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date: 28 March 2025

India 

Source:
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance
Author(s):
Rustom BharuchaRustom Bharucha

Any attempt to encapsulate the prodigious diversities of the Indian subcontinent has to take into account its multilingualism, consisting of eighteen constitutionally recognized languages from at least four families of languages—Indo-European, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Austro-Asiatic—and eight scripts. India also has numerous religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, that originated in India, along with religions from outside the country like Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism, which have been indigenized over centuries. Above all, India's vast population of more than 1.3 billion people incorporates numerous communities, castes, sects, and indigenous peoples, all of which have contributed to the scale and range of its diverse cultural legacies.... ...

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