How India's location influences cultural exchanges with different countries???
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Answer:
Explanation:
The Government of India’s ‘Act East policy’ aims at improving economic and political relations with the Southeast Asian region which has had close contacts with India for centuries and is linked culturally and geographically with it. India has been able to make inroads in trade and investments with members of the ASEAN by signing a Free Trade Agreement in 2009 which will aims at increasing business between the two and renew the partnership and contact with member countries with similar culture, artistic tradition, family values and customs.
In Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia or Burma today, many symbolic remnants of India’s influence are clearly visible in their art, culture and civilisation. Through the centuries, India has been a source of inspiration for art and architecture in countries belonging to the present day ASEAN. The eleven countries of ASEAN are Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, the Philippines and recently added Timor Leste.
Temples of Angkor Wat, Pagan, Borobudur and Prambanan bear evidence to the deep penetration of Indian art and architectural forms in these famous Southeast Asian monuments.
Some of these monuments surpass the grandeur of Indian temples from the same period because of their scale, extensive stone bas relief carvings and expanse. Thanks to the contact with Indian civilisation, the Southeast Asia also created many literary works based on the Ramayana but with something distinctively their own being discernable in them.
It must be said that Southeast Asia did not accept all foreign influences in an indiscriminate manner. Two notably important external influences came from China and India, but Southeast Asia accepted only those influences and practices that were suitable to their local cultures. Almost every country accepted Ramayana because it is easy to retell, understand, modify and apply to contemporary culture.
Folklore singers and artistes played a very important role in popularising and modifying Indian literary works in Southeast Asia and it was the most popular and effective way of propagating Indian culture. Through retelling of the stories from generation to generation, the great epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata could be edited and retold to attract bigger and bigger audiences. The artistes who popularised these were called ‘dalangs’ and contributed to the process of adaptation of these epic works originating outside their country by adding or changing them to make them more contextual and localised. This was the beginning of the formation of new texts like Seri Rama ( Malaysian adaptation of Ramayana) and RamKer ( Ramayana Khmer) in Cambodia. These are regarded as some of the highest literary works of Southeast Asia.