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  • Indian elephant (mammal)
    The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) weighs about 5,500 kg and has a shoulder height of up to 3.5 metres. The Asian elephant includes three subspecies: the Indian, or mainland (E. m. indicus), the Sumatran (E. m. sumatranus), and the Sri Lankan (E. m. maximus). African elephants have much larger ears, which are used to dissipate body......
  • Indian Emperour, The (play by Dryden)
    ...between love and honour and its lovely heroines before whose charms the blustering heroes sank down in awed submission. In the spring of 1665 Dryden had his own first outstanding success with The Indian Emperour, a play that was a sequel to The Indian Queen....
  • Indian Equatorial Countercurrent (ocean current)
    ...is very strong and is definable year-round. The Atlantic Equatorial Countercurrent is strongest off the coast of Ghana (Africa), where it is known as the Guinea Current. The countercurrent of the Indian Ocean flows only during the northern winter and only south of the equator....
  • Indian Evidence Act (United Kingdom [1872])
    act passed by the British Parliament in 1872 that set forth the rules of evidence admissible in Indian courts and that had far-reaching consequences for the traditional systems of caste government in India. Since ancient times, the way of resolving intracaste disputes had been by discussing the grievances in open meetings of the caste council. All information that might possibl...
  • Indian Express (Indian newspaper)
    act passed by the British Parliament in 1872 that set forth the rules of evidence admissible in Indian courts and that had far-reaching consequences for the traditional systems of caste government in India. Since ancient times, the way of resolving intracaste disputes had been by discussing the grievances in open meetings of the caste council. All information that might possibl...
  • Indian field mouse (rodent)
    ...mouse, which can produce up to 14 litters per year (1 to 12 offspring per litter), there is little information about the reproductive biology of most species. In the deserts of India, the little Indian field mouse (M. booduga) bears from 1 to 13 young per litter and breeds throughout the year. In Southeast Asia, the fawn-coloured mouse (M.......
  • Indian fig (plant)
    ...South America. In the Northern Hemisphere it is the most northern-ranging cactus. The most cold-hardy forms are small, some with joints only 2.5–5 cm (1–2 inches) long. In contrast, O. ficus-indica (or O. megacantha), the commonly cultivated prickly pear of Mexico, is treelike, reaching 5 metres (16 feet), with a woody trunk and joints 30–50 cm (12–20.....
  • Indian flapshell turtle (reptile)
    ...though mostly at low elevations and in waterways. Softshell turtles (family Trionychidae) have their greatest diversity in Asia and occur in most waters, from tiny ponds to large rivers. The Indian and Burmese flapshell turtles (genus Lissemys) are ubiquitous in slow-moving streams and rice paddies. Their mud colouring and relatively small size (carapaces up......
  • Indian flying fox (mammal)
    ...pubic nipples, which the infant may hold in its mouth when its mother flies. The infants are nourished by milk for a period of about five or six weeks in many small bats and for five months in the Indian flying fox (Pteropus giganteus). By two months of age, most smaller bats have been flying and foraging for three or four weeks and have achieved adult size....
  • Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (United States [1988])
    ...was not compelling enough to abrogate tribal sovereignty. Gaming could thus take place on reservations in states that did not expressly forbid gambling or lotteries. The U.S. Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988; the act differentiated between various forms of gambling (i.e., bingo, slot machines, and card games) and the regulations that would obtain for each. It also......
  • Indian gavial (reptile species)
    (Gavialis gangeticus), an exceptionally long and narrow-snouted crocodilian classified as the sole species in the separate family Gavialidae (order Crocodilia). The gavial inhabits the rivers of northern India and Nepal. Like other crocodilians, it reproduces by means of hard-shelled eggs laid in nests built by the female. It is distinguished by its long, very slender, and sharp-toothed ja...
  • Indian gerbil (rodent)
    ...burrows of the great gerbil sometimes weaken embankments in western Asia, where it also damages crops. Although these rodents primarily eat seeds, roots, nuts, green plant parts, and insects, the Indian gerbil (Tatera indica) also eats eggs and young birds. Gerbils are active throughout the year, but in regions where winters are cold and snow is usual, they may......
  • Indian glassfish (fish)
    The genus Chanda includes most of the glassfishes. Three are familiar to home aquarists: C. ranga (or C. lala), sometimes called Indian glassfish, a popular Asian species 5 cm (2 inches) long with blue-edged fins; C. buruensis, a 5-centimetre Indonesian species; and C. nama, a 10-centimetre fish of India and Asia. The name glassfish is also given to certain......
  • Indian goods (decorative arts)
    in 17th- and 18th-century Europe, any of a vast variety of furniture, paper hangings, textiles, paintings, and enamels that were being imported from South and East Asia into Europe. The imported goods were not limited, as the term would seem to imply, to goods imported from India, which in fact constituted only a very small proportion of the trade. Although a variety of objects had been imported i...
  • Indian grass (plant)
    (species Sorghastrum nutans), tall perennial forage grass of the family Poaceae and one of the important constituents of the North American tall grass prairie. It bears narrow, greatly branched flower clusters. Each yellow spikelet is fringed with white hairs, giving the plant a silver-and-gold appearance. It is a close relative of S. elliottii and S. secundum....
  • Indian Health Service (United States agency)
    (species Sorghastrum nutans), tall perennial forage grass of the family Poaceae and one of the important constituents of the North American tall grass prairie. It bears narrow, greatly branched flower clusters. Each yellow spikelet is fringed with white hairs, giving the plant a silver-and-gold appearance. It is a close relative of S. elliottii and S. secundum.......
  • Indian hemp (genus Apocynum)
    (species Apocynum cannabinum), North American plant of the dogbane family Apocynaceae (order Gentianales). It is a branched perennial that grows up to 1.5 m (5 feet) tall and has smooth opposite leaves and small greenish white flowers. Indians used the fibres from the stem to make bags, mats, nets, and cordage. Its milky juice, or latex, yields rubber, and the dried roots of Indian hemp an...
  • Indian hemp (plant)
    (Crotalaria juncea), plant of the pea family (Fabaceae, or Leguminosae) or its fibre, one of the bast fibre group. The plant is also cultivated in many tropical countries as a green manure crop that is plowed under to fertilize soil. The sunn plant is not a true hemp. It is probably native to the Indian subcontinent, where it has been cultivated since prehistoric times. It was introduced t...
  • Indian hemp (plant)
    (species Cannabis sativa), plant of the family Cannabaceae and its fibre, one of the bast fibre group. The plant is also grown for its seed, which contains about 30 percent oil, and for the drugs marijuana and hashish derived from its leaves and blossoms....
  • Indian hog deer (mammal)
    ...after mating. These and the specialized sexual displays seem to be a consequence of this species’ tightly clustered territories on the mating grounds. Another pattern occurs in the normally solitary Indian hog deer (Cervus porcinus); as many as 20 or 30 aggregate loosely in a certain area, then females and males leave in pairs and usually remain together until they have mated. Mat...
  • Indian horse chestnut (plant)
    Japanese horse chestnut (A. turbinata) is as tall as the European species but is distinctive for its remarkably large leaves, up to 60 cm (2 feet) across. The Indian horse chestnut (A. indica), with slender, pointed leaflets, has attractive feathery flower spikes with a bottlebrush effect. Red horse chestnut (A. × carnea), a hybrid of A.......
  • Indian Independence Act (United Kingdom [1947])
    Britain’s Parliament passed in July 1947 the Indian Independence Act, ordering the demarcation of the dominions of India and Pakistan by midnight of Aug. 14–15, 1947, and dividing within a single month the assets of the world’s largest empire, which had been integrated in countless ways for more than a century. Racing the deadline, two boundary commissions worked desperately t...
  • Indian Institute of Technology (institution, Delhi, India)
    Britain’s Parliament passed in July 1947 the Indian Independence Act, ordering the demarcation of the dominions of India and Pakistan by midnight of Aug. 14–15, 1947, and dividing within a single month the assets of the world’s largest empire, which had been integrated in countless ways for more than a century. Racing the deadline, two boundary commissions worked desperately t...
  • Indian Institute of Technology (institution, Kharagpur, India)
    Britain’s Parliament passed in July 1947 the Indian Independence Act, ordering the demarcation of the dominions of India and Pakistan by midnight of Aug. 14–15, 1947, and dividing within a single month the assets of the world’s largest empire, which had been integrated in countless ways for more than a century. Racing the deadline, two boundary commissions worked desperately t...
  • Indian Institute of Technology (institution, Kānpur, India)
    Britain’s Parliament passed in July 1947 the Indian Independence Act, ordering the demarcation of the dominions of India and Pakistan by midnight of Aug. 14–15, 1947, and dividing within a single month the assets of the world’s largest empire, which had been integrated in countless ways for more than a century. Racing the deadline, two boundary commissions worked desperately t...
  • Indian Journal (American newspaper)
    ...in 1849 by the Methodist Episcopal Church under contract to the Creek Indian Council), remains active as a government institution. The state’s oldest newspaper, the Indian Journal (founded 1876 as a tribal organ in Muskogee), is published in Eufaula. The Eufaula Dam (1964) on the Canadian River impounds one of the world’s largest man-made lakes, cove...
  • Indian jujube (tree)
    The Indian, or cottony, jujube (Z. mauritiana) differs from the common jujube in having leaves that are woolly beneath instead of smooth. The fruits are smaller and not so sweet....
  • Indian kapok (fibre)
    Indian kapok, floss from the simal cotton tree (Bombax malabarica), native to India, has many of the qualities of the Java type but is more brownish yellow in colour and less resilient. Immersed in water, it supports only 10 to 15 times its own weight....
  • Indian King Tavern (tavern, Haddonfield, New Jersey)
    ...Longfellow in his Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863). She lived to be 82, and her personal belongings are displayed in Greenfield Hall, headquarters of the Haddonfield Historical Society. The Indian King Tavern, where the New Jersey Legislature met in 1777 and which was a station of the Underground Railroad for runaway slaves prior to the American Civil War, was made a historic site in......
  • Indian lac insect (insect)
    There are several lac insects, some of which secrete highly pigmented wax. The Indian lac insect Laccifer lacca is important commercially. It is found in tropical or subtropical regions on banyan and other plants. The females are globular in form and live on twigs in cells of resin created by exudations of lac. Sometimes twigs become coated to a thickness of 1.3 to 3.4 cm (0.5 to 1.3......
  • Indian languages
    languages spoken in the Indian subcontinent. The languages of the region are generally classified as belonging to the following families: Indo-European (the Indo-Iranian branch in particular), Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic (Muṇḍā in particular), and Sino-Tibetan. Fourteen languages are mentioned in the constitution of India: Hindi, Urdū, Punjābī, Bengali, O...
  • Indian law (India)
    the legal practices and institutions of India. The general history of law in India is a well-documented case of reception as well as of grafting. Foreign laws have been “received” into the Indian subcontinent—for example, in the demand by the Hindus of Goa for Portuguese civil law; and the enactment by independent India of statutes such as the Estate Duty Act (1953), the Copy...
  • Indian Liberal Federation (political party, India)
    in full Valangiman Sankarana-rayana Srinivasa Sastri liberal Indian statesman and founder of the Indian Liberal Federation, who served his country under British colonial rule in many important posts at home and abroad....
  • Indian licorice (plant)
    (Abrus precatorius), plant of the pea family (Fabaceae), found in tropical regions. The hard, red and black seeds are attractive and are strung into necklaces and rosaries in India and other tropical areas, though they are highly poisonous. The seeds are also used as a unit of weight (ratti), equivalent to about one or two grains Troy, in India....
  • Indian literature
    writings of the Indian subcontinent, produced there in a variety of languages, including Sanskrit, Prākrit, Pāli, Bengali, Bihārī, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi, Rajāsthānī, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, and Sindhi....
  • Indian literature
    the traditional oral and written literatures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. These include ancient hieroglyphic and pictographic writings of Middle America as well as an extensive set of folktales, myths, and oral histories that were transmitted for centuries by storytellers and that live on in the language works of many contemporary American Indian writers. For a fur...
  • Indian mackerel (fish genus)
    Other fishes known as mackerel and belonging to the family Scombridae include the Indian mackerels (Rastrelliger), which are rather stout, commercially valuable Indo-Australian fishes up to 38 cm long, and the frigate mackerels (Auxis), which are small, elongated fishes found worldwide and distinguished by a corselet of enlarged scales around the shoulder region that extend along......
  • Indian mallow (plant)
    any of various plants with soft, velvety leaves, particularly Abutilon theophrasti (sometimes A. avicennae), commonly known as Indian mallow, an annual, hairy plant of the hibiscus, or mallow, family (Malvaceae). Native to southern Asia, A. theophrasti is cultivated in northern China for its fibre and is widely naturalized in warmer regions of North America, where it is often ...
  • Indian meal moth (insect)
    ...moth (Pyralis farinalis) caterpillars are white with black heads and live in silken tubes that they spin in such grains as cereals, meal, and flour stored while damp or in damp places. The Indian meal moth (Plodia interpunctella; see photograph) originated in Europe but is now widespread throughout most of the world. The green or white larvae attack flour, grain, dried fruit,......
  • Indian Melodies (work by Commuck)
    ...and marching bands. American Indians began publishing their own hymnals for use in Christian worship during the first half of the 19th century. Some of these books—such as Indian Melodies, published in 1845 by the Narragansett composer Thomas Commuck—present hymn tunes composed in European notation by Native American musicians with texts in English. Other....
  • Indian mongoose (mammal)
    ...10 species of the genus Herpestes, among which are the Egyptian mongoose, or ichneumon (H. ichneumon), of Africa and southern Europe and the Indian gray mongoose (H. edwardsii), made famous as Rikki-tikki-tavi in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Books (1894 and 1895). The meerkat (...
  • Indian monsoon (meteorology)
    The Indian monsoon...
  • Indian moth (insect)
    ...including A. polyphemus, are sometimes used as a source of commercial silk; e.g., A. assama for muga silk; the Chinese oak silkworm, A. pernyi, for shantung silk; and the Indian moth, A. paphia, for tussah silk. A Southeast Asian silk-producing species is the large atlas moth (Attacus atlas), whose wingspread often exceeds 25 cm (10 inches). The......
  • Indian Museum (museum, Calcutta, India)
    in Calcutta, oldest museum in India and one of the most comprehensive in the Orient; its collections depict the cultural history of India from prehistoric to Muslim times. The present building, opened in 1875, comprises sections devoted to geology, zoology, industry, archaeology, art, and ethnology. The coin room contains the largest collection of Indian coins in the world....
  • Indian music (arts)
    Much of music outside the West has entirely different aesthetic aims; the music of the Hindu world, best known to the West through the classical music of India, provides an example. Indian music always has had strong ties with mythology and religion and thus produced an art that is as different from Western music as Hinduism is from Christianity. It achieves unity through similarity rather than......
  • Indian mustard (plant)
    ...leaves and swollen leaf stems of mustard plants are also used, as greens, or potherbs. The principal types are white, or yellow, mustard (Sinapis alba), a plant of Mediterranean origin; and brown, or Indian, mustard (Brassica juncea), which is of Himalayan origin. The latter species has almost entirely replaced the formerly used black mustard (Brassica nigra), which was......
  • Indian Mutiny (Indian history)
    (1857–58), widespread but unsuccessful rebellion against British rule in India begun by Indian troops (sepoys) in the service of the British East India Company. It began in Meerut and then spread to Delhi, Āgra, Cawnpore, and Lucknow....
  • Indian myna (bird)
    ...orangish bill and legs. In the wild it chuckles and shrieks; caged, it learns to imitate human speech far better than its chief rival in mimicry, the gray parrot. The common, or Indian, mynah (Acridotheres tristis) is about 20 cm long, black and brown, with white in the wings and tail, orange skin around the eyes, and heavy dark wattles; it has been introduced into Australia, New......
  • Indian National Army (Indian history)
    ...40,000 Indian men and women rounded up in Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia. On Oct. 21, 1943, Bose proclaimed the establishment of a provisional independent Indian government, and his so-called Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj), alongside Japanese troops, advanced to Rangoon (Yangôn) and thence overland into India, reaching Indian soil on March 18, 1944, and moving into......
  • Indian National Congress (political party, India)
    broadly based political party of India. Formed in 1885, the Indian National Congress dominated the Indian movement for independence from Great Britain and formed most of India’s governments from the time of independence through the mid-1990s....
  • Indian National Congress-Indira (political party, India)
    broadly based political party of India. Formed in 1885, the Indian National Congress dominated the Indian movement for independence from Great Britain and formed most of India’s governments from the time of independence through the mid-1990s....
  • Indian National Social Conference (Indian history)
    ...Prarthana Samaj (“Prayer Society”), which sought to reform the social customs of orthodox Hinduism. He regularly voiced views on social and economic reform at the annual sessions of the Indian National Social Conference, which he founded in 1887. Ranade inspired many other Indian social reformers, most notably the educator and legislator Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who carried on......
  • Indian National Theatre (Indian theatrical troupe)
    ...the addition of dance interludes and other Indian aesthetic features, modern India has developed a national drama. Two examples of “new” theatre staging are the Prithvi Theatre and the Indian National Theatre. The Prithvi Theatre, a Hindi touring company founded in 1943, utilizes dance sequences, incidental music, frequent set changes, and extravagant movement and colour. The......
  • Indian National Trade Union Congress (Indian trade union federation)
    largest trade-union federation in India. INTUC was established in 1947 in cooperation with the Indian National Congress, which favoured a less militant union movement than the All-India Trade Union Congress. INTUC is largely anticommunist; it is affiliated with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions....
  • Indian Ocean
    body of salt water, covering approximately one-fifth of the total ocean area of the world. It is the smallest, youngest, and physically most complex of the world’s three major oceans. It stretches for more than 6,200 miles (10,000 km) between the southern tips of Africa and Australia and, without its marginal seas, has an area of about 28,360,000 square miles (73,440,000 square km). The Ind...
  • Indian Ocean tsunami (2004)
    tsunami that hit the coasts of several countries of South and Southeast Asia in December 2004. The tsunami and its aftermath were responsible for immense destruction and loss on the rim of the Indian Ocean....
  • Indian paint (Lithospermum canescens)
    any of several plants formerly used by certain North American Indians for dyes derived from the roots, the term being an Algonquian name for dye. Lithospermum species include the yellow puccoon, or Indian paint (L. canescens), with small yellow or orange flowers and reddish roots. It and a few other species (L. incisum and L. carolinense) of the borage family......
  • Indian paint brush (plant)
    any plant of the genus Castilleja (family Scrophulariaceae), which contains about 200 species of partially or wholly parasitic plants that derive nourishment from the roots of other plants. For this reason the plants are seldom cultivated successfully in the flower garden. The small, tubular flowers are irregular (two-lipped). They are surrounded by upper leaves that are brightly coloured e...
  • Indian painting
    any plant of the genus Castilleja (family Scrophulariaceae), which contains about 200 species of partially or wholly parasitic plants that derive nourishment from the roots of other plants. For this reason the plants are seldom cultivated successfully in the flower garden. The small, tubular flowers are irregular (two-lipped). They are surrounded by upper leaves that are brightly coloured e...
  • Indian Peace-Keeping Force (military organization, India)
    ...Tamils with an autonomous province within a united Sri Lanka. India agreed to prevent Tamil separatists from using its territory, notably Tamil Nadu, for training and shelter and agreed to send an Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) to disarm the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers) and other Tamil forces. The IPKF, however, soon found itself embroiled in fighting the Tamil Tigers.......
  • Indian peacock (bird)
    ...birds of the pheasant family, Phasianidae (order Galliformes). Strictly, the male is a peacock, and the female is a peahen; both are peafowl. Two species of peafowl are the blue, or Indian, peacock (Pavo cristatus), of India and Sri Lanka (Ceylon), and the green, or Javanese, peacock (P. muticus), from Burma to Java. The Congo peacock (Afropavo......
  • Indian Penal Code (law)
    Indian criminal law, on the other hand, has been very little changed since the Indian Penal Code was enacted in 1861. Thomas Babington Macaulay’s original draft of that code, which remains its nucleus, was not based on the contemporary English law alone, and many of the definitions and distinctions are unknown to English law, while later developments in English law are not represented. Yet....
  • Indian People’s Association (Indian political organization)
    The BJP traces its roots to the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS; Indian People’s Association), which was established in 1951 as the political wing of the Hindu paramilitary group Rashtriya Swayamesevak Sangh (RSS; National Volunteers Corps) by Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. The BJS advocated the rebuilding of India in accordance with Hindu culture and called for the formation of a strong unified state....
  • Indian People’s Party (political party, India)
    pro-Hindu political party of postindependence India....
  • Indian philosophy
    the systems of thought and reflection that were developed by the civilizations of the Indian subcontinent. They include both orthodox (āstika) systems, namely, the Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Pūrva-mīmāṃsā, and Vedānta schools of philosophy, and unorthodox (nāstika...
  • Indian pipe (plant)
    (Monotropa uniflora), nongreen herb, of the heath family (Ericaceae). It lives in close association with a fungus from which it acquires most of its nutrition; some of this comes from trees with which the fungus is also closely associated. It occurs in Asia and throughout North America and is commonly found in moist, shady areas....
  • Indian pitta (bird)
    The Indian pitta (P. brachyura) is typically colourful, with shimmering blue wing plumage. The blue-winged pitta (P. moluccensis), whose wings are not only blue but also emerald, white, and black, is common from Myanmar (Burma) to Sumatra. The eared pitta (P. phayrei) is less colourful but sports deep chestnut hues and a distinctive set of white, pointed head plumes....
  • Indian Plate (geology)
    ...produced the Alps and Carpathians in southern Europe and the Atlas Mountains in northwestern Africa, began roughly between 37 and 24 million years ago. The Himalayas were formed some time after the Indian Plate collided with the Eurasian Plate. These lofty mountains marked the culmination of the great uplift that occurred during the late Cenozoic when the Indian Plate drove many hundreds of......
  • Indian Platform (geological region, Asia)
    The oldest rocks in Asia are found in the continental nuclei. Rocks more than 3 billion years old are in the Precambrian outcrops of the Angaran and Indian platforms and in the North China paraplatform. They consist of primitive island-arc magmatic and sparse sedimentary rocks sandwiched between younger basaltic and ultrabasic rocks, exposed along what are called greenstone belts. The basement......
  • Indian Potter, The (painting by Laso)
    In South America some academic artists chose to paint subjects of their Indian past in the realistic style. One painting, The Indian Potter (1855) by the Peruvian Francisco Laso, shows an indigenous man wearing an embroidered textile sash and carrying an effigy pottery jar clearly in the Moche style of the 5th century. Rodolfo Amoêdo of Brazil studied painting......
  • Indian pottery (visual arts)
    the visual art of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas, often called American Indians. For a further discussion of the visual art of the Americas produced in the period after European contact, see Latin American art. ...
  • Indian python (snake)
    ...Guinea and Australia. Some Australian pythons (genus Liasis) never grow much longer than one metre, but some pythons of Africa (P. sebae), India (P. molurus), New Guinea (L. papuanus), and Australia (L. amethistinus) regularly exceed 3 metres (10......
  • Indian Queen, The (play by Dryden and Howard)
    ...a farcical comedy with some strokes of humour and a good deal of licentious dialogue, was produced in 1663. It was a comparative failure, but in January 1664 he had some share in the success of The Indian Queen, a heroic tragedy in rhymed couplets in which he had collaborated with Sir Robert Howard, his brother-in-law. Dryden was soon to successfully exploit this new and popular genre,.....
  • Indian red admiral (butterfly)
    ...western United States. The white admiral (Limenitis arthemis; see photograph), which occurs in North America and from Great Britain across Eurasia to Japan, feeds on honeysuckle. The Indian red admiral, V. indica, is found in the Canary Islands as well as India and is distinguished by a red band on the forewings wider than that of V. atalanta....
  • Indian Reformed Church in Africa (church, South Africa)
    ...daughter churches, notably the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa (also known as the Bantu Church) in 1859, the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (for Coloured, or racially mixed, persons) in 1881, and the Indian Reformed Church in Africa in 1947. The NGK until 1986 supported the government’s policy of apartheid (separate development for the races) and had commissioned several studies to develo...
  • Indian region (faunal region)
    The Oriental region...
  • Indian religion
    ...millennium and millenarian). Although other numbers occur (three, six, seven, 12, and 72), four is dominant. In ancient Mexico this world was held to be preceded by four other worlds. India, in both Hindu and Buddhist texts, has developed the most complex system of world ages and worlds that arise and come to an end. Here, too, the number four is important—e.g., the four......
  • Indian Removal Act (United States [1830])
    (May 28, 1830), first major legislative departure from the U.S. policy of officially respecting the legal and political rights of the American Indians. The act authorized the president to grant Indian tribes unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their desirable territories within state borders (especially in the Southeast), from which the tribes would be removed. The rapid settlement of ...
  • Indian Reorganization Act (United States [1934])
    (June 18, 1934), measure enacted by the U.S. Congress, aimed at decreasing federal control of American Indian affairs and increasing Indian self-government and responsibility. In gratitude for the Indians’ services to the country in World War I, Congress in 1924 authorized the Meriam Survey of the state of life on the reservations. The shocking conditions under the regimen established by th...
  • Indian reservation (land)
    tract of land set aside by a government for the use of one or more aboriginal peoples. In the early 21st century, reservations existed on every continent except Antarctica but were most numerous in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Most of the reservations in these countries, as well as those in many others, trace their origins to the colonial policies of the 19th and early 20th centuries....
  • Indian rhinoceros (mammal)
    ...2.5 metres (6.6 to 8.2 feet), stand one metre or more at the shoulder, and weigh up to 250 or 300 kilograms (550 to 660 pounds). The largest forms are the Indian and square-lipped rhinoceroses (Rhinoceros unicornis and Ceratotherium simum, respectively), which are four to five metres (13 to 16.4 feet) long and measure up to two metres at the shoulder. The maximum weight has not......
  • Indian rice (plant)
    (species Zizania aquatica or Zizania palustris), coarse annual grass of the family Poaceae whose grain, now often considered a delicacy, has long been an important food of North American Indians. Despite its name, the plant is not related to rice (Oryza sativa). Wild rice grows in shallow water in marshes and along the shores of streams and lakes in north-central Nort...
  • Indian robin (bird)
    The name robin is also applied to a dozen other chat-thrushes in the genera Erithacus and Tarsiger, as well as to a few other related species, notably the Indian robin (Saxicoloides fulicata), which is about 15 cm (6 inches) long, with black plumage set off by a white shoulder patch and reddish patches on the underparts....
  • Indian saffron (plant)
    (Curcuma longa), perennial herbaceous plant of the ginger family (Zingiberaceae), the tuberous rhizomes, or underground stems, of which have been used from antiquity as a condiment, a textile dye, and medically as an aromatic stimulant. In biblical times it was used as a perfume as well as a spice. In the Middle Ages it was called Indian saffron becaus...
  • Indian sage (plant)
    ...constituting the genus Eupatorium of the composite family Asteraceae, native primarily to tropical America. The North American plant known as boneset is E. perfoliatum, also known as agueweed and Indian sage. It is common in wet places and is a coarse, rough, hairy perennial about 0.6 to 1.8 metres (2 to 6 feet) high. Its lance-shaped, toothed, and wrinkled leaves are joined......
  • Indian sculpture (Asian arts)
    the sculptural traditions, forms, and styles of the civilizations of the Indian subcontinent....
  • Indian sculpture (visual arts)
    the visual art of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas, often called American Indians. For a further discussion of the visual art of the Americas produced in the period after European contact, see Latin American art. ...
  • Indian Shaker Church (American religious sect)
    Christianized prophet cult among Northwest American Indians; it is not connected with the Shaker communities developed from the teachings of Ann Lee. In 1881 near Olympia, Wash., John Slocum, a Squaxon logger and a baptized Roman Catholic, reported that he had visited heaven while in a coma and was commissioned to preach a new way of life. The following year his wife, Mary, experienced a shaking ...
  • Indian Shield (continental shield)
    ...peninsular India, most of the western half of Australia, and the eastern segment of Antarctica are also areas of continental shields. These areas of Precambrian rocks are termed, appropriately, the Indian Shield, the Australian Shield, and the Antarctic Shield....
  • Indian small-clawed otter (mammal)
    ...ability is further enhanced in most species by four webbed feet. Two species are marine, with the others living predominantly in fresh water. Otters range in size from 3 kg (6.6 pounds) in the Asian small-clawed otter (Amblonyx cinereus) to 26 kg in the giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis) and 45 kg in the sea otter (......
  • Indian South Equatorial Current (ocean current)
    In the Indian Ocean the place of a north equatorial current is taken by the Monsoon Current. There is, however, an Indian South Equatorial Current. Flowing westerly with the trades north of latitude 22° S, it divides to form the East Africa Coastal Current, moving northward, and a south-flowing stream. The latter passes by Madagascar as the Mozambique (west) and Mascarene currents, which......
  • Indian Space Research Organisation (Indian space agency)
    Kalam earned a degree in aeronautical engineering from the Madras Institute of Technology and in 1958 joined the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). He soon moved to the Indian Space Research Organisation, where he was project director of the SLV-III, India’s first indigenously designed and produced satellite launch vehicle. Rejoining DRDO in 1982, Kalam planned the progra...
  • Indian spectacled cobra (snake)
    The Asian cobra (Naja naja) was formerly considered a single species with much the same distribution as the king cobra. Recently, however, biologists have discovered that nearly a dozen species exist in Asia, some being venom spitters and others not. They vary both in size (most ranging between 1.25 and 1.75 metres) and in the toxicity of their venom. Spitters propel venom......
  • Indian Stream, Republic of (historical region, New Hampshire, United States)
    ...seat, became the county’s central railroad link by the 1870s. Other towns are Gorham, Northumberland, and Colebrook. The northern half of the county, which is sparsely populated, was known as the Republic of Indian Stream in 1832–40. Principal industries are tourism and the manufacture of paper products and plastics. Area 1,801 square miles (4,664 square km). Pop. (2000) 33,145; (...
  • Indian Struggle, The (work by Bose)
    ...movement was started in 1930, Bose was already in detention. Released and then rearrested, he was finally allowed to proceed to Europe after a year’s detention. In enforced exile, he wrote The Indian Struggle, 1920–1934 and pleaded India’s cause with European leaders. He returned from Europe in 1936, was again taken into custody, and was released after a year. In 193...
  • Indian summer (meteorology)
    period of dry, unseasonably warm weather in late October or November in the central and eastern United States. The term originated in New England and probably arose from the Indians’ practice of gathering winter stores at this time. This autumn warm period also occurs in Europe, where in Britain it is called All-hallown summer or Old Wives’ summer. Indian summer may occur several tim...
  • Indian Summer, #2 (painting by Motherwell)
    ...1960s he painted in several different styles, so that such paintings as “Africa” (1964–65; Baltimore Museum of Art) look like enlarged details of elegant calligraphy, while “Indian Summer, #2” (1962–64) combines the bravura brushwork typical of Abstract Expressionism with the broad areas of evenly applied colour characteristic of the then-emergin...
  • Indian Tamil (people)
    ...with the Sinhalese alone accounting for nearly three-fourths of the people. The Tamil segment comprises two groups—Sri Lankan Tamils (long-settled descendants from southeastern India) and Indian Tamils (recent immigrants from southeastern India, most of whom were migrant workers brought to Sri Lanka under British rule). Slightly more than one-eighth of the total population belongs to......
  • Indian Territory (historical territory, United States)
    originally “all of that part of the United States west of the Mississippi, and not within the States of Missouri and Louisiana, or the Territory of Arkansas.” Never an organized territory, it was soon restricted to the present state of Oklahoma, excepting the panhandle and Greer county. The Choctaw, Creek, Seminole, C...
  • Indian tiger (mammal)
    ...endangered. The Siberian, or Amur, tiger (P. tigris altaica) is the largest, measuring up to 4 metres (13 feet) in total length and weighing up to 300 kg (660 pounds). The Indian, or Bengal, tiger (P. tigris tigris) is the most numerous and accounts for about half of the total tiger population. Males are larger than females and may attain a shoulder height of about...
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