Living Culture: Indian traditions and customs

Why do some Indians touch the feet of elders? Why are shoes removed before entering certain homes and sacred places? What is the difference between a bindi and a tilak? Why do people join their hands in greeting?

Questions like these are often asked as though there must be one answer for all of India.

There usually is not.

India’s customs vary across regions, languages, religions, communities and families. A practice familiar in one household may be uncommon in another. Something that is religious in one setting may function mainly as etiquette, identity or family tradition somewhere else.

Ashok K. Dutt and colleagues, writing about regional cultural identities in India, show how language and religion help mark distinct cultural regions across the country.

So on IndianCulture, “Indian tradition” does not mean “every Indian does this.”

A better starting point is to ask who practises a custom, where and when it is practised, what practitioners say it means, and what the sources actually tell us.

One practice can have several meanings

Indian traditions do not always fit neatly into categories such as religious, social or cultural.

Lighting a lamp may be part of worship, a festival, or a household routine. Flowers may be offered to a deity, used to welcome someone, or simply decorate a celebration. Touching an elder’s feet may have religious associations while also serving as a family expression of respect.

The same outward action can therefore carry different meanings.

Traditional explanations, historical evidence and scientific explanations also answer different kinds of questions. An old practice does not need a modern scientific explanation to make it meaningful. If a claim involves neuroscience, medicine, physics or another scientific field, it should be supported by scientific evidence.

For a broader set of everyday “Why do Indians…?” questions, see the Why do Indians…? series.

Indian does not mean identical

A Tamil Hindu family, Punjabi Sikh family, Gujarati Jain family, Bengali Muslim household and Goan Catholic family can all be Indian while following different traditions.

Even families from the same region and religious community may practise customs differently. Some customs cross community boundaries; others remain closely associated with a particular religion, region or family.

Context matters more than a universal rule. A shared outward form does not always imply a shared religious meaning.

Touching feet and showing respect

In many Hindu families, a younger person may touch the feet of a parent, grandparent, teacher or other respected elder and receive a blessing in return. The specific act is commonly described as charan sparsh. Pranam is broader: Sanskrit dictionaries use praṇāma for bowing, obeisance or respectful salutation, rather than only for touching feet.

How often families practise charan sparsh varies. Some do it regularly; others mainly at weddings, festivals or important family moments.

Read: Why do Indians touch feet?

Namaste and namaskar

Namaste is a Sanskrit salutation. The expression is built from namas — bow, obeisance or reverential salutation — and te, “to you”. Monier-Williams gives the relevant sense of namas, while the Rigveda preserves an early namas te construction in direct address.

In everyday life, joined palms can accompany namaste or namaskar as a greeting or gesture of respect. Usage varies by region, language, setting and community, so the gesture should not be treated as the only “Indian greeting”.

Removing shoes

Many visitors encounter footwear rules in Indian homes and sacred spaces, but the exact expectation depends on the place. Rather than turning a varied practice into a universal religious rule here, our dedicated guide explains when shoes are removed, what different settings require and how to follow local etiquette.

Read: Why remove shoes in temples and other sacred spaces?

For a private home, the simplest approach is usually to notice what the hosts do or ask politely.

Bindi, tilak and sindoor

A bindi and a tilak are not simply two names for the same mark, and the clearest difference between them is who wears which. Pew Research Center's 2021 survey of religion in India found that 84 per cent of Hindu women said they wear a bindi, and 53 per cent of Hindu men said they wear a tilak. Pew defines the bindi as a decorative forehead mark worn by Hindu women, and the tilak as a forehead mark typically worn by Hindu men as a sign of piety; a tilak can also identify a particular Hindu tradition.

Neither is confined to one community, and the bindi least of all. In the same survey 29 per cent of Sikh women, 22 per cent of Christian women and 18 per cent of Muslim women also said they wear one — as Pew notes, even though the practice is not typically counted as part of those traditions. Nor is either universal among Hindus: in the Northeast, 59 per cent of Hindu women reported wearing a bindi and 21 per cent of Hindu men a tilak, against 84 and 53 nationally.

The material used is another matter. Kumkum, chandan (sandalwood paste) and vibhuti (sacred ash) may be used in different contexts. Vibhuti has a particularly strong association with Shiva and Shaiva practice; K. V. Singh treats bhasma in his section on Hindu ritual marks, while R. Nagaswamy documents sacred ash extensively in the Tamil Shaiva Tevaram tradition.

Sindoor is different again. In many Hindu communities it is associated with marriage and is characteristically placed in the parting of the hair. Both K. V. Singh and Devaleena Das describe this marital association and placement.

Diyas, turmeric and ceremonies

Some traditions already have deeper guides on IndianCulture.

The diya guide looks at why lamps appear in worship, festivals and household practice. The turmeric guide explores why haldi appears in ceremonies as well as everyday life.

For Hindu wedding practice, see Why do Hindu weddings circle the fire?. The fire ritual belongs in its specific religious and ceremonial context rather than being presented as something every Indian wedding follows.

Names carry their own histories and conventions too. See Why Indian names work differently for naming patterns, family names, regional variation and the limits of trying to infer identity from a name alone.

Similar words can belong to different traditions

Shared vocabulary can be misleading if it is assumed to carry exactly the same meaning everywhere.

Prasad, for example, is especially familiar in Hindu worship, but Sikh tradition has the specific institution of karah prasad. The Sikh Rehat Maryada gives a formal procedure for its preparation and distribution, and Michael Hawley discusses karah prasad as part of the institutional life of the gurdwara.

Jain traditions likewise include forms described as puja and aarti. John E. Cort documents both prescribed and lived forms of image worship among Svetambara Murtipujak Jains in Patan, and his later essay on Jain worship covers temple and domestic devotional practice.

The point is not that these practices are interchangeable. It is the opposite: familiar words must be understood inside the tradition using them.

For Hindu theology, doctrine and scriptural interpretation, see Religion and philosophy in India. For deities referred to across the Hindu material, see the Hindu gods guide. For festival-specific practice, see Festivals.

Food traditions have their own context

Eating with the fingers is normal in many Indian food traditions, but what is polite depends on the food, household and setting. A meal built around roti is handled differently from rice and dal, dosa, rasam or sambar.

The fuller discussion belongs with the cuisine itself rather than in a general traditions overview.

See Food & Cuisine.

Traditions are lived

Traditions are inherited, but people also negotiate them in everyday life.

Families preserve some customs and stop others. A practice can remain important while its meaning changes. Someone may wear a bindi devotionally, culturally or simply because she likes it. A family may observe one custom daily and another only at a wedding or festival.

That does not make the practice less real. It reminds us that culture is carried by living people rather than preserved unchanged in a display case.

Four questions to ask about any Indian custom

Who practises it?

Is the custom mainly associated with a religion, region, community or family, or is it shared more widely? “Indian” is often too broad an answer.

Where and when is it practised?

The same action can mean something different at home, at a place of worship, during a wedding or at a festival.

What do practitioners say it means?

Lived tradition matters. Two families can practise the same custom for different reasons, and neither family automatically speaks for all of India.

What does the source actually tell us?

A scripture can tell us what a religious tradition teaches. A ritual manual can describe a prescribed practice. Historical or ethnographic evidence can show how a community practised something in a particular place or period. Contemporary observation can show what people do today.

Those questions are connected, but not interchangeable.