It has been a long time since I gave a talk on the history of Buddhism, not because it no longer interests me, but because of lack of opportunity. Now I live fairly secluded and am mainly engaged in writing and photography.
However, an outcome of the latter, which has taken me on multiple occasions to Indonesia, has been a growing interest in the history of the region, and last October, following the kathina festivities at my old temple in Taiping, I gave a talk on four of the kingdoms that prevailed from the 1st to the 15th centuries.
I illustrated the talk with maps and slides, and here I have included them and added highlights, and other information to add to the visual interest of the subject matter. The talk was edited down from around 100 minutes to 65 in order to tighten the presentation.
I hope it will give some insight into the cultures that existed in Malaysia and Indonesia during a period of almost 1500 years, and people will explore these kingdoms and the remaining artifacts for themselves.
Thank you so much Ven Anandajoti for this wonderful video, as with all of your presentations it gave a deeper insight into the subject matter.
We were extremely lucky to visit Candi 11 in Lembah Bajung in Malaysia before it was bulldozed by developers in 2013. Although the sites in this area are not on the scale of Borobudur and the like, the area is beautiful and it is sad that it was given so little significance.