9 Comments

Enjoyed this exposition. The sentences in bold distract and break the flow of my reading. Your writing is lucid, and flows well, and I do not see the need for those sentences to be in bold to highlight them as they already stand out.

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Thanks for that comment. I'll keep it in mind for the future.

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Wow! I remember reading on your blog about the mysterious origins of 'brinjal' in Hinglish (or perhaps FB). Mayhap it comes from Spanish!!

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From Arabic more likely

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How did the Ramayana and Mahabharata become so popular in Indonesia? Is it because of the Chola influence?

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This is from Wikepedia:Hindu influences reached the Indonesian Archipelago as early as the first century CE. Historical evidence is unclear about the diffusion process of cultural and spiritual ideas from India. Java legends refer to Saka-era, traced to 78 CE. Stories from the Mahabharata Epic have been traced in Indonesian islands to the 1st century, whose versions mirror those found in Tamil Nadu. Similarly ancient Chandis (temples) excavated in Java and western Indonesian islands, as well as ancient inscriptions such as the 8th century Canggal inscription discovered in Indonesia, confirm widespread adoption of Shiva lingam iconography, his companion goddess Parvati, Ganesha, Vishnu, Brahma, Arjuna, and other Hindu deities by about the middle to late 1st millennium CE. Ancient Chinese records of Fa Hien on his return voyage from Ceylon to China in 414 CE mention two schools of Hinduism in Java.

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Interesting. This is much before the Cholas. Thanks

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