Spirits and Ships: Cultural Transfers in Early Monsoon Asia

Description

This volume seeks to foreground a “borderless” history and geography of South, Southeast, and East Asian littoral zones that would be maritime-focused, and thereby explore the ancient connections and dynamics of interaction that favoured the encounters among the cultures found throughout the region stretching from the Indian Ocean littorals to the Western Pacific, from the early historical period to the present. Transcending the artificial boundaries of macro-regions and nation-states, and trying to bridge the arbitrary divide between (inherently cosmopolitan) “high” cultures (e.g. Sanskritic, Sinitic, or Islamicate) and “local” or “indigenous” cultures, this multidisciplinary volume explores the metaphor of Monsoon Asia as a vast geo-environmental area inhabited by speakers of numerous language phyla, which for millennia has formed an integrated system of littorals where crops, goods, ideas, cosmologies, and ritual practices circulated on the sea-routes governed by the seasonal monsoon winds. The collective body of work presented in the volume describes Monsoon Asia as an ideal theatre for circulatory dynamics of cultural transfer, interaction, acceptance, selection, and avoidance, and argues that, despite the rich ethnic, linguistic and sociocultural diversity, a shared pattern of values, norms, and cultural models is discernible throughout the region. Contents About the Contributors Map of Monsoon Asia 1. Introduction: Re-connecting Histories across the Indo-Pacific • Andrea Acri, Roger Blench and Alexandra Landmann 2. Fearsome Bleeding, Boogeyman Gods and Chaos Victorious: A Conjectural History of Insular South Asian Religious Tropes • Robert Dentan 3. Tantrism “Seen from the East” • Andrea Acri 4. Can We Reconstruct a “Malayo-Javanic” Law Area? • Alexandra Landmann 5. Ethnographic and Archaeological Correlates for an Mainland Southeast Asia Linguistic Area • Roger Blench 6. Was There a Late Prehistoric Integrated Southeast Asian Maritime Space? Insight from Settlements and Industries • Bérénice Bellina 8. Pre-Austronesian Origins of Seafaring in Insular Southeast Asia • Waruno Mahdi 9. The Role of “Prakrit” in Maritime Southeast Asia through 101 Etymologies • Tom Hoogervorst 10. Who Were the First Malagasy, and What Did They Speak? • Alexander Adelaar 11. Śāstric and Austronesian Comparative Perspectives: Parallel Frameworks on Indic Architectural and Cultural Translations among Western Malayo-Polynesian Societies • Imran bin Tajudeen 12. The Lord of the Land Relationship in Southeast Asia • Robert Wessing Index