(Anirudh Kanisetti is a public historian. The article was first published in The Print on August 25, 2022)
- For nearly 1,000 years, much of Southeast Asia followed religions that we think of as exclusively or originally ‘Indian’. The colossal temple of Angkor Wat in Krong Siem Reap, Cambodia — beautifully described by William Dalrymple in a recent article in Financial Times — and the overgrown Angkor ruins, with their serene depictions of Hindu deities, are often held up as proof that India colonised, inspired or influenced Southeast Asia in some way…