Showing posts with label Indian Culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indian Culture. Show all posts

Sunday, May 10, 2020

The Contrasting Styles of India and China in ‘Colonizing’ Asian Countries

Thanks to Othisaivu Ramasamy's recent blog post, I found George Coedes’ monumental work, ‘The Indianized States of Southeast Asia.
Published in 1965, the book is an authoritative analysis of India’s ‘Sanskritization’ and ‘Cultural Civilizing’, as Coedes calls, of the ‘Farther India’, a landmass which includes the current Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesian archipelago and Vietnam, almost one-third of the Asian continent.
The interesting part is his analysis of how India managed to convert the native peoples into adopting to its religion, language, customs, systems, and practices, as against the failure of China to do so, having arrived almost in the same century, 1 AD, or little later.
One could readily see the soft power that today’s India exerts on global stages vs. China’s current domineering and expansionist aggression as a natural extension of their individual manifestations over millennia.
Here is how Coedes concludes his chapter on ‘Indianization’:
“It is astonishing that in countries so close to China - countries that entered into commercial and diplomatic relations with her from the first centuries of the Christian Era - the cultural influence of the Middle Kingdom has been insignificant, although it was intense in the deltas of Tongking and North Vietnam.
We are struck by the fundamental difference of the results obtained in the countries of the Far East by the civilizing activity of China and India.
The reason for this lies in the radical difference in the methods of colonization employed by the Chinese and the Indians. The Chinese proceeded by conquest and annexation; soldiers occupied the country, and officials spread Chinese civilization.
Indian penetration or infiltration seems almost always to have been peaceful; nowhere was it accompanied by the destruction that brought dishonor to the Mongol expansion or the Spanish conquest of America.
Far from being destroyed by the conquerors, the native peoples of Southeast Asia found in Indian society, transplanted and modified, a framework within which their own society could be integrated and developed.
The Indians nowhere engaged in military conquest and annexation in the name of a state or mother country. And the Indian kingdoms that were set up in Farther India during the first centuries of the Christian Era had only ties of tradition with the dynasties reigning in India proper; there was no political dependence. The exchanges of embassies between the two shores of the Bay of Bengal were made on the basis of equality, while the Chinese always demanded that the "southern barbarians" acknowledge Chinese suzerainty by the regular sending of tribute.
The Chinese commanderies of Vietnam were administered by Chinese governors, while the Indian kingdoms of Farther India were governed by independent sovereigns of native origin or of mixed blood, advised by Indian or Indianized counselors whose activity was chiefly cultural.
Thus, although China exercised a more or less successful political guardianship over these countries for centuries, her civilization did not spread beyond the area of her military conquests.
The peaceful penetration of the Indians, on the other hand, from the beginning extended to the limits of their commercial navigations.
The countries conquered militarily by China had to adopt or copy her institutions, her customs, her religions, her language, and her writing. By contrast, those which India conquered peacefully preserved the essentials of their individual cultures and developed them, each according to its own genius.”

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Borobudur - A Dream in the Heavens

A View from the East Entrance

Alighting the First Five Levels

Sultry Beauties

Checking the Photos

Close-up

Some Rest After the Collosal View

Striking a Pose

72 Stupas at the Sixth and Seventh Level

Another View

One Row of Stupas with Square Openings...

Revealed Buddha in One of the Stupas

The Central Stupa located on a Lotus Pedestal

Rows of Stupas Facing the Mountain Ranges

Timeless Architecture

View of Top Rows of Stupas

Another View

Under the Blue Sky and over 1200 years...

Waiting to Enter the Last Flight of Stairs

Dash of Colours

Contented

View Showing the Central Stupa and smaller stupikas

In the upper oval shaped path

It was unbelievably hot and yet...

Overseeing the mountain ranges over a millennia

Stupas

One more view

Relishing the view

More views

Overseeing the Kedu Plain in Central Java

One of the most fertile lands in the region - situated within two rivers and Mt. Merapi

The Majestic Shape of the Stupikas

The timeless beauty


At right angles

Bas- Relief scultptures in Second Level Balustrade

In Deep Meditiation for more than 1200 years

Kala and Rare Animal Head Sculptures

Water Drainage System - Beautifully Carved

A Collage of Colours

Stories from Jataka Tales in the inner and outer Balustrades

A Majestic View

Waiting...


Buddha in One of the Six Postures - Vara Mudra

Dhyani Mudra

Relief Sculptures

One among the 504 Buddha Statues at the monument

Walking through the Kala - Relieving the Desires and Sins - Step into the final flight


Tired but can afford a smile...

Joins the Father

Part of the Story

One more view

Right Angled turns at every level decorated with bas reliefs

Indonesians, irrespective of their religious affiliation, rever the monument

Stunning work

Intricate Expressions

Wise men concurring



More relief sculptures

More panels

Some more

A sick man being tended

More sculptures

Loving every minute of it

going up

A scene from the Jataka Tale

Nothing Short of a Dream!

Performers in the Borobudur Gardens

Walking towards the Monument

The First View is Truly Stunning - Nothing you have imagined would be adequate...

A view from right angle

A street performer at the campus

At the UN Cultural Heritage Pillar


The Amazing View and the first few flights of stairs

Pandit Venkatesh Kumar and Raag Hameer