Causes and Consequences
The transmission of Indian culture of distant parts of Central Asia,
China, Japan, and especially Southeast Asia is certainly one of the
greatest achievements of Indian history or even of the history of
mankind. None of the other great civilizations - not even the Hellenic -
had been able to achieve a similar success without military conquest.
In this brief survey of India's history, there is no room for an
adequate discussion of the development of the 'Indianised' states of
Southeast Asia which can boast of such magnificent temple cities as
Pagan (Burma; constructed from 1044 to 1287 AD,) Angkor (Combodia;
constructed from 889 to c. 1300 AD), and the Borobudur (Java, early
ninth century AD). Though they were influenced by Indian culture, they
are nevertheless part and parcel of the history of those respective
countries. Here we will limit our observations to some fundamental
problems oncerning the transmission of Indian culture to the vast region
of Sotheast Asia.
Who Spread Indian Culture in Southeast Asia ?
Historians have formulated several theories regarding the transmission of Indian culture of Southeast Asia :
(1) the 'Kshatriya' theory;
(2) the 'Vaishya' theory;
(3) the 'Brahmin' theory.
The
Kshatriya theory states that Indian warriors colonized Southeast Asia;
this proposition has now been rejected by most scholars although it was
very prominent some time ago.
The Vaishya theory attributes the
spread of Indian cultura to traders; it is certainly much more plausible
than the Kshatriya theory, but does not seem to explain the large
number of Sanskrit loan words in Southeast Asian languages.
The
Brahmin hypothesis credits Brahmins with the transmission of Indian
culture; this would account for the prevalence of these loanawards; but
may have to be amplified by some reference to the Buddhists as well as
to be amplified by some reference to the Buddhsits as well as to the
traders. We shall return to these theories, but first we shall try to
understand the rise and fall of the Kshatriya theory.
It owed its origin to the Indian freedom movement. Indian historians,
smarting under the stigma of their own colonical sujection, tried to
compensate for this by showing that al leat in ancient times Indians had
been strong enough to establish colonise of their own. In 1926 the
Greater India society was established in Calcutta and in subsequent
years the renewed Indian historia R.C. Majumdar published his series of
studies, Ancient Indian colonise in the Far East. This school held that
Indian kings and warriors had established such colonise and the Sanksrit
names of South east Asian rulers seemed to provide ample supporting
evidence. At least this hypothesis stimulated further research, though
it also alienated those intellectuals of Southeast Asia who rejected the
idea of having once been colonized by a 'Greater India'. As research
progressed it was found that there was vary little proof of any direct
Indian political influence in those states of Southeast Asia.
Furthermore, it was demonstrated that Southeast Asian rulers had adopted
Sanskrit names the mselves - thus such names could not be adduced as
evidence for the presence of Indian kings.
The Vaishya theory, in contrast, emphasized a much more important
element of the Indian connection with Southeast Asia. Trade had indeed
been the driving force behind all these early contacts. Inscriptions
also showed that guids of Indian merchants had established outposts in
many parts of Southeast Asia. Some of their inscriptions were written in
languages such as Tamil. However, if such merchants had been the chief
agents of the transmission of Indian culture, then all their languages
should have made an impact on those of Southeast Asia. But this was not
so : Sanskrit and, to some extent, languages. The traders certainly
provided an important transmission belt for all kinds of cultural
influences. Nevertheless, they did not play the crucial role which some
scholars have attributed to them. One of the most important arguments
against the Vaishya theory is that some of the earliest traces of
Indianised states in Southeast Asia are not found in the coastalareas
usually frequented by the traders, but in mountainous, interior areas.
The Brahmin theory is in keeping with what we have shown with regard to
the almost contemporary spread of Hindu culture in Southern and Central
India. There Brahmins and Buddhist and Jain monks played the major role
in transmitting cultural values and symbols, and in disseminating the
style of Hundu kingship. In addition to being religious specialists, the
Brahmins also knew the Sanskrit codes regarding law (dharmasastra), the
art of government (arthasastra), and art and architecture
(silpasastra). They could taus serve as development planners' in many
different fields and were accordingly welcome to Southeast Asian rulers
who may have just emerged from what we earlier described as first-and
second phase state formation.
