Indian Indonesians - History

History

Various people from the Indian subcontinent have frequented the Indonesian archipelago since the prehistoric era. In Bali, for example, remains of potteries from the first centuries C.E. have been recovered. In fact, the name Indonesia itself comes from the Latin Indus "India" and Greek nêsos "island" which literally means the ‘Indian archipelago’.

From the 4th and 5th centuries onwards, Indian cultural influences became more and more visible. The Sanskrit language was used on inscriptions. However, since the 7th century onwards, the Indian scripts were used more and more to write down indigenous languages which by now already contained many loans not only from Sanskrit, but also various prakrit and Tamil.

In addition to that, indigenous Indonesians began to embrace Indian religions, in particular Shivaism and Buddhism. But some were followers of Vishnuism and Tantrism.

It is believed that various Indian people also settled in Indonesia, mixed and assimilated with the local population. Because in the 9th century in an inscription from Central Java the names of various Indian people (and Southeast-Asian people) are mentioned:

ikang warga kilalan kling ārya singhala pandikiri drawiḍa campa kmir (Brandes 1913:1021).

the civilians of which one has the use are: people from Kalinga, Aryans, people from Pandiya kera = Pandiyas, Keralites ), Dravidians, Chams, and Khmer

Later on with the rise of the Islam, the Islam was brought to Indonesia by the Gujarati people from the 11th century onwards, first not to replace the existing religious systems, but to complement them.