And the rest, as they say, is history

CHENNAI: A monk from Kancheepuram down South took the message of Buddhism all the way to Central China in the sixth century AD. The Arabs exported horses to Indian kings and the Tamil Kingdom in turn received revenue from exporting silk to Rome. The interactions between India and the South and South East Asian regions have existed, right from the Chola period, as was evident during the release of the book, Early Interactions Between South and Southeast Asia: Reflections on Cross-Cultural Exchange. The book was jointly released by the Madras Book Club and Roja Muthiah Research Library on Thursday. “I wish the book had gone back upto the Pallava period,” said Dr S Muthiah, historian and journalist. The book contains the proceedings from a conference that recently concluded in Singapore. Releasing the book, Ambassador K Kesavapany, Director, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore, said that the conference was the brainchild that evolved from him trying to land upon a research topic. “I began thinking about how our forefathers came to this part of the world. How did they steer their ships, or preserve their food? Where did they land and what sort of reception did they receive when they landed?” Such deliberations made him get together a few scholars and organise a three-day conference. “Fifty two regional and international experts presented papers and some of the topics they covered include naval expeditions of the Cholas, ancient and medieval commercial activities and cultural localisation, among others,” said Kesavapany. Part of the proceedings have already been published as a first book under the title, Nagapattinam and Swarnadeep. The recently released book, apart from the vital introductory chapter (in which one of the editors Pierre-Yves Manguin suggests the need for experts from both regions to study the trans-cultural processes), is split into two halves. Part one has 10 chapters, which deal with archaeological evidences found on both sides of the Bay of Bengal. The second part, with 13 chapters, contains issues of localisation of South Asian cultures in South East Asia. CV Karthick Narayanan, translator of many books including Ponniyin Selvan, in his key note address, remembered inscriptions from the Mahabaratha on a Shivalingam he came across in Vietnam. He elaborated on the trade activities of the Chola kings, coins and other artefacts that have been evacuated that prove some of the merchant activities from 200 BC onwards, among other things, that clearly establish early Indian interactions with Asian regions. “The only thing that is not covered in the book is Bali, even though Hinduism is widely practiced there. That is because the book stops around the 14th Century (period of Majapahit’s Gajah Mada’s invasion).” He added, “The practice of Hinduism in Bali is very different. The only common thing is the Gayatri Mantra.”