Ancient Indian Colonization in South-East Asia c7.25

c7.25

But while colonization as a result of political conquest cannot, therefore, be altogether ruled out as a theory, it is hardly compatible with the Indian evidence or rather lack of it, to which reference has been made above. A deliberate scheme of colonization, sustained by military force from India, would necessarily have involved close contact with the motherland, at least for a fairly long time. Is it likely that such a prolonged and intimate contact would not have left any trace in our literature, at least in the shape of an improved knowledge of the topography of this region? But there is no such trace, and even the late Purāṇas do not seem to indicate any advance in the idea of the geography of this region.