quality:corruption, structural:expansion
Southeast Asia

Shaivism arrived in a major way in southeast Asia from south India, and to much lesser extent into China and Tibet from the Himalayan region. It co-developed with Buddhism in this region, in many cases. For example, in the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, a few caves include Shaivism ideas. The epigraphical and cave arts evidence suggest that Shaiva Mahesvara and Mahayana Buddhism had arrived in Indo-China region in the Funan period, that is in the first half of the 1st millennium CE. In Indonesia, temples at archaeological sites and numerous inscription evidence dated to the early period (400 to 700 CE), suggest that Shiva was the highest god. This co-existence of Shaivism and Buddhism in Java continued through about 1500 CE when both Hinduism and Buddhism were replaced with Islam, and persists today in the province of Bali.

The Shaivist and Buddhist traditions overlapped significantly in southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia, Cambodia, and Vietnam between the 5th and the 15th century. Shaivism and Shiva held the paramount position in ancient Java, Sumatra, Bali, and neighboring islands, though the sub-tradition that developed creatively integrated more ancient beliefs that pre-existed. In the centuries that followed, the merchants and monks who arrived in Southeast Asia, brought Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Buddhism, and these developed into a syncretic, mutually supporting form of traditions.