1. Introduction
2. Early Contact and Trade
3. The Adoption of Indian Traditions after the Fourth Century C.E.
4. Potential Items of Export from Southeast Asia to the Indian Subcontinent in the Early Historic Period
5. Conclusions
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Topic – India’s Contact with South-East Asia (Notes)
Subject – History
(Ancient Indian History)
Table of Contents
Introduction
- The interactions between the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia in the Early Historic period have traditionally been interpreted as relationships of dominance or influence.
- More recently, archaeological evidence for indigenous development of social complexity has led to a reevaluation of these relationships, suggesting that local elites in Southeast Asia adopted “Indianized” customs to enhance political legitimacy.
- It is suggested that before the 4th century C.E., contacts across the eastern Indian Ocean were sporadic and mainly economic, shown by the recovery of a limited number of Indian items.
After the 4th century C.E., along with major political and cultural changes in India, Southeast Asian polities began to adopt Indian scripts, iconography, and political terminology. - One reason for earlier interpretations of Indian “influence” on Southeast Asia was the colonial scholarship of the Indian Ocean. By 1900, European scholars had studied India for over a century, while early Southeast Asian societies remained poorly understood.
Thus, the discovery of Indian artifacts in Southeast Asia led to the assumption of Indian dominance or colonial influence. - Later archaeological research revealed that Southeast Asia had undergone long indigenous development.
Findings from the last thirty years show that instead of cultural colonization, Indian elements were selectively assimilated into existing, well-developed local cultures. - The decline of the idea of a single, monolithic Indian influence also stems from recognizing that both India and Southeast Asia consisted of diverse groups at different levels of political integration.
There was no single “Indian” culture: alongside Vedic Hinduism, there were Buddhism and Jainism, all undergoing schisms during the late first millennium B.C.E..
In addition, megalithic communities in the southern subcontinent continued their own traditions.
Therefore, identifying precise sources of “Indian” traditions is difficult, and scholars locate them in different regions of India.
L.W. Mabbett proposed two stages of the “Indianizing” phenomenon in Southeast Asia:
- an early stage in the first few centuries C.E., and
- a later stage tied to the rise of peasant societies supporting civil, priestly, and military elites during the latter half of the first millennium C.E.
He argued that differences between these stages reflected changes in Southeast Asia’s local organization and social structure.
However, the concept of two stages of contact also makes sense from the Indian perspective of “Indianization.”
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