Ancient Indian Colonization in South-East Asia c10.89

c10.89

The personal names of dancing and musician girls, laying great stress their physical charms, are very interesting relics of the fashions of old times of which we have no exact counterpart in Indian literary records. The existence of the Indian and indigenous names among these and the slaves, both male and female, raises an important issue. It may be supposed on the analogy of known instances, that Indian colonists occupied higher ranks in life and were not likely to be included in these low professions or status in life. This would mean that the indigenous people or those who were born of their union with the Indians, bore purely Indian names. At the same time indigenous names never went out of use. The Kambuja inscriptions have preserved many hundreds of personal names which are both interesting and instructive and throw a flood of light on the degree of Indianization in Kambuja society.