The history of computing is longer than the history of computing hardware and modern computing technology and includes the history of methods intended for pen and paper or for chalk and slate, with or without the aid of tables.
Concrete devices
Digital computing is intimately tied to the representation of numbers. But long before abstractions like the number
arose, there were mathematical concepts to serve the purposes of
civilization. These concepts are implicit in concrete practices such as:
The 3-4-5 right triangle was a device for assuring a right angle, using ropes with 12 evenly spaced knots, for example.
Numbers
Eventually,
the concept of numbers became concrete and familiar enough for counting
to arise, at times with sing-song mnemonics to teach sequences to others. All known human languages, except the Piraha language, have words for at least "one" and "two", and even some animals like the blackbird can distinguish a surprising number of items.
Advances in the numeral system and mathematical notation
eventually led to the discovery of mathematical operations such as
addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, squaring, square root,
and so forth. Eventually the operations were formalized, and concepts
about the operations became understood well enough to be stated formally, and even proven. See, for example, Euclid's algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers.
By the High Middle Ages, the positionalHindu–Arabic numeral system had reached Europe, which allowed for systematic computation of numbers. During this period, the representation of a calculation on paper actually allowed calculation of mathematical expressions, and the tabulation of mathematical functions such as the square root and the common logarithm (for use in multiplication and division) and the trigonometric functions. By the time of Isaac Newton's research, paper or vellum was an important computing resource, and even in our present time, researchers like Enrico Fermi would cover random scraps of paper with calculation, to satisfy their curiosity about an equation. Even into the period of programmable calculators, Richard Feynman
would unhesitatingly compute any steps which overflowed the memory of
the calculators, by hand, just to learn the answer; by 1976 Feynman had
purchased an HP-25
calculator with a 49 program-step capacity; if a differential equation
required more than 49 steps to solve, he could just continue his
computation by hand.
Mathematical statements need not be abstract only; when a statement
can be illustrated with actual numbers, the numbers can be communicated
and a community can arise. This allows the repeatable, verifiable
statements which are the hallmark of mathematics and science. These
kinds of statements have existed for thousands of years, and across
multiple civilizations, as shown below:
The earliest known tool for use in computation is the Sumerianabacus, and it was thought to have been invented in Babylon
c. 2700–2300 BC. Its original style of usage was by lines drawn in sand
with pebbles. Abaci, of a more modern design, are still used as
calculation tools today. This was the first known calculator and most
advanced system of calculation known to date - preceding Archimedes by 2,000 years.
The Antikythera mechanism is believed to be the earliest known mechanical analog computer. It was designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was discovered in 1901 in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, and has been dated to circa 100 BC.
During the Middle Ages, several European philosophers made
attempts to produce analog computer devices. Influenced by the Arabs and
Scholasticism, Majorcan philosopher Ramon Llull (1232–1315) devoted a great part of his life to defining and designing several logical machines
that, by combining simple and undeniable philosophical truths, could
produce all possible knowledge. These machines were never actually
built, as they were more of a thought experiment
to produce new knowledge in systematic ways; although they could make
simple logical operations, they still needed a human being for the
interpretation of results. Moreover, they lacked a versatile
architecture, each machine serving only very concrete purposes. In spite
of this, Llull's work had a strong influence on Gottfried Leibniz (early 18th century), who developed his ideas further, and built several calculating tools using them.
Indeed, when John Napier
discovered logarithms for computational purposes in the early 17th
century, there followed a period of considerable progress by inventors
and scientists in making calculating tools. The apex of this early era
of formal computing can be seen in the difference engine and its successor the analytical engine (which was never completely constructed but was designed in detail), both by Charles Babbage.
The analytical engine combined concepts from his work and that of
others to create a device that, if constructed as designed, would have
possessed many properties of a modern electronic computer. These
properties include features such as an internal "scratch memory"
equivalent to RAM,
multiple forms of output including a bell, a graph-plotter, and simple
printer, and a programmable input-output "hard" memory of punch cards
which it could modify as well as read. The key advancement which
Babbage's devices possessed beyond those created before his was that
each component of the device was independent of the rest of the machine,
much like the components of a modern electronic computer. This was a
fundamental shift in thought; previous computational devices served only
a single purpose, but had to be at best disassembled and reconfigured
to solve a new problem. Babbage's devices could be reprogramed to solve
new problems by the entry of new data, and act upon previous
calculations within the same series of instructions. Ada Lovelace took this concept one step further, by creating a program for the analytical engine to calculate Bernoulli numbers,
a complex calculation requiring a recursive algorithm. This is
considered to be the first example of a true computer program, a series
of instructions that act upon data not known in full until the program
is run.
Following Babbage, although unaware of his earlier work, Percy Ludgate in 1909 published the 2nd of the only two designs for mechanical analytical engines in history. Two other inventors, Leonardo Torres y Quevedo and Vannevar Bush, also did follow on research based on Babbage's work. In his Essays on Automatics (1913) Torres y Quevedo designed a Babbage type of calculating machine that used electromechanical parts which included floating point number representations and built a prototype in 1920. Bush's paper Instrumental Analysis
(1936) discussed using existing IBM punch card machines to implement
Babbage's design. In the same year he started the Rapid Arithmetical
Machine project to investigate the problems of constructing an
electronic digital computer.
Several examples of analog computation survived into recent times. A planimeter is a device which does integrals, using distance as the analog quantity. Until the 1980s, HVAC systems used air
both as the analog quantity and the controlling element. Unlike modern
digital computers, analog computers are not very flexible, and need to
be reconfigured (i.e., reprogrammed) manually to switch them from
working on one problem to another. Analog computers had an advantage
over early digital computers in that they could be used to solve complex
problems using behavioral analogues while the earliest attempts at
digital computers were quite limited.
Since computers were rare in this era, the solutions were often hard-coded into paper forms such as nomograms,
which could then produce analog solutions to these problems, such as
the distribution of pressures and temperatures in a heating system.
The “brain” [computer] may one day
come down to our level [of the common people] and help with our
income-tax and book-keeping calculations. But this is speculation and
there is no sign of it so far.
— British newspaper The Star in a June 1949 news article about the EDSAC computer, long before the era of the personal computers.
None of the early computational devices were really computers in the
modern sense, and it took considerable advancement in mathematics and
theory before the first modern computers could be designed.
In an 1886 letter, Charles Sanders Peirce described how logical operations could be carried out by electrical switching circuits. During 1880-81 he showed that NOR gates alone (or alternatively NAND gates alone) can be used to reproduce the functions of all the other logic gates, but this work on it was unpublished until 1933. The first published proof was by Henry M. Sheffer in 1913, so the NAND logical operation is sometimes called Sheffer stroke; the logical NOR is sometimes called Peirce's arrow. Consequently, these gates are sometimes called universal logic gates.
The first digital electronic computer was developed in the period
April 1936 - June 1939, in the IBM Patent Department, Endicott, New
York by Arthur Halsey Dickinson.
In this computer IBM introduced for the first time, a calculating
device with keyboard, processor and electronic output (display).
Competitor to IBM was the digital electronic computer NCR3566, developed
in NCR, Dayton, Ohio by Joseph Desch and Robert Mumma in the period
April 1939 - August 1939. The IBM and NCR machines were decimal, executing addition and subtraction in binary position code.
In December 1939 John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry completed their experimental model to prove the concept of the Atanasoff–Berry computer. This experimental model is binary, executed addition and subtraction in octal binary code and is the first binary digital electronic computing device. The Atanasoff–Berry computer was intended to solve systems of linear equations, though it was not programmable and it was never completed. The Z3 computer, built by German inventor Konrad Zuse in 1941, was the first programmable, fully automatic computing machine, but it was not electronic.
During World War II, ballistics computing was done by women, who
were hired as "computers." The term computer remained one that referred
to mostly women (now seen as "operator") until 1945, after which it took
on the modern definition of machinery it presently holds.
The ENIAC
(Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) was the first electronic
general-purpose computer, announced to the public in 1946. It was
Turing-complete,
digital, and capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of
computing problems. Women implemented the programming for machines like
the ENIAC, and men created the hardware.
The silicon-gate MOS integrated circuit was developed by Federico Faggin at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968. This led to the development of the first single-chip microprocessor, the Intel 4004. The Intel 4004 was developed as a single-chip microprocessor from 1969 to 1970, led by Intel's Federico Faggin, Marcian Hoff, and Stanley Mazor, and Busicom's Masatoshi Shima. The chip was mainly designed and realized by Faggin, with his silicon-gate MOS technology. The microprocessor led to the microcomputer revolution, with the development of the microcomputer, which would later be called the personal computer (PC).
Most early microprocessors, such as the Intel 8008 and Intel 8080, were 8-bit. Texas Instruments released the first fully 16-bit microprocessor, the TMS9900 processor, in June 1976. They used the microprocessor in the TI-99/4 and TI-99/4A computers.
The 1980s brought about significant advances with microprocessor
that greatly impacted the fields of engineering and other sciences. The Motorola 68000
microprocessor had a processing speed that was far superior to the
other microprocessors being used at the time. Because of this, having a
newer, faster microprocessor allowed for the newer microcomputers
that came along after to be more efficient in the amount of computing
they were able to do. This was evident in the 1983 release of the Apple Lisa. The Lisa was the first personal computer with a graphical user interface (GUI)
that was sold commercially. It ran on the Motorola 68000 CPU and used
both dual floppy disk drives and a 5 MB hard drive for storage. The
machine also had 1MB of RAM used for running software from disk without rereading the disk persistently. After the failure of the Lisa in terms of sales, Apple released its first Macintosh
computer, still running on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, but with
only 128KB of RAM, one floppy drive, and no hard drive in order to lower
the price.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, we see more advancements with
computers becoming more useful for actual computational purposes. In 1989, Apple released the Macintosh Portable,
it weighed 7.3 kg (16 lb) and was extremely expensive, costing
US$7,300. At launch it was one of the most powerful laptops available,
but due to the price and weight, it was not met with great success, and
was discontinued only two years later. That same year Intel introduced
the Touchstone Delta supercomputer,
which had 512 microprocessors. This technological advancement was very
significant, as it was used as a model for some of the fastest
multi-processor systems in the world. It was even used as a prototype
for Caltech researchers, who used the model for projects like real time
processing of satellite images and simulating molecular models for
various fields of research.
Supercomputers
In terms of supercomputing, the first widely acknowledged supercomputer was the Control Data Corporation (CDC) 6600 built in 1964 by Seymour Cray. Its maximum speed was 40MHz or 3 million floating point operations per second (FLOPS). The CDC 6600 was replaced by the CDC 7600 in 1969;
although its normal clock speed was not faster than the 6600, the 7600
was still faster due to its peak clock speed, which was approximately 30
times faster than that of the 6600. Although CDC was a leader in
supercomputers, their relationship with Seymour Cray (which had already
been deteriorating) completely collapsed. in 1972, Cray left CDC and
began his own company, Cray Research Inc.
With support from investors in Wall Street, an industry fueled by the
Cold War, and without the restrictions he had within CDC, he created the
Cray-1
supercomputer. With a clock speed of 80 MHz or 136 megaFLOPS, Cray
developed a name for himself in the computing world. By 1982, Cray
Research produced the Cray X-MP equipped with multiprocessing and in 1985 released the Cray-2, which continued with the trend of multiprocessing and clocked at 1.9 gigaFLOPS. Cray Research developed the Cray Y-MP
in 1988, however afterwards struggled to continue to produce
supercomputers. This was largely due to the fact that the Cold War had
ended, and the demand for cutting edge computing by colleges and the
government declined drastically and the demand for micro processing
units increased.
Today, supercomputers are still used by the governments of the
world and educational institutions for computations such as simulations
of natural disasters, genetic variant searches within a population
relating to disease, and more. As of November 2020, the fastest supercomputer is Fugaku.
Navigation and astronomy
Starting
with known special cases, the calculation of logarithms and
trigonometric functions can be performed by looking up numbers in a mathematical table, and interpolating between known cases. For small enough differences, this linear operation was accurate enough for use in navigation and astronomy in the Age of Exploration. The uses of interpolation have thrived in the past 500 years: by the twentieth century Leslie Comrie and W.J. Eckert systematized the use of interpolation in tables of numbers for punch card calculation.
Weather prediction
The numerical solution of differential equations, notably the Navier-Stokes equations was an important stimulus to computing,
with Lewis Fry Richardson's
numerical approach to solving differential equations. The first
computerised weather forecast was performed in 1950 by a team composed
of American meteorologists Jule Charney, Philip Thompson, Larry Gates, and Norwegian meteorologist Ragnar Fjørtoft, applied mathematician John von Neumann, and ENIAC programmer Klara Dan von Neumann. To this day, some of the most powerful computer systems on Earth are used for weather forecasts.
Women are often underrepresented in STEM fields when compared to their male counterparts.
In the modern era prior to the 1960s, computing was widely seen as
"women's work," since it was associated with the operation of tabulating machines and other mechanical office work. The accuracy of this association varied from place to place. In America, Margaret Hamilton recalled an environment dominated by men, while Elsie Shutt recalled surprise at seeing even half of the computer operators at Raytheon were men. Machine operators in Britain were mostly women into the early 1970s. As these perceptions changed and computing became a high-status career, the field became more dominated by men. Professor Janet Abbate, in her book Recoding Gender, writes:
Yet
women were a significant presence in the early decades of computing.
They made up the majority of the first computer programmers during World
War II; they held positions of responsibility and influence in the
early computer industry; and they were employed in numbers that, while a
small minority of the total, compared favorably with women's
representation in many other areas of science and engineering. Some
female programmers of the 1950s and 1960s would have scoffed at the
notion that programming would ever be considered a masculine occupation,
yet these women’s experiences and contributions were forgotten all too
quickly.
Some notable examples of women in the history of computing are:
Ada Lovelace:
wrote the addendum to Babbage's Analytical Machine. Detailing, in
poetic style, the first computer algorithm; a description of exactly how
The Analytical Machine should have worked based on its design.
Hedy Lamarr: invented a "frequency hopping"
technology that was used by the Navy during World War II to control
torpedoes via radio signals. This same technology is also used today in
creating Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals.
Margaret Hamilton: the director of the Software Engineering Division at MIT, which developed on-board flight software for the Apollo's Missions to Space.
Slacktivism (a portmanteau of slacker and activism) is the practice of supporting a political or social cause by means such as social media or online petitions, characterized as involving very little effort or commitment.
Additional forms of slacktivism include engaging in online activities
such as "liking," "sharing," or "tweeting" about a cause on social
media, signing an Internet petition, copying and pasting a status or message in support of the cause, sharing specific hashtags associated with the cause, or altering one's profile photo or avatar on social network services to indicate solidarity.
Critics of slacktivism suggest that it fails to make a meaningful
contribution to an overall cause because a low-stakes show of support,
whether online or offline, is superficial, ineffective, draws off energy
that might be used more constructively, and serves as a substitute for
more substantive forms of activism rather than supplementing them, and might, in fact, be counter-productive. As groups increasingly use social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action, proponents of slacktivism have pointed out that it can lead to engagement and help generate support for lesser-known causes.
Use of the term
The term was coined by Dwight Ozard and Fred Clark in 1995 at the Cornerstone Festival.
The term was meant to shorten the phrase slacker activism, which refers
to bottom up activities by young people to affect society on a small,
personal scale (such as planting a tree, as opposed to participating in a
protest). The term originally had a positive connotation.
Monty Phan, staff writer for Newsday, was an early user of the term in his 2001 article titled, "On the Net, 'Slacktivism'/Do-Gooders Flood In-Boxes."
An early example of using the term "slacktivism" appeared in Barnaby Feder's article in The New York Times called "They Weren't Careful What They Hoped For." Feder quoted anti-scam crusader Barbara Mikkelson of Snopes.com,
who described activities such as those listed above. "It's all fed by
slacktivism ... the desire people have to do something good without
getting out of their chair."
Another example of the term "Slacktivism" appeared in Evgeny Morozov's book, Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom
(2011). In it, Morozov relates slacktivism to the Colding-Jørgensen
experiment. In 2009, a Danish psychologist named Anders
Colding-Jørgensen created a fictitious Facebook group as part of his
research. On the page, he posted an announcement suggesting that the
Copenhagen city authorities would be demolishing the historical Stork Fountain.
Within the first day, 125 Facebook members joined Colding-Jørgensen's.
The number of fans began to grow at a staggering rate, eventually
reaching 27,500.
Morozov argues the Colding-Jørgensen experiment reveals a key component
of slacktivism: "When communication costs are low, groups can easily
spring into action." Clay Shirky also similarly characterized slacktivism as "ridiculously easy group forming".
Criticism of slacktivism
Various
people and groups express doubts about the value and effectiveness of
slacktivism. Particularly, some skeptics argue that it entails an
underlying assumption that all problems can be seamlessly fixed using
social media, and while this may be true for local issues, slacktivism
could prove ineffective for solving global predicaments. A 2009 NPR
piece by Morozov asked whether "the publicity gains gained through this
greater reliance on new media [are] worth the organizational losses
that traditional activist entities are likely to suffer, as ordinary
people would begin to turn away from conventional (and proven) forms of
activism."
Criticism of slacktivism often involves the idea that internet activities are ineffective, and/or that they prevent or lessen political participation
in real life. However, as many studies on slacktivism relate only to a
specific case or campaign, it is difficult to find an exact percentage
of slacktivist actions that reach a stated goal. Furthermore, many
studies also focus on such activism in democratic or open contexts,
whereas the act of publicly liking, RSVPing or adopting an avatar or
slogan as one's profile picture can be a defiant act in authoritarian or
repressive countries.
Micah White has argued that although slacktivism is typically the
easiest route to participation in movements and changes, the novelty of
online activism wears off as people begin to realize that their
participation created virtually no effect, leading people to lose hope
in all forms of activism.
Malcolm Gladwell, in his October 2010 New Yorker article, lambasted those who compare social media "revolutions" with actual activism that challenges the status quo ante. He argued that today's social media campaigns cannot compare with activism that takes place on the ground, using the Greensboro sit-ins as an example of what real, high-risk activism looks like.
A 2011 study looking at college students found only a small
positive correlation between those who engage online in politics on
Facebook with those who engage off of it. Those who did engage only did
so by posting comments and other low forms of political participation,
helping to confirm the slacktivism theoretical model.
The New Statesman has analyzed the outcomes of ten most-shared petitions and listed all of them as unsuccessful.
Brian Dunning, in his 2014 podcast, Slacktivism: Raising Awareness,
argues that the internet activities that slacktivism is associated
with, are a waste of time at their best and at their worst are ways to
"steal millions of dollars from armchair activists who are persuaded to
donate actual money to what they're told is some useful cause." He says that most slacktivism campaigns are "based on bad information, bad science, and are hoaxes as often as not."
He uses the Kony 2012
campaign as an example of how slacktivism can be used as a way to
exploit others. The movie asked viewers to send money to the filmmakers
rather than African law enforcement. Four months after the movie was
released, Invisible Children,
the charity who created the film, reported $31.9 million of gross
receipts. The money in the end was not used to stop Kony, but rather to
make another movie about stopping Kony. Dunning goes as far as to say
that raising awareness of Kony was not even useful, as law enforcement
groups had been after him for years.
Dunning does state that today, however, slacktivism is generally more benign. He cites Change.org
as an example. The site is full of hundreds of thousands of petitions. A
person signing one of these online petitions may feel good about
himself, but these petitions are generally not binding nor lead to any
major change. Dunning suggests that before donating, or even "liking", a
cause one should research the issue and the organization to ensure
nothing is misattributed, exaggerated, or wrong.
An example of a campaign against slacktivism is the advertisement
series "Liking Isn't Helping" created by the international
advertisement company Publicis Singapore for a relief organization,
Crisis Relief Singapore (CRS). This campaign features images of people
struggling or in need, surrounded by many people giving a thumbs up with
the caption "Liking isn't helping". Though the campaign lacked critical
components that would generate success, it made viewers stop and think
about their activism habits and question the effect that slacktivism
really has.
Defense of slacktivism
In response to Gladwell's criticism of slacktivism in the New Yorker
(see above), journalist Leo Mirani argues that he might be right if
activism is defined only as sit-ins, taking direct action, and
confrontations on the streets. However, if activism is about arousing
awareness of people, changing people's minds, and influencing opinions
across the world, then the revolution will indeed be ‘tweeted,' 'hashtagged,' and 'YouTubed.' In a March 2012 Financial Times article, referring to efforts to address the ongoing violence related to the Lord's Resistance Army, Matthew Green wrote that the slacktivists behind the Kony 2012
video had "achieved more with their 30-minute video than battalions of
diplomats, NGO workers and journalists have since the conflict began 26
years ago."
Although slacktivism has often been used pejoratively, some
scholars point out that activism within the digital space is a reality.
These scholars suggest that slacktivism may have its deficiencies, but
it can be a positive contributor to activism and, it is inescapable in
the current digital climate. A 2011 correlational study conducted by Georgetown University
entitled "The Dynamics of Cause Engagement" determined that so-called
slacktivists are indeed "more likely to take meaningful actions".
Notably, "slacktivists participate in more than twice as many
activities as people who don't engage in slacktivism, and their actions
"have a higher potential to influence others."
Cited benefits of slacktivism in achieving clear objectives include
creating a secure, low cost, effective means of organizing that is
environmentally friendly.
These "social champions" have the ability to directly link social media
engagement with responsiveness, leveraging their transparent dialogue
into economic, social or political action. Going along this mindset is Andrew Leonard, a staff writer at Salon,
who published an article on the ethics of smartphones and how we use
them. Though the means of producing these products go against ethical
human rights standards, Leonard encourages the use of smartphones on the
basis that the technology they provide can be utilized as a means of
changing the problematic situation of their manufacture. The ability to
communicate quickly and on a global scale enables the spread of
knowledge, such as the conditions that corporations provide to the
workers they employ, and the result their widespread manufacturing has
on globalization. Leonard argues that phones and tablets can be
effective tools in bringing about change through slacktivism, because
they allow us to spread knowledge, donate money, and more effectively
speak our opinions on important matters.
Others keep a slightly optimistic outlook on the possibilities of
slacktivism while still acknowledging the pitfalls that come with this
digital form of protest. Zeynep Tufekci, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina
and a faculty associate at the Berkman Center for Internet &
Society, analyzed the capacity of slacktivism to influence collective
group action in a variety of different social movements in a segment of
the Berkman Luncheon Series.
She acknowledges that digital activism is a great enabler of rising
social and political movements, and it is an effective means of enabling
differential capacity building for protest. A 2015 study describes how
slacktivism can contribute to a quicker growth of social protests, by
propagation of information through peripheral nodes in social networks.
The authors note that although slacktivists are less active than
committed minorities, their power lies in their numbers: "their
aggregate contribution to the spread of protest messages is comparable
in magnitude to that of core participants."
However, Tufekci argues that the enhanced ability to rally
protest is accompanied by a weakened ability to actually make an impact,
as slacktivism can fail to reach the level of protest required in order
to bring about change.
The Black Lives Matter movement calls for the end of systemic racism.
The movement has been inextricably linked with social media since 2014,
in particular to Twitter with the hashtags #blacklivesmatter and #BLM.
Much of the support and awareness of this movement has been made
possible through social media. Studies show that the slacktivism
commonly present within the movement has been linked with a positive
effect on active participation in it.
The fact that participants of this movement were able to contribute
from their phones increased awareness and participation of the public,
particularly in the United States.
The Western-centric nature of the critique of slacktivism
discounts the impact it can have in authoritarian or repressive
contexts. Journalist Courtney C. Radsch argues that even such low level of engagement was an important form of activism for Arab youth before and during the Arab Spring
because it was a form of free speech, and could successfully spark
mainstream media coverage, such as when a hashtag becomes "a trending
topic [it] helps generate media attention, even as it helps organize
information....The power of social media to help shape the international
news agenda is one of the ways in which they subvert state authority
and power."
In addition, studies suggest that "fears of Internet activities
supplanting real-life activity are unsubstantiated," in that they do not
cause a negative or positive effect on political participation.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) on Marriage Equality, offers
another example of how slacktivism can be used to make a notable
difference.
The campaign urged Facebook users to change their profile pictures to a
red image that had the following symbol in the middle: =.
The logo symbolized equality and if Facebook users put the image as
their profile photo, it meant they were in support of marriage equality.
The campaign was credited for raising positive awareness and
cultivating an environment of support for the marriage equality cause.
This study concluded that, although the act of changing one's profile
photo is small, ultimately social media campaigns such as this make a
cumulative difference over time.
Types
Clicktivism
The
term "clicktivism" is used to describe forms of internet-based
slacktivism such as signing online petitions or signing and sending form
letter emails to politicians or corporate CEOs. For example, the British group UK Uncut use Twitter and other websites to organise protests and direct action against companies accused of tax avoidance.
It allows organizations to quantify their success by keeping track of
how many "clicked" on their petition or other call to action.
The idea behind clicktivism is that social media allows for a quick and easy way to show support for an organization or cause.
The main focus of digital organizations has become inflating
participation rates by asking less and less of their members/viewers.
Clicktivism can also be demonstrated by monitoring the success of a campaign by how many "likes" it receives. Clicktivism strives to quantify support, presence and outreach without putting emphasis on real participation.
The act of "liking" a photo on Facebook or clicking a petition is in
itself symbolic because it demonstrates that the individual is aware of
the situation and it shows their peers the opinions and thoughts they
have on certain subject matters.
Critics of clicktivism state that this new phenomenon turns
social movements to resemble advertising campaigns in which messages are
tested, clickthrough rate is recorded, and A/B testing
is often done. In order to improve these metrics, messages are reduced
to make their "asks easier and actions simpler." This in turn reduces
social action to having members that are a list of email addresses,
rather than engaged people.
Charity
Charity
slacktivism is an action in support of a cause that takes little effort
on the part of the individual. Examples of online charity slacktivism
include posting a Facebook
status to support a cause, "liking" a charity organization's cause on
Facebook, tweeting or retweeting a charity organization's request for
support on Twitter,
signing Internet petitions, and posting and sharing YouTube videos
about a cause. It can be argued that a person is not "liking" the photo
in order to help the person in need, but to feel better about
themselves, and to feel like they have done something positive for the
person or scene depicted in front of them. This phenomenon has become
increasingly popular with individuals whether they are going on trips to
help less fortunate people, or by "liking" many posts on Facebook in
order to "help" the person in the picture. Examples include the Kony 2012 campaign that exploded briefly in social media in March 2012.
Examples of offline charity slacktivism include awareness wristbands and paraphernalia in support of causes, such as the Livestrong wristband, as well as bumper stickers and mobile donating. In 2020, during the COVID-19pandemic, Clap for Our Carers gained traction in several countries.
The term slacktivism is often used to describe the world's reaction to the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The Red Cross managed to raise $5 million in 2 days via text message donations.
Social media outlets were used to spread the word about the earthquake.
The day after the earthquake, CNN reported that four of Twitter's top
topics were related to the Haitian earthquake.
Charity as a by-product of purchasing products
A red iPod nano, an example of supporting a charity through buying products
This is the act of purchasing products that highlight support for a
particular cause and advertise that a percentage of the cost of the good
will go to the cause. In some instances the donated funds are spread
across various entities within one foundation, which in theory helps
several deserving areas of the cause. Criticism tends to highlight the
thin spread of the donation. An example of this is the Product Red
campaign, whereby consumers can buy Red-branded variants of commons
products, with a proportion of proceeds going towards fighting AIDS.
Slacktivists may also purchase a product from a company because
it has a history of donating funds to charity, as a way to
second-handedly support a cause. For example, a slacktivist may buy Ben and Jerry's ice cream because its founders invested in the nation's children, or promoted social and environmental concerns.
Political
Certain
forms of slacktivism have political goals in mind, such as gaining
support for a presidential campaign, or signing an internet petition
that aims to influence governmental action.
The online petition website Change.org
claimed it was attacked by Chinese hackers and brought down in April
2011. Change.org claimed the fact that hackers "felt the need to bring
down the website must be seen as a testament to Change.org's
fast-growing success and a vindication of one particular petition: A
Call for the Release of Ai Weiwei."
Ai Weiwei, a noted human rights activist who had been arrested by
Chinese authorities in April 2011, was released on June 22, 2011, from
Beijing, which was deemed as a victory by Change.org of its online
campaign and petition demanding Ai's release.
Sympathy
Sympathy
slacktivism can be observed on social media networks such as Facebook,
where users can like pages to support a cause or show support to people
in need. Also common in this type of slacktivism is for users to change
their profile pictures to one that shows the user's peers that they care
about the topic.
This can be considered a virtual counterpart of wearing a pin to
display one's sympathies; however, acquiring such a pin often requires
some monetary donation to the cause while changing profile picture does
not.
In sympathy slacktivism, images of young children, animals and
people seemingly in need are often used to give a sense of credibility
to the viewers, making the campaign resonate longer in their memory.
Using children in campaigns is often the most effective way of reaching a
larger audience due to the fact that most adults, when exposed to the
ad, would not be able to ignore a child in need.
An example of sympathy slacktivism is the Swedish newspaper
Aftonbladet's campaign "Vi Gillar Olika" (literal translation: "We like
different").
This campaign was launched against xenophobia and racism, something
that was a hot topic in Sweden in 2010. The main icon of the campaign
was an open hand with the text "Vi Gillar Olika," the icon that was
adopted from the French organisation SOS Racisme's campaign Touche pas à mon Pote in 1985.
Another example was when Facebook users added a Norwegian flag to their pictures after the 2011 Norway attacks
in which 77 people were killed. This campaign received attention from
the Swedish Moderate Party, who encouraged their supporters to update
their profile pictures.
Kony 2012 was a campaign created by Invisible Children
in the form of a 28-minute video about the dangerous situation of many
children in Africa at the hands of Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army
(LRA). The LRA is said to have abducted a total of nearly 60,000
children, brainwashing the boys to fight for them and turning the girls
into sex slaves.
The campaign was used as an experiment to see if an online video
could reach such a large audience that it would make a war criminal,
Joseph Kony, famous. It became the fastest-growing viral video of all
time, reaching 100 million views in six days. The campaign grew an unprecedented amount of awareness, calling to international leaders as well as the general population.
The reaction and participation to this campaign demonstrates
charity slacktivism due to the way in which many viewers responded. The
success of the campaign has been attributed mostly by how many people
viewed the video rather than the donations received. After watching the
video, many viewers felt compelled to take action. This action, however,
took the form of sharing the video and potentially pledging their
support.
The video seemed to embody the slacktivist ethos: viewers
oblivious to a complex foreign conflict are made heroic by watching a
video, buying a bracelet, hanging a poster. Advocates of Invisible
Children's campaign protested that their desire to catch Kony was
sincere, their emotional response to the film genuine—and that the sheer
volume of supporters calling for the capture of Joseph Kony constituted
a meaningful shift in human rights advocacy."
In the weeks following the kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls by the organization Boko Haram, the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls began to trend globally on Twitter as the story continued to spread and by May 11 it had attracted 2.3 million tweets. One such tweet came from the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, holding a sign displaying the hashtag, posted to her official Twitter account, helping to spread the awareness of the kidnapping. Comparisons have been made between the #BringBackOurGirls campaign and the Kony 2012 campaign.
The campaign was labeled slacktivism by some critics, particularly as
the weeks and months passed with no progress being made in recovery of
the kidnapped girls.
According to Mkeki Mutah, uncle of one of the kidnapped girls:
There is a saying: "Actions speak louder than words."
Leaders from around the world came out and said they would assist to
bring the girls back, but now we hear nothing. The question I wish to
raise is: why? If they knew they would not do anything, they wouldn't
have even made that promise at all. By just coming out to tell the
world, I see that as a political game, which it shouldn't be so far as
the girls are concerned.
Greater India, or the Indian cultural sphere, is an area composed of many countries and regions in South and Southeast Asia
that were historically influenced by Indian culture, which itself
formed from the various distinct indigenous cultures of these regions.
Specifically Southeast Asian influence on early India had lasting
impacts on the formation of Hinduism and Indian mythology. Hinduism
itself formed from various distinct folk religions, which merged during
the Vedic period and following periods. The term Greater India
as a reference to the Indian cultural sphere was popularised by a
network of Bengali scholars in the 1920s. It is an umbrella term
encompassing the Indian subcontinent,
and surrounding countries which are culturally linked through a diverse
cultural cline. These countries have been transformed to varying
degrees by the acceptance and induction of cultural and institutional
elements from each other. Since around 500 BCE, Asia's expanding land
and maritime trade
had resulted in prolonged socio-economic and cultural stimulation and
diffusion of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs into the region's cosmology, in
particular in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka. In Central Asia, transmission of ideas were predominantly of a religious nature. The spread of Islam significantly altered the course of the history of Greater India.[7]
By the early centuries of the common era,
most of the principalities of Southeast Asia had effectively absorbed
defining aspects of Hindu culture, religion and administration. The
notion of divine god-kingship was introduced by the concept of Harihara, Sanskrit and other Indian epigraphic systems were declared official, like those of the south Indian Pallava dynasty and Chalukya dynasty. These Indianized Kingdoms, a term coined by George Cœdès in his work Histoire ancienne des états hindouisés d'Extrême-Orient, were characterized by surprising resilience, political integrity and administrative stability.
To the north, Indian religious ideas were assimilated into the
cosmology of Himalayan peoples, most profoundly in Tibet and Bhutan and
merged with indigenous traditions. Buddhist monasticism extended into
Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and other parts of Central Asia, and Buddhist
texts and ideas were readily accepted in China and Japan in the east. To the west, Indian culture converged with Greater Persia via the Hindukush and the Pamir Mountains.
The concept of the Three Indias was in common circulation in pre-industrial Europe. Greater India was the southern part of South Asia, Lesser India was the northern part of South Asia, and Middle India was the region near the Middle East. The Portuguese form (Portuguese: India Maior) was used at least since the mid-15th century. The term, which seems to have been used with variable precision, sometimes meant only the Indian subcontinent; Europeans used a variety of terms related to South Asia to designate the South Asian peninsula, including High India, Greater India, Exterior India and India aquosa.
However, in some accounts of European nautical voyages, Greater India (or India Major) extended from the Malabar Coast (present-day Kerala) to India extra Gangem (lit. "India, beyond the Ganges," but usually the East Indies, i.e. present-day Malay Archipelago) and India Minor, from Malabar to Sind. Farther India was sometimes used to cover all of modern Southeast Asia.
Until the fourteenth century, India could also mean areas along the Red
Sea, including Somalia, South Arabia, and Ethiopia (e.g., Diodorus of
Sicily of the first century BC says that "the Nile rises in India" and
Marco Polo of the fourteenth century says that "Lesser India ...
contains ... Abash [Abyssinia]").
In late 19th-century geography, Greater India referred to a region that included: "(a) Himalaya, (b) Punjab, (c) Hindustan, (d) Burma, (e) Indo-China, (f) Sunda Islands, (g) Borneo, (h) Celebes, and (i) Philippines."[24] German atlases distinguished Vorder-Indien (Anterior India) as the South Asian peninsula and Hinter-Indien as Southeast Asia.
Greater India, or Greater India Basin also signifies "the Indian Plate plus a postulated northern extension", the product of the Indian–Asia collision. Although its usage in geology pre-dates Plate tectonic theory, the term has seen increased usage since the 1970s. It is unknown when and where the India–Asia (Indian and Eurasian Plate)
convergence occurred, at or before 52 Million years ago. The plates
have converged up to 3,600 km (2,200 mi) ± 35 km (22 mi). The upper
crustal shortening is documented from geological record of Asia and the
Himalaya as up to approximately 2,350 km (1,460 mi) less.
Indianization is different from direct colonialism in that these
Indianized lands were not inhabited by organizations or state elements
from the Indian subcontinent, with exceptions such as the Chola invasions
of medieval times. Instead, Indian cultural influence from trade routes
and language use slowly permeated through Southeast Asia, making the
traditions a part of the region. The interactions between India
and Southeast Asia were marked by waves of influence and dominance. At
some points, the Indian culture solely found its way into the region,
and at other points, the influence was used to take over. A reason for
the fast acceptance of Indian culture in Southeast Asia was because
Indian culture already had striking similarities to indigenous cultures
of Southeast Asia, which can be explained by earlier Southeast Asian
(specifically Austroasiatic, such as early Munda and Mon Khmer groups) and Himalayan (Tibetic)
cultural and linguistic influence on local Indian peoples. Several
scholars, such as Professor Przyluski, Jules Bloch, and Lévi, among
others, concluded that there is a significant cultural, linguistic, and
political Mon-Khmer (Austroasiatic) influence on early India.
Genetic evidence further found noteworthy East Asian-related ancestry
among various Indian ethnic groups. The East Asian-related ancestry
component is forming the major ancestry among specific populations in
the Himalayan foothills and Northeast India, and is generally distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent, peaking among Austroasiatic-speaking groups, as well as among Sinhalese and Bengalis.
The concept of the Indianized kingdoms, a term coined by George Coedès, describes Southeast Asian principalities
that flourished from the early common era as a result of centuries of
socio-economic interaction having incorporated central aspects of Indian
institutions, religion, statecraft, administration, culture, epigraphy,
literature and architecture.
Iron Age trade expansion caused regional geostrategic
remodeling. Southeast Asia was now situated in the central area of
convergence of the Indian and the East Asian maritime trade routes, the
basis for economic and cultural growth. The earliest Hindu kingdoms
emerged in Sumatra and Java, followed by mainland polities such as Funan
and Champa. Adoption of Indian civilization elements and individual
adaptation stimulated the emergence of centralized states and the
development of highly organized societies. Ambitious local leaders
realized the benefits of Hinduism and Indian methods of administration,
culture, literature, etc. Rule in accord with universal moral
principles, represented in the concept of the devaraja, was more appealing than the Chinese concept of intermediaries.
A Siamese painting depicting the Chola raid on Kedah
As conclusive evidence is missing, numerous Indianization theories of
Southeast Asia have emerged since the early 20th century. The central
question usually revolves around the main propagator of Indian
institutional and cultural ideas in Southeast Asia.
One theory of the spread of Indianization that focuses on the caste of Vaishyatraders
and their role for spreading Indian culture and language into Southeast
Asia through trade. There were many trade incentives that brought
Vaishya traders to Southeast Asia, the most important of which was gold.
During the 4th century C.E., when the first evidence of Indian trader
in Southeast Asia, the Indian sub-continent was at a deficiency for gold
due to extensive control of overland trade routes by the Roman Empire.
This made many Vaishya traders look to the seas to acquire new gold, of
which Southeast Asia was abundant. However, the conclusion that
Indianization was just spread through trade is insufficient, as
Indianization permeated through all classes of Southeast Asian society,
not just the merchant classes.
Another theory states that Indianization spread through the warrior class of Kshatriya.
This hypothesis effectively explains state formation in Southeast Asia,
as these warriors came with the intention of conquering the local
peoples and establishing their own political power in the region.
However, this theory hasn't attracted much interest from historians as
there is very little literary evidence to support it.
The most widely accepted theory for the spread of Indianization into Southeast Asia is through the class of Brahman
scholars. These Brahmans brought with them many of the Hindu religious
and philosophical traditions and spread them to the elite classes of
Southeast Asian polities. Once these traditions were adopted into the
elite classes, it disseminated throughout all the lower classes, thus
explaining the Indianization present in all classes of Southeast Asian
society. Brahmans were also experts in art and architecture, and
political affairs, thus explaining the adoption of many Indian style law
codes and architecture into Southeast Asian society.
Angkor Wat in Cambodia is the largest Hindu temple in the world
It is unknown how immigration, interaction, and settlement took
place, whether by key figures from India or through Southeast Asians
visiting India who took elements of Indian culture back home. It is
likely that Hindu and Buddhist traders, priests, and princes traveled to
Southeast Asia from India in the first few centuries of the Common Era
and eventually settled there. Strong impulse most certainly came from
the region's ruling classes who invited Brahmans to serve at their
courts as priests, astrologers and advisers.
Divinity and royalty were closely connected in these polities as Hindu
rituals validated the powers of the monarch. Brahmans and priests from
India proper played a key role in supporting ruling dynasties through
exact rituals. Dynastic consolidation was the basis for more centralized
kingdoms that emerged in Java, Sumatra, Cambodia, Burma, and along the
central and south coasts of Vietnam from the 4th to 8th centuries.
Art, architecture, rituals, and cultural elements such as the
Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata had been adopted and customized
increasingly with a regional character. The caste system, although
adopted, was never applied universally and reduced to serve for a
selected group of nobles only.
Many struggle to date and determine when Indianizaton in Southeast Asia
occurred because of the structures and ruins found that were similar to
those in India.
States such as Srivijaya, Majapahit and the Khmer empire had territorial continuity, resilient population and surplus economies that rivaled those in India itself. Borobudur in Java and Angkor in Cambodia are, apart from their grandeur, examples of a distinctly developed regional culture, style, and expression.
Southeast Asia is called Suvarnabhumi or Sovannah Phoum – the golden land and Suvarnadvipa – the golden Islands in Sanskrit. It was frequented by traders from eastern India, particularly Kalinga. Cultural and trading relations between the powerful Chola dynasty of South India and the Southeast Asian Hindu kingdoms led the Bay of Bengal
to be called "The Chola Lake", and the Chola attacks on Srivijaya in
the 10th century CE are the sole example of military attacks by Indian
rulers against Southeast Asia. The Pala dynasty of Bengal,
which controlled the heartland of Buddhist India, maintained close
economic, cultural and religious ties, particularly with Srivijaya.
Religion, authority and legitimacy
Balinese Ramayana dance drama, performed in Sarasvati Garden in Ubud.
The pre-Indic political and social systems in Southeast Asia were
marked by a relative indifference towards lineage descent. Hindu God
kingship enabled rulers to supersede loyalties, forge cosmopolitan
polities and the worship of Shiva and Vishnu was combined with ancestor
worship, so that Khmer, Javanese, and Cham rulers claimed semi-divine
status as descendants of a God. Hindu traditions, especially the
relationship to the sacrality of the land and social structures, are
inherent in Hinduism's transnational features. The epic traditions of
the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa further legitimized a ruler identified
with a God who battled and defeated the wrong doers that threaten the
ethical order of the world.
Hinduism does not have a single historical founder, a centralized
imperial authority in India proper nor a bureaucratic structure, thus
ensuring relative religious independence for the individual ruler. It
also allows for multiple forms of divinity, centered upon the Trimurti
the triad of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, the deities responsible for the
creation, preservation, and destruction of the universe.
The effects of Hinduism and Buddhism applied a tremendous impact
on the many civilizations inhabiting Southeast Asia which significantly
provided some structure to the composition of written traditions. An
essential factor for the spread and adaptation of these religions
originated from trading systems of the third and fourth century.
In order to spread the message of these religions Buddhist monks and
Hindu priests joined mercantile classes in the quest to share their
religious and cultural values and beliefs. Along the Mekong delta,
evidence of Indianized religious models can be observed in communities
labeled Funan. There can be found the earliest records engraved on a
rock in Vocanh.
The engravings consist of Buddhist archives and a south Indian scripts
are written in Sanskrit that have been dated to belong to the early half
of the third century. Indian religion was profoundly absorbed by local
cultures that formed their own distinctive variations of these
structures in order to reflect their own ideals.
The indianized kingdoms had by the 1st to 4th centuries CE adopted Hinduism's cosmology and rituals, the devaraja
concept of kingship, and Sanskrit as official writing. Despite the
fundamental cultural integration, these kingdoms were autonomous in
their own right and functioned independently.
Waning of Indianization
Map of South-east Asia c. 900 AD, showing the Khmer Empire in red, Srivijaya in green, and Champa in yellow.
Khmer Kingdom
Beginning
shortly after the 12th century, the Khmer kingdom, one of the first
kingdoms that began the dissipation of Indianization started after
Jayavarman VII in which expanded a substantial amount of territory, thus
going into war with Champa. Leading into the fall of the Khmer
Kingdom, the Khmer political and cultural zones were taken, overthrown,
and fallen as well.
Not only did Indianization change many cultural and political aspects,
but it also changed the spiritual realm as well, creating a type of
Northern Culture which began in the early 14th century, prevalent for
its rapid decline in the Indian kingdoms. The decline of Hinduism
kingdoms and spark of Buddhist kingdoms led to the formation of orthodox
Sinhalese Buddhism and is a key factor leading to the decline of
Indianization. Sukhothai and Ceylon are the prominent characters who
formulated the center of Buddhism and this became more popularized over
Hinduism.
Rise of Islam
Not
only was the spark of Buddhism the driving force for Indianization
coming to an end, but Islamic control took over as well in the midst of
the thirteenth century to trump the Hinduist kingdoms. In the process of
Islam coming to the traditional Hinduism kingdoms, trade was heavily
practiced and the now Islamic Indians started becoming merchants all
over Southeast Asia.
Moreover, as trade became more saturated in the Southeast Asian regions
wherein Indianization once persisted, the regions had become more
Muslim populated. This so-called Islamic control has spanned to many of
the trading centers across the regions of Southeast Asia, including one
of the most dominant centers, Malacca, and has therefore stressed a
widespread rise of Islamization.
Funan: Funan was a polity that encompassed the southernmost part of the Indochinese peninsula during the 1st to 6th centuries. The name Funan is not found in any texts of local origin from the period, and so is considered an exonym based on the accounts of two Chinese diplomats, Kang Tai and Zhu Ying who sojourned there in the mid-3rd century CE.
It is not known what name the people of Funan gave to their polity.
Some scholars believe ancient Chinese scholars transcribed the word
Funan from a word related to the Khmer word bnaṃ or vnaṃ (modern: phnoṃ,
meaning "mountain"); while others thought that Funan may not be a
transcription at all, rather it meant what it says in Chinese, meaning
something like "Pacified South". Centered at the lower Mekong, Funan is noted as the oldest Hindu culture in this region, which suggests prolonged socio-economic interaction with India and maritime trading partners of the Indosphere. Cultural and religious ideas had reached Funan via the Indian Ocean trade route. Trade with India had commenced well before 500 BC as Sanskrit hadn't yet replaced Pali. Funan's language has been determined as to have been an early form of Khmer and its written form was Sanskrit.
Chenla
was the successor polity of Funan that existed from around the late 6th
century until the early 9th century in Indochina, preceding the Khmer Empire. Like its predecessor, Chenla occupied a strategic position where the maritime trade routes of the Indosphere and the East Asian cultural sphere converged, resulting in prolonged socio-economic and cultural influence, along with the adoption of the Sanskrit epigraphic system of the south Indian Pallava dynasty and Chalukya dynasty. Chenla's first ruler Vīravarman adopted the idea of divine kingship and deployed the concept of Harihara, the syncretistic
Hindu "god that embodied multiple conceptions of power". His successors
continued this tradition, thus obeying the code of conduct Manusmṛti, the Laws of Manu for the Kshatriya warrior caste and conveying the idea of political and religious authority.
Langkasuka: Langkasuka (-langkhaSanskrit for "resplendent land" -sukkha of "bliss") was an ancient Hindu kingdom located in the Malay Peninsula.
The kingdom, along with the Old Kedah settlement, are probably the
earliest territorial footholds founded on the Malay Peninsula. According
to tradition, the founding of the kingdom happened in the 2nd century; Malay legends claim that Langkasuka was founded at Kedah, and later moved to Pattani.
Champa: The kingdoms of Champa controlled what is now south and central Vietnam. The earliest kingdom, Lâm Ấp was desbribed by Chinese sources around 192. CE The dominant religion was Hinduism and the culture was heavily influenced by India. By the late fifteenth century, the Vietnamese – proponents of the Sinosphere – had eradicated the last remaining traces of the once powerful maritime kingdom of Champa. The last surviving Chams began their diaspora in 1471, many re-settling in Khmer territory.
Kambuja: The Khmer Empire was established by the early 9th century in a mythical initiation and consecration ceremony by founder Jayavarman II at Mount Kulen (Mount Mahendra) in 802 CE A succession of powerful sovereigns, continuing the Hindudevaraja tradition, reigned over the classical era of Khmer civilization until the 11th century. Buddhism
was then introduced temporarily into royal religious practice, with
discontinuities and decentralisation resulting in subsequent removal. The royal chronology ended in the 14th century. During this period of the Khmer empire, societal functions of administration, agriculture, architecture, hydrology, logistics, urban planning, literature and the arts saw an unprecedented degree of development, refinement and accomplishment from the distinct expression of Hindu cosmology.
Mon kingdoms: From the 9th century until the abrupt end of the Hanthawaddy Kingdom in 1539, the Mon kingdoms (Dvaravati, Hariphunchai, Pegu) were notable for facilitating Indianized cultural exchange in lower Burma, in particular by having strong ties with Sri Lanka.
Sukhothai: The first Tai peoples to gain independence from the Khmer Empire and start their own kingdom in the 13th century. Sukhothai was a precursor for the Ayutthaya Kingdom
and the Kingdom of Siam. Though ethnically Thai, the Sukhothai kingdom
in many ways was a continuation of the Buddhist Mon-Dvaravati
civilizations, as well as the neighboring Khmer Empire.
Salakanagara:
Salakanagara kingdom is the first historically recorded Indianized
kingdom in Western Java, established by an Indian trader after marrying a
local Sundanese princess. This Kingdom existed between 130 and 362 CE.
Tarumanagara
was an early Sundanese Indianized kingdom, located not far from modern
Jakarta, and according to Tugu inscription ruler Purnavarman apparently
built a canal that changed the course of the Cakung River, and drained a
coastal area for agriculture and settlement. In his inscriptions,
Purnavarman associated himself with Vishnu, and Brahmins ritually
secured the hydraulic project.
Kalingga:
Kalingga (Javanese: Karajan Kalingga) was the 6th century Indianized
kingdom on the north coast of Central Java, Indonesia. It was the
earliest Hindu-Buddhist kingdom in Central Java, and together with Kutai
and Tarumanagara are the oldest kingdoms in Indonesian history.
Malayu
was a classical Southeast Asian kingdom. The primary sources for much
of the information on the kingdom are the New History of the Tang, and
the memoirs of the Chinese Buddhist monk Yijing who visited in 671 CE,
and states that it was "absorbed" by Srivijaya by 692 CE, but had
"broken away" by the end of the eleventh century according to Chao
Jukua. The exact location of the kingdom is the subject of studies among
historians.
Srivijaya: From the 7th to 13th centuries Srivijaya, a maritime empire centered on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, had adopted Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism under a line of rulers from Dapunta Hyang Sri Jayanasa to the Sailendras. A stronghold of Vajrayana
Buddhism, Srivijaya attracted pilgrims and scholars from other parts of
Asia. I Ching reports that the kingdom was home to more than a thousand
Buddhist scholars. A notable Buddhist scholar of local origin, Dharmakirti, taught Buddhist philosophy in Srivijaya and Nalanda (in India), and was the teacher of Atisha. Most of the time, this Buddhist Malay empire enjoyed cordial relationship with China and the Pala Empire in Bengal, and the 860 CE Nalanda inscription records that Maharaja Balaputra dedicated a monastery at Nalanda
university near Pala territory. The Srivijaya kingdom ceased to exist
in the 13th century due to various factors, including the expansion of
the Javanese, Singhasari, and Majapahit empires.
Tambralinga
was an ancient kingdom located on the Malay Peninsula that at one time
came under the influence of Srivijaya. The name had been forgotten until
scholars recognized Tambralinga as Nagara Sri Dharmaraja (Nakhon Si
Thammarat). Early records are scarce but its duration is estimated to
range from the seventh to the fourteenth century. Tambralinga first sent
tribute to the emperor of the Tang dynasty in 616 CE. In Sanskrit,
Tambra means "red" and linga means "symbol", typically representing the
divine energy of Shiva.
Mataram:
The Mataram Kingdom flourished between the 8th and 11th centuries. It
was first centered in central Java before moving later to east Java.
This kingdom produced numbers of Hindu-Buddhist temples in Java,
including Borobudur Buddhist mandala and the PrambananTrimurti Hindu temple dedicated mainly to Shiva. The Sailendras were the ruling family of this kingdom at an earlier stage in central Java, before being replaced by the Isyana Dynasty.
Kadiri:
In the 10th century, Mataram challenged the supremacy of Srivijaya,
resulting in the destruction of the Mataram capital by Srivijaya early
in the 11th century. Restored by King Airlangga
(c. 1020–1050), the kingdom split on his death; the new state of
Kediri, in eastern Java, became the centre of Javanese culture for the
next two centuries, spreading its influence to the eastern parts of
Southeast Asia. The spice trade was now becoming increasingly important,
as demand from European countries grew. Before they learned to keep
sheep and cattle alive in the winter, they had to eat salted meat, made
palatable by the addition of spices. One of the main sources was the Maluku Islands (or "Spice Islands") in Indonesia, and so Kediri became a strong trading nation.
Singhasari: In the 13th century, however, the Kediri dynasty was overthrown by a revolution, and Singhasari arose in east Java. The domains of this new state expanded under the rule of its warrior-king Kertanegara. He was killed by a prince of the previous Kediri dynasty, who then established the last great Hindu-Javanese kingdom, Majapahit. By the middle of the 14th century Majapahit controlled most of Java, Sumatra and the Malay peninsula, part of Borneo, the southern Celebes and the Moluccas. It also exerted considerable influence on the mainland.
Majapahit: The Majapahit empire, centered in East Java, succeeded the Singhasari empire and flourished in the Indonesian archipelago between the 13th and 15th centuries. Noted for their naval expansion, the Javanese spanned west–east from Lamuri in Aceh to Wanin in Papua. Majapahit was one of the last and greatest Hindu empires in Maritime Southeast Asia. Most of Balinese
Hindu culture, traditions and civilisations were derived from Majapahit
legacy. A large number of Majapahit nobles, priests, and artisans found
their home in Bali after the decline of Majapahit to Demak Sultanate.
Galuh
was an ancient Hindu kingdom in the eastern Tatar Pasundan (now west
Java province and Banyumasan region of central Java province),
Indonesia. It was established following the collapse of the Tarumanagara
kingdom around the 7th century. Traditionally the kingdom of Galuh was
associated with the eastern Priangan cultural region, around the Citanduy
and Cimanuk rivers, with its territory spanning from Citarum river on
the west, to the Pamali (present-day Brebes river) and Serayu rivers on
the east. Its capital was located in Kawali, near present-day Ciamis
city.
Sunda:
The Kingdom of Sunda was a Hindu kingdom located in western Java from
669 CE to around 1579 CE, covering the area of present-day Banten,
Jakarta, West Java, and the western part of Central Java. According to
primary historical records, the Bujangga Manik manuscript, the eastern
border of the Sunda Kingdom was the Pamali River (Ci Pamali, the present
day Brebes River) and the Serayu River (Ci Sarayu) in Central Java.
The eastern regions of Afghanistan were considered politically as
parts of India. Buddhism and Hinduism held sway over the region until
the Muslim conquest. Kabul and Zabulistan which housed Buddhism and other Indian religions, offered stiff resistance to the Muslim advance for two centuries, with the Kabul Shahi and Zunbils remaining unconquered until the Saffarid and Ghaznavid conquests. The significance of the realm of Zun and its rulers Zunbils had laid in them blocking the path of Arabs in invading the Indus Valley.
According to historian André Wink, "In southern and eastern Afghanistan, the regions of Zamindawar (Zamin I Datbar or land of the justice giver, the classical Arachosia) and Zabulistan or Zabul (Jabala, Kapisha, Kia pi shi) and Kabul, the Arabs were effectively opposed for more than two centuries, from 643 to 870 AD, by the indigenous rulers the Zunbils and the related Kabul-Shahs of the dynasty which became known as the Buddhist-Shahi. With Makran and Baluchistan and much of Sindh this area can be reckoned to belong to the cultural and political frontier zone between India and Persia."
He also wrote, "It is clear however that in the seventh to ninth
centuries the Zunbils and their kinsmen the Kabulshahs ruled over a
predominantly Indian rather than a Persianate realm. The Arab
geographers, in effect, commonly speak of 'that king of al-Hind ...
(who) bore the title of Zunbil."
Archaeological sites such as the 8th-century Tapa Sardar and Gardez show a blend of Buddhism with strong Shaivst iconography. Around 644 CE, the Chinese travelling monk Xuanzang made an account of Zabul (which he called by its Sanskrit name Jaguda), which he describes as mainly pagan, though also respecting Mahayana Buddhism, which although in the minority had the support of its royals. In terms of other cults, the god Śuna, is described to be the prime deity of the country.
The Caliph Al-Ma'mun
(r. 813–833 A.D.)led the last Arab expeditions on Kabul and Zabul,
after which the long-drawn conflict ended with the dissolution of the
empire. Rutbil were made to pay double the tribute to the Caliph. The king of Kabul was captured by him and converted to Islam. The last Zunbil was killed by Ya'qub bin al-Layth along with his former overlord Salih b. al-Nadr in 865. Meanwhile, the Hindu Shahi of Kabul were defeated under Mahmud of Ghazni. Indian soldiers were a part of the Ghaznavid army, Baihaki mentioned Hindu officers employed by Ma'sud. The 14th-century scholar Muslim scholar Ibn Battuta described the Hindu Kush as meaning "slayer of Indians", because large numbers of slaves brought from India died from its treacherous weather.
Zabulistan
Zabulistan, a historical region in southern Afghanistan roughly corresponding to the modern provinces of Zabul and Ghazni, was a collection of loose suzerains of the Hindu rulers when it fell to the Turk Shahis
in the 7th century, though the suzerainty continued up to the 11th
century. The Hindu kingdom of Kapisha had split up as its western part
formed a separate state called the kingdom of Zabul. It was a family
division because there were consanguineous and political relationships
between the states of Kabul and Zabul.
The Zunbils, a royal dynasty south of the Hindu Kush in present-day southern Afghanistan region, worshiped the Zhuna, possibly a sun god
connected to the Hindu god Surya and is sometimes referred to as Zoor
or Zoon. He is represented with flames radiating from his head on coins.
Statues were adorned with gold and used rubies for eyes. Huen Tsang calls him "sunagir". It has been linked with the Hindu god Aditya at Multan, pre-Buddhist religious and kingship practices of Tibet as well as Shaivism. His shrine lay on a sacred mountain in Zamindawar. Originally it appears to have been brought there by Hepthalites, displacing an earlier god on the same site. Parallels have been noted with the pre-Buddhist monarchy of Tibet, next to Zoroastrian
influence on its ritual. Whatever its origins, it was certainly
superimposed on a mountain and on a pre-existing mountain god while
merging with Shaiva doctrines of worship.
The area had been under the rule of the Turk Shahi who took over the rule of Kabul in the seventh century and later were attacked by the Arabs. The Turk Shahi dynasty was Buddhist and were followed by a Hindu dynasty shortly before the Saffarid conquest in 870 A.D.
The Turk Shahi were a Buddhist Turkic dynasty that ruled from Kabul and Kapisa in the 7th to 9th centuries. They replaced the Nezak – the last dynasty of Bactrian rulers. Kabulistan was the heartland of the Turk Shahi domain, which at times included Zabulistan and Gandhara. The last Shahi ruler of Kabul, Lagaturman, was deposed by a Brahmin minister, possibly named Vakkadeva, in c. 850, signaling the end of the Buddhist Turk Shahi dynasty, and the beginning of the Hindu Shahi dynasty of Kabul.
Hindu Shahi dynasty of Kabul
The Amb Hindu Temple complex was built between the 7th and 9th centuries CE during the reign of the Hindu Shahi Empire
The Hindu Shahi (850–1026 CE) was a Hindu dynasty that held sway over the Kabul Valley, Gandhara (modern-day Pakistan and northeastern Afghanistan), and present-day northwestern India, during the early medieval period in the Indian subcontinent. They succeeded the Turk Shahis. There were two successive dynasties in Kabul Valley and Gandhara &ndash the Kshatriya dynasty and the Brahmana dynasty which replaced it. Both used the title of Shahi. Details about these rulers have been assembled from chronicles, coins and stone inscriptions by researchers as no consolidated account of their history has become available. In 1973, Historian Yogendra Mishra proposed that according to Rajatarangini, Hindu Shahis were Kshatriyas.
According to available inscriptions following are the names of Hindu Shahi kings: Vakkadeva, Kamalavarman, Bhimadeva, Jayapala, Anandapala, Trilochanapala and Bhimpala.
Vakkadeva: According to The Mazare Sharif Inscription of the Time of the Shahi Ruler Veka, recently discovered from northern Afghanistan and reported by the Taxila Institute of Asian Civilisations, Islamabad, Veka (sic.) conquered northern region of Afghanistan 'with eightfold forces' and ruled there. He established a Shiva temple there which was inaugurated by Parimaha Maitya (the Great Minister).
He also issued copper coins of the Elephant and Lion type with the
legend Shri Vakkadeva. Nine principal issues of Bull and Horseman silver
coins and only one issue of corresponding copper coins of Spalapatideva
have become available. As many as five Elephant and Lion type of copper
coins of Shri Vakkadeva are available and curiously the copper issues
of Vakka are contemporaneous with the silver issues of Spalapati.
Kamalavarman: During the reign of Kamalavarman, the Saffarid rule weakened precipitately and ultimately Sistan became a part of the Samanid Empire.
The disorder generally prevailed and the control of Zabulistan changed
hands frequently. Taking advantage of the situation, the Shahis stepped
up activities on their western frontier. The result was the emergence of
a small Hindu power at Ghazni, supported by the Shahis. "The
authorities either themselves of early date or enshrining early
information mention Lawik", a Hindu, as the ruler at Ghazni, before this place was taken over by the Turkish slave governor of the Samanids.
Jayapala: With Jayapala,
a new dynasty started ruling over the former Shahi kingdom of
southeastern Afghanistan and the change over was smooth and consensual.
On his coronation, Jayapala used the additional name-suffix Deva from his predecessor's dynasty in addition to the pala
name-ending of his own family. (With Kabul lost during the lifetime of
Jayapaladeva, his successors – Anandapala, Trilochanapala and Bhimapala –
reverted to their own family pala-ending names.) Jayapala did
not issue any coins in his own name. Bull and Horseman coins with the
legend Samantadeva, in billon, seem to have been struck during
Jayapala's reign. As the successor of Bhima, Jayapala was a Shahi
monarch of the state of Kabul, which now included Punjab. Minhaj-ud-din
describes Jayapala as "the greatest of the Rais of Hindustan."
Balkh
From historical evidence, it appears Tokharistan (Bactria) was the only area heavily colonized by Arabs where Buddhism flourished and the only area incorporated into the Arab empire where Sanskrit studies were pursued up to the conquest. Hui'Chao, who visited around 726, mentions that the Arabs ruled it and all the inhabitants were Buddhists. Balkh's final conquest was undertaken by Qutayba ibn Muslim in 705.[105] Among Balkh's Buddhist monasteries, the largest was Nava Vihara, later Persianized to Naw Bahara after the Islamic conquest of Balkh.
It is not known how long it continued to serve as a place of worship
after the conquest. Accounts of early Arabs offer contradictory
narratives.
Ghur
Amir Suri, a king of the Ghurid dynasty, in the Ghor region of present-day central Afghanistan, and his son Muhammad ibn Suri, despite bearing Arabic names were Buddhists. During their rule from the 9th-century to the 10th-century, they were considered pagans by the surrounding Muslim people, and it was only during the reign of Muhammad's son Abu Ali ibn Muhammad that the Ghurid dynasty became an Islamic dynasty. Amir Suri was a descendant of the Ghurid king Amir Banji, whose rule was legitimized by the AbbasidcaliphHarun al-Rashid. He is known to have fought the Saffarid ruler Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar, who managed to conquer much of Khurasan except Ghur. Ghur remained a pagan enclave until the 11th century. Mahmud of Ghazni,
who raided it, left Muslim precepts to teach Islam to the local
population. The region became Muslim by 12th century though the
historian Satish Chandra states that Mahayana Buddhism is believed to have existed until the end of the century.
Nuristan
The vast area extending from modern Nuristan to Kashmir (styled "Peristan" by A. M. Cacopardo) containing host of "Kafir"
cultures and Indo-European languages that became Islamized over a long
period. Earlier, it was surrounded by Buddhist areas. The Islamization
of the nearby Badakhshan began in the 8th century and Peristan was completely surrounded by Muslim states in the 16th century with Islamization of Baltistan.
The Buddhist states temporarily brought literacy and state rule into
the region. The decline of Buddhism resulted in it becoming heavily
isolated.
Successive wave of Pashtun immigration, before or during 16th and 17th centuries, displaced the original Kafirs and Pashayi people from Kunar Valley and Laghman valley, the two eastern provinces near Jalalabad, to the less fertile mountains. Before their conversion, the Kafir people of Kafiristan practiced a form of ancient Hinduism infused with locally developed accretions. The region from Nuristan to Kashmir (styled Peristan by A. M. Cacopardo) was host to a vast number of "Kafir" cultures.
They were called Kafirs due to their enduring paganism, remaining
politically independent until being conquered and forcibly converted by
Afghan Amir Abdul Rahman Khan in 1895–1896 while others also converted to avoid paying jizya.
In 1020–21, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna led a campaign against
Kafiristan and the people of the "pleasant valleys of Nur and Qirat"
according to Gardizi. These people worshipped the lion. Mohammad Habib however considers they might have been worshipping Buddha in form of a lion (Sakya Sinha). Ramesh Chandra Majumdar states they had a Hindu temple which was destroyed by Mahmud's general.
Indian cultural influence
Candi Bukit Batu Pahat of Bujang Valley. A Hindu-Buddhist kingdom ruled ancient Kedah possibly as early as 110 CE, the earliest evidence of strong Indian influence which was once prevalent among the Kedahan Malays.
The use of Greater India to refer to an Indian cultural sphere
was popularised by a network of Bengali scholars in the 1920s who were
all members of the Calcutta-based Greater India Society. The movement's
early leaders included the historian R. C. Majumdar (1888–1980); the philologists Suniti Kumar Chatterji (1890–1977) and P. C. Bagchi (1898–1956), and the historians Phanindranath Bose and Kalidas Nag (1891–1966). Some of their formulations were inspired by concurrent excavations in Angkor by French archaeologists and by the writings of French IndologistSylvain Lévi.
The scholars of the society postulated a benevolent ancient Indian
cultural colonisation of Southeast Asia, in stark contrast – in their
view – to the Western colonialism of the early 20th century.
The term Greater India and the notion of an explicit Hindu expansion of ancient Southeast Asia have been linked to both Indian nationalism and Hindu nationalism. However, many Indian nationalists, like Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore, although receptive to "an idealisation of India as a benign and uncoercive world civiliser and font of global enlightenment," stayed away from explicit "Greater India" formulations.
In addition, some scholars have seen the Hindu/Buddhist acculturation
in ancient Southeast Asia as "a single cultural process in which
Southeast Asia was the matrix and South Asia the mediatrix." In the field of art history, especially in American writings, the term survived due to the influence of art theorist Ananda Coomaraswamy. Coomaraswamy's view of pan-Indian art history was influenced by the "Calcutta cultural nationalists."
By some accounts Greater India consists of "lands including Burma, Java, Cambodia, Bali, and the former Champa and Funan polities of present-day Vietnam," in which Indian and Hindu culture left an "imprint in the form of monuments, inscriptions and other traces of the historic "Indianizing" process." By some other accounts, many Pacific societies and "most of the Buddhist world including Ceylon, Tibet, Central Asia, and even Japan were held to fall within this web of Indianizing culture colonies" This particular usage – implying cultural "sphere of influence" of India – was promoted by the Greater India Society, formed by a group of Bengalimen of letters, and is not found before the 1920s. The term Greater India was used in historical writing in India into the 1970s.
Culture spread via the trade routes that linked India with southern Burma, central and southern Siam, the Malay peninsula and Sumatra to Java, lower Cambodia and Champa. The Pali and Sanskrit languages and the Indian script, together with Theravada and MahayanaBuddhism, Brahmanism and Hinduism,
were transmitted from direct contact as well as through sacred texts
and Indian literature. Southeast Asia had developed some prosperous and
very powerful colonial empires that contributed to Hindu-Buddhist
artistic creations and architectural developments. Art and architectural
creations that rivaled those built in India, especially in its sheer
size, design and aesthetic achievements. The notable examples are
Borobudur in Java and Angkor monuments in Cambodia. The Srivijaya Empire
to the south and the Khmer Empire to the north competed for influence in the region.
A defining characteristic of the cultural link between Southeast
Asia and the Indian subcontinent was the adoption of ancient Indian Vedic/Hindu and Buddhist culture and philosophy into Myanmar, Tibet, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaya, Laos and Cambodia. Indian scripts are found in Southeast Asian islands ranging from Sumatra, Java, Bali, South Sulawesi and the Philippines. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata
have had a large impact on South Asia and Southeast Asia. One of the
most tangible evidence of dharmic Hindu traditions is the widespread use
of the Añjali Mudrā gesture of greeting and respect. It is seen in the Indiannamasté and similar gestures known throughout Southeast Asia; its cognates include the Cambodiansampeah, the Indonesiansembah, the Japanesegassho and Thaiwai.
Beyond the Himalaya and Hindukush mountains in the north, along the Silk Route Indian influence was linked with Buddhism. Tibet and Khotan
was direct heirs of Gangetic Buddhism, despite the difference in
languages. Many Tibetan monks even used to know Sanskrit very well.
In Khotan the Ramayana was well cicrulated in Khotanese language,
though the narrative is slightly different from the Gangetic version. In Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan
many Buddhist monasteries were established. These countries were used
as a kind of springboard for the monks who brought Indian Buddhist texts
and images to China. Further north, in the Gobi Desert, statues of Ganesha and Kartikeya was found alongside Buddhist imagery in Mogao Caves.
Hinduism is practised by the majority of Bali's population. The Cham people
of Vietnam still practice Hinduism as well. Though officially Buddhist,
many Thai, Khmer, and Burmese people also worship Hindu gods in a form
of syncretism.
Brahmins
have had a large role in spreading Hinduism in Southeast Asia. Even
today many monarchies such as the royal court of Thailand still have
Hindu rituals performed for the King by Hindu Brahmins.
Muay Thai, a fighting art that is the Thai version of the Hindu Musti-yuddha style of martial art.
Kaharingan, an indigenous religion followed by the Dayak people of Borneo, is categorised as a form of Hinduism in Indonesia.
Philippine mythology includes the supreme god Bathala and the concept of Diwata and the still-current belief in Karma—all derived from Hindu-Buddhist concepts.
Indians spread their religion to Southeast Asia, beginning the Hindu and Buddhist cultures there. They introduced the caste system to the region, especially to Java, Bali, Madura, and Sumatra. The adopted caste system was not as strict as in India, tempered to the local context.
There are multiple similarities between the two caste systems such that
both state that no one is equal within society and that everyone has
his own place. It also promoted the upbringing of highly organized
central states. Indians were still able to implement their religion,
political ideas, literature, mythology, and art.
Borobudur in Central Java, Indonesia, is the world's largest Buddhist monument. It took shape of a giant stone mandala crowned with stupas and believed to be the combination of Indian-origin Buddhist ideas with the previous megalithic tradition of native Austronesianstep pyramid.
The Batu Caves in Malaysia are one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India. It is the focal point of the annual Thaipusam festival in Malaysia and attracts over 1.5 million pilgrims, making it one of the largest religious gatherings in history.
Erawan Shrine, dedicated to Brahma, is one of the most popular religious shrines in Thailand.
A map of East, South and Southeast Asia. Red signifies current and historical (Vietnam) distribution of Chinese characters. Green signifies current and historical (Malaysia, Pakistan, the Maldives, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam) distribution of Indic scripts. Blue signifies current use of non-Sinitic and non-Indic scripts.
Scholars like Sheldon Pollock have used the term Sanskrit Cosmopolis
to describe the region and argued for millennium-long cultural
exchanges without necessarily involving migration of peoples or
colonisation. Pollock's 2006 book The Language of the Gods in the World of Men
makes a case for studying the region as comparable with Latin Europe
and argues that the Sanskrit language was its unifying element.
Scripts in Sanskrit
discovered during the early centuries of the Common Era are the
earliest known forms of writing to have extended all the way to
Southeast Asia. Its gradual impact ultimately resulted in its widespread
domain as a means of dialect which evident in regions, from Bangladesh
to Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand and additionally a few of the larger
Indonesian islands. In addition, alphabets from languages spoken in
Burmese, Thai, Laos, and Cambodia are variations formed off of Indian
ideals that have localized the language.
The spread of Buddhism to Tibet allowed many Sanskrit texts to survive only in Tibetan translation (in the Tanjur). Buddhism was similarly introduced to China by Mahayanist missionaries sent by the Indian Emperor Ashoka mostly through translations of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit texts, and many terms were transliterated directly and added to the Chinese vocabulary.
In Southeast Asia, languages such as Thai and Lao contain many loan words from Sanskrit, as does Khmer to a lesser extent. For example, in Thai, Rāvaṇa, the legendary emperor of Sri Lanka, is called 'Thosakanth' which is derived from his Sanskrit name 'Daśakaṇṭha' ("having ten necks").
A Sanskrit loanword encountered in many Southeast Asian languages is the word bhāṣā, or spoken language, which is used to mean language in general, for example bahasa in Malay, Indonesian and Tausug, basa in Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese, phasa in Thai and Lao, bhasa in Burmese, and phiesa in Khmer.
The utilization of Sanskrit
has been prevalent in all aspects of life including legal purposes.
Sanskrit terminology and vernacular appears in ancient courts to
establish procedures that have been structured by Indian models such as a
system composed of a code of laws. The concept of legislation
demonstrated through codes of law and organizations particularly the
idea of "God King" was embraced by numerous rulers of Southeast Asia. The rulers amid this time, for example, the Lin-I Dynasty of Vietnam
once embraced the Sanskrit dialect and devoted sanctuaries to the
Indian divinity Shiva. Many rulers following even viewed themselves as
"reincarnations or descendants" of the Hindu gods. However once Buddhism
began entering the nations, this practiced view was eventually altered.
Scripts in Sanskrit
discovered during the early centuries of the Common Era are the
earliest known forms of writing to have extended all the way to
Southeast Asia. Its gradual impact ultimately resulted in its widespread
domain as a means of dialect which evident in regions, from Bangladesh
to Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand and additionally a few of the larger
Indonesian islands. In addition, alphabets from languages spoken in
Burmese, Thai, Laos, and Cambodia are variations formed off of Indian
ideals that have localized the language.
The utilization of Sanskrit has been prevalent in all aspects of
life including legal purposes. Sanskrit terminology and vernacular
appears in ancient courts to establish procedures that have been
structured by Indian models such as a system composed of a code of laws.
The concept of legislation demonstrated through codes of law and
organizations particularly the idea of "God King" was embraced by
numerous rulers of Southeast Asia. The rulers amid this time, for example, the Lin-I Dynasty of Vietnam once embraced the Sanskrit dialect and devoted sanctuaries to the Indian divinity, Shiva.
Many rulers following even viewed themselves as "reincarnations or
descendants" of the Hindu Gods. However, once Buddhism began entering
the nations, this practiced view was eventually altered.
Southeast Asian languages are traditionally written with Indic
alphabets and therefore have extra letters not pronounced in the local
language, so that original Sanskrit spelling can be preserved. An
example is how the name of the late King of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej,
is spelled in Sanskrit as "Bhumibol"ภูมิพล, yet is pronounced in Thai
as "Phumipon" พูมิพน using Thai-Sanskrit pronunciation rules since the
original Sanskrit sounds do not exist in Thai.
Toponyms
Ruins of Ayutthaya in Thailand; Ayutthaya derives its name from the ancient Indian city of Ayodhya, which has had wide cultural significance
Suvarnabhumi is a toponym that has been historically associated with Southeast Asia. In Sanskrit, it means "The Land of Gold". Thailand's Suvarnabhumi Airport is named after this toponym.
Siamese ancient city of Ayutthaya also derived from Ramayana's Ayodhya.
Names of places could simply render their Sanskrit origin, such as Singapore, from Singapura (Singha-pura the "lion city"), Jakarta from Jaya and kreta ("complete victory").
Some of the Indonesian regencies such as Indragiri Hulu and Indragiri Hilir derived from Indragiri River, Indragiri itself means "mountain of Indra".
Some Thai toponyms also often have Indian parallels or Sanskrit
origin, although the spellings are adapted to the Siamese tongue, such
as Ratchaburi from Raja-puri ("king's city"), and Nakhon Si Thammarat from Nagara Sri Dharmaraja.
The tendency to use Sanskrit for modern neologism also continued to modern day. In 1962 Indonesia changed the colonial name of New Guinean city of Hollandia to Jayapura ("glorious city"), Orange mountain range to Jayawijaya Mountains.
Malaysia named their new government seat as Putrajaya ("prince of glory") in 1999.
_Gandhara_100-200_CE.jpg)
