Chapter 1 - Introduction: Seasons and Civilizations

Summary

Abstract

This chapter lays out the purpose of the Monsoon Asia anthology: to explore the usefulness of studying South Asia and Southeast Asia as a single unit, and to investigate historical and contemporary connections and contrasts between them. It traces the history of the idea of the southern rim of Asia as a single region, and outlines some of the similarities that can arguably be identified across the countries of that region in the domains of ecology, culture, ethnicity, social and political institutions, and postcolonial identity. It discusses the concept of cultural “Indianization” and argues that whatever oversimplifications that concept has fostered, in many respects Southeast Asia does belong to a cultural “Indosphere” which is clearly distinguishable from the “Sinosphere” of Northeast Asia. This asymmetry has its origins in a period of more than a millennium, starting in the last centuries before the beginning of the Common Era, in which Southeast Asia's relations with India and Southwest Asia, navigational and commercial as well as cultural, were decisively closer than its relations with China. Reasons are tentatively suggested for the Indian head start, and for the fact that cultural transfers across the Indian Ocean mostly took place from west to east rather than vice versa. The chapter continues with a preview of the structure and contents of the rest of the volume, and concludes with a reflection on the significance of the Monsoon Asia concept in the twenty-first century.

Keywords: South Asia; Southeast Asia; history; geography; region; Indianization

Atiśa Dipaṃkaraśrījñāna […] (982-1054). […] Buddhist monk and scholar revered by Tibetan Buddhists as a leading teacher […] of Buddhism in Tibet. […] Born into a royal family in what is today Bangladesh, Atiśa […] journeyed to the island of Sumatra, where he studied under the Cittamātra teacher Dharmakīrtiśrī (also known as guru Sauvarṇadvīpa) for twelve years […]. Atiśa was invited to Tibet by the king of western Tibet Ye shes ‘Od and his grand-nephew […] who were seeking to remove perceived corruption in the practice of Buddhism […]. Atiśa reached Tibet in 1042 […]. He spent the remaining twelve years of his life […] there and his relics were interred in the Sgrol Ma Lha Khang.