Editing History of Southeast Asia (section)

===Indianised kingdoms===
{{Further|Greater India}}
[[File:Hinduism_Expansion_in_Asia_2023.svg|thumb|Hinduism's expansion in Asia, from its heartland in Indian Subcontinent, to the rest of Asia, especially Southeast Asia, started circa 1st century marked with the establishment of early Hindu settlements and polities in Southeast Asia.]]
By around 500&nbsp;BCE, Asia's expanding land and [[Indian Ocean trade|maritime trade]] led to socio-economic and cultural stimulation and diffusion of mainly [[Hinduism|Hindu]] beliefs into the regional cosmology of [[Southeast Asia]].<ref name="Hal1985">{{cite book|author=Kenneth R. Hal|title=Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ncqGAAAAIAAJ|year=1985|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|isbn=978-0-8248-0843-3|page=63}}</ref> [[Iron Age]] trade expansion also caused regional [[Geostrategy|geostrategic]] remodelling. Southeast Asia was now situated at the convergence of the Indian and the East Asian maritime trade routes, a basis for economic and cultural growth. The concept of "[[Indianised kingdoms]]", a term coined by French scholar [[George Coedès|George Cœdès]], describes how Southeast Asian [[principality|principalities]] incorporated central aspects of Indian institutions, religion, statecraft, administration, culture, [[epigraphy]], writing and architecture.<ref>National Library of Australia.  [http://www.nla.gov.au/asian/form/coedes2.html Asia's French Connection : George Coedes and the Coedes Collection] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111021052224/http://www.nla.gov.au/asian/form/coedes2.html |date=21 October 2011 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |publisher=Amitav Acharya |title=Southeast Asia: Imagining the region |url=http://www.amitavacharya.com/sites/default/files/Southeast%20Asia%20Imagining%20the%20Region.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.amitavacharya.com/sites/default/files/Southeast%20Asia%20Imagining%20the%20Region.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|access-date=13 January 2018}}</ref>
[[File:Vietnam, shiva, da thap banh it (torre d'argento), stile di transiz. tra my son A1 e thap mam, Xi-Xii sec, 01.JPG|thumb|upright|right|[[Shiva]] statue, [[Champa]] (modern [[Vietnam]])]]

The earliest Hindu kingdoms emerged in [[Sumatra]] and [[Java]], followed by mainland polities such as [[Funan]] and [[Champa]]. Selective adoption of Indian sociocultural elements stimulated the emergence of centralised states and development of highly organised societies. Local leaders began to adopt Hindu worship into state religion, using the Hindu concept of [[Devaraja|devarāja]] to reinforce [[divine rule]] (as opposed to the Chinese concept of [[Mandate of Heaven]]).<ref>{{cite book|author=Craig A. Lockard|title=Societies, Networks, and Transitions, Volume I: To 1500: A Global History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lTEeCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA299|year=2014|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-1-285-78308-6|page=299}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art |title=The Mon-Dvaravati Tradition of Early North-Central Thailand |date=August 2007 |url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/mond/hd_mond.htm|access-date=2009-12-15}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal  |title=Urban Morphology of Commercial Port Cities and Shophouses in Southeast Asia |journal=Procedia Engineering |volume=142 |pages=190–197 |doi=10.1016/j.proeng.2016.02.031 |year=2016 |last1=Han |first1=Wang |last2=Beisi |first2=Jia |doi-access=free }}</ref>

The exact nature, process and extent of Indian influence upon the civilizations of the region is still fiercely debated by contemporary scholars. One such debate is over the extent to which Indian merchants, [[Brahmin]]s, nobles or Southeast Asian mariner-merchants played central roles in bringing Indian conceptions to Southeast Asia. Additionally, the depth of the influence of Indian traditions is still contested. Whereas early 20th-century scholars emphasized the thorough Indianization of Southeast Asia, more recent authors have argued that Indian influence was much more limited, affecting only a small section of the elite.<ref name="oxford press">{{cite web| url=http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399318/obo-9780195399318-0112.xml | title= Hinduism in Southeast Asia | publisher= oxford press |date=28 May 2013 | access-date=20 December 2016 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://prezi.com/ju-vg-e8z1zk/hinduism-and-buddhism-in-southeast-asia/ |title=Hinduism and Buddhism in Southeast Asia by Monica Sar on Prezi |newspaper=prezi.com |access-date= 20 February 2017}}</ref>

Maritime trade from China to India passed Champa and Funan at the [[Mekong Delta]], proceeded along the coast to the [[Isthmus of Kra]], portaged across the narrow and [[transhipped]] for distribution in India. This trading link boosted the development of Funan, its successor [[Chenla]] and the Malayan states of [[Langkasuka]] on the eastern coast and [[Early history of Kedah|Kedah]] on the western.

Numerous coastal communities in [[maritime Southeast Asia]] adopted Hindu and [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] cultural and religious elements from India and developed complex polities ruled by native dynasties. Early Hindu kingdoms in Indonesia include the 4th-century [[Kutai]] that rose in [[East Kalimantan]], [[Tarumanagara]] in [[West Java]] and [[Kalingga]] in [[Central Java]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oeaw.ac.at/isa/files/working_papers/suedostasien/soa001.pdf |title=THEORIES OF INDIANIZATION Exemplified by Selected Case Studies from Indonesia (Insular Southeast Asia) |publisher=Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften |author=Helmut Lukas |access-date=14 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171215113853/http://www.oeaw.ac.at/isa/files/working_papers/suedostasien/soa001.pdf |archive-date=15 December 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref>