24. Contact with South-East Asia

• India maintained contacts with its Asian counterparts since Harappan times. From the beginning of Christian era India maintained commercial contacts with China, South-East Asia, West Asia and the Roman empire.
• In addition to this India sent its missionaries, conquerors and traders to the neighbouring countries where they founded settlements.
• The propagation of Buddhism promoted India's contacts with Sri Lanka, China, Burma and Central Asia.
• In early Christian century, Buddhism spread from India to Burma where the Theravada form of Buddhism was developed and many temples were erected in honour of the Buddha.
• The Burmese and Sri Lankan Buddhists produced a rich corpus of Buddhist literature, not to be found in India.
• Beginning with the reign of Kanishka a large number of Buddhist missionaries went to China, Central Asia and Afghanistan for preaching their religion.
• From China, Buddhism spread to Korea and Japan. A Buddhist colony cropped up at Tun Huang, which was the starting point of the companies of merchants going across the desert.
• The Indians learnt the art of growing Silk from China and the Chinese learnt the art of Buddhist painting from India.
• The two great centres of Buddhism in ancient times were Afghanistan and Central Asia. Begram and Bamiyan situated in north of Afghanistan are famous for such relics.
• Bamiyan possessed the tallest Buddha statue and thousands of Buddhist monks lived in natural and artificial caves there till the 7th century when it was supplanted by Islam.
• As a result of the extension of the Kushan rule Prakrit written in Kharosthi script spread to Central Asia where a large number of Prakrit inscriptions and manuscripts belonging to 4th century A.D. Are found.
• Indian culture also spread to South-East Asia but not through the medium of Buddhism except in Burma, it mostly diffused through the Brahmanical cults.
• The name Suvarnabhumi was given to Pegu and Moulmein in Burma and merchants from Broach, Banaras and Bhagalpur traded with Burma.
• From first century A.D., India established close relations with Java in Indonesia, which was called Suvarnadvipa by ancient Indians.
• In early centuries of Christian era, the Pallavas founded their colonies in Sumatra, which eventually flowered into the kingdom of Sri Vijaya, an important power and centre of Indian culture from 5th to 10th century.
• The Hindu settlements in Java and Sumatra became channels for the radiation of Indian culture.
• In Indo-China, the Indians set up 2 powerful kingdoms in Kamboja and Champa in 6th century A.D.
• They developed Kamboja as a centre of Sanskrit learning, and numerous inscriptions are found in this language. Its rulers were devotees of Siva.
• At Champa which covers modern southern Vietnam, it seems that the traders set up their colonies. The king of Champa was also a Saiva and official language was also Sanskrit.
• Due to intermingling of Indian settlements with the local people a new type of art, language and literature came up which shows a blending of both Indian and indigenous elements.
• The greatest Buddhist temple is not found in India but in Borobudur in Indonesia constructed in the 8th century A.D. And 436 images of Buddha are engraved on it.
• The temple of Ankorvat in Cambodia is larger than that of Borobudur and stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata are written on the walls of the temple.
• The Indonesian language called Bahasa Indonesia contains numerous Sanskrit words.
• Its not that only religion alone contributed to the spread of Indian culture, missionaries were backed by traders and conquerors.
• Trade not only led to exchange of goods but also of elements of culture. And it was a 2-way traffic.
• They learnt the art of growing Silk from China, that of growing betel leaves from Indonesia and several other products from the neighbouring countries.
• Similarly the method of growing cotton spread from India to China and Central Asia. However Indian contribution seems to be more important in art, religion, script and language.
• Just as India retained and developed its own personality in spite of foreign influences, so did these South-East Asian countries evolved their own indigenous culture assimilating the Indian elements.