1.
Nepal
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Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked central Himalayan country in South Asia. Nepal is divided into 7 provinces and 75 districts and 744 local units including 4 metropolises,13 sub-metropolises,246 municipal councils and 481 village and it has a population of 26.4 million and is the 93rd largest country by area. Bordering China in the north and India in the south, east, Nepal does not border Bangladesh, which is located within only 27 km of its southeastern tip. It neither borders Bhutan due to the Indian state of Sikkim being located in between, Nepal has a diverse geography, including fertile plains, subalpine forested hills, and eight of the worlds ten tallest mountains, including Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Kathmandu is the capital and largest city. It is a nation with Nepali as the official language. The territory of Nepal has a history since the Neolithic age. The name Nepal is first recorded in texts from the Vedic Age, the era which founded Hinduism, in the middle of the first millennium BCE, Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, was born in southern Nepal. Parts of northern Nepal were intertwined with the culture of Tibet, the Kathmandu Valley in central Nepal became known as Nepal proper because of its complex urban civilization. It was the seat of the prosperous Newar confederacy known as Nepal Mandala, the Himalayan branch of the ancient Silk Road was dominated by the valleys traders. The cosmopolitan region developed distinct traditional art and architecture, by the 18th century, the Gorkha Kingdom achieved the unification of Nepal. The Shah dynasty established the Kingdom of Nepal and later formed an alliance with the British Empire, the country was never colonized but served as a buffer state between Imperial China and Colonial India. In the 20th century, Nepal ended its isolation and forged ties with regional powers. Parliamentary democracy was introduced in 1951, but was suspended by Nepalese monarchs in 1960 and 2005. The Nepalese Civil War resulted in the proclamation of a republic in 2008, modern Nepal is a federal secular parliamentary republic. Nepal is a nation, ranking 144th on the Human Development Index in 2016. The country struggles with the transition from a monarchy to a republic and it also suffers from high levels of hunger and poverty. Despite these challenges, Nepal is making progress, with the government declaring its commitment to elevate the nation from least developed country status by 2022
2.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
3.
Hinduism
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Hinduism is a religion, or a way of life, found most notably in India and Nepal. Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, and some practitioners and scholars refer to it as Sanātana Dharma, scholars regard Hinduism as a fusion or synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions, with diverse roots and no founder. This Hindu synthesis started to develop between 500 BCE and 300 CE following the Vedic period, although Hinduism contains a broad range of philosophies, it is linked by shared concepts, recognisable rituals, cosmology, shared textual resources, and pilgrimage to sacred sites. Hindu texts are classified into Shruti and Smriti and these texts discuss theology, philosophy, mythology, Vedic yajna, Yoga, agamic rituals, and temple building, among other topics. Major scriptures include the Vedas and Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, prominent themes in Hindu beliefs include the four Puruṣārthas, the proper goals or aims of human life, namely Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha, karma, samsara, and the various Yogas. Hindu practices include such as puja and recitations, meditation, family-oriented rites of passage, annual festivals. Some Hindus leave their world and material possessions, then engage in lifelong Sannyasa to achieve Moksha. Hinduism prescribes the eternal duties, such as honesty, refraining from injuring living beings, patience, forbearance, self-restraint, Hinduism is the worlds third largest religion, with over one billion followers or 15% of the global population, known as Hindus. The majority of Hindus reside in India, Nepal, Mauritius, the Caribbean, the word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan/Sanskrit word Sindhu, the Indo-Aryan name for the Indus River in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. The term Hindu in these ancient records is a geographical term, the Arabic term al-Hind referred to the people who live across the River Indus. This Arabic term was taken from the pre-Islamic Persian term Hindū. By the 13th century, Hindustan emerged as an alternative name of India. It was only towards the end of the 18th century that European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus. The term Hinduism, then spelled Hindooism, was introduced into the English language in the 18th-century to denote the religious, philosophical, because of the wide range of traditions and ideas covered by the term Hinduism, arriving at a comprehensive definition is difficult. The religion defies our desire to define and categorize it, Hinduism has been variously defined as a religion, a religious tradition, a set of religious beliefs, and a way of life. From a Western lexical standpoint, Hinduism like other faiths is appropriately referred to as a religion, in India the term dharma is preferred, which is broader than the western term religion. Hindu traditionalists prefer to call it Sanatana Dharma, the study of India and its cultures and religions, and the definition of Hinduism, has been shaped by the interests of colonialism and by Western notions of religion. Since the 1990s, those influences and its outcomes have been the topic of debate among scholars of Hinduism, Hinduism as it is commonly known can be subdivided into a number of major currents
4.
Garhwali people
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Garhwali people are an ethno-linguistic group who primarily live in the Garhwal Himalayas of the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand. Any person who has ancestral Garhwali roots or lives in Garhwal and has a Garhwali heritage is called a Garhwali, according to various estimates, there are at least 2.5 million Garhwali migrants living in Delhi and the National Capital Region. The Kingdom of Garhwal was founded by Panwar/Parmar Rajputs nearly 700 years ago at a place called Chandpur Garhi, earlier Garhwal used to have 52 principalities called Garhs. He and his descendants ruled over Garhwal in a line till 1803. For twelve years the Gurkhas ruled the country with a rod of iron, another part taken by British was called British Garhwal and had an area of 5,629 mi2. Garhwal rapidly advanced in material prosperity, two battalions of the Indian army were recruited in the district, which also contained the military cantonment of Lansdowne. Grain and coarse cloth were exported, and salt, borax, livestock and wool were imported, the administrative headquarters were at Pauri, but Srinagar was the largest city. It was an important mart, as was Kotdwara -the terminus of a branch of the Oudh, Garhwal is a holy place of India. The Garhwali language, It is primarily spoken by the Garhwali people who are from the north-western Garhwal Division of the state of Uttarakhand in the Indian Himalayas. Uttarakhandi languages include Garhwali and Kumauni, Garhwali, like Kumauni, has many regional dialects spoken in different places in Uttarakhand. Garhwali is one of the 325 recognised languages of India, spoken by over 2,667,314 people in Tehri Garhwal, Pauri Garhwal, Uttarkashi, Chamoli, Dehradun, and Rudraprayag districts of Uttarakhand. However, due to a number of reasons, Garhwali is one of the languages which is shrinking very rapidly, uNESCOs Atlas of the Worlds Languages in Danger designates Garhwali as a language which is in the unsafe category and requires consistent conservation efforts. Garhwali was the language of the Kingdom of Garhwal since 8th century. Any person who has ancestral Garhwali roots or lives in Garhwal and has a Garhwali heritage is called a Garhwali and they include all those who speak the Garhwali language or any of its numerous dialects. Garhwali people are divided into two castes- Garhwali Brahmin, & Garhwali Rajput, the later Aryans with their languages helped in adding to the vocabulary & had considerable influence in shaping the Garhwali Language. Garhwal was always a sovereign nation under the Garhwali Kings, the Garhwali language is a Central Pahari language belonging to the Northern Zone of Indo-Aryan languages and is native to Garhwal. Garhwali like other languages changed a lot with the course of time, ancient Garhwali was close to Sanskrit being a dialect of it and which was later influenced by Prakrit and the famous Saursheni apabhrasha of Hindi. Garhwali is also spoken by people in parts of India including Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar
5.
North India
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North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indus-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, other states sometimes included are Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Gujarat and West Bengal. North India has been the centre of the Mughal, Delhi Sultanate. The languages that have official status in one or more of the states and union territories located in North India are Hindi, Sanskrit, Urdu, Punjabi, Kashmiri/Koshur, Dogri, different authorities and sources define North India differently. Rajasthan is also included in North Central Culture Zone as well as West Cultural Zone, the Northern Zonal Council is one of the advisory councils, created in 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act to foster inter-state cooperation. It differs from the North Cultural Zone in its inclusion of Delhi, in contrast, the Geological Survey of India included Uttar Pradesh and Delhi in its Northern Region, but excluded Rajasthan and Chandigarh, with a regional headquarters in Lucknow. The Hindu newspaper puts Bihar as well as Uttar Pradesh and Delhi related articles on its North pages, however according to the Government of Bihar official page as well as Indian Zonal Coucil, it is considered to be an Eastern Indian state instead. North Indian states which are entirely above the Tropic of Cancer are Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The term North Indian is sometimes used to people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, often using the term bhaiya in a derogatory sense. In Punjab, people from the region are often referred to as Purabias. Some publications of the Government of Bihar place that state in the part of India. Within Uttar Pradesh itself, the divide between the east and the west is considerable, with the purabiyas often being clubbed with Biharis in the perception of the westerners. One demarcation between northern and southern nations has been the Vindhya mountain range, in centuries past this sometimes formed a border during periods of imperial expansion, such as the one ruled by the Gupta emperor Samudragupta. The Vindhyas also find mention in the narrative of Rishi Agastya as a dividing feature between North and South India, the Manusmṛti also describes the southern limit of Aryavarta as being defined by the Vindhya range. North India lies mainly on continental India, north of peninsular India, towards its north are the Himalayas which define the boundary between the Indian subcontinent and the Tibetan plateau. To its west is the Thar desert, shared between North India and Pakistan and the Aravalli Range, beyond lies the state of Gujarat. The Vindhya mountains are, in some interpretations, taken to be the boundary of North India. The state of Madhya Pradesh has large areas under forest cover, as do Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, North India lies mainly in the north temperate zone of the Earth
6.
Gurkha
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The name may be traced to the medieval Hindu warrior-saint Guru Gorakhnath who has a historic shrine in Gorkha. The word itself derived from Go-Raksha, raksha becoming rakha, rakhawala means protector and is derived from raksha as well. Ethnically, Chhetri or Khas, Thakuri, Gurung and Magar mainly were the Gorkha tribes who united erstwhile Gorkha kingdom, but today, Gorkha soldiers mostly belong to the Gurung, Chhetri, Magar, Rai, Limbu, Sunuwar there is no ethnicity based restriction to join. There are Gurkha military units in the Nepalese, British and the Indian army enlisted in Nepal, United Kingdom and India. Although they meet many of the requirements of Article 47 of Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions regarding mercenaries, Gurkhas are closely associated with the khukuri, a forward-curving Nepalese knife, and have a well known reputation for fearless military prowess. The former Indian Army Chief of Staff Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, once stated that If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or he is a Gurkha. During the Anglo-Nepalese War between the Gorkha Kingdom and the East India Company, the Gorkhali soldiers made an impression on the British and their war cry was and is to this very day, Jai Mahakali, Ayo Gorkhali. In the peace treaty the parties agreed that Gorkhalis could be recruited to serve under contract in the East India Companys army, once more I hear the laughter with which you greeted every hardship. Once more I see you in your bivouacs or about your fires, on forced march or in the trenches, now shivering with wet and cold, now scorched by a pitiless and burning sun. Uncomplaining you endure hunger and thirst and wounds, and at the last your unwavering lines disappear into the smoke, bravest of the brave, most generous of the generous, never had country more faithful friends than you. Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab started recruiting Gurkha soldiers in his army, the elite wing of his Sikh Khalsa Army, the Fauj-i-Khas had one rajman of Gurkhas. The rajman was known for its excellent morale, gallantry, discipline, the well-known Gurkha freedom-fighter Balbhadra Kunwar was an officer in the Gorkha rajman. One of the best battles in which the Gurkhas served was the Battle of Nowshera, even though the Sikhs were losing in the beginning, Maharaja Ranjit Singh launched a decisive charge at the Afghan positions. The Gurkhas climbed the Pir Saibak hill, and together with their Sikh comrades, after the battle, Ranjit Singh personally met and awarded the Gurkhas, and promoted Balbhadra Kunwar into the captain of the regiment. The Gurkhas served also during the Sino-Sikh War, where they were praised for their excellent skirmishing at the Tibetan Hills and they also fought the First Anglo-Sikh War, where the Dogra commanders of the Sikh Khalsa Army, betrayed their forces and delivered battle plans to British. After the Treaty of Lahore, this regiment was added into the Bengal Army, the Anglo-Nepalese war was fought between the Gurkha Kingdom of Nepal and the British East India Company as a result of border disputes and ambitious expansionism of both the belligerent parties. The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Sugauli in 1816, david Ochterlony and the British political agent William Fraser were among the first to recognize the potential of Gurkha soldiers in British service. During the war the British were keen to use defectors from the Gurkha army and his confidence in their loyalty was such that in April 1815 he proposed forming them into a battalion under Lieutenant Ross called the Nasiri regiment
7.
Newar people
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The Newar or Newah are the historical inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley and its surrounding areas in Nepal, and the creators of its historic heritage and civilization. Newars form a linguistic and cultural community of primarily Indo-Aryan and Tibeto-Burman ethnicities following Hinduism and Buddhism with Nepal Bhasa as their common language, Newars have developed a division of labour and a sophisticated urban civilization not seen elsewhere in the Himalayan foothills. Newars have continued their traditions and practices, and pride themselves as the true custodians of the religion, culture. The valley and surrounding territories constituted the former Newar kingdom of the Nepal Mandala, Indo-Aryan immigrants like the Licchavis and Mallas that arrived at different periods eventually merged with the local population by adopting their language and customs. Newar rule in Nepal Mandala ended with its conquest by the Gorkha Kingdom in 1768, Newars are known for their contributions to culture, art and literature, trade, agriculture and cuisine. Today, Newars consistently rank as the most economically, politically and socially advanced community of Nepal, nepals 2011 census ranks Newars as the nations sixth-largest ethnicity/community, with 1,321,933 Newars throughout the country. The terms Nepāl, Newār, Newāl and Nepār are phonetically different forms of the same word, Nepal is the learned form and Newar is the colloquial form. The term Newar referring to inhabitant of Nepal appeared for the first time in an inscription dated 1654 in Kathmandu, italian Jesuit priest Ippolito Desideri who traveled to Nepal in 1721 has written that the natives of Nepal are called Newars. It has been suggested that Nepal may be a sanskritization of Newar, according to another explanation, the words Newar and Newari are vulgarisms arising from the mutation of P to V, and L to R. As a result of the process of dropping the last consonant and lengthening the vowel, Newā for Newār or Newāl. For about a thousand years, the Newar civilization in Central Nepal preserved a microcosm of classical North Indian culture in which Brahmanic, snellgrove and Richardson speak of the direct heritage of pre-Islamic India. The different divisions of Newars had different historical developments, the common identity of Newar was formed in the Kathmandu Valley. Until the conquest of the valley by the Gorkha Kingdom in 1769, so, the history of Newar correlates to the history of the Kathmandu Valley prior to the establishment of the modern state of Nepal. The earliest known history of Newar and the Kathmandu Valley blends with mythology recorded in historical chronicles, one such text, which recounts the creation of the valley, is the Swayambhu Purana. According to this Buddhist scripture, the Kathmandu Valley was a giant lake until the Bodhisattva Manjusri, with the aid of a sword, cut a gap in the surrounding hills. This apocryphal legend is supported by evidence of an ancient lakebed. According to the Swayambhu Purana, Manjusri then established a city called Manjupattan, now called Manjipā, a shrine dedicated to Manjusri is still present in Majipā. No historical documents have been found after this era till the advent of the Gopal era, a genealogy of kings is recorded in a chronicle called Gopalarajavamsavali
8.
Indo-European migrations
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Indo-European migrations were the migrations through which the earliest speakers of the Indo-European languages spread throughout Europe and Asia. Modern knowledge of these migrations is based on data from linguistics, archeology, anthropology, linguistics describes the similarities between various languages, and the linguistic laws at play in the changes in those languages. Recent genetic research has a contribution to the understanding of the historical relations between various historical cultures. The Indo-European languages and cultures spread in various stages, 4200–3000 BCE brought archaic proto-Indo-European into the lower Danube valley, Anatolia, and the Altai region. The Iranian languages spread throughout the steppes with the Scyths and into Iran with the Medes, the Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects. There are about 439 languages and dialects, according to the 2009 Ethnologue estimate and it includes most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, the northern half of the Indian Subcontinent, Sri Lanka and was also predominant in ancient Anatolia. Indo-European languages are spoken by almost 3 billion native speakers, the largest number by far for any recognised language family.7 billion native speakers, several disputed proposals link Indo-European to other major language families. The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstruction of a common ancestor of the Indo-European languages spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. PIE was the first proposed proto-language to be accepted by linguists. Far more work has gone into reconstructing it than any other proto-language, scholars estimate that PIE may have been spoken as a single language around 3500 BCE, though estimates by different authorities can vary by more than a millennium. The most popular hypothesis for the origin and spread of the language is the Kurgan hypothesis, the existence of PIE was first postulated in the 18th century by Sir William Jones, who observed the similarities between Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, and Latin. By the early 20th century, well-defined descriptions of PIE had been developed that are accepted today. The largest developments of the 20th century have been the discovery of Anatolian and Tocharian languages, PIE is thought to have had a complex system of morphology that included inflections, and ablaut. Nouns used a system of declension and verbs used a similarly sophisticated system of conjugation. Relationships to other families, including the Uralic languages, have been proposed. The Indo-Hittite hypothesis postulates a common predecessor for both the Anatolian languages and the other languages, called Indi-Hittite or Indo-Anatolian. According to Kortlandt, Indo-Uralic is the pre-PIE, postulating that Indo-European, yet, Anthony also notes that the North Caucasian communities were southern participants in the steppe world. Archaeological research has unearthed a range of historical cultures which can be related to the spread of the Indo-European languages
9.
Kashmir
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Kashmir is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range. In the first half of the 1st millennium, the Kashmir region became an important centre of Hinduism and later of Buddhism, later still, in the ninth century, in 1339, Shah Mir became the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir, inaugurating the Salatin-i-Kashmir or Swati dynasty. Kashmir was part of the Mughal Empire from 1586 to 1751 and that year, the Sikhs, under Ranjit Singh, annexed Kashmir. The Sanskrit word for Kashmir was, the Nilamata Purana describes the Valleys origin from the waters, a lake called Sati-saras. A popular, but uncertain, local etymology of Kashmira is that it is land desiccated from water, an alternative, but also uncertain, etymology derives the name from the name of the sage Kashyapa who is believed to have settled people in this land. Accordingly, Kashmir would be derived from either kashyapa-mir or kashyapa-meru, the Ancient Greeks called the region Kasperia which has been identified with Kaspapyros of Hecataeus and Kaspatyros of Herodotus. Kashmir is also believed to be the country meant by Ptolemys Kaspeiria, Cashmere is an archaic spelling of present-Kashmir, and in some countries it is still spelled this way. In the Kashmiri language, Kashmir itself is known as Kasheer, the Buddhist Mauryan emperor Ashoka is often credited with having founded the old capital of Kashmir, Shrinagari, now ruins on the outskirts of modern Srinagar. Kashmir was long to be a stronghold of Buddhism, as a Buddhist seat of learning, the Sarvāstivādan school strongly influenced Kashmir. East and Central Asian Buddhist monks are recorded as having visited the kingdom, in the late 4th century CE, the famous Kuchanese monk Kumārajīva, born to an Indian noble family, studied Dīrghāgama and Madhyāgama in Kashmir under Bandhudatta. He later became a translator who helped take Buddhism to China. His mother Jīva is thought to have retired to Kashmir, vimalākṣa, a Sarvāstivādan Buddhist monk, travelled from Kashmir to Kucha and there instructed Kumārajīva in the Vinayapiṭaka. Karkota Empire was a powerful Hindu empire, which originated in the region of Kashmir and it was founded by Durlabhvardhana during the lifetime of Harshavardhan. The dynasty marked the rise of Kashmir as a power in South Asia, avanti Varman ascended the throne of Kashmir on 855 A. D. establishing the Utpala dynasty and ending the rule of Karkota dynasty. According to tradition, Adi Shankara visited the pre-existing Sarvajñapīṭha in Kashmir in the late 8th century or early 9th century CE, the Madhaviya Shankaravijayam states this temple had four doors for scholars from the four cardinal directions. The southern door of Sarvajna Pitha was opened by Adi Shankara, abhinavagupta was one of Indias greatest philosophers, mystics and aestheticians. He was also considered an important musician, poet, dramatist, exegete, theologian, and logician – a polymathic personality who exercised strong influences on Indian culture
Nepal
India
Hinduism
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