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In dia: E a r ly H is to r y

Buddhism
Buddhism flourished side by side in South East Asia not as an antagonistic religion but as a s uppl ement ary one. Bu dd ha and Siva are associated together, and the former even finds a place in the Br ahmanical Trinity consisting o f P a d m o d b h a v a (Brahma), Ambhojanetra (Visnu) and the Buddha. The assimilation o f Buddha in the Brahmani cal Trinity is an important feature. B uddhi sm acquired great f avour both in C amp a and Java. D-ong Duong in Ca mpa appears to have been a stronghold o f Buddhists as e vide nc ed by several images o f Buddha, and r emn an ts o f a Buddhist temple were found there. In Java the famous stu p a at Bar abudur is a living monument , symbolizing the flourishing state o f Buddhism in that island. In all these places the religion o f the Tathagata was not an antagonistic force set up against Brahmanism, but was something friendly or even identical. A Si va- Buddha cult existed in Java, and Siva, Visnu, and the Buddha were all regarded as identical. The international character o f Bu ddhi s m is apparent from contacts between SuvarnadvTpa and India on the one hand, and other Buddhist countries on the other. We have reference to AtT^a DTparikara o f VikramasTla and Dh a rma pa la o f KancT as visitors to SuvarnadvTpa.

T em ples
Art, as the h a n dm a i d o f r el ig io n, c o n s t it u t e s the g r e at e s t livi ng m e m o r i a l o f I n di an c ul tu r e and c iv il i z a ti on in So ut h East Asia. W h e t h e r it be the t e m p l e s o f M y s on or P o - N a g a r in Campa, or those o f A n g k o r Vat and Bayon in C a m b od i a , or the B u r a b u d u r and the C a n d l s o f Java, they wer e all i n s pi r ed by, one i de al the si t ti ng up o f a fitting m o n u m e n t s y m b o l i z i n g t he p e o p l e s r el ig io us d ev o ti o n . The e ar l ie r ph a se in t e mp l e c o n s t r u c t i o n is c o m p l e t e l y I ndi an, e it h e r o f the N o r t h I ndi an s'ikh a ra type or o f the S o u t h I ndi an Dr av i da style, b ut nati ve g enius with a desi re for lofty and s k y - s cr a pi n g st ru c tu r es t r i u m p h s o ve r the e a r l i e r i mp ul se . A c o l o ss a l c h a r a c t e r to the w h o l e s t r u c t u r e is also g i v e n by the g r o u p i n g o f n u m e r o u s t e m p l e s in one e n c l o s u r e . T h e s c u l p t u r e s a nd n a r r a t i v e reliefs bear a stamp o f their own, whether they are the R am ayana

H isto ry o f P o litic a l a n d C u lt u r a l E xp a n sio n

93

rel ief at Panataran or the Krsna legend at An g k o r Vat. In Cambodia one also notices the cruciform plan o f the individual towers, like the one in the Kandariya Mahadeva temple at Khajuraho, and also the conception o f grouping a number o f cellas on a single terrace as in the famous Orissan temples at Bhubane^var. The artists exhibited mastery o f technique with a high aesthetic conception. With the decay o f Indian influence, and the final collapse o f the Hindu states, art received a death below.

N o rth -w estern P h ase

Indian cultural influence extended to West and Central Asia as well. There was no att empt a political expansion in the west but the assimilation o f all the foreigners who came to India, Greeks, Parthians, Sfakas, Kusanas, and H un a s- i n the So c io religious structure o f India was the triumph o f Indian culture. This extended even further. Chinese Turkestan, called by Sir Aurel Stein as the i nner most heart o f A s i a , and f orming a vast basin was at one time a p ro sp e ro us country o f flourishing cities with their rich sanct uar ies and monasteries. The remains in Turkestan and the finds at different sites e xplored or excavated by archaeologists have est abl ished beyond doubt that a large number of Indians had mi grat ed from the Punjab and Kashmi r and settled in the Tarim basin where they built numer ous cities. Indian life and t hought s were so firmly pl ant ed that when Stein was exploring that region he felt as if he was in some Punjab village, although he was nearly 3,220 km. away from the land o f the five rivers.

Indian K ingdom in Khotan

There was an Indian kin g do m in Khotan alleged to have been founded by a son o f emp er or As'oka. The name o f the early kings all begin with Vijeta. Buddhi sm was int r oduced in that kingdom more than a century after its establishment. Vairocana from Kashmir had gone there for that purpose. Later, many Buddhist monasteries wer e set up in the region; two famous ones, Go^rriga and Gomatl viharas, were great centres o f learning.

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India: E a rly H istory

encouraged the translation into Persian of Indian treatise on medicine and astronomy. The Hindu system o f numerals was borrowed from India by the Arabs and they spread it all over the world. Duri ng the long course o f history, I n d i as attitude towards political and cultural ex pa ns io n has never been imperialistic. Armies were never sent to co nq u e r any region. The conquest was mainly intellectual, and incidentally the s uper ior culture triumphed over the native one. Individual men or gr oups set up ki ngdoms which in course o f time shaped into empires. The contact with the mot her land was maintained but India never exploi t ed the colonies for her own benefit. The kingdoms were, however, repositories o f I ndian culture replicas o f the ones in India. In South East Asia, these kingdoms and I ndi an culture f lourished for nearly fifteen hundred years; in the land beyond the Himalayas their existence was o f shorter duration. The spade o f the ar chaeologist has uncovered this phase o f Indian history. The degree and extent o f colonial enterprise was never uniform, and sooner or later the Indians in their new homes f o u n d t h e m s e l v e s m e r g e d in the local p o p u l a t i o n . The archaeol ogical remains and famous existing mon ume nt s bear eloquent testimony to the ancient panor ama o f Gr eat er I nd i a .

INDEX
Abbasids, 67 Abhidhamma,Pitaka, 80 Abhira Graharipu, 62 Abhiraja, 80 Abhiras, 36, 39, 44, 63 Aborigines, 4 Achaemenian empire, 95 Adam, Nedunjerai, 37 Adhirajendra, 74,76 Aditya, 81 Adityacola, 73 Adityacola 1, 73 Adityasena, 51 Afghanistan and India, 94-5 Agni,9 Agni-kula, 57 Agnistomas, 48 Aiksvakus, 16, 17, 18 Airlangga, king, 85 Aitareya Brahmana. 16, 17,36 Ajatas'atru, 19 Ajayadeva, 60 Ajayapala, 63 Ajayaraja, 64 Alaud-Daulah M asud III, 58 Alaud-din Husain, 68 Alaud-din Khalji, 65 Alexander, 22, 23, 26, 28, 29, 34; invasion of, 20-21 AlptigTn,65 A lupas, 50 Ambhojanetra, 92 Amma II, 69 . Amoghavarsa I, 69 , AmSuvarman, 44 Anahilapataka, 61, 63, 64 Anahilla, Cahamana, 61 Ananda family, 48 Anandapala, SahT, 61 Aniruddha, 80 Amamites, 83 A ntigonus G onatas, 26 A ntiochus I, 24 A ntiochus II T heos, 26 A ntiochus III, 28 Anus, 16 A parajita, Pallava, 73, 76 A pollodotus, 29 A rabs, 52, 57, 66, 96; o f Sind, 67-68 A rhats,95 A rjuna, 17 A rjunayanas,39 A rnoraja, C aham ana, 63 Arya,3 Arya varna 3 Aryans, 1, 10, 11, 16; dress, 5; fam ily, 4; food, 5; houses, 4; m arriage, 5-6; origin, 1-2, lfn; R g-vedic, 3-5; settlem ent of, in India, 1-2; w om en, 5 A ryas, 4 Art, 90-91 Atfaraja, C aham ana, 63 A sceticism , 95 A ioka, 24-27, 35-38, 79, 93; death, 27; m issionary w ork, 26-27 As'ramas, four, 11 AstadhyayJ, 89 A^vaghosa, 32 . A sva m ed h a sa c rific e , 16,39,40,45, 47,48,49 A ^vavarm an, 84 A tharva Veda, 10, 16 AtTa Diparikara, 92 A vanijanatfraya, Pulaketfin, 67 A vantivarm an, 66 A zes,30 Bactrian C reeks, 28 B adapa, E astern C alukya, 69 B alaputradeva, 85 Balban,56 B allala II, 72 B allalasena, 55-56 Banabhatta, 42, 43 B appa, 65