The four historical waves in Southeast asia
It is the only region to have felt the impact of four distinct waves of cultural influence. This area has been associated and involved with four of the world’s great universalist cultures and civilizations: India, China, Islam, and the West (the three waves and the tsunami, as we will explain later), and Southeast Asia absorbed so many and distinct civilizations.
The Indian wave
Before I begin I must thank Professor Kishore Mahbubani for his magnificent book «The Asean miracle» on which this post is based.
Tagore used to say that he saw India everywhere in South Asia. Some records place the contact between India and Southeast Asia as far as back as 3,000 years. At a certain point, they adopted ideas and a new language from India. Sanskrit became the language of power across the Indian Ocean world, being adopted by kings and queens from Kashmir to Kelantan (Malaysia). Hinduism and Buddhism were nurtured and promoted by courts around the same time and across a broad area of Asia. Hindu’s ideas of kinship and Sanskrit as the sacred language of court and religious rituals could soon be found across Southeast Asia. Especially in mainland Southeast Asia, local elites who spoke radically different languages and lived in different cultures suddenly adopted Sanskrit and its attendant political philosophy and literacy aesthetic.
Travelers from India –artisans, Brahims, experts- were undoubtedly part of the cosmopolitan scene of these courts, just as Southeast Asians were present in India. Although the ardent converts to Indian civilization were primarily elites, Indians also enriched local Southeast Asian folk culture by introducing new religious ideas, mythology, and folklore that interacted with older stories and ideas. Through the Indian connection, Hinduism and Buddhism both spread to these early states and for many centuries existed there in a complex interaction. Eventually, the states of the mainland became Buddhists.
The first of these Indianized states was Funan
to achieve historical prominence, , located on the Mekong, near today’s Phnom Penh and in the Mekong delta. Local inhabitants of Funan likely spoke the Khmer language like todays’ ethnic Cambodians. The people of present Cambodia trace their descent to the people of the kingdom of Funan. Its rise reveals something about the relationship between the Indian and Chinese waves. During the first great period of global trade, it occurred when the Silk Road was opened, linking Han China and the Roman empire across Asia. It seems that in the early days of this trade, rather than passing through the Straits of Malacca, cargoes from Chinese junks plying the South of China were transported overland across the narrow istmus o Kra in Thailand. They have embarked again in the port of Kedah to continue their trip acroos the Bay of Bengal to India and the Persian Gulf.
The decline of the Funan empire due to the change in the Silk Road routes heralded the end of the initial phase of Indianization in Southeast Asia. The locus of Indianization shifted away to the maritime archipelago of Indonesia. Borobudur became the embodiment of Mahayana Buddhism, which spread from India to Southeast Asia, China, and Japan after the 7th Century. It must have been a time of great intellectual and religious ferment, as Buddhism and Brahmanist cults existed side by side and intertwined, sometimes mobilized by rival political families.
Both religions flourished in central Java, and a new Buddhist kingdom emerged in Sumatra, centred on Palembang. With a fine natural harbor accessible even to the largest vessels and located strategically in the Straits of Malacca, the new kingdom of Srivijaya became a competitive harbour for the trade between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. But Srivijaya’s prominence was not only related to trade.
The monk Atisa, born to a prominent Bengali family, traveled there to study with a famous Buddhist teacher. After 12 years in Sumatra, Atisa returned to South Asia, eventually traveling in the 11th Century to Tibet, where he is still remembered as the founder of the Kadampa school of Buddhism.
After the fall of the Tang and the rise of the Song dynasty
in the 11th Century led to new demand from China, and Srivijaya’s dominance was challenged from India. In Southern India, the Cholas of Tanjore developed a powerful army and began extending its commercial influence along the sea route eastwards towards the Straits of Malacca. Chola and Srivijaya seemed to have friendly relations, but the commercial rivalry between both powers developed soon afterward. After all, like in the 21st Century, commercial monopoly was a central issue. Finally, Srivijaya receded, and another Indianized Kingdom emerged on mainland Southeast Asia. In Angkor, the influence of Indian culture could be seen in the tremendous monumental buildings of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom.
Almost 1,400 years ago, the legendary Chinese Buddhist monk Hsüan-tsang (602—664), one of our protagonists of the Journey to the West, wrote, «People of distant places with different customs generally designate the land that they admire as India.»
The Chinese wave
While Southeast Asia was part of the Sanskrit cultural cosmopolis, China’s impact was more significant in the political and economic realms. The land border between China and Southeast Asia is mountainous and rugged. Today’s borderlands have long been dominated by small polities, hill tribes, and diverse ethnic groups who valued their autonomy. Consequently, those areas were considered peripheral and unimportant.
But one featured remained constant in China-Southeast Asia relations. For centuries, the Indianized kingdoms of Southeast Asia paid tribute to the emperors of China. Funan kingdom already sent tributes to China as early as AD500, about 1,500 years ago. One might expect that China’s exaction of tributes demonstrated a desire to asset hegemony over Southeast Asia. In reality, the rules of Southeast Asia were keen to send tributes to China as it proved advantageous for them. When Southeast Asian rulers sent tribute missions to China, the tributes offered would be returned with even more valuable gifts.
By paying the tribute,
these kingdoms could, in turn, engage in profitable trade with China. They exported tin, spice, and various forest products to China while importing much-coveted Chinese luxury goods (silk, ceramics, and tea) and metals (such as iron and copper). The wise Chinese leaders understood that withholding market access to or restricting the supply of coveted Chinese luxury products could provide Beijing leverage over foreign kingdoms. Occasionally, Chinese rulers introduced sanctions to regulate or limit private trade to achieve foreign policy goals.
Even though Vietnam gained independence from China over 1,000 ago, it remains deeply influenced by Chinese culture. For example, the Chinese who assimilated into Thailand gave up Confucianism and ancestor worship and adopted Indian court rituals. By contrast, even though the Vietnamese fought hard to gain and retain political independence from China, they became culturally Sinicized and adopted Confucianism, Chinese political philosophy, and a centralized form of government on the Chinese model.
The story of the largest naval expedition ever sent to Southeast Asia
illustrates the mostly unrealized potential of a more active southwards engagement by China. This was the famous series of maritime expeditions of Admiral Zheng He, a Muslim Chinese, who first appeared in Southeast Asia in 1405 on an imperial mission from the Ming dynasty, with over 300 ships, carrying over 27,000 men.
As part of the diplomatic efforts of the Zheng expeditions, the Yongle Emperor gave special recognition to the trading port of Malacca, established by princes fleeing the sacking of Singapore at the end of the 14th Century. Zheng He used it as a base. With such blessing from China, and later, with the ruler’s conversion to Islam, Malacca role as the leading emporium of Asia was firmly established.
As part of the diplomatic efforts of the Zheng expeditions, the Yongle Emperor gave special recognition to the trading port of Malacca, established by princes fleeing the sacking of Singapore at the end of the 14th Century. Zheng He used it as a base. With such blessing from China, and later, with the ruler’s conversion to Islam, Malacca role as the leading emporium of Asia was firmly established.
As China re-emerges as a great power, Southeast Asian states may fear their relation with China will return to the age-old pattern of paying tribute to China. Of course, in the 21st Century is hard to imagine a resuscitation of the old feudal practice of kowtowing. Still it would be unwise to believe that this pattern established over millennia is without some symbolic power. This is why Southeast Asian states need to develop a deep understanding of how China views the long-term impact of the Chinese wave.
And here we come to the end of the first part of the four waves that influenced Southeast Asia diversity. But the Journey to the East continues so…
… If you want to know how our Journey to the East continues, be sure to read the next post carefully, and for any clarifications, comments, suggestions, or input, please email us at info@danielecheverria.com. Hsuan Tsang, the Monkey King, the Pig, the Sand, the Dragon Horse, and me will be happy to hear from you.
