Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb

''Ganga–Jamuni Tehzeeb'' ( Hindustani for ''Ganges–Yamuna Culture''), also spelled as ''Ganga-Jamni Tehzeeb'' or just Hindustani Tehzeeb, is the high culture that arose in the Yamuna-Gangetic plains of northern India, the Hindustan region, a syncretic fusion of Hindu Yamuna-Gangetic society with the Islamic Persian culture. Quote: " Ganga-Jamni may be translated as “two-colored” or “mixed” and is often used as an attribute of the composite north Indian culture, especially Indo-Muslim culture."Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb: Syncretic ethos in weaves and crafts
The Hindu, 18 July 2018. With the rise of Persianate control over the subcontinent, the ''tehzeeb'' also spread, especially along the wider Indo-Gangetic Plains. Contemporarily, Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb conveys either the syncretic Indo-Persian civilization or the specific Hindu-Muslim brotherhood.

The culture arose following the Persianate control of the Gangetic plains, especially along the tributary Yamuna which includes Delhi from where the native tongue( Khariboli) of which evolved into Hindavi or Hindustani, a prestige sociolect of the cultured, eventually becoming the basis for a lingua franca on the plains and beyond before standardization into Hindi and Urdu. The ''tehzeeb'' includes a particular style of speech, literature, recreation, costume, manners, worldview, art, architecture and cuisine which more or less pervades the Hindustan region of the plains, Northern South Asia as a whole and the old city of Hyderabad in South India.

Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, is a poetic Awadhi phrase for the distinctive and syncretic Hindu-Muslim culture, is reflected in the fused spiritual connotations, forms, symbols, aesthetics, crafts and weaves, for example, Kashmiri Muslim carpet makers feature Durga in their patterns, Muslim sculptors making idols of Durga, and Hindu craftsmen create the Muharram tazia.Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb: Syncretic ethos in weaves and crafts
The Hindu, 18 July 2018.Understanding Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb: How diverse is the "Indian multiculturalism"
Daily News and Analysis, 15 June 2014.

Etymology

''Ganga-Jamuni'' is a Hindustani term that means, literally, "mixed," "composite," "alloy,"; ''Tehzeeb'' is an Urdu: تہذيب tahẕīb) meaning civilization, culture, politeness, or progress/development.

Language and Literature

With the Islamic conquest of the Indo-Gangetic plains, the city of Delhi and its surrounding region along the river Yamuna became the political and cultural capital of the Persianate dynasties. Delhi came to prominence because of its strategic location, as the west of which was the open Indus plains and east of which the populous Gangetic plains. The local Khariboli of Delhi evolved into Hindavi or Hindustani, a sociolect of the descendants of the conquerors, the nobility, the courtiers and hence the cultured. The official language of these empires was Dari Persian from Persia and the usual mother tongue of these upper echelons was an Indian language albeit with heavy Persian influence, hence Hindavi or Hindi was the word used which still just means ''Indian'' in Persian. The Turkic word ''Urdu'' instead connotated as spoken by the camps and plebs. As the empire enlarged, Persianised Khariboli or ''Hindavi'' and ''Hindustani'' as was called became the basis for the '' lingua franca'' different Indo-Aryan speakers on the plains and beyond used to communicate. There are many Hindustani dialects that arose, Deccani being the major one, a form of Khariboli that migrated from the banks of Delhi and mixed with Marathi, Telugu and Kannada in the Deccan. It was only during the British Raj that the Persianised Hindi or Hindustani came to be specifically called ''Urdu'' as was later standardized so as to distance the Muslim associated upper class language with Hindi and Hindustani for it implied 'of the Hindu'.

Literary tradition in Hindustani began in North with the acceptance of Deccani Hindi as a medium of literary exchange in the South. The first Deccani author was Khwaja Bandanawaz Gesudaraz Muhammad Hasan. Bahamani Sultanate were the pioneers, writers such as Bande Nawaz, Shah Miranji and Shah Buran. Sultan Muhammad Quli Qutub Shah of Golconda, Sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur, and Wali Mohammad Wali were important writers in Deccani. Influenced by this, Urdu Prose and Poetry, as is now called also began in the Hindustan region, chief writers being, Ghalib, Khaliq, Zamir, Aatish, Nasikh, Zauq, Momin and Shefta. Malik Muhammad Jayasi's ''Padmavat'' in Awadhi and the Works of Kabir Das. An age of tremendous integration between the Hindu and the Islamic elements in the Arts with the advent of many Muslim Bhakti poets like Abdul Rahim Khan-I-Khana who was a minister to Mughal emperor Akbar and was also a great devotee of Krishna. The Nirgun School of Bhakti Poetry was also tremendously secular in nature and its propounders like Kabir and Guru Nanak had a large number of followers irrespective of caste or religion.Karen Pechilis Prentiss (2014), The Embodiment of Bhakti, Oxford University Press, , pages 15-16

One of the best examples of syncretic faith is captured in one of Kabir's doha (verse), ''"some chant Allah, some chant Ram, Kabir is a worshiper of true love and hence reveres both."''

Etiquette and Costume

Awadh has a special place in the etiquette of this culture along with Delhi and Hyderabad; infact Lucknowi Hindi still retains the polished and polite language of Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb. Delhi Sultanate, Bahamani Sultanate, Deccan Sultanates, Mughal Empire, Nawabs of Awadh, Bhopal, Carnatic and the Nizams of Hyderabad were forerunners of this ''tehzeeb''. The greeting ''Aadaab'' from the Arabic word آداب, meaning ''respect and politeness'', is a hand gesture and expression used in the Indian subcontinent for greeting, especially by Muslims to non-Muslims though not necessarily. It is associated with the Ganga-Jamuni culture because it origined out of a necessity for a more non-religious greeting from the Arabic Assalamu Alaikum and Sanskrit Namaste.

Sherwani, Jama, Topi, Kurta, Dupatta, Salwar, Kameez, Shawl, Pajama and Socks are few of the major attire still present in India.

Recreation and Cuisine

Art and Architecture

See also

* Hindu–Islamic relations
* Hindu-Muslim unity
* Opposition to the partition of India
* Phool Walon Ki Sair
* Din-i Ilahi
* Inclusivism, concept that all religions are at least partially true and none is untrue
* Sheilaism, a term for an individual selecting strands of multiple religions
* Folk religion, any flexible vernacular religion without a rigid doctrine
* Interfaith dialogue, constructive interaction among various religions
* Religious pluralism, tolerance for diversity of religions in a society
* Religious tolerance, respecting and upholding others' right to behold religion
* Multiple religious belonging, a phenomenon that a person can belong to multiple religion is specially found among more tolerant societies such as Indian and Chinese origin religions
* La Convivencia, a similar dynamic in mediaeval Islamic Spain

References

{{India topics

Hinduism in India
Indian culture