How Did Religion Influence Ancient Indian Culture

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Since the beginning of humankind there has always been some sort of religious belief. While there are some that do not believe in some sort of religion, it does not change the fact that religions have had a major influence on every aspect of every culture in some way or another. It has provided a belief of what happens in the death or the afterlife of a person, helped shape empires, and stimulated the arts. Several of the religions today have their own version of death or the afterlife. Ancient India created one of the oldest of the religions followed today, Hinduism. Hinduism belief about death centers around dharma, which means the person will be reincarnated in another form. Alongside dharma is the Law of Karma, it determines one’s physical state in the next life based on their deeds in their past lives. …show more content…

Sometime during the tenth century Benedictine monks devised a more efficient musical notation. These revelations allowed singers to not have to sing from memory alone and they could use songbooks that both words and music written in it. Another breakthrough was polyphony and the use of instruments in the church. The instruments, when used in church, were used to substitute for a human voice, not meant to accompany the singer. Secular music played outside of the church included instruments of all types played in unison. These types of events typically involved dancing if there was no singing included. In the fourteenth century music made another large change that started with Guillaume de Machaut. His Messe de Notre Dame set a precedence for the treatment of the Catholic liturgy for composers in the sixteenth century, such as Palestrina and Johann Sebastian Bach. During this period a couple other things started to happen; a popular type of secular music called madrigal and music written for just instruments alone started to appear

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