Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East (Vol. I: Champa; Vol. II: Suvarnadvipa) v2.c13.78

v2.c13.78

'We must know whether the legends, the religion and philosophical thought of India do not owe anything to this past. India has been too exclusively examined from the Indo-European standpoint. It ought to be remembered that India is a great maritime country, open to a vast sea forming so exactly its Mediterranean, a Mediterranean of proportionate dimensions—which for a long time was believed to be closed in the south. The movement which carried the Indian colonisation towards the Far East, probably about the beginning of the Christian Era, was far from inaugurating a new route, as Columbus did in navigating towards the West. Adventurers, traffickers and missionaries profited by the technical progress of navigation, and followed under the best condition of comfort and efficiency the way traced from time immemorial by the mariners of another race whom the Aryan or Aryanised India despised as savages.” (pp. 125-6)