This eclectic collection of essays from the eighteen volumes of the Journal of the Greater India Society invites us to revisit the historical pursuits of the Greater India Society and see how its history-writing projects shaped the nature of ‘Indian thinking towards Southeast Asia’ (p. xii). It is a delight to note that in this book, Kwa Chong-Guan, who has been engaged in the understanding of the long cycles of Southeast Asian history and the editor of the volume under review here, has selected and put together 31 articles by leading historians and philologists of the society showing critically how the society painted the image of Greater India through its journal. Though these scholars used the image of Greater India with details of Indic influence across the Indian Ocean to show a brighter phase of the subcontinent's past against the backdrop of its colonial domination by the British, Kwa goes beyond the frame of their mentality and shows how this image became ‘a way of thinking’ and ‘part of a social memory of India’ that influenced its outlook towards the East. The publication is timely given the profound transformation of the object of study, and consequent changes in the field.
The image of Greater India and the historical contexts of its changing character over time as portrayed in the eponymous society founded in 1926 are analysed critically by Kwa in his Preface and Introduction. The editor has arranged the articles — first published between 1936 and 1959 — into various themes to substantiate the broader logic and reasons for bringing out this volume at a time when Indian perceptions about Southeast Asia have considerably changed with recent research. The introduction displays his familiarity with the historiography of Indian–Southeast Asian cultural interactions.
Rabindranath Tagore's foreword to the Journal, as well as articles by Kalidas Nag, J. Przyluski and U.N. Ghosal, have been included in the first section of the volume to elucidate the society's vision and programmes. In this section, Greater India is projected as being indicative of Indian internationalism; this argument is taken further by analysing the works of Sylvain Levi, the great Indologist, on the one hand, and India's links with the Pacific world on the other. One of the significant pieces in the second section of the book dwells on contemporary research on Indian influences on Afghanistan, Burma, Siam, Cambodia, Champa, Java, Bali, Borneo, Celebes, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula.
The third section titled ‘History and historical sources’ has been enriched by the contributions of O.C. Gangoly, R.C. Majumdar, W. Pachow, J. Przyluski, Baij Nath Puri and H.B. Sarkar, K.A. Nilakanta Sastri and H.G. Quaritch Wales, who delve into the cultural relations between India and Indonesia as well as the meanings of conflicts between the Sailendras and the Cholas, besides the nuanced nature of Indian influences in Java and Sumatra. While analysing the struggles between the Sailendras and the Cholas, R.C. Majumdar skips the question of the politics of trade and leaves it to future historians to decide whether ‘the traders and merchants of south India paved the way for the oversea conquest of the Chola king’, or whether ‘the political supremacy over a foreign land has led to an intense development of trade of the conquering country’ (p. 133). Pachow looks into the various Buddhist missions dispatched from India to Southeast Asia through maritime channels and examines the geographies of their initial activities. However, Przyluski analyses the terminal stupa of Borobudur and meticulously describes how the emperor, king of the mount (Sailendra), identified himself with the supreme deity in the central stupa.
Indian influences in literature and art form the major themes discussed in the fourth section of the book. Out of the five articles in this section, the study by Manomohan Ghosh is significant, showing that the old Javanese Ramayana ‘was partially a translation and partially an adaptation of the Bhaṭṭikāvya’ (p. 208). Devaprasad Ghosh's attempt to trace the sources of the artistic traditions of Srivijaya is equally interesting.
The last section ‘Historical linguistics’ has seven articles analysing the linguistic connections between India and Southeast Asia, including chapters by R.C. Majumdar, who speaks of the Indian origin of the Malay language; D.C. Sircar, who analyses the earliest Sanskrit inscription of Campā; and H.B. Sarkar, who examines the inscription on a copper plate in Borobodur (dated 828 saka), highlight the various aspects of linguistic connectivity that once existed between India and the lands across the Indian Ocean.
One of the major achievements of this collection is that the specificities associated with local and regional forms of interaction are given their due importance, while the larger thread of connectivity between India and Southeast Asia is meticulously highlighted. Though the research and perceptions on the nature of linkages between India and Southeast Asia has considerably transformed since the demise of the Greater India Society, most of the articles included in this volume continue to be a source of inspiration to many. They still create a particular consciousness, a particular way of viewing and representing India's past. The editor's ability to put in the right type of articles from various angles and areas of specialisation justifying the thematic structure of the volume is praiseworthy. The collection succeeds in passing on the historical feel of the society to a new generation and will stimulate interest among young scholars.
On the whole, this volume brings to light an impressive range and scale of information as well as issues regarding the long-term links between India and Southeast Asia. This is a book that I would readily recommend to all serious scholars and students of Indian history in general and maritime history in particular.
