Indianization of Southeast Asia

At about the time that Western Europe is absorbing the classical culture and institutions of the Mediterranean, the people of mainland and insular Southeast Asia are responding to the stimulus of a civilization that had arisen in India during the previous millennium.

Indonesia, like much of Southeast Asia, is influenced by Indian culture.

From the second century, through the Indian dynasties like the Pallava, Gupta, Pala and Chola in the succeeding centuries up to the twelfth century, Indian culture spreads across all of Southeast Asia.The Indianization of Southeast Asia happens as a consequence of the increasing trade in the Indian Ocean.

Vedic and Hindu religion, political thought, literature, mythology, and artistic motifs gradually become integral elements in local Southeast Asian cultures.

The caste system is never adopted, but Indianization stimulates the rise of highly organized, centralized states.Archaeology in Thailand at sites Ban Don Ta Phet and Khao Sam Kaeo yielding metallic, stone, and glass artifacts stylistically associated with the Indian subcontinent suggest Indianization of Southeast Asia beginning in the fourth to second centuries BCE.

(Glover, I.C.

; Bellina, B.

"Ban Don Ta Phet and Khao Sam Kaeo: The Earliest Indian Contacts Re-assessed".

Early Interactions Between South and Southeast Asia: Reflections on Cross-cultural Exchange 2 (17): 17–45.)

Indian influence on Siamese culture is partly the result of direct contact with Indian settlers, but mainly it is brought about indirectly via the Indianized kingdoms of Dvaravati, Srivijaya and Cambodia.

E:A Voretzsch believes that Buddhism must have been flowing into Siam from India in the time of the Indian Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire and far on into the first millennium after Christ.The Cham people probably migrated from the island of Borneo to the mainland by the second century CE.

Scholars locate the historical beginnings of Champa in the fourth century, when the process of Indianization is well underway.

It is in this period that the Cham people begin to create stone inscriptions in both Sanskrit and in their own language, for which they create a unique script.

In the late fourth and fifth centuries, Indianization advances more rapidly, in part through renewed impulses from the south Indian Pallava dynasty and the north Indian Gupta Empire.

The kingdom of Funan likely accelerates the process.

Later kingdoms of Southeast Asia such as Chenla may have emulated the Funanese court.

The Funanese establish a strong system of mercantilism and commercial monopolies that will become a pattern for empires in the region.

By the fifth century, the state exercises control over the lower Mekong River area and the lands around the Tonle Sap.

It also commands tribute from smaller states in the area now comprising northern Cambodia, southern Laos, southern Thailand, and the northern portion of the Malay Peninsula.

Indianization is fostered by increasing contact with the subcontinent through the travels of merchants, diplomats, and learned Brahmins.

By the end of the fifth century, the elite culture is thoroughly Indianized.

Court ceremony and the structure of political institutions are based on Indian models.

The Sanskrit language is widely used; the laws of Manu, the Indian legal code, are adopted; and an alphabet based on Indian writing systems is introduced.Funan is superseded and absorbed in the sixth century by the Khmer polity of Chenla (Zhenla).

Its successor, the Angkorian period or Khmer Empire, lasts from the early ninth century to the early fifteenth century.

In terms of cultural accomplishments and political power, this is the golden age of Khmer civilization.

The great temple cities of the Angkorian region, located near the modern town of Siemreap, are a lasting monument to the greatness of its kings.

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