Meaning Of Culture

     The word "culture" nowadays is used in so many peripheral contexts that its original meaning has been submerged. For example, we have a "popular culture", by which is meant the collective human intellectual achievements. There is a "consumerist culture", which is taken by some as a determinant of the status of a person along with his educational success and/or financial strength. To be an integral part of this culture, one has to have a higher spending power, which yields a greater availability of materialistic pleasures and facilities. We also hear of an "emerging culture", which reflects the attitudes and the behavioral characteristics of a particular social group. An emerging drug or pub culture among the youngsters of today is an example. Modern colleges and universities take pride in their "competitive culture" that helps to bring out the best in students and aid their intellectual development. However, none of these descriptions highlight the essential features of the true meaning of "culture".

The concept of culture:

      Intellectuals and thinkers of the world have defined and analysed "culture" in their own way. Prof. Edward Burnett Tylor, a famous 19th century English anthropologist, gave one of the first clear definitions of culture in the West. He defined culture as a complex collection of "knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society".1 According to Matthew Arnold, a poet of the Victorian era, culture means "contact with the best which has been thought and said in the world".2 He considered culture as a "study of perfection". Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, described culture as the outcome and basis of training, establishment and development of physical and mental potentials. Sri Rajgopalacharya, the first Governor General of British India, defined it as the collective expression of the thoughts, speeches and deeds of the learned, talented or creative members of a society or a nation. In the 1950s, A. L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn collected over a hundred definitions of culture.

What is the Vedic view on the concept of culture? Pritibhushan Chatterji in Knowledge, Culture and Man says that culture "means something cultivated or ripened… ‘Culture’ also refers to some kind of refinement which is born of education and enlightenment."5 This seems to be largely in agreement with the Vedic interpretation of culture. The Vedic term for culture is sanskrati, which originates from the word samskara.6 Samskara in a linguistic sense implies the process of refinement and purification. Thus, sanskrati means the assimilated treasure of the methods that: (1) purify and uplift the human life; (2) teach us the art of living happily with others, the etiquettes of civilization and the ethics of social benevolence; or (3) encompass those values and practices which effectuate refinement and happy progress of the internal and external aspects of people’s life and instil sanskaras in their conduct along with natural enlightenment and strengthening of their mental and physical talents.

Characteristics of culture:

      William Haviland explains in Cultural Anthropology that there are four basic characteristics of culture.7 Culture is shared by a group of people (that constitutes a society); culture is learned rather than biologically inherited from parents; culture is based on symbols such as a cross, an image, an object of worship, etc; and culture is an integration of economic, political and social aspects.

      Culture has several other characteristics too. It is neither the outcome of individual attempts nor the impact of a particular phase of history but evolves through the ages. It is an invaluable inheritance of uncountable experiences, experiments and endeavours. People, families, societies and civilisations develop; change or end with the flow of time but culture is not built or changed in one era. It is nurtured in the infinite lap of time, age after age. It enfolds innumerable phases of rise, fall, obstructions, destructions, reconstructions, trends and tides of the social, national and global history, and geographical, economical, political scientific, artistic, psychological and spiritual developments.

Reference: http://www.akhandjyoti.org

To know the hindu culture and  science behind  it kindly refer Hindu Dharma: Varna Dharma For Universal Well-Being