Indian Cultural Contacts with South East Asia

The Culture of India has been one of the world's most civilising forces by dint of which from time immemorial India had important relations with the countries of Indonesia and Indo-China. The Indian colonisation of South East Asia was actually never a conquest but by cultural and trading expansion through religions – Hinduism and Buddhism. The nucleus of Indian civilisation was centred in the trading colonies where Indian forms of religion were observed. These cultural pursuits were seen by the indigenous population to be good and so they were adopted. The art and architecture in South East Asia as manifested in temples and sculptures also speak of the Indian affiliation in a very striking manner.