← New Books Network
New Books Network
Himanshu Prabha Ray ed., "Recentering Southeast Asia: Politics, Religion and Maritime Connections" (Routledge, 2026)
01:04:16
Loading summary
Transcript74 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the New Books Network. New Books in Southeast Asian Studies is sponsored by the ANU Southeast Asia Institute, the Griffith Asia Institute, the New York Southeast Asia Network, the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, and the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre.
- [00:17]
B
Welcome to New Books in Southeast Asian Studies, a channel on the New Books Network. I'm Natalie Pearson, senior lecturer in Heritage Studies at the University of Sydney and co host of the channel. Today I'm talking to Himanshu Prabha Ray, research fellow at Oxford center for Hindu Studies in the United Kingdom and editor of Recentering Southeast Asia Politics, Religion and Maritime Connections published by Rutledge in 2025. What an honor it is to have you on the podcast Tamatju. Thank you.
- [00:47]
A
Oh, thank you very much, Natalie, for the invitation, for reading the book and for your interest in the book. I'm delighted to be on your channel, so thank you very much.
- [00:56]
B
Well, the honor is all mine. We're so happy to have you joining us. And as I've told you, this is a topic particularly close to my heart. You know, you're focusing on Southeast Asia and you're bringing in that maritime connection again as well. So I'm really looking forward to talking to you today. Now, this is an edited volume, so you're the editor and you bring to this role, you know, some quite amazing experiences and insights in terms of your long standing research on maritime networks, on Buddhism and on archaeology. So I'd like to begin by inviting you to tell us a little about your research and how you came to these interests.
- [01:38]
A
Yes, it's been a long time coming. I've been doing research for a very long time and it started with archaeology. I'm a trained archaeologist. So it was really looking at the past through material culture, but then gradually and this had particularly to do with when it came to interpreting what we find in material culture. Increasingly, I felt that there was more to it than just looking at material culture, that the politics of the present, the way in which different authors shape their arguments, that has a lot to do with where they are located. And this led me to questioning whether we can study the past as if, you know, starting from the 21st century or were there disjunctions? Are there different lenses which reflect or refract the past? And should we then, and particularly in Asia and in South Asia and in India, where I'm located, colonialism becomes an important lens through which we need to understand how the past was created. So this work really began in 2007 when I was a fellow at the Asia Research Institute in Singapore and Started looking at empire and Buddhism and how empire created a certain legacy of Buddhism or a certain landscape, cultural landscape of Buddhism. And from then on, you know, I've been doing my own authored books as well as edited books, and I think two or three maybe I would like to point out. One was I did colonial archaeology, looking at the Archaeological survey of India, which is a state institution, as you probably know. And it had, of course, since it was a state institution, we became independent only 1947. We, meaning India, it had director generals who were generally European or British right up to 47. So what role or what impact did this have? And was there a change after that? So that was one issue, just looking at the way in which archaeology was structured institutionally. Second issue, which I did later, was the return of the Buddha, which got me thinking about our Indian constitution has illustrations, and these illustrations draw from archaeology. Now the Constitution of India is a political document. What on earth is archaeology doing inside it?
- [04:33]
B
That is absolutely fascinating.
- [04:35]
A
Yeah, yes, yes. And many of these, you know, it's sort of very widespread. I only looked at the Buddhist depictions or the Buddhist representations or representations of the way in which Buddhist archeology or artifacts were depicted, and then realized that our political thinkers, particularly in the 20th century, late 90s, early 20th century, were actively involved in trying to visit archaeological sites and make sense of it. So this was quite a surprise. I always thought archaeologists did that. So, you know, so there is this intersection between politics, nationalism, you know, postcolonial understanding of the past, the colonial creation of a certain kind of past. And then I did something on decolonizing heritage, which I, you know, because, as you know, my, my sort of interest from archeology went into heritage subsequently as I was involved in. In one of the institutions of the Government of India for protection of heritage. So we did decolonizing heritage. And, you know, so gradually it has over the years sort of shifted from just looking at the past to looking at protection of the past as heritage, to understanding what creates the relevance of that past and how that past was created. Because only then we move forward, otherwise we are stuck with that perspective.
- [06:09]
B
That brings us to the book, I suppose, because that's one of the main approaches that you use in recentering Southeast Asia, which. Which emerged out of a conference in New Delhi in 2023 on shared cultural heritage across the Indian Ocean, and it was hosted by the India International Center. Can you tell us about this conference? What were the questions that you sought to address?
- [06:32]
A
Yes, there was, you know, in the preface, I talk about only about the conference which was as, as you said it was on shared cultural heritage, we had many speakers from Southeast Asia. There was Stephen Murphy, there was Jara, there was also others who for various reasons, mainly because they all had to finish their PhDs and other work, could not contribute to the book. There was Veronica Angkor and Chan Ki Phu, who of course did contribute on Vietnam. So in that conference we were really looking at is there a shared cultural heritage between south and Southeast Asia? Because increasingly I feel that this division is an artificial division between Southeast Asia, Southeast Asia and is really a mainly 20th century division. So. But the con, while the conference, the two day conference, looked only at the shared cultural heritage, there were events both before and along with it, the one before it was, you know, had speakers like Madhavan Palat, who has written the first chapters, talking on Nehru. So this was just an evening event where Madhavan Pala, TCA Raghavan and myself talked about Southeast Asia. You know, how, how was it seen in the 20th century? Then there was a conference, a two day conference. And then we also had something on maritime history, you know, which was really looking at one particular site, the site of which is the home of our present Prime Minister and you know, is now, I think it has become a world Heritage site. So it had, you know, there was a conference and there were pre events and post events. So now the challenge was how to make a book out of it. So that was the challenge. And initially I thought that if there were adequate number of papers for shared cultural heritage, that would be an interesting topic and just, you know, sort of limited, just to talk about archaeology, heritage, shared spaces and so on. Since that did not happen, then came the challenge. Now, you know, how does one, how does one convert this into a book? And what are the larger questions?
- [08:57]
B
Yeah, how do you frame it exactly in light of some of these issues that you've, you've introduced. So, you know, coming back to that point you were making earlier about colonialism, you know, the book really does argue that colonialism and later Cold War area studies was fundamental in reordering how south and Southeast Asia were imagined and studied and constructed. So eventually you settled on this idea of recentering as the central framing for the book.
- [09:26]
A
Yes, yes. And recentering also because I think in 2018, India International center had done a conference in which I was involved on culture as power, looking at Indo, Japan connections, you know, so when we look at actually generally or traditionally, when we've looked at Southeast Asia, we've just done South Southeast Asia. Japan has never been in the picture, if at all. We do East Asia, we do China, you know, and Japan is a fascinating case because there is that old traditional legend that, you know, in the 8th century, Bodicena went from South India to Nara, and then he was involved in some of the rituals in the Buddhist temple. And most scholars argue that there was no India, Japan, maritime connection before the 16th century. You know, so in this culture as power, there was a lot of new insights that came into, you know, which I got. I don't do Japan, I do South Southeast Asia. That as far as I go. But I thought the introducing the Japanese angle was really fascinating, you know, because they were not colonized and Japan had a. Had a sort of military role in Southeast Asia in the Second World War and, you know, thereabouts. So really looking at Southeast Asia, but not only from the perspective of India, but also from the perspective of Japan and not just China. So that recentering came about, you know, locating it between these two visions.
- [11:06]
B
Okay. And there are a couple of chapters on, on Japan in this book, connecting them with Southeast Asia and raising these issues around military occupation, but also intellectual and religious mobility. So. So through the ocean, through the maritime domain. So we'll come to those Japan specific chapters and indeed the other chapters in a moment. But before we talk about the individual chapters, I just wanted to start with the division of the book into two distinct sections. So in section one, the Making of the Discourse, and section two, beyond the Way Forward. And for me, the way you've divided the book up into these two distinct sections seems to signal a shift from the older civilization or nationalist frameworks in section one, and then in section two, moving towards these newer maritime and material approaches. Was this a way, you know, this structure, a way of pushing back against area studies by letting the artifacts and the sites and the maritime routes tell different stories?
- [12:11]
A
Yes, that was one part of it. But I think there are larger questions involved. I mean, traditionally we don't look at the 19th and 20th century when we study the past. You know, we only study the past as if it's sort of independent out there. And we are only using archaeology, art history, history, whatever else, our discipline, to understand that. But that there was this, this major shift in perspective that is not something which is appreciated. So one part of it was to bring in the disjunction in the late 19th, early 20th century. And I think a second part, area studies, yes, but a second part also was a critique against the way in which in India, history, archaeology has been practiced, taught, studied, and, you know, as you know, I taught at the Jawaharlal Nehru University for almost three decades, and it's all about India, India. And to my mind, with a coastline like ours, I mean, how can you do Indian history without looking at the ocean? I mean, I thought this was bizarre, and this is true of archaeology as well. You know, till the, till the 70s, the Archaeological Survey was looking at Southeast Asia, was engaging with scholars in Southeast Asia. But post 70s, all we've done is look at, you know, epic archaeology in India. So it's, it's much, you know, it was also a critique. And I, I say this in the introduction. There is a section in which I discuss the themes of the Indian History Congress, which is a major platform where most historians and come together annually and discuss what they are doing now. They have a section on countries outside India, which I thought, you know, this is a very strange way of doing, if anything, outside India. And there are. There have been presidential addresses where they have argued that, you know, we need to be thematic about it, we need to look at themes. You can't just do this, you know, territorially or in terms of political nation states, but somehow. So it was all. It was both. It was a critique of, you know, the area studies, but also a critique of the way we ourselves in India have done or not done maritime history. And as well as really underscoring the point that there was this disjunction in perspective in the colonial period.
- [14:44]
B
Yes. And when. When you think about India's magnificent Indian Ocean coastline, to focus so exclusively on the continent and, you know, as. As you and I know, often a place will be connected faster to other places through maritime connections than over land. It's faster to get to the east coast of Africa by sea than it is by land, Right? Yes. So thinking about the ocean and, you know, what you're saying in terms of how it's impacted how archaeology is done and how heritage is understood in India, it also affects India's, you know, current political, in a contemporary sense of political perspective. I think it's only, you know, recently there's been a lot more attention to the significance of the maritime domain and the Indian Ocean and the Indian Ocean world. But let's not get too distracted by that. I've got to get through my. Got to get through my questions. So let's start with your introduction, your really fabulous introduction, where you make the case that archaeology, heritage, classification and monumentalization didn't just document the past, but it helped colonization reshape historical consciousness itself. Were you intending to really foreground intellectual History in your introduction here?
- [16:08]
A
In a way, yes, because that was, I thought, you know, the primary way of connecting the present with the past. And that's one aspect of it. But increasingly, as I've looked at the archaeology of Buddhist sites in India and the museum collections made in the 19th and 20th centuries, you know, there is this, there is this sort of categorization of monuments. Say something becomes a Buddhist site or something becomes a Hindu site. But when one reads the, the records, the diaries of the Europeans who were collecting, it becomes very obvious that they were collecting what they knew or were interested in at that time. You know, which is true for all of us. I mean, we see what we want to see.
- [16:55]
B
Do you mean they were collecting regardless of how it was classified, or they were only collecting what they already knew?
- [17:03]
A
Say, for example, when, you know, a European surveyor went to Nalanda, which is today a Buddhist heritage, World Heritage site. Now, most sites in India and I suppose everywhere else, are multi religious. They are not mono religious. You know, a site over time collects a lot of other cultural cultures, religions and so on. And this is particularly true of India. So Nalanda, for example, has, certainly has Hindu structures. And even today a Buddha is worshiped as, as a Hindu deity in Nalanda, irrespective of the fact that the Thais and everybody else worships the same image as a Buddha. You know, so now academically we have issues trying to understand these, these fluidities. And I suppose this was the same in the European period. I mean, how could you be both Hindu and Buddhist? I mean, you have only one religion and you have to choose one. So a site becomes one of the multiple religions, and the collector then collects only, say, Buddhist images, does not collect the other images because they are of no relevance to understanding the site. See what I mean? So when you go to a museum. So Nalanda has more Buddhist images in a museum than any other other religious denomination. But when you go to the site, then you find all these problems. You know, the same image being worshipped in a variety of ways, the Buddha image, women worship it for, you know, fertility. Somebody, you know, others worship it as a Hindu deity. The Bhairav, the Thais and the Southeast Asians worship the same image as a Buddha. So see these complexities, then make it very clear that this or mono religious denomination that we often ascribe to sites was not there and is not there.
- [19:01]
B
Yes. And through the process of categorization, we've created a certain record that is told in museums and in collections that is at odds with our experiences at the Site itself.
- [19:16]
A
Yes.
- [19:17]
B
And so then your book is in a way a contribution towards addressing that and drawing attention to it and perhaps opening a door for more pluralistic understandings of sites, places and objects. Right?
- [19:32]
A
Yes, yes. And also then accepting, you know, then reading through the travel diaries or the collector's records to understand what was conserved at the site and what was collected, how the site was categorized, you know, so then it's not just a straightforward issue of this being one or the other. It's a complex issue of reading through how it was done. Process.
- [19:58]
B
Yes. And of course those decisions have an impact on what has been preserved today. Right. And our ability to keep telling those stories. Right? Yes, yes. Yeah. Okay, so in section one, we've got a couple or how many different chapters? One, two, three, four. Four different chapters. So you mentioned the first one, which is chapter two, Nehru Southeast Asia by Madhavan Palat, which presents Nehru as intellectually open but still shaped by 20th century Orientalist ideas about cultural transmission. Now, Himanshu, I don't envy you this because I'm asking you to tell us about each chapter, but, you know, I appreciate you haven't written them, you've had the unenviable task of editing them, but could I ask you to tell us what this chapter on Nehru, you know, tells us about the challenges facing anti colonial thinkers as they tried to imagine Asia outside frameworks that they'd inherited.
- [20:59]
A
Thanks. Actually, there are two responses to this. Let me first talk about the author, Madhavan Palat. And you know, he's a historian of European history and then has over the last few years been involved in editing ne's letters and selected works. And he has brought out many volumes on Nehru selected works. So when I, when I first talked to him, you know, about the lecture, the event, the conference, he was not looking at Nehru and Southeast Asia. He was, I mean, he's done a lot of work on Nehru and the way Nehru understood India and India's past. And what Nehru comes across there is a, you know, is a thinker who's open, who's liberal, who has all these ideas about pluralism in India. So when we started talking and he started looking at Southeast Asia, to him also, it came as a surprise and a shock that Nehru, who's so open about Indian history, becomes, you know, just follows the Orientalist in talking about Southeast Asia. So in a way it was fun doing this, you know, doing this chapter because we were constantly talking and, you know, exchanging views and trying to understand why Nehru wrote what he wrote. And I think one Aspect of this also was that a lot of Nehru's works were written when he was under detention. And so, you know, it's also the availability of secondary literature. See, Nehru was not doing. Yeah, was not doing primary work. He was doing secondary readings, and that also in English. So a lot of that was the Orientalist literature. So that's what he drew on. So that's what shaped his views.
- [22:51]
B
Fascinating.
- [22:52]
A
And when one compares him, there was no, you know, the second part of your question, which is, how did they. How did it help them shape their understanding of Asia? And I would say there were many understandings because what Tagore was doing. Tagore traveled much more than Nehru in Southeast Asia, Austria, Java, for example. Yeah, absolutely. China, you know, he. He went all the way up to China. And also, more than Nehru, I think Tagore was interacting with, say, the Japanese. Kakutso. Okakura. Kakutso. He was also interacting with Javanese scholars who used to visit his. His university, Shantiniketan, Vishwa Bharati. He was discussing with, you know, many Southeast Asian colleagues. So Tagore's vision was very different. I mean, it was still, I would say, within the framework, or what shaped the framework was what existed, that is the Orientalist tradition, but they were also reacting to it and looking at different ways of engaging with Asia. And ERU becomes important because he then becomes the first prime minister and in a way, politically then influences how India engages with the east, you know, whereas Tagore is much more in terms of shaping the university, understanding cultural connections and so on. So there was no one way. There were many, many ways in which the past was. Or Asian past was being rethought.
- [24:39]
B
Yeah, I think starting with that substantive chapter is a really good way of illustrating, you know, what you're trying to do with this book and this first section. Now, coming to the next chapter, Chapter three, which is about Greater India scholars in a decolonizing world. This chapter looks at the Asian Relations Conference and the Indian Council of World affairs. And I should mention it's written by TCA Raghavan. Now it takes us to the Asian Relations Conference and the Indian Council of World Affairs. Just thinking about the Asian relations conference of 1947, the same year that India achieved independence. It emerges as a pivotal moment in the book. Opening questions of multiple pasts. Just as India and indeed other countries were becoming independent. How does this chapter help us understand the transition from civilizational thinking to postcolonial approaches?
- [25:37]
A
Yes, and also I should say that TCA Raghavan was in a, you know, was in A good position to write this chapter because he has a PhD in history, in Modern Indian History. Then he joined the Indian Foreign Service, worked as a diplomat. He also headed the Indian Council for World Affairs. So in a way, he crosses both disciplines, you know, diplomacy and history. And one of the, one of the ways that his chapter impacts our understanding of what happened to postcolonial diplomacy is that he argues very strongly that the, in spite of all the flak that the Greater India Society has got, one thing that the scholars did that, you know, these scholars engaged with the languages of Southeast Asia, with the inscriptions, with the art and the architecture. I mean, there was not that much engagement with archaeology, some engagement, not very much. But at least there was this group of scholarship, rightly or wrongly, who were competent and engaged, you know, with, with Southeast Asia. Now it's hard. Yeah, yeah.
- [26:54]
B
So, sorry, I was just going to say, you know, it is, it's hard to argue with people who have made the effort to skill up in the language of the place that they're studying.
- [27:03]
A
Exactly. Yes. And unfortunately, know, post, post independence, post 47, and this is what he also shows with the Asian Relations Conference that some people already, you know, RC Majumdar, for example, he was both a scholar and a politician. But, you know, he, his work was being questioned increasingly. So by the 50s, the, the Greater India Society had almost, by 50, 52, had almost gone, you know, most deep. Most of these scholars were no longer doing that work. And as I've argued earlier that post independence India did not develop its own expertise, you know, which I thought was, was just losing all that we, you know, this legacy. Yeah.
- [27:51]
B
In fact, look, similar things are happening in Australia where there was once great Asia capability and it has declined. So I hear you on that front. And it has a significant impact in the long term in terms of our ability to understand. Right.
- [28:06]
A
Also in terms of the country's ability to engage with other countries.
- [28:11]
B
It's a key aspect of diplomacy, right?
- [28:14]
A
Absolutely, absolutely. And then research and academics is not given the attention that it requires in diplomacy. But these are all good examples of how we lose it when we don't create another generation who studies and thinks about it.
- [28:32]
B
Now, we mentioned Japan earlier and the final two chapters in this opening section are focused on Japan. The first one looks at Thailand. The second one looks at Myanmar. So let's take them one by one. In chapter four by Koji Osawa, this is about modern Japanese interest and understanding of Buddhism in Southeast Asia, focusing on Chiko Sato and Thailand. Now, who is Chiko Sato? He's a relatively forgotten figure in Japan, it seems, who practiced Theravada Buddhism for both religious and military purposes. So can you tell us a little bit more about the sort of intellectual and religious mobility that existed between Japan and Thailand and the region more broadly?
- [29:18]
A
Yes, and this is quite a. You know, it is quite a fascinating chapter because for two counts. One is, like I said earlier, most scholars have argued that there was no direct connection between India and Japan until the 16th century and later. Now, in the early 20th century, shipping lines had been opened between Japan and India with the coming of steamship navigation and so on. And there was a lot of travel between Japan and India, largely for economic purposes, you know, trade, which Chikhosat also, what he's doing is business in his part of the business enterprise between Japan and Thailand. But why does he go to Thailand in the first place? And this is the larger question, how Buddhism in the 20th century, which is being reimagined both in India and in Japan as, you know, as a modernizing religion, leading, taking Japan into modernity, how Buddhism impacted these travels. Now, coming back to Chikosato, yes, he was primarily a businessman, you know, went to Thailand because he was involved in all this enterprise. But his. His. What he actually wanted to do was to visit the place where Buddha's relics had been found. Now, that's a much more fascinating story because that story links up and then I'll have to just move back a bit and talk about, you know, the relics were found in Piprava in the 19th century. They were found by Pepe, William Pepe, who was a landholder who had been granted land in what was forested area, you know, the foothills of the Himalayas were forested, but they were opened up for settlement. The Europeans were granted land there. And so on the one hand, there was this extension of agriculture, but on the other hand, starting from the 1893American world religions Conference, there was an enormous interest in Buddhism worldwide. Not in India, through, you know, newspapers which were published in the US and everywhere. And this I found quite extraordinary. You know, I mean, I didn't imagine that Buddhism was so big. But now now comes the colonial question. So India was colonized by the British, who. And Japan was fighting, you know, was on the other side. They were not on the same side as the British. So when the Piprava relics were distributed, Japan did not get anything out of it. It went to Thailand, the bones and the ashes. And the Thai king, the Siam, at that time, the Thai king, then distributed it to, you know, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. So in Japan. But the news had spread to Japan that the relics had been found. And the Japanese are of course Buddhist, but you know, different denomination of person, sect of Buddhism. But there was a great interest in trying to understand Buddha's words, you know, finding the Buddha's relics. So it's this fascination for the Buddha's relics that led Chipa Sat to Thailand. He couldn't come to India directly because the British is not going to allow him anywhere close to Viprama. But then he travels and then, you know, he, he. There are his diaries which show the photographs that he takes. So it's a fascinating way of engaging, you know, one with the larger Buddhist world and second with the more mundane world of business, making money, you know, shipping at that point. Because how do you travel?
- [33:10]
B
It's such a great way of approaching these questions by focusing on one particular individual. Yeah. And such a well chosen individual to illustrate these, these sort of connections. And you've told the story so well and ties in nicely, of course, to the next Chapter, which Chapter 5 by Takahiro Kojima on Buddhist mediated relations between Japan and Myanmar after World War II. So it's really teasing out these military connections. Right. Looking at Theravada Buddhism in the context of Myanmar and thinking about how Buddhism was a medium for navigating Japan's post war reckoning in Myanmar. Can you tell us more about that?
- [33:49]
A
Yes, at one level it was, you know, about, one should say, papering up connections which had soured after World War II because, you know, Japan did go into Myanmar, but then it was, it was sort of pushed back by the British from India and the Japanese actually came all the way up to Northeast India. But what, what I found fascinating about this paper was the fact that despite all these, you know, all these sort of divisions, there was a basic human story. And the human story was that a lot of Japanese soldiers had killed or died in Myanmar and these soldiers had never received a decent burial or a decent, you know, ritual, should one say, deliverance at the end of life. And it was this, this search for the bones of the remains of the soldiers, how to set up maybe memorials for them, you know, so it was, it was this search which I think was very touching in this relationship that Japan developed with Myanmar. And of course Myanmar was earlier not interested given the fact of, you know, the Japanese history. But then how these, these monks who traveled, they sort of finally managed to set up memorials, board services both in Myanmar and in Japan. So in a way it sort of brings in, you know, the larger, the larger Human story of these, the way in which people are memorialized or their, their memory is kept alive when they're just lost in foreign countries, you know, which is what really happened in World War II.
- [35:31]
B
And that is such a motivation. Right. The repatriation of human remains as a driving force, cause for engagement, mobility and diplomacy. Right. And in this case, within a specifically Buddhist context. So at this point in the book, we see the shift from section one to section two. Section two is about beyond binaries and the way forward. So we've seen how, you know, historical categories were made through these intellectual and political and human histories. In the second part of the book, you invite us to think about how these categories might be unmade. And this section opens with your chapter Maritime Buddhism of Relics, Rituals and Shipwrecks. Very exciting. Now this chapter explicitly challenges land based and tech centric approaches. Can you tell us what does a maritime perspective allow us to see, particularly when we consider things like the circulation of relics and ritual practice and shipwrecks as historical evidence?
- [36:36]
A
Yes. And, you know, starting with shipwrecks, I think we've. What has been extraordinary is the number of shipwrecks that have been excavated or brought to light in Southeast Asia. The more than 100. And you know that better than, you know, I do. And the, the cargo then really challenges, you know, our earlier notions of only looking at influences or only looking at architectural connections or manuscripts or the way in which these were connected or, you know, what they, what the manuscripts talk about it. So the shipwrecks, the cargo from the shipwrecks, and the fact that this cargo contained reliquaries, you know, which housed relics, the cargoes contained icons, they were bronze images that were found. And of course, you know, shows us that it was not just, it was not just trade that traveled, that was transported through ships, but ritual played a very important role. So now that leads me to the second point. Now shipwrecks need to be anchored somewhere. And beyond ports, one is also looking at coastal shrines, which we have all over South Southeast Asia, you know, and I can go on and on about that. And the third aspect is, of course, the communities. I mean, who sailed the ships, who.
- [37:53]
B
Had the local knowledge of the ships and the currents and.
- [37:57]
A
Yeah, yeah. And repair. And repair, yes. You know, the wood. Yeah.
- [38:03]
B
When your mast breaks, you've got to get to shore. As you know, it's the closest coastal community. Right. With the trees and the knowledge to help you repair the mast.
- [38:13]
A
Absolutely. So, you know, once you, once these issues become important, these Challenge the dynastic history that we've all been taught in school. You know, which dynasty followed what empires, elite, you know, it. The history of the coast is never studied. I mean, the coastal communities were far closely related than any community, say, in between Delhi and Jakarta or wherever else. So I think it opens a completely different world. And my. The reason why the second section goes beyond binaries, because it, to my mind, it is very clear that we cannot study either our past, that means India's past, without Southeast Asia, or the other way around. And we need to look at. And what connects. What connects is the ocean and we need to look at maritime history. And that was, you know, it was really trying to also show the circulation of relics, which has been my research area for a while. And I talked about Viprava, but also the fact that this worship, you know, I talk about Ayutthaya, the relics continued to be important well into the, you know, 16th, 17th centuries. It's not like something, you know, when the Buddha lived in 5th century BCE there was relics. So I think I have argued in here and in other contexts that we really need to pay more attention to maritime history and archeology.
- [39:38]
B
Well, look, I think your book does an amazing job of advocating that and making a contribution as well. I know we could keep talking about the relics, but I want to push on to make sure that we do cover each chapter and do justice to the contribution of all these amazing authors that you've brought together. And I love how you're telling us a little bit about the authors as we go along and telling us a little bit about their research interests and expertise as well. So keep doing that, please. So chapter seven looks at a ninth century vihara viewed as a mandala architecture. Now, this chapter is by Tran Ki Fuang and Vietnamese scholars. Could you tell us about this rereading of the Vajra, which emphasises spatial and ritual organization over stylistic classification? Why is this kind of architectural analysis so important for breaking away from these dynastic and civilizational labels?
- [40:32]
A
Yes, usually when Vietnam has been studied, it has been studied in terms of the charm temples, the Hindu temples and, you know, the expansion of Hinduism into East Asia and all the way up to Vietnam and China. But what is often missed is the Buddhist remains in countries like Vietnam. And Dong Duang is one of those large. There's nothing at the site today because all the, all the remains after they were excavated by the French are in the museum. So there are methodologically.
- [41:06]
B
So are they in the French museum or are they in Museums in Vietnam.
- [41:11]
A
In Vietnam, I think the French were largely interested in, say, antpor and other areas to the gimme. But much of this Dong Duang is in Vietnamese museums and Chant Ki Fung has. He was earlier based in Da Nang and was the curator of the museum there. And after that he has spent his time working with younger scholars. Who's his co author. I'm trying to get them interested in. In archeology and understanding the past. And what he does methodologically is to a plot the remains which are in the museums, into architecture and uses the diaries of the archaeologists to do this. You know, I mean, how do you. How do you sort of work out architecture when there is nothing on the ground? So I think. And this for me, provides a very fascinating study because there are many such in India, where you have the objects in the museum, but there's nothing on the ground. Now, how do you study the objects? Were they ever in some shrine or, you know, the shrine doesn't exist. So methodologically, how do you put it back into architecture and then sort of understand what role Buddhism played? And I think that that's. I really enjoyed the way in which both of them really paid attention to detail, worked out all the architecture, did all these drawings and everything. So I think that's an interesting chapter.
- [42:43]
B
I think it's a very practical question. How do you recreate space with just the objects, just the sex in inverted commas? But it's also a philosophical question, right? How do you recreate a space with the material legacy of what remains, using other sources? So these diaries and that sort of thing. So, yeah, really interesting methodological approach for this one, for rereading that particular Dongduan Vajra. Now, chapter eight looks at the multiple lives of temples across the Bay of Bengal. This is by Emma Natalia Stein, and she engages with the afterlives of these temples. And I think it comes back to that earlier point you were making about how histories of religion and histories of religious practices are layered in India and elsewhere, but in India in particular. So can you tell us in relation to this chapter on the Bay of Bengal and these temples, how does this idea of continuity through transformation help us rethink heritage?
- [43:47]
A
Yes. One is that when we look at monuments and heritage, it's like frozen in time. Right. So in whatever century, XYZ king built this big temple and, you know, so that was it. And then we study the temple with reference to that King, don't forget. Absolutely. But what is. I mean, nothing survived like that, you know, And Emma's work I liked quite a lot. She's at the Smithsonian, and her work I like quite a lot because she's worked at Kanchipuram. Now, Kanchipuram is a city. It's a city of temples. And I think she calls it something city of 2000 temples. She has a book on that as well. But what I really liked about her work on Kanchipuram is that Kanchipuram is also a living city, you know, so in that city, any number of temples were built, but they haven't survived in the same way. So now some temples have been abandoned, others come on the main road. Others were changed in the colonial period. And a particular. And at the conference, I mean, she. She brought out this fascinating study of one of the temples which was abandoned. Right. And it was. Well, I think it was protected or I'm not sure if it was unprotected or protected by this archaeological survey of India. But during COVID when there was a lot of pressure that, you know, there were the poor in the city who were going. I mean, there was no work for them, no food for them. So the citizens of the city thought that they should pull together their resources and feed and provide some food or some meals to these poor people who had nowhere to go. Now, that was fine, but where should be. What is the space where they should bring these people and distribute the food? So one, there was a. There was a tea shop near this temple. It is in Kanchipuram. But since the temple was abandoned, nobody really swept it. You know, it was in disrepair. So then the tea shop owner decided that, you know, he'd sort of clean it up and this would be a nice space where people could feed the poor and make a beginning. So it started with a small beginning, and then gradually, you know, from COVID times, it then got more money. They renovated the temple, repaired the temple. So it's an interesting way where in India, since the same religion is followed, unlike Southeast Asia, where most of the temples are in Buddhist majority areas, this temple, you know, was revived.
- [46:23]
B
I was going to use the word reactivated, but it's just fascinating the way that Covid was the impetus here for that reactivation.
- [46:31]
A
Yes. And you see and after that, what has happened, I mean, which she doesn't talk about, but this is separate. That after that, what has happened is that, you know, an NGO has come up which is now looking at abandoned temples. Because the problem is that not all temples are protected. But I mean, not just temples, but not all shrines or all structures, ancient structures are protected. The state can don't need that much. Yes. So small, minuscule are protected and the others just fall apart, you know, and cities expand and monuments disappear. So the NGOs come, have come up, which then, you know, have. What did you say? Reactivated. Yes, the temples. And one way of reactivating them is stewardship, you know, another was through this food, food distribution. Because the temples have always acted as places for charity. So, you know, so she makes the point of looking at the afterlives. And I think this is again something I'm very fascinated by, the afterlife. I did a series of lectures on afterlives. I mean, put it together. I didn't do it myself. But the afterlife is really an important aspect which helps us understand how we have related, you know, to our sort of monumental past over the centuries.
- [47:47]
B
We could talk for a long time about afterlives. There's so many interesting threads running through this book. Now coming to the last chapter, which is chapter nine, Returning to Early India and Vietnam and Ancient Champa, Revisiting the Vog Khan Steli and the Indianization debate. This is written by Ashish Kumar. Now the focus here is on the Vocaan stele. And so I just wanted to ask if you could tell us a bit about this inscription and what new data or insights it offers for understanding these long running Indianization debates.
- [48:20]
A
Yes. The inscription was. Is one of the earliest inscriptions in Sanskrit. It's now in the museum in Hanoi in Vietnam. And it was used, you know, because it's the earliest inscription, 4th century cell. It was used as one of the arguments saying that Sanskrit spread to Southeast asia in the 4th century and so on and so forth. But a, the inscription is very different from the 4th century inscriptions that you get in India. And Ashish looks at it as an artifact, not as a historical document which talks about influences from wherever or even the language. So he looks at the scribe, he looks at the stone and he looks at the context where it was found. It was found near a temple. And then he talks about the verses, the poetry in the inscription and what method is followed. So in a way that allows him to move beyond the usual story of, oh, this is the first earliest inscription in Vietnam. And this shows Sanskrit spread to Vietnam century and Indian influence and so on and so forth. So it was really using it and as an artifact and not as, as a text. I understand the context of it.
- [49:41]
B
And do you think that allowed him to gain a different perspective on those Indianization debates, using it?
- [49:48]
A
He does, he does. Because then he talks about who is the scribe, I mean, who wrote it and who. Who was traveling at that point. And the whole issue of the Buddhist monks being literate. So the spread of writing in a certain way, which is, you know, which is, again, something which we do talk about when we talk about maritime connections. It's not. Not this, not the text, but the script. And what script, and who was competent to write or inscribe in this script.
- [50:19]
B
Mm. Okay. Now, Himanshu, you've done an amazing job running us through every chapter in this edited book. So thank you for shedding light on each of the authors and the questions that they've addressed in their chapters and helping us understand how Japan and Vietnam and Thailand and, you know, all these areas connect and support this idea of recentering Southeast Asia through the maritime connections. I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions before we wrap up about sort of the theoretical and methodological concerns of the book, and I hope we have time to address a couple of these. One question I had is the book takes India seriously as a producer of knowledge about Southeast Asia and also as a site shaped by colonial and post colonial intellectual currents. How important was it for you to foreground India within this book?
- [51:17]
A
You know, as I said earlier, something which I really felt very, very strongly about is the fact that we never followed up on the scholarship of the Greater India society people, not their interpretation, but the scholarship, you know, learning languages, engaging with the material culture. So certainly that is 1. 1. And the very fact that we no longer. I mean, India is now catching up with Maritime history after 75 years of independence, which I think we should have done a long time back. So certainly India is a knowledge producer on Southeast Asia. That is something which I take very seriously and in a way have felt strongly that this is a big lacuna which we've allowed a legacy to just disappear without. Without producing younger generations and younger scholars engaging with these issues.
- [52:13]
B
Perhaps you're reactivating that legacy, Himanshu.
- [52:16]
A
I'm not sure. I hope so.
- [52:22]
B
So, you know, we've sort of talked on. Talked about the broader implications of the book in terms of not studying India in isolation, not studying Southeast Asia in isolation, you know, whether from China or from the wider Indian Ocean world world. Do you see re centering, which is the work of this book as moving us ultimately or ideally towards a global history of Asia.
- [52:45]
A
I would look at it much more as a maritime history of the ocean, of the Indian Ocean, or of Asia, because there are that many themes one connects to with global history and trade being one of them. As, you know, you know, trade and exchange. Whenever you talk about global history, that's. That becomes quite prominent. We talked earlier about the people. I mean, who's on the ship, who's sailing the ship? And was there one nationality which did that? You know, where are these people coming from? So I think it's that if that kind of maritime history which connects, which moves not just material culture, but ideas, you know, which provides the local diversity. And I think to me, that is important. And I am. And as you know, I mean, this is something which I've been doing and pushing for, and hopefully it moves somewhere someday maybe.
- [53:39]
B
The question I should have asked you is, is maritime history, global history? What's the difference? But park that. I mean, unless you would like to answer it, I would love to hear, but. But that might be sort of an interesting provocation, the extent to which global and maritime histories can be thought of together or distinct across the book. We've got these ideas coming through about maritime space, the maritime domain, religion, mobility, consistently unsettling these colonial and nationalist narratives. If our listeners and your readers are to take away one key methodological insight or lesson from the book, what would it be?
- [54:24]
A
Pay more attention to shipwrecks. And this is a. This is an idea which I think I'm pushing again and again. In India, we don't have shipwrecks, as I said, you know, Southeast Asia has more than 100, West Asia, not too many. And India, I think just about two, I would say. So I really think we need to do something about underwater archaeology, shipwrecks, looking at the coast more seriously and the communities who equaled this maritime domain.
- [54:55]
B
Now, when you say we only have two shipwrecks, do you mean there's only two shipwrecks around the coast of India, or only two have been found?
- [55:04]
A
No, only two have been found because the attention has not been paid to, you know, maritime history, shipwreck archaeology, since, as I mentioned, you know, the. It was really the north and the history of the Ganga plains that has been very important. So these are not issues which have really triggered interest, but I think now it is changing gradually and I hope we move to finding more shipwrecks.
- [55:34]
B
I strongly endorse what you've said. I went to a very interesting event last night, actually, about maritime partnerships between India in the Indian ocean world and maritime partnerships between India and Australia. A lot of great policy recommendations came out of that, but nothing about cultural heritage. Yes. So there's a great gap there. And this is an invitation to our listeners to engage with this area of research and to think more about shipwrecks. Now, just my final question before we wrap up, Himanshu, you know, sort of broader question about how maritime history can help us to rethink the colonial legacies that still shape South Africa and Southeast Asian studies.
- [56:13]
A
Yes. I mean, first it cuts across, because where are the nation states in that maritime history? If, you know, if we look at shipwrecks, because, say, for example, the one that you looked at, Belitung, the wood came from all kinds of places. It was put together in West Asia, then it moved across. It sank eventually with a cargo of Chinese ceramics in Indonesia. It was repaired somewhere on Sumatra, I believe, you know, so can one study the Belitung or the shipwreck without breaking down national boundaries? One can't, you know, and that's. That's a simple answer that, you know, it. You need to then look at a broader space. You need to then look at not just cargo, where it was made, transportation of wood across the ocean, several nationalities living together, different religions, whatever else. I mean, we haven't even got there in shipwreck studies.
- [57:15]
B
What languages were on board?
- [57:17]
A
What languages? Absolutely.
- [57:19]
B
People swapping in and out. And on the shipwreck that you're talking about, there was an ink stone was found, which raises these questions about whether there was a literate passenger on board, Right?
- [57:29]
A
Absolutely, yes. And ritual objects. And, you know, so it's, it's in a certain way, they are encapsulated and frozen in time, but open out a lot of questions which help us move beyond these colonial narratives and the national narratives.
- [57:45]
B
Brilliant. Look, thank you, Matu, so much for sharing your expertise and insights on maritime history and how they can help us reframe the legacy of colonialism in south and Southeast Asia. It's been a really interesting conversation. Before we wrap up, would you like to tell us a bit about what you're working on now?
- [58:02]
A
Yes, thanks. What I'm working on now are Buddhist bronzes. And what I find really fascinating is that in India, where these bronzes were made, everybody talks about, you know, the Chola bronzes. They are the most beautiful. I agree. But there are a large number of Buddhist bronzes. These bronzes traveled, so technology traveled. Was it lost wax both westward and eastward? There are Roman bronzes found in India, but also in Arabia, you know, so I'm using the bronze and the Buddhist bronzes as an entry point into trying to unravel some of the questions that we've talked about today and how you can. And, you know, this goes back to object histories and how you can use just one kind of an object to write much larger stories. So it's still work in progress. I hope I get somewhere, but as of now I'm really enjoying it. So thanks for asking the question.
- [59:04]
B
I really look forward to seeing where that research goes. I love your methodology and focusing on the Buddhist bronzes. I think traveling outwards from India to who knows where by who knows whom has the potential to really pose a lot of very interesting questions and hopefully some answers as well. So look forward to seeing where all that goes. Look Himanshu thank you so much Himanshu Prabha Ray, you've joined us here on the New Books in Southeast Asian Studies Network to discuss recentering Southeast Asia politics, religion and maritime connections. You've been listening to New Books in Southeast Asian Studies, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. If you enjoyed this episode, you can listen to hundreds of other conversations about Southeast Asia related books on this channel. You can download or stream these interviews free of charge from the New Books Network website or subscribe through your favourite podcast app. I look forward to joining you again before too long for another conversation about a new book in Southeast Asian Studies. It.