INDONESIA (1). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. 2000 years of Maritime Far Distance Trade and Cultural Exchange in Indonesia INDONESIA - The Taste of Paradise 2000 years of Maritime Far Distance Trade and Cultural Exchange in Nusantara Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen: Nutmeg and Mace An Annotated Chronology By Urs Ramseyer TABLE OF CONTENTS (Part I) INDONESIA (1). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. 2000 years of Maritime Far Distance Trade and Cultural Exchange in Indonesia 1-6 INDONESIA (2). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Dông Son - Trade and Culture 7 - 11 INDONESIA (3). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. The First World Trading System in History 12 -18 INDONESIA (4). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Early State Formation in the Western Indonesian Archipelago 19 - 21 INDONESIA (5). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Brahmana Priests, Monks and Patrons 22 - 24 INDONESIA (6). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. The Rise of Srivijaya to an International Trading Power 25 -28 INDONESIA (7). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. The Borobudur and its Vessels 29 - 33 INDONESIA (8). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. A New Era: The Javanese Center of Power Shifts to the East 34 - 38 INDONESIA (9). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Crisis, Recovery and Boom in the International Far-Distance Trade 39 - 42 INDONESIA (10). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. The Golden Age of King Airlangga 43 - 49 INDONESIA (11). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Singhasari and the Expansion of the Mongols 50 - 55 INDONESIA (12). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Majapahit and Venice in the 14th Century 56 - 62 INDONESIA (13). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Golden Age and Crisis in the Majapahit Empire 63 - 68 INDONESIA (14). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. International Trade and Islamisation 69 - 74 INDONESIA (15). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. The Maritime State Expeditions of the Chinese Ming 75 - 78 INDONESIA (16). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. International Muslim Trade and the Rise of Melaka 79 - 82 INDONESIA (17). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Trade Networks in the Northern Moluccas and the Banda Archipelago 83 - 88 INDONESIA (18). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. The Spice Route on the Eve of the Portuguese Invasion 89 - 93 Foreword Three spices from the east Indonesian archipelago have made Nusantara, the Indonesian islands, a focal point of global maritime trade for many centuries: 1 The buds of the clove tree (Syzygium aromaticum) from the northern Moluccas and 2 Two substances from the miraculous fruit of the nutmeg tree (Myristica fragrans) from the Banda archipelago which, besides the "nutmeg" (the seed), carries within itself the more precious scarlet aril, called mace. Anyone who wants to understand the reasons why three spices so inconspicuous, from production areas so difficult to access, and unknown over a long time have made world history, will use a broad knowledge that goes far beyond biological, medical and culinary skills. Whoever follows the path of cloves and nutmeg towards east and west, to China, India and Europe, will deal with the monsoon winds, with the development of shipbuilding, navigation systems and maps, with port cities and harbors, with domestic and foreign merchants, their monetary and exchange systems, and with the import and export of important trade goods such as textiles and ceramics, precious aromatic sandalwood, gold, silver, copper and tin, and other spices such as pepper and cinnamon. The historical and cultural developments in the Indonesian archipelago can be seen as an uninterrupted sequence of intra-regional and global maritime trade relations. All world religions have entered the archipelago by sea, with merchant ships: Hinduism and Buddhism in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, Islam in the 14th and 15th centuries, and Christianity in early 16th century. Until the arrival of Europeans, the seas and oceans of Asia were never limits for encounter and exchange, but connecting roads between islands and continents, where thousands of ships were cruising with traders from Arabia, Persia, India, China and Southeast Asia, trading with each other in a remarkably peaceful way. Our look at 2000 years of trade and cultural history in the Indonesian archipelago is quite consciously a look from outside, from the perspective of comparative world history, thus leaving national optics in favor of a more global evaluation of events and developments. This is intended in order to shed new light on the age-old history of Indonesia and its specific contribution to the globalization of our world. This history had lasted about 2000 years before it was fundamentally and sustainably changed by Europeans from Portugal, Spain, The Netherlands and England, invading the archipelago with hegemonic claims and violence. Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam Austronesian Outrigger Boat (Jukung Bali). Prelude 3500 BC - 500 BC Austronesians settle in Nusantara and the Pacific islands 7000 years ago non-Chinese peoples and tribes lived as well in the Yang-tze delta and in today’s South China. They were the first rice growers in the history of humankind. Under demographic pressure of technically more advanced Neolithic peoples from the north, Austro-Asian speaking peoples of the Yang-tze basin and their water buffalo herds moved overland towards the Southeast Asian mainland, whereas ProtoAustronesian speaking coastal peoples of Southern China set over from Fujian to the island of Taiwan (Formosa). Here they developed Austronesian languages as well as various types of boats with outriggers and triangular sails that allowed them to travel across the open sea. By means of sophisticated navigation and sailing techniques the Austronesian seafarers eventually succeeded to colonize the Indonesian archipelago, the Pacific Islands and finally New Zealand and Madagascar. Theirs was the largest and longest maritime migration of all times. Once the Austronesians had reached the Philippines 4000 years ago, some groups moved on to the Moluccas, Melanesia and further on to the Pacific, whereas the ancestors of today’s Indonesians sailed to Sulawesi and North Borneo. Between 2000 and 1000 BCE (= Before Current Era) they reached Bali, Java and Sumatra and around 500 BCE, i.e. 2500 years ago, their long journey finally ended at the east coast of the Malayan peninsula and in central Vietnam. In the Indonesian archipelago and Mainland Southeast Asia, the new settlers encountered nomadic hunter-gatherers as well as neolithic planters who had entered Nusantara over land bridges during the ice age. The earlier populations were either assimilated or driven into the mountainous inland. Wikimedia Commons The dissemination of Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) languages. Further Reading: Bellwood, Peter, James J. Fox, and Darrell Tryon, eds., The Austronesians: historical and comparative perspectives, Australian National University, Canberra, 2006 Bellwood, Peter, Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago (3rd, revised ed.), Australian National University, Canberra, 2007 Horridge, G. Adrian, Outrigger Canoes of Bali and Madura, Indonesia, Bernice Bishop Museum Special Publication, 1987 INDONESIA (2). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Dông Son - Trade and Culture Dông Son – Trade and Culture 500 BCE - 111 BCE Interregional long-distance trade: Bronze and iron in the Indonesian Archipelago 2500 years ago an intensive trade between the Austro-Asiatic peoples of Mainland Southeast Asia and the seafaring Austronesians started to develop, bringing bronze and iron into the islands, thus changing sustainably the traditional working conditions and social relations of the hitherto Neolithic societies and cultures in the archipelago. On their migration to Southeast Asia the Austro-Asian peoples had become familiar with the characteristics of copper and tin and eventually had started to pour bronze themselves. The acquisition of iron and the technology of forging took place only a few hundred years later, around 500 BCE. A technically and artistically advanced centre of bronze casting was located in the Annamite Dông Son, in North Vietnam. Dông Son was in particular a famous production centre for so-called "bronze drums" (kettle gongs) which were traded in continental Southeast Asia, in the Malay Peninsula, and in the Indonesian archipelago, between Sumatra and the Kei Islands in the east. The distribution of the spectacular Southeast Asian kettle gongs points to a widespread intra-regional trade network that extended from the Gulf of Tonkin to the Moluccas and beyond. In addition to the so-called Dông Son "drums", archaeologists found numerous burial sites containing other bronze objects, such as axes, spearheads, rings, jewelry and containers. In Indonesia these bronzes were probably exchanged with forest products, especially with aromatic woods and resins, wild growing spices, with tortoiseshell and feathers of the bird of paradise from Irian Jaya. From the 3rd Century BCE on, we know from Chinese sources that cloves were used on the occasion of imperial receptions and audiences, obviously for the cleaning of breath. Wikimedia Commons Kettlegong from Dông Son Today, the rituals, symbols and motifs of ancient Dông Son culture have remained present in ancient megalithic monuments (terraced buildings, cairns, dolmens, menhirs), in the rearing and in the cult of water buffaloes, in extravagant death rituals and ancestral cults as well as in old Indonesian architecture, carving and weaving (Sumba, Timor, Flores, Sulawesi, Sumatra and Kalimantan). The significance of the ship in the social, economic and religious context of Austronesian cultures is manifested not only in prehistoric burial rituals in which deceased were buried in dugout canoes or small plank boats, but also in a widespread ship symbolism in architecture, and the so-called Dông Son ornamental art on textiles, bamboo, wood or stone. Selected reading: Bernet Kempers, A.J., Ancient Indonesian Art, Harvard University Press, 1959 Higham, C.F.W., The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,1996 Glover, Jan and Peter S. Bellwood, eds., Southeast Asia: from prehistory to history, Routledge, London and New York, 2004 Manguin, P.-Y., „Shipshape Societies. Boat Symbolism and Political Systems in Insular South-East Asia”, in: D. Marr and A. Milner (eds.), Southeast Asia in the 9th to 14th Centuries, Singapore, 1986, 187 - 213 Soekmono, R., Pengantar Sejarah Kebudayaan Indonesia, Penerbit Kanisius, Yogyakarta 1973, 5th reprint edition, 1988 World History Atlas Centers of production and distribution of bronze kettlegongs. 111 BCE – 100 CE Sembiran (Bali) - staging post and transit point in the international long-distance trade With the annexation of North Vietnam by the Han Chinese in 111 BCE ( = Before Current Era), the Indonesian trade with continental bronze suppliers took to an end. Archaeological finds of casting molds in Java and Bali clearly show the great importance of such status symbols for the elites in Indonesia. Quite obviously the metallurgical knowledge that was necessary for the production of kettle gongs had found its way into the archipelago, so that from now on bronzes could be manufactured in the country itself. The Javanese and Balinese molds for hourglass kettlegongs (from Manuaba, Pacung and Sembiran) represent a type of its own. Today, the most famous and largest example of the so-called Pejeng-type kettlegong can be seen in the Pura Agung Penataran, the Penataran temple of Pejeng. Smaller hourglass specimens, socalled “moko” are known from the Solor Archipelago, where they are still traded as bridal gifts. Museum der Kulturen Basel. Hans Hinz Bronze Age faces on the famous “Moon of Pejeng” in Pejeng, Bali Since the time of interregional trade between Dông son and eastern Indonesia the Balinese port of Sembiran (which later become known as Julah) had played an important role as a stage stop and transit point for products from the Moluccas, from India and Vietnam. Among them were cloves from the Moluccas that were used from the third Century BCE on at the courts of the Zhou in China and the Maurya in India, where they reportedly served as breath cleaner at royal receptions. Archaeological excavations in Sembiran have brought to light a large number of pottery and decorative beads originating from the Southeast Indian port and crafts center of Arikamedu, in the vicinity of present-day Pondycherry, which in the 1st Century CE (CE = Current Era) was also a popular Roman trading post. In fact among the finds of Sembiran there were also products of Indian pottery, decorated with Roman influenced so-called roulettes. The archaeological yield (rouletted ware and decorative beads) is a clear reference to early trade relations with India, as they were probably common since the times of the Maurya, that is to say since the 3rd Century BCE. Thus while in the waters of the Southeast Asian archipelago bronze and iron were still traded, from South India ornamental beads of stone, glass and carnelian came across the Bay of Bengal to Sumatra, to the western coast of Malaya and from there further into the archipelago. In Sumatra and Malayan Kalah (Kedah), the Indian potentates were able to quench their hunger for gold and, on the other hand, to obtain supplies of tin for their bronze coins. Not without reason, in ancient Indian texts these areas were called Suvarnabhumi, Gold Country, or Suvarnadvipa, Gold Island. Since the Strait of Melaka at that time was still unsafe and therefore could not be used regularly for passage, Indian and Southeast Asian ships brought its goods to the north-west coast of Sumatra, to the tin ports on the Malaysian west coast as well as to the Isthmus of Kra, from where the freight was transported overland to the eastern coast of the peninsula. Decorative beads from India were part of burial offerings, as well in the archipelago as in mainland Southeast Asia. Together with bronze objects, beads from stone, glass or carnelian accompanied the noble deceased on their journey to afterlife. Burial sites with decorative beads and bronze artifacts are known from western Malaysia, from Sumatra (Karang Agung, Air Sugihan), West Java (Buni) and from Bali (Gilimanuk and Sembiran). It is certainly no coincidence that it was precisely in these areas with relatively complex social structures (nobility, commons, slaves) that over time small empires and kingdoms with state-like structures began to develop, whose elites sought to underpin their rights to rule with Indian religions and state philosophies. Selected reading: Ambra Calo, Bagyo Prasetyo, Peter Bellwood, James W. Lankton, Bernard Gratuze, Thomas Oliver Pryce, Andreas Reinecke, Verena Leusch, Heidrun Schenk, Rachel Wood, Rochtri A. Bawono, I Dewa Kompiang Gede, Ni L.K. Citha Yuliati, Jack Fenner, Christian Reepmeyer, Cristina Castillo and Alison K. Carter, « Sembiran and Pacung on the north coast of Bali: a strategic crossroads for early trans-Asiatic exchange », Antiquity / Volume 89 / Issue 344 / April 2015, pp 378 – 396. DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2014.45, Published online: 08 April 2015 Ardika, IW., and P. Bellwood, “Sembiran: the beginnings of Indian contact with Bali”. Antiquity 65: 221-32 (1991) Bernet Kempers, A.J. and Amir Sidharta , Monumental Bali: Introduction to Balinese Archeology & Guide to the Monuments, 1995 Hauser-Schäublin, B. und I Wayan Ardika (eds.), Burials, texts and rituals. Ethnoarchaeological investigations in North Bali, Indonesia, Göttinger Beiträge zur Ethnologie Bd. 1. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2008 INDONESIA (3). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. The First World Trading System in History The First World Trading System in History 1 CE - 200 CE Trade between Rome, India and China and its implications for Southeast Asia From the spread of the Arikamedu type of Indian pottery in the Indian Ocean and Nusantara a pattern of international trade can be derived, which extended from the Roman-Egyptian port of Berenice on the Red Sea to Sri Lanka (Anuradhapura and Mantai) and further to the Coromandel Coast to Orissa and Bangladesh, and eventually across the Isthmus of Kra to Funan and Vietnam. The Indonesian archipelago with its medicines, spices and aromatic substances, with precious timbers and tortoiseshell was an important link in this far-reaching trade network, interconnecting continents. In the international trading by land and water several major empires were involved. At the western end of the caravan- and sea routes (the famous Silk Roads) was the Roman Empire, which at the time included the countries around the Mediterranean, Egypt, the Levant and Arabia. From there the trade routes ran east through the kingdoms of the Parthians and the Kushans in Central Asia and northern India, through the land of the Shaka (Indo-Scythians) and Shatavahana in northern and central India, to the South Indian kingdoms of the Cheras, Pandyas and Cholas and, continuing via Sri Lanka and the Bay of Bengal, to Funan in present-day South Vietnam and to China, at the eastern end of the Silk Roads. The Chinese Han dynasty traded indirectly with Rome, be it on the caravan routes that led through Central Asia to India, the Persian Gulf and finally to the eastern Mediterranean, be it across the oceans, from the South China Sea, across the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea as far as Alexandria and Rome. The Metropolitan Museum of Art The first world trading system in history Under Emperor Augustus (27 BCE - 14 CE), the Roman Empire had finally regained peace (Pax Romana), after a long period of civil war. That led to a rapidly growing demand for luxury goods from the East, especially for black pepper (Piper nigrum) from the Northwest Indian Malabar Coast, frankincense from Arabia and silk from China. According to the famous Greek geographer Strabo more than 100 ships per year had left the Red Sea port at Myos Hormos in order to sail to India. The crossing was made from the Arabian Peninsula directly across the Indian Ocean, which was in fact possible after 120 BCE, after the Greek navigator Hippolus had “discovered” the monsoon winds, the benefits of which had already been known for centuries to the Indians and Arabs. At the time of the Roman Emperor Nero (r. 54 CE - 68 CE), a sailing handbook unique in its kind was published: Periplus Maris Erithrei, the "Sailing Manual of the Erythrean Sea”. It was written by an anonymous Greek merchant or navigator and is by far the most important source on ancient routes, ports and trade goods in the western Indian Ocean. In addition, the Periplus also gives a first vague vision of the Indian east coast and of "Chryse", Southeast Asia, the country which the Indians called Suvarnabhumi, “Gold Country”. In the century of the Periplus the use of seasonal monsoon winds to cross the Western Indian Ocean had already become a routine. The Greco-Roman captains could therefore navigate their robust, up to 60m long ships directly from the southern Arabian coast to the Malabar coast, in order to reach the main pepper ports of Muziris (now Cranganore) and Nelcynda (today Kottayam). Once there, they loaded large amounts of black pepper (Piper nigrum) and Malabathrum (Folium indicum), a kind of cinnamon, pearls from the southern tip of India, diamonds and sapphire, ivory and Chinese silk. Furthermore tortoiseshell coming from “Chryse”, which according to the author of the Periplus was "of the best quality" and probably originated from the Moluccas or from the Aru or Seram Islands. Along with tortoiseshell, the first cloves (Caryophyllus aromaticus, Syzygium aromaticum) from Ternate and Tidore may have found their way to Rome. In his Historia Naturalis, completed in 77 CE, Pliny the Elder describes them correctly as Caryophyllum, but without knowing their botanical and geographical context. Most probably these cloves had reached India and Rome on the maritime spice route, from the Moluccas, across the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean. Another possible way led via the caravan trade routes of the Han Chinese, who knew and used clove buds for more than 200 years as a spice, medicinal and aphrodisiac. In the first century CE cloves were therefore known to the Roman elite, but without ever attain the popularity of black pepper from the Malabar Coast. However, nutmeg and mace from the Banda Archipelago, which at the time were common in India (under the Sanskrit name of "Pala"), were not yet known to the Romans. But pepper from Muziris in Malabar was imported in such amounts to the capital, that Emperor Domitian (81 CE - 96 CE) had to make available a whole municipal colonnade, Horrea Piperataria, for the storage of this luxury spice. Wikimedia Commons Muziris, Roman trading center on India's Malabar coast, with a temple for Emperor Augustus. (Tabula Peuteringiana) The Roman merchants paid for these spices with gold and silver coins, which were exported as a commodity in large quantities and traded at their metal and not according to their nominal value. After Pliny had sharply criticized the Roman gold wastage, Emperor Nero, to the big displeasure of the Indians, lowered the gold content of the coins. When his successor Emperor Vespasian (69 CE - 79 CE), further slowed the gold flow to India, the Indian rulers turned away from Roman Aurei, recalled Suvarnabhumi, the Gold Country of their popular epics and consequently reinforced their traditional trading activities with their partners to the east. Wikimedia Commons Roman gold coins with portraits of Emperors Caligula and Nero 1st century CE - 3rd century CE Suvarnabhumi - The Indian trade with the East The finds of Roman coins in southern India show that during the first centuries of our era an overland route led from the Malabar Coast in the southwestern part of the subcontinent towards the opposite Coromandel coast. This saved the "Yavanas", the foreign merchants from the Roman Empire, from a circumnavigation of the southern tip of India. The overland route from Muziris to Arikamedu or "Poduke", as the author of the Periplus called the Roman trading center on the east coast, was of great importance, as it linked the trade in the Western Indian Ocean to the eastern trade, extending from Southeast India over Bengal, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula as far as China. Wikimedia Commons World map of Ptolemy (100 CE - 180 CE), with the Ganges River, the Bay of Bengal, Sina (China) and Kersonesus (Malay Peninsula). (Issued approximately 1474) Unlike the foreign merchants who transported their goods by bullock carts overland, the Indian ships sailed around the Cape Comarin to get to Sri Lanka (Taprobane) and Arikamedu (Poduke). According to the Periplus, the largest of these ships sailed first to the Ganges and from there to Chryse, where the "best tortoiseshell in the Erythraean Sea" came from. For the author of the sailing manual, Chryse was and continued to be a place which he knew only by hearsay, and that for him was identical to "the end of the world". Further north there was only "Thina", the country where the silk came from. The Han Chinese caravan trade with the peoples to the west had begun in the 2nd Century BCE. Bactrian camels took the precious silk fabrics to Ta-ch'in that is to say to the Roman provinces of Arabia, Syria and Egypt, from where they were transported to the capital of the empire. In exchange for the Chinese luxury goods, high-quality Roman glass, but also precious stones from India and probably spices, camphor and aromatic woods from the Indonesian Archipelago reached Thina over land and on water. 2nd Century - 4th century CE The end of the trade between India and Rome and the impact for Southeast Asia With the lowering of the gold content of the Roman gold coins (Aurei) and a reduction of gold exports to India, the emperors Nero and Vespasian had given the trade with India a first serious blow. Yet another setback in trade relations between Rome and India occurred after the Arab Hymanites and the Ethiopians of Axum had taken over the control over access to the western Indian Ocean. The two powers on the Red Sea were involved in the trade with India and therefore had an interest in pushing back the Greco-Roman shipping in the Indian Ocean. Another major reason for the decline of trade in luxury goods from India was in the new lifestyle of the Christians who had deliberately turned away from the lavish lifestyle of the Romans, and thus the consumption of Asian luxury goods. At the end of the Greco-Roman period in Egypt, and following the slow disintegration of the Roman Empire in the 3rd and 4 Century CE, several important ports on the East Indian Ocean vanished into international insignificance. The only exceptions to this were those trade centers whose rulers had turned early enough to trade with the “Gold Land” of Suvarnabhumi and with China. These included primarily the dynasty of the Iksvakus (2nd century in Andhra) in the lower valley of the River Krishna and its successors, the Pallavas (2nd – 9th centuries) in Southeast India, who took over most of the trade with the East, and thus created the economic basis for their political and cultural expansion during the following centuries. Selected Reading: Casson, Lionel, The Periplus Maris Erythraei: Text With Introduction, Translation, and Commentary, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1989. Kulke, Hermann und Dietmar Rothermund, A History of India. Croom Helm, London and Sidney, 1986, (4th ed. Routledge, 2004) Miller, J., Innes, The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire: 29 B.C. to A.D. 641. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1969. Ray, Prabha Himanshu, The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia. Cambridge World Archaeology, Cambridge, 2003 New Impulses from China 3rd century - 5th century CE Early Chinese maritime trade with Southeast Asia and India Following the end of Indian trade with Rome and the fall of the Chinese Han Dynasty (CE 220), a new intercontinental trade system began to form in the east of the Indian Ocean, the Indonesian Archipelago and the South China Sea, with lasting impact on further social, political and cultural developments in Southeast Asia. While in the western Indian Ocean, the Ethiopian Empire of Axum and the Persian Sassanids had inherited the Roman trade sovereignty since 226 CE, on the other end of the trade route the three kingdoms of Wu, Wei and Shu had taken over the reign from the Han. The Wei in northern China initially remained connected to the caravan trade. The southeastern Wu (222-280 CE) however, created new urban centers along the coasts and thus opened up to maritime trade with Southeast Asia and India. Under the Jin (280-420 CE), the successors of the Wu, Chinese trade relations with trading partners on Mainland Southeast Asia (especially with Oc-Eo in Funan) and with major ports on the Malay Peninsula (Kedah) and in North West Sumatra (Barus) were considerably expanded. After coming to power in 280 CE, the Jin dynasty governed for four decades in both northern as well as southern China, but then was forced to emigrate to southern China, due to political instability and the blockade of the Silk Road and the caravan trade by the White Huns (Hunas). So, a large part of the ruling upper class of the Jin left the central provinces of northern China, moving to the southern areas of the Yang-tze River, whose cities turned into main centres of maritime trade. INDONESIA (4). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Early State Formation in the Western Indonesian Archipelago Early State Formation in the Western Indonesian Archipelago 5th Century - 7th century CE The "discovery" of the Straits of Malacca As long as the transportation of Roman, Indian and Chinese goods was conducted across the Isthmus of Kra and along the coasts of Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, the agricultural and trading state of Funan (in to-days southern Vietnam) remained the privileged trading partner of the Chinese. Chinese goods, mainly silk, were brought to the cosmopolitan trade center of Oc-Eo and to the ports on the east side of Malaysia. From there the goods were transported overland to the Malay west coast where they were reloaded on Indian and Austronesian ships, that crossed the Bay of Bengal towards India. The ships of maritime Southeast Asians were called Kun l'un po by the Chinese, meaning "vessels of the K'un-lun people", that is to say, the seafaring Austronesians. From the 5th Century on, the Strait of Malacca was regularly crossed by large commercial vessels. Thus, new ports and trading centers developed along the coasts of southeastern Sumatra and West-Java, with own markets and local produce, that was shipped to India and Sri Lanka, but mainly to China. How significant and extensive trade with China was back then, is shown in Chinese sources that report on a Indian prince bearing the title Gunavarman, who in 423 CE sailed from Shê-p'o (Java) to China, in order to ask the Emperor of Liu Song for protection for Kun l’un trading ships from Java and Sumatra, sailing directly across the South China sea to trade their products with Chinese merchants. Due to the increasing international trade, the local elites from the privileged coastal areas of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula now gained in power and political influence. Through alliances of wealthy and powerful clan and tribal chiefs larger political entities were created, which were perceived and acknowledged as "states" by the Chinese, among others two new trading states situated either in Sumatra or in West-Java, namely Ko-ying and Ho-lo-tan. ArchAtlas: Portages Main overland and sea routes in Southeast Asia Both of them were soon surpassed and displaced by the kingdom of Kan-t’o-li (441563 CE), the presumed precursor state of Srivijaya. In 430 CE Ho-lo-tan had sent an embassy to China, with tributes to the emperor of the Liu Song. 441 CE Kan-t'o-li followed with gifts that included own products from the native forests (resins, flavors) as well as gifts, that mirrored its trade relations with the Indian Pallava and Gupta (textiles, clothing), as well as the Persian Sassanids, who, as commercial successors of the Romans, dominated the western Indian Ocean trade between Sri Lanka and the Gulf of Persia since 226 CE. Products of Nusantara in trade with India and China Meanwhile North Sumatra had gained a high reputation for its camphor oils and crystals, which were obtained from the camphor tree (Dryobalanops camphora), a jungle giant, in the hinterland of Barus. (In Indonesia this special camphor from Sumatra and Borneo is therefore still called kapur barus.) In ancient Buddhist Jataka stories, in the Ramayana and in ancient Indian medical works, the substance being used in Indian religious ceremonies and as a remedy is denoted by the Sanskrit word karpura. So camphor must have been imported by the Indians as early as 400 CE, but probably even earlier. Among the commodities from Indonesia, cloves from Ternate and Tidore had played an important role in trade between the archipelago and China since the Han period. In addition to cloves, nutmeg and mace from the Banda archipelago seemed to have had some importance for India, as is reflected by their Sanskrit name of pala. Since the origin and production areas of the "three fine spices" were virtually unknown to foreign traders, it seems reasonable to assume that at the time they reached the centers of long distance trade by way of coastal trade, using the old intra-regional trade networks. Probably back then the large, ocean-going double outrigger vessels kora-kora from the Moluccas, being shown a few hundred years later on the reliefs of Borobudur, were already part of these ancient inter-island networks. Of great importance at that time for early trade between the Chinese and North Sumatra were also aromatic resins that were used as a substitute for frankincense (Boswellia) originating from Arabia and Somalia, as well as for myrrh, Commiphora mukul from Arabia, East Africa and Northwest India. The aromatic resin of the Styrax benzoin tree (Indon.: kemenyan; English: benjamin gum) was obtained, like camphor, by members of the Batak people in the area of Barus, and transported to Kan-t'o-li and later to Palembang, the first capital of the kingdom of Srivijaya. Finally, pine resin (Pinus merkusii) from Sumatra was used by the Chinese as incense, as a disinfectant and as a medicine. Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen: Cloves, Nutmeg and Mace The “three fine spices” from the northern Moluccas and the Banda Archipelago. INDONESIA (5). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Brahmana Priests, Monks and Patrons Brahmana priests, monks and patrons 4th and 5th century CE Indianisation of the elites in Borneo, Sumatra and Java With increasing size of Indian trade in the late 4th and 5th Centuries CE, religious and political ideas and strategies from India took crucial influence on the thoughts and actions of Southeast Asian rulers and their aristocratic and clerical environment. Both on the Southeast Asian mainland (in Funan), as well as in East Kalimantan (Borneo) and in West Java there is archaeological evidence for a gradual Indianisation of Southeast Asian elites. Thus in the area of the Mahakam River in Borneo, inscriptions on stone pillars (yupa), dating from the late 4th Century, provide information in Sanskrit and in South Indian Pallava script on a local ruler bearing the South Indian title Mulavarman, who is said to have given his Brahmana priests "10000 pieces of cattle", in gratitude for their services. Another corpus of inscriptions, also in Sanskrit and in the writing of the Pallava, dates from the middle of the 5th Century. The texts speak about Tarumanagara (358-669 CE), a realm situated in the northwest of Java, whose ruler Purnavarman, besides his Pallava title, had taken over also Indian principles and concepts of governance and Brahmana ritual practices. The relation of Vaishnava Hinduism and Buddhism, typical for these texts, is remarkable and can be traced back to the influence of the North Indian Gupta dynasty. From the finds in Kutei (Borneo) and Tarumanagara (Java), it becomes evident, that Indian Brahmins played a crucial role in the process of Indianisation of the local elites and government culture, being compensated for their ritual and administrative services with rich donations in the form of land and cattle. Donations to Brahmana law scholars who helped in handling complex administrative and legal problems, and to priests, whose rituals contributed to the religious legitimacy of government were common in India and are to be found again later, in Buddhist and Hindu Java and Bali. Rich gifts from merchants and rulers to Buddhist monasteries and Hindu Brahmins were registered in writing, first in stone inscriptions and, later, at the time of the Pallava and Ikhsvakus in Andhra, on copper plates, which are strongly reminiscent of the royal bronze edicts of old Balinese history. The coexistence of Buddhist monasteries with temples for Shiva and Vishnu, and the mixing of Hindu and Buddhist concepts and beliefs (like dharma, karma, reincarnation and rebirth) was already widely used among the Indian Gupta and Pallavas. This explains the simultaneous appearance of Buddhism and Hinduism, and their mutual tolerance in Indonesia. Wikimedia Commons Inscription of King Purnavarman of Tarumanagara It is now generally accepted that the emergence of “indianised states” in western Indonesia no longer may be attributed to an Indian colonisation or migration. In this case, it is certainly better to speak of a process of acculturation, which was closely connected to the opening of the Straits of Melaka for maritime far distance trade, and to the rapidly expanding trade networks between India, Southeast Asia and China in the 4th and 5th Century, in which Buddhist traders and merchants played a particularly active role. The role of merchants in the spread of Buddhism Buddha's teachings had spread since the 5th Century BCE and, by 250 BCE, during the reign of the great Mauryan King Ashoka, had become an important means of communication throughout India and Sri Lanka. The further dissemination of his teachings to China occurred at the time of the Later Han, the Wu (222-280 CE) and the Wei (386-534 CE), being closely linked to the development of Mahayana Buddhism, that, in the spirit of the Buddha, faced economy and trade quite favorably and was therefore actively supported by Indian merchants. The positive link of trade with Mahayana Buddhism had soon gained a favorable impact in the mutual relations between Sri Lanka, India and Southeast Asia. Buddhist pilgrims and scholars from India and China who traveled on the tracks of the Buddha, his teachings and relics, were arriving on vessels of Buddhist merchants in the international centers of Buddhism and the western islands of the Indonesian archipelago. The most famous of these travelers was Faxian (Fa Hsien), who in 399 CE went overland to India and returned by ship from Sri Lanka to China during the years 413 and 414. The first part of his maritime adventure led him, together with more than 200 passengers, from Sri Lanka to Java, and the second part of the journey, again with 200 people aboard, took him 82 days back to China. In the 5th and 6th centuries, Sri Lanka was the hub of international maritime trade. There, merchants from India, Arabia, Ethiopia (Axum) and Persia (Sassanid) were dealing with spices, silk and horses. According to records of the "India-traveler" Cosmas Indicopleustes from Alexandria (The Christian Topography, Book XI), the Sassanids, who were called “Po-ssu” by the Chinese, ruled the horse-trading and, according to the Byzantine scholar Procopius from Caesarea, also controlled the silk trade with India, Persia and Byzantium. According to these two authors, cloves and sandalwood (Santalum album), too, arrived in the West, especially in the Levant and in Constantinople, by way of Sri Lanka and the Persian Gulf. As camphor, pine resin and Styrax benzoin from Sumatra are neither mentioned by Cosmas, nor by Procopius, it can be assumed that these products were fully shipped to China, where they were used as cheaper substitutes for Arabian incense. INDONESIA (6). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. The Rise of Srivijaya to an International Trading Power The rise of Srivijaya to an international trading power 6th and 7th centuries CE The emergence of the State Union of Srivijaya in southeastern Sumatra Kan-t'o-li, the presumed precursor state of Srivijaya, probably took a key position on the international trade route that led through the Straits of Melaka. Meanwhile the port State had aroused the interest of Chinese merchants in eastern Indonesian spices and products from the jungles of Sumatra. Besides, Kalah (Kedah), the old tin port on the west coast of Malaya, Melayu (Jambi) and Barus, the major export harbour for camphor on the northwest coast of Sumatra, were involved in trade with the Chinese, before they were included in the far larger economic area of Srivijaya. One important reason for the creation of this large economic space of allied ports was the interest of the Chinese T'ang dynasty in a Southeast Asian trading partner sufficiently stable and reliable to keep the pirates, who repeatedly questioned the safety of the trade route, off the track. The new confederation of trading ports on the south east coast of Sumatra (Palembang and Melayu) had emerged from an alliance of traditional territorial and lineage organisations, under the leadership of local rulers (datu). After having taken over the control of the Straits of Malacca in 670 CE with the help of the sea nomads, Orang Laut, the newly founded confederation was given the proud Sanskrit name of “Sri Vijaya”, “Sublime Victory”. In the same year, the T'ang dynasty (618-907 CE) formally recognized the new state under the name of Shih-li-fo-shih as successor to Funan, thus awarding it a privileged status. Now, the Sumatran federation of small port states was able to evolve into the first Indonesian trading state of world economic importance and into one of the major trading centers in Asia. The Chinese Buddhist monk and chronicler I Tsing (Yi Jing) reported in the year 671 CE, that among the two centers Palembang and Melayu (jambi), the former was elected to be the fortified capital of the Kingdom. Srivijaya had valuable allies both in the peoples and tribes from the hinterland, especially the Batak, who supplied the precious products of the forests, as well as in the seafaring Austronesian groups (Orang Laut), who controlled and guaranteed the maritime passage in the service of the King, using Palembang as their home port. From the ports of Southeast Sumatra the local export products which were obtained in the area of Barus were shipped, commodities that had already played an important role in earlier times in trading with China, i.e. camphor, Styrax benzoin (kemenyan), pine resin and "dragon's blood" from the rattan palm which was used in Chinese medicine. On the other hand, from eastern Indonesia cloves, nutmeg, mace and sandalwood were transported to Srivijaya, in whose warehouses, next to silk and porcelain from China, black pepper from India and frankincense from Arabia were offered to sale. Wikipedia Commons Sumatra and Java in the 7th and 8th centuries CE 7th and 8th centuries CE Srivijaya - an international study center of Tantric Buddhism From old Malay inscriptions from around Palembang, we learn how local political structures and religious beliefs (mountain mythology, water, snake, oaths, cult of the dead) have combined with thought patterns and symbols of Vajrayana Buddhism to new, syncretic religion. The new beliefs were accepted by the local population, not least thanks to colored, theatrical and dance mask rituals (like Barong and Ranga) that could easily connect with local spirits and soul conceptions and the associated ritual practices. For the ruler this link was advantageous because it doubly legitimised him through the magical qualities that were inherent in both the local beliefs, as well as in Tantric Buddhism. The capital Palembang was therefore not only an important trading center in the world trading system, but also an internationally recognized Buddhist Study Center, where, as noted I Tsing, more than 1,000 students and scholars from the whole Buddhist world studies and taught. Palembang was in close contact with other important centers of Buddhism, primarily with Nalanda, the famous Study Center in the Bengali Empire of Pala (since 750 CE), where ancient Buddhist traditions and, especially Tantrism with its magical mantras, demons dancing and ecstatic rituals were promoted. Wikimedia Commons Remains of the Buddhist University of Nalanda (Bihar), once the World center of Mahayana Buddhist scholarship. The Buddha was called the "Roaring Lion" and symbolised by lion representations since the times of the Indian Maurya. It is therefore quite possible to assume that the widespread lion dances of Tantric Buddhism (Tibet, China, Japan, Java and Bali) were present in Srivijaya, too, and to see them as part of the magic ritual, echoing in the Barong complex in Central and East Java, and especially in Bali, today. In the various Barong rituals of Bali, however, in the wake of syncretism of Buddhist and Hindu conceptions and belief practices, Shivaite (Durga and her lion mount), Vishnuite (incarnation of Vishnu as the Lionman Narasimha) and Buddhist (Buddha as a roaring lion) beliefs and rituals fused with each other. Selected Reading: Coedès, Georges, Les Etats hindouisés d'Indochine et d'Indonésie, Paris 1948 Manguin, Pierre-Yves, A Bibliography for Sriwijayan Studies, Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, Jakarta 1989 Ptak, Roderich, China’s Seaborne Trade with South and Southeast Asia (12001750). Ashgate Publishing Ltd., Aldershot, etc. 1999 Ptak, Roderich, "China and the Trade in Cloves, circa 960-1435", Journal of the American Oriental Society 113, (1993), pp. 1-13. Ray, Himanshu Prabha, The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia, Cambridge World Archaeology Series, Cambridge University Press, 2003 Ray, Himanshu Prabha, The Winds of Change: Buddhism and the Maritime Links of Early South Asia, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1994 Wisseman Christie, Jan, « State Formation in Early Maritime Southeast Asia : a consideration of the theories and the data », Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 151 (2) : pp. 235-288 (1995) Wolters, O.W., Early Indonesian Commerce: a Study of the Origins of Srĭ Vijaya, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1967 Wolters, O.W., Early Southeast Asia: Selected Essays, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2008 INDONESIA (7). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. The Borobudur and its Vessels The Borobudur and its vessels 8th and 9th centuries CE From the merger between Javanese coastal State of Ho-ling and the Kingdom of Mataram in the interior of the fertile volcanic inland of Central Java, in the 8 th century a new political power had arisen, whose development and prosperity, in contrast to Srivijaya, was not generated by the income from long-distance trade, but from the availability of wide and fertile areas of rice cultivation. According to an inscription from 732 CE (Canggal), the Hindu Raja Sanjaya reigned as first ruler over Mataram. As Rakrayan of Mataram he was responsible for the royal Shiva cult in the temple complex on the Dieng Plateau. Consequently, he regarded himself as Lord over Hinduism and the central sanctuary of the supreme God Shiva. Less than half a century later, by 778 CE, the Buddhist dynasty of the Sailendra (“Lords of the Mountains"), linked to Srivijaya and Cambodia, had taken control of Mataram. The Hindu Sanjaya were then downgraded to vassals, taking refuge in parts of eastern Java and Bali. The construction of the Borobudur - an event of world-historical significance - was started in 770 CE during the reign of the Sailendra king Wisnu Dharmatunga. The gigantic structure, a fascinating mix of an old terrace sanctuary, Buddhist Mandala and a royal symbol of power, shows, in a kind of ongoing textbook of stone reliefs, running around several terraces, Buddhist tales and scenes from the then everyday life, including a number of different ships. This ship depictions are of considerable interest and inestimable value to the history of shipbuilding, of navigation and trade in the Indonesian archipelago. Among the eleven ships, there are five large ocean-going trade or warships with outriggers and a wide hull, made up of planks, with two slanted, rectangular sails on tall tripod masts and a small headsail. With its double booms and lateral rudders the vessels are clearly of Indonesian origin, showing no similarities with the Indian ships on the cave paintings of Ajanta or on the ship-coins of the Pallava. Outside the ship, covered galleries for several rowers are attached, running along the entire length of the hull. The space needed for rowing suggests an overall length of the vessel of 15m or more. The outriggers are slightly shorter than in the majority of today's Indonesian sailing ships. The sturdy construction of the cross beams indicates that in case of war, platforms were mounted on them, where warriors and paddlers took place. Proportionally to the length of the hull, a Borobudur ship of 14m length would have 8m long outriggers of 200mm diameter. Madeleine Ramseyer Representation of a vessel on a relief of Candi Borobudur When compared with ancient drawings of the Portuguese and Dutch, the Borobudur vessels may remind you the legendary kora kora, the old trading and warships of the Moluccas, which cruised in the early trade networks between the Philippines, North Moluccas, New Guinea and the Banda Islands and probably also sailed to Java and Sumatra to exchange cloves and nutmeg for rice and textiles. The kora kora, too, were plank boats with short outriggers, that were between 10 and 30 meters long. Just like the Borobudur ships, the kora kora were steered by two lateral oars and fitted with obliquely inclined rectangular sails (layar tanjaq) on tripod masts. The kun l'un po (ships of Southeast Asians) described in Chinese sources from the 3rd and 8th centuries and the wrecks of Pontian, Butuan and Sambilejo (Palembang) were at least twice as long as the largest of the Borobudur ships. They are said to have carried up to 1,000 people and thus undoubtedly belonged to a different category of far distance trading vessels. A. Maurin, after a sketch by Victor Arago (1790-1855) Carracore du Roi de Guebe, Paris, c.1839 Around 800 CE Spice Routes at the time of the Borobudur ships Sumatra was of vital importance for the agrarian and maritime supremacy as well as for the economic survival of the mutually linked ruling dynasties of Mataram and Srivijaya, in order to feed the local populations of Palembang and other Srivijayan ports, who worked in maritime trade, for the royal court or in the service of Buddhism. Here, in the Sumatran and Malayan ports of Srivijaya, international trade vitually found all major export products from Nusantara and mainland Southeast Asia: the spices, flavorings and pharmaceuticals The export of rice surpluses from the fertile areas of rice cultivation in Central Java to, resins and wood, tin and gold and also the luxury goods from China, India and Arabia. These found their way via Srivijaya to Sri Lanka and India, into the Persian Gulf and from there overland to the eastern Mediterranean (Levant), and to Byzantium and, vice versa, also reached the major ports of the Chinese T'ang State, so Guangzhou and Yangzhou. The period during which the magnificent Buddhist mandala was created and the sailing ships represented on the famous Borobudur reliefs cruised the seas of Nusantara, was one of intense Muslim (Arabic and Persian) trading activities in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Starting from the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf, Arab (dashi) and Persian (bosi) traders from the Abbasid Caliphate had established new trading posts in India, Sri Lanka, Srivijaya and Champa (Vietnam), which they used for sailing to China, on a direct way and without reloading their cargo to other vessels. In China they lived in diaspora like neighborhoods (fang fang), according to their own customs and laws. Among others, Chinese junks, too, participated in this direct trade, transporting mainly silk and ceramics. We do not know for sure whether and to what extent Southeast Asian kun'l'un trading ships were involved in this trade, but we can assume that ships of this kind have transported passengers and goods, not only in the waters of Nusantara, but also beyond, in the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea. In particular, monks and scholars who were traveling between Srivijaya, Nalanda, Sri Lanka and China, were taken on board of such vessels, as is apparent from the text of a Chinese monk, describing these ships with astonishing precision: „The bo are sea-going ships. They lie six or seven feet deep in the water. They are fast and can transport more than 1000 men, apart from cargo. They are also called kunlun bo. Many of those who form the crews and technicians of these ships are Kunlun (Southeast Asian) people. With the fibrous bark of the coconut tree, they make cords which bind the parts of the ship together (…). Nails and clamps are not used, for fear that the heating of the iron would give rise to fires, (The ships) are constructed by assembling (several) thicknesses of side-planks, for the boards are thin and they fear they woul break. Their length is over sixty meters (..). Sails are hoisted to make use of the winds, and (these ships) cannot be propelled by the strength of men (alone).” Tis text, quoted by P.-Y. Manguin (1993), suggests the following conclusions: 1 The Southeast Asian trading ships that sailed outside the archipelago were, in comparison with the Borobudur ships, very large vehicles that were able to take on board large amounts of cargo and people. 2 The individual parts of Southeast Asian ships were not held together with nails, but with vegetal fibers (sugar or coconut palm). 3 To give the ship stability, weight and density, multiple layers of planks were superimposed. 4 In contrast to the boats of the Candi Borobudur, merchant ships were too long to be equipped with lateral outriggers. Wikimedia Commons Possible routes of an Arab dhow ship, sunk about 830 CE in front of the Belitung Island (Indonesia), with export commodities of the T'ang on board. Selected Reading: Horridge, Adrian, Sailing Craft of Indonesia, Singapore 1986 Manguin, Pierre-Yves, « The Southeast Asian Ship: An Historical Approach », Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 11(2), 1980, pp. 266-276. Manguin, Pierre-Yves, “Trading Ships of the South China Sea. Shipbuilding Techniques and Their Role in the History of the Development of Asian Trade Networks”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 36, No. 3 (1993), pp. 253-280 Miksic, John, N., Noerhadi Magetsari, Jan Fontein, et al., „The ships on the Borobudur Reliefs”, in: John N. Miksic, Borobudur : Majestic, Mysterious, Magnificent, Yogyakarta, 2011, pp.180-185. Ray, Himanshu Prabha and J.-F. Salles (eds.), Tradition and archaeology. Early maritime contacts in the Indian Ocean, Lyon, New Delhi 1996 INDONESIA (8). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. A New Era: The Javanese Center of Power Shifts to the East A new era: the Javanese center of power shifts to the east 832 CE The Sanjaya return to power Raja Samaratunga, in whose reign the construction of the Candi Borobudur was completed, was the last of the Central Javanese rulers of the Sailendra dynasty. In 832 CE, after only 54 years of Buddhist rule, the Shivaite Sanjaya dynasty eventually succeeded to regain power over Mataram. Patapan, a regional prince of the House of Sanjaya, had previously married a princess from Srivijaya and thus created an influential alliance with the Buddhist trading power. Since the Sanjaya considered the merger of Hinduism and Buddhism to be a cornerstone of their legitimacy, the Candi Borobudur and other Buddhist structures were fortunately saved from destruction. During the reign of Rakai Sanjaya Pikatan (838-850 CE) the Sanjaya started to build the monumental Prambanan complex, for the veneration of their highest God Siwa and the Trimurti. The Candi Lara Jonggrang, a breathtaking masterpiece of Hindu architecture and relief art, was erected between 850 - 898 CE under King Lokapala and finally expanded and completed between 898 - 910 CE by King Balitung. Less than 20 years after the consecration of the monumental temple complex, the Sanjaya King Sindok and his entire court left the plain at the base of Mount Merapi, in order to establish a new power center in East Java, in the fertile delta of the Brantas River and in the vicinity of the main ports of the international long-distance spice trade between the Northern Moluccas, Banda, Java and the rest of the world. Stephan Spicher, Basel Candi Lara Jonggrang (Prambanan). Lion (singha) as guardian figure of a Hindu Trimurti temple, flanked by Trees of Life and celestial nymphs (kinnara). 9th century. 929 CE Relocation of the kraton from Mataram to East Java Probably not without reason, one of the most crucial decisions of ancient Indonesian history came at a time of political instability and upheaval in China, India and the Persian Gulf: King Sindok of the Sanjaya dynasty shifted the court of Mataram from the Central Javanese plain of Kedu to East Java, to the area of fertile rice fields on the Brantas river and its delta, which by now had developed into a major supporting pillar of Javanese economy. Several reasons have been mentioned for the fateful shift of the Javanese power center to the east and towards the sea and the major ports: thus, repeatedly a destructive eruption of the Merapi volcano is said to have weakened the sacred mandala. Other authors suggested that the local population was so much fatigued and weakened by the construction of the Candi Borobudur and the Prambanan complex, that it neglected the vitally important rice cultivation. The economic depression in Srivijaya - a result of the crisis in Asian trade - may have had an additional impact to the Central Javanese rice-growing areas that were far away from the sea. So, the argument that a lack of rice surpluses had led to the displacement of the kraton towards the sea looks quite plausible, because rice surpluses were, as we know, indispensable and vital, both for the payment for the spices from the eastern archipelago, as well as for the diet of the population in the Javanese ports. Wiki Commons 10th century: The centre of power shifts to eastern Java In the late 9th century, East Javanese traders had begun to exchange rice and textiles from Java and Bali for spices and sandalwood. Meanwhile, in the production areas of the spices, in Ternate, Tidore and Bacan in the northern Moluccas, but especially in the Banda Archipelago, rice had become a staple food in addition to traditional sago. Depending on the monsoons, cloves, nutmeg and mace were brought to East Java or Palembang by Moluccan kora kora-ships or loaded by Javanese vessels in the Moluccas, and sold to foreign traders from Arabia, Persia, India, Champa (Vietnam) and China in the ports of Srivijaya, where they stocked up with spices, sandalwood and other luxury goods from the archipelago. In exchange of these goods, gold, tin and aromatic resins flowed back to Java and eastern Indonesia, as well as Chinese silk and porcelain, and patterned cotton cloths from South India and Bengal. After 922 CE The revival of Sembiran: Julah, a stage stop on the way to eastern Indonesia. Already a thousand years before its revival in the 10th century, the northern Balinese port of Sembiran had experienced a heyday as a trading center and production site for the famous bronze gongs of the Dong s'on period and for decorative beads and pottery from the South Indian Arikamedu that reached the archipelago as a means of exchange for spices, sandalwood, tortoiseshell and bird of paradise feathers. Rice surpluses and cotton textiles from Bali, needed for the payment of spices and other products from the Moluccas and Banda, were probably a major reason for the reawakening of Julah and for its revitalization as a stage point on the sea route between Bali, eastern Nusantara, the ports of eastern Java and of Sumatra. The revival of Julah had obviously begun several years before the relocation of the Javanese power center to the east. From an edict of the Balinese King Ugrasena, written on a copper plate dating from 922 CE (Goris, Prasasti Sembiran I), we learn that Julah at the time was already well reintegrated into the international long-distance trade. Trading activities in Julah emanated from a fortified harbor district (kuta), in which foreign traders (banigrama) resided and which was under care of a market officer (ser pasar), who also served as harbor master. Various types of boats (perau) anchored in the harbour, large three-masted lancang, smaller longboats (sampan) and dugouts with double outriggers (jukung), such as are still to be seen in Java, Bali and Madura. Where did these "foreign traders" come from and for what reasons did they anchor in the harbor of Julah? The earliest reference to foreign merchants being engaged in trade in rice, spices, tortoiseshell and sandalwood can be found in 883 CE, in an inscription from Kalirungan in Central Java. In this document Southeast Asian traders from Campa (Champa), Remman (Mon) and Kmira (Kmer) are mentioned, besides Sinhala (Sinhalese) from Sri Lanka, Kling from the southeast Indian Coromandel coast and from Kalinga, Pandikara of Karnataka, as well as members of the western Indian merchants' Guild of Aryya (Ayyavola) from Aryapura on the West Indian Konkan coast. In a Javanese inscription from Keladi dating from 909 CE, Sinhalese, Kalingas, Podikiras and Aryyas are mentioned plus Dravidis and Bengalis, Cham, Khmer and Mon. In other words, the traders were arriving from Sri Lanka and India, as well as from Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma. According to an inscription from Palebuhan (928 CE), which coincided with the transfer of the Javanese Kraton to the east of Java, the Sinhalese, Indian and Burmese traders also were employed as tax administrators for the court. The inscriptions convey the image of a cosmopolitan society largely focused on the ports and on trading, composed of Sinhalese, Indians and Southeast Asians, but in which the Chinese were not yet represented. The "Dravidis", South Indian merchants, were organized in trading guilds (Sanskrit: vanigrama). In addition to the kling traders from the Coromandel Coast, dominating trade in textiles and dyes, people from Kalinga, too, had become a major source of cotton textiles that were traded throughout the Indian Ocean. Further reading Hauser-Schäublin, Brigitta and I Wayan Ardika, eds., Burials, Texts and Rituals. Ethnoarchaeological Investigations in North Bali, Indonesia, Göttinger Beiträge zur Ethnologie, Bd. 1, Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2008 Schrieke, Bertram, Indonesian sociological studies: selected writings of B. Schrieke, 2 vols.,The Hague and Bandung, 1955 – 57 Stephan Spicher, Basel Indian textile pattern from Prambanan, around 850 CE INDONESIA (9). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Crisis, Recovery and Boom in the International Far-Distance Trade Crisis, recovery and boom in the international fardistance trade 860-960 CE Crisis in the international far-distance trade For Asia, the century between 860 CE and the beginning of the Chinese Song Dynasty around 960 CE was a time of turmoil and crises. Major markets in India and China were politically destabilized. This inevitably had an impact on international trade and the economy in the Indonesian archipelago as well. Here the disintegration of the Chinese T'ang regime, which ended in 907 CE, proved particularly stressful. Several riots in Chinese ports, where foreign merchants were involved, led to a xenophobic attitude that culminated in the killing of more than a thousand Arab and Persian traders in Guangdong. Nevertheless, trade with Mataram went on, as numerous trade missions from Java indicate, while it stagnated in Srivijaya. From now on, it was Java that quite obviously controlled the international trade in spices and sandalwood, for which there was still a large demand both in India as well as in China. At the same time, India's south also was in turmoil, because there the rule of the Pallava, which had reached its peak from 680 to 720 CE, was coming to an end around 900 CE. The Pallavas had overexerted themselves in wars and revenge attacks against the Chalukyas and Rashtrakutan in Karnataka and with the Pandya of Madurai. Furthermore, political conflicts and unrest in the Persian Gulf, too, had a negative impact for international maritime trade, the Abbasid Caliphate in Bagdhad being in serious difficulties and thus disrupting the connections between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. 907-950 CE From direct trade to trade emporia and stacking ports The crisis of international long-distance trade had led, among other things, to the end of direct maritime trade between China and the Persian Gulf. Now the goods were no longer transported back and forth on direct trips by Chinese, Arabic, Persian and Indian cargo ships, but reloaded in stack ports. And so, from now on, the traders no longer sailed straight to their destination ports, but changed to vessels of different origin that brought them in several stages to their destination. Despite the decline of the T'ang Dynasty in China and the transition from the Pallava to the Chola in South India, the international trade with spices and sandalwood was by no means at an end, winning even in importance, thanks to increased activity of Arabic, Persian and Jewish traders, and due to the creation of new trade emporia and stacking ports. The famous Intan wreck, a Southeast Asian cargo ship from the first half of the 10th century, is a beautiful and compelling example of the continuity of trade relations at that time. The ship, being on the way from Sumatra to Java, had goods from the Middle East, China, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia on board that provide a good overview of the trade goods of that time. The Intan vessel, constructed in a typical Southeast Asian manner and held together with vegetable fibers was en route with 8000 brown pots, storage jars and bowls from kilns in Guangdong and Fujian, further with white glazed crockery, green shells and boxes with decorated lids from the famous Yue kilns in Zhejiang Province. On board were another hundreds of bottles and kendi from southern Thailand and blue green glazed pots from the Middle East. From Indonesia came bronze ingots, gold coins and jewelry, aromatic resin, Buddha statuettes, oil lamps, mirrors, and ritual thunderbolts and bells (vajra and ghanta), as well as thousands of pyramid shaped tin ingots, originating from the tin mines of Kedah in Malaysia. For dating, Chinese coins, all of which had been coined by 918 or later, turned out to be valuable. Political reassurance and new stability on the maritime trade routes Three political developments falling into the second half of the 10th century, were of great importance for the international long-distance trade in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. They brought on all the maritime routes between China and the Red Sea such a positive development of trade, that a new boom in the spice trade with Indian pepper and the three spices from Nusantara was inevitable. An essential role regarding the positive development of trade relations by sea and land (since 690 CE) was played in particular by the Chinese dynasty of Song, which initially relied much on Arab (Da-shi), Persian (Bosi) and partly on Jewish merchants, who, as contemporary sources report, paid their respects at the court of the northern Song in Kai Feng. Forbes Chinese mirrors, Intan ship wreck, 10. Jahrhundert In the northern Moluccas, the Banda archipelago and in the Java Sea, the re-calming and stabilizing of international maritime trade set off a heyday of the spice trade, which was initially focused on Asian trading partners, before, by 973 CE, Europe and the countries bordering the Levante in the Eastern Mediterranean (Syria and Egypt) demonstrated growing demand for black pepper from India, cinnamon from Sri Lanka and cloves from Indonesia. The Shiite Fatimid Caliphate had taken over the rule in Egypt, supplanting the Abbasids in Baghdad, pacifying the unstable situation in the Red Sea and thus bringing stability and prosperity into the Indian Ocean. Now, at last trade relations via Cairo (Fustat) and Alexandria had become possible again. These included the new Italian city-states and were soon controlled again by the powerful Karimi organization of rich Islamic spice merchants from Egypt, Yemen and western India. From now on, this multi-ethnic guild of merchants dominated the international spice trade in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea for about another 450 years. The recovery of trade in the Indian Ocean and in Nusantara was favored by another geopolitical factor, because in South India, too, the situation had stabilized at about 985 CE, once the Chola had expanded and consolidated their rule. The Chola were an ancient Dravidian people, who had lived since prehistoric times in the delta region of the Cauvery River and later succeeded to expand its power at the expense of the Pallava, to degrade to vassal states the Pandyas and Cheras and eventually to annex Sri Lanka by force. Trade between the new rulers in southern India, and their partners in Southeast Asia evolved on various routes: via Sri Lanka, along India's east coast, and across the Bengal Sea and the Andaman Sea to Sumatra and Malaya. Further reading: Chaudhuri, K.N., Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750, Cambridge 1985 Flecker, Michael, The archaeological excavation of the 10th Century: Intan shipwreck, Archaeopress, Oxford 2002 Hall, Kenneth, R., A History of Early Southeast Asia, Maritime Trade and Societal Development, 100 – 1500, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, Plymouth, 2011 Ptak, Roderich, Die maritime Seidenstrasse, Küstenräume, Seefahrt und Handel in vorkolonialer Zeit, C.H. Beck, München 2007 Kulke, H. and Rothermund, D., A History of India, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1990 INDONESIA (10). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. The Golden Age of King Airlangga 1019 – 1045 The Golden Age of King Airlangga It was a godsend for the political and economic development of the region that in this period of general economic recovery a great and strong ruler personality ascended to the East Javanese throne, who had understood the signs of the time and scope of the new upswing in international trade. Within a decade, King Airlangga managed to end the political chaos in the country, eliminated his potential rivals and resolved the conflict with Srivijaya. Then the new ruler succeeded to successfully use the regained peace and stability for the development of economy and trade, for infrastructure improvements in the transport sector and the farming practices in rice cultivation. For this, the timing could not have been chosen better, as shortly before the Javanese, together with the Arabs, Srivijaya and the Indian Cholas, had received a special status in their trade relations with the Song regime in China .. But the King of the Chola, Rajendra I, had cast a jealous eye on Srivijaya and the monopoly position of its port states Palembang, Melayu (Jambi) and Kedah, which controlled the Strait of Melaka. After trying a first unsuccessful attack on Srivijaya in 1017 CE, the expansionist and aggressive South Indian ruler and his fleet succeeded eight years later, in 1025 CE, to plunder the trade emporia of Srivijaya and to undermine their power and authority for the next 20 years. Meanwhile, King Airlangga had managed to establish a new magical and political center of power, in which Surabaya and Tuban played a key role as ports and trading centers. As a son of Queen Gunapriya, a former Javanese princess from the royal dynasty of King Sindok, and of King Udayana from the Balinese Warmadewa dynasty, Airlangga was known for his circumspect and cross-border thinking. As earthly embodiment of the divine Sustainer, Lord Vishnu, he pursued a wide-ranging policy of peace for the sake of his kingdom and all of Nusantara. An important and distinctive act of his unifying foreign policy was undoubtedly his marriage to a daughter of the King of Srivijaya in 1030 CE, with which he succeeded to establish an alliance with his former economic opponent in Sumatra. Trowulan Museum Statue of the deified King Airlangga, represented as the Sustainer, Lord Vishnu, on his vehicle Garuda, 11th century At the same time, Airlangga strengthened his important trade relations with the Indian and Southeast Asian powers: the Cholas, Kalingas, Champa, Mon and Khmer, whose traders were active in the archipelago for more than a century, serving him as mainstay for his wide-ranging trade policy. Surprisingly there was no significant presence of the Chinese in the Indian Ocean and in the Java Sea, even though the Song Dynasty increasingly paid attention to foreign trade, inviting traders from all over the world to the ports of Guangzhou and Hangzhou. Thus, the multi-ethnic traders from Java, India and Southeast Asia remained main suppliers of the Chinese with spices, wood, aromatic resins and tortoiseshell from Indonesia. Traders and commodities from East and West The growing economic strength and rising international demand for exotic products from Asia had attracted many Muslim traders from Arabia and Persia, who provided China, the Middle East, Byzantium and, via Red Sea and Alexandria, the Italian citystates of Genoa and Venice with pepper from India, cloves and nutmeg from the Moluccas. From now on, Muslim traders also appeared in the area of Barus in western Sumatra, to stock up there with camphor, benzoin and Indian pepper, destined for China. One of the most important trade goods of the Chinese Song was ceramics, respectively porcelain, originating from the technologically most sophisticated pottery centers on the Chinese coasts. Excavations in Central Java and along the north coast of Java show how at this period Javanese pottery was influenced by imported Chinese ceramics and related manufacturing techniques (pottery wheel). Another major change manifests itself in textile patterns and textile manufacturing techniques, influenced by patterned cotton fabrics from India, and appearing in particular on cloth fragments or in textile patterns on contemporary Javanese statues. Wikimedia Commons Junk Ship from the Song period Among other important commodities that were circulating in the archipelago through exchange and as a means of payment, we find gold, lacquer ware, damask, raw materials for the production of perfumes, dyes and arsenic for the damascening (pamor) of kris daggers. Furthermore, foreign trade included the business with metals and metal objects made of copper and iron, as well as with Chinese copper coins, a matter of fact that greatly accelerated monetization in Sumatra, Java and Bali. Particularly in local markets "small change" in the form of Chinese coins and local imitations (pipis) now played an increasingly important role, while old gold and silver coins were still used for ritual transactions. Rice for spices One of the many inscriptions from the time of the royal "Sustainer" Airlangga mentions rice as the principal medium of exchange both in regulated as well as unregulated commercial exchange relations. Another inscription speaks of a large dam construction project for a better use of irrigation systems and the protection of transport routes against dike breaches and floods. So, in the 11th century rice had remained the major export, allowing the lucrative spice trade and thus being of key importance for the social relations between the keraton, the traders in the cities and the peasants in the countryside. With regard to the economic development of his empire and its connection to international maritime trade, the king had given priority to the improvement of rice cultivation techniques and irrigation by introducing the so-called "double cropping", in order to obtain two harvests per year and thus to gain higher production surpluses for the payment of spices. As a son of a Javano-Balinese royal couple, King Airlangga had in mind the neighboring island of Bali as well, whose court had been strongly javanised under the influence of his mother Gunapriya and whose temple system (kahyangan tiga) and ritual had been sustainably reformed by his Javanese governor Mpu Kuturan. Rice and sago for Maluku With increasing demand for the three exclusive spices from the northern Moluccas (Ternate, Tidore, Moti, Makian and Bacan) and from the Banda Archipelago (Banda Neira, Gunung Api, Lonthor, Ay and Run), and after Java had taken control of the spice trade, the economic and social conditions for the spice producing populations began to change. With growing dependence on the spice trade now clove and nutmeg trees were planted in place of the traditional staple food sago and taro, with the result that the original subsistence economy and self-sufficiency was increasingly neglected due to lack of time, arable land and garden areas. Thus the spice producers were increasingly dependent on food imports from neighboring islands and other goods from the West, to meet their basic needs (clothing, tools made of metal, wood for shipbuilding and houses, porcelain, etc.) Thus in Maluku there existed two overlapping trading systems: a "local"-one, between the various islands and New Guinea, from where sago and products from forest and sea were delivered, and a "regional"-one, with Java and Bali in the center, from where rice, textiles, metal tools and other utensils arrived at the archipelago. The trade with New Guinea, Halmahera, Seram, Aru and Kei was already more than a millennium old, Banda and the northern Moluccas being hubs for trade in spices, bird of paradise feathers, tortoise shells and aromatic bark between Guinea, Nusantara, the Malay Peninsula and Vietnam since the prehistoric Dong s'on period. 1045 CE The division of Airlanggas Empire Four years before his death in 1049 CE King Airlangga retreated to an ascetic hermit life, after he had divided his empire between his two sons,. His capital city Kahuripan became the capital of the new state of Janggala, which included the area around Malang and the delta of the Brantas, being connected to the Java Sea with its economically important ports of Surabaya, Pasuruan and Rembang. To the west was Panjalu, better known as Kediri, which had developed into a significant naval power with a courtly culture (stories of Prince Panji from Janggala and Princess Kirana from Kediri)) exerting influence on large parts of Southeast Asia, but especially on neighboring Bali, where, until today, an own version of the Panji cycle (Malat) is performed as a genre of gambuh musical theater.The political bipolarity of Janggala and Kediri by no means prevented further economic and cultural development of Java but rather acted as stimulating competition in the interests of a prosperous whole, including Bali, that was ruled by the younger brother of Airlangga, Anak Wungsu (10491077). From now on Kediri took over the spice trade, thus controlling both trade in cloves from Ternate, which had become its vassal state, and with nutmeg and mace from the Banda Archipelago. The spices and other commercial products were either picked up by Javanese ships in the areas of production or transported by the well-known Moluccan kora-kora, being transported to the ports of northern Java or to Palembang, where they were sold to foreign merchants. Wikimedia Commons Trade between Kediri and the Chinese Song During the Song dynasty China experienced a particularly innovative phase of its history, with revolutionary inventions and developments in the field of agriculture, shipbuilding and navigation, which witnessed an actual quantum leap by the invention of the compass (first mention in 1090 CE). Equally important was the invention of typographic printing, by which technical, political and economic information could be disseminated rapidly and widely and which enabled new payment transactions with money transfers and paper money. From the 11th century on, the technical progress had resulted in a sharp increase in foreign trade with the Indonesian Archipelago. After the establishment of special Offices for Merchant Shipping in various southern Chinese ports, the Song Dynasty invited its merchants and traders to participate directly in the overseas trade in the "Southern Sea" and in India. In Indonesia, these economic reforms led to an activation, expansion and monetization of Chinese trade (after 1068 CE) and to a strong increase in imports of Chinese copper coins. These were better suited for the transactions with foreign merchants, than the traditional silver and gold coins (pirak and suwarna) or the so called "Sandalwood Blossom" coins used in Srivijaya, Java and Bali. “Sandalwood Blossom”- coins, used in Srivijaya, Java and Bali However, the supply of copper money was drastically reduced, when the capital of the Northern Song, Kaifeng, was taken by the Jin, Tungusic tribes in Northern China, the court fleeing to areas to the south of the Yang-tze, establishing there a new administrative, cultural and economic center, Hangzhou, in 1126 CE. In the first year of the new reign of the Southern Song, the official overseas trade was scaled down with the result that in 1127 CE the export of copper coins was inhibited and quotas for the import of goods were established. The following sharp drop of official trade missions from Java and Srivijaya shows clearly that the volume of official trade between China and Nusantara had declined noticeably, causing the Javanese to cast their own imitations of Chinese copper coins (called picis or pisis) for their international trade. Coin from Zhong Ning Tongbao, Northern Song, dated 1102 - 1106 CE INDONESIA (11). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Singhasari and the Expansion of the Mongols 1222 CE - 1293 CE Singhasari and the Expansion of the Mongols A heyday of the spice trade From the Nagarakrtagama and the "Book of Kings", Pararaton, we learn that in 1222 there had been a reunification of the two Javanese realms, after Ken Arok, a local ruler from Tumapel (Malang), had seized power in Kediri, then united his kingdom with Janggala, and thus founded the new state of Singhasari, which he reigned as King Rajasa until his death in 1227 CE. He was succeeded by his stepson Anusapati, who ruled during the next 20 years, being followed by the natural son of the state founder, Panji Tohjaya, who was killed in a rebellion and replaced by a son of Anusapati, who reigned as King Wisnuwardhana until 1268 CE. During his reign, the Mongols began to spread in Southeast Asia, moving into Sichuan and Yunnan in 1253 CE and into Vietnam in 1257 CE. Finally, the takeover by the Mongol prince Kubilai Khan took place in 1260 CE. An important and competent witness for the trade relations between China and Nusantara at the time of Ken Arok was Zhao Ragua, Commissioner for Foreign Trade in Quanzhou, the main port of the Southern Song. With particular interest to Javanese trading the port supervisor around 1225 CE recorded the imports of North Javanese ports that, in addition to large quantities of Chinese copper coins, also included green and white porcelain, silk and damask, gold and silver vessels, lacquerware from Burma, raw materials for perfumes and cosmetics, dyes, and more. Zhao tells us that Chinese merchants in Sumatra bought a lot of pepper, being then probably still imported from India. To pay for pepper, Chinese copper coins in alarming quantities arrived in the archipelago, where meanwhile local copies of copper coins (pisis, picis) were minted that, as "small currencies", simplified trade. Wikimedia Commons; Public Domain Khubilai Khan. Portrait by Anake, Nepal, 1294 In Java, the foreign traders were welcomed generously and with full honors, housed in lodges and entertained with plenty of food and drink. Zhao further noted that the transactions between dealers from different cultural backgrounds and various languages were settled as barter, beginning with a ritual exchange of gifts, before a common and binding value was set. In the kingdom of Singhasari apparently more than 300 government officials were working for the management of the cities, the rice stock and the finances of the government. The highest government officials did not receive any wages, but were paid in kind from time to time. On the other hand, the commanding officers and approximately 30,000 soldiers were remunerated in gold. With the trade center of Po-ni on the west coast of Borneo (Sarawak or Brunei), trade between the Moluccas and China had at his disposal an intermediate port, where Chinese vessels that had first sailed on the eastern route via the Sulu archipelago anchored to stock with Sumatran and Javanese products such as camphor, benzoin, rhinoceros horns, yellow beeswax and sandalwood from Timor. The harbor of Po-ni was, according to Zhao Rugua, part of a fortified town with 19,000 inhabitants, being defended by 150 ships, and where, among other commodities, tin, Laka-wood, silk, lacquer bowls and plates, glassware from the Middle East and a lot more was traded. 1268 - 1293 CE Raja Sri Kertanagara and the Mongols (Yuan Dynasty) The Asian expansion of the Mongols began during the reign of King Wisnuwardhana. In 1253 CE the Mongol armies had invaded Sichuan and Yunnan, and four years later Vietnam. 1260 CE, Khubilai Khan took over the scepter and 1264 CE Beijing became the capital of the invaders from the steppes, who had already conquered most of Russia and dominated large areas of Eastern Europe and even Persia. At the western end of the maritime trade route, in Egypt, the Mamluks, Turkish slave soldiers, had rebelled successfully against the Ayyubid, taking power in al-Fustat (Cairo). Due to their resistance to the Il-Khanate of the Mongols in Persia and their mediating role in trade between Asia and the Mediterranean, the Mamluks from now on played a crucial role in the indirect trade relations between Nusantara and Europe. It was King Sri Kertanegara (r.1268-1292 CE), the son of Wisnuwardhana, who first had to deal with the Mongols. In 1276 CE the armies of the Mongols, who, in the meantime, according to the Chinese model, had adopted the name of a dynasty - Yuan -, invaded the capital of the Song, Hangzhou. The emperor of the Song escaped to Fujian and committed suicide in 1279 CE. Now the Mongols occupied all of China. Shortly after the fall of the Chinese capital, the three major ports of Sumatra, Palembang (1277), Jambi / Melayu (1281) and Samudra-Pasai (1282) turned to the Great Khan of the Yuan with the intent to regain their former privileged status against the Javanese ports through recognition of the new rulers. King Kertanegara reacted to this threat with a Javanese expansion thrust, first submitted Bali (1284 CE), and then, in 1286, sent his troops to Sumatra, in order to consolidate the hegemony of Java over the Strait of Melaka. In the meantime the Yuan had invaded Champa and later-on Pagan in Burma. Meanwhile, trading on the western route had become increasingly unsafe, with the result that Chinese traders sailed the less endangered east route via Taiwan, the Philippines and the Sulu Sea, to gain direct access to the Moluccan spices. Maritime trade under the Yuan, compared to their Chinese predecessors, had not changed fundamentally, and followed the pattern that had been developed under the Song. Shortly after their conquest of the southern Chinese coast, the Mongols put into their service the local shipyards and other important production sites, beginning to systematically exploit the civil and military heritage of the Song. Center of commerce in Fujian was now Quanzhou, where a maritime trade office was opened in 1278 CE and where many Muslim merchants lived, who had gone over to the Mongols practically without fighting. 1292 - 1293 CE The invasion of the Mongols in Java and the transfer of power from Singhasari to Majapahit In 1289 CE, Khubilai Khan had sent envoys to the court of Singhasari to demand tributes. But rather than to meet the demands of the Mongol Khan, the Javanese hit, tortured and mutilated the Mongol emissaries, sending them back in miserable condition. Enraged Khubilai Khan began to equip a fleet of 1000 ships to invade Java, to revenge the shameful treatment of his ambassadors and to stop simultaneously the expansionist policy of King Kertanegara in Nusantara. However, prior to the arrival of the Mongol armada in Tuban in November 1293 CE, the political situation in East Java had taken a decisive turn. Sejarah dan Budaya Nusantara Candi Singhasari After King Kertanegara was killed in the context of a palace coup, his son Raden Wijaya, 50 km upriver from Surabaya, in what is now Trowulan, founded the new court of Majapahit, which immediately joined forces with the Mongolian army to lead a joint campaign in Kediri, against local rivals, in order to eliminate the last stronghold of the old regime. But on their victorious march back, the troops of Majapahit attacked the Mongols, forcing them thus to a hurried retreat from Java. Shortly thereafter, in 1293 CE, Raden Wijaya was crowned as Raja of Majapahit, ruling under the title of Kertarajasa Jayawardhana. Following the death of Khubilai Khan in 1294 CE, the expansionary pressure from the Yuan to Southeast Asia strongly eased. Java made peace with the Mongol regime and eventually resumed trade with China. The spice trade was thus once again gaining momentum, on the one hand thanks to the strong increase in demand from China and India, and, secondly, because the demand for cloves, nutmeg and mace "from Java" had risen sharply in Europe, too. From now on, a peaceful trade policy of all participating powers favored and boosted the international trade and exchange of goods both at sea, as well as, thanks to the Pax Mongolica, on the caravan routes across Central Asia. Further Reading: Barnes, Ruth, Indian Block-Printed Cotton Fragments in the Kelsey Museum, The University of Michigan (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), pp. 30-31 De Casparis, J.G., Indonesian palaeography: a history of writing in Indonesia from the beginnings to c. A.D. 1500, Leiden (Handbuch der Orientalistik 3,4,1), 1975 Gungwu, Wang, "The Nanhai Trade", Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 31, 2 (1958): 123. Hauser-Schäublin, B. und I Wayan Ardika (eds.), Burials, texts and rituals. Ethnoarchaeological investigations in North Bali, Indonesia. Göttinger Beiträge zur Ethnologie Bd. 1. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2008 Hirth, F. and W.W. Rockhill, Chau Ju-kua: His Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, entitled Chu-fan-chi, New York 1966, reprint of 1911 edition. Hourani, George, Seafaring In the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times, 1995 Lombard, Denys, Le carrefour javanais - Essai d'histoire globale, 3 volumes : Les limites de l'occidentalisation - Les réseaux asiatiques - L'héritage des royaumes concentriques, Paris 2004 Soekmono, Dr R., Pengantar Sejarah Kebudayaan Indonesia 2. Yogyakarta, Indonesia: Penerbit Kanisius, 1973 Tibbetts, G.R., A Study of the Arabic Texts Containing Material on South-East Asia, (Oriental Translation Fund, New Series), 1979 Van Aelst, A., "Majapahit picis: the currency of a 'moneyless' society", Bijdragen tot de Taal, Land-, en Volkenkunde 151,3 (1995): 357-93 Wade, Geoff, “An Early Age of Commerce in Southeast Asia, 900-1300 CE”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 40(2), pp 221-265, The National University of Singapore, 2009 Wisseman Christie, Jan, “Trade and early state formation in Maritime Southeast Asia: Kedah and Srivijaya”. Malaysian Journal of History, Politics and Strategic Studies 13, pp. 43-56 (1984) Wisseman Christie, J., „State formation in Early Maritime Southeast Asia: a consideration of the theories and the data“, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 151 (2), 235-88, (1995) Wisseman Christie, Jan, "Javanese markets and the Asian sea trade boom of the tenth to thirteenth centuries A.D.", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 41, 3 (1998). INDONESIA (12). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Majapahit and Venice in the 14th Century Majapahit and the world trade system in the 14th century c. 1300 CE The Javanese trading network in the context of "global" trade During the reign of the Singhasari regime (1222 – 1292 CE) between East and West an immense international economy area had been created, with multi-branched trade routes on land and water. The middle and the northern Silk Road, which led from China through Central Asia to the Middle East and to Europe, were now under the control of Mongol dynasties. In China, since 1271 CE, the dynasty of the Yuan was in power, in Central Asia the kingdom Chaghatai, in Kazakhstan, southern Russia and Ukraine the Golden Horde, and in the Iran-Iraq area, the Il-Khanate. Meanwhile, the period of martial conquests and political unrest had given way to a largely peaceful and commercially liberal order (the so-called pax mongolica), creating good and safe conditions for the caravan trade and for cultural exchange between China and Europe. This was also beneficial for Western travelers and merchants such as the Venetian family of the Polo’s, whose most famous member, Marco, was in the service of Khubilai Khan for several years. Now, in addition to the flourishing caravan trade, maritime trade between East and West, too, was in full bloom, with a positive impact on production and trade of spices in Nusantara. Controlling this lucrative trade out of its international ports of Tuban and Surabaya, Majapahit, in the course of only a few years, succeeded in intensifying irrigated rice cultivation, in expanding its transport routes (roads and channels) and in effectively improving its market system, thus becoming finally one of the wealthiest countries in the world. During the dynasty of the Song, progress in shipbuilding and navigation had led to new and intense trade relations in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. Following private and public initiative, Chinese merchants and traders had begun to play an increasingly active role outside of China. After the Mongol Yuan had taken over the commercial policy of their predecessors, one could met Chinese junks and dealers on all “Southern Seas”, both on the western route, leading to the Indian Ocean, as well as on the old eastern route of the early Austronesians, where Chinese traders sailed from Fujian via the Sulu Sea into the Moluccas and to Timor. In Europe, too, a new market had been established around 1250 CE, focused on the Italian city-states of Genoa and Venice that cooperated with the new Egyptian rulers, the Mamluks, and the multi-ethnic Karimi spice merchants, their main suppliers from Alexandria, Cairo and Aden (Yemen). The rich Karimi, Jewish and Muslim merchants, ship owners and bankers from Egypt and Yemen, controlled the spice trade between Europe, the Red Sea and the Indian pepper and spice ports on the Malabar Coast. West Indian ports such as Calicut and Cambay in Gujarat had gained in importance at the expense of the ports on the Coromandel Coast and of Sri Lanka that had lost its influence, shaken by internal conflicts. The regional trading networks In the 13th century, an international network of trade relations had been established between the two poles of world trade, where a variety of different cultural, social and economic systems and different religious groups such as Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews and animists were involved, trading together in a largely peaceful manner. As a center of spice trade, the Hindu-Buddhist Kingdom of Majapahit was an important part of the global trading system. The Venetian traveler and merchant Marco Polo, who visited North Sumatra on his return from China in 1293 CE, later recalled that Java in the founding years of Majapahit "is also frequented by a vast amount of ships, and by merchants who buy and sell costly goods from which they reap great profit ... Indeed the treasure of this Island is so great as to be past telling." (The Travels of Marco Polo, translated by Henri Yule, Book 3 / Chapter 6), and in the work of the Persian historian of the Il-Khanate, Wassaf (1299 - 1323 CE), we can read: "this place (called Java) surrounded by the sea, is full of movable and immovable wealth and blessed with treasure, and is one where it rains pearls, and gold and silver coins and goods of the most precious kind. The creative power of the Almighty has perfumed this place and its surroundings with the breath of aloe and of cloves ..." The regional trade network of Java was dominated by the ports of Tuban and Surabaya and included the islands of Bali, Lombok and Timor, the Banda Islands and the northern Moluccas, furthermore the west coast of Borneo and the southern coast of Melaka, where it joined the Straits of Melaka and the Bay of Bengal. The trading network of the eastern Indian Ocean stretched from the northern and western coast of Sumatra to the north of the Malay Peninsula and Burma and, along the eastern Indian coast, up to the Coromandel Coast and Sri Lanka. To the west of the archipelago, another trade zone ran from the Straits of Melaka along the east coast of present-day Malaysia to Thailand and to the southern coast of Vietnam (formerly Funan) and other regions on the Gulf of Thailand. Finally, in the east of Nusantara another trade network joined the northern Moluccas. Here, the Sulu Sea, including the west coast of Luzon, Cebu and Mindanao in the Philippines, played an important role, especially in trading cloves, sandalwood, bird feathers and tortoiseshell with Chinese traders. Wikimedia Commons The international trading networks By trading in Bengal, on the Coromandel coast and in Sri Lanka, the Javanese and Sumatran merchants were connected to the international trade on the Malabar Coast (Quilon, Cochin and Calicut) and in Gujarat (Cambay). In the West, another trading system was connected to the port city of Cambay, extending from Hormuz and Aden to the Red Sea and to Cairo, Alexandria and Beirut, supplying the European markets with spices from India (pepper), Sri Lanka (cinnamon) and "Java" (spices from the Moluccas and Banda). In the ports and market places of Majapahit, in addition to the traders from the already well-known Indian and Southeast Asian trading regions, now also the Chinese were represented. An inscription (Balawi, 1305 CE) from the reign of the first King of Majapahit mentions the Indian Kling, Aryya and Karnataka, the Sinhala from Sri Lanka, Campa, Kmir and Caremin (Mon), and for the first time traders from “Cina”. Foreign traders were employed by the Court as tax administrators, or tax collectors, as the King and his court were paying their budgets with taxes and port charges that made them rich and thus enabled them to carry out their elaborate rituals. The list of Balawi clearly indicates that, even in the 14th century, the main impetus for the spice trade was coming from Asian countries and not from Europe, although, with Venice and Genoa, two major European clients had turned up. In the 13th century, in Europe the name of "Java" had become synonymous with "the three fine spices" that had become ever more popular as remedies, preservatives and flavor enhancers, but whose production areas still were unknown. Javanese traders, who were based in Java (Tuban, Surabaya, Gresik and Bubat), now became active in Samudra-Pasai and, according to the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta, even in Calicut, where they probably supplied the influential Karimi-spice merchants from Yemen and Egypt with cloves, nutmeg and mace. Meanwhile, in northern Sumatra, Samudera Pasai had developed into a hub of Muslim trade and a counterpoint to Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit, due to its strategically ideal location at the crossroads of international trade routes. Already before the turn of the century from the 13th to the 14th century, the Venetian merchant and traveler Marco Polo had found traces of Islam in Samudera Pasai, whose ruler converted to the faith of the Qur'an in 1297 CE, assuming the title of Sultan Malik-al Salih. "Three fine spices": a source of wealth for Majapahit and Venice Thanks to innovative developments in agriculture and to the emergence of new settlements, the European economy had changed considerably between 950 and 1300 CE. New markets and market towns had been created, monetisation and credit services had internationalised trade. In the 12th century Flanders had become the richest and most densely populated area in Europe. Merchants from all parts of the continent, but especially from the Italian city states of Venice and Genoa, visited the major trade fairs of Champagne in France. Among the exotic goods that arrived to Europe from Asia, spices from India (black pepper), Sri Lanka (cinnamon) and Java (cloves, nutmeg and mace) had become increasingly important. This was partly due to the Christian Crusades of European knight armies that, from 1095 CE on, had travelled to the Holy Land, with the declared aim to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims. In contact with the locals of the Levant, the European crusaders and settlers had eventually acquired a taste for exotic spices that were so admirably suitable for the seasoning and preserving of meat and other foods, for the mixing of remedies of all kinds, and, like nutmegs, as a fumigant or aphrodisiac. As a result of the Crusades and simultaneous military campaigns of Turkish Seljuks, the trade route leading from the Persian Gulf through Baghdad to the Mediterranean once more had become so insecure that trade shifted from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea and from there to the Mediterranean port of Alexandria, where, in 1173 CE, the Venetians had received their own Fondaco, a trade and storehouse for their business with the Karimi-merchants. The Karimi were multiethnic, cartel-like associations of merchants, financiers and ship owners from Egypt and Yemen, who run and controlled trade with Indian pepper and spices from Sri Lanka and Indonesia, as well as with other products from the East that were stored and traded in the Indian ports of Cochin, Calicut and Cambay, in Aden, Cairo and Alexandria. Wikipedia Commons: Public Domain Venice – the Serenissima Republic After the conquest of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade (1204 CE) Venice had become a medieval superpower, the most important trading power in Europe and, thanks to its cooperation with the Islamic Ayyubids and the Karimi, the undisputed intermediary in trade between East and West. The supremacy of the Serenissima did not change under the successors of the Ayyubids, the Mamluks, former slave soldiers of mostly Turkish or Caucasian origin who served in Egypt, took power in 1250 CE, which they kept for no less than 267 years. The Mamluks had brought stability and trading security back to the Red Sea, by successfully ward off the Mongols, who, in 1258 CE, had conquered Baghdad. From now on safe transport of Asian goods via Jiddah, Al-Fustat (Cairo) and Alexandria to European markets was guaranteed. Once having aligned its economic policies more intensively to the open sea and on long-distance trade with the East, the lagoon city finally developed into a hub for trade between Central Europe and the Muslim world. However, in the practical implementation of their policy, the Venetians rested entirely dependent on the Karimi, being not allowed to travel in the Red Sea and in Egypt, and therefore conducting all trading activities from their Fondachi in Alexandria, where they took over the goods that they brought to Venice on their galley fleets. From there, the flow of goods eventually spread out throughout Europe. Wikimedia Commons Majapahit: Bajang Ratu in Trowulan The luxury goods from the East were paid mainly with silver and, despite vigorous protests of the Pope, with war-important materials such as iron, copper, lead, weapons and wood for the shipbuilding of Muslim armies. The renewed boom in the international spice trade boosted the economy on both sides of the maritime trade route between Java, Cairo and Alexandria in such a way that Majapahit and Venice, thanks to the immense profits from the spice business, soon belonged to the richest areas in the world. The cultural consequences of this economic upswing can still be recognized both in Bali, as well as in Venice, where, on the one hand, the courtly arts and theater forms handed down from Majapahit have been preserved and where, on the other hand, the old splendor of the Renaissance, funded with the immense gains from Asian luxury goods, is mirrored in a cityscape of world’s unique beauty. Increasing monetising of trade in Nusantara With Europe, an important new market for spices had emerged. Thanks to China and India, Java had become an international trading center. In return for its products, Majapahit not only received large quantities of Chinese copper money, but also gold and silver from the West. In Asia, silver, relative to gold, had gained in purchasing power. Chinese copper money was no longer used as a commodity but as cash with which wages were paid. But despite of the increasing importance of cash, rice (besides work) remained the most important means of payment. Rice was collected by ministers of state (patih) and stacked in government stores until it was needed, be it as wages for government officials or for the payment of royal rituals. Koller Auktionskatalog, Zürich Piggy bank made of terracotta; Majapahit, 14th century Further Reading: (cf. next chapter: Golden Age and Crisis in the Majapahit Empire) INDONESIA (13). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Golden Age and Crisis in the Majapahit Empire Golden age and Crisis in the Majapahit Empire In 1331 CE, Majapahit had secured its rule throughout eastern Java and the island of Madura. 1343 CE, forces of the imperialist empire conquered large parts of the neighboring island of Bali, whose irrigated rice fields were economically important for the spice trade of Java. From 1347 CE on, the brilliant strategist and military commander Gajah Mada, Chief Minister of Queen Regent Tribhuwana (1328-1350), began to annex ports to the east and west of Tuban and Surabaya, extending the influence of Majapahit as far east as New Guinea and the Philippines. After the accession to the throne of Hayam Wuruk in 1350 CE, Gajah Mada turned to the next domino tile of his expansion policy, conquering Samudera Pasai, the strategically important trading center in Sumatra, in order to ensure the economic, territorial and political power of the Empire also in the West. 1348 - 1350 CE The plague and its consequences At the beginning of the Javanese expansion in the mid-thirties, the plague had reached East Asia and, a decade later, Western Asia. In 1348 CE, the Black Death spread along the Silk Road from the Crimean port of Kaffa on the Black Sea via Anatolia to the eastern Mediterranean and on to Europe and Egypt, decimating the populations of China, the Levant and the Western world. In Europe alone between one third and half the population fell victim to the “Black Death”. Both trading zones on the main caravan routes through China and Central Asia, as well as the major hubs for Asian products in Cairo, Alexandria, Damascus and Beirut were affected by a dramatic reduction of their workforces and the same goes for their customers in Venice and Genoa, and thus for the entire European spice trade. Wikimedia Commons Portrait, probably Gajah Mada Terracotta from Majapahit, 14th century In China, where the plague raged most fiercely, the big losses eventually led to the belief that the Yuan had lost their mandate of heaven. This was, among other things, a key reason for the end of Mongol rule and for the transfer of power to the Chinese dynasty of the Ming in 1368 CE, for the end of the Pax Mongolica and the free trade over land as well as for political turmoil in the Persian Il-Khanate, which threatened the safety of the caravan routes through the Persian Gulf to the Levant, favoring once more the maritime trade via the Red Sea to Cairo and Alexandria. Despite of the disastrous demographic consequences of the plague, Venice, as well as Cairo and Alexandria, had recovered in a relatively short time and without lasting damage to their trade with India and Nusantara. Consequently the economic boom of the kingdom of Majapahit went on quite undisturbed. During the plague, the demand for spices from Nusantara had remained big in Europe, since both cloves and nutmegs were used as a fumigant and disinfectant against the Black Death. After the plague, which had cost the lives of one-third of the inhabitants, trade was rapidly taken up in the lagoon city of Venice, with the help of slave labor. Venice had survived because the Egyptian trade in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean had been going on continuously thanks to the trade networks of the Mamluks and the Karimi merchants. In the meantime, in South India, in 1336 CE, the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanegara had arisen, which, after all, was more concerned with horse trading than with spices. The development of the Malabar ports, whose spice imports from Sri Lanka and Nusantara were hardly affected by the plague, had made maritime trade between East and West even more direct and intensive, thereby also boosting the textile and spice trade in Majapahit. Wikimedia Commons Rialto Market in Venice. Center of European spice trade. Vittorio Carpaccio (1466-1525) 1350 - 1389 CE Hayam Wuruk (Rajasanagara) and the heydays of Majapahit In spite of the plague and the crisis of the Mongols, Majapahit was able to expand and increase its spice trade and wealth under the reign of King Rajasanagara, first and foremost thanks to the help of Muslim and Hindu traders from Egypt, the Arabian peninsula and India, and of Chinese private traders. In Prapanca's panegyric Nagarakertagama, an ode to King Hayam Wuruk (Rajasanagara), Chinese traders are mentioned, who had probably settled in Nusantara during the Mongol rule. The Indian traders who supplied Indonesia with textiles, were mainly from Goda (Gaur) in Bengal and Karnataka in South India. The great influence of Indian textile patterns (especially printed cotton cloths) in Java is clearly shown on eastern Javanese statues of kings and deities from the 13th and 14th centuries, whose hip cloths show great similarity with Indian export cloths. Around 1377 CE, in Bubat, the "twin city" of Majapahit, there existed several districts for the foreign merchants, who brought their goods to the major Javanese markets, using an extensive network of roads and waterways. In the Ferry Charter of Canggu (1358 CE), an important trading center in the vicinity of the capital and of the court, not less than 79 ferry crossings are enumerated. Among the merchants living in Bubat, the Chinese were represented most noticeably, in addition to traders from India, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. On the market of Bubat, both, spices from Maluku that were supposed to grow in Java, and luxury goods such as porcelain and silk, were available. With its renowned Tantric Caitra ritual cycle, Bubat was also an important religious center for the Majapahit kingdom and its ruler, who was considered to be a manifestation of Siwa, Buddha and Nirguna (Wisnu), and thus embodied the syncretic, typical Javanese conception of religion and ritual. 1389 CE Death of Hayam Wuruk, Succession Wars and incipient decline of Majapahit In 1364 CE, Gajah Mada, the great strategist of Majapahit, died, four years before the final demise of the Mongols of the Yuan Regime and the seizure of power by the Chinese Ming Dynasty. Already in the first years of its existence, Majapahit was in a tense relationship with the dynasty of the Ming. In 1377 CE, East Javanese Empire, arriving at the zenith of its territorial power, sent its fleet to Palembang, to consolidate its control over the Straits of Melaka. The rulers of the former capital of Srivijaya called the Ming for help, but when the envoys of the Ming Emperor arrived in Palembang, the city was already occupied by the troops of Majapahit. The Chinese delegation was executed, and the relationship between the rulers in Nanking and East Java remained upset for years to come. In 1389 CE, the last "world ruler”, Hayam Wuruk, died, and his nephew and son in law Wikramawardhana ascended to the throne as his successor. But his claim to the throne was disputed within the kraton, particularly by the biological son of Hayam Wuruk, Wirabhumi, who conspired with the enemies of his cousin and brother in law, and thus prepared his overthrow. In 1401 CE, the conflict finally led to a succession war (Perang Paregreg), ending with the escape and death of Wirabhumi. Although the legitimate and victorious King Wikramawardhana had consolidated his power within the Keratons, and continued to rule until the year 1429, the paralyzing war added great damage to the hegemony of Majapahit, with lasting consequences for the further economic, social and cultural development of the entire archipelago. Pura Sada Kapal. Influence of Majapahit Architecture in Bali Further Reading: Abu-Lughod, Janet, Before European Hegemony : The World System AD 1250-1350, New York 1989 Hardjowardojo, P. Pitono, trans. Pararaton, Jakarta 1965 Lane, Frederic, C., Venice and History: The Collected Papers, Baltimore, 1966 id.: Seerepublik Venedig, München, 1980 Marr, David G., and A.C. Milner, eds., Southeast Asia in the Ninth to Fourteenth Centuries, Singapore, 1986 Pigeaud, Th. G. Th., Java in the 14th Century: A Study in Cultural History, 5 volumes, The Hague, 1960-63 Robson, Stuart, O., Desawarnana: (Nagarakrtagama) by Mpu Prapanca. Leiden, 1996 Wicks, Robert S., Money, Markets, and Trade in Early Southeast Asia: The Development of Indigenous Monetary Systems to AD 1400, Ithaca, NY, 1992 Wisseman Christie, Jan, "Texts and Textiles in 'Medieval' Java", Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient 80, 1 (1993): 193-95. Wisseman Christie, Jan, "Money and its uses in the Javanese states of the ninth to fifteenth centuries A.D.", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 39, 3 (1996): 243-86. INDONESIA (14). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. International Trade and Islamisation 15th Century International trade and Islamisation 1400 – 1415 CE Bridgeheads of Islamisation After Samudra-Pasai whose ruler converted to Islam already in 1297 CE, founding the first Sultanate in northern Sumatra, Aceh became a Sultanate in 1400 CE and Melaka followed in 1414 CE. How widely Islam had left its mark in Nusantara, was shown by the fact that already in 1414 the first mosque was built in Ambon. With growing influence of Samudera-Pasai and Melaka, the influence of Majapahit increasingly began to crumble, with the result that the desire for independence and closer relations with Islam was getting stronger in the North Javanese coastal cities. Unlike the locally based Javanese Hinduism the new universalistic religion offered the increasingly assertive and rich port cities an internationally supported new identity and legitimacy and thus proved to be a realistic opportunity of delimitation with respect to Majapahit and its feudal social order. Islam had arrived in Nusantara with international spice trade and was then accepted and adopted by Indonesian traders as a symbol and a political instrument of autonomy. The first Javanese Muslims were not missionaries or colonists, coming from outside, but, just as with Buddhism and Hinduism in the 5th century CE, parts of the local population, who accepted the new faith voluntarily and as a tool against the unpopular rulers in the hinterland. Wherever Islam met the powerful and still influential civilizations of Ancient Java, it developed into syncretic forms of belief and ritual, different from Sumatra and Malaysia, where the local population had abandoned traditional beliefs and rituals under the influence of Muslim scholars and clerics. Wikimedia Commons. Gunawan Bridgeheads of Islamisation: Samudra Pasai, Aceh and Melaka 1402 - 1414 CE The foundation and development of the new trade center of Melaka One year after the outbreak of the family war in Majapahit, Parameswara, a noble descendant of the ancient ruling dynasty of Srivijaya, founded the new trade hub of Melaka in the west of Tumasik (todays Singapore). This was in the best interests of the Ming Dynasty, fearing for trade security in the Straits of Melaka and therefore supporting any initiative which brought stability to the Strait, threatened by Chinese pirates. In fact, the rulers of Majapahit were busy with themselves and their inner conflicts and therefore had neglected their foreign and trade policy. Parameswara succeeded within a short time to attract traders from Gujarat, Bengal, South India, China and Java, thus giving the port importance as a hub of international trade between East and West. Only two years after the foundation of Melaka, the new trading center received the official protection of the Ming who, in 1405 CE, sent a fleet, commanded by Admiral Zheng He, into the Straits, to clean the port of Palembang, which was used by the pirates as a support point. Just 10 years later, in 1414 CE, Parameswara converted to Islam, adopting the Muslim name of Iskandar Shah. After the former prince of Srivijaya had married a daughter of the sultan of Pasai, also Melaka became an Islamic Sultanate and, besides Pasai, an important basis for the the future Islamisation of Indonesia. Wikimedia Commons. Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen Black Pepper (Piper nigrum) Black pepper from Samudra Pasai (Sumatra) After having offered their protection to Melaka by 1405 CE, the Chinese expanded their trade relations with the new commercial center in the Straits and the North Javanese ports, over which in the meantime the rulers of Majapahit had lost control. From now on, spices, sandalwood and large quantities of rice were delivered directly from Java to Melaka or to Samudera Pasai, where international traders acquired the goods destined for export, and where rice was used as a staple food to feed the local population. Thus the Straits had gained back again part of their former importance, they had during the Srivijaya period. Despite the increasing importance of Melaka, Samudra Pasai was able to maintain its international role in Muslim trade between East and West. For quite some time the Muslim statelet in northern Sumatra had served as a port of call for black pepper (Piper nigrum) that was imported from the Indian Malabar Coast and then was sold to the Chinese. Since the turn from the 14th to the 15th century, pepper was also grown in the hinterland of Pasai and beyond, in Malaya and West Java, mainly to supply the Chinese markets. With new methods of production following the high level of demand, also the working practices in the west of Nusantara began to radically change. From now on, entire populations, communities and villages devoted themselves fully to the production of black pepper, thus becoming dependent on the supply of food, clothing and other things of daily use, the same way as the spice producers in the east of the archipelago and the inhabitants of the coastal towns, who were involved in trade. Muslim trade between East and West From about 1400 CE, practically coinciding with the founding of Melaka, Cochin and Calicut, the two major ports of Malabar, are mentioned more frequently as important hubs for the international pepper and spice trade. Here lived the wealthy Muslim merchants and traders, maintaining regular contact with the Karimi in Yemen and Egypt and trading in black pepper from Malabar, cinnamon from Sri Lanka and spices from the Indonesian archipelago. Calicut had become the international center of the Asian spice trade, after the influence of the old East Indian merchant guilds had dropped and priorities of trade had shifted away from the Coromandel to the Malabar Coast and to the port of Cambay in Gujarat. Thus the spice trade in the western Indian Ocean was now completely under the control of influential Muslims from India, Arabia and Egypt who had the final say in all major trading centers between Calicut, Male, Cambay, Hormuz, Aden and Alexandria. Aden in southern Arabia had become the staple port for all commercial goods that arrived from the Red Sea or went there, and for all goods which were shipped from Africa (Kilwa and Zanzibar), from Gujarat or from the Malabar coast. Therefore, the goods intended for Venice and Europe did not reach the Red Sea on a direct route, but were transshipped in Aden and transported on vessels sailing under the control of the Egyptian Mamluks. The Venetians themselves had nothing to look for, neither in the Red Sea nor in the Indian Ocean. All ports, with the exception of Calicut, whose ruler, the Samudri, was a Hindu, were in the hands of Muslim merchants, traders and preachers who usually, besides material goods, also them Islamic culture and faith with them. It is therefore not surprising that the coastal states in northern Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula - Samudra Pasai, Aceh, Kedah and Selangor - were the first to come under the influence of Islam that had been spread primarily by Gujarati merchants from Cambay. Thus, Samudra Pasai had become a center of Islamic studies and Islamic scholarship already in the middle of the 14th century, as the famous Moroccan world traveler Ibn Battuta, traveling between 1325 and1353, had observed. However, an increased Islamisation of Indonesia only took place in the first decade of the 15th century, following the succession war and the subsequent weakening of Majapahit, and further encouraged by the establishment of Melaka, a major base for Muslim trading networks in Southeast Asia, that finally turned to a Sultanate in 1414 CE. met.museum Mamluk ornamentation (crenellated crowns and rhombuses). Doge's Palace in Venice Majapahit and the Venetian spice monopoly in Europe Around 1390 CE Venice finally had prevailed over its enemy and rival Genoa, thus becoming the leading naval and commercial power in Europe. In Asian trade, the Serenissima had better connections than Genoa and mainly benefited from its shared destiny with the Egyptian Mamluks and the Karimi spice merchants, who were closely cooperating with the Muslim traders and rulers in the Indian Ocean, and who acted as intermediaries for the Venetians. Around 1390 CE, Venice finally had prevailed over its enemy and rival Genoa and thus had become the leading maritime and trading power in Europe. Especially in trading with Asian goods Venice had better connections than Genoa and mainly benefited from its shared destiny with the Egyptian Mamluks and the Karimi spice merchants who were cooperating closely with the Muslim traders and rulers in the Indian Ocean, conducting trade as middlemen for the Venetians. By 1390 CE, annually more than 20 tons of cloves, nutmeg and mace found their way from Surabaya via Calicut, Cambay and Aden into the Red Sea and from there via Cairo, Alexandria and Beirut to Venice, from where all Asian luxury goods were redistributed with high profits to the nobility and the bourgeoisie in Central and Northern Europe. In Europe, pepper, cloves, nutmeg and mace were mainly used as spices in the kitchen, for preserving meat, in medicinal mixtures and in making bakery products such as gingerbread, and beverages, especially beer. Further Reading Chaudhuri, K. N., Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985 Gernet, Jacques, Die chinesische Welt. Die Geschichte Chinas von den Anfängen bis zur Jetztzeit, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1997 Hall, Kenneth R., A History of Early Southeast Asia, 100-1500, New York, Toronto, 2011 Ma Huan, Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan: The Overall Survey of the Oceans’s Shores, trans. J.V.G. Mills, Cambridge, 1970. Rothermund, Dietmar, Weigelin-Schwiedrzik (Hg.), Der Indische Ozean, Das afroasiatische Mittelmeer als Kultur- und Wirtschaftsraum, Wien, 2004 INDONESIA (15). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. The Maritime State Expeditions of the Chinese Ming 1405 - 1433 CE The maritime state expeditions of the Chinese Ming The takeover of power by the dynasty of the Ming had begun with an imperial ban on private overseas trade and a subsequent economic downturn in its relations with Nusantara. This led to a strong increase of private Chinese traders settling in Melaka, Sumatra and Java. Here they chose to build their own merchant fleets, hiring local teams and thus playing an important role in the rise of ports such as Gresik, Surabaya or Demak. The restrictive trade policy of the Ming changed in 1403 CE, after Emperor Yongle had ascended the throne in Nanjing, initiating a major program of naval construction in the imperial harbours of the capital and in Fujian at the very beginning of his reign. With a total of seven state expeditions between 1405 and 1433 CE, the Ming Dynasty followed up on the open trade policy that had begun under the Southern Song, becoming a matter of course under the Mongol Yuan. From now on, China was the focus of maritime traffic in the Indian Ocean during almost three decades, possessing the most advanced fleet in the world with regard to shipbuilding and navigation (compass, nautical charts). The first expedition of the Ming fleet lasted from 1405 to 1407, and thus coincided with the end of the succession war in Majapahit and the beginning of Islamisation in the northern Javanese coastal cities. The first armada of the Chinese Admiral Zheng He counted a total of 317 ships, including 62 large "treasure ships" of 40-70m length, with three to nine masts and at least 50 cabins per ship. In some of the research and trade missions, up to 28,000 men were involved, including helmsmen, oarsmen and soldiers, shipbuilders (carpenters, sailmakers, limers), civil servants, doctors, mineralogists, geographers and cartographers, and of course merchants, who were buying luxury goods such as precious stones, spices, flavorings, remedies and rare animals. The active participation of soldiers indicates that Admiral Zheng He had the competence to intervene by military means in political conflicts and to resolve them in the interests of China. This certainly included the fighting of pirates in the interests of maritime trade. A major aim of the expeditions, leading to East Africa, Arabia and the Red Sea, was the scientific exploration of the Indian Ocean and the geography and ethnology of the visited countries and peoples. However, missionary and imperialist motives, as they determined the violent crackdown by the Portuguese a century later, cannot be detected. Wikimedia Commons Sea chart of Admiral Zheng He The first expedition of the Ming fleet led via Champa to Surabaya, where at that time larger communities of overseas Chinese lived, trading with Majapahit. It is not inconceivable that Zheng He thereby actively intervened in the succession war that was going on at the East Javanese court, in the interest of trade stability in the Straits of Melaka. From Ma Huan, the most important eyewitness and chronicler of some of the expeditions, we learn that troops of the first fleet fought and destroyed Chinese pirates who threatened the trade routes in 1407 CE. The fight against the pirates would have been actually a duty of the rulers of Majapahit. But these were paralyzed by their internal dissensions. As a "translator of foreign documents" and as a Chinese Muslim, Ma Huan knew Arabic, and thus during several expeditions recorded with astonishing precision everything what seemed to him of importance. Thus he reported, among other things, on clothes, houses and palaces, rituals and theater performances, mentioning for the first time a Javanese wayang show with scroll paintings (wayang beber), on life and customs, and of course on the commodities in the countries he was touring. Thus, in the Javanese city of Tu-pan (Tuban) Ma Huan located a community of overseas Chinese, which originated mostly from the Chinese province of Guangdong, and consisted of over 1000 families. Ibn Battuta Mall, Dubai Treasure ship of the Ming in comparison with the flagship of Columbus From Sumatra, the Ming fleets usually sailed via Sri Lanka to the pepper ports of Cochin (now Kochi) and Calicut (now Kozhikode), the "big country of the Western Ocean" on the Malabar coast, whose ruler, the Samudri (from Samudrathiri ), was especially courted by the Chinese. From Calicut parts of the fleet made various adventurous expeditions. Thus, ships of the fourth expedition crossed the Arabian Sea to Hormuz at the entrance of the Persian Gulf. Some ships of the fifth and sixth expedition sailed beyond Hormuz to Aden and the East African coast, as far as Mogadishu and Malindi. In 1432, a delegation of the seventh expedition sailed even to Jeddah in the Red Sea, in an Indian ship, to attend the annual trade fair in Mecca, establishing diplomatic relations with the Mamluks. With the death of Emperor Yongle (Yung-lo), an era of economic reconstruction and of diplomatic and military expansion came to an end, which brought a lot of prestige and even more luxury goods to the court of the Ming, but could not outweigh the indescribable human and material costs of the enterprises. The Emperor himself had recognized this and therefore stopped the expeditions shortly before his death. Nevertheless, the grandson of Yongle, Emperor Xuande (1425-1435), in 1431 CE tried to reactivate the expeditions, but broke off the costly enterprises in 1433 CE. The great adventure was over, countless documents were destroyed and all memories were banished from Chinese history. Wikimedia Commons Routes of the seventh expedition of the Ming fleets (1431-1433) The expeditions of the Ming were an amazing undertaking in geographical and ethnological research and at the same time a gigantic enterprise and show of force of the Celestial Empire to prove its technical and intellectual leadership to the rest of the world. Although the seven voyages were not trading expeditions in the strict sense, they also served the promotion of Chinese goods and the protection of commercial interests, such as the special relationship to Melaka and the repeated visits to the trading emporia of Surabaya, Sri Lanka, Calicut, Hormuz, Aden, Malindi and Mogadishu clearly demonstrate. Although the Ming fleets always made the whole trip, and thus broke the conventional laws and structures of the split trade, there are no recognizable traces of any fighting against economic rivals or of attempts of a permanent settlement or even a violent colonization, so typical for the forcible annexations by European powers. Thus, the demonstration of power of the Ming was largely of a symbolic nature and took place without lasting changes in the well-established trading system and therefore also in the spice trade, the routes of which remained essentially unchanged. INDONESIA (16). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. International Muslim Trade and the Rise of Melaka 1450 - 1500 International Muslim trade and the rise of Melaka The international Muslim trading and the Islamisation of Javanese coastal areas after 1450 It was mainly the Muslim merchants who benefited from the withdrawal of the Ming fleets in the Indian Ocean. They took advantage of the free spaces for their networks, they had by now stretched between the East African coast, Cairo, Aden, Hormuz, Cambay and Melaka. This development coincided with a sharp increase in European demand for Asian goods, especially of pepper and spices from India, Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and Indonesia. Trade with Europe was still controlled and mediated by the Egyptian Mamluks and handled with the Venetians in Alexandria and the ports of the Levant. In 1429 CE the Sultan of the Mamluks, Barsbey, had usurped the spice monopoly and thus disempowered the Karimi "spice kings", who had dominated the spice trade for centuries. Thanks to the pepper and spice trade, Venice had meanwhile become the richest and most important trade emporium of the West, possessing the highest state revenue in Europe. As the merchants from the Red Sea rarely ventured beyond Cambay and Calicut, they usually relied on their Muslim partners, the Gujarati from India, who had settled in South and Southeast Asia, especially in Samudra Pasai and Melaka. While the Arab traders with their maneuverable dhow boats continued to play an important role in the western part of the Indian Ocean, by now the eastern part of the Indian Ocean was almost entirely in the hands of Muslim traders from Gujarat, the Malabar Coast, the Coromandel Coast and Bengal, and of Chinese private traders, who often were also Muslims. The almost complete Muslim predominance along the spice route led to a new wave of Islamisation in the Indonesian coastal areas. Many of the Muslim traders, after settling down in the archipelago, had married local women, who converted to Islam along with their children. Finally, Mullahs, Muslim clerics, were called into the country, spreading the teachings of the Quran effectively but peacefully. Wikimedia Commons Replica of the Sultan Palace of Sultan Mansur Syah (1456 -1477) in Melaka Melaka – a new hub of international spice trade Towards the middle of the 15th century, Majapahit had completely lost control of its former empire and international trade. Now, the international trade relations were controlled by the now islamised North Javanese cities. Indonesian or Chinese vessels of private merchants brought the products of the archipelago to the new trade center of Melaka, where they were taken over by international long-distance trade. Only half a century after its founding, the city had become one of the main international hubs for spices and a major hub for Asian trade in general. Here, all important threads ran together, here the trade had become freer after the withdrawal of the Ming and here from now on groups of traders from Gujarat, Bengal and the Tamil world set the tone, in addition to private Chinese traders, who also were operating out of Champa, Thailand, northern Java, Borneo and the Philippines. At the time of the fleet expeditions, the Chinese chronicler and translator Ma Huan had listed the most important goods, which entered the long-distance trade in Melaka and Samudra Pasai. Among the products of Nusantara he mentioned, besides the three fine spices and turtle shells from the eastern Indonesian archipelago, white sandalwood from Timor, and incense (Styrax benzoin = kemenyan), camphor and black pepper from Sumatra, which was mainly exported to China and in much smaller quantities to the West. In addition, trading in tin from the Malay Peninsula, with ironmongery, beads and textiles from India, with precious stones and ivory from South East Asia, silk and porcelain from China as well as gold and silver of different origin was of particular relevance for Melaka. Wikimedia Commons Thanks to improved technology and ship loading capacity, tremendous increases in the transport of bulk cargo had now become possible. This included first of all foodstuffs, mainly rice that was delivered from Java and Burma, and was used to supply the harbor populations and the pepper producers, who fully devoted themselves to the trade or production of cash crops and consequently had not enough time for their own supply. Merchant Diasporas in Melaka The Gujarati After the withdrawal of the Ming fleets, the Sultan of Melaka had intensively courted the merchants from Gujarat, asking them to use his city as a preferred harbor. The Gujarati traded in textiles, pepper, tin, and Chinese porcelain and, in particular, in spices and sandalwood from eastern Indonesia. In addition, many of them settled in the main northern Javanese ports, where they made a considerable contribution to further Islamisation of the local population.The so-called Gujarati traders not only came from Gujarat (Khambhat = Cambay), but also quite generally from the west coast of India and partly even from Sri Lanka. Common to them all was that, as Muslims, they operated in a far-flung Muslim trading network that reached from the ports of Southeast Asia via India to the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea, and extending further to East Africa. The Javanese Soon after its founding, Melaka had established contacts with merchant communities in Javanese ports, and thus had become a hub for trade goods from the archipelago. Thus, long-distance traders were able to buy the spices and the pepper from Nusantara right on the main route leading from east to west. After the end of the Chinese expeditions, Melaka’s destiny no longer depended on the "Kingdom of Heaven", but rather on its interactions with "Javanese" merchants, groups that also included many Gujarati and Chinese private traders, who had settled in Java or had become permanent residents of Melaka. It was these "Javanese", who controlled the trade in the archipelago and brought spices, sandalwood and rice from the islands to Melaka. The Keling Like the traders from Bengal and Orissa (Kalinga), the Tamil "Kling" brought patterned cotton fabrics to Melaka. But, unlike the Gujarati and Bengali, the merchants from the Coromandel Coast were largely Hindus. While the Chinese shahbandar was also responsible for the merchants from Champa (Vietnam) and the Ryukyus from Japan, the harbourmaster of the Keling for some time also exercised authority over all traders from the Bay of Bengal, who brought textiles to the archipelago, and the Burmese, who exchanged rice for Indonesian spices. INDONESIA (17). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. Trade Networks in the Northern Moluccas and the Banda Archipelago Around 1500 Trade networks in the northern Moluccas and the Banda Archipelago „The Malay merchants say that God made Timor for sandalwood and Banda for mace and Maluku for cloves, and that this merchandise is not known anywhere in the world except in those places.“ (Pires, Tomé, 1515. The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires, London, Hakluyt Society, ed. Armando Cortesão, 1944) The Portuguese apothecary and traveler Tomé Pires is by far the most important and prolific source for the understanding of the social and cultural situation in the northern Moluccas and in the Banda archipelago at the turn of the century, and even more so, of the north Javanese coastal cities, which he knew from his own experience, and of course of the international trade center and transshipment hub of Melaka, where he lived. Pires edited his “Suma Oriental” in 1515. However, the results of his observations and surveys relate to the period before and after the arrival of the Portuguese in Melaka (1511) and in the eastern Indonesian archipelago (1512). Around 1500 CE the name of “Maluku” was used exclusively for the clove-producing islands of the northern Moluccas (Maluku Utara), so for Ternate, Tidore, Bacan, Motir and Makian. Worldwide they were then the only area where the evergreen clove tree (Syzygium aromaticum) grew, whose aromatic, sun-dried buds are among the most precious spices of all time. Ternate was the most famous export port and the residence of foreign merchants, under whose influence the island became a Sultanate in 1475 CE. Wikimedia Commons Between Maluku Utara and the Banda Archipelago, where - not less exclusive and precious - nutmeg trees (Myristica fragrans) were growing, there were probably no regular trade contacts in pre-colonial times. Each of the two zones was focused on a spice manufacturing center: in the northern Moluccas Ternate and Tidore, and in the Banda archipelago Banda Neira, where the seeds of the nutmeg and the scarlet reticular coat of the seed shell were traded. Nutmeg and mace were produced both on the inner and the outer Banda Islands, especially on Banda Neira, Banda Besar (Lonthoir), Ay and Run. Both production areas were part of a traditional trade network, or barter system. Thus, Ternate and Tidore were connected to the island of Halmahera, and the Banda Islands to Southeast Seram, Aru, Kei and the Onin Peninsula in West New Guinea. These intra-regional trade systems may have been established already after the arrival of the Austronesians, i.e. 4500-4000 years ago, once the seafarers had come in contact with the gatherers, hunters, fishermen and planters already established. Thus, the spice trade had shaped the history of the archipelago and the fate of its inhabitants since the time of Dông s’on, when through intra-regional coastal trade people exchanged wild spices, aromatic bark, turtle shells and bird of paradise feathers for bronze kettle gongs, bronze ritual weapons and jewelry. In addition, since the beginning of the new era, Nusantara was involved in an international trading system, which reached to Han China in the east and, in the west, extended as far as India, Egypt, and Rome, where cloves were mentioned for the first time during the 1 st Century CE. Collectie Tropenmuseum Amsterdam Perau, made from clove buds. Collection of the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam Social and economic effects of the spice production From the late 10th century CE on and in the following centuries the growing international demand for Indonesian spices resulted in an increased production of cloves, nutmeg and mace and, consequently, in a gradual transition from traditional self-sufficiency to an ever wider dependence on external supply with food, clothing, building materials, tools for building houses and boats, and utensils of everyday life. With the growing trade boom in the 11th century, the spice producers in the North Moluccas and the Banda Archipelago had to supply themselves with the staple food sago and other essential goods from the forest and the sea, which they exchanged in the context of their traditional trade networks with part of the rice and textiles, they had received before from Java and Bali, in exchange for spices. The peoples from Maluku and Banda had become dependent from two supply systems: the intra-insular and the "global", being from now on under the increasing control of Java and Melaka. Over time on board the trading ships, new religious ideas and practices had reached the islands. In 1476 Ternate and Tidore converted to Islam and developed from traditional kingdoms to sultanates with powerful rulers, who, in spite of common descent, were competitors and therefore all too often involved in violent conflicts. According to Moluccan view, Islam had come to Ternate and Tidore from the holy center of the leading Islamic teacher Sunan Giri at Gresik. The new religion had brought an universalistic ideology to the rulers to justify their superiority.The sultans ruled as religious teachers for their people and, as political leaders, felt responsible for their well-being. At the same time Islam made the sultans and the ruling class rich and powerful, since the Muslim traders preferred to anchor in ports where there were mosques, where they could pray and were under the protection of the mighty sultans. Wikimedia Commons The Banda Islands The political situation on the inhabited islands in the Banda Archipelago, i.e in Banda Neira, Banda Besar (also Lonthoir), Banda Api, Rhun, Ai and Hatta (formerly Rozengain), presented itself quite differently. There, at the time of the arrival of the Portuguese around 1512 CE, there still existed independent village communities, which were partly connected through alliances and which in internal affairs probably still acted according to pre-Islamic adat law. However, as spice producers, the native inhabitants of the Banda archipelago depended on a council of mostly Javanese oligarchs, the so-called orang kaya (Indonesian for "rich people"), which, as merchants or harbour masters, had become rich and powerful. The orang kaya acted as an interest group in defense of their own economic interests and at the same time represented the population as middlemen to the outside. Since the Javanese syahbandar controlled both the intra-regional and the international access to the goods that entered and left the coastal ports, they were authorized by the village communities to speak as delegates on behalf of the local population. Already before the Portuguese, Banda was an important trading hub of both the intra-regional trade as well as in long-distance trade with nutmeg, mace and, more and more frequently, also with cloves from the North Moluccas, which were brought to Banda Neira by Bandanese ships. The northern Javanese ports At that time, Tuban and Gresik still were the most important seaports on the northern Javanese coast, not least thanks to their ongoing trade relations with the hinterland and Majapahit. From there they received the rice to pay for the spices and that they sold in Melaka as a staple food for the population. While the port city of Tuban was still ruled by a Javanese family and therefore remained loyal to the Hindu Buddhist king of Majapahit, most of the coastal regents were either Javanese, who had embraced Islam, or Muslim Chinese, Indians, Arabs or Malays, who had settled on the coast and then established small trading states. Gresik was the first among the port cities that were ruled by Muslims. The settlement is said to be founded in the 14th century by a Muslim Chinese, and was still ruled by a Chinese from Guangdong in 1411. After the withdrawal of the Ming and with increasing importance of Chinese private trade, the city had become the most important port in Java and at the same time a center of Javanese Islam. It was one of the most eminent among the nine holy priests (Wali Songo) of Javanese Islam, Sunan Giri, who had spread the faith of the Prophet from Gresik to Lombok, Makassar, Kutai and on to Ternate and Tidore, the islands of cloves, that turned into Muslim sultanates in 1475 CE, under the influence of his disciples. Gresik and its neighboring Holy Hill, together with the nearby Ngampel district of Surabaya, were the first areas of Java, which, based on the founding myth of Javanese Islam, re-localised universal Islam, aligning and translating it into a Javanese idiom. In the neighborhood of the nobility of Majaphit the new Muslim elites had soon begun to adapt to manners and customs of the ancient Javanese culture. Finally, the strength of Hindu Buddhist traditions led to a unique and distinctive form of a culturally javanised Islam (kejawen) in which mystical folk beliefs and old courtly rituals mingled and survived up to the present day. Raremaps.com Map of Sunda and Java, by L.B. de Lavanha, Leiden 1706 In Gresik, Raden Patah, a son of the converted Muslim King of Majapahit, Kertawijaya (r.1447 - 1451), and a noble mother from the Chinese Muslim diaspora of Palembang, had become immensely rich through spice trade before moving finally to Demak, in order to lead a Muslim community of Sino-Javanese traders, connected to the Chinese diaspora from Palembang.Thanks to his wealth and influence, he was eventually appointed Governor of Demak by the Raja of Majapahit in 1478 CE. Subsequently he declared his city as independent from the Empire, establishing the Sultanate of Demak. INDONESIA (18). 2000 YEARS OF TRADE AND CULTURE. The Spice Route on the Eve of the Portuguese Invasion Before 1511 The Spice Route on the eve of the Portuguese invasion From Maluku via Melaka and Sri Lanka to Calicut Starting from Banda and Maluku, the spice shipments reached first the Javanese ports of Surabaya, Tuban and Gresik and sometimes also of Japara, Demak and Banten, where black pepper was loaded. The Sultanate of Demak had developed into a major power in Java, considering itself as the legitimate successor state of Majapahit, due to the descent of its founder Raden Patah. Thanks to its pepper exports, Banten had become a new trade center in western Java, being still under Hindu influence under the rule of Pajajaran. In Banten, there existed a diaspora of Chinese from Fujian providing pepper to China, and of Gujarati from Cambay, who linked the western Javanese trade to the markets in the Indian Ocean, using an alternative route that led through the Sunda Strait, along the western coast of Sumatra and via Aceh. Aceh, whose rulers converted to Islam in 1450 CE, became a Sultanate in 1514 and later on developed into a powerful antagonist of Portuguese Melaka. But for the time being the major part of international trade went through Melaka, the most important transshipment hub between Nusantara, China and the West. Melaka was the key to the major Southeast Asian markets of Pegu, Patani and Brunei, and the most important hub for porcelain and silk from China and the spices and textiles from India and Indonesia. Like Maluku, Melaka, too, depended on imported food for nourishing the local population, and on textile imports for their clothing in everyday life and ritual. While the rice supplies came from Java, Pegu (an ancient kingdom in the south of present-day Myanmar) and Thailand, clothes and fabrics mainly were imported from India. With Islamisation, on the Malay Peninsula, as well as in Indonesia, a new dress code had emerged that required considerably more textiles, especially clothing for the upper body. Wikipedia Creative Commons Nutmeg and Mace. Finally, on the way of spices across the eastern Indian Ocean, in Sri Lanka a further important spice for the world trade was added: cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum). The island of Ceylon, called Serendib by the Arabs, had been an important hub in longdistance trade between East and West for many centuries. In 1500 CE, Ceylon or Sri Lanka consisted of several Singhalese and Buddhist kingdoms as well as the Tamil and Hindu populations of Jaffna in the northern part. On the west coast of the island lived Muslim Mappilla groups that belonged to the largest Muslim population of the Malabar Coast, to whom they were still connected. For centuries the Mappilla had been in trade relations with Arab merchants, who had an influence on their lives and culture. Unlike the other port cities in north-western and central India, Calicut, the spice emporium on the Malabar Coast, remained Hindu along with South India (Vijayanagar). But here, too, there were respected and influential Muslim merchant communities that played an important part in the pepper and spice trade. Wikimedia Creative Commons Dried Cloves From Calicut via Hormuz and Aden into the Red Sea and on to Venice India was divided into Muslim and Hindu governed states and principalities. A large part of northern India had been captured by Islamic invaders, whose descendants ruled powerful principalities in Gujarat, Delhi and Bengal. However, both in the north, and in the Deccan, where five sultanates were in dispute with each other and with their southern neighbour Vijayanagar, many Hindus continued to live. South India was Hindu for long stretches, including the international spice port of Calicut. Indian traders from Gujarat and the Malabar Coast also frequented the Maldives with its center Male, being famous since ancient times for its trade in cowrie snails that were used as a means of payment, and for its bast of the coconut tree (coir), twisted into ropes and used for sewing ship planks. From Male in particular the Gujarati engaged in trade with Islamic city states along the east coast of Africa, especially with Kilwa, Malindi and Mombasa. From there, Muslim merchants traded with Bantuspeaking peoples in the interior of Africa, trading gold, slaves and ivory against glass beads and textiles. Wikimedia Public Domain Meanwhile, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf Hormuz had become one of the most important trading hubs in the world, primarily thanks to the pepper and spice trade of Calicut and Cambay, and the horse trade with South India and its nobility. Whereas the Egyptian and Yemeni spice kings, the Karimi, by now had become completely irrelevant, the Hadhrami from the South Arabian Hadhramaut coast, whose wealth derived from the trade with frankincense, had gained influence. From now on, spiritual teacher of the Hadhrami began to play an increasingly important role in the Islamisation of Indonesia. Many of the Hadhrami traders were now living in multiethnic Aden where, among others, Persians, East Africans and North Africans conducted their business. The economic significance of Aden was mainly due to its location near the entrance to the Red Sea, another reason for the importance of Aden for the numerous pilgrims to Mecca, who usually traveled via Aden to Jeddah and from there overland to Mecca. Besides, in Aden there were also traders from the Egyptian Mamluk Empire, whose rulers had disempowered the Karimi-spice traders in order to enrich themselves at the Asian trade. The Mamluks controlled the two main routes, which led to the Levantine markets in the eastern Mediterranean, supplying the Venetians and other Christian merchants from Europe with pepper and spices from India, Sri Lanka and Nusantara. Further Reading: Abu-Lughod, Janet, Before European Hegemony : The World System AD 1250-1350, New York 1989 Andaya, Leonard Y., The World of Maluku : Eastern Indonesia in the early modern period, Honolulu,1993 Chaudhuri, K. N., Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise od Islam to 1750, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985 Cortesão, Armando (ed. & trans.), The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires and the book of Francisco Rodrigues. 2 vols. London, Hakluyt Society, 1944 Ellen, Roy, On the Edge of the Banda Zone : Past and Present in the Social Organization of a Moluccan Trading Network, Honolulu, 2003 Geertz, Clifford, The Religion of Java, Glencoe, 1960 Hall, Kenneth R., A History of Early Southeast Asia, 100-1500, New York, Toronto, 2011 Lane, F.C., Venice and History. The collected Papers of F.C. Lane, Baltimore, 1966 Lombard, Denys, Le Carrefour javanais : essai d’histoire globale, 3 vols., Paris 1990 Ma Huan, Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan: The Overall Survey of the Oceans’s Shores, trans. J.V.G. Mills, Cambridge, 1970. Meilink-Roelofsz, M.A.P., Asian Trade and European Influence in the Indonesian Archipelago between 1500 and about 1630, The Hague, 1962 Reid, Anthona, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680 ; I. The Lands below the Winds : II. Expansion and Crisis, New Haven, CT., 1988, 1994 Ricklefs, M.C., A History of Modern Indonesia since c.1200, 4th Edition: Stanfors, California, 1993 Rothermund, Dietmar & Weigelin-Schwiedrzik (Hg.), Der Indische Ozean, Das afroasiatische Mittelmeer als Kultur- und Wirtschaftsraum, Wien, 2004 END OF PART I