PDF Summary:The Golden Road, by William Dalrymple

Most people have heard of the Silk Road—the ancient trade routes connecting China to the Mediterranean. But in The Golden Road, William Dalrymple argues that this narrative overlooks a more significant network: the maritime trade routes connecting India to the rest of Asia. He contends that India served as a central hub for trade and cultural exchange, spreading its religions, languages, architecture, and scholarly traditions across Southeast Asia and beyond.

Dalrymple explores how Indian influence shaped the development of civilizations from Cambodia to Indonesia to China, and why this history has been largely forgotten. He examines the role of colonialism in minimizing India's contributions and explains how academic trends have obscured the extent of India's civilizational reach. This guide covers the economic foundations of the Golden Road, the modes through which Indian culture spread, and the historical forces that have kept this story from being widely known.

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The idea of a nine-level library at Nalanda, for example, is not supported by archaeological evidence, and the notion that anyone could borrow manuscripts from the library reflects a modern understanding of libraries as open-access institutions, which may not accurately represent the practices of ancient monastic libraries.

The Indosphere: India's Civilizational Reach

In this section, we will explore the modes of transmission of Indian traditions and the historical narratives of India’s civilizational reach.

Modes of Transmission

According to Dalrymple, Buddhism spread in China through Indian monks traveling overland and by sea. The monks earned reverence for their supernatural abilities to summon rain, perform exorcisms, practice divination, heal through miracles, and foretell the future. Their charisma was thought to aid in battle victories, treating illnesses, and easing the guilt of pillaging chieftains. Their efforts in spreading the religion brought Buddhist ideas, customs, and artwork into the cultural mainstream, where they rivaled Confucianism and Daoism. They also transformed Chinese scholarly life, influencing Chinese thinking, arts, and music across the board.

(Shortform note: The Chinese Buddhist monk Huijiao (497-554 CE) compiled the Gaoseng zhuan (Biographies of Eminent Monks), which included accounts of Indian monks who were revered for their supernatural abilities. These monks were often invited to the Chinese court, where they played a significant role in transmitting Buddhist ideas and practices. Kieschnick’s analysis of the Gaoseng zhuan suggests that the Chinese compilers themselves recognized the importance of these Indian monks in shaping Chinese Buddhist culture.)

Indian ideas of the cosmos, calculations, and healing started to shape how the skies, planetary paths, and human physiology were studied. Dalrymple explains that Chinese libraries started amassing esoteric manuscripts. Chinese architects began to transform the Indian stupas with domes into pagodas with layers, which would come to characterize China's scenery. Artists and sculptors started merging concepts from each area, which introduced figurative art and the early stages of Sino-Buddhist sculpture and scroll painting. Indian episodic art recitations influenced how stories were structured in Chinese literature and plays, and tonal patterns from India influenced Chinese music. Buddhist teachings and mystical concepts of the Buddhist cosmos spread throughout all areas of Chinese life. Chinese notions of time and space, along with ideas about afterlife, heaven, and hell, were significantly altered with the arrival of Buddhism and its accompanying Indian philosophical concepts.

(Shortform note: The Chinese ideas about the cosmos, healing, art, and music that Dalrymple describes were part of a broader intellectual tradition that emerged from the translation and interpretation of Indian Buddhist texts. In The Buddhist Conquest of China, Erik Zürcher explains that Chinese scholars and monks worked together to translate and adapt Indian Buddhist treatises, which introduced new concepts and methods of analysis. This process led to the development of a new technical vocabulary and conceptual framework that influenced various fields of knowledge. Zürcher argues that this intellectual exchange was a gradual process that involved the creation of new categories and the reorganization of existing knowledge systems. The result was a transformation of Chinese intellectual life, with Buddhist ideas becoming integrated into the fabric of Chinese thought and culture.)

South Asia assumed a distinct position in the Chinese global hierarchy. The spread of Buddhist teachings and idealized views of India fostered a perception of South Asia as the sacred Buddhist land—a region culturally and spiritually respected as the civilizational equal of China itself.

(Shortform note: The “Chinese global hierarchy” refers to the traditional Chinese worldview that placed China at the center of a hierarchical international order. This system, often called the “tributary system,” ranked foreign states based on their perceived cultural and political proximity to China. At the top was the Chinese emperor, viewed as the “Son of Heaven,” with other states ranked below based on their willingness to acknowledge Chinese supremacy through ritual tribute and diplomatic deference.)

We will now explore the vectors of influence of Indian civilization in Southeast Asia.

Vectors of Impact

Dalrymple argues that the Indian subcontinent was a major cultural influence on Southeast Asia, spreading its language, religion, and arts. This influence was so significant that the region is sometimes called the "Indosphere." Indian culture spread through trade, intermarriage, and the voluntary embracing of Indian customs. Merchants, scientists, and holy men traveled to Southeast Asia, bringing ideas about spirituality, visual arts, musicality, choreography, fabrics, technological advances, the cosmos, numerical systems, healing, myths, languages, and literature. Indian influence was so strong that Sanskrit was used in governance, as the written language, and in rituals across the area. The Brahmi script of South India was the foundation for nearly all pre-Islamic Southeast Asian scripts, including those used in Khmer, Java, Kawi, Lontara, Laos, Thailand, Cham, and Malay.

(Shortform note: The term “Indosphere” is used in modern linguistics and anthropology to describe a cultural and linguistic zone in Asia where languages and cultures have been heavily influenced by South Asian (Indian) languages and traditions. This influence is seen in the structure of languages, literary traditions, and cultural practices. The Indosphere is often contrasted with the Sinosphere, which refers to the cultural and linguistic influence of China in East Asia. The concept of the Indosphere helps scholars understand how Indian culture, religion, and language spread across Asia, shaping the development of many societies. It highlights the shared cultural heritage and interconnectedness of Asian civilizations, showing how ideas and practices traveled and evolved over time.)

Indian faiths also extended into Southeast Asia. The ruling class in Southeast Asia adopted Hinduism, while Buddhism gained popularity with merchants and the general population. Today, Theravada Buddhism continues to be the prevalent faith across much of the area. Dalrymple notes that Indian influence can be seen in Burmese and Thai geographical names, Laotian and Cambodian artwork depicting the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and the deities, practices, and temples of Hinduism in Bali.

(Shortform note: In Theravada Buddhism, Kate Crosby explains that from the 11th century onward, Southeast Asian rulers deliberately imported new Theravada monastic lineages from Sri Lanka. These imported lineages, backed by the authority of Pali scriptures and Lankan prestige, were used to reorganize local monastic communities, standardize royal ritual, and reorient existing temple and court practices. This process gradually reshaped earlier Hindu-Buddhist state cults into, and subordinated under, a royally sponsored Theravada Saṅgha.)

Historical Narratives

Dalrymple claims that Indian civilization significantly influenced the cultures and faiths of Asia. However, this influence is not widely known due to colonialism, which distorted and minimized Indian contributions in the realms of history, culture, scientific advancement, and scholarship. The tendency to examine this narrative in discrete disciplines with a regional focus also obscures India’s impact. For example, the expansion of Buddhism across Asia is often considered the beginning of its proliferation in the region. The spread of Indian and Hindu religion, culture, and literature to places like the Malay Peninsula and countries including Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia is analyzed as a component of Indo-China's Sanskritisation.

(Shortform note: Dalrymple’s phrasing here draws on a scholarly tradition that examines the impact of colonialism on the study of history and culture. In The Politics of Knowledge, David L. Szanton explores the development of “area studies” in the United States after World War II. He explains that area studies programs, which focus on specific regions of the world, were created and funded by the US government and private foundations to serve strategic interests during the Cold War. These programs shaped how scholars studied and understood different parts of the world, often reinforcing Western perspectives and priorities. Szanton argues that the way knowledge is produced and organized is influenced by political and economic factors, not just academic interests.)

Universities usually examine the development of mathematics in India and how it contributed to the numeral system within departments focused on Arabic studies or the history of science. Portraying Indian influence during this time as three distinct developments lessens India's significance as a major civilizational center. Additionally, Dalrymple explains that the shifts in academic trends have contributed to the lack of understanding of India's influence. French colonial historians viewed India's involvement in early Southeast Asia as a civilizing, colonial endeavor.

(Shortform note: Dalrymple’s claim that universities usually examine the development of mathematics in India and how it contributed to the numeral system within departments focused on Arabic studies or the history of science may be overstated. In Mathematics in India, Kim Plofker, a historian of mathematics, argues that Indian mathematical texts form an ancient, complex, and distinctive intellectual tradition, with their own problems, methods, and lines of development, and they need to be studied in their own historical and cultural context rather than treated merely as a derivative branch or a transitional stage in some other civilization’s mathematics.)

During the post-war era, amid the peak of decolonization, historians from the new Southeast Asian countries started resisting the notion that foundational points in their past were due to ancient Indian colonization. They highlighted the lack of evidence for extensive Indian military involvement in that region before the Chola invasions in the 1000s. They contended that the notion of early 'Hindu Colonies' was a mirage, extending evidence of economic and cultural impact far beyond what's justified to the realms of politics and the military. They also demonstrated that Southeast Asia wasn't part of India administratively before the Chola period.

(Shortform note: In Early Mainland Southeast Asia, Charles Higham argues that the most reliable evidence for the early impact of South Asian contacts on Southeast Asia comes from excavated settlements, burial grounds, and contemporary inscriptions. These sources provide independent checks on later historical reconstructions. Higham notes that if there had been significant implantation of foreign military or administrative personnel, we would expect to find evidence of intrusive residential quarters, concentrations of imported weaponry and equipment, distinctive mortuary rituals and body treatments, and inscriptions that clearly demarcate a foreign ruling community. Instead, the archaeological record shows continuity in local settlement patterns and burial customs, with Indic elements appearing primarily in prestige goods, religious imagery, and royal titulature adopted by indigenous elites.)

For the following seventy years, academics in the area made deliberate efforts to counter not only the idea of "Hindu Colonies" but also the overall concept of "Indianisation." Younger post-colonial archaeologists and art historians in Cambodia and Vietnam swiftly downplayed ideas of Indian colonialism, instead portraying their discoveries influenced by India as part of a mutual process of acculturation, cultural convergence, and exchange with Southeast Asia. The newer group of archaeologists asserted that Southeast Asian elites utilized and altered Indian contributions to the region in a selective and innovative manner, consistently adapting instead of strictly adopting Indian concepts.

(Shortform note: These younger post-colonial archaeologists were part of a broader intellectual movement that sought to reframe the history of Southeast Asia. In his 1982 book History, Culture, and Region in Southeast Asian Perspectives, historian O. W. Wolters introduced the concept of “localization” to describe how Southeast Asian societies adapted and reinterpreted Indian religious, political, and literary forms to fit their own cultural contexts. Wolters argued that Indian elements were not markers of colonial outposts but rather symbolic resources that Southeast Asian elites used to construct their own mandala-like centers of power. He explains that these centers of power were based on Southeast Asian understandings of charisma, kingship, and the organization of sacred and political space.)

Many Hindu and Buddhist concepts from Southeast Asia also returned to the Indian subcontinent, modified and enriched by the contributions of Maritime Southeast Asian theologians and artists. However, it's clear that cultural influence mainly traveled in one direction: Although India eventually adopted certain Chinese innovations like gunpowder and paper, there are no Khmer writings in Tamil Nadu, no Indonesian architecture in Bengal, and no Malay god cults in Gujarat.

The Indian Ocean as a Cultural Arena

Some historians, such as Sanjay Subrahmanyam, disagree with the idea that cultural influence between India and Maritime Southeast Asia mainly traveled in one direction. In Explorations in Connected History, Subrahmanyam argues that the early-modern lands bordering the Indian Ocean are best understood not as discrete cultural radiating-centres and passive peripheries, but as parts of a single, densely interconnected arena in which merchants, pilgrims, soldiers, scribes, and artisans circulated and in which religious practices, aesthetic forms, and political ideas were jointly produced and incessantly reworked through that circulation; to treat these movements merely as one-way ‘influences’ is to overlook the reciprocity and mutual transformation that characterized this oceanic world.