These is the 6th lecture in a series of lectures given by the French-Indian historian Michel Danino covering recent findings in ancient Indian history that I have been showing recently. It is also the last I will be showing here, but I have made a playlist for those wishing to see the final 6 lectures.
This lecture is the one that is of most importance to us as it shows how Indian, and particularly Buddhist, civilisation has spread throughout Asia and has left its mark is so many different ways: in the religion, culture, statecraft, and even down to the adoption of scripts for writing.
Danino first looks at how China, already very advanced in its civilisation, adopted Buddhism at a very early stage, and became one of the great centres for Buddhist learning, and fortunately for us had a number of pilgrims travel to India in the Middle Ages and leave behind very important written records of their findings particularly concerning geography and culture.
He also looks at various other cultures, from Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and then spends a lot of time on the very strong influence of India on Indonesia, which in Bali preserves an older form of Hinduism than is found in India itself. He also shows how Buddhism and Hinduism lived side by side in these places, and seem to have been regarded as one culture at times.
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