Hindu and Buddhist Texts in Nusantaria

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia’s Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 98-101: Both Hindu and Buddhist beliefs benefited over time from gifts of land made by the pious. Gradually and with royal support temples and communities of monks and priests expanded and became centres of crafts and religious art. However, adoption of Indian ideas remained selective. For instance, though societies became more hierarchical as wealth and sophistication increased, the Indian caste system was not followed. Throughout the region women played a more active role in economic life – as they still do – than in India. Balinese Hinduism always displayed different characteristics from that of India as the imported religion adjusted itself to fit existing beliefs and practices. Nusantaria borrowed writing and many words, but imported languages never supplanted the various Austronesian tongues. Despite the rise of direct links to Java and Sumatra from India and…