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    Reflection On Indian Civilization and Filipino Culture

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    patricia pillar
    While the Philippines was never directly colonized by India, Indian culture influenced Filipino culture through early trade with Indo-Malayan empires. Evidence of Indian influence can be seen in indigenous religions, language borrowings such as "Bathala" from Sanskrit, and similarities between Philippine epic folk literature and stories like the Ramayana. However, Indian influences are subtle compared to direct colonizers such as Spain and America. Traces of Indian culture exist in ancient Filipino religion, culture and language, though there are no remaining Hindu temples or monuments due to low population density and Spanish colonization.

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    Reflection On Indian Civilization and Filipino Culture

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    patricia pillar
    117 views2 pages
    While the Philippines was never directly colonized by India, Indian culture influenced Filipino culture through early trade with Indo-Malayan empires. Evidence of Indian influence can be seen in indigenous religions, language borrowings such as "Bathala" from Sanskrit, and similarities between Philippine epic folk literature and stories like the Ramayana. However, Indian influences are subtle compared to direct colonizers such as Spain and America. Traces of Indian culture exist in ancient Filipino religion, culture and language, though there are no remaining Hindu temples or monuments due to low population density and Spanish colonization.

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    Has Indian civilization affected Filipino culture?

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    Reflection on Indian Civilization and Filipino Culture

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    While the Philippines was never directly colonized by India, Indian culture influenced Filipino culture through early trade with Indo-Malayan empires. Evidence of Indian influence can be seen in indigenous religions, language borrowings such as "Bathala" from Sanskrit, and similarities between Philippine epic folk literature and stories like the Ramayana. However, Indian influences are subtle compared to direct colonizers such as Spain and America. Traces of Indian culture exist in ancient Filipino religion, culture and language, though there are no remaining Hindu temples or monuments due to low population density and Spanish colonization.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    117 views2 pages

    Reflection On Indian Civilization and Filipino Culture

    Uploaded by

    patricia pillar
    While the Philippines was never directly colonized by India, Indian culture influenced Filipino culture through early trade with Indo-Malayan empires. Evidence of Indian influence can be seen in indigenous religions, language borrowings such as "Bathala" from Sanskrit, and similarities between Philippine epic folk literature and stories like the Ramayana. However, Indian influences are subtle compared to direct colonizers such as Spain and America. Traces of Indian culture exist in ancient Filipino religion, culture and language, though there are no remaining Hindu temples or monuments due to low population density and Spanish colonization.

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    PILLAR, PATRICIA GERICKA A.

    Reflective Paper 2: Has Indian civilization affected Filipino culture?

    Although the Philippines has never been colonized by India, evidences and studies show that
    Indian culture has reached and influenced Filipino culture. Indian culture can be traced before the
    Spanish colonization of the Philippines. Philippine’s early trade with two great Indo-Malayan empires
    namely The Sriwijaya Empire from the seventh (7 th) up to the thirteenth (13 th) and Majapahit Empire
    from 1293 to 1527 enabled the permeation of identifiable Indian thought, religion, customs, among
    others (Southeast Asian Archaelogy, 2007). Although eventually the colonization of Spain, United States
    of America, and Japan may have dampened Indian culture influence in Philippines, it is nevertheless still
    present today. It can be traced in Philippine’s indigenous religions, epic folk literature, myths, and even
    in language.

    Philippines’ indigenous religion especially the concept of “Bathala” has great similarities with
    Hinduism’s Brahman. In fact, the word “Bathala” itself can be traced to the Sanskrit word
    “Bhattara”/”Battara”/”Batala” (Churchill, n.d.). Other Sanskrit borrowings include “Diwata”, “Diwa”,
    “Likha”, “Sampalataya”, “Maharlika” among others. This may suggest that early terms and words of the
    Philippines have Sanskrit origins which can be traced to the Madjaphit Empire, whose scripts were
    actively Hindu. Besides linguistic borrowings, Indian culture can also be seen in the Philippines’ epic folk
    literature. There is great resemblance of Indian themes in epic folk literature especially of the India’s
    well-known “Ramayana” tale in Maranao’s "Maharadia Lawana" and Maguindanao "lndarapatra and
    Sulayman".

    Indeed, the Indian influence in the Philippines is subtle and indirect, compared to the influences
    of Philippines’ direct colonizers. Moreover, it can be argued that most of Indian influences can be traced
    in Philippines’ ancient religion, culture and language. One has to closely look for its traces in the
    Philippines, which is a hotpot of culture. There is no highly visible evidences that are immediately and
    identifiably Indian. In fact, there are no Hindu or Buddhist temples or monuments. Even no Sanskrit
    documents. Only Spanish accounts of early Philippine’s religion as paganism. This lack of visible
    evidences may be attributed to the low level of population density In the Philippines and the strong
    interposition of the Spanish colonization. However, it cannot be denied that there are areas of Philippine
    culture which was heavily and strongly influence by Indian culture, even though it cannot be vividly seen
    at first glance. But nevertheless, despite of the lack of direct culture with Indian empires and the
    geographical proximity of India and Philippines, Indian culture still lives in Filipino culture.

    References:

    Churchill, M. (n.d.). Indian penetration of pre-Spanish Philippines: A new look at the evidence.
    Retrieved from:https://www.asj.upd.edu.ph/mediabox/archive/ASJ-15-1977/francisco-indian-
    prespanish-philippines.pdf

    Southeast Asian Archaelogy. (2007). Philippines and India: Politics and ancient history. Retrieved from:
    https://www.southeastasianarchaeology.com/2007/10/09/philippines-and-india-
    politics-and- ancient-history/

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