Bigger India
India’s deep but forgotten roots in South-east Asia
It was the sea route to India that the colonial powers of Portugal, Spain, France and England set out to explore in order to gain direct access to the physical and intellectual wealth of India.
There were other deities like Ganesha in Thailand, which were clearly of Hindu origin. Of course, Buddhism was itself an artificially separated religion; its concepts flew seamlessly from the earlier streams of thought enshrined in the Vedas.
But the biggest Indic influence I saw was in the diffusion of Sanskrit into the languages of the region. Bahasa, bumiputera, samudra, rasa, jaya and raja were just a few of many Malay words that were rooted in Sanskrit.
And yet , to my surprise, the museums I visited in Malaysia were more focused on European colonial powers, which became significant only during the last 400 years.