India had influence on South East Asian countries from the ancient time. Indian culture was greatly adopted by many countries in past and the range was beyond the sub-continent, we can see that on Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia etc. So when did it start ??
It started when "Aryans" invaded India in ancient time. They slowly conquered the North India and started invading South India. If we go through the Hindu texts and epics of that time we can see that ancient Indians were aware about South East Asia from the beginning of Aryan conquest.
In the later stages trade of India flourished with these countries and through that the cultural influence started spreading. Hinduism spread in these areas and we could see new Hindu kingdoms emerging in these countries. the effect on art and culture could be seen on the Hindu temples built at that time. Angkor Wat was built in 12th century in Cambodia. We can find Hindus around Indonesia specially in Bali still now and the culture is almost same with Indians.
When Buddhism became one of the main religion in India it also started spreading and it got emperors or rulers as its patron. Like we know Ashoka the Great of Mauryan empire played a major role in spreading Buddhism in Sri Lanka. In this period it flourished and reached all South East Asian countries including China, Korea and Japan.
We can see this influence still exists in modern day. Like you can see a statue of Arjuna and Krishna in Jakarta, Indonesia. Indonesia also named their national airlines as Garuda (God of birds from Hindu mythology) Airlines. The Buddhism is still one of the main religion in South East Asia. So, It is clear Indians have an ancient bonding with these countries and the people of these regions share a positive idea about each other.
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