CHAPTER NINE

SRIVIJA YA AND THE PENINSULA FROM THE END OF THE 7m TO THE

We must prepare ourselves for the likeli• hood that , though not entirely a myth, will prove to have been quite different from the way we have imagined it. (Bronson 1979: 405).

A. SRIVIJAYA: MYTH OR REALITY? (DOC. 30)

1. Srivijaya, about which we have said little up till now, is the vague supposed that owes its deliverance from the oblivion to which it had sunk to a celebrated study by G. Credes ( 1918), then at the start of his career, in which he took another look at some theories formulated before him by S. Beal (1883/86). Taking the measure of a 'kingdom' of Srivijaya mentioned in the Kota Kapur inscription (Island of Bangka; end of the seventh century),1 he linked it with another place with the identical name that figures in an inscription discovered much farther to the north, on the east coast of the , known at the time as the Wiang Sa, later as the Ligor, inscription, when in fact, as we will later explain, it originated in Chaiya. Could these have been "one and the same country?" he asked at the time (Credes 1918: 3); if this were the case, "the exis• tence of a kingdom that had left tangible traces in two places as far removed from each other as Bangka and Vieng Sa and bearing a name that had hitherto been unknown" was a new fact of sufficient importance to justify additional research. He pursued his investiga• tions, turning up the name 'Srivijaya' in two texts of Indian epigra• phy of the Colas, to which we will have occasion to return: one referred to the founding by the king of Srivijaya of a Buddhist monastery at Negapatam in 1005 A.D; the other, to the conquest by

1 Later, the same name appeared on two other inscriptions discovered in the south of , one at Kedukan Bukit (), the other at Karang Brahi (the back country of ). 234 CHAPTER NINE the sovereign Cola Rajendracola I, around I 025 A.O., of the land of Srivijaya and of various places that he linked to the country, which he attempted to identify with several areas in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, but which, however, he cautiously suggested could be "either vassal states of the king [of Srivijaya], or different cities or provinces of his kingdom." (Credes 1918: 5). In addition, he had no illusions about the permanence of this conquest, as the sovereign Cola, "once he had returned to his states," whatever he had been able to accomplish or impose, "obviously [found] himself too far away for his victory to have any greater political consequences than a vague recognition of his suzerainty." (Credes 1918: 8). What remained was the question asked by Credes himself: "What country was formerly designated by the name (:rivijaya?" (Credes 1918: 23). He therefore emphasized the fact that until that time, the name of this kingdom of Palembang,2 already recognized through earlier work on ('Sribuza') and Chinese forms 'Fo-che' (Foshi), 'Che-li-fo-che' (Shilifoshi), 'Fo-ts'i' (Foqi), 'San-fo-ts'i' (Sanfoqi), had been reconstructed as '(:ribhoja', a term that appears nowhere, which gave him cause "to wonder whether, instead of (:ribhoja, the real name of the kingdom of Palembang could not in fact be (:rivijaya," whose supposed importance he had revealed earlier; he rejected the linguistic argument that might have called into question the identification of Srivijaya with Shilifoshi and Sanfoqi, consider• ing the ''fo-che [Joshi], fo-t 'si [foqi] = vijaya equivalence[ ... ] more plausible." (Credes 1918: 23-24). This brilliant analysis sealed the historic fortune of what became the kingdom or of Srivijaya for the rest of the century. In the conclusion to his article, Credes wrote: The identification of <;:rivijaya makes it possible to answer the ques• tion we asked at the beginning of this study. We now know to which kingdom we should attribute the Malay inscription of Bangka and the stele of Vieng Sa: the kingdom of Palembang. (Credes 1918: 25). Farther along in his closing remarks, absolutely convinced that the Cola inscription of Rajendracola I had provided him with an authentic statement concerning the territorial possessions of Srivijaya, he added:

2 Palembang because the sovereigns of the political entity located there had a title that was found both in the inscriptions already cited, and in the Chinese texts and certain Arab texts linked with this of southeast Sumatra.