<< One of the big contentions of popular historian William Dalrymple’s latest book “The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World,” which came out in the United States a few weeks ago, is that the Indian subcontinent’s connections to the West, especially via the Roman Empire, were far richer than those of China (i.e. the “Silk Road” cited). Once the might of Rome reached Egypt and the maritime routes of the Red Sea, it brought the customers of the Mediterranean to India’s doorstep. It also saw Indian philosophy and mathematics travel west and east. >>
<< Once their economic links to the West thinned with the collapse of the Roman Empire, South Indian merchant guilds turned east, embarking on trade and contacts that spread Indian religion and ideas across a wide expanse of Asia and underlay the grandeur of centuries-old temple complexes like Angkor Wat in Cambodia or Borubudur in Indonesia. >>
<< it’s one of the great soft power miracles of world history, because unlike Islam and unlike quite a lot of Christianity, no one took Buddhism at the point of a sword. No one imposed Buddhism at any point. It was the sophistication of its ideas and particularly its attractiveness to the merchant classes, bizarrely. The Buddhist monasteries act as banks, as factories and as caravanserais. >>
Ishaan Tharoor with Rachel Pannett. How ancient India changed the world. WorldView (by mail). washingtonpost.com. May 19, 2025.
Also: forms of power, waves, attractor, Zen, compassion, transition, in https://www.inkgmr.net/kwrds.html
Keywords: life, forms of power, soft power, waves, attractors, Zen, compassion, transition.