Indosphere Quotes

“Although the King has a south Indiansounding Sanskrit name, his grandfather, the chief credited with founding
the dynasty, is clearly indigenous Javanese: he is called Kadungga,
implying that the same family dynasty continued to rule while changing
their names and court language. The transformation, in other words, came
not with the sword or conquest but peacefully, possibly with intermarriage,
as local chieftains took on the Brahmins’ new religion and, with it, new
Hindu names, titles and rituals. The adoption of Indian practices, in other
words, came voluntarily over generations, with conversion and influence,
and not by conquest and military subjection, as earlier Indian historians
once believed.”
― William Dalrymple, The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World

“It now
seems probable that the Krishna statue was erected at the place which was
revered as the site of the founding Khmer myth: the place where the newly
arrived Indian Brahmin Kaundinya was believed to have met and married
local Mera the naga princess (we will hear more of this myth shortly). By
erecting a major temple there to Lord Krishna, ‘Phnom Da becomes a new
Mount Govardhan, and probably, by extension, the Mekong River becomes
the holy river Yamuna,’ thereby ritually extending the sacred geography of
India to South-east Asia.”
― william dalrymple, The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World

“. In 1289 Kublai Khan sent ambassadors to Java, demanding tribute and submission to the Yuan dynasty. Kertanegara arrested the envoys, branded their faces, cut off their ears and sent them back to China. As will be revealed later, what happened next had profound consequences for the Majapahit empire. ”
“. In 1289 Kublai Khan sent ambassadors to Java, demanding tribute and submission to the Yuan dynasty. Kertanegara arrested the envoys, branded their faces, cut off their ears and sent them back to China. As will be revealed later, what happened next had profound consequences for the Majapahit empire. ”
― Herald van der Linde, Majapahit: Intrigue, Betrayal and War in Indonesia's Greatest Empire