Dance Images in Temples of Mainland Southeast Asia ... - Repository

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Transformation of Dance Images
in Early Southeast Asia
The geographical focus of this study will be on the western and central parts of mainland
Southeast Asia, i.e. the regions of present-day Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia. However,
since the cultural contacts between different parts of Southeast Asia have been vital to the
development of the arts, references will also be made to the dance images in the regions of
present-day Vietnam as well as in peninsular and insular Southeast Asia.
This vast area had its own well-developed prehistoric cultures and even today the arts and
crafts of some of the remote peoples and regions carry on their traditions. The early, indigenous
dance images created within these archaic traditions will be referred to in the fi rst sub-chapter
below. Then the focus will turn to India, from where the prototypes of dance images were
received in Southeast Asia over a span of more than thousand years starting from the early
centuries AD. Finally, the last sub-chapter will discuss the transformations of dance images in
the island of Java.
As a natural junction of overland and sea routes between southern and eastern Asia,
Southeast Asia naturally had contacts with many parts of Asia already in prehistoric times.
Archaeological evidence suggests contacts between India and Southeast Asia already in the 4 th
century BC. (Gosling 2004, 34–35; Kerlogue 2004, 40). Clear Indian infl uence on sculpture and
its iconography is evident from circa 200 AD onward. Over the following centuries a number
of kingdoms fl ourished and incorporated the Indian religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, into
earlier, indigenous belief systems.
As ties with India became established, the local ruling classes became familiar with Indian
civilization. Over the centuries, various cultural traits were adopted including the Sanskrit and
Pali languages, literature, and the new, glorifi ed conception of royalty. The Indian conceptions
of cosmology affected the way of comprehending space and the cosmos and had a great infl uence
on the development of Southeast Asian architecture.
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