Ancient Indian Colonization in South-East Asia c7.41

c7.41

A Chinese chronicle preserves an account of this place given by an Indian who visited it in the fifth century A.D. We are told that five hundred Indian families of Hu or probably mercantile class and more than a thousand Brāhmaṇas lived there. Most of these Brāhmaṇas permanently settled in the country with the result that the local people followed their religion and gave them their daughters in marriage. This short but valuable account of the kingdom of Tuen-siun fully supports the general process of Hindu colonization sketched above. It shows that while trade was the first or the main incentive to colonization, its character was entirely changed by the missionary zeal of the Brāhmaṇas.