Silambam Asia where silambam greatly influenced many fighting systems. The Indian community of the Malay Peninsula is known to have practiced silambam as far back as the period of Melaka's founding in the 15th century, and likely much earlier. The soldiers of Kings Puli Thevar, Dheeran Chinnamalai had Silambam army named "thadii pattalam", Veerapandiya Kattabomman and Maruthu Pandiyar (1760–1799) relied mainly on their Silambam prowess in their warfare against the British Army. Indian martial arts suffered a decline after the British colonists banned Silambam along with various other systems. They also introduced modern western military training which favoured fire-arms over traditional
Musti-yuddha sphere including Muay Thai in Thailand, Muay Lao in Laos, Pradal Serey in Cambodia and Lethwei in Myanmar. Various types of boxing existed in ancient India. The earliest references to musti-yuddha come from classical Vedic epics such as the "Ramayana" and "Rig Veda". The "Mahabharata" describes two combatants boxing with clenched fists and fighting with kicks, finger strikes, knee strikes and headbutts. Duels ("niyuddham") were often fought to the death. During the period of the Western Satraps, the ruler Rudradaman - in addition to being well-versed in "the great sciences" which included Indian classical music, Sanskrit grammar, and logic -