Shri is a Sanskrit term denoting resplendence, wealth and prosperity, primarily used as an honorific.
Brahmin is a varna (caste) within Hindu society. The other three varnas are the Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra. The traditional occupation of Brahmins is that of priesthood at Hindu temples or at socio-religious ceremonies, and the performing of rite of passage rituals, such as solemnising a wedding with hymns and prayers.
Hinduism in Southeast Asia had a profound impact on the region's cultural development and its history. As the Indic scripts were introduced from the Indian subcontinent, people of Southeast Asia entered the historical period by producing their earliest inscriptions around the 1st to 5th century CE. Today, Hindus in Southeast Asia are mainly Overseas Indians and Balinese. There are also Javanese and Balamon Cham minority in Cambodia and south central Vietnam who also practice Hinduism.
The Laguna Copperplate Inscription is an official acquittance certificate inscribed onto a copper plate in the Shaka year 822. It is the earliest-known, extant, calendar-dated document found within the Philippines.
The Republic of India has two principal official short names, each of which is historically significant: India and Bharat. A third name, Hindustan, is also used when North Indians speak among themselves. The usage of "India", "Bharat", or "Hindustan" depends on the context and language of conversation.
Greater India, also known as the Indian cultural sphere, or the Indic world, is an area composed of several countries and regions in South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia that were historically influenced by Indian culture, which itself formed from the various distinct indigenous cultures of South Asia. It is an umbrella term encompassing the Indian subcontinent and surrounding countries, which are culturally linked through a diverse cultural cline. These countries have been transformed to varying degrees by the acceptance and introduction of cultural and institutional elements from each other. The term Greater India as a reference to the Indian cultural sphere was popularised by a network of Bengali scholars in the 1920s, but became obsolete in the 1970s.
Sanskritisation is a term in sociology which refers to the process by which castes or tribes placed lower in the caste hierarchy seek upward mobility by emulating the rituals and practices of the dominant castes or upper castes. It is a process similar to "passing" in sociological terms. This term was made popular by Indian sociologist M. N. Srinivas in the 1950s. Sanskritisation has in particular been observed among mid-ranked members of caste-based social hierarchies.
Recent archaeological and other evidence suggests Hinduism has had some cultural, economic, political and religious influence in the Philippines. Among these is the 9th century Laguna Copperplate Inscription found in 1989, deciphered in 1992 to be Kawi script with Sanskrit words; the golden Agusan statue discovered in another part of Philippines in 1917 has also been linked to Hinduism.
The wai is a greeting in Thailand that consists of a slight bow, with the palms pressed together in a prayer-like fashion. It has its origin in the Indian Añjali Mudrā, like the Indian namaste and Burmese mingalaba. The higher the hands are held in relation to the face and the lower the bow, the more respect or reverence the giver of the wai is showing. The wai is traditionally observed upon formally entering a house. After the visit is over, the visitor asks for permission to leave and repeats the salutation made upon entering. The wai is also common as a way to express gratitude or to apologise.
Indosphere is a term coined by the linguist James Matisoff for areas of Indian linguistic influence in the neighboring Southern Asian, Southeast Asian, and East Asian regions. It is commonly used in areal linguistics in contrast with the Sinophone languages of the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area of the Sinosphere. Notably, unlike terms such as Lusophone or Francophone that refer to the multinational spread and influence of a single language with multiple dialects, this term refers to all languages that are considered to originate in India, of which there are 22 recognised languages alone across several major language families, including Indo-European and Dravidian. It considers these collectively in regards to the influence of these languages on the languages of other countries, rather than from the perspective of the spread of the language only.
Sanskrit revival is a resurgence of interest in and use of the Sanskrit language, both in India and in Western countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, China and in many European countries.
Indianisation also known as Indianization, may refer to the spread of Indian languages, culture, diaspora, cuisines, economic reach and impact.
Indian honorifics are honorific titles or appendices to names used in the Indian subcontinent, covering formal and informal social, commercial, and religious relationships. These may take the form of prefixes, suffixes or replacements.
Southeast Asia was in the Indian sphere of cultural influence from 290 BCE to the 15th century CE, when Hindu-Buddhist influences were incorporated into local political systems. Kingdoms in the southeast coast of the Indian subcontinent had established trade, cultural and political relations with Southeast Asian kingdoms in Burma, Bhutan, Thailand, the Sunda Islands, Malay Peninsula, Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, and Champa. This led to the Indianisation and Sanskritisation of Southeast Asia within the Indosphere, Southeast Asian polities were the Indianised Hindu-Buddhist Mandala.
A good number of inscriptions written in Sanskrit language have been found in Malaysia and Indonesia: the Indo-Australian archipelago. "Early inscriptions written in Indian languages and scripts abound in Southeast Asia. [...] The fact that southern Indian languages didn't travel eastwards along with the script further suggests that the main carriers of ideas from the southeast coast of India to the east - and the main users in Southeast Asia of religious texts written in Sanskrit and Pali - were Southeast Asians themselves. The spread of these north Indian sacred languages thus provides no specific evidence for any movements of South Asian individuals or groups to Southeast Asia.
Place names in India are usually in Indian languages. Other languages include Portuguese, Dutch, English and Arabic.
The Indian influences in early Philippine polities, particularly the influence of the Srivijaya and Majapahit thalassocracies on cultural development, is a significant area of research for scholars of Philippine, Indonesian, and Southeast Asian history, and is believed to be the source of Hindu and Buddhist elements in early Philippine culture, religion, and language. Because the Indonesian thalassocracies of Srivijaya and Majapahit acquired many of these Hindu and Buddhist elements through Indianization, the introduction of such elements to early Philippine cultures has sometimes been referred to as indianization. In more recent scholarship, it is termed localization, as in, e.g., localization of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs. Some scholars also place the Philippine archipelago within the outermost reaches of the Indosphere, along with Northern Vietnam, where the Hindu and Buddhist elements were not directly introduced by Indian travellers.
Sanskritisation is the process of introducing features from Sanskrit, such as vocabulary and grammar, into other languages. It is sometimes associated with the "Hinduisation" of a linguistic community, or less commonly, with introducing a more upper-caste status into a community. Many languages throughout South Asia and Southeast Asia were greatly influenced by Sanskrit historically.
