a four-member restoration team of the #ASI discovered an 1100-year-old monolithic sandstone #shiva lingam, a representation of the #Hindu deity Shiva, it was seen as a moment of great pride by India. External Affairs Minister S. #Jaishankar announced the discovery on Twitter saying it reaffirmed a ‘civilisational connect’ between India and Vietnam and is a ‘great cultural example of India’s development partnership’.
George Coedes, the French scholar of Southeast Asian archaeology and history, was the first to have developed the concept of ‘Indianised kingdoms’ in what he coined to be ‘farther India’. Geographically ‘farther India’ refers to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and the Malay states. While relations between India and ‘farther India’ is noted to have existed since prehistoric times, it was only from the beginning of the Christian era that these relations resulted in the formation of Indian kingdoms in these regions.
