies when the sole proprietor decided to sell out. The purchaser was The Hindu's Legal Adviser from 1895, S. Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, a politically ambitious lawyer who had migrated from a Kumbakonam village to practise in Coimbatore and from thence to Madras. Kasturi Ranga Iyengar's ancestors had served the courts of Vijayanagar and Mahratta Tanjore. He traded law, in which his success was middling but his interest minimal, for journalism, pursuing his penchant for politics honed in Coimbatore and by his association with the `Egmore Group' led by C. Sankaran Nair and Dr T.M. Nair.
In late 1980s when its ownership passed into the hands of the family's younger members, a change in political leaning was observed. Worldpress.org lists The Hindu as a left-leaning independent newspaper. This political polarization is supposed to have taken place since N. Ram took over as editor-in-chief. Joint Managing Director N. Murali said in July 2003, "It is true that our readers have been complaining that some of our reports are partial and lack objectivity. But it also depends on reader beliefs." However it is considered that as long Ram heads the newspaper,it will be predominantly leftist and even adopting a pro-China standpoint." N. Ram was appointed on June 27, 2003 as its editor-in-chief with a mandate to "improve the structures and other mechanisms to uphold and strengthen quality and objectivity in news reports and opinion pieces", authorised to "restructure the editorial framework and functions in line with the competitive environment". On September 3 and 23, 2003, the reader's letters column carried responses from readers saying the editorial was biased. An editorial in August 2003 observed that the newspaper was affected by the 'editorialising as news reporting' virus, and expressed a determination to buck the trend, restore the professionally sound lines of demarcation, and strengthen objectivity and factuality in its coverage.
In 1987-'88 The Hindu's coverage of the Bofors arms deal scandal, a series of document-backed exclusives set the terms of the national political discourse on this subject. The Bofors scandal broke in April 1987 with Swedish Radio alleging that bribes had been paid to top Indian political leaders, officials and Army officers in return for the Swedish arms manufacturing company winning a hefty contract with the Government of India for the purchase of 155 mm howitzers. During a six-month period the newspaper published scores of copies of original papers that documented the secret payments, amounting to $50 million, into Swiss bank accounts, the agreements behind the payments, communications relating to the payments and the crisis response, and other material. The investigation was led by part-time correspondent of The Hindu, Chitra Subramaniam reporting from Geneva, and was supported by Ram in Chennai. The scandal was a major embarrassment to the party in power at the centre, the Indian National Congress, and its leader Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The paper's editorial accused the Prime Minister of being party to massive fraud and cover up.
In 1991, Deputy Editor N. Ravi, Ram's younger brother replaced G. Kasturi as Editor. Nirmala Lakshman, Kasturi Srinivasan's granddaughter, became Joint Editor of The Hindu and her sister, Malini Parthasarathy, Executive Editor.
The Hare Krishna mantra appears in a number of famous songs, notably those sung by The Beatles (and solo works of John Lennonn, George Harrisonn [notably on his hit "My Sweet Lord"] and Ringo Starr). There is a reference to singing kirtan of Hare Krishna mantra in The Beatles' "I Am The Walrus" (the line "Elementary penguins singing Hare Krishna"). Ringo Starr's song "It Don't Come Easy" contains the words "Hare Krishna!" and was written with the help of George Harrison. Later Paul McCartney produced a single with a picture of Krishna riding on a swan on the cover, although there wasn't any chanting of Krishna's names inside. Of the four Beatles members, only Harrison was actually Hindu, and after he posthumously received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2009, his son Dhani Harrison uttered out the phrase "Hare Krishna" during the ceremony.
The mantra also appears in The Pretenders' Boots of Chinese Plastic.One song from 1969 by the RadhaKrsnaTemple, simply entitled Hare Krsna Mantra reached no. 17 in the UK music chart and appeared on the music show Top of the Pots. It also made the no.1 slot in both German and Czechoslovakian music charts. Less well-known but equally relevant to fans of pop music culture are recordings of the Hare Krishna mantra by The Fugs on their 1968 album Tenderness Junction (featuring poet Allen Ginsberg) and by Nina Hagen. Also, certain members of the hardcore bands The Cro-Mags, Shelter and 108 were vocal Hare Krishna supporters in the 1980s and 1990s.
Placebo produced a Hare Krishna mantra track on their 1996 36 Degrees single, featuring traditional Eastern instruments.
George Harrison put a Hare Krishna sticker on the back of the headstock of Eric Clapton's 1964 Gibson ES-335. The sticker also appeared on Gibson's 2005 reproduction of the guitar.
Kula Shaker, Boy George, Members of the Rubetts have done music tracks about Krishna Consciousness.
At the 2008 VMA Awards, the host, English Comedian Russell Brand ended the ceremony by saying Hare Krishna.
The Washington D.C. Production duo Thievery Corporation Releases a track on the 2008 album entitled, "Hare Krishna".
In the Seinfeld episode The Subway, a patron in Monk's restaurant yells, "Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!" when he sees George walk in wearing bedsheets, to which George replies "How would you like a Hare Krishna fist down your throat you little punk!?"
In the Russian army-themed grotesque satire DMB, several young men about to be conscripted arrive at the draft office wearing monastic garb and chanting "Hare Krishna, hare Rama", striving for conscientious objector status to dodge the draft. The draft officer replies that these must be some hardy lads, for few could manage to chant "Hare Rama" for three hours straight, and that while their 'Krishna stuff' sounds rather fake, they came with shaved heads already and are a perfect fit for an Anti-Chemical Warfare unit. Note that the film depicts the drafting of people feigning religious objections, not the authentic faithful.
When the last of the Mauryan kings was assassinated in 184 BC, India once again became a collection of unfederated kingdoms. During this period, the most powerful kingdoms were not in the north, but in the Deccan to the south, particularly in the west. The north, however, remained culturally the most active, where Buddhism was spreading and where Hinduism was being gradually remade by the Upanishadic movements, which are discussed in more detail in the section on religious history. The dream, however, of a universal empire had not disappeared. It would be realized by a northern kingdom and would usher in one of the most creative periods in Indian history.
The Gupta Dynasty (320-550)
Under Chandragupta I (320-335), empire was revived in the north. Like Chandragupta Maurya, he first conquered Magadha, set up his capital where the Mauryan capital had stood (Patna), and from this base consolidated a kingdom over the eastern portion of northern India. In addition, Chandragupta revived many of Asoka's principles of government. It was his son, however, Samudragupta (335-376), and later his grandson, Chandragupta II (376-415), who extended the kingdom into an empire over the whole of the north and the western Deccan. Chandragupta II was the greatest of the Gupta kings; called Vikramaditya ("The Sun of Power"), he presided over the greatest cultural age in India.
This period is regarded as the golden age of Indian culture. The high points of this cultural creativity are magnificent and creative architecture, sculpture, and painting. The wall-paintings of Ajanta Cave in the central Deccan are considered among the greatest and most powerful works of Indian art. The paintings in the cave represent the various lives of the Buddha, but also are the best source we have of the daily life in India at the time. There are forty-eight caves making up Ajanta, most of which were carved out of the rock between 460 and 480, and they are filled with Buddhist sculptures. The rock temple at Elephanta (near Bombay) contains a powerful, eighteen foot statue of the three-headed Shiva, one of the principal Hindu gods. Each head represents one of Shiva's roles: that of creating, that of preserving, and that of destroying. The period also saw dynamic building of Hindu temples. All of these temples contain a hall and a tower.
The greatest writer of the time was Kalidasa. Poetry in the Gupta age tended towards a few genres: religious and meditative poetry, lyric poetry, narrative histories (the most popular of the secular literatures), and drama. Kalidasa excelled at lyric poetry, but he is best known for his dramas. We have three of his plays; all of them are suffused with epic heroism, with comedy, and with erotics. The plays all involve misunderstanding and conflict, but they all end with unity, order, and resolution.
The Guptas tended to allow kings to remain as vassal kings; unlike the Mauryas, they did not consolidate every kingdom into a single administrative unit. This would be the model for later Mughal rule and British rule built on the Mughal paradigm.
The Guptas soon faced a wave of migrations by the Huns, a people who originally lived north of China. The Hun migrations would push all the way to the doors of Rome. Beginning in the 400's, the Huns began to put pressure on the Guptas. They were initially defeated by Skandagupta. However, by 480 they conquered large parts of Northwestern India. Western India was overrun by 500, and the last of the Gupta kings, presiding over a vastly dimished kingdom, perished in 550. However, the Huns were soon defeated by Yasovarman and later Baladitya, scion of the Guptas. A strange thing happened to the Huns in India as well as in Europe. Over the decades they gradually assimilated into the indigenous population and their state weakened.
Harsha, who was a descendant of the Guptas, quickly moved to reestablish an Indian empire. From 606-647, he ruled over an empire in northern India. Harsha was perhaps one of the greatest conquerors of Indian history, and unlike all of his conquering predecessors, he was a brilliant administrator. He was also a great patron of culture. His capital city, Kanauj, extended for four or five miles along the Ganges River and was filled with magnificent buildings. Only one fourth of the taxes he collected went to administration of the government. The remainder went to charity, rewards, and especially to culture: art, literature, music, and religion.
Because of extensive trade, the culture of India became the dominant culture around the Bay of Bengal, profoundly and deeply influencing the cultures of Burma, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka. In many ways, the period during and following the Gupta dynasty was the period of "Greater India," a period of cultural activity in India and surrounding countries building on the base of Indian culture. This medieval flowering of Indian culture would radically change course in the Indian Middle Ages. From the north came Muslim conquerors out of Afghanistan, and the age of Muslim rule began in 1100.
Ordered by number of speakers as first language. Indian population in 1991 exhibited 19.4% of bilingualism and 7.2% of trilingualism, so that the total percentage of "native languages" is at about 127%.
* Excludes figures of Paomata, Mao-Maram and Purul sub-divisions of Senapati district of Manipur for 2001. ** The percentage of speakers of each language for 2001 has been worked out on the total population of India excluding the population of Mao-Maram, Paomata and Purul subdivisions of Senapati district of Manipur due to cancellation of census results.
Linguists generally distinguish the terms "language" and "dialects" on the basis of 'mutual comprehension'. The Indian census uses two specific classifications in its own unique way: (1)'language' and (2) 'mother tongue'. The 'mother tongues' are grouped within each 'language'. Many 'mother tongues' so defined would be considered a language rather than a dialect by linguistic standards. This is especially so for many 'mother tongues' with tens of millions of speakers that is officially grouped under the 'language' Hindi.
The Indian census of 1961 recognised 1,652 different languages in India (including languages not native to the subcontinent). The 1991 census recognizes 1,576 classified "mother tongues"[9]SIL Ethnologue lists 415 living "Languages of India" (out of 6,912 worldwide).
According to the 1991 census, 22 'languages' had more than a million native speakers, 50 had more than 100,000 and 114 had more than 10,000 native speakers. The remaining accounted for a total of 566,000 native speakers (out of a total of 838 million Indians in 1991).[9]
According to the most recent census of 2001, 29 'languages' have more than a million native speakers, 60 have more than 100,000 and 122 have more than 10,000 native speakers.
The government of India has given 22 "languages of the 8th Schedule" the status of official language. The number of languages given this status has increased through the political process. Some languages with a large number of speakers still do not have this status, the largest of these being Bhili/Bhiladi with some 9.6 million native speakers (ranked 14th), followed by Gondi with 2.7 million speakers (ranked 18th) and Khandeshi with 2.1 million speakers (ranked 22nd). On the other hand, 2 languages with fewer than 2 million native speakers have recently been included in the 8th Schedule for mostly political reasons: Manipuri/Maithei with 1.5 million speakers (ranked 25th) and Bodo with 1.4 million speakers (ranked 26th). For cultural/historical reasons Sanskrit is on the official schedule, though only 14 thousand people claim it to be their language, but many more study it in school as the classical language of India.
The languages of India may be grouped by major language families. The largest of these in terms of speakers is the Indo-European family, predominantly represented in its Indo-Aryan branch (accounting for some 700 million speakers), but also including minority languages such as Persian, Portuguese or French, and English as lingua franca. The second largest is the Dravidian family, accounting for some 200 million speakers. Minor linguistic families include the Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman families (with some 10 and 6 million speakers, respectively). Kashmiri, considered a Dardic language, has some 4.6 million speakers in India. There is also a language isolate, the Nihali language. Today the Republic of India has about 69% of languages spoken in the country are Indo-Iranian (sub-branch: Indo-Aryan), 26% are Dravidian, and 5% are Sino-Tibetan and Austro-Asiatic, all unrelated/distinct family of languages. Most languages in the Indian republic are written in Brahmi-derived scripts such as Devangari, Gurmukhi, Tamil, etc. Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Tulu, Tamil, Malayalam, Assamese, Punjabi, Naga, and many others are the mother-tongue languages spoken in each of India's diverse states, alien to each other.
The official languages of the Republic of India are Hindi and English. Article 343(1)states "The Official Language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script and English could be also used for official purposes."However, attempts would be made increase the scope of Hindi in official matters on a gradual basis. .[10]
The individual states can legislate their own official languages, depending on their linguistic demographics. For example, the state of TamilNadu has Tamil as its sole official language and the state of Karnataka has Kannada as its sole official language, while the state of Jammu and Kashmir has Kashmiri, Urdu and Dogri as its official languages.
Article 345 of the Indian constitution provides recognition to "official languages" of the union to include any one or more of the languages in use in the state or Hindi language adopted by a state legislature as the official language but, . Until the Twenty-First Amendment of the Constitution in 1967, the country recognised 14 official regional languages. The Eighth Schedule and the Seventy-First Amendment provided for the inclusion of Sindhi, Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali, thereby increasing the number of official regional languages of India to 18[11]. Individual states, whose borders are mostly drawn on socio-linguistic lines, are free to decide their own language for internal administration and education.
The following table lists the official languages set out in the eighth schedule as of May 2008:[12]
The Matrimandir, a golden metallic sphere in auroville, Puducherry
The Union Territory of Puducherry comprises four coastal regions viz- Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam. Puducherry is the Capital of this Union Territory and one of the most popular tourist destinations in South India. Puducherry has been described by National Geographic as "a glowing highlight of subcontinental sojourn". The city has many beautiful colonial buildings, churches, temples, and statues, which, combined with the systematic town planning and the well planned French style avenues, still preserve much of the colonial ambience.
Punjab is one of India's most beautiful states. The state of Punjab is renowned for its cuisine, culture and history. Punjab has a vast public transportation and communication network. Some of the main cities in Punjab are Amritsar, Chandigarh, and Ludhiana. Punjab also has a rich religious history incorporating Sikhism and Hinduism. Tourism in Punjab is principally suited for the tourists interested in culture, ancient civilization, spirituality and epic history. Some of the villages in Punjab are also a must see for the person who wants to see the true Punjab, with their beautiful traditional Indian homes, farms and temples, this is a must see for any visitor that goes to Punjab.
Mumbai is the most cosmopolitan city in India, famous for its architecture, shopping, gastronomy, and Bollywood. Mumbai accounts for more than 40% of all foreign tourists arrivals in India.[11]
Maharashtra is the most visited state by foreign tourists,[11] with more than 2 million foreign tourists arrivals annually. Maharashtra boasts of a large number of popular and revered religious venues that are heavily frequented by locals as well as out-of-state visitors.
Mumbai is the most cosmopolitan city in India, and a great place to experience modern India. Mumbai famous for Bollywood, the world's largest film industry. In addition, Mumbai is famous for its clubs, shopping, and upscale gastronomy. The city is known for its architecture, from the ancient Ajanta Caves, to the Islamic Haji Ali Mosque, to the colonial architecture of Bombay High Court and Victoria Terminus.
Orissa has been a preferred destination from ancient days for people who have an interest in spirituality, religion, culture, art and natural beauty. Ancient and medieval architecture, pristine sea beaches, the classical and ethnic dance forms and a variety of festivals. Orissa has kept the religion of Buddhism alive. Rock-edicts that have challenged time stand huge and over-powering by the banks of the river Daya. The torch of Buddhism is still ablaze in the sublime triangle at Udayagiri and Khandagiri Caves, on the banks of river Birupa. Precious fragments of a glorious past come alive in the shape of stupas, rock-cut caves, rock-edicts, excavated monasteries, viharas, chaityas and sacred relics in caskets and the Rock-edicts of Ashoka. Orissa is also famous for its well-preserved Hindu Temples, especially the Konark Sun Temple.[12]
Orissa is the home for various tribal communities who have contributed uniquely to the multicultural and multilingual character of the state. Their handicrafts, different dance forms, jungle products and their unique life style blended with their healing practices have got world wide attention.
Jammu and Kashmir is the northernmost state of India. Jammu is noted for its scenic landscape, ancient temples, Hindu shrines, castles, gardens, and forts. The Hindu holy shrines of Amarnath and Vaishno Devi attract tens of thousands of Hindu devotees every year. Jammu's natural landscape has made it one of the popular destinations for adventure tourism in South Asia. Jammu's historic monuments feature a unique blend of Islamic and Hindu architecture styles.
Tourism forms an integral part of the Kashmiri economy. Often dubbed "Paradise on Earth", Kashmir's mountainous landscape has attracted tourists for centuries. Notable places are Dal Lake, Srinagar Phalagam, Gulmarg, Yeusmarg and Mughal Gardens etc. However, the tourism industry is severely affected by the insurgency.
In recent years, Ladakh has emerged as a major hub for adventure tourism. This part of Greater Himalaya called "moon on earth" comprising of naked peaks and deep gorges was once known for the silk route to High Asia from the subcontinent. Leh is also a growing tourist spot.
Karnataka has been ranked as fourth most popular destination for tourism among states of India. It has the second highest number of protected monuments in India, at 507.
Karnataka is famous for its waterfalls. Jog falls of Shimoga District is one of the highest waterfalls in Asia. This state has 21 wildlife sanctuaries and five National parks and is home to more than 500 species of birds. Karnataka has many beaches at Karwar, Gokarna, Murdeshwara, Surathkal. Karnataka is a rock climbers paradise. Yana in Uttara Kannada, Fort in Chitradurga, Ramnagara near Bangalore district, Shivagange in Tumkur district and tekal in Kolar district are a rock climbers heaven.[citation needed]
Kerala is a state on the tropical Malabar Coast of southwestern India. Nicknamed as one of the "10 paradises of the world" by National Geographic, Kerala is famous especially for its ecotourism initiatives. Its unique culture and traditions, coupled with its varied demography, has made it one of the most popular tourist destinations in India. Growing at a rate of 13.31%, the tourism industry significantly contributes to the state's economy.
Kerala is known for its tropical backwaters and pristine beaches such as Kovalam.
Madhya Pradesh is called the "Heart of India" because of its location in the centre of the country. It has been home to the cultural heritage of Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism. Innumerable monuments, exquisitely carved temples, stupas, forts and palaces are dotted all over the State.
The temples of Khajuraho are world-famous for their erotic sculptures, and are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Gwalior is famous for its forts, the Tomb of Rani Lakshmibai, and the Palace of Tansen.
Madhya Pradesh is also known as Tiger State because of the tiger population. Famous national parks like Kanha, Bandhavgadh, Shivpuri, Sanjay, Pench are located in MP. Spectacular mountain ranges, meandering rivers and miles and miles of dense forests offering a unique and exciting panorama of wildlife in sylvan surroundings.
