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In ancient times, the *INDIGENOUS people of India were made up of a lot of different religious groups. The first main religious group in India was Hinduism and it had many followers. The Hindu and Urdu languages were among the largest spoken, as well as English which came from the British colonial rule. One of the countries oldest traditions is *ANIMISM (believing spirits lived in nature) and the people have followed a strict *CASTE system. -
The Muslim *invasion of India during the 1550-1600s had a large impact on religion and the arts and sciences. The *Mughal Empire was the largest of the states and had spread over a large portion of the country by the late 1600s with many Mughal leaders following Muslim rather than Hindu beliefs. In addition, science, mathematics, medicine and the arts grew. Also, the decimal system that we use today in mathematics was first developed during this time. -
Today India has many *DIVERSE ethnicities that blend together and the people speak about 12 different languages. Hindu and English are the second languages spoken by most of the people of India. As far as religion, the Hindu religion makes up about three fourths of the population, followed by the Muslim belief and then Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism or Jainism. People are born into social groups called *CASTES, each group has their own occupations, food and customs.