ABSTRACT
The term “Protoclassic” calls attention to the nature of the sources which become available at this time, and their fragmentary nature. Whereas for the period older than 2,000 years we are limited to artifacts and evidence of ritual behavior expressed in burials, at the beginning of the Common Era we begin to obtain written sources. The first verbal accounts of Seasia come from foreign sources which have
been rewritten during subsequent centuries, so that they are difficult to interpret. Between 2,000 and
1,400 years ago some sources written by Seasians come available, but only in the seventh century ce is there enough of it to yield a glimmer of Seasian thought. The first six centuries of the Common Era are
marked by the appropriation of icons imported from India. The first statues and architectural forms were
imported relatively intact, but by the seventh century Seasians began to make these icons their own; they discovered how to use imported script, language, and iconography to express local ideas which retained their coherence and became more clearly defined by linguistic and artistic vocabulary from India.
