Greater India

.The term Greater India has several related meanings: In medieval literature and geography: the term "Greater India" (P. Indyos mayores) was used at least from the mid 15th century. The term, which seems to have been used with variable precision, sometimes meant only the Indian subcontinent; however, at other times, in some accounts of European nautical voyages, "Greater India" (or "India Major") extended from the Malabar (present-day northern Kerala) to India extra Gangem (lit. "India, beyond the Ganges," but usually the East Indies, i.e. present-day Malay Archipelago) and "India Minor," from Malabar to Sind.In late 19th century Geography: The term "Greater India" included: "(a) Himalaya, (b) Punjab, (c) Hindustan, (d) Burma, (e) Indo-China, (f) Sunda Islands, (g) Borneo, (h) Celebes, and (i) Philippines." (Similarly "Greater Australia" included "(a) West Australla, (b) East Australia, (c) New Zealand, (d) Melanesia, (e) Micronesia, (f) Polynesia.")In 20th century history, art history, linguistics, and allied fields: The term "Greater India," now largely out of favor, consists of "all the Asian lands including Burma, Java, Cambodia, Bali, and the former Champa and Funan polities of present-day Vietnam," in which pre-Islamic Indian culture left an "imprint in the form of monuments, inscriptions and other traces of the historic ‘Indianising’ process." In some accounts, many Pacific societies and "most of the Buddhist world including Ceylon, Tibet, central Asia and even Japan were held to fall within this web of Indianising ‘culture colonies’" This particular usage—implying cultural "sphere of influence" of India—was spurred by the formation of The Greater India Society by a group of Bengali men of letters and does not go back to before the 1920s (lasting well into the 1970s in history and later in other fields).In late-20th- and 21st century geoscience: The term "Greater India," still current, is used to mean "the Indian sub-continent plus a postulated northern extension," in plate tectonic models of the India–Asia collison. Although its usage in geoscience pre-dates plate tectonic theory, the term has seen increased usage since the 1970s.
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