The Myth of Kauṇḍinya in Southeast Asia

An Archaeological Analysis

Abstract

The myth of Kauṇḍinya has had a profound impact on the writing of Southeast Asian history, being used by historians in the early twentieth century to explain how the earliest kingdoms in the region were formed. However, the myth as we know it today has been constructed from fragments of information found in Sanskrit epigraphy and Chinese textual sources from three distinct time periods. Using a form of textual analysis first described by Michel Foucault under the heading of ‘archaeology’, this article attempts to isolate and examine the nature of the myth within each time period, as if uncovering distinct layers of an archaeological excavation. I have tried to show how each version of the myth is indelibly a product of its own time, drawing its significance from the religious, social and literary context in which it was recorded. In particular, while revealing elements of continuity and discontinuity in the transition of the myth, it also highlights important events in the transmission and reception of religious ideas and practice that may be connected to the wider themes of dynamics and stability in religious studies.