ABSTRACT
India has been, both in times of its distinction and decline, a lively land of ideas and thoughts. India has traditionally been an exporter of new ideas covering different areas of human creativity: religion, art, music, mythology, language, literature, mathematics, grammar, architecture, technology and astronomy. This chapter is the interplay of ideas that has gone to provide India's civilisational attainments, dynamism and endurance, and given Indians a distinct personality. The Hindus and Muslims neither intermarry, nor interdine together, and indeed they belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Ideas ignite events and go on to shape the course of history. India, however, stands out for its nurturing of multiplicity of views and the richness of the content of ideas in its ageless history. History encompasses the development of human consciousness, a handing over or easy passage of ideas and beliefs from one generation to the other.
