I have come across this situation where someone asks what the core principles of your culture are...or what is your society like...or do you have anything like the Ten Commandments in your religion...and I have observed that almost always Indians find it difficult to answer these questions...I think that this is because we do not try to understand the mosaic that our culture is...
we know the details, but do not understand the operating principles...we have the data but do not have the meta-data to view the data aligned on patterns..
This is why a book like
"South India Heritage - An Introduction" is of great significance.
If I cannot outline a concept in 2 lines, then I know little about the concept.