State Building in South & Southeast Asia

Belief Systems

• Hinduism: Dominant in South Asia (India)

  • Polytheistic belief system → sets apart from other monotheistic religions

  • Ultimate goal = To reunite their individual souls to all pervasive world soul aka Brahman

    • Involves cycling through death and rebirth (reincarnation) to achieve

  • Provided the conditions for a unified culture in India → structured Indian society (caste system, couldn’t move up in status)

  • Ethnic religion: Bound to a particular people in a particular place → don’t spread well

• Islam → Turkic Muslim invaders came into South Asia and set up a Muslim empire (Delhi Sultanate)

  • Since Muslims were in charge in large parts of India → religion of the elite + spread throughout Southeast Asia

• Buddhism: Founded in India (shared several beliefs with Hinduism) = more likely to spread + its influence was dying in India by 1200

Belief Systems CHANGE

• Hinduism (Bhakti Movement = Bhaktis)

  • Encouraged believers to worship one particular god in the Hindu pantheon of gods

  • Rejected the hierarchy of Hinduism

  • Encouraged spiritual experiences to all people

• Islam (Sufism = Sufis)

  • More mystical, spiritual experience-based version of Islam

  • -

• Buddhism

  • Despite it being a universalizing religion, in South Asia, it become more and more exclusive → on a decline

State building in South Asia

• Muslim leaders had a lot of trouble imposing Islam on India (a minority religion here)

• Resistance to Muslim rule → Rajput Kingdoms:

  • rival and warring Hindu kingdoms, some were conquered by Muslim rulers and some were independent Hindu states

• Vijayanagara Empire (South)

  • Rulers wanted to extend the rule of the Delhi Sultanate to the South → sent emissaries

  • Emissaries were Hindus who converted to Islam → established this

State building in Southeast Asia

note: when a state is sea-based or land-based, it’s talking about whether it gets their power from the sea or the land

• Sea-based states

  • Srivijaya Empire: Buddhist but influenced by Indian Hindu culture

    • Had control over the Strait of Malacca (main power source) → imposed taxes on ships passing by

  • Majapahit Kingdom (Java): originally a Hindu kingdom, but had strong Buddhist influences

    • Maintained power: Created a tributary system among the states in the region

• Land-Based States

  • Sinhala Dynasties (Sri Lanka): Buddhist state

  • Khmer Empire: founded as a Hindu empire

    • Prosperous state and created a Hindu building (Angkor wat) → represented the entire Hindu universe

    • Khmer rulers converted to Buddhism and added Buddha’s all over the temple

    • note: blending of religions = syncretism