Sources and references

Every page carries its own source list at the foot of the article, named. This page covers the standing references behind the site as a whole, and the rules about what counts.

What counts as a source

• Primary texts, cited by chapter and by translation. Different translations of the same verse can differ enough to change an argument, so the translation is always named.
• Peer-reviewed scholarship, and academic reference works.
• Government and institutional records — Geographical Indications registrations, Archaeological Survey of India documentation, census material.
• A named practitioner or teacher, identified, where the subject is living practice rather than text. For several subjects this is the only acceptable source.
• Printed panchang and established date computations for festival dates, with the location the computation was made for.

What does not count

• Another website that also does not cite anything.
• An AI model's output. It is used to draft and to structure, never as evidence.
• "Tradition says", with no tradition named.
• A claim that appears in twenty places online, all of which appear to be copies of each other. This is the most common trap in writing about India, and repetition is not corroboration.

Festival dates

Dates are computed for a stated location and time zone and checked against a printed panchang before publication. Where a festival falls on different days under different reckonings — most often Smarta and Vaishnava observance of the same festival, or the north's Purnimanta month against the south's Amanta — the page gives both and does not call one correct.

Telling us we are wrong

Corrections are welcome and are made in the open, with a date. Write to hello@indianculture.com, or use the contact page. If you can point at a source, that speeds it up considerably.