The cultural contact between India and other South-east Asian countries can be traced to early days. The reason is that Indian traders had succeeded in developing trade with Suvarnabhûmi, Siam and other parts of South-east Asia for want of raw material, particularly gold, and market for the sale of the goods manufactured in India.' As a result of this, princes, priests and monks started entering in search of opportunities related to their objectives. Consequently, we find that in areas like Siam (Thailand) many a Brahmanised prince succeeded in establishing their rule. Even the Indian place names started serving as the eponym of the cities and capitals of Thailand, etc. The Kingdom of Gandhära which was also known as Videharajya can be cited as an example in this regard.

Due to such factors ultimately one finds that in entire South-east Asia Indian religions as well as culture started flourishing so much so that for a foreigner it was not possible to make distinction between the mainland of India and South-east Asia from the view point of cultural contents. This is obvious otherwise also. If Indian traders had dominated South-east Asia, the Thais are said to have conquered vast areas and help the spread of Indian culture in those The resistence which was offered to Kublai Khan by the Brahmanised Thai Kingdom of Gandhära is well known and supports this submission of ours. These factors ultimately paved the way for the popularity of Indian religions as well as religious art. The archacological finds clearly prove this as we have icons and images from Thai states similar to Gupta style as well as the styles which flourished in India in later years.