Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c43.5

c43.5

The approach from India to these lands beyond the seas, was made from more than one direction, but was mainly maritime, from an early date ships sailing due east from ports on the Coromandel Coast crossed the Bay of Bengal to arrive at the nearest landfall in the Malay peninsula. This point was what is now known as the Isthmus of Kra, where, disembarking at Takuapa, the immigrants traversed the narrow neck of the peninsula to the Bay of Bandon in lower Siam. Again taking to the sea—the Gulf of Siam—they fanned out north-easterly to Champa, now Annam, believed to be one of the earliest of these settlements, and south-easterly to Java, and Banka (Sumatra).² Others, of a more adventurous disposition, may have taken the longer sea route through the Straits of Malacca, and so in this manner eventually reached the island of Java In addition to this approach by sea there are evidences of a penetration by land from the direction of Bengal, and Assam through Burma, down the great rivers into northern Siam, and so into the regions beyond.