Monsoon Empires

Introduction

In the ancient world, seas functioned not as barriers but as channels that enabled cultural interaction, trade, and diplomacy. This was especially true in the Indian Ocean region, where coastal civilisations engaged in dynamic exchanges that shaped the historical trajectories of Asia and beyond. Within this interconnected maritime landscape, South Indian kingdoms emerged not only as regional powers but also as active participants in a wider Indian Ocean world. Through religious patronage, artistic exchange, architectural diffusion, and merchant networks, they projected what is now termed “soft power”, a non-military form of influence rooted in culture, ideology, and diplomacy.

The term soft power, introduced by political scientist Joseph Nye, refers to the ability to influence others through attraction and persuasion rather than coercion or monetary inducement. Although originally applied to modern international relations, the concept is equally relevant to historical contexts where empires built influence without relying solely on military force. In this light, dynasties such as the Cholas, Pallavas, Pandyas, and Cheras employed religion, art, language, and commerce to extend their cultural footprint far beyond the subcontinent. Their influence reached Sri Lanka, the Maldives, the Srivijaya and Khmer empires, and several key port cities in Southeast Asia, creating legacies that lasted for centuries.

Among these, the Cholas are particularly noted for their maritime expeditions, especially under Rajendra Chola I, who led naval campaigns across the Bay of Bengal. As noted by K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, these missions aimed not only to secure trade routes but also to assert cultural and political dominance. Even without military ventures, South Indian dynasties maintained an influential presence abroad. The Pallavas, for instance, spread Dravidian temple architecture to places such as Java and Cambodia, as documented by Craig Lockard. B. D. Chattopadhyaya highlights how the Cheras and Pandyas established robust trade networks and religious links through their coastal ports and mercantile patronage.

Understanding the cultural diplomacy and soft power strategies of South Indian kingdoms offers valuable insights for contemporary global affairs. In a world where influence increasingly depends on cultural affinity and shared history rather than force or wealth, it is timely to revisit these historical models. The ways in which these kingdoms extended their reach through religion, art, language, and commerce provide lessons in building respectful and lasting cross-cultural ties. This not only enhances our understanding of South Asia’s historic role in global networks but also affirms the continuing relevance of culture as a tool of diplomacy.

Cultural Diplomacy in the Indian Ocean World

For centuries, the Indian Ocean has served as a cosmopolitan arena for the exchange of goods, ideas, and cultural practices. In antiquity, South India’s strategic location between the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal enabled its maritime kingdoms to engage in what may be described as early forms of cultural diplomacy.

Trade, Temples, and the Maritime Geography of Power

The geography of South India, with its extensive coastline, fertile river valleys, seasonal monsoon winds, and accessible natural harbours, made it ideal for maritime trade and cultural exchange. The Malabar and Coromandel coasts supported thriving port towns such as the Chola-linked Kaveripattinam, the Buddhist and commercial centre of Nagapattinam, the Pallava port of Mahabalipuram, and the Chera-affiliated Muziris, which also had trade ties with the Roman world. Each of these ports served as important nodes in wider networks that connected South India to Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Egypt, the Roman Empire, Arabia, Persia, and Southeast Asia, as shown by scholars such as McLaughlin and Malekandathil.

The monsoon winds made long-distance sea travel more predictable, allowing South Indian merchants and emissaries to cross the ocean with relative ease. However, these ports were not merely economic centres. They also functioned as cosmopolitan zones where trade, diplomacy, and spiritual practice intersected. Drawing on Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of “contact zones”, these spaces became sites where diverse cultures engaged with one another, often within unequal structures of power.

Malekandathil points out that merchant guilds such as the Ayyavole 500 and Manigramam funded temple construction both within India and overseas. These temples were not just places of worship but also projected cultural authority and legitimacy. Many served dual purposes as financial institutions, housing treasuries, regulating transactions, and facilitating trust among traders. Rulers supported temple building not only for religious merit but also as a form of aesthetic and political strategy. Through architecture, ritual, and spatial grandeur, they signalled prosperity, piety, and refinement to local communities and foreign visitors alike. The temple thus emerged as a key instrument of cultural diplomacy, communicating political identity and religious values to those arriving by sea.

By combining geography, commerce, religion, and politics, South Indian kingdoms established themselves as influential players in the Indian Ocean world. Their ability to sustain overseas influence lay not in military supremacy alone but in their deliberate use of culture to build bridges and command respect.

The Cholas: Naval Prowess and Transoceanic Prestige

Among the numerous South Indian dynasties, the Cholas best embodied the visions of cultural diplomacy and soft power in their elaborate and measured encounter with the Indian Ocean world. Under Rajendra Chola I in the early eleventh century, the Chola state initiated one of the most elaborate maritime expeditions of premodern Asia, a mission that stretched far beyond the limits of warfare.

The 1025 CE attack on the Srivijaya empire in maritime Southeast Asia, even if habitually interpreted as an exhibition of naval belligerence, was equally a grand gesture of symbolic projection, announcing the Chola king’s capability to exercise transoceanic dominion and reshape regional hierarchies from afar. As Anirudh Kanisetti contends, this intervention was an “immense leap towards the emergence of a world market,” for it allowed Tamil merchant networks to expand into principal trading areas in Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, and Java. Merchant guilds like the Ayyavole 500 and Manigramam, well integrated into temple economies and cross-regional trade, set up settlements and bases all over the region and built shrines, issued Tamil and Sanskrit inscriptions, and infused South Indian artistic and religious motifs into local culture.

These diplomatic interactions were not restricted to the Indian cultural realm; the Cholas also established diplomatic relations with imperial China and sent several embassies to the Song dynasty court, one said to carry a letter written on gold leaf, an icon of both elegance and power, as understood by T. Sen’s work. These expeditions were not so much about transactional diplomacy but about showcasing royal charisma and cosmopolitan identity on a global platform. They represented a wider strategy whereby South Indian monarchs used the moral and material pre-eminence of their courts to sway distant partners, acquire trade concessions, and claim civilisational standing.

The Chola case, therefore, illustrates how maritime expeditions, temple patronage, mercantile networks, and ritualised diplomacy coalesced into a coherent and far-sighted policy of cultural outreach—one that embedded South India firmly into the connective tissue of the Indian Ocean world and left enduring marks on Southeast Asia’s architectural, religious, and political landscapes.

The Pallavas: Architecture as Aesthetic Diplomacy

The Pallavas, although less geographically extensive than the Cholas, contributed to the construction of South Indian soft power in the form of architecture, religious patronage, and intercultural diplomacy. Under Narasimhavarman II (Rajasimha) and other rulers, the Pallavas commissioned great temples at Mamallapuram (Mahabalipuram), including the Shore Temple and the rock-cut rathas, which not only functioned as religious hubs but as sea marks visible to approaching ships and acted as both sacred spaces and symbols of dynastic power. These temples were a demonstration of the rulers’ ability to mobilise skilled labour, artisans, and material resources, and also indicate their mastery over coastal and commercial landscapes.

The iconography and architectural style used by the Pallavas, all their early Dravidian styles, would eventually impact the temple forms utilised in Java, Cambodia, and other regions in maritime Southeast Asia, an indication of the portability and attraction of South Indian religious aesthetics. A. Kanisetti observes that the Pallava state also had diplomatic relations with Tang China during the 8th century.

One of the Chinese imperial court embassies famously carried exotic presents like a parakeet that could talk and leopard furs, earning titles and recognition for the Pallava king, a clear example of early diplomatic theatre aimed at presenting cultural sophistication and seeking prestige. These gestures of cross-cultural diplomacy complemented the Pallavas’ active participation in the Sanskrit cosmopolis, wherein political legitimacy was expressed through shared aesthetic, religious, and literary codes.

As a result, Southeast Asian polities like the Khmer Empire and Srivijaya increasingly looked to Indian prototypes, in architecture, kingship, and temple rituals, drawing inspiration from the symbolic and material templates circulated by the Pallavas and their contemporaries.

The Pandyas and Cheras: Trade, Literature, and the Cultural Imaginary

While the Cholas and Pallavas concentrated on monumentalism, naval expansion, and imperial display, the Pandyas and Cheras pursued a more generalised exchange through commerce, patronage of literature, and intercontinental religious networks. The Cheras occupied key ports like Muziris and Kodungallur along the Malabar Coast, both pivotal to the Indian Ocean spice trade and familiar to Greco-Roman, Persian, and Arab traders. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a 1st-century CE Greek travel account, called Muziris “the first emporium of India.” Excavations of Roman amphorae, coins, and West Asian ceramics at places like Pattanam further attest to the area’s high commercial energy. These ports were not only economic exchange nodes but also places of cultural and religious mixing, visited by multilingual and multiethnic trading communities.

The investment by the Chera court in the production and conservation of Sangam literature created a refined Tamil literary culture, whose conventions of poetry, discourses of morality, and symbolic terrain travelled with merchants and thus conditioned the aesthetic imagination of the Tamil-speaking diaspora. These works tended to celebrate seafaring life, virtue, and generosity, and were transported from the Indian Ocean by religious teachers, migrants, and mercantile agents, and thus added to what C. Ramaswamy describes as a “Tamilised cosmopolis” that resisted regional frontiers and inscribed Tamil identity into broader Indian Ocean circuits.

Likewise, the Pandyas, who were less expansionist in their ambitions than the Cholas, promoted long-term commercial and religious bonds with Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, and even portions of the mainland Indian region. Their patronage of temple establishments not only legitimised dynastic power but also brought them into larger Buddhist and Shaivite religious networks that spanned maritime Asia. These interactions were underwritten by gift giving, temple donations, and the movement of religious specialists. Through these means, the Pandyas and Cheras did have a more nuanced, yet resilient presence in the Indian Ocean world — one powered not by naval battles but by cultural continuity, diplomatic trade, and the cross-cultural expansion of texts and men.

Merchant Guilds: Commerce as Cultural Conduit

Influential merchant guilds like the Ayyavole 500 (Ainurruvar) and Manigramam were not only economic actors but also agents of cultural diplomacy, serving as key go-betweens in South India’s integration with the broader Indian Ocean world. These guilds exerted significant autonomy, founded their temples and trade-posts, and sustained networks that linked them to both indigenous rulers and foreign powers. Inscriptions mentioning these guilds have been discovered in a broad geographic area — from Tamil Nadu and Kerala to coastal Sri Lanka, Kedah in the Malay Peninsula, and Barus and Sumatra in Indonesia — testifying to their trans-regional existence and lasting impact.

The Ainurruvar, specifically, worked as a general federation that included merchants, artisans, monks, and even military bands, usually in alliance with royal courts but protecting their interests as well. Their linkage with Brahmins, temple economies, and Shaivite traditions augmented their socio-religious validity and eased their incorporation into overseas cultural environments. The temples they sponsored — both within South India and abroad — functioned not only as religious centres but also as cultural ambassadors and custodians of shared memory. Their mastery of maritime logistics, shipping routes, and caravan security enabled them to exert significant leverage in trade negotiations and interregional diplomacy. As Kanisetti describes, these guilds were “agents of transformation”, skilled at mobilising capital, mediating cultural exchange, and affirming South India’s strategic and symbolic presence in the interlacing nodes of the Indian Ocean economy.

Enduring Imprints: Language, Religion, and Art

The long-term effects of South Indian cultural diplomacy are most strikingly visible in the architectural, religious, and linguistic imprints left across the Indian Ocean region, particularly in Southeast and East Asia. The diffusion of the Dravidian temple style, characterised by axial plans, vimanas, and intricate stone carvings, into monumental complexes such as Prambanan in Java and the Angkor temples in Cambodia attests to the enduring influence of Pallava and Chola architectural paradigms. These were not simply aesthetic borrowings but signalled a broader cultural aspiration by local rulers to affiliate with the sacral and imperial ideals embodied in South Indian models of kingship.

Inscriptions in Tamil and Sanskrit, Shaivite iconography, and temple plans with distinctively South Indian features continue to surface in archaeological contexts as far afield as Sumatra, Malaysia, and Vietnam, reflecting a sustained, though adaptive, cultural presence. In southern China’s Quanzhou, Tamil Shaiva temples built by South Indian merchant communities, with bilingual inscriptions and finely carved images, are additional evidence of the widespread acceptance and incorporation of Tamil religious practices well into the 13th century, according to Risha Lee.

Achievements in these endeavours were a result of flexibility, rather than dominance. South Indian rulers, artists, and merchants integrated their practices with indigenous beliefs and systems and created hybrid forms by mutual understanding. South Indian features such as temple architecture, ritual practice, court ceremony, and even language were adopted and indigenised and became integral components of building local narratives and not foreign impositions. Thus, cultural diplomacy functioned not in the form of one-way transmission but as a two-way process of mutual adaptation and enrichment, whereby the Tamil and Dravidian world inscribed itself into the cultural memory of faraway polities while at the same time being remade by them.

Long-lasting Legacy

Rather than being stories of the past, South Indian kingdoms’ cultural impact continues to shape Southeast Asia’s symbolic and social landscapes. Throughout Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia, there is a Tamil and general Dravidian presence in everyday practices, whether through architecture, language, ritual, or diet. Tamil-speaking populations, with more than 1.8 million in Malaysia and more than 200,000 in Singapore, still retain old Tamil traditions, as identified by the Department of Statistics Malaysia and the Singapore Department of Statistics. In urban areas such as Kuala Lumpur and George Town, there are examples of Dravidian temple architecture, celebrations such as Thaipusam, and dishes like dosa and sambar incorporated into national cultures without a trace of dislocation.

This cultural transfer can also be seen in material heritage throughout the broader region. Bas-reliefs of Angkor Wat, temples of Java, and ritual sites of Bali all bear witness to the architectural and iconographic styles introduced by the Pallavas and Cholas. In addition to architecture, living arts such as wayang kulit (shadow puppets), textile weaving, and temple dance show Indic influences passed down decades ago through interactions. Merchant guilds like the Ayyavole 500 served as conduits of commerce and culture, bequeathing inscriptions, endowments, and artistic traces from South India to Vietnam’s coast and Thailand. Today, India’s “Act East” policy and the diplomatic efforts of institutions such as the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) attempt to reignite these links by strengthening common civilisational bonds through language training, restoration of heritage, and cultural diplomacy.

What we find through this extended trajectory of interaction is a pattern of influence based not on conquest by force but on cultural borrowing and symbolic resonance. South Indian kingdoms like the Cholas, Pallavas, Pandyas, and Cheras inscribed themselves upon maritime Asia by means of art, religion, urbanisation, and merchant networks. Theirs is an inheritance of resonance, by which ideas traversed the sea not as edicts but as overtures. This soft power generated a common Indic idea that continues to shape the identities, rites, and architectures of Indian Ocean societies.

By acknowledging this, we are encouraged to reimagine the history of the Indian Ocean not as a story of encroaching empires but as a vibrant network of cultural flows and aesthetic conversations. For our world today, in which cultural diplomacy and soft power are again at the centre of global strategy, the lesson of South Indian kingdoms is one that lasts. They teach us that soft power, when based on mutual respect, shared values, and artistic abundance, is able to create legacies that defy time and geography.