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11.  A  Short  History  of  Indonesia    

Mandalas  of  Power  and  Influence      

WC  4040    Around  the  year  400  AD  Mulavarman  gave  thousands  of  cattle1,  something  called  a  “wonder  tree”,  and  a  grant  of  land  to  Brahmin  priests  who  had  consecrated  him  and  bestowed  the  title  “lord  of  kings”.  This  “lord  of  kings”  ruled  over  a  kingdom  on  the  Mahakam  River  near  Kutei  in  Kalimantan.  The    

momentous  occasion  was  recorded  on  seven  stone  sacrificial  posts  or  stele.  These  are  the  first  written  records  we  have  of  events  in  Indonesia  and  thus  mark  the  transition  from  pre-­‐history  to  history.    A  “yupa”  or  “prasasti”  of  Mulavarman  c.400  AD  Kutei2  

 The  inscriptions  are  significant  in  other  ways  too,  foremost  among  which  is  that  this  is  the  earliest  evidence  of  Indian  cultural  influence  upon  Indonesia,  a  topic  we  will  be  discussing  in  greater  detail  shortly.  These  inscriptions  are  also  significant  in  that  they  demonstrate  the  evolution  of  this  

kingdom  over  three  generations:  Mulavarman  took  the  title  of  “lord  of  kings”  but  his  father  Asvavarman,  was  only  the  “founder  of  a  noble  race”  while  Mulavarman’s  grandfather,  Kundungga,  had  been  a  more  lowly  tribal  chief  or  mere  “lord  of  men”.  Since  it  seems  the  grandfather  retained  his  Indonesian  name,  it  must  have  been  Asvavarman  who  first  adopted  Hindu  beliefs3.    It  is  also  noteworthy  that  the  gifts  recorded  on  the  posts  ⎯  here  called  yupa  but  more  commonly  known  at  a  later  time  as  prasasti  ⎯  are  only  part  of  a  transaction.  The  other  part,  of  course,  was  the  performance  by  the  twice  born4  of  religious  rituals  which  consecrated  Mulavarman,  conferred  titles  on  him  and  endowed  him  with  great  religious  power.  Such  a  procedure,  common  throughout  the  Hindu-­‐Java  era,  followed  an  ancient  Indian  tradition  known  as  the  dharmasastra  (or  law  of  gift)  which  is  frequently  demonstrated  in  the  great  Indian  epic,  the  Mahabharata.  Perhaps  more  interesting  is  that  this                                                                                                  1 This seems a huge number but is stated in de Casparis, JG and Mabbet, IW: “Religion and Popular Beliefs of Southeast Asia before 1500 AD”, The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, Volume I – From early Times to c. 1500, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 305 2 Museum Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia 3van Naerssen, FH: “The Economic and Administrative History of Early Indonesia” in Handbuch der Orientalistik, EJ Brill, Leiden/Köln 1977, p. 18 4 The term used on the inscriptions ⎯ it refers to the men’s “re-birth” as Brahmins.

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ancient  Hindu  tradition  can  be  traced  back  to  even  earlier  Austro-­‐Asiatic  cultures  from  which  both  Indian  and  Indonesian  are  ultimately  derived5.    Map  of  Southeast  Asia.  Note  the  position  of  the  Makassar  Straits  in  relation  to  Java  and  Sumatra.  

 There  are  no  dates  on  these  “sacrificial  posts”  but  the  inscriptions  are  written  in  Sanskrit  in  the  Pallava  script  which  itself  can  be  dated  to  this  period.  This  script  evolved  in  southern  India  during  the  Dravidian  Pallava  dynasty  

which  ruled  the  northern  part  of  Tamil-­‐Nadu  and  Andhra  Pradesh  from  about  3rd  to  5th  Centuries  AD6.  They  were  finally  defeated  by  the  Chola  kings  in  the  8th  Century.  

 An  example  of  Pallava  script  from  India.  

 While  the  stones  have  remained  to  tell  us  about  the  gifts  and  glorious  titles  of  

Mulavarman,  little  else  is  known  of  him  or  his  dynasty.  While  the  yupa  say  he  defeated  his  enemies  in  battle  (and  hence  became  a  lord  of  other  kings  in  the  region)  history  has  nothing  further  to  say  about  him  except  that  his  kingdom  was  somewhere  near  the  Mahakam  River  where  it  empties  into  the  Makassar  Straits.  Mulavarman’s  kingdom  probably  faded  from  history  because  other  parts  of  Indonesia,  specifically  Sumatra  and  Java  grew  to  control  the  shipping  lanes  and  consequently  re-­‐directed  trade  from  India  into  their  own  ports.      The  trading  routes  of  that  era  were  largely  those  that  brought  Indian  goods  to  Southeast  Asia  and  returned  local  produce  to  India.  Although  as  we  have  seen,  China  has  played  an  important  role  in  the  pre-­‐history  of  Southeast  Asia  for  as  long  as  there  have  been  people  there,  during  this  period  trade  was  not  extensive  with  China.  Professor  van  Naerssen7  concluded  that:    

As  late  as  the  third  century  the  foreign  trade  of  western  Indonesia  did  not  extend  beyond  India  and  Ceylon.  Western  Indonesia  was  not  yet  trading  with  China:  only  an  Indonesian  trade  with  India  existed.  “The  fifth  century  was  a  time  when  western  Indonesian  commerce  made  a  leap  forward,  benefitting  from  developments  outside  Indonesia  itself  by  putting  indigenous  seamanship  to  good  use8.”  The  regions  engaged  in  this  foreign  

                                                                                               5 van Naerssen, FH, Op. cit. p. 19 6 They date originally from 275 AD but their greatest epoch was near their end, in the 7th and 8th Centuries. 7 van Naerssen, FH, Op. cit. p. 21 8 The quote is from Wolters, 1967, p.158.

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trade  were  South  Sumatra  and  West  Java;  the  kingdoms  mentioned  by  Chinese  authors  were  Kan-­t’o-­li,  predecessor  of  the  empire  of  Srivijaya  and  in  West  Java  Ho-­lo-­tan.  Here  was  the  favoured  commercial  coast  of  western  Indonesia.  

   Salakanagara    In  1677  AD  Prince  Wangsakerta  in  Cirebon  called  together  a  symposium  of  experts  who  compiled  Pustaka  Rayja-­rayja  i  Bhumi  Nusantara.  It  says  that  the  first  kingdom  in  Java  was  one  called  Salakanagara  and  that  it  was  established  in  the  Year  52  Saka  or  130/131  AD.  Although  the  exact  location  is  not  known,  it  is  probable  Salakanagara  was  in  the  vicinity  of  present-­‐day  Merak.  Historians  believe  this  was  the  city  mentioned  by  Ptomemy  of  Alexandria  (87-­‐150  AD)  in  his  Geographike  Hypergesis.  It  is  also  mentioned  in  Chinese  records  of  the  time.    Tarumanagara  The  earliest  known  contemporary  record  in  Java  are  four  prasasti  of  Purnavarman,  king  of  Taruma  nagara.  Like  the  yupa  of  Mulavarman  in  Kalimantan,  these  inscriptions  are  written  in  Pallavi  but  on  this  occasion,  they  date  to  about  half  a  century  later9  ⎯  that  is,  to  the  mid-­‐5th  Century  AD.      

   (l)  prasasti  tapak  gajah  purnawarman  ⎯  the  Elephant’s  footprints  of  Purnavarman10  and  (r)    prasasti  ciarteun  –  note  the  footprints  on  top  of  the  stone.  

           

Three  of  the  prasasti  were  found  near  Bogor,  south  of  Jakarta.  On  two  of  these  footprints  are  carved  ⎯  of  the  illustrious  Purnavarman  who  once  ruled  at  Taruma  ⎯  and  on  another,  the  footprints  of  an  elephant  of  the  lord  of  Taruma.      

The  fourth  stone  records  how  Purnavarman  altered  the  course  of  a  river  and  gave  the  Brahmins  100  cows  for  their  part  in  celebrating  the  occasion.    

                                                                                               9 van Naerssen, op.cit. p. 23 10  Photos  by  maskur  ridwan:  http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/3754783.jpg  and  http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3755396      

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 A  Prasasti  of  Purnavarman,  king  of  Tarumanagara,    Tugu  sub-­district  of  Jakarta.  

 One  scholar  commented  that  these  inscriptions      

….bear  ample  testimony  to  a  very  high  degree  of  civilization  in  West  Java  during  the  fifth  century  of  our  era  –  a  civilization  which  is  strongly  marked  by  Indo-­Aryan  influence  from  the  mainland  of  India11.  

   

More  is  known  about  Purnavarman  than  Mulavarman.  For  example,  we  know  he  was  the  third  of  his  dynasty  to  reign,  the  founding  father  being  Rajadirajaguru  Jayasingawarman  [Raja  di  raja  guru  Jaya  singa  warman]  who  ruled  from  358  to  382  AD.  He  was  succeeded  by  Dharmayawarman  [Dharma  ya  warman]  382-­‐395  and  then  Purnavarman  whose  long  reign  extended  from  395  to  434  AD.  According  to  the  book  Nusantara12,  Purnavarman  controlled  48  small  kingdoms.  We  also  learn  of  Taruma  Nagara  from  Chinese  sources  which  record  trade  and  diplomatic  relations  in  the  lands  between  China  and  India  and  more  particularly,  from  the  Buddhist  monk  Fa  Xian  who  stayed  on  

the  island  of  Yavadi  (Java)  for  6  months  from  December  412  to  May  413.  In  his  book  fo-­kuo-­chi  which  was  written  in  414  AD,  Fa  Xian  says  that  little  was  known  there  about  the  Lord  Buddha  but  the  Brahmins  and  heretics  flourished.  Purnavarman  was  also  mentioned  in  the  annals  of  the  Sung  dynasty  because  he  had  sent  a  diplomatic  mission  to  China  in  435  AD,  the  year  after  the  great  king  died.    

Funan  and  Foreign  Trade  Although  it  is  clear  India  and  China  enjoyed  active  trade  relations  long  into  antiquity,  there  was  relatively  little  trade  between  the  Indonesian  islands  and  China  before  the  Sung  dynasty  (960  –  1279  AD).  In  contrast,  trade  between  

                                                                                               11 Vogel (1925) quoted by van Naerssen, op. cit. p23 12 Nusantara means (a) those islands of the Archipelago not yet conquered by Madjapahit or (b) the whole of Indonesia in modern times. As for (a), it is said the great general and prime minister of Madjapahit, Gadja Mada, vowed to “eat no spice” until he had conquered the whole of Nusantara (see Negarakertagama and later Pararaton). Usage (b) was coined by Ernest Francois Eugene Douwes Dekker in his 1920 book in which he tried to write a history of Indonesia without using Indian words.

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the  Indonesian  islands  and  India  was  extensive  and  date  back  to  the  Neolithic  age  in  the  archipelago.      

Sanskrit  and  Tamil  literary  references  to  Southeast  Asia  may  go  back  as  far  as  the  third  century  BC…  By  AD  70  there  is  evidence  that  cloves  from  the  Moluccas  were  reaching  Rome…  Between  the  first  and  fifth  centuries  AD  a  number  of  small  indigenous  trading  “states”  (or  emporia)  developed  in  southern  Indochina  and  in  the  northern  part  of  the  Malay  Peninsula…13  

 It  seems  that  rather  than  take  the  1600  km  voyage  through  the  Straits  of  Malacca  and  round  the  Malay  Peninsula,  the  earliest  traders  preferred  to  ship  their  goods  across  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  off-­‐load  them  at  the  Isthmus  of  Kra,  carry  them  overland  and  then  take  ship  again  across  the  Gulf  of  Thailand  to  an  entrepôt  in  the  Mekong  Delta.  The  first  such  entrepôt  was  founded  in  the  1st  Century  AD  at  Vyadhapura  (City  of  the  Hunter  –  now  thought  to  be  have  been  the  site  of  Angkor  Borei  we  will  mention  later)  which  was  near  modern  Banam  in  southern  Cambodia,  but  later  transferred  to  Oc  Eo  in  southern  Vietnam.  This  was  probably  strategically  better  situated  but  more  importantly,  the  region  was  capable  of  producing  the  huge  quantities  of  rice  needed  to  supply  the  traders  and  the  ships  which  came  to  the  city.  As  we  will  see  later,  even  the  great  maritime  empire  of  Madjapahit  had  its  centre  where  it  did  (ie,  Trowulan)  because  this  controlled  the  great  rice  bowl  of  Java  and  could  therefore  provision  the  ships  and  support  the  traders  who  did  business  with  it.      Although  Funan  rice  farmers  originally  depended  on  the  flooding  of  the  river,  

eventually  an  extensive  irrigation  system  developed.  This  was  a  system  of  canals  so  large  that  it  connected  the  coastal  settlements  to  those  in  region  of  Ankor  Borei  ⎯  or  Vyadhapura,  the  original  entrepôt  and  old  capital  ⎯  a  distance  of  over  90  km.  This  was  so  central  to  the  well-­‐being  of  the  economy  that  that  it  must  have  demanded  a  very  well  organised  and  efficient  government.      Temple  remains  at  Ankor  Borei14  

 The  volume  of  rice  and  other  provisions  it  could  supply  was  so  important  to  the  success  of  Oc  Eo  because  ships  in  those  days  often  had  to  wait  in  

                                                                                               13 I have omitted the references. See the original – Bellwood, P: Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago. Revised ed. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1997 – Ch. Nine: “The Early metal Phase: A Protohistoric Transition toward Supra-Tribal Societies”, epress.anu.edu.au/pima/pdf/ch09.pdf 14 Photo: Kazuo Iwase,

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port  for  anything  up  to  five  months  until  the  monsoon  winds  changed  direction  and  allowed  them  to  proceed  on  the  second  leg  of  their  journey.  Given  that  many  of  the  traders  and  sailors  waiting  in  port  for  the  shift  in  the  winds  were  from  India,  it  is  not  surprising  that  their  culture  began  to  rub  off  on  the  local  residents,  particularly  the  ruling  élite,  creating  a  culture  change  which  was  the  beginning  of  what  some  historians  have  called  the  Indianisation  or  hinduization  of  Southeast  Asia15.  Perhaps  legitimising  this  change  is  a  myth  of  origin  which  says  that  Funan  was  founded  when  a  local  princess  raided  a  ship  carrying  an  Indian  prince  called  Kaundinya  ⎯  the  region  has  always  been  famous  for  pirates  ⎯  but  she  fell  in  love  and  married  Kaundinya  and  between  them  they  found  befriending  ships  rather  than  raiding  them  paid  better  dividends.    Funan  was  the  first  of  the  “tiger”  economies  of  Southeast  Asia,  not  only  growing  rich  on  the  proceeds  of  trade  and  agriculture,  but  because  it  was  run  efficiently  by  an  extensive  bureaucracy  which  apparently  employed  Indians  as  its  administrators.  Not  surprisingly  therefore  Funan  adopted  Sanskrit  as  the  language  of  the  court  which  also  adopted  first  Hindu  and  later  ⎯  after  the  5th  Century  AD  ⎯  Buddhist  religious  beliefs  and  practices.  Taxes  were  collected  in  kind,  in  gold,  silver,  pearls  and  perfumed  woods.  Justice  was  of  the  trial  by  ordeal  kind,  accused  persons  being  required  to  carry  red-­‐hot  iron  chains  or  snatch  gold  rings  or  eggs  from  boiling  water.  The  Funanese  had  slaves  but,  on  the  lighter  side,  they  also  developed  music  melliferous  enough  to  impress  the  Chinese  emperor  when  he  heard  a  visiting  Funanese  orchestra  and  they  had  an  extensive  system  of  libraries  and  archives.      Although  the  language  and  ethnic  origins  of  the  people  of  Funan  are  unknown,  Funan  is  presumed  to  have  been  the  first  of  the  Khmer  kingdoms.  This  presumption  rests  mainly  on  the  myth  of  origin,  of  the  pirate  queen  and  Kaudinya  mentioned  earlier,  a  myth  which  is  shared  by  the  Khmer  kingdom  of  Chenla  which  in  the  period  eventually  defeated  and  absorbed  Funan.      Chenla  originally  had  its  capital  at  Shreshthapura  located  in  modern  day  southern  Laos  but  from  about  550  AD  it  was  a  vassal  of  Funan.  However,  60  or  so  years  later  it  rebelled.  Led  by  its  most  famous  king,  Ishanavarman,  by  sometime  between  612  and  628  AD  Chenla  had  not  only  defeated  its  former  master  but  proceeded  to  absorb  the  whole  of  Funan,  the  people,  the  economy  and  the  culture  into  its  own.  Of  course,  Chenla  itself  was  eventually  transformed  by  Jayavarman  II  into  a  kingdom  called  Kambuja  (790  AD)  which  later  became  the  much  more  famous  Angkor.  Jayavarman  in  his  early  life  had  

                                                                                               15 The best-known of whom was G. Coedès: Les États hindouisés d’Indochine et d’Indonesie, 1964 (the original under a slightly different title was published in 1944; translated as The Indianized States of Southeast Asia by Susan Brown Cowing, 1968)

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lived  as  a  prince  ⎯  perhaps  as  a  hostage  ⎯  at  the  court  of  the  Sailendras  in  Java,  the  history  of  which  we  will  look  at  later.  However,  in  802  AD  Jayavarman  II  undertook  a  Hindu  ritual  and  became  Chakravartin  which  established  him  as  a  divinely  appointed  king  and  free  of  the  rule  of  Java.  He  died  in  834  and  was  succeeded  by  Indravarman  who  greatly  extended  the  kingdom  and  undertook  many  projects  including  building  temples  and  irrigation  works.  In  turn,  Indravarman  was  succeeded  in  889  AD  by  Yasovarman  I  who  built  the  first  city  of  Angkor  and  the  East  Baray,  the  gigantic  water  reservoir  which  in  its  day  held  50  million  cubic  meters  of  water.  While  some  scholars  still  hold  the  purpose  of  this  artificial  lake  was  to  hold  water  for  the  irrigation  canals  on  which  the  people  depended  for  their  rice  production,  modern  thought  is  swinging  in  the  direction  that  the  purpose  

was  purely  symbolic,  representing  to  the  people  the  seas  which  surrounded  Mount  Meru  on  which  the  Hindu  gods  were  believed  to  dwell.  Today  the  monumental  construction  is  bone  dry  and  farmers  cultivate  its  dry  bed.  Nonetheless,  its  outline  ⎯  like  the  great  Wall  of  China  ⎯  can  be  seen  from  space.    East  Baray  June  200916  

 Funan  was  probably  at  the  peak  of  its  powers  in  the  4th  Century  and  had  faded  away  by  the  end  of  the  7th  Century.  Its  fall  had  many  causes  but  paramount  was  the  development  of  better  ships  and  new  sailing  skills  which  in  turn  meant  that  Indian  and  other  traders  from  the  West  no  longer  needed  to  rely  on  portage  of  their  goods  across  the  Isthmus  of  Kra  but  instead  could  sail  the  long  way  round,  through  the  Straits  of  Malacca.  Even  during  the  hey-­‐day  of  Funan,  several  ports  east  of  the  Malay  Peninsula  and  in  the  Sunda  Straits17  had  been  trading  direct  with  India  as  well  as  with  Funan.  Indonesian  sailors  had  also  long  been  introducing  local  products  into  the  international  markets.  Originally  Indian  and  Chinese  traders  were  interested  only  in  what  each  could  exchange  with  the  other,  but  gradually  they  found  value  in  Indonesian  substitutes  for  sought-­‐after  products:  for  example,  Sumatran  pine  resin  and  benzoin  gradually  replaced  the  more  expensive  frankincense  and  myrrh.  Eventually,  demand  for  other  products  such  as  sandalwood  from  Timor,  camphor  from  Sumatra  and  of  course,  spices  from  the  Moluccas  began  to  

                                                                                               16 Photo: John, http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/hRK3cAv2kagsuRiZoNlGYw 17 The Sunda Straits are between western Java and southern Sumatra.

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focus  attention  directly  on  the  Indonesian  ports  as  trading  destinations  in  their  own  right.    The  first  and  the  most  long-­‐lived  of  all  the  Indonesian  kingdoms  to  emerge  was  Srivijaya,  a  maritime  power  we  will  look  at  in  the  next  Unit.  However,  before  proceeding,  there  are  two  issues  we  need  to  examine  briefly  because  they  affect  how  we  understand  the  centres  of  power  which  form  the  subject  of  the  next  section  of  this  course.  These  issues  are  (a)  what  do  we  understand  by  “kingdom”  in  Southeast  Asia  and  the  Indonesian  archipelago  in  particular;  and  (b)  to  what  extent  were  these  cultures  “hinduized”  and  how  did  it  happen?    The  Mandalas  of  Power  Up  to  this  stage  I  have  been  referring  to  “kings”  and  “kingdoms”  but  historians  warn  these  terms  are  misleading  when  used  in  the  Southeast  Asian  context.  Much  is  lost  in  the  translation,  first  because  kings  and  kingdoms  were  

in  many  ways  different  from  the  European  model  we  have  in  our  heads,  and  second,  because  we  underestimate  the  strength  of  the  religious  component  of  “kingship”.    Buddhist  monk  creating  a  sand  mandala18  

 Some  historians  have  suggested  the  word  mandala  be  used  instead  of  kingdom  in  order  to  avoid  any  

confusion.  The  word  itself  comes  from  the  Sanskrit  meaning  a  circle,  the  circumference  of  a  circle  or  completion  but  it  implies  much  more  than  a  simple  circle.  It  is  a  pattern,  a  constellation  which  variously  has  been  used  to  represent  the  cosmos,  the  unity  of  life  and  even  the  unconscious  self19.  Perhaps  the  best-­‐known  mandalas  are  those  made  from  coloured  sand  by  Tibetan  monks.    To  call  a  Southeast  Asian  kingdom  a  mandala,  argues  Martin  Stuart-­‐Fox20,  professor  of  history  at  the  University  of  Queensland…    

 ….is  to  draw  attention,  metaphorically,  to  relations  of  power  that  connected  the  periphery  to  the  centre.  The  mandalas  of  Southeast  Asia  were  constellations  of  power,  whose  extent  varied  in  relation  to  the  

                                                                                               18 http://www.clemson.edu/newsroom/articles/2008/march/IAW2008.php5 19 Carl Jung used it as a representation of the unconscious self 20 Stuart-Fox, M: A Short History of China and Southeast Asia ⎯ Tribute, Trade and Influence, Allen and Unwin 2003.

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attraction  of  the  centre.  They  were  not  states  whose  administrative  control  reached  to  defined  frontiers.  Power  diminished  with  distance  from  the  centre,  frontiers  fluctuated,  and  relations  with  neighbouring  mandalas  tended  to  be  antagonistic,  as  each  attempted  to  expand  at  the  other’s  expense21.    

 So,  for  example,  Stuart-­‐Fox  suggests  we  should  not  think  of  Funan  as  a      

…centralised  kingdom  extending  from  southern  Vietnam  all  the  way  round  to  the  Kra  Isthmus,  but  rather  as  a  mandala,  the  power  of  whose  capital  in  southeastern  Cambodia  waxed  and  waned,  and  whose  armed  merchant  ships  succeeded  in  enforcing  its  temporary  suzerainty  over  small  coastal  trading  ports  around  the  Gulf  of  Thailand.  What  gave  Funan  the  edge  over  others  such  centres  of  power  was  clearly  its  position  astride  the  India-­China  trade  route.  Its  power,  however,  is  unlikely  to  have  spread  further  inland.  Further  north,  on  the  middle  Mekong  and  on  the  lower  Chao  Phraya  River,  other  centres  were  establishing  themselves  that  in  time  would  challenge  and  replace  Funan22.  

 Religion  and  kingship  were  inextricably  intertwined  in  Southeast  Asia.  As  we  saw  earlier,  the  so-­‐called  Big  Men  had  attributed  to  them      

…an  abnormal  amount  of  personal  and  innate  “soul  stuff”,  which  explained  and  distinguished  their  performance  from  that  of  others  in  their  generation  and  especially  among  their  own  kinsmen.23  

   Given  the  cognatic  kinship  system  of  Southeast  Asia,  in  which  descent  was  reckoned  through  both  sides  of  the  family,  this  “soul  stuff”  was  not  so  much  inherited  but  something  more  akin  to  a  gift  of  the  gods.  If  ancestry  had  anything  to  do  with  a  person’s  importance  it  was  not  whose  son  or  daughter  he  or  she  happened  to  be  but  rather  how  many  outstanding  ancestors  there  were  in  the  history  of  the  extended  family.  Most  importantly,  when  these  Big  Men  died,  they  were  recognised  as  Ancestors  who  in  life  had  brought  benefits  to  their  community  and,  by  extrapolation,  would  therefore  continue  to  do  so  in  the  After-­‐Life.  As  Wolters  says,  No  special  respect  was  paid  to  mere  forebears  in  societies  which  practised  cognatic  kinship.  Ancestor  status  had  to  be  earned.  And  he  added,  Sites  associated  with  the  Ancestors,  such  as  mountains,  supplied  additional  identity  to  the  settlement  areas.24    

                                                                                               21 Ibid, p. 29 22 Ibid., pp29-30. 23 Wolters, OW: History, “Culture, and Region in Southeast Asian Perspectives”, Studies on Southeast Asia, Vol 26 – Revised edition in cooperation with the ISEAS. p. 18 24 Ibid. p 19.

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Leaders  who  did  great  deeds  ⎯  won  wars,  donated  land,  built  temples  ⎯  probably  anticipated  that  they  could  become  Ancestors  and  so  in  their  lifetimes  attributed  their  successes  to  divine  forces  and  chose  their  burial  sites  with  an  eye  to  these  becoming  shrines  and  places  of  pilgrimage  in  the  future.  Thus,  in  802  AD,  for  example,  the  Cambodian  king  Jayavarman  II  inaugurated  a  cult  known  as  devaraja  on  Mount  Mahendra.  This  identified  him  with  the  god  Siva  who  was  king  of  the  gods  just  as  he,  Jayavarman  was  king  of  men.  It  also  established  him  as  cakravartin  or  universal  king  who,  long  after  his  death  could  lend  spiritual  power  to  future  rulers  of  Cambodia  and  thereby  protect  the  realm  from  warring  factions.    Although  we  in  the  West  remember  the  divine  right  of  kings  in  European  history,  the  notion  of  god-­‐king  is  very  foreign  to  us.  In  fact,  in  all  three  of  the  Abrahamic  religions  ⎯  Islam,  Judaism  and  Christianity  ⎯  the  very  thought  is  blasphemous  and  the  idea  of  a  king  being  absorbed  as  it  were  into  the  identity  of  a  god  is  unthinkable.  However,  emperors  of  Rome  were  deified  after  their  deaths  and  even  Antinöus,  the  young  lover  of  the  Emperor  Claudius,  was  deified  after  he  drowned  in  the  Nile  and  worshipped  thereafter  for  several  centuries  conflated  with  the  Egyptian  god  Osiris  and  for  a  time  in  Antinopolus,  even  with  Jesus.      The  notion  however  was  part  of  the  currency  of  kingship  in  Southeast  Asia.  When  Indian  religious  practises  were  first  brought  to  the  region  they  were  organised  around  cults  of  Siva  and  ⎯  less  often  ⎯  Vishnu.  Various  teacher-­‐inspired  sects  also  existed  in  which  the  gurus  taught  that  by  way  of  ascetic  practices  and  the  pious  cultivation  of  his  mind  ⎯  meditation  ⎯  an  individual  could  enter  into  a  close  relationship  with  a  particular  god.  In  the  case  of  kings,  several  close  relationships  of  the  divine  kind  included  being  a  portion  of  Siva  or  participating  in  his  divine  energy.25  This  meant  that  the  king  participated  in  Siva’s  divine  authority  and  consequently,  his  personal  authority  was  absolute.  Further,  since  obeying  the  king  became  in  effect  an  act  of  homage  to  Siva,  obedience  to  the  king  was  one  way  his  subjects  could  enter  into  a  closer  relationship  for  themselves  with  the  god.    

“Kingship”,  signified  by  the  personal  Siva  cult  of  the  man  who  had  seized  the  overlordship  and  not  by  territorially-­defined  “kingdoms”,  was  the  reality  that  emerged  from  the  “Hinduizing”  process,  but  this  does  not  mean  that  widely  extending  territorial  relations  were  not  possible.  On  the  contrary,  there  need  be  no  limit  to  a  ruler’s  sovereign  claims  on  earth26.  

 

                                                                                               25 Ibid p. 22. 26 Ibid p. 22.

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The  Hinduized  states  of  Southeast  Asia  One  of  the  greatest  of  the  pre-­‐historians  of  Southeast  Asia  was  George  Coedès.  Born  in  Paris  in  1886,  he  moved  to  Thailand  in  1918  when  he  was  appointed  director  of  the  National  Library.  In  1929  he  became  the  director  of  L'École  française  d'Extrême-­‐Orient  in  Hanoi  where  he  had  studied  as  a  younger  man.  Coedès  served  there  until  his  retirement  in  1946  after  which  he  returned  to  Paris  as  Professor  of  Southeast  Asian  History  at  L'Ecole  des  Langues  Orientales  and  curator  of  the  Musée  d'Ennery  until  his  death  in  1969.  Apart  from  his  many  influential  papers,  Coedès’  two  books27  most  recently  re-­‐published  in  English  translation  in  the  1960s  have  long  been  principal  texts  for  students  of  Southeast  Asian  history.  Of  these,  The  Indianized  States  of  Southeast  Asia  was  first  published  in  1944  and  perhaps  more  than  any  other  in  the  field,  has  influenced  the  way  scholars  have  approached  their  field.    As  it  happens,  after  Coedès’  death,  his  collection  was  bought  by  the  National  Library  of  Australian.  Ann  Nugent,  writing  in  the  Library’s  News  in  1996  summed  up  the  great  man’s  achievements  thus:  

 His  great  legacy  to  scholars  is  his  documentation  of  the  cultural  influence  of  India  in  most  parts  of  Southeast  Asia.  That  influence  brought  Hindu  and  Buddhist  religious  ideas,  the  Indian  concept  of  kingship,  the  use  of  Sanskrit  as  an  official  and  ceremonial  language,  as  well  as  Indian  artistic  traditions  to  the  peoples  of  Southeast  Asia28.    

 Although  one  cannot  diminish  Coedès’s  contribution,  an  unexpected  consequence  of  his  focus  upon  the  influence  of  India  upon  cultures  in  Southeast  Asia  has  been  to  underestimate  the  strength  and  persistence  of  indigenous  cultures.  For  a  time,  scholars  seemed  to  be  conceptualising  Indonesian  kingdoms  (or  mandalas)  as  though  they  were  colonies  of  India.  More  recent  studies  suggest  that  although  Indian  beliefs  and  practices  influenced  the  courts  of  the  island  kingdoms,  the  ordinary  people  were  scarcely  affected  except  perhaps  when  they  were  required  to  participate  in  ceremonies  which  enhanced  the  ruler’s  status  or  were  required  to  assist  in  the  building  of  the  many  temples  rulers  caused  to  be  built  during  their  reign.      There  is  no  evidence  that  Brahmin  priests  or  Buddhist  monks  were  ever  imported  in  any  great  number  into  Java,  for  example,  and  there  is  certainly  no                                                                                                  27 These books are now available as: Les peuples de la peninsule indochinoise, Dunod, Paris (1962) The Making of South East Asia, Routledge and Kegan-Paul, English translation by H. M. Wright. (1966) Les États hindouisés d’Indochine et d’Indonesie, de Boccard, Paris (1964); The Indianized States of Southeast Asia, ANU Press, Canberra, English translation by Susan Brown Cowing, (1968, 1975) 28  Nugent,  A:  “Asia's  french  connection  :  George  Coedes  and  the  Coedes  collection”,      National  Library  of  Australia  News,  6  (4),  January  1996,  pp  6-­‐8.  http://www.nla.gov.au/asian/form/coedes2.html  

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evidence  of  proselytizing.  Furthermore,  although  many  of  the  great  monuments,  such  as  Borobudor  and  Prambanam,  tell  Indian  stories  such  as  the  life  of  Buddha  or  the  Ramayana,  the  people  depicted  in  the  masterful  stone  bas-­‐reliefs  are  Indonesian,  not  Indian  people.  Scholars  nowadays  seem  to  be  leaning  towards  the  view  that  aspects  of  Indian  culture  were  imported  by  rulers  of  local  polities,  often  to  enhance  their  own  status  but  that  these  were  transformed  into  Indonesian  beliefs  and  practices,  sometimes  by  identifying  them  with  indigenous  traditions,  sometimes  by  re-­‐working  them  until  they  fitted  more  comfortably  into  the  local  culture  and  its  values.  That  there  was  Indian  cultural  influence  upon  Indonesia  is  undeniable  but  we  need  be  wary  not  to  over-­‐emphasise  it  despite  Coedès’  catchy  title.      

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