
The Great and Beautiful Lost Kingdoms of India - Thevet
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/may/21/great-and-beautiful-lost-kingdoms/
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themartorana
India is many things. Depending on where you are, stunningly beautiful,
dangerously dirty, or both. My first trip to Mumbai, when all I knew was the
US and bits of Europe, was the first truly culturally significant and mind
opening experience of my life.

Modernity had brought with it trash and pollution of an unprecedented degree,
and poverty, culture, corruption, and overpopulation do nothing to improve the
situation. Open sewers line city streets that wind directly through ancient
relics because the city had been continuously occupied and built up and upon
since that time.

I mention this mostly because of the cultural significance of India, and the
danger it faces in losing those cultural artifacts if they are not given the
respect and care they deserve. Much of the culture, while incredibly peaceful
and inviting (witnessing festivals in the slums of Mumbai, paid for by people
scraping together their pennies, caring more about their community than their
personal situation was... I still don't have the right words for the emotional
experience), knows nothing of preservation and conservation.

I don't know the answer to any of this is... It's just something I think about
whenever I read about ancient India.

~~~
th3iedkid
>>the cultural significance of India, and the danger it faces in losing those
cultural artifacts if they are not given the respect

A very interesting city (Mumbai).

A recent bill for development of mumbai is caught along the same line.[1]

As for cultural festivities you mention in mumbai, its largely driven by
political intentions.Mumbai is largely multi-cultural and every community
wants to rival another.Its also driven by xenophobia amongst the local
marathi-speaking.Am not sure how long such a model can withstand but things
seem to be changing slowly.

Much of Mumbai's core infrastructure like water-lines etc are more than a 100
year old, they are crumbling.Corruption rids quality out of any recent
project,these don't last long either.

Population and long commute for work (under crowded conditions i.e.) are very
common too!

The one biggest difference is the people , who tend to change the outlook.They
help each other and treat strangers better than most indian cities i've
seen.People make all the difference.

[1]:[http://scroll.in/article/717914/loss-of-heritage-open-
spaces...](http://scroll.in/article/717914/loss-of-heritage-open-spaces-and-
coastline-why-mumbais-development-plan-is-so-controversial)

~~~
themartorana
That's an insight I'm unable to have, from the outside looking in. Thanks for
your perspective :)

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contingencies
One can see why long form writing is becoming less popular: apparently all it
takes to be published in _The New York Review of Books_ is a tangent-laden,
skin deep romp through the author's limited comprehension of a particular
subject (in this case 'Indian' regional cultural influence).

Much known history is ignored, and generalizations phrased as truths quite
apart from the historically grounding reality that nation-states are
essentially modern creations, particularly amongst the politically fast-flux,
linguistically and culturally varied regions of the world such as most of the
Himalayan and Brahmaputra-valley borderlands.

PS. And the downvotes begin. "Oh, how wonderful the echo-chamber of junket-
laden arts world, and their on-high post-colonial exhibition curators!" I
wonder if they scammed a trip to Bali or something. FWIW, I translate original
texts in some of the areas discussed and am on personal email contact with at
least one of the major authors of the cited texts - the extent to which the
author misses the point is amazing.

~~~
UweSchmidt
Can you point us to a better article?

~~~
contingencies
The second cited source (Wade et al) looks a good read but I would not trust
it implicitly. Lumping all South Asian influences on Southeast Asia in to a
single text (leaving out China, Tibet, Iran, the Middle East and Africa) seems
an exercise in artificial scope.

Remember that 'Southeast Asia' itself is a vague distinction, particularly in
the north. Half of Vietnam was Hindu until the 15th century, Burma never
really existed (and to some extent still doesn't), similarly direct contact
from the Pala Kingdom with Nanzhao is well evidenced by surviving images,
documents and unmistakably Hindu carvings well within the borders of what is
now modern China. Then there are each of the attested or probable seafaring
dynasties (eg. Chera, Chola, Gupta, Nanda, Pallava, Pandya) and their various
activities and records, in some cases many of which still exist, the
establishment of kingdoms or fiefdoms of varying longevity (influentially
Funan, but also in Burma, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia), comments on those
from visitors (many in classical Chinese), and the sum of archaeological work.

Remember also, quite apart from the textual evidence, that mtDNA evidence now
points to the peoples of significant parts of coastal China (eg. Shanghai
region) having migrated north from Southeast Asia and not really being
'Chinese' at all, and irrefutable linguistic evidence shows Madagascar was
settled by Austronesians who presumably sailed all the way from Southeast
Asia. What all this means is that the period of recorded history does not
intersect very much with much of the early period of cultural and linguistic
exchange, therefore take everything you read with a grain of salt.

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masterzoozoo
Unfortunately there is nothing about these stories in Indian academic books.
It is all about invaders from the west.

