5 - “Hellenization” of the Mediterranean Compared to “Indianization” of Southeast Asia: Two Paradigms of Cultural Diffusion?

Summary

In defending his idea of “Sanskrit cosmopolis,” Sheldon Pollock writes:

“The labels by which we typically refer to these earlier processes — Hellenization, Indianization, Romanization, Sinicization, Christianization, Islamization, Russification, and the like — are often used crudely and imprecisely. Yet they do serve to signal the historically significant ways in the past of being translocal, of participating — and knowing one was participating — in cultural and political networks that transcended the immediate community. These ways varied widely.” (Pollock 2006: 10)

Another usefulness of these concepts is that they permit comparison across regional worlds. The importance of the spread of indian ideas to Southeast asia as a point of reference for the peaceful transmission of ideas can be better understood by comparing it with Hellenization, the other major case of the spread of ideas in classical history. There are a number of obvious parallels between the Indianization of Southeast Asia and the Hellenization of the Mediterranean. Broadly stated, Hellenization “refers to Greek culture and the diffusion of that culture” (roberts 2007: 329). Hellenization is often associated with the aftermath of alexander's conquests, to the kingdoms founded by his generals: Ptolemy's in Alexandria and the Selucids in Antioch (in modern Syria). But Hellenization, in its broad sense of diffusion of Greek culture and influence, started in the eighth century BCE. (Jannelli and Longo 2004: 6). The first wave of Greek colonization was believed to have been between the eighth and sixth centuries BCE. It continued after the victories of Alexander, but it is important to understand that its origins predated alexander's conquests. It was the offshoot of trade, but also of the migration of Greeks and the establishment of Greek “colonies” throughout the Mediterranean, western and eastern.

In both cases of Hellenization and Indianization, the term “colony” is used, but in both cases it connotes not colonialism in the modern sense of military conquest and occupation, but migration and settlement.