Cultural diffusion to South East Asia and the rise of the Khmer Empire.

1.  By Jack Garrity

9.  In the 3rd Century BCE, Buddhism had spread from
India to the rest of Asia, especially under Asoka.

10.  Ashoka the Great, Mauryan , made Buddhism the state
religion of India.

11.  Buddhist monasteries were built, and missionary work was
encouraged. Over the next few centuries, Buddhism began to
spread beyond India.

12.  Buddhism spread across Asia through networks of overland
and maritime routes between India, Southeast Asia, Central
Asia, China and Japan.

13.  Buddhism spread across Asia through networks of overland
and maritime routes between India, Southeast Asia, Central
Asia, China and Japan.

14.  Anonymous foreign monks who traveled between India and China
along the silk routes were responsible for the transmission of
Buddhism at sub-elite levels.

15.  Buddhism is appealing to many as it is an egalitarian religion with
simple rules and ceremonies. Merchants adopted it quickly and the
mass of people.

16.  The environment of South East Asia is mostly
rainforest (tropical wet) with some Savannah and
Tropical Dry.

19.  Both Song China and India influenced the
region of South East Asia greatly.

20.  South Asia’s culture diffused to South East Asia.
It influences today's Indonesia, Malaysia,
Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. Indian
merchants had contact with these Southeast
Asian lands as early as 500 B.C.E. The merchants
sold gold, silver, metal goods, and textiles in the
region and brought back its fine spices. Trade
voyages introduced the Indian religions of
Hinduism and Buddhism to Southeast Asia.
Much of the region became and remains today
mostly Buddhist.

21.  Chola and Vijayanagara Empire impacted this
region by spreading Hinduism into this region
that lasts until today.

22.  Why would Hinduism not become popular in
China or Japan?

23.  For example, the Khmer (Cambodia) people's
founding legend centers around an Indian Prince
marrying a Naga princess Nagi Soma.

25.  A long time ago in the time of myths and legends,
there was a prince of India named Kaundinya who
was descended from the god of the Sun.

26.  One day Kaundinya heard a mysterious voice calling out
to him telling him to set out on a journey to the land of
gold where he would become king. This was a dangerous
journey by sea following the monsoon winds and
dangerous ocean currents.

27.  He gathered his courage and set out. Upon nearing theforeign
coast of the land of gold, Kaundinya's ship was attacked by a
fierce sea creature. It was a serpent woman with sharp fangs
and a whipping tail. Her name was NagI Soma, and she was
the beautiful daughter of the serpent king.

28.  Kaundinya fought her and after a long battle, he
emerged victorious. He spared the serpent woman's
life and she was impressed with his skill. She offered
her hand in marriage.

29.  In celebration, Kaundinya held his golden lance at
the coast and where it landed he resolved to build his
royal city in the land of gold which he gave the name
Cambodia.

31.  For her dowry, the Naga King drank all the water that
covered the land and gave the new land to them.

32.  Preah Thaong Kaundinya and Nagi Soma establish
the first Kymer (Cambodian) royal dynasty.

33.  Hinduism and Buddhism strengthened by the
Chola and Vijayanagara Empire impacted this
region lasting until today.

34.  Many ruling families of Kingdoms in South East Asia
accepted India’s hierarchical social structure based on
caste.

35.  Many Kingdoms of South East Asia accepted India’s
adopted Sanskrit.

36.  Many Kingdoms of South East Asia accepted India’s
pantheon of gods and religious ceremonies.

37.  However, the majority of non elite people eventually
followed Buddhism. Hinduism the religion of the rulers.

38.  Distinctively, Society, power and wealth was passed
down through the mother’s family, a matriarchal society
throughout the region.

39.  Also, indigenous people worshiped nature spirits,
that become part of the Hindu and Buddhist
traditions.

40.  Neolithic people were highly skilled farmers,
growing rice.

41.  By 3000 BCE, the Khmer and Thai people used
bronze, 1000 years earlier than China or Egypt.

42.  By 900 AD the Funan Kingdom prospered by
controlling maritime trade in the region.

43.  Around 100 AD, Funan met traders from India.

44.  The Kingdom of Funan built a Maritime
Kingdom.

45.  They adopted Hinduism.

46.  Funan traded with India, China, and Persia,
perhaps even Alexandria Egypt.

47.  The islands are an important midway point
between China and India.

48.  The region, like Southwest Asia, was strategically
significant. Whoever controlled this region could
influence the valuable trade between South Asia and
East Asia.


49.  Sea-Based Kingdoms
 Several kingdoms emerged, two were particularly
long-lasting (Srivijaya and Majapahit).

50.  The Srivijaya Empire (island of Sumatra) took control
of the seas from 670-1025.

51.  The Srivijaya Empire had a powerful navy.

52.  Trade routes went through the Strait of Malacca
linking the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.

53.  The Srivijaya Empire taxed all ships going threw the
Straits.

54.  They adopted Hinduism.

56.  By the 1330’s, the Buddhist Majapahit Kingdom
(1293-1520) replaced the Hindu Srivijaya Empire and
prospered from theses same routes.

57.  By the 1330’s, the Buddhist Majapahit Kingdom
(1293-1520) replaced the Hindu Srivijaya Empire and
prospered from theses same routes.

58.  Majapahit Kingdom (1293-1520) was based on the
island of Java (Indonesia) .

59.  The third Cham (Vietnamese) Kingdom had adopted
many of Song China’s political culture (1220-1474).
Peninsula.

60.  The third Cham and Dai Veit (Vietnamese) Kingdom
had adopted many of Song China’s political culture
(1220-1474). Peninsula.

61.  The Chinese brought their philosophy, and
government.

62.  Three philosophies Confucianism, Daoism, and
Legalism.

63.  Yet, the Cham and Dai Viet people retained their
matrilineal society, and rejected the patriarchy of
Confucianism.

64.  Like Song China, Buddhism was popular with the
Dai Viet people.

65.  Unlike Song China, the Cham people adopted
Hinduism.

66.  Both , the Cham and Dai Viet people were maritime
trade kingdoms with thousands of trade and war ships.

68.  The Cham people got their name from the Sanskrit word
"champaka", a type of tree known as the yellow jade
orchid.

69.  Around 900, Indravarman was the first Cham monarch to
adopt Mahayana Buddhism as an official religion.

70.  The Cham people a powerful trading empire with Redstone
towers and vast fleets of ships with dragon-headed prowess
that crushed any resistance to their rule.

71.  The Cham Kingdom flourished by maritime trade with China.
They sent regular envoys to the Song then Yuan (Mongol)
Emperors that sat on the Dragon Throne of China.

72.  But their dominion over the region, especially the
Khmer people was soon to be challenged.

73.  By the 11th Century, the Khmer had built an Empire,
which rivaled the Cham and Dai Viet Kingdoms.

74.  The Khmer Empire ruled much of Southeast Asia from the 9th to the 15th
century. At its height, it covered an area that today includes much of
Thailand and Cambodia, as well as Vietnam and Laos.

75.  And at the Empire's heart, was the megacity of
Angkor.

76.  Angkor was over 1,000 square kilometers, larger than
New York City today.

77.  During the 11th and 13th centuries, its wider
agricultural area supported at least 1 million people,
or 0.1 percent of the world's population.

78.  That means that for a period of a few centuries one in
every thousand persons in the world lived in the city
of Angkor.

79.  The Khmer are one of the oldest ethnic groups of
Southeast Asia. They were one of the first people in
the world to use bronze and to invent the number
zero, and they developed the earliest alphabet still
in use in Southeast Asia.

80.  The Champ Kingdom ruled over the Khmer for
much of their early history.

81.  The Champ Kingdom’s rivalry and instability in the
8th century, allowed the region to be broken up into
a set of small Khmer kingdoms ruled by local lords.

82.  Around 802, Jayavarman II, a local strongman was
making a very clear statement: "I am the second
coming of the kings of old and I will return
Cambodia to its glory days."

83.  Jayavarman II forged an independent united kingdom for
the Khmer people and successfully rebelled against the
Charm

84.  He first seized the city of Vyadhapura in the
southeast and then pushed up the Mekong River to
take Sambpuhura. He and his followers swept from
southeast Cambodia to the northwest and
everywhere he went people joined his army.

85.  But the more power Jayavarman amassed, the more
resistance he faced.

86.  In the West he found that many Khmer leaders were
still loyal to the king of Champa. They fought back
against Jayavarman and managed to force him into a
retreat.

87.  Bodied and humiliated, he and his followers retreated
to the Kulen mountain range or Lychees Hills.

88.  For a time it must have seemed like all was lost, but
as he gathered the remains of his forces together
Jayavarman knew that it would take more than just
military might to unite the Khmer peoples. He
decided that what the people of Cambodia needed
was not a warlord but a king.

89.  He would crown himself something that had never
before existed, the king of the Khmer.

90.  And to do this he would have to devise an elaborate
and mystical Hindu ceremony.

91.  "His majesty Jayavarman came from Java to rein in
the royal city of Indrapura. A Brahman proficient in
the law of magic power came from Janapada in
response to his Majesty's invitation to perform a
sublime right which would release the kingdom from
the tyranny of the Charm."

92.  This Hindu ceremony was known as the devaraja,
or the god-king ritual.

93.  By the time the ritual was finished, Jayavarman had
established himself not just as a king of the Khmer but
as a kind of deity.

94.  And the symbolic power of this ritual seemed to
work. When the remaining kingdoms of the Khmer
heard that a god-king had been crowned, their will
to fight dissolved.

95.  Jayavarman was cunning. Through a smart
program of military campaigns, alliances,
marriages, and land grants, he gradually gathered
all the remaining kingdoms of the Khmer under
his banner

96.  Once his conquest was complete, Jayavarman built a
capital at a place he called Hariharalaya. And it
would be a city suited for a god-king.

97.  He built his palace on high ground, and nearby dug
a vast reservoir, marshaling enormous workforces to
build embankments, drain swamps, and dig ditches.
And he even diverted the course of the Siem Reap
river to build his new capital.

98.  And everything that was built for the new god-king
was designed to testify to that direct link that existed
between him and the gods.

99.  In Hindu belief, the gods Shiva, Vishnu, and the rest
of the Pantheon live on a great mountain called
Meru, similar to the idea of Mount Olympus in
ancient Greek mythology.

100.  Mount Meru is believed to be surrounded by a sea
of milk..

101.  Jayavarman built his capital at Hariharalaya, he
designed it to emulate this cosmic image. His palace
on a hill overlooking the great reservoir.

102.  It set the tone for the ambition and scale that would
mark the constructions of the Khmer, but it would be
Jayavarman's successors that would transform his
kingdom into a truly great empire.

103.  And the vast grandeur of their constructions would
reach heights that even Jayavarman could never have
imagined.

104.  Every king who followed after Jayavarman II would
follow his example in conducting the Hindu ritual
of the Devaraja to crown themselves as the god-
king of Cambodia.

105.  For much of Angkor's history, its king was both the
executive power and the center of a religious cult.

106.  By 910, the Leper King Yasovarman, Angkor's
Empire grew and flourished until it was the most
powerful in Southeast Asia.

107.  There were a number of factors behind this great
success story; the first of these was the ruler's status
as God King. This cemented his royal authority and
it allowed the peasants of Angkor to see service to
their King as a kind of religious devotion.

108.  . The second was the Empire's efficient and decentralized tax system.

109.  Each village in the Khmer Empire had its own temple
and this temple wasn't just a religious building, it was
also an administrative center.

110.  Each temple was run by a powerful family in the
area who were responsible for collecting taxes from
the people who lived there.

111.  They would use these taxes to support the
functioning of their own lands, paying their laborers
and soldiers, and supporting their own luxurious
lifestyles. But anything left over would then be
funneled back to the royal treasury in Angkor.

112.  The status of these families depended on how much
money they could send to the King and so, they
competed bitterly to swell the royal funds.

113.  Thirdly, the Khymer were experts at controlling
water and agricultural engineering.

114.  Angkor boomed it was 40 times larger than London
at the time.

115.  The most famous of all Khmer monuments today is
Angkor Wat. It is the largest religious structure ever
built, four times larger than the Vatican City in Rome.
And if the entire city of Angkor is taken into account,
more stone was used in its construction than, in all the
pyramids of Egypt put together.

118.  Compare the social structures of South East
Asia with Dar Islam, China, and India.
 How did South Asia and East Asia impact this
region?

119.  Like most of the Khmers Hindu temples, Angkor
Wat is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of
the gods. Its five-kilometer moat encloses three
rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. And
it's five towers are designed to look like lotus buds
about to bloom.

120.  King Suryavarman II 1113–1150 built Angkor Wat in
just under 37 years, while at the same time the
Normans took centuries to build their own
cathedrals.

121.  King Suryavarman II 1113–1150 also had an insatiable
appetite for warfare. And unlike some of his
predecessors, he showed absolutely no skill in it
whatsoever.

122.  Suryavarman liked to lead his man into battle, and
had set his sights on taking the trade routes to China
from the Charm and Da Viet people.

123.  King Suryavarman embarked on three separate
invasions of Vietnam, each of them resulting in
failure.

124.  In the year 1128 for instance, he led a huge army of
20,000 soldiers against the Viet people, but his great
army was decisively defeated and the king only just
made it back to Angkor alive.

125.  Not to be deterred, Suryavarman tried again in the
year 1145, this time invading Champa, and he had
slightly better luck.

126.  Suryavarman managed to defeat its King and sacked
its capital of Vijaya.

127.  but as the Americans found out in the 20th century,
Vietnam is a difficult country to hold. The puppet
king that Suryavarman installed lasted only about
five years.

128.  He was ousted by Cham rebellions, and when
Suryavarman marched back into Champa to
support him, his army was badly beaten by the
rebels.

129.  Suryavarman died in battle.

130.  For the next 30 years, civil wars, rebellions, and
foreign invasions further weakened the Khmer state,
until it began to seem like it's collapse was imminent.

131.  end