Abhishek Singh Amar
Introduction
The sources for this early relationship
between India and Southeast Asia and the scanty and ambiguous in nature.
South east Asia has been portrayed and referred as the ‘golden island’
or "Golden Peninsula" or Yavadipa or Suvarnadipa in the Indian literature
from the first centuries AD Apart from Ramayana, the Buddhist Jataka fables
also mention about south east Asia. Chinese records provide a satisfactory,
yet still incomplete view of the burgeoning Southeast Asian commerce. In
the last few decades, archaeological excavations at various sites in southeast
Asia has resulted in the yielding of various remains, which presents an
entirely different and new picture of the region. The availability of epigraphic
sources and inscriptions at various places has been of great use in reconstructing
the history of this region. The various categories of inscriptions are
Sanskrit, Tamil and indigenous language inscriptions.
Cultural Dependency?
As far as state-formation is concerned, the maritime
region has been well served partly due to paucity of intractability of
the data, and partly to the fact that most of the scholars dealing with
early history of maritime regions are struggling to produce adequate description
of the states of the later first millenium AD . The reflections of the
Indian ideas, beliefs and religious culture upon the monumental, artistic
and literary remains of the early historic states of south east Asia made
the scholar argue for the colonisation/Indianisation of the region. Coedes
argued that the contact with the Brahmana-Buddhist culture of India resulted
in the formation of the states that were culturally dependent on India.
Mabbett argued for the borrowing of ideology and leadership apart from
the agricultural technology that made possible the establishment of the
first states in the region.
This proposition began to be questioned when scholars
raised the problem of the identity of the Indian incomers and the circumstances
under which they arrived and interacted with the local population. Van
Heur argued that the local populace was active participants in the process,
though he argued that necessary political and social skills for state-building
were acquired from India as these essential ingredients were assumed to
be missing in local societies. He argued that the local rulers, having
learned of Indian culture through interaction with Indians on the maritime
route, recognized the advantages of certain elements of Indian civilization
and drew from the Indian tradition for their own benefit.
O. W. Wolters stressed the idea of a mutual sharing
process in the evolution of Indianised statecraft in Southeast Asia. The
initial contact with the knowledge of Indian cultural tradition came through
the south East Asian sailors. The local-rulers, recognizing the fact that
Indian culture provided certain opportunities for administrative and technological
advantages vis-à-vis their rivals, followed up on these contacts.
Thus the initiative was south east Asian, not Indian, and it was a slow
process of cultural synthesis rather than Indianisation made possible by
the imposition of Hinduism by the influx of the Brahmanas. He continues
that southeast Asian region was characterized by the tribal societies,
ruled by chiefs and thus, there was no indigenous sense of kingdom and
its supra-territorial demands of loyalty among the south east Asians themselves.
The rulers/chiefs rather than developing state institutions initiated religious
cults to command over the native population.
Der Casparis argued against this proposition of Indianisation
and its continuity from early centuries of the Christian era to the later
times as first contact was made in the peripheral areas which lacked continuity
to central areas (east Kalimantan & 8th century Mataram).
He substituted the proposition by a complicated network of relations, both
between various parts of each of the two great regions and between the
two regions themselves. Apart from south India, Northeastern India (Bengal,
Bizarre and Orrin) also played an important part and at time, predominated
in some regions. Same is the case with Southeast Asia.
Kulke proposed ‘convergence hypothesis’ to highlight
the relative lateness of state-formation in the eastern and southern portions
of Indian subcontinent with which south east Asia had the most contact.
He points out that the convergence is well demonstrated in the beginning
of temple construction in Java within decades of its inception in south
India.
Paul Wheatly argued that the early southeast Asian
society was marked by chiefdom, among whom the instrumental exchanges characteristic
of a reciprocative mode of integration dominated. Entrepreneurial advances
associated with developing commerce created social imbalances as ‘redistributive
exchange’ system emerged-(Funan’s case). He holds that several southeast
Asian societies developed into ‘mobilisative sectors’ economics, which
developed organizational mechanisms for the acquisition, control and disposal
of resources in pursuit of collective goals (generally political) and impersonalism
took hold. This led to the development of state-institutions and transformation
of chiefs into rulers. The process is detailed but what leads to such changes
has not been discussed by Wheatly, as there exist changing views concerning
the nature of early exchange. The important point on his suggestions concerning
the potential destabilizing effects of partial borrowings of economic and
political institutions from other cultures, which may be expected to provoke
continuing change with the recipient cultures until a new equilibrium can
be established.
Trade & State Formation
The importance of trade in political developments
and the possibility of archaeological recovery of the phase of transition
from lower to higher levels of political integration through study of evidence
from changing trade patterns have begun to be exposed in maritime south
east Asia. Archaeological sources have supported the argument that long-distance
sea trade itself played a key role in stimulating political development
which eventually led to the formation of state. J.W. Christie divides the
maritime Southeast Asia into three distinct groupings. The first grouping
covers the end of the pre-historic period in the maritime region (5th
century BC to 5th century AD), the archaeological remains of
which includes megalithic burial sites, inhumation, hoards, boat fragments
and settlement sites. The second grouping comprises several set of early
inscriptions on stone found in the region, a few other archaeological remains
and some other vague references in Chinese records, dating 5th
and 6th centuries AD The third grouping dates 7th
to 8th centuries AD , and comprises further collections of inscriptions,
some rather more reliable Chinese and a number of monumental structures
and structural remains assumed to have been produced during this period.
Now, it is pertinent to discuss the process of state-formation in few parts
of Southeast Asia, as it will help locating the role of indigenous factors/developments.
The two foci of early state-formation in the maritime
Southeast Asia were the Malacca Straits and the southern sea of the Java
shore. These were also the centers of wealth accumulation and trading activities
and shared a number of basic political concepts. Political developments
occurred in the region owing to the response given by the coastal communities
to the same external economic stimuli. The increasing wealth in these two
sub-regions was increasingly concentrated in the hands of politically powerful
elite who exercised some control over prestige-goods economies. Moreover,
the contacts with other regions brought advanced metallurgical techniques
and enhanced resource-base of the region to trade. This expansion of economic
base of a number of trading communities, possibly in conjunction with increased
exposure to more developed political cultures, led to the formation of
a series, first of chiefdoms, and then, of nascent states, on the relevant
coasts of peninsula and the western islands. Same was the case with Funan,
which rose on the account of developed trade and port facilities owing
to strategic location and supported by an agrarian base. K.R. Hall argues
that Funan may be considered as the first south east Asian ‘state’ as it
was an economic center, with an economic base that supported a more sophisticated
level of political integration, and acted as the locus of contact between
various regional and local marketing networks. Thus the pre-existing indigenous
cultural and ethnic diversity were synthesized with external ideology to
create a new systematic higher order cultural base. This is documented
in the growing use of Sanskrit in Funan (Sanskrit inscription of 3rd
century AD), use of Indian vocabulary and technical knowledge.
Thus trade appears to have been key to economic growth
control of trade appears to have provided the key to political development.
Moreover, trade in this region was information maximizing as it carried
a substantial baggage of information and ideas alongwith material commodities.
This suggests that the carriers of most of this trade were members of maritime
Southeast Asian communities rather than outsiders. Here, an important point
to be noted is that none of the communities on the east coast of the Indian
sub-continent or on the mainland of southeast Asia, involved in trade at
this time, belonged to sophisticated or powerful state and all these communities
were in the process of transforming themselves politically. Thus interaction
at this time was on a fairly equal basis. Thus it is evident that in the
early period before 200 BC, the above was the case whereas till 300 AD
the other argument of outside stimuli would have been the case. The economic
stimulation came from India and China, whereas the political and cultural
stimulation of the region was primarily from Indian sub-continent, probably
carried along Buddhist commercial network. The period between 300-600 AD
witnessed several fully formed states in this maritime region. Clear differences
began to develop during this period between coastal trading states of the
Malice straits and the increasingly mixed economy. The coastal trading
states extended the use of Buddhism as a commercial networking religion,
pulling ports of north and west Borneo into their cultural orbit. The elite
groups in the states of the Java sea and their dependencies began to add
elements of Hinduism-with its royal and agrarian overtones-to the already
existing Buddhist cum ‘Megalithic’ cultural mix of the ports, as they began
to attach farming population of the interior to their coastal centers.
Lastly by the 7th-9th century AD, when states in
both the sub-regions began to produce literature in the indigenous language,
it is apparent that the old, small states were being increasingly absorbed
into larger, more complex political entities.
Trade with India
After discussing the process of state-formation in
the Southeast Asian region, owing more to indigenous factors with the restricted
use of Indian elements, it is significant to discuss the trade between
the two regions that brought about this interaction and consequent influences.
K.R. Hall has presented four reasons behind growth of this trade. Firstly,
historians have theorized that gold became difficult to acquire during
this time due to internal disturbances in the central Asian steppe region
and slowing down of flow of Roman gold coins. As a consequence Indian merchants
ventured into Southeast Asia looking for the mythical wealth of the "Islands
of Gold". Secondly, it was due to revolution in boat construction and navigation
techniques, which increased the sizes of the ships and sailing efficiency.
Thirdly, the adequate ideological support provided by Buddhism played a
great role as evident in the distribution of outstanding Dipankara statues
of Buddha throughout southeast Asia. And last reason was the Chinese interest.
Much of the interaction between Indian and maritime southeast Asian economies
were driven by interest in the trade of the South China Sea and the eastern
seas of Indonesia. Thus the Southeast Asian trade was entirely dependent
upon the Indian Ocean and South China Sea.
In the first three centuries of the Christian era,
the trading relation with India is established by the distribution of Roman-Indian
Rouletted pottery at few coasts including north coasts of Java and Bali
and the coast of central Vietnam. In the period between 300-600 AD, Buddhism,
pilgrimage grew which reflects commercial links with India and China.
The Southeast Asian trade is well documented after
7th century AD onwards. The 7th and 8th
century AD witnessed expansion in volume of Asian sea trade involving maritime
southeast, due to Chinese interest and parallel rise in the demand from
the prosperous centers on the east coast of India. The regions which benefited
the most were Javanese State of Ho-ling and Malacca straits port hierarchy
of Srivijaya, which also created a bi-polar pattern of trade networking
in the archipelago. This was followed by a decline of trade in the late
8th and the 9th centuries owing to the disintegration
of the Pallava states in south India. This argument is reinforced not only
by epigraphic data from the peninsula and northeast India, but also by
archaeological evidence that a postage route across Isthmus of Kra was
in use for some decades in that century.
The period between early tenth and the early thirteenth
centuries was marked by an economic boom, benefiting maritime Southeast
Asia the most and it affected sea trade in both the Indian Ocean and the
South China Sea. The dominant economic force in the eastern sector of the
Indian Ocean was the grouping of several south Indian merchant associations
or Banigrama, which operated under the aegis of the expanding Chola Empire.
Trade in southern and eastern India began to benefit from political consolidation
under the Cholas. The maritime trade boom of this period included greater
commercial activity, volumes of trade, range of commodities and the number
of regular participants were far greater and the region directly involved
was far more extensive. The effects on the Indonesian archipelago included
increasing carrier of larger volume, lower value cargoes between islands
as well as a number of technological and agricultural innovations, particularly
in Java and Bali, stimulated by a combination of overseas market opportunities
and domestic market pressures.
The Chola raids on many southeast Asian ports including
Srivijaya itself seems to be more because of the economic interest, rather
than mere expansion of territory. Moreover, the effects of these raids
appear, for the most part, to have been minimal and transitory and soon
Srivijaya grew wealthy. The decline of Srivijaya trade after 1028 AD has
been countered by Christie as one points to a diplomatic decision by Chinese
court to restrict the burgeoning number of trade missions to port areas.
In the context of Kedah conquest, the archaeological remains, though indicate
the presence of Indian pottery; argue that the port population was largely
of local extraction (religious remains) and thus counters the conquest
theory.
In southern India, a series of merchant associations
developed powerful networks and vertical monopolies, from tied manufacturers
to private armies. These are of particular interest in relation to trade
with Sumatra and the Malaya peninsula, and to Javanese ands Balinese responses
to the growth in trade during the same period. During this period (10th
to 13th century AD), there occurred a shift in focus of merchant
associations from the west coasts towards the east, stimulated by increasing
trade with the east, was accompanied by a broadening of the range of commodities
traded (Iron, cotton, textile). The effects on India were developments
in the weaving and dying industries as introduction of the Draw Loom and
of the spinning wheel and revival of coin-minting.
The Indian trade interest in the eastern coast of
the Indian Ocean is well reflected in the Tamil language inscriptions and
south Indian religious remains found on the eastern fringe of the Indian
Ocean, from Burma down to Sumatra. Many of these are bilingual inscriptions
which either bear donations or gifts made to religious centers (Monastery
and Vishnu and Siva temples) or gives description of trade and the articles
involved in trade. These inscriptions refer to South Indian merchant associations-
Maningramam, actively involved in transit trade bypassing the Malacca strait;
and Nanadesi branch of the Ayyarole. Most of the 13th century
Tamil inscriptions do not mention merchant associations, perhaps reflecting
the sharp decline of this economic power during this period as evident
also from the epigraphic records within southern India.
Tamil inscriptions and religious and other remains
suggested establishment of the South Indian enclaves to the west of the
Malacca straits. These conclaves were confined to regions accessible directly
from the Indian Ocean dure to the firm hold of Srivijaya over the groupings,
involving very mixed personnel and structures of southeast Asian along
with South Asian, as suggested by evidences from Java and Bali, such as
formation of the Banigrama. It was followed by the appearance of a local
version of the Banigrama in the major north-coast parts of both the islands
like at Julah which was a predominantly local merchant association, along
with some foreigners. They were indigenous organizations collected to the
local economic system as tax farmers licensed by the rulers. This trend
was short-lived. The abandonment of the term may reflect both the retreat
of organized south Indian groups to the western edge of the archipelago
and the fact that in Javanese and Balinese states the relations which tax-farming
merchants maintained with the political leadership were essentially personal,
patron-client links. Individual foreign traders from south India were present
in maritime Southeast Asian ports as merchants and tax-farmers, both were
before and after the appearance of Banigrama inscriptions.
The items of trade included crops like rice,areca
nuts, pepper, mysobalans , iron, cotton (raw and textile) , thread, wax,
honey, sandalwood, aloeswood, silk, rose water, yak’s tail, camphor oil,
civet, horses, elephants, medicinal herbs, metals(gold,silver), semi-precious
stones, pearls etc. There occurred noticeable changes in the patterns of
domestic consumption and production owing to large volumes of foreign imports
and their varied distribution. As far as ports are concerned, although
the Malacca straits port-hierarchy of Srivijaya played an important role
inn manufacturing largely indigenous hold over the sea-trade links eastwards
from the India-Ocean, partly by forcing powerful south Indian merchant
associations to trade on local terms, it was the state of Mataram in Java
played the key role in moulding maritime southeast Asia’s shared economic
culture.
Ritual as a Legitimising Tool
In context of influence of Indic elements, it was
used as a means of elevating the status of indigenous rulers both in the
eyes of their own people and with the visiting Indian merchants whose presence
was essential to continue prosperity.
The Indian rituals and celestial deities provided
the sacro-religious legitimacy to local rulers. The Brahmanas played an
important part by performing rituals and concocting genealogies for the
local rulers, thus providing legitimacy. By 10th century AD
many texts like few parvans of Mahabharata were translated into local languages
like Javanese prose. Most of Sanskrit language inscriptions were largely
religious in context. The continuing impact of cultural borrowings from
India was, however reflected in these reflections by the heavy use of Sanskrit
conceptual vocabulary, the integration of some Indian weights and measures
into the local system and the adoption of Sanskrit or Sanskritised names.
The presence of two Buddha statues at Kotachina (Sumatra) points to the
influence of Chola sculpture and thus the foreign trade (imported material
to build statues). In Kadiri period in east Java, predominance of Vaishnavism
is reflected in court poetry of old Javanese literature. Other examples
are the great temple of Angkorvat in Cambodia. Translations of many texts
took place like Raghuvamsa. Apart from Buddhist sculpture, an Indian affinity
is reflected in the particular from of Tantricism in east Java. Islam in
these regions also came from Indian subcontinent, not from Arabic world.
Conclusion
It may be argued that the Southeast Asian states
borrowed extensively from the broader Indian religious traditions in manner
that suggests a self-conscious balancing of ideas thought to be useful
for the maintenance of power in economies at once agrarian and mercantile.
Indian export trade provoked shifts in the habits of consumption that in
turn stimulated innovations in the local production. The religious and
cultural impact was restricted to the rulers and the elite sections of
the society and did not make many inroads into the local level. Thus the
economic competition and mutual influence rather than forceful confrontation
characterized the relations between Southeast Asia and India, which counters
the Indianisation/colonization theory.