Glory of Hinduism

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>>But in Eastern Asia the influence of India has been notable in

extent, strength and duration. Scant justice is done to her position

in the world by those histories which recount the exploits of her

invaders and leave the impression that her own people were a feeble,

dreamy folk, sundered from the rest of mankind by their sea and

mountain frontiers. Such a picture takes no account of the

intellectual conquests of the Hindus. Even their political conquests

were not contemptible and were remarkable for the distance if not for

the extent of the territory occupied. For there were Hindu kingdoms in

Java and Camboja and settlements in Sumatra and even in Borneo, an

island about as far from India as is Persia from Rome. But such

military or commercial invasions are insignificant compared with the

spread of Indian thought. The south-eastern region of Asiaâ€"both

mainland and archipelagoâ€"owed its civilization almost entirely to

India. In Ceylon, Burma, Siam, Camboja, Champa and Java, religion,

art, the alphabet, literature, as well as whatever science and

political organization existed, were the direct gift of Hindus,

whether Brahmans or Buddhists, and much the same may be said of Tibet,

whence the wilder Mongols took as much Indian civilization as they

could stomach. In Java and other Malay countries this Indian culture

has been superseded by Islam, yet even in Java the alphabet and to a

large extent the customs of the people are still Indian.>>

 

>From Hinduism and Buddism by Sir John Elliot.

 

You can download or read on line the entire book here.

 

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16847

 

This is a link to volume 3. You will find links to VOL 1 and 2 in Vol.3.

 

By the way did you know that Bodhidharma the founder of Shaolin

temple, KungFu, and Zen Buddhism was a South Indian from Kanchipuram?

 

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~alb/zen/bodhidharma.html

 

The great Tantrik master Padmasambava was an Indian who went to Tibet.

 

http://www.muktinath.org/buddhism/padmasambhava1.htm