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Hello, I hope you're doing well. I'm all good here. I'm recording this from a hotel room in Edinburgh.

I'm up here in my favourite city for a couple of days.

And as a matter of fact, our guest today is a Scottish legend, none other than the author

William Dalrymple. Williams on the show today to talk through the spread of Indian religions

and cultural aspects like literature and language into Southeast Asia in the first millennium

AD. And guys, it's a fascinating story, interactions with great kingdoms like the Khmer and

the Srivejaya, the creation of Ankhawat, and so much more. That is all to come in today's

episode and I really do hope you enjoy. Let's go.

In the early 1st millennium AD, precious metals were flowing into India. Trade with the Roman Empire to the West was massive, with Indians exchanging goods like ivory,

pepper, cotton, diamonds and silk for Roman gold and silver.

But then, as the centuries passed and Roman control in the eastern

Mediterranean collapsed, this trade dried up. And instead, Indian merchants looked elsewhere

for their gold, for trade. Their eyes landed on Southeast Asia, and over the following centuries, powerful Indian

trading guilds would establish strong connections in this part of the world.

Indian culture followed influencing the two great Southeast Asian empires of the time, which

would ultimately lead several centuries later to the construction of the great wonder in

...