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The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World

Book by William Dalrymple · 2 quotes · India, Cambodia, Indosphere

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The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World Quotes

“Although the King has a south Indiansounding Sanskrit name, his grandfather, the chief credited with founding the dynasty, is clearly indigenous Javanese: he is called Kadungga, implying that the same family dynasty continued to rule while changing their names and court language. The transformation, in other words, came not with the sword or conquest but peacefully, possibly with intermarriage, as local chieftains took on the Brahmins’ new religion and, with it, new Hindu names, titles and rituals. The adoption of Indian practices, in other words, came voluntarily over generations, with conversion and influence, and not by conquest and military subjection, as earlier Indian historians once believed.”

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Book:The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World
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“It now seems probable that the Krishna statue was erected at the place which was revered as the site of the founding Khmer myth: the place where the newly arrived Indian Brahmin Kaundinya was believed to have met and married local Mera the naga princess (we will hear more of this myth shortly). By erecting a major temple there to Lord Krishna, ‘Phnom Da becomes a new Mount Govardhan, and probably, by extension, the Mekong River becomes the holy river Yamuna,’ thereby ritually extending the sacred geography of India to South-east Asia.”

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