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The impact of ideas and norms on world politics has received a good deal of attention in recent scholarship on international relations. Much of this effort was initially directed at engaging rationalist international relations theory on the causal and transformative impact of ideational forces vis-à-vis power and interest. But after gaining ground in this debate, idea scholars have now turned their attention to studying the process of contestation and specifying the conditions which facilitate or inhibit the institutionalization of ideas. In this task, they are challenged by a number of questions: why do some new or emerging ideas get institutionalized in a particular locale while others do not? Why do different areas of the world show varying receptivity to the same or similar ideas? The available literature on ideas is yet to offer definitive insights into these questions. In this paper, I urge international relations scholars looking for answers to these questions to turn to Southeast Asian historiography and revisit what probably counts as the single most extensive case of pacific spread of ideas in the history of civilization: the transmission of Indian religious and political ideas to Southeast Asia during the precolonial period. These ideas not just abstract ideas about the divine authority and legitimacy of the ruler, but also specific rules of governance and inter-state relations decisively influenced the origins of statehood and the inter-state system in Southeast Asia, yet the process of their transmission was almost entirely peaceful, and was characterized as much by local initiative and adaptation as by the “supply” of ideas through commerce, conquest or cultural entrepreneurship. What was originally viewed to be a passive acceptance by Southeast Asian rulers of foreign, especially Indian, ideas, came to be regarded, thanks to archeological discoveries and scholarly debate, as a matter of proactive and selective borrowing by local rulers seeking to legitimize and empower themselves. Moreover, in the process, Southeast Asian societies adapted and modified a whole range of foreign ideas and rules to suit the local context. This process preserved and in some cases amplified local beliefs and practices while producing significant but evolutionary historical change in the domestic politics and international relations. I use these insights from Southeast Asian historiography to illustrate how active borrowing and localization is fundamental to normative change in world politics and should receive greater attention in constructivist theory. Southeast Asia constitutes an ideal case for understanding the diffusion of ideas in world civilisation. Thanks to its geographic location between two of the largest and