War in the Sanskritopolis

The long-running dispute between Thailand and Cambodia dates back more than a century, when the borders of the two nations were drawn after the French occupation of Cambodia.

Things officially became hostile in 2008, when Cambodia tried to register an 11th Century temple located in the disputed area as a Unesco World Heritage Site – a move that was met with heated protest from Thailand.

Why A Cluster Of Hindu Temples Is At Heart Of Thailand-Cambodia Conflict

It’s striking to see just how deeply Dharmic culture shaped Southeast Asia — not just as historical residue, but as a living civilizational layer. Buddhism, in many respects, prepared the civilizational terrain that Islam would later traverse.

Buddhism, too, was not monolithic. The Sri Lankan Theravāda tradition influenced the western flank of Indo-China, while Mahayana currents, traveling through Sumatra, appear to have looped back toward Guangzhou, feeding into the Sinosphere.

The sectarian divergence between Thailand and Cambodia — Theravāda vs. Mahayana— adds nuance to territorial and cultural disputes like the Preah Vihear Temple, whose iconography and inheritance clearly align more with Cambodian history.

These are not just archaeological debates. They’re about cultural legitimacy, historical continuity, and civilizational memory.

In such moments, India, that is Bharat, must not remain a bystander. As the civilizational fountainhead, it should be playing a constructive role in cultural mediation and soft power diplomacy.