indian art had accompanied indian religion across straits ... · pdf filethe mekong also seems...

Hare Krishna Centre - Leicester, UK - Ancient Veda And The Indochinese Peninsula

Written by James Robinson CooperWednesday, 12 April 2017 20:35 - Last Updated Thursday, 01 February 2018 19:27

"Indian art had accompanied Indian religion across straits and frontiers into Sri Lanka, Java,Cambodia, Siam, Burma, Tibet, Khotan, Turkestan, Mongolia, China, Korea and Japan. In Asiaall roads lead from India.” Will Durant (1885-1981) American historian

Observing the battlefield, the great emperor Ashoka surveyed the vanquished. For once hismind did not dwell upon victory, he saw only severed heads, severed arms, headless torsos andrivers of blood. Sick of war, Ashoka was experiencing a change of heart, one which wouldcoincide with an emerging philosophy known as Buddhism.

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Some two thousand years ago, Buddhism, firmly established through the patronage of KingAshok, began to migrate and spread its influence to foreign shores. Through the gateway ofManipur it entered Burma, Siam and Cambodia and for a thousand years it became the spiritualinfluence of the Indo/Chinese peninsula.

Throughout Burma ( Myanmar ) we find over ten thousand pagodas, temples and monasteries,remnants of the ancient Kingdom of Pagan, a Kingdom which flourished for over a thousandyears, and then suddenly in the 13th century it inexplicably disappeared. Sri Ksetra was thecapital of Pagan, it was home to three Vedic dynasties known as Vikarma, Gupta and Varman.We also have the Irrawady river, the largest and most prominent river which flows throughoutBurma. Its name has been transported from Vedic India, reflecting the river Iravati, also knownas the Ravi. Iravati is the mother of Airavata, the celestial elephant, the great mount of lordIndra. The Mekong also seems to be a reflection of its ancient Vedic past, it originally being "MaGanga". Theres no dispute about the "ma" and the "mother" and it seems that Ganga is a termwhich for the locals means "mother of all rivers" and so there seems to be little reason to lookbeyond Ma Ganga as its original name.

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Upon the border of Burma was the once great Kingdom of Siam ( Thailand ), around 600 AD theBuddhists installed a princess from the town of Lavapuri to become one of its prominentQueens. Her name was Camadevi, a Sanskrit name meaning the God of love. She named herKingdom Haribhunjaya which means “the victorious land of Hari”. She is revered throughoutThailand as an icon of female emancipation and loved as a great Queen of its ancient history.Buddhism and its influence had spread from India to Burma and here we see it crossing theborder into the Kingdom of Siam. From the Kingdom of Siam the Buddhists once again crossed the border to Cambodia and oneof the great temples of the world Angkor Wat. Henry Mouhot the French naturalist and explorerexpressed his amazement upon encountering the great temple "It is grander than anything leftto us by Greece or Rome. To obtain any idea of its splendour one must imagine the mostbeautiful creations of architecture transported into depths of the forests in one of the moreremote countries in the world.” Bernard Philippe Groslier the great French conservator and archaeologist exclaimed “Theywere the masters of their world. It was quite wonderful. There was peace and order, temples fullof riches. Happy Brahmins full of good rice, good food, and of course some of the mostmagnificent temples ever built. Nothing in that part of the world would compare. Nothing! That’squite something, n’est-ce pas? – isn’it?” "The Khmer took everything from India, from irrigationto astronomy and including Shiva and the rest of Hindu religion...And the Khmer built Angkor."

The Buddhist migration 2000 years ago was not the first wave to leave the shores of VedicIndia. The ancient Vedic culture was well established in these parts when the Buddhists arrived,permitting an almost seamless cultural transition. Cambodia was originally called Camboja,reflecting the ancient bhoja dynasty of India. In Angkor Wat they uncovered an inscription whichdescribes their neighbours ( Siam ) as syam or dark coloured people and the Europeanseafarers of the 16th century referred to the sea route as the “road to syam”. The Kingdom of Siam may well have been the Kingdom of Syam, a name for Krsna who isfamously described as having a complexion which is dark ( Syam ) as a raincloud. When weconsider that its most prominent Queen was named Camadevi and her Kingdom wasHaribhunjaya, the victorious land of Hari, its quite reasonable to make such a suggestion. Siamas present day Thailand has some 76 provinces and nearly all are Sanskrit/Vedic names“buriram” “singburi” “lobpuri” “mahasarakham” “suphanburi" “uttaradit” “chantaburi” ”saraburi”“ratchaburi” “prachinburi” “chonburi" ect, ect, ect. Its capital is known to the natives as KrungThep, this however is the short version, the full version is as follows ~ " The city of angels, the great city, the residence of the emerald Buddha, the impregnable cityof Ayutthaya, of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, thehappy city, abounding in an enormous royal palace that resembles the heavenly abode wherereigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarn “.

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“There can be no reasonable doubt that a great Aryan wave of very pure blood passed throughManipur into Burma in pre-historic time” ~ Captain E. W. Dun, Gazetteer of Manipur ”India and Burma are bound by the golden chains of tradition, religion and culture as ourtraditional history begins with King Abhi Raja.” ~ U. Than Aung, former Burmese ambassador toIndia ~ “The civilizations of the Burmese and the Tibetans is derived from India.” ~ Horace HaymanWilson, professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University ~ “There can be no doubt that the architects who planned and built the Ananda temple wereIndians. Everything in this temple from Sikhara to the basement as well as the numerous stonesculptures found in its corridors and the terra-cotta…adoring its basement and terraces, bearthe indubitable stamp of Indian genius and craftsmanship…In this sense, we may take it,therefore, that the Ananda, though built in the Burmese capital, is an Indian temple.” ~ CharlesDuroiselle, pioneer of Burmese Studies in France ~

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indian art had accompanied indian religion across straits ... · pdf filethe mekong also seems...

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