READ: South and Southeast Asia 1200–1450

South and Southeast Asia were extremely diverse regions. Smaller states sometimes expanded into larger kingdoms, and Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam all spread more widely.

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By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

Did the Mongols ever conquer Southeast Asia? What about South Asia?
Why is 900 to 1400 called the period of “classical states” in Southeast Asia?
What foreign culture first inspired the Khmer rulers of Angkor?
What was the importance of Buddhist monasteries in the societies of South and Southeast Asia?
According to the article, what is purdah, and how did it differ in different social groups and different regions?

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To what extent does this article explain how the various belief systems and practices of South and Southeast Asia affected society over time?
In South and Southeast Asia, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam played an important part in shaping religious, social, and political institutions between 1200 and 1450. Compare and contrast the different ways in which these religions influenced the organization of societies and politics of the diverse regions examined here.

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South and Southeast Asia 1200-1450

By Merry Wiesner-Hanks

South and Southeast Asia were extremely diverse regions. Smaller states sometimes expanded into larger kingdoms, and Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam all spread more widely.

A large and diverse region of the world

From 1200 to 1450 CE, South and Southeast Asia were extremely diverse regions, in many aspects of life. Most people lived in small villages raising crops and animals, but some lived in cities where wealth came primarily from trade. Others lived in forests or mountains as herders or foragers. Social systems in these societies varied, with some being quite egalitarian and others more hierarchical. Regional states sometimes expanded into larger kingdoms and empires, but there was no single empire stretching across the vast area. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam all spread more widely, becoming large zones of cultural exchange as people, ideas, and objects flowed through them. Many still worshipped local deities, or blended imported faiths with their existing beliefs and rituals.

Political developments

In the thirteenth century, the big political story in Asia was the expansion of a nomadic group from the steppes of central Asia: the Mongols. They were led first by their brilliant leader Chinggis Khan, and then his sons and grandsons. After conquering China, the Mongols tried to extend their authority over what are now Vietnam and Myanmar. However, challenged by the heat and humidity, they were defeated by local forces. Over time, the Mongols launched several campaigns in northern India, sometimes with hundreds of thousands of men. But the armies of the local ruler, the sultan of Delhi, were able to defeat them, and the Mongols never gained permanent power in the Indian subcontinent.

The sultanate of Delhi was actually quite new when it held back the Mongols. During the eleventh century, Muslim Turkic armies based in what is now Afghanistan had conquered much of northwest India, and in 1206 one of their generals established an independent government at Delhi. Ruled by various dynasties over the next 300 years, the sultanate briefly expanded into southern India, but largely held power in the north. Central and southern India, as well as parts of northern India, were ruled by Hindu kings in states that competed with one another and rose and fell in power. Some of these rulers were Rajputs, members of hereditary clans that understood themselves to be descended from warriors.

The pattern of invasions from the north continued even after the Mongols declined. Timur, also known as Tamurlane (1336–1405), a ruthless and charismatic military leader based in Samarkand, attacked Persia, Russia, and north India. Combining Turkic and Mongol military methods, he created an empire, but it collapsed not long after his death.

In Southeast Asia, the era from about 900 to 1400 is often described as the period of “classical states.” This is because the kingdoms flourishing then established cultural and political models their successors hoped to follow. In Vietnam, for example, powerful regional overlords threw out the Chinese in the eleventh century and created the kingdom of Dai Viet, ruled by the Tran dynasty (1225–1400) and the Le dynasty (1428–1788). Rulers modeled their bureaucracy on the Chinese system. Confucianism shaped social and cultural values, but a strong sense of Vietnamese identity also developed.

In what is now Myanmar and Cambodia, the flourishing cities of Pagan and Angkor each became the centers of territorial states whose kings organized strong armies and built huge buildings. The Khmer rulers of Angkor commissioned artworks, monuments, and temples, including the huge and elaborately carved stone temple complex of Angkor Wat, originally dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. Hindu gods were among the many Indian cultural elements carried across the Bay of Bengal to Southeast Asia. For example, India’s writing system, literary works, and styles of art and architecture were all promoted by rulers attempting to build up their authority on the Indian model.

Large-scale politics shaped people’s lives, but local authority often had a greater day-to-day impact. Some people moved to rugged mountainous and forested areas to avoid rulers’ demands for taxes and labor. Most, however, could not. Many lived on land that was controlled by kings or wealthy landowners—who demanded taxes and rent. Such authorities sometimes appointed overseers to run things, but villages also had ways to govern themselves.

These local governments were usually village councils made up of male heads of households, though in much of Southeast Asia women had significant legal rights. The councils controlled things like planting schedules, crop rotation, maintenance of irrigation systems, and the use of woods, pastures, or other lands held in common by the village. Tradition mattered, but things also changed rapidly. New agricultural technologies, epidemic diseases, climate change, and cultural developments such as new belief systems often impacted village life.

Changing religious traditions

As Hindu beliefs and practices spread, they also changed. Many Hindus became followers of bhakti. This was a devotional movement that emphasized one’s personal love of God, often in one particular incarnation, such as Krishna, Vishnu, or Rama. Bhakti teachers asserted that all believers could be spiritually worthy through individual devotion, and they downplayed social hierarchies.

Buddhism also spread, far from its original homeland in northern India. No single authority was behind this. Rather, monks and merchants carried Buddhist teachings, texts, relics, devotional objects, and images widely. By the tenth century there were Buddhists throughout India and Southeast Asia and from Central Asia to Japan. Buddhist festivals became popular holidays. Rituals marking stages of life incorporated Buddhist concepts, especially funerals, when, according to belief, the deceased moved from one lifetime to a new existence. Thousands of temples and monasteries were built, and many were well-funded because believers donated land and goods. Monasteries ran schools, engaged in charity, provided lodging for travelers, and became major centers of art and learning. The Nalanda monastery, in the present-day Bihar state of India, developed into the leading center of advanced Buddhist learning in the fifth century CE, attracting students from across Asia.

Different strains of Buddhist doctrines originated in different regions, and then spread. This “polycentric” (more than one center) nature of Buddhism encouraged travel and pilgrimage in many directions. That’s how Buddhism survived the Turkic Muslim conquest of northern India and the establishment of the Delhi sultanate. Muslim rulers of north India were generally hostile to Buddhism, and in 1193 a Muslim army destroyed Nalanda. After that, Buddhism declined in India, and Hinduism flourished, especially in southern areas that had not been conquered by Turkic forces.

Buddhism continued to thrive elsewhere, bonding distant towns, ports, and sacred sites, shaping political and cultural identities throughout much of Asia. Different types of Buddhism spread along multiple paths to Southeast Asia, but by the fourteenth century the version later known as Theravada, which had originated in Sri Lanka, was the most prominent. This form of Buddhism was appealing to ordinary people because it taught that even small acts of devotion could increase the possibility of being reborn in a better life. It was not only ordinary people who converted, however. So did rulers, and religious buildings originally meant to honor various gods were changed into Buddhist temples, including Angkor Wat.

Islam spread even more widely from the Arabian peninsula where it originated. By 1200, the Muslim world (Dar al-Islam) stretched from West Africa to India. The Turkic people who conquered northern India brought Islam with them. The sultanate at Delhi generally tolerated its Hindu subjects, though many north Indians converted to Islam. Merchants and teachers carried Islam to Southeast Asia. Many rulers of the states on the Malay peninsula and islands of Southeast Asia converted to Islam for a combination of religious, political, and commercial reasons. These rulers adopted the Muslim title of sultan.

Many people living in cities were attracted by Islam’s set of commercial, spiritual and moral teachings, and by the trade connections this global religion offered. Intermarriage between Muslim traders from distant lands and local women was often essential to its growth, with local women connecting traders to economic and political power through their families. When people at any social level converted, they often blended in their existing religious ideas and rituals, and passed those blended beliefs on to their children. In the process, very diverse patterns of Islamic beliefs and practices developed. People who thought of themselves as pious Muslims still carried out rituals meant to ward off evil spirits or cure illness that invoked the assistance of both local good spirits and Muslim saints. They also often maintained household shrines to their ancestors, or honored Hindu gods in ceremonies.

Social practices also varied widely. In South Asia, both Islam and a stricter Hinduism favored the seclusion of women—termed purdah. The strictness of this practice varied, however. Wealthy urban women were often the most secluded, while poor rural women—the vast majority of the population—instead worked alongside male family members. In Southeast Asia, purdah was rare. Muslim women often worked, socialized, and traveled independently and in public view, sometimes to the horror of male merchants or scholars visiting from areas where women’s activities were more restricted. In all realms of life, concepts and practices coming from outside were localized to make them compatible with indigenous society and traditions.

Author bio

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks is Distinguished Professor of History emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and currently the president of the World History Association. She is the author or editor of 30 books that have appeared in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Chinese, Turkish, and Korean.

Sources

Andaya, Barbara Watson and Leonard Y. Andaya. A History of Early Modern Southeast Asia, 1400–1830. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Asher, Catherine B. and Cynthia Talbot. India Before Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Avari, Burjor. Islamic Civilization in South Asia. London: Routledge, 2013

Image credits

Some Southeast Asian States of the thirteenth century. (Note that the Angkor Empire is sometimes referred to as the “Khmer Empire.”) By WHP, CC BY-NC 4.0. https://www.oerproject.com/OER-Materials/OER-Media/Images/WHP-Maps/1200-layer-2

Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia, the largest religious structure in the world, was built as a Hindu temple by the rulers of the Khmer Empire in the twelfth century. When the rulers became Buddhist, it was transformed into a Buddhist holy site. © Ashit Desai/Moment/Getty Images.

The sultans of Delhi brought Islamic architecture to India. Shown here are the Qutb Minar, a sandstone and marble victory tower, constructed by several different sultans, the Alai Darwaza, a gateway with intricate carvings built in 1312, and the tomb of a Muslim saint. © Angelo Hornak/Corbis via Getty Images.

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