Here are your short notes on Agastya and Kaundinya

The legend of Agastya much associated with ancient Tamil culture is found in Sumatra where we come across the images of Agastya.

In Central Java we come across an inscription which mentions a temple of Agastya. Agastya it would appear was the patron saint of cultural mobility.

We hear of two Kaundinyas, one who was the founder of Balinese culture and the other the founder of a ruling dynasty in Indo-China. Both were Brahmins of the Kaundinya gotra.

Saivism as well as Vaishnavism spread from Tamilnad to South East Asia and it is not only in the field of literature but also in those of other arts that these religions were reflected. Pallava style of architecture which was a sort of beginning of Dravidian architecture is clearly discernible in certain areas of South East Asia.

An inscription found at Takuapa (Siam) belonging to the days of Nadivarman III Pallava speaks of a merchant community (Manigramam) i.e., Vanigagramam and a Vishnu temple built and endowed by that guild of merchants.

South Indian contribution to South East Asian culture was after all a part of Indian contribution. But it has, as noticed above, its own distinctive features.

The introduction of Hindu cultural traits into South East Asia was a gradual progress beginning with the arrivals of a few merchants and adventurers who later became quite numerous and were accompanied by Brahmins.

These contacts were emphasised by men of religion; and the kings who followed such contacts beginning at the relatively remote and unknown period are first substantiated archaeologically in the secod and third centuries AD.

The fact that there was South Indian cultural influence in South East Asia must not lead any one to believe that the original inhabitants of that region were devoid of all culture.

What were now see as relics of Indian cultural influence are only a product of the interaction of native/and exotic cultural elements there.