Midterm summary history SSEA- Lecture 1-6

History Summary SSEA- Year 1 Midterm


Lecture 1 - Interconnected histories


1. INDIANISATION
from c. early 1st millennium CE
 The Buddhist and Hindu religions, together with Sanskrit language and literature, spread
across the southern rim of Asia from Afghanistan to Java, bringing the whole region within
the domain of a single civilization.


Indianisation: Influence from India on SSEA. Influence from within India into other parts of
India. North India was the primary source.
 1st millennium - 1 half 2 millennium
 Boasted Hinduism and Buddhism
 Language spread
 Art (literature) and architecture
 Chalender
 Political motion (Kings)
 Ethnic? (Bali people have Indian genes)


2. ISLAMISATION
from c. 1st half of 2nd millennium CE

3. COLONISATION
from c. mid-2nd millennium CE



Classical 4 varṇas in ‘Hinduism’ (Caste)


How? 4 theories related to the 4 varnas in Hinduism (4 casts)


Brahmins theory says that it were the priests.
Prove:
 Scholastic Sanskrit loanwords


Kshatriyas theory says that the warriors spread it.
Probably not because there was not a big military expansion.

,Vaisyas theory
 Guilds (gildes) they left inscription all over south east Asia
 Mercantile tamil loanwords in bahasa


Sudras theory Wondered around south East Asia and inspired


Disclaimers:

Also refers spread. South East Asia to South Asia.
- Universities in India
- Elites came back
Temple building happened all around SSEA at the same times in their own styles.


Happened through both Buddhism and Hinduism
Buddhism spread from South Asia to South East Asia and almost disappeared in South Asia.
Buddhism converted people as a mission




According to Anthony Reid, SEA was:
- A region
- Geography
- Culture
- History

Lecture 2 - Southeast Asia: the 'Age of Commerce' and its aftermath

, Recap

Lecture 1 was an introduction to South and Southeast Asia as a whole:
• its physical geography
• its linguistic and cultural geography
• the distribution of its population
• its modern nation states

Three broad historical developments which are common to both South and Southeast Asia,
and which make it sensible to treat them for many purposes as a single region:
(1) Indianization, (2) Islamization, and (3) colonization by Western powers.

Particular attention was paid to Indianization: the process by which, beginning early in the
first millennium CE, the Buddhist and Hindu religions, together with Sanskrit language and
literature, spread across the southern rim of Asia from Afghanistan to Java, bringing the
whole region within the domain of a single civilization.


Lecture 2 has two aims:

(1) to introduce and define Southeast Asia as a region, both with respect to South Asia and
with respect to its northern neighbours in East Asia (Reid, Chapter 1).

(2) to provide a bird's eye view of Southeast Asian history, and some debates surrounding it,
from the end of the period of Indianization (around 1400 CE) up to the beginning of the
nineteenth century.

- Some of the geographical and historical characteristics that link Southeast with
South Asia also link it with Northeast (or East) Asia (China, Korea, Japan):
• monsoon seasons and sea trade
• irrigated rice cultivation (→ rice diets, high population densities in favourable areas)
• Buddhism

- In genetic terms Southeast Asians (unlike South Asians) are closely related to the
peoples of China and Japan.

- Their major language groups (again unlike those of South Asia) have their prehistoric
origins in (southern) China.

(But the predominant influences on Southeast Asia have all come from a westerly direction,
so that today 'cultural features largely link Southeast Asians to South Asia' ). (Reid, A history
of Southeast Asia, p. 10)


Southeast Asia is not a 'crossroads of cultures'