The Bay of Bengal Interaction Sphere (1000 BC - AD 500)

Abstract

This paper proposes the idea of the Bay of Bengal Interaction Sphere as a necessary corrective in studies on ancient Indo-Southeast Asian contacts and early contacts between Southeast Asia and the wider Indian Ocean world. Following the discoveries of Sanskritic civilizations and classical Brahmanical/Buddhist art and architecture in Southeast Asia, the Southeast Asian communities were primarily seen as consumers; recipients of high culture and prestige goods from the subcontinent. This left little space for reciprocity in the study of early interchange between Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The intense archaeological research into the preand early history of Southeast Asia which commenced in the sixties was a much required antidote to the dominant Indianization paradigm. This study attempts to evolve a third perspective by adopting a neutral interaction model. Recent researches on early IndoSoutheast Asian interchange by a new generation of scholars (Bellina 2002: 329-57, 2003: 285-97; Smith 1999: 1-26; Theunissen et al. 2000: 84-105 ) offer the basis for the idea of the Bay of Bengal Interaction Sphere.