Hi keralaguy. Most Hindus in Indonesia are native Indonesians. But you would find it different with Indian Hinduism, as we love to syncretize. You would see strong influence of our native Austronesian religions and also a bit of Buddhism in our form of Hinduism. The only ones who practice the same form of Hinduism as in India are Indian Indonesians, and there aren't many of them, not like in Malaysia or Singapore.

About Malaysia, I don't think they are intolerant, if they are why are there a lot of Malaysian people of Indian descents? There's gotta be a reason why they decide to take upon their new homeland. When I see Indian Malaysians and Malay Malaysian, I think most of the times they live in harmony. You can see that the popular spot for eating for the Malays are the Mamak Stalls, usually owned by an Indian.

Pedande, Balinese Hindu high priest performing sacred ceremony

I happen to stumble upon this post, was just scanning through the threads. Sorry for bringing up an old thread but this is interesting.

You know the Cham and Devanagari scripts have similar alphabets. Just don't consider how the words are constructed. How each word is pronounced that matters the most. Just see Devanagari alphabets, it is the same.

Philippines have had great influences with China only because of trading, India in my opinion had the least. but Visayans i dont know who influenced them! the clothing of the visayans where very south american like!! and not similar in anyway to northern filipino's who have similar clothing to people of taiwan! but yes we all come from the same boat!

check out some pictures of pre-spanish filipino's in the visayan region on this link
PRE-SPANISH PHILIPPINES CLICK HERE



if you dont agree maybe im on drugs lol

Thailand and Laos are also inflluenced by India but to a second degree. They were heavily influenced by its neighbor, Cambodia, who were directly influenced by India.

The Indosphere usually spans through Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and to some extent, Vietnam (though Vietnam had great influence from China as well).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indosphere

The Chola dynasty (Tamil kingdom) also controlled INdonesia and Malaysia at some point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_dynasty