Hinduism

The Spread of Hinduism outside India

Although almost all the world's Hindus live in India or Nepal, there are also overseas communities of Hindus. The first movement of Hinduism from India was to nearby areas of Southeast Asia (in the first century CE). They came at the invitation of local rulers who wanted them to bless their land. After the blessing, many stayed in these areas, marrying women from them and mixing Hinduism with local customs. Even in countries that are now Buddhist, such as Thailand, aspects of the Hindu god Brahma are still important. The Dheva Satarn temple in Bangkok and royal ceremonies still conducted in Thailand clearly show aspects of rituals for Brahma. Moreover, the Ramayana (c. 300 BCE), the great epic that describes the adventures of Rama, an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, continues to be performed as part of Thai popular culture. (In Thailand, the epic is called the Ramakien.) However, even Thai Brahmans—members of Hinduism's highest grouping of castes—have become fully Thai except in religious descent.

Merchants spread Hinduism to other parts of the globe, including Burma, Malaysia, Mauritius, and later East Africa. This trend was especially strong during the British colonization of India (c. 1850–1947), when workers also went into Kenya, Tanzania, and Malawi as railroad workers for the British administration or as small traders or civil servants. Eventually, these traders began to bring their families to their new settlements, and as families became established, so too the appurtenances of religious practice, from gurus to temples. Hinduism fit into the context of religious pluralism found in the British colonial empire. Hindus who emigrated to East Africa were able to maintain their ties to India, something that was not so true of Indians in the West Indies and South Africa, who often were indentured servants and who found it more difficult to keep up ties with their homeland.

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