carried them to such
distant goals as Ceylon, Java and Camboja.

But the diffusion of Indian influence, especially in China, was also
due to another agency, namely religious propaganda and the deliberate
despatch of missions. These missions seem to have been exclusively
Buddhist for wherever we find records of Hinduism outside India, for
instance in Java and Camboja, the presence of Hindu conquerors or
colonists is also recorded.[2] Hinduism accompanied Hindus and
sometimes spread round their settlements, but it never attempted to
convert distant and alien lands. But the Buddhists had from the
beginning the true evangelistic temper: they preached to all the world
and in singleness of purpose: they had no political support from
India. Many as were the charges brought against them by hostile
Confucians, it was never suggested that they sought political or
commercial privileges for their native land. It was this simple
disinterested attitude which enabled Buddhism, though in many ways
antipathetic to the Far East, to win its confidence.

Ceylon is the first place where we have a record of the introduction
of Indian civilization and its entry there illustrates all the
phenomena mentioned above, infiltration, colonization and propaganda.
The island is close to the continent and communication with the Tamil
country easy, but though there has long been a large Tamil population
with its own language, religion and temples, the fundamental
civilization is not Tamil. A Hindu called Vijaya who apparently
started from the region of Broach about 500 B.C. led an expedition to
Ceylon and introduced a western Hindu language. Intercourse with the
north was doubtless maintained, for in the reign of Asoka we find the
King of Ceylon making overtures to him and receiving with enthusiasm
the missionaries whom he sent. It is possible that southern India
played a greater part in this conversion than the accepted legend
indicates, for we hear of a monastery built by Mahinda near
Tanjore.[3] But still language, monuments and tradition attest the
reality of the connection with northern India.

It is in Asoka's reign too that we first hear of Indian influence
spreading northwards. His Empire included Nepal and Kashmir, he
sent missionaries to the region of Himavanta, meaning apparently the
southern slopes of the Himalayas, and to the Kambojas, an ambiguous
race who were perhaps the inhabitants of Tibet or its border lands.
The Hindu Kush seems