NSC Highlights
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
MAR-MAY 2019 12 Features — Knowledge Transfers in 14th and 15th Century Java — Zheng He as the Symbol of Chinese Muslims in Indonesia — Sang Sapurba/Maulivarmadeva, First of the Last Indo-Malay Kings — The Two-World Problem: The Language of Archaeology in the Post-Colonial Landscape — Ancient Money in Southeast Asia - Part 2 Upcoming Events — Public Lectures IMAGE: ARCA DWARAPALA (GUARDIAN STATUE), EAST JAVA, INDONESIA. TAKEN DURING THE NSC FIELD SCHOOL. (CREDIT: MICHAEL NG) NSC Highlights ISSUE 12 / MAR - MAY 2019 is published by the Nalanda- Sriwijaya Centre (NSC) at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute and available electronically at www.iseas.edu.sg Contents Editorial Chairman Choi Shing Kwok Executive Editor Terence Chong 1 Editorial Managing Editor 2 Features Foo Shu Tieng Knowledge Transfers in 14th and 15th Century Java Editorial Committee Zheng He as the Symbol of Chinese Muslims in Indonesia Fong Sok Eng Kao Jiun Feng Sang Sapurba/Maulivarmadeva, Lim Chen Sian First of the Last Indo-Malay Kings Hélène Njoto The Two-World Problem: The Language of Archaeology in the Post-Colonial Landscape ISSN (electronic): 2424-9211 Ancient Money in Southeast Asia - Part 2 14 Centrefold Excavating on the Axis of the World: The 2018 NSC The ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute Field School at Mount Penanggungan, East Java (formerly Institute of Southeast Asian Studies) is an autonomous organization 23 Events established in 1968. It is a regional centre dedicated to the study of socio- Buddhist Accounts of Maritime Crossings in the Southern Seas political, security, and economic trends and developments in Southeast Asia The 21st Congress of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association and its wider geostrategic and economic Portuguese and Dutch Records for Singapore before 1819 environment. The Institute’s research programmes are grouped under Regional The Localisation of Buddhism in the Wider Landscape of Bagan Economic Studies (RES), Regional Strategic and Political Studies (RSPS), Banks, Raffles and the Poison Tree of Java: Botanical Exchange in the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries and Regional Social and Cultural Studies (RSCS). The Institute is also home What More Can Archaeology Tell Us about Singapore’s Past? to the ASEAN Studies Centre (ASC), the Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre (NSC) The Mysterious Malay Jong and Other Temasek Shipping and the Singapore APEC Centre. Workshop on Chinese Ceramics The Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre Correspondence (NSC) at the ISEAS — Yusof Ishak 31 Institute, Singapore, pursues research Reflections on an NSC AU Internship on historical interactions among Asian societies and civilisations. It serves as 32 New Publications and Upcoming Events a forum for the comprehensive study of the ways in which Asian polities and societies have interacted over time through religious, cultural, and economic exchanges, and diasporic networks. The Centre also offers innovative strategies for examining the manifestations of hybridity, convergence and mutual learning in a globalising Asia. ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute is not responsible for facts represented ISEAS – YUSOF ISHAK INSTITUTE 30 HENG MUI KENG TERRACE and views expressed. Responsibility rests exclusively with the individual SINGAPORE 119614 author(s). No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form TEL: (65) 6778 0955 without permission. Comments are welcome and may be sent to FAX: (65) 6778 1735 the author(s). Copyright is held by the author(s) of each article. 1 Editorial DETAIL OF RELIEF AT CANDI JAGO, TAKEN DURING THE NSC FIELD SCHOOL IN EAST JAVA, INDONESIA. (CREDIT: MICHAEL NG) This is the final issue of NSC Highlights. them in the civilizational histories of these 1819”; “What More Can Archaeology There are new plans for future countries. The aim of the Field School Tell Us about Singapore’s Past?”; publications even as we mark the 10th was to nurture an EAS identity and “The Mysterious Malay Jong and Other anniversary of the Nalanda-Sriwijaya develop a community of young scholars Temasek Shipping”, and “The Inception Centre (NSC). Set up in 2009, the interested in Southeast Asia. There have of Lion City”. I am grateful to Kwa Chong Centre was the initiative of the Singapore been six Field Schools since 2012 with Guan for helming this special series. government to enhance India’s links to over 80 students benefiting from the the East Asian Summit (EAS) through unique experience. NSC also initiated I am in the debt of previous NSC Heads research and intellectual exchange. the NSC-Nalanda University Internship who steadily contributed to NSC in NSC was thus located at ISEAS to Programme where MA students from their own ways. Tansen Sen was the complement the re-establishment Nalanda University would spend a month inaugural head from 2008 to August of the ancient Nalanda University in at ISEAS to use its library and network 2012, followed by Ooi Kee Beng Bihar, India, and to examine Southeast with experts in the region. This Internship from August 2012 to January 2014; Asia’s historical, cultural and trade Programme was designed to support the followed by Derek Heng from January links to India in order to explore ancient academic development of the university. 2014 to July 2015; and finally, Terence civilizational networks between them. Chong from July 2015 to present. NSC has also contributed to Singapore’s Since 2009, NSC has hosted 40 bicentennial anniversary. Since July 2018, In the meantime, we hope you will enjoy Visiting Fellows of varying ranks and NSC has hosted a series of seminars this issue of NSC Highlights and continue experience who have contributed to entitled “1819 and Before: Singapore’s to support us in our research endeavours. capacity and reputation of the Centre. Pasts” to introduce the premodern and Over the decade, it has published 34 early history of Singapore, and to locate academically well regarded books, it in the broader region. Seminar titles organised 164 public seminars, and include “Why Was There No Singapore 80 conferences and workshops. NSC Before Raffles?”; “The Orang Laut and also pioneered the archaeological Field the Realm of the Straits”; “Buddhist School which hosted students from EAS Accounts of Maritime Crossings in member countries in Cambodia and the Southern Seas”; “Portuguese and most recently, Indonesia, to immerse Dutch Records for Singapore before FEATURE 2 Knowledge Transfers in 14th and 15th Century Java — BY KENNETH R. HALL PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY, BALL STATE UNIVERSITY FIGURE 1: CENTRAL JAVA MOUNTAIN TEMPLE RITUAL. (CREDIT: K. R. HALL) “The land of Java has become more and more renowned for its purifying power in the World. It is only India and Java that are noted for their excellence as fine places [...] And so constantly all kinds of FIGURE 2: TRADITIONAL BALI DANCE/GONG ORCHESTRA. (CREDIT: K. R. HALL) people come from other countries in countless numbers [...] Namely India, Cambodia, China, The passage is significant in that it and semi-literate public to share these Yawana [Vietnam], Champa, the highlights Java’s external ‘knowledge written texts in communal reading Carnatic [South India] and so on, networking’ contacts over its international sessions, religious ceremonies, and [...] sailing on ships with merchants marketplace exchanges, including the dramatic and musical performances in large numbers, Monks and priests intellectual dialogue facilitated by ‘monks (Wappel 2017; Sprey 2017; Hall 2017). in particular -- when they come they and priests’ who travelled on merchant are given food and are happy to stay.” ships and established residency in stable Contemporary scholars study regional (Nagarakertagama, 83.2-4, in Robson Java (Figures 3 and 4). Of interest is how written texts, inscriptions, and 1995: 85, and Robson 1997: 434). Java is presented as both India’s wealthy iconographic portrayals of texts at temples as well as contented1 peer, and there is in Java and wider maritime Southeast Asia less focus on Java’s material prosperity as these have emerged from rich pre- The passage above comes from a 14th but more on its ‘purifying [spiritual] power’ print literary written and oral traditions. century kakawin (long narrative poem) and the consequent superior quality of Long-standing oral renditions of texts called Nagarakertagama (also known as its culture. It is notable that the citation continued in both formal and informal Desawarnana) written by Mpu Prapanca pairs Java with India as one of the two settings, as the initial texts were widely as a eulogy on Hayam Wuruk, a Javanese ‘excellent’ Asian cultural centres, as China sung, read, and performed, adding to the king of the Majapahit Empire, supposedly is relegated to the longer list of linked text body movements, facial expressions, during its greatest extent. Mpu Prapanca ‘material’ trading societies that follows. languages, musical traditions, and asserts in the passage that Java’s contextual practices that connected the continued patronage of Indic religion was Revisionist scholarship focal to Southeast pre-printed literary forms -- notably lontar vital to Java’s continuity in an increasingly Asia has redefined traditional literacy palm leaf texts that remain the source destabilising ‘global’ world in which only as being more than the transmission of of oral recitations. Unlike the Western India and Java were stable civilizations knowledge in print or script, and instead notion that literary consumption was done as they remained dedicated to Hindu- embraces the notion that knowledge of through private reading and study, in Java Buddhist