Greater India

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(Redirected from
Indian cultural sphere
)
Not to be confused with Indosphere.
This article is about the Indian cultural sphere. For the irredentist concept, see Akhand Bharat.

Indian Cultural Sphere
Greater India
Indian cultural extent
Dark orange: The Indian subcontinent[1]
Light orange: Southeast Asia culturally linked to India (except Northern Vietnam, Philippines and Western New Guinea)
Yellow: Regions with significant Indian cultural influence, notably the
Versions of Ramayana)

Greater India, also known as the Indian cultural sphere, or the Indic world, is an area composed of many countries and regions in South, East Asia and Southeast Asia that were historically influenced by Indian culture, which itself formed from the various distinct indigenous cultures of these regions.[4] The term Greater India, as a reference to the Indian cultural sphere, was popularised by a network of Bengali scholars in the 1920s. It is an umbrella term encompassing the Indian subcontinent and surrounding countries, which are culturally linked through a diverse cultural cline. These countries have been transformed to varying degrees by the acceptance and introduction of cultural and institutional elements from each other. Since around 500 BCE, Asia's expanding land and maritime trade had resulted in prolonged socio-economic and cultural stimulation and diffusion of Buddhist and Hindu beliefs into the region's cosmology, in particular in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka.[5] In Central Asia, the transmission of ideas was predominantly of a religious nature.

By the early centuries of the

Indianized kingdoms, a term coined by George Cœdès in his work Histoire ancienne des états hindouisés d'Extrême-Orient,[8] were characterized by resilience, political integrity, and administrative stability.[9]

To the north, Indian religious ideas were assimilated into the cosmology of Himalayan peoples, most profoundly in Tibet and Bhutan, and merged with indigenous traditions. Buddhist

Greater Persia via the Hindu Kush and the Pamir Mountains.[11]

Evolution of the concept

Further information:
Indies and Geography (Ptolemy)
Hindoostan and Farther India in a 1864 map by Samuel Augustus Mitchell

The concept of the Three Indias was in common circulation in pre-industrial Europe. Greater India was the southern part of South Asia, Lesser India was the northern part of South Asia, and Middle India was the region near the Middle East.[12] The Portuguese form (Portuguese: India Maior[12][13][14][15]) was used at least since the mid-15th century.[13] The term, which seems to have been used with variable precision,[16] sometimes meant only the Indian subcontinent;[17] Europeans used a variety of terms related to South Asia to designate the South Asian peninsula, including High India, Greater India, Exterior India and India aquosa.[18]

However, in some accounts of European nautical voyages, Greater India (or India Major) extended from the Malabar Coast (present-day Kerala) to India extra Gangem[19] (lit. "India, beyond the Ganges," but usually the East Indies, i.e. present-day Malay Archipelago) and India Minor, from Malabar to Sind.[20] Farther India was sometimes used to cover all of modern Southeast Asia.[18] Until the fourteenth century, India could also mean areas along the Red Sea, including Somalia, South Arabia, and Ethiopia (e.g., Diodorus of Sicily of the first century BC says that "the Nile rises in India" and Marco Polo of the fourteenth century says that "Lesser India ... contains ... Abash [Abyssinia]").[21]

In late 19th-century geography, Greater India referred to a region that included: "(a) Himalaya, (b) Punjab, (c) Hindustan, (d) Burma, (e) Indo-China, (f) Sunda Islands, (g) Borneo, (h) Celebes, and (i) Philippines."[22] German atlases distinguished Vorder-Indien (Anterior India) as the South Asian peninsula and Hinter-Indien as Southeast Asia.[18]

Greater India, or Greater India Basin also signifies "the

Plate tectonic theory,[24] the term has seen increased usage since the 1970s. It is unknown when and where the India–Asia (Indian and Eurasian Plate) convergence occurred, at or before 52 million years ago. The plates have converged up to 3,600 km (2,200 mi) ± 35 km (22 mi). The upper crustal shortening is documented from geological record of Asia and the Himalaya as up to approximately 2,350 km (1,460 mi) less.[25]

The concept of "Indianized kingdoms" and "Indianization", coined by

George Coedès, originally describes Southeast Asian principalities that flourished from the early common era as a result of centuries of socio-economic interaction having incorporated central aspects of Indian institutions, religion, statecraft, administration, culture, epigraphy, literature and architecture.[26][27]

Indianization of South East Asia

Further information:
Maritime silk road, Indian maritime history, Indian Ocean trade, Hinduism in Southeast Asia, Buddhism in Southeast Asia, Balinese Hinduism, and History of Indian influence on Southeast Asia
Austronesian proto-historic and historic maritime trade network in the Indian Ocean[28]
Hinduism expansion in Asia, from its heartland in Indian Subcontinent, to the rest of Asia, especially Southeast Asia, started circa 1st century marked with the establishment of early Hindu settlements and polities in Southeast Asia.

Arab maritime trade. The sustained contact between Southeast Asia and South Asia resulted in cultural exchange, in addition to the exchange of commodities.[29][30][28][31]

The earliest Hindu kingdoms emerged in Sumatra and Java, followed by mainland polities such as Funan and Champa. Adoption of Indian civilization elements and individual adaptation stimulated the emergence of centralized states and localized caste systems in Southeast Asia.[32][33][34]

Adaption and adoption

Angkor Wat in Cambodia is the largest Hindu temple in the world

Indian culture was likely introduced by Hindu and Buddhist traders, priests, and princes traveled to Southeast Asia from India in the first few centuries of the Common Era and eventually settled there. Strong impulse most certainly came from the region's ruling classes who invited Brahmans to serve at their courts as priests, astrologers and advisers.[35] Divinity and royalty were closely connected in these polities as Hindu rituals validated the powers of the monarch. Brahmans and priests from India proper played a key role in supporting ruling dynasties through exact rituals. Dynastic consolidation was the basis for more centralized kingdoms that emerged in Java, Sumatra, Cambodia, Burma, and along the central and south coasts of Vietnam from the 4th to 8th centuries.[36]

The 9th century Shiva temple in Prambanan compound, adorned with bas-reliefs of Ramayana, located near Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Art, architecture, rituals, and cultural elements such as the

Mahābhārata had been adopted and customized increasingly with a regional character. The caste system, although adopted, was never applied universally and reduced to serve for a selected group of nobles only.[37] Many struggle to date and determine when Indianizaton in Southeast Asia occurred because of the structures and ruins found that were similar to those in India.[38]

States such as

Khmer empire had territorial continuity, resilient population and surplus economies that rivaled those in India itself. Borobudur and Prambanan in Java and Angkor in Cambodia are, apart from their grandeur, examples of a distinctly developed regional culture, style, and expression.[39][40]

Southeast Asia is called Suvarnabhumi or Sovannah Phoum – the golden land and Suvarnadvipa – the golden Islands in Sanskrit.[41] It was frequented by traders from eastern India, particularly Kalinga. Cultural and trading relations between the powerful Chola dynasty of South India and the Southeast Asian Hindu kingdoms led the Bay of Bengal to be called "The Chola Lake", and the Chola attacks on Srivijaya in the 10th century CE are the sole example of military attacks by Indian rulers against Southeast Asia. The Pala dynasty of Bengal, which controlled the heartland of Buddhist India, maintained close economic, cultural and religious ties, particularly with Srivijaya.[42]

Religion, authority and legitimacy

Balinese Ramayana dance drama, performed in Sarasvati Garden in Ubud.

The pre-Indic political and social systems in Southeast Asia were marked by a relative indifference towards lineage descent. Hindu God kingship enabled rulers to supersede loyalties, forge cosmopolitan polities and the worship of Shiva and Vishnu was combined with ancestor worship, so that Khmer, Javanese, and Cham rulers claimed semi-divine status as descendants of a God. Hindu traditions, especially the relationship to the sacrality of the land and social structures, are inherent in Hinduism's transnational features. The epic traditions of the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa further legitimized a ruler identified with a God who battled and defeated the wrong doers that threaten the ethical order of the world.[43]

Hinduism does not have a single historical founder, a centralized imperial authority in India proper nor a bureaucratic structure, thus ensuring relative religious independence for the individual ruler. It also allows for multiple forms of divinity, centered upon the Trimurti the triad of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, the deities responsible for the creation, preservation, and destruction of the universe.[44]

The effects of Hinduism and Buddhism applied a tremendous impact on the many civilizations inhabiting Southeast Asia which significantly provided some structure to the composition of written traditions. An essential factor for the spread and adaptation of these religions originated from trading systems of the third and fourth century.[45] In order to spread the message of these religions Buddhist monks and Hindu priests joined mercantile classes in the quest to share their religious and cultural values and beliefs. Along the Mekong delta, evidence of Indianized religious models can be observed in communities labeled Funan. There can be found the earliest records engraved on a rock in Vocanh.[46] The engravings consist of Buddhist archives and a south Indian scripts are written in Sanskrit that have been dated to belong to the early half of the third century. Indian religion was profoundly absorbed by local cultures that formed their own distinctive variations of these structures in order to reflect their own ideals.

The indianized kingdoms had by the 1st to 4th centuries CE adopted Hinduism's cosmology and rituals, the devaraja concept of kingship, and Sanskrit as official writing. Despite the fundamental cultural integration, these kingdoms were autonomous in their own right and functioned independently.[47]

Waning of Indianization

Map of South-east Asia c. 900 AD, showing the Khmer Empire in red, Srivijaya in green, and Champa in yellow.

Khmer Kingdom

Not only did Indianization change many cultural and political aspects, but it also changed the spiritual realm as well, creating a type of Northern Culture which began in the early 14th century, prevalent for its rapid decline in the Indian kingdoms. The decline of Hinduism kingdoms and spark of Buddhist kingdoms led to the formation of orthodox Sinhalese Buddhism and is a key factor leading to the decline of Indianization. Sukhothai and Ceylon are the prominent characters who formulated the center of Buddhism and thus became more popularized over Hinduism.[48]

Rise of Islam

Not only was the spark of Buddhism the driving force for Indianization coming to an end, but Islamic control took over as well in the midst of the thirteenth century to trump the Hinduist kingdoms. In the process of Islam coming to the traditional Hinduism kingdoms, trade was heavily practiced and the now Islamic Indians started becoming merchants all over Southeast Asia.[48] Moreover, as trade became more saturated in the Southeast Asian regions wherein Indianization once persisted, the regions had become more Muslim populated. This so-called Islamic control has spanned to many of the trading centers across the regions of Southeast Asia, including one of the most dominant centers, Malacca, and has therefore stressed a widespread rise of Islamization.[48]

Indianized kingdoms of South East Asia

Further information: List of Hindu empires and dynasties

Mainland kingdoms

The 10th-century tympanum of the dancing Shiva in Champa, Vietnam
  • exonym based on the accounts of two Chinese diplomats, Kang Tai and Zhu Ying who sojourned there in the mid-3rd century CE.[49]: 24  It is not known what name the people of Funan gave to their polity. Some scholars believe ancient Chinese scholars transcribed the word Funan from a word related to the Khmer word bnaṃ or vnaṃ (modern: phnoṃ, meaning "mountain"); while others thought that Funan may not be a transcription at all, rather it meant what it says in Chinese, meaning something like "Pacified South". Centered at the lower Mekong,[50] Funan is noted as the oldest Hindu culture in this region, which suggests prolonged socio-economic interaction with India and maritime trading partners of the Indosphere.[7] Cultural and religious ideas had reached Funan via the Indian Ocean trade route. Trade with India had commenced well before 500 BC as Sanskrit had not yet replaced Pali.[7] Funan's language has been determined as to have been an early form of Khmer and its written form was Sanskrit.[51]
Stone lingam found in Cát Tiên, southern Vietnam
  • Manusmṛti, the Laws of Manu for the Kshatriya warrior caste and conveying the idea of political and religious authority.[6]
  • Malay legends claim that Langkasuka was founded at Kedah, and later moved to Pattani.[54]
  • Chams began their diaspora in 1471, many re-settling in Khmer territory.[56][57]
  • royal chronology ended in the 14th century. During this period of the Khmer empire, societal functions of administration, agriculture, architecture, hydrology, logistics, urban planning, literature and the arts saw an unprecedented degree of development, refinement and accomplishment from the distinct expression of Hindu cosmology.[60]
  • Pegu) were notable for facilitating Indianized cultural exchange in lower Burma, in particular by having strong ties with Sri Lanka.[61]
  • Sukhothai: The first Tai peoples to gain independence from the Khmer Empire and start their own kingdom in the 13th century. Sukhothai was a precursor for the Ayutthaya Kingdom and the Kingdom of Siam. Though ethnically Thai, the Sukhothai kingdom in many ways was a continuation of the Buddhist Mon-Dvaravati civilizations, as well as the neighboring Khmer Empire.[62][63]

Island kingdoms

Golden Avalokiteśvara from Malayu-Srivijaya, Indonesia
Statue Durga dated to the 9th-century Mataram from Central Java
Ganesha shrine in Bali, a widely present custom from Majapahit
  • Salakanagara: Salakanagara kingdom is the first historically recorded Indianized kingdom in Western Java, established by an Indian trader after marrying a local Sundanese princess. This Kingdom existed between 130 and 362 CE.[64]
  • Tarumanagara was an early Sundanese Indianized kingdom, located not far from modern Jakarta, and according to Tugu inscription ruler Purnavarman apparently built a canal that changed the course of the Cakung River, and drained a coastal area for agriculture and settlement. In his inscriptions, Purnavarman associated himself with Vishnu, and Brahmins ritually secured the hydraulic project.
  • Kalingga: Kalingga (Javanese: Karajan Kalingga) was the 6th century Indianized kingdom on the north coast of Central Java, Indonesia. It was the earliest Hindu-Buddhist kingdom in Central Java, and together with Kutai and Tarumanagara are the oldest kingdoms in Indonesian history.
  • Malayu was a classical Southeast Asian kingdom. The primary sources for much of the information on the kingdom are the New History of the Tang, and the memoirs of the Chinese Buddhist monk Yijing who visited in 671 CE, and states that it was "absorbed" by Srivijaya by 692 CE, but had "broken away" by the end of the eleventh century according to Chao Jukua. The exact location of the kingdom is the subject of studies among historians.
  • Nalanda university near Pala territory. The Srivijaya kingdom ceased to exist in the 13th century due to various factors, including the expansion of the Javanese, Singhasari, and Majapahit empires.[65]
  • Tambralinga was an ancient kingdom located on the Malay Peninsula that at one time came under the influence of Srivijaya. The name had been forgotten until scholars recognized Tambralinga as Nagara Sri Dharmaraja (Nakhon Si Thammarat). Early records are scarce but its duration is estimated to range from the seventh to the fourteenth century. Tambralinga first sent tribute to the emperor of the Tang dynasty in 616 CE. In Sanskrit, Tambra means "red" and linga means "symbol", typically representing the divine energy of Shiva.
  • Isyana Dynasty
    .
  • Kadiri: In the 10th century, Mataram challenged the supremacy of Srivijaya, resulting in the destruction of the Mataram capital by Srivijaya early in the 11th century. Restored by King Airlangga (c. 1020–1050), the kingdom split on his death; the new state of Kediri, in eastern Java, became the centre of Javanese culture for the next two centuries, spreading its influence to the eastern parts of Southeast Asia. The spice trade was now becoming increasingly important, as demand from European countries grew. Before they learned to keep sheep and cattle alive in the winter, they had to eat salted meat, made palatable by the addition of spices. One of the main sources was the Maluku Islands (or "Spice Islands") in Indonesia, and so Kediri became a strong trading nation.
  • Kertanegara. He was killed by a prince of the previous Kediri dynasty, who then established the last great Hindu-Javanese kingdom, Majapahit. By the middle of the 14th century Majapahit controlled most of Java, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, part of Borneo
    , the southern Celebes and the Moluccas. It also exerted considerable influence on the mainland.
  • Majapahit: The Majapahit empire, centered in East Java, succeeded the Singhasari empire and flourished in the Indonesian archipelago between the 13th and 15th centuries. Noted for their naval expansion, the Javanese spanned west–east from Lamuri in Aceh to Wanin in Papua. Majapahit was one of the last and greatest Hindu empires in Maritime Southeast Asia. Most of Balinese Hindu culture, traditions and civilisations were derived from Majapahit legacy. A large number of Majapahit nobles, priests, and artisans found their home in Bali after the decline of Majapahit to Demak Sultanate.
  • Citanduy
    and Cimanuk rivers, with its territory spanning from Citarum river on the west, to the Pamali (present-day Brebes river) and Serayu rivers on the east. Its capital was located in Kawali, near present-day Ciamis city.
  • Sunda: The Kingdom of Sunda was a Hindu kingdom located in western Java from 669 CE to around 1579 CE, covering the area of present-day Banten, Jakarta, West Java, and the western part of Central Java. According to primary historical records, the Bujangga Manik manuscript, the eastern border of the Sunda Kingdom was the Pamali River (Ci Pamali, the present day Brebes River) and the Serayu River (Ci Sarayu) in Central Java.

Indianized kingdoms of South West Asia

See also: Hindu and Buddhist heritage of Afghanistan and Muslim conquests of Afghanistan
Surya sitting on a Corinthian chariot from ancient Afghanistan

The eastern regions of Afghanistan were considered politically as parts of India. Buddhism and Hinduism held sway over the region until the Muslim conquest.

Indus Valley.[68]

According to historian

Persia."[69] He also wrote, "It is clear however that in the seventh to ninth centuries the Zunbils and their kinsmen the Kabulshahs ruled over a predominantly Indian rather than a Persianate realm. The Arab geographers, in effect, commonly speak of 'that king of al-Hind ... (who) bore the title of Zunbil."[69]

Archaeological sites such as the 8th-century

Tapa Sardar and Gardez show a blend of Buddhism with strong Shaivst iconography.[70] Around 644 CE, the Chinese travelling monk Xuanzang made an account of Zabul (which he called by its Sanskrit name Jaguda), which he describes as mainly pagan, though also respecting Mahayana Buddhism, which although in the minority had the support of its royals. In terms of other cults, the god Śuna,[71] is described to be the prime deity of the country.[72]

The Caliph

Ma'sud.[77] The 14th-century scholar Muslim scholar Ibn Battuta described the Hindu Kush as meaning "slayer of Indians", because large numbers of slaves brought from India died from its treacherous weather.[78]

Zabulistan

Turk Shahis in the 7th century, though the suzerainty continued up to the 11th century. The Hindu kingdom of Kapisha had split up as its western part formed a separate state called the kingdom of Zabul. It was a family division because there were consanguineous and political relationships between the states of Kabul and Zabul.[81]

The

Zoroastrian influence on its ritual. Whatever its origins, it was certainly superimposed on a mountain and on a pre-existing mountain god while merging with Shaiva doctrines of worship.[84]

Buddhist Turk Shahi dynasty of Kabul

Newly excavated Buddhist stupa at Mes Aynak in Logar Province. Similar stupas have been discovered in neighboring Ghazni Province, including in the northern Samangan Province.

The area had been under the rule of the

Hindu dynasty shortly before the Saffarid conquest in 870 A.D.[86]

The Turk Shahi were a Buddhist

Hindu Shahi dynasty of Kabul.[91]

Hindu Shahi dynasty of Kabul

The Amb Hindu Temple complex was built between the 7th and 9th centuries CE during the reign of the Hindu Shahi Empire[92]

The Hindu Shahi (850–1026 CE) was a

Kabul Valley and Gandhara – the Kshatriya dynasty and the Brahmana dynasty which replaced it.[93] Both used the title of Shahi. Details about these rulers have been assembled from chronicles, coins and stone inscriptions by researchers as no consolidated account of their history has become available.[93] In 1973, Historian Yogendra Mishra proposed that according to Rajatarangini, Hindu Shahis were Kshatriyas.[94]

According to available inscriptions following are the names of Hindu Shahi kings: Vakkadeva, Kamalavarman, Bhimadeva,

Trilochanapala and Bhimpala.[88][89][90]

Balkh

From historical evidence, it appears

Buddhists.[98] Balkh's final conquest was undertaken by Qutayba ibn Muslim in 705.[99] Among Balkh's Buddhist monasteries, the largest was Nava Vihara, later Persianized to Naw Bahara after the Islamic conquest of Balkh.[100] It is not known how long it continued to serve as a place of worship after the conquest. Accounts of early Arabs offer contradictory narratives.[101]

Ghur

Mahayana Buddhism is believed to have existed until the end of the century.[104]

Nuristan

The vast area extending from modern

Nuristan to Kashmir (styled "Peristan" by A. M. Cacopardo) containing host of "Kafir" cultures and Indo-European languages that became Islamized over a long period. Earlier, it was surrounded by Buddhist areas. The Islamization of the nearby Badakhshan began in the 8th century and Peristan was completely surrounded by Muslim states in the 16th century with Islamization of Baltistan. The Buddhist states temporarily brought literacy and state rule into the region. The decline of Buddhism resulted in it becoming heavily isolated.[105]

Successive wave of

Abdul Rahman Khan in 1895–1896[108] while others also converted to avoid paying jizya.[109]

In 1020–21, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna led a campaign against Kafiristan and the people of the "pleasant valleys of Nur and Qirat" according to Gardizi.

Ramesh Chandra Majumdar states they had a Hindu temple which was destroyed by Mahmud's general.[113]

Indian cultural influence

Kedahan Malays
.

The use of Greater India to refer to an Indian cultural sphere was popularised by a network of Bengali scholars in the 1920s who were all members of the Calcutta-based Greater India Society. The movement's early leaders included the historian R. C. Majumdar (1888–1980); the philologists Suniti Kumar Chatterji (1890–1977) and P. C. Bagchi (1898–1956), and the historians Phanindranath Bose and Kalidas Nag (1891–1966).[114][115] Some of their formulations were inspired by concurrent excavations in Angkor by French archaeologists and by the writings of French Indologist Sylvain Lévi. The scholars of the society postulated a benevolent ancient Indian cultural colonisation of Southeast Asia, in stark contrast – in their view – to the Western colonialism of the early 20th century.[116][117][118]

The term Greater India and the notion of an explicit Hindu expansion of ancient Southeast Asia have been linked to both Indian nationalism[119] and Hindu nationalism.[120] However, many Indian nationalists, like Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore, although receptive to "an idealisation of India as a benign and uncoercive world civiliser and font of global enlightenment,"[121] stayed away from explicit "Greater India" formulations.[122] In addition, some scholars have seen the Hindu/Buddhist acculturation in ancient Southeast Asia as "a single cultural process in which Southeast Asia was the matrix and South Asia the mediatrix."[123] In the field of art history, especially in American writings, the term survived due to the influence of art theorist Ananda Coomaraswamy. Coomaraswamy's view of pan-Indian art history was influenced by the "Calcutta cultural nationalists."[124]

By some accounts Greater India consists of "lands including Burma,

men of letters,[126] and is not found before the 1920s. The term Greater India was used in historical writing in India into the 1970s.[127]

Cultural expansion

Atashgah of Baku, a fire temple in Azerbaijan used by both Hindus[128][129]
and Persian Zoroastrians
Hindu-Buddhist icongraphy from Mogao Caves in the Gobi Desert

Culture spread via the trade routes that linked India with southern

Brahmanism and Hinduism, were transmitted from direct contact as well as through sacred texts and Indian literature. Southeast Asia had developed some prosperous and very powerful colonial empires that contributed to Hindu-Buddhist artistic creations and architectural developments. Art and architectural creations that rivaled those built in India, especially in its sheer size, design and aesthetic achievements. The notable examples are Borobudur in Java and Angkor monuments in Cambodia. The Srivijaya Empire to the south and the Khmer Empire
to the north competed for influence in the region.

A defining characteristic of the cultural link between Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent was the adoption of ancient Indian

gassho and Thai wai
.

Beyond the

Khotan were direct heirs of Gangetic Buddhism, despite the difference in languages. Many Tibetan monks even used to know Sanskrit very well.[131] In Khotan the Ramayana was well cicrulated in Khotanese language, though the narrative is slightly different from the Gangetic version.[132] In Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan many Buddhist monasteries were established. These countries were used as a kind of springboard for the monks who brought Indian Buddhist texts and images to China.[131] Further north, in the Gobi Desert, statues of Ganesha and Kartikeya were found alongside Buddhist imagery in the Mogao Caves.[132]

Cultural commonalities

Religion, mythology and folklore

Thai shadow play

Caste system

Indians spread their religion to Southeast Asia, beginning the Hindu and Buddhist cultures there. They introduced the

caste system to the region, especially to Java, Bali, Madura, and Sumatra. The adopted caste system was not as strict as in India, tempered to the local context.[48] There are multiple similarities between the two caste systems such that both state that no one is equal within society and that everyone has his own place. It also promoted the upbringing of highly organized central states. Indians were still able to implement their religion, political ideas, literature, mythology, and art.[48]

Architecture and monuments

The 9th-century Shivaistic temple of Prambanan in Central Java near Yogyakarta, the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia

Sport

It is conjectured that certain

gilli danda can be found throughout the region.[138] Also, the Indonesian hom pim pa (a method of selecting players before a game) may involve the use of a Sanskrit phrase.[139]

Linguistic influence

See also: Indosphere
northeastern China
) use of non-Sinitic and non-Indic scripts.

Scholars like Sheldon Pollock have used the term Sanskrit Cosmopolis to describe the region and argued for millennium-long cultural exchanges without necessarily involving migration of peoples or colonisation. Pollock's 2006 book The Language of the Gods in the World of Men makes a case for studying the region as comparable with Latin Europe and argues that the Sanskrit language was its unifying element.

Scripts in Sanskrit discovered during the early centuries of the Common Era are the earliest known forms of writing to have extended all the way to Southeast Asia. Its gradual impact ultimately resulted in its widespread domain as a means of dialect which evident in regions, from Bangladesh to Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand and additionally a few of the larger Indonesian islands. In addition, alphabets from languages spoken in Burmese, Thai, Laos, and Cambodia are variations formed off of Indian ideals that have localized the language.

The spread of Buddhism to Tibet allowed many Sanskrit texts to survive only in Tibetan translation (in the

transliterated[62]
directly and added to the Chinese vocabulary.

In Southeast Asia, languages such as

loan words from Sanskrit, as does Khmer to a lesser extent. For example, in Thai, Rāvaṇa, the legendary emperor of Sri Lanka
, is called 'Thosakanth' which is derived from his Sanskrit name 'Daśakaṇṭha' ("having ten necks").

Many Sanskrit loanwords are also found in

Arabic. Similarly, Philippine languages such as Tagalog have many Sanskrit loanwords
.

A Sanskrit loanword encountered in many Southeast Asian languages is the word bhāṣā, or spoken language, which is used to mean language in general, for example bahasa in Malay, Indonesian and Tausug, basa in Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese, phasa in Thai and Lao, bhasa in Burmese, and phiesa in Khmer.

Literature

See also: Literature about Southeast Asia and South Asian literature
Pages of Kakawin Ramayana, the version of Ramayana from Java and Bali

Scripts in Sanskrit discovered during the early centuries of the Common Era are the earliest known forms of writing to have extended all the way to Southeast Asia. Its gradual impact ultimately resulted in its widespread domain as a means of dialect which evident in regions, from Bangladesh to Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand and additionally a few of the larger Indonesian islands. In addition, alphabets from languages spoken in Burmese, Thai, Laos, and Cambodia are variations formed off of Indian ideals that have localized the language.[45]

The utilization of Sanskrit has been prevalent in all aspects of life including legal purposes. Sanskrit terminology and vernacular appears in ancient courts to establish procedures that have been structured by Indian models such as a system composed of a code of laws. The concept of legislation demonstrated through codes of law and organizations particularly the idea of "God King" was embraced by numerous rulers of Southeast Asia.[48] The rulers amid this time, for example, the Lin-I Dynasty of Vietnam once embraced the Sanskrit dialect and devoted sanctuaries to the Indian divinity, Shiva. Many rulers following even viewed themselves as "reincarnations or descendants" of the Hindu Gods. However, once Buddhism began entering the nations, this practiced view was eventually altered.

Linguistic commonalities

Toponyms

Ruins of Ayutthaya in Thailand; Ayutthaya derives its name from the ancient Indian city of Ayodhya, which has had wide cultural significance

See also

Citations

  1. JSTOR 26534911
    . It is important to note that Nepal was not a British colony like India. Geographically, culturally, socially and historically India and Nepal are linked most intimately and lived together from time immemorial. The most significant factor which has nurtured Indo-Nepalese relations through ages is geographical setting of the two countries which is a good example to understand that how geography connects the two countries.
  2. OCLC 557595150
    . Modern Afghanistan was part of ancient India; the Afghans belonged to the pale of Indo-Aryan civilisation. In the eighty century, the country was known by two regional names—Kabul land Zabul. The northern part, called Kabul (or Kabulistan) was governed by a Buddhist dynasty. Its capital and the river on the banks of which it was situated, also bore the same name. Lalliya, a Brahmin minister of the last Buddhist ruler Lagaturman, deposed his master and laid the foundation of the Hindushahi dynasty in c. 865.
  3. ISBN 9788124110669
    . Although Afghanistan was considered an integral part of India in antiquity, and was often called "Little India" even in medieval times, politically it had not been a part of India after the downfall of the Kushan empire, followed by the defeat of the Hindu Shahis by Mahmud Ghazni.
  4. ISBN 978-81-206-0772-9. Archived
    from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 26 March 2023.
  5. ISBN 978-0-8248-0843-3. Archived
    from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 26 March 2023.
  6. ^
    S2CID 154819912, archived
    from the original on 12 August 2021, retrieved 23 December 2015
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  119. ^ Keenleyside (1982, pp. 213–214) Quote: "Starting in the 1920s under the leadership of Kalidas Nag – and continuing even after independence – a number of Indian scholars wrote extensively and rapturously about the ancient Hindu cultural expansion into and colonisation of South and Southeast Asia. They called this vast region "Greater India" – a dubious appellation for a region which to a limited degree, but with little permanence, had been influenced by Indian religion, art, architecture, literature and administrative customs. As a consequence of this renewed and extensive interest in Greater India, many Indians came to believe that the entire South and Southeast Asian region formed the cultural progeny of India; now that the sub-continent was reawakening, they felt, India would once again assert its non-political ascendancy over the area... While the idea of reviving the ancient Greater India was never officially endorsed by the Indian National Congress, it enjoyed considerable popularity in nationalist Indian circles. Indeed, Congress leaders made occasional references to Greater India while the organisation's abiding interest in the problems of overseas Indians lent indirect support to the Indian hope of restoring the alleged cultural and spiritual unity of South and Southeast Asia."
  120. ^ Thapar (1968, pp. 326–330) Quote: "At another level, it was believed that the dynamics of many Asian cultures, particularly those of Southeast Asia, arose from Hindu culture, and the theory of Greater India derived sustenance from Pan-Hinduism. A curious pride was taken in the supposed imperialist past of India, as expressed in sentiments such as these: "The art of Java and Kambuja was no doubt derived from India and fostered by the Indian rulers of these colonies." (Majumdar, R. C. et al. (1950), An Advanced History of India, London: Macmillan, p. 221) This form of historical interpretation, which can perhaps best be described as being inspired by Hindu nationalism, remains an influential school of thinking in present historical writings."
  121. ^ Bayley (2004, pp. 735–736) Quote:"The Greater India visions which Calcutta thinkers derived from French and other sources are still known to educated anglophone Indians, especially but not exclusively Bengalis from the generation brought up in the traditions of post-Independence Nehruvian secular nationalism. One key source of this knowledge is a warm tribute paid to Sylvain Lévi and his ideas of an expansive, civilising India by Jawaharlal Nehru himself, in his celebrated book, The Discovery of India, which was written during one of Nehru's periods of imprisonment by the British authorities, first published in 1946, and reprinted many times since.... The ideas of both Lévi and the Greater India scholars were known to Nehru through his close intellectual links with Tagore. Thus Lévi's notion of ancient Indian voyagers leaving their invisible 'imprints' throughout east and southeast Asia was for Nehru a recapitulation of Tagore's vision of nationhood, that is an idealisation of India as a benign and uncoercive world civiliser and font of global enlightenment. This was clearly a perspective which defined the Greater India phenomenon as a process of religious and spiritual tutelage, but it was not a Hindu supremacist idea of India's mission to the lands of the Trans-Gangetic Sarvabhumi or Bharat Varsha."
  122. ^ Narasimhaiah (1986) Quote: "To him (Nehru), the so-called practical approach meant, in practice, shameless expediency, and so he would say, "the sooner we are not practical, the better". He rebuked a Member of Indian Parliament who sought to revive the concept of Greater India by saying that 'the honorable Member lived in the days of Bismarck; Bismarck is dead, and his politics more dead!' He would consistently plead for an idealistic approach and such power as the language wields is the creation of idealism—politics' arch enemy—which, however, liberates the leader of a national movement from narrow nationalism, thus igniting in the process a dead fact of history, in the sneer, "For him the Bastille has not fallen!" Though Nehru was not to the language born, his utterances show a remarkable capacity for introspection and sense of moral responsibility in commenting on political processes."
  123. Sylvain Levi
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References

Further reading

External links

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