EXPANSION OF VEDIC INDIA TO SOUTHEAST ASIA

By the early centuries of the Christian era, many parts of Southeast Asia and India were part of the world-trading network. Though this period was marked by the domination of Indian Ocean by roman trade, it also witnessed the establishment of trade relations between India and Southeast Asia. It has been argued that this relationship further resulted in the colonization of south east Asia, but the argument has been firmly countered in the wake of recent research, which emphasize on the mutual influence, rather than partial view of one-sided influence. In this paper, an attempt has been made to study the process of state-formation vis-à-vis the interplay of trade to examine the role-played by indigenous factors and the influence of ‘indic’ elements. It also presents an analysis of relations behind the increased economic activities (trade also) between India and Southeast Asia from 5-6^th century onwards and the resultant socio-political, economic and cultural impact of this relationship on both regions.


he sources for this early relationship between India and Southeast Asia and the scanty and ambiguous in nature. South east Asia has been portrayed and referred as the ‘golden island’ or "Golden Peninsula" or Yavadipa or Suvarnadipa in the Indian literature from the first centuries AD Apart from Ramayana, the Buddhist Jataka fables also mention about south east Asia. Chinese records provide a satisfactory, yet still incomplete view of the burgeoning Southeast Asian commerce. In the last few decades, archaeological excavations at various sites in southeast Asia has resulted in the yielding of various remains, which presents an entirely different and new picture of the region. The availability of epigraphic sources and inscriptions at various places has been of great use in reconstructing the history of this region.


The importance of trade in political developments and the possibility of archaeological recovery of the phase of transition from lower to higher levels of political integration through study of evidence from changing trade patterns have begun to be exposed in maritime south east Asia. Archaeological sources have supported the argument that long-distance sea trade itself played a key role in stimulating political development which eventually led to the formation of state. J.W. Christie divides the maritime Southeast Asia into three distinct groupings. The first grouping covers the end of the pre-historic period in the maritime region (5^th century BC to 5^th century AD), the archaeological remains of which includes megalithic burial sites, inhumation, hoards, boat fragments and settlement sites. The second grouping comprises several set of early inscriptions on stone found in the region, a few other archaeological remains and some other vague references in Chinese records, dating 5^th and 6^th centuries AD The third grouping dates 7^th to 8^th centuries AD , and comprises further collections of inscriptions, some rather more reliable Chinese and a number of monumental structures and structural remains assumed to have been produced during this period. Now, it is pertinent to discuss the process of state-formation in few parts of Southeast Asia, as it will help locating the role of indigenous factors/developments

he two foci of early state-formation in the maritime Southeast Asia were the Malacca Straits and the southern sea of the Java shore. These were also the centers of wealth accumulation and trading activities and shared a number of basic political concepts. Political developments occurred in the region owing to the response given by the coastal communities to the same external economic stimuli. The increasing wealth in these two sub-regions was increasingly concentrated in the hands of politically powerful elite who exercised some control over prestige-goods economies. Moreover, the contacts with other regions brought advanced metallurgical techniques and enhanced resource-base of the region to trade. This expansion of economic base of a number of trading communities, possibly in conjunction with increased exposure to more developed political cultures, led to the formation of a series, first of chiefdoms, and then, of nascent states, on the relevant coasts of peninsula and the western islands. Same was the case with Funan, which rose on the account of developed trade and port facilities owing to strategic location and supported by an agrarian base. K.R. Hall argues that Funan may be considered as the first south east Asian ‘state’ as it was an economic center, with an economic base that supported a more sophisticated level of political integration, and acted as the locus of contact between various regional and local marketing networks. Thus the pre-existing indigenous cultural and ethnic diversity were synthesized with external ideology to create a new systematic higher order cultural base. This is documented in the growing use of Sanskrit in Funan (Sanskrit inscription of 3^rd century AD), use of Indian vocabulary and technical knowledge.

Thus trade appears to have been key to economic growth control of trade appears to have provided the key to political development. Moreover, trade in this region was information maximizing as it carried a substantial baggage of information and ideas alongwith material commodities. This suggests that the carriers of most of this trade were members of maritime Southeast Asian communities rather than outsiders. Here, an important point to be noted is that none of the communities on the east coast of the Indian sub-continent or on the mainland of southeast Asia, involved in trade at this time, belonged to sophisticated or powerful state and all these communities were in the process of transforming themselves politically. Thus interaction at this time was on a fairly equal basis. Thus it is evident that in the early period before 200 BC, the above was the case whereas till 300 AD the other argument of outside stimuli would have been the case. The economic stimulation came from India and China, whereas the political and cultural stimulation of the region was primarily from Indian sub-continent, probably carried along Buddhist commercial network. The period between 300-600 AD witnessed several fully formed states in this maritime region. Clear differences began to develop during this period between coastal trading states of the Malice straits and the increasingly mixed economy. The coastal trading states extended the use of Buddhism as a commercial networking religion, pulling ports of north and west Borneo into their cultural orbit. The elite groups in the states of the Java sea and their dependencies began to add elements of Hinduism-with its royal and agrarian overtones-to the already existing Buddhist cum ‘Megalithic’ cultural mix of the ports, as they began to attach farming population of the interior to their coastal centers. Lastly by the 7^th-9^th century AD, when states in both the sub-regions began to produce literature in the indigenous language, it is apparent that the old, small states were being increasingly absorbed into larger, more complex political entities