SOUTH ASIA AND EAST ASIA

South Asia and East Asia

South Asia and East Asia

In pre colonial South East Asia, life and culture was very simplistic. The peopled garnered around local leaders or men of prowess for a sense of direction their lives. These men of prowess were charismatic in a sense that they were able to attract people to them due to their link with the spiritual world and “magic” powers. Spirit worship was pre dominant in pre colonial South East Asia; hence it was not uncommon for leaders to have more followers if he could strengthen his links with the spirit world. One way these local leaders expanded their powers was to link themselves with the superior cultures of India, which also practices spirit worship but their gods were understood to be much more powerful than the South East Asian spirits. Various Indian stories such as the Ramayana and the Life of Buddha were adopted into South East Asian culture. Local leaders used these stories to organize their kingdoms in various ways (Bowles, 1997).

Usually, one of the main goals of a leader of any kingdom is to unify his country. The Life of Buddha story illustrates how Buddha went around India and preaching his beliefs and bringing people together. The more he preached about his “Law”, the more disciples he garnered around him. People were coming In Buddha's Life story, this idea of having good values and morals is also illustrated in stories like the “tree god” where the Tree god begs the king to spare his little children and asks him to cut him up in three different sections so that his innocent children can be spared. Such stories are set to move and inspire the people of South East Asia n to instill a sense of self-sacrifice in order to gain good karma. This sense of self-sacrifice is also seen in the “Hare mark on the moon” story where the hare is willing to sacrifice his own body for the sake of the sage. This idea of self sacrifice can be seen in the Southeast Asian context where thousands of laborers toil endlessly in the construction of temples around the kingdom. They know building temples for the worship of their gods gives them good merit and thus are not hesitant about building them at the expense of their personal health.

As Indian epics infiltrated into the South Asian ...