Greater India

Indian Cultural Sphere
Greater India
	Indian cultural extent; Dark orange: The Indian subcontinent (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka); Light orange: Southeast Asia culturally linked to India, notably Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia (except Western New Guinea), Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), Singapore, Champa (presently Bình - Trị - Thiên provinces of North Central Coast, South Central Coast and Central Highlands Vietnam), Funan (presently Southern Vietnam), and Thailand; Yellow: Regions with significant Indian cultural influence, notably the Philippines, Tibet, Yunnan, and historically Iran and Afghanistan
Southeast Asia
Indianized Kingdoms	Angkor, Borobodur, Butuan, Cebu, Champa, Chenla, Dvaravati, Funan, Gangga Negara, Kalingga, Kutai, Langkasuka, Majapahit, Pagan, Pan Pan, Singhasari, Srivijaya, Tarumanagara, Tondo
Theravada Buddhism	Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand
Hinduism	Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Central and Southern Vietnam, Malaysia
South Asia
Theravada Buddhism	Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka
Vajrayana Buddhism	Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet
Hinduism	Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka
Central Asia
Buddhist monasticism	Central Asia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan
	Indosphere · Hindu texts · Buddhist texts · Folklore of India · Ramayana (Versions of Ramayana)

Greater India, also known as the Indian cultural sphere, or the Indic world, is an area composed of many countries and regions in South, East Asia and Southeast Asia that were historically influenced by Indian culture, which itself formed from the various distinct indigenous cultures of these regions. The term Greater India, as a reference to the Indian cultural sphere, was popularised by a network of Bengali scholars in the 1920s. It is an umbrella term encompassing the Indian subcontinent and surrounding countries, which are culturally linked through a diverse cultural cline. These countries have been transformed to varying degrees by the acceptance and introduction of cultural and institutional elements from each other. Since around 500 BCE, Asia's expanding land and maritime trade had resulted in prolonged socio-economic and cultural stimulation and diffusion of Buddhist and Hindu beliefs into the region's cosmology, in particular in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka. In Central Asia, the transmission of ideas was predominantly of a religious nature.

By the early centuries of the common era, most of the principalities of Southeast Asia had effectively absorbed defining aspects of Indian culture, religion, and administration. The notion of divine god-kingship was introduced by the concept of Harihara, and Sanskrit and other Indian epigraphic systems were declared official, like those of the south Indian Pallava dynasty and Chalukya dynasty. These Indianized kingdoms, a term coined by George Cœdès in his work Histoire ancienne des états hindouisés d'Extrême-Orient, were characterized by resilience, political integrity, and administrative stability.

To the north, Indian religious ideas were assimilated into the cosmology of Himalayan peoples, most profoundly in Tibet and Bhutan, and merged with indigenous traditions. Buddhist monasticism extended into Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and other parts of Central Asia, and Buddhist texts and ideas were accepted in China and Japan in the east. To the west, Indian culture converged with Greater Persia via the Hindu Kush and the Pamir Mountains.

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