ODUC

it is with justice that we speak of Further India and the Dutch call their colonies Neerlands Indi?. For some early chapters in the story of this expansion the dates and details are

stently active and not receptive. The Far East counted for nothing in her internal history, doubtless because China was too distant and the other countries had no special culture of their ow

Buddhist monastery in "the terminal marshes of the Helmund" in Seistan[1] and Bamian is a good distance from our frontier. But in Persia and its border lands there were powerful state religions, first Zoroastrianism and

ted with religion it includes much more, such as architecture, painting and other arts, an Indian alphabet, a vocabulary of Indian words borrowed or transla

ssions to the priest. Buddhism produced a great fermentation and controversy in Chinese thought, but though its fortunes varied it hardly ever became as in Burma and Ceylon the national religion. It was, as a Chinese Emperor once said, one of the two wings of a bird. The Chinese characters did not give way to an Indian alphabet nor did the Confucian

the East round the Cape were discovered. India's expansion was slow, generally peaceful and attracted little attention at home. Partly it was due to the natural permeation and infiltration of a superior culture beyond its own borders, but it is equally natural that

onquerors or colonists is also recorded.[2] Hinduism accompanied Hindus and sometimes spread round their settlements, but it never attempted to convert distant and alien lands. But the Buddhists had from the beginning the true evangelistic temper: they preached to all the world and in singleness of purpose: they had no politic

own language, religion and temples, the fundamental civilization is not Tamil. A Hindu called Vijaya who apparently started from the region of Broach about 500 B.C. led an expedition to Ceylon and introduced a western Hindu language. Intercourse with the north was doubtless maintained, for in the reign of Asoka we find the King of Ceylon making ov

of Himavanta, meaning apparently the southern slopes of the Himalayas, and to the Kambojas, an ambiguous race who were perhaps the inhabitants of Tibet or its bor

nd in his own inscriptions, and European critics have treated it with not unnatural scepticism for there is little indication that Asoka paid much atte

route: the Ramayana mentions Java and an inscription seems to testify that a Hindu king was reigning in Champa (Annam) about 150 A.D. These dates are not so precise as one could wish, but if there was a Hindu kingdom in that distant region in

tion with Conjevaram by sea and was a centre of Pali Buddhism. At any rate there was a movement of conquest and colonization in these regions which brought with it Hinduism and Mahayanism, and established Hindu kingdoms in Java, Camboja, Champa and Borneo, and another movement of Hinayanist propaganda, apparently earlier, but of which we

country. From an early epoch Upper Burma had connection with China and Bengal by land and Lower Burma with Orissa and Conjevaram by sea. We know too that Pali Buddhism existed the

nded from the north to their present territories. From the Cambojans, their neighbours and at one time their suzerains, they must have acquired some Hinduism and Mahayanism,

pelago and we must now trace its flow across Central Asia to China and Japan

her than after our era and the prevalence of Gandharan art in the cities of the Tarim basin makes it likely that their efflorescence was not far removed in time from the Gandharan epoch of India. The discovery near Khotan of official documents written in Prakrit makes colonization as well as religious missions probable. Further, although the movements of

id progress in that disturbed period of the third and fourth centuries when North China was split up into contending Tartar states which both in race and politics were closely connected with Central Asia. Communication with India by land became frequent and there was also communication via

enjoys great authority in Tibet and Mongolia, and both the Ming and Ch?ing dynasties did their best to conciliate it for political reasons. Lamaism has borrowed little from China and must be regarded as an invasion into northern Asia and even Europe[8] of late Indian religion and art, somewhat modified by the strong idiosyncrasy of the Tibetan people. This northern movem

through China. The ancient Champa was a Hindu kingdom analogous to Camboja, but modern Annam represents not a continuation of this civilization but a later descent of Chinese culture from the north. Japan was in close touch with the Chinese just at the

ng Ceylon first, followed by Burma and Siam. Whatever may have been the origin of Buddhism in these two latter they have had

Borneo.[9] But the history of Java is curiously fragmentary whereas the copious inscriptions of Camboja and Champa combined with Chinese notices give a fairly continuous chronicle. And a glance at the map will show that if there were Hindu colonists at Ligor it would have been much easier for them to go across the G

ely connected with China and naturally leads me to a somewhat extended review of the fortunes and achievements of Buddhism in that great land, and also to a special study of Tibet and of Lamaism. I have treated of Nepal elsewhere

TNO

our. Aug.,

m is a different matter. They were expressly invited as mor

üan Chuang, vo

e Liang Annals make the statement a

ly at Ligor

that a wicked king destroyed

in J.R.A.S.

near Astrakhan who have Lama temples

Expeditions from any other quarter would naturally have gone to the West Coast. Also there is some knowledge of Java in India, but apparently no