German Border, 31 August 1939

From Stay Alive! Berlin 1939-1945, by Ian Buruma (Penguin, 2026), pp. 3-4:

The beginning of World War II began as a deadly theatrical performance staged by the SS. Hitler wanted to invade Poland, so an excuse had to be invented. Poles were cast as the aggressors. On the night of August 31, in an operation named “Grandmother Died,” the Gleiwitz radio station on the German side of the Polish border was “attacked” by German agents disguised in Polish uniforms. A brief anti-German message was broadcast in Polish. To make the imaginary act of Polish aggression seem more plausible, the corpses of a few “Polish” attackers were left on the site. They were in fact murdered concentration camp prisoners dressed up as Poles.

Similar deceptions were staged at other places along the Polish-German border, an area where Polish- and German-speaking populations had been at home for centuries, not always amicably. In a place named Hochlinden, not far from Gleiwitz, a German customs post was attacked on the same night by a number of men in Polish army uniforms. (They also sported heavy beards and sideburns, to make them look more “Polish”—in German eyes, that is.) A show was made of repulsing the attack by men dressed up as German border guards. All of them were Nazi commandos. Again, a few unfortunate concentration camp prisoners were forced to play their roles as Polish soldiers killed in the make-believe skirmish. Photographs of the murdered men were sent to Berlin as evidence of Polish belligerence.

At ten o’clock, on the following night, Hitler, dressed in the grayish-green uniform of the German army, the Wehrmacht, made a speech to members of the Reichstag, a rubber-stamp parliament now hastily assembled in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin’s Tiergarten district. Since the Reichstag building itself had been heavily damaged in 1933 by an arson attack that the Nazis might have staged themselves as an excuse to crack down on political opponents, the opera house now had to do. Many seats were empty, since their occupants were away on military duty. The stage, upon which great new music by Hindemith and Schoenberg had once been performed, now had a gaudy backdrop of a giant eagle with a swastika in its claws, flanked by massive red, white, and black Nazi flags. When Hitler’s speech reached its sweaty, fist-shaking climax of screaming bombast, the uniformed delegates stomped and cheered like brawlers in a beer hall. Hitler claimed that Germany had had no choice but to respond to Polish hostility with maximum force. “This night,” he barked, “for the first time, Polish regular soldiers fired on our territory. Since 5:45 a.m. we have been returning the fire, and from now on bombs will be met by bombs.”

Silesian: Pō Naszymu

This week's edition of Culture.pl contains an article by Agnieszka Warnke titled Pō Naszymu: A Linguistic Portrait of Silesian. Here are some excerpts.

The complexities of Silesia begin with the very origin of its name. Its turbulent history, marked by shifting borders and Polish, Czech and German influences, is reflected in the region’s distinctive speech – but is Silesian a language, a dialect of Polish, or something in between?

Difficulties already begin with the etymology of the word ‘Silesia’ itself. The popular theory in the interwar period about the word’s link to the Old Germanic tribe of Silings was rejected by Polish researchers. They almost unanimously opt for the Old Slavonic etymology: the name of the Silesians tribe and the entire region originates from the name of the Ślęza River or Mount Ślęża. Additionally, the morpheme *slęg- (meaning ‘damp’) was retained in the cant word ślęgnąć (‘to get wet’).

With time, history divided the region into two parts: Lower Silesia and Upper Silesia (with the latter appearing in the 15^thcentury). While we rarely hear the Silesian vernacular in and around Wrocław, the Silesian language has survived in Opole, Rybnik, Katowice and Cieszyn, where the inhabitants use the language they grew up speaking. Officially, Silesian has the status of a dialect comprising a group of Silesian dialects, but there’s an ongoing fight – currently unsuccessful – for it to be recognised as a regional language. It’s currently used by nearly half a million people. One needs only to glance at the past to understand the important role of a common language with regard to integrating Silesians with each other but also with the Polish state.

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Silesian Rej

The linguistic rift is fully reflective of the geopolitical situation of medieval Silesia, which then constituted an object of a feud between Poland and Czechia. As early as in the 16^th century, when the Silesian land was already under Habsburg rule, Łukasz Górnicki asserted in Dworzanin Polski (Polish Courtier) that the region was dominated by Czech. One should not forget, however, the prominent Silesian pressmen (such as Hieronim Wietor and Jan Haller), working in early Renaissance Kraków. They modernised medieval spelling, laying the foundations for contemporary Polish orthography.

While one can talk about the visible weakening of cultural ties between Silesia and Polish lands at the brink of the 15^thcentury – especially when compared with previous centuries – they weren’t broken completely. The Renaissance Polish language of Mikołaj Rej and Jan Kochanowski is full of turns of phrase now present in different dialects. Those who then worked to preserve the Silesian vernacular were evangelicals, notably Adam Gdacjusz of Kluczbork (also known as the ‘Silesian Rej’). The charismatic preacher was a fervent opponent of Germanisation, who introduced Silesian into literature, and his sermons, collected in a volume titled Postilla Popularis, presented the difficult life of the Silesians and the deterioration of morality after the Thirty Years’ War. In 2019, the Academic Publishing House ‘Śląsk’ (Silesia) reprinted his most popular work.

Another, earlier noteworthy text, one that remained forgotten for years, is Walenty Roździeński’s poem Officina Ferraria (1612). The simple smelter manager and forge owner described the state of his industry, listing practical information while following the conventions of poetics and versification. It was the first ever text concerning the work of a miner and steelworker written in the Polish language. It was found in Gniezno 300 years later and translated into English in 1976.

Idiotisms & beauty

The 19^th century was not only a time of progressing Germanisation but also a time of uprooting dialects at schools and a ban on cultivating Slavic customs. Polish-language newspapers were released alongside German-language press, and mid-19^th century was a time when Polish-language Silesian literature started to develop (by authors such as Józef Lompa, Karol Miarka, Konstanty Damrot).

At the beginning of the 1930s, after the 1921 Upper Silesia plebiscite mandated by the Versailles Treaty to determine ownership of Upper Silesia between Weimar Germany and the Second Polish Republic and the Silesian Uprisings, Zofia Kosak-Szczucka wrote in Nieznany Kraj (The Unknown Country): ’It’s a large area inhabited by around million people, speaking not another language like Polish but rather a beautiful Silesian dialect, dignified with its archaic, preserved forms.’

The reality, however, wasn’t quite as colourful. As early as 1849, Dziennik Górno-Szlązki (The Upper-Silesian Daily) included a column titled Idiotyzmy i Germianizmy szląskie (Silesian Idiotisms and Germanisms), aimed at polonising the language of the Silesians. They admonished the readers for saying siadłocha instead of kwaśne mleko (sour milk) and jata instead of szopa.. What was lacking, however, were tips on which regionalisms should be preserved. In 1880, in Gazeta Górnoszląska (Upper-Silesian Gazette), one would read:‘we don’t say kopidoł but grabarz (undertaker)’, even though it’s the allegedly Polish version grabarz that has German origins.

In Głosy znad Odry (Voices of the Odra River), released between 1918 and 1924, a the ‘Kącik Językowy’ (Language Corner) column appeared several times, contrasting the ‘weed-grown speech’ of the Upper Silesians with ‘pure language’. However, on top of German and other borrowed words and -isms, they also noticed ‘relics of Old Polish’ – words no longer present in the common literary language but preserved in that region. In issue 3/4 of Głosy from 1922, P. Piast insisted:

An Upper Silesian doesn’t use the German ‘lichtarz’ because they have the native ‘świecznik’ (candlestick), they don’t need the Greek ‘inkaust’ or the Latin ‘atrament’, already having the Polish ‘czernidło’ (ink). […] They don’t look into a ‘zwierciadło’ but rather a ‘zdrzadło’ (mirror). When they accept an invitation, it’s not for a ‘kolacja’, as ‘wieczerza’ (supper) is better. […] For a fair, a holiday or a ‘radośnik’ (‘chrzciny’; christening) they will bake a ‘kołacz’ (kolach) rather than ‘placek’ (cake), cook a tasty bite of ‘owięzie’ meat (‘wołowe’; beef) with ‘moczka’ (capitalists only know the French ‘sauce’) and a calf ‘pieczonka’ (‘pieczeń’; roast).

The post-war changing of borders and forced resettlement resulted in the Silesians having to reassess their identity. Before that, they had strongly identified with a particular town or region, but all of a sudden were required to declare their nationality. The communist regime emphasised the development of official culture, excluding regional varieties. It was only after 1989 that democracy and freedom of speech allowed us to rediscover local histories and accept language variety.

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After the political transformation, the disputes concerning the status of Silesian were rekindled in Poland. Many would consider Silesian a regional language, confirming the linguistic (rather than national) separateness of the area. The proponents of this idea emphasise that without appropriate education, the possibility of obtaining national and EU funds for the development of Silesian press, literature or theatre, the Silesian language won’t survive. Such an opportunity was granted to Kashubian – so far Poland’s only regional language, officially acknowledged as such in 2005. Since then, it’s been taught at schools and one can even take the matura (matriculation) exam in Kashubian. There are radio and TV shows in this language (not to mention press) and there’s Kashubian literature of all genres. Why not create similar development opportunities for Silesian? In June 2019, the Sejm decided against discussing a legislation project – the fifth one since 2007 – regulating this issue.

Among linguists, opinions differ. Professor Jolanta Tambor, leading the works of the Silesian language codification group, believes that, considering the benefits of ‘a minority group having their own language, there’s no reason not to consider the speech of the Silesians a regional language’. At the same time, one ought to remember all its types: Upper Silesian, Cieszyn and Opole. Meanwhile, Professor Jan Miodek, born in Tarnowskie Góry, sees no need for a top-down codification and highlights that ‘the literary variety of Silesian is Polish’. Professor Bogusław Wyderka, who has edited the multiple-volume Słownik Gwar Śląskich (Dictionary of Silesian Dialects) since 2000, proves in his research papers that historically, the Silesian dialect was a variety of Polish, although nowadays it’s impossible to stop the Silesian language movement.

The arguments related to different linguistic traits of Silesian are either non-existent or successfully challenged. The vocabulary and phonetic features characteristic for the region are to a large extent shared by other varieties of Polish. What mostly distinguishes the inhabitants of Silesia who use their native vernacular is the strong sense of Silesian identity, the willingness to preserve and develop their own tradition and culture. Professor Tambor emphasises that today, recognising Silesian as a regional language is an exclusively legal-political issue.

Polish Baby Names

Last week's compilation from Culture.pl includes an article about Polish naming conventions by Aleksandra Jagielska. (Public transport vehicles in Poland that show the current date and time to their passengers also typically show the Christian saint names for those days, one male and one female.) Here are excerpts from the article.

There are 1,063,756 women called Anna in Poland, more people than live in Kraków. Last year, eight boys were named Dobromir. Somewhere between those two numbers sits the story of how Poland has named its children – Slavic wishes, Christian saints, Enlightenment novels, and a 2014 law that finally let you call your daughter Jessica.

Traditional, international or original? After your ancestors, literary heroes or maybe after a patron saint to put your child under their protection? One name, two or more? Let’s check what sort of changes have been happening in the fashions for names in the Polish language.

Even though we don’t choose our own names, they stay with us from birth for our whole lives as an important part of our identity. That right is guaranteed by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, under which ‘a child from the moment it is born will have the right to a name’. Because although its basic function is identification for formal and social reasons, having a name says something about our dignity.

Names are given to children the moment their birth certificate is drawn up in the Civil Registry Office. According to the Civil Status Records Act from November 2014, you can pick one or two names, but no more. This is mostly to ensure the need for clarity in identity documents (i.e. to simplify them for processing by Poland’s bureaucratic apparatus) and ignores the wishes of any parents hoping to name their son after all four Beatles or anything else equally creative.

Names also have to be separate and cannot be hyphenated – no Mary-Sues allowed in Poland. They cannot be diminutives (so William would be fine, but not Bill), ‘ridiculous’ or inappropriate (Lucifer, VAT or Courtesan would all be disallowed). The Polish Language Council also recommends avoiding country names and geographical terms (no Monaco or Pacific, thank you).

Before 2014, the rules were even stricter. If both parents were Poles, they had to choose names rooted in Polish linguistic tradition. You’d have to call your son Jan instead of John, and your daughter Zdzisława instead of Jessica. You also had to choose names that clearly indicated the sex of the child, i.e. all girls’ names had to end in ‘a’. But once the law changed in 2014, you were finally allowed to name your child something foreign regardless of the parents’ citizenship, and able to pick a name that didn’t grammatically indicate the sex but was generally understood as assigned to one, eg. Nikol.

Sometimes, in a hasty rush to fill in all the paperwork, parents don’t always like the name they so quickly put to paper and start to regret their choice. Luckily, there is a six-month window in which a newborn’s name can be changed to something else. This late administrative change needs to be accompanied by serious justification though, like proving it’s a ‘ridiculous’ name or that the baby has continually been called something else. Should we really take our time and want to change the name of a child who’s already past its 13th birthday, then the child themselves also has to agree.

Despite all the laws listed above, there is no official list of banned names – the Polish Language Council and other linguistic advisors can offer their opinion, but the final decision, like so many in Poland, belongs to the civil servants processing the application. If the name does not fulfil the requirements (say it’s diminutive, ridiculous or inappropriate), then the civil servant has the right – nay, the duty – to throw it out. They even get to pick a new name themselves, a commonly-used one, and the parents have just two weeks to appeal the decision.

If you’re wondering how many people in Poland have the same name as you, or are wondering if rarer names really are that rare, you can check the freely available database provided by the Ministry of Digitisation at dane.gov.pl. There you’ll find information about given names across different years, according to all the names accumulated in Poland’s PESEL registry (the country’s centralised identity database).

The latest figures posted in January 2026 say the most common boys’ names are Piotr (682,516 people), Krzysztof (631,898) and Tomasz (533,217), while for girls the clear leader is Anna (1,063,756) followed by Katarzyna (602,474) and Małgorzata (572,067). The top tens also include Andrzej, Paweł, Michał, Jan, Marcin, Jakub, Adam, and Maria, Agnieszka, Ewa, Barbara, Magdalena, Elżbieta and Joanna.

But when it comes to newborns, the lists are completely different. In 2025, the most popular names given to baby boys were Nikodem, Antoni, Leon, Jan and Aleksander, and for girls it was Zofia, Zuzanna, Maja, Laura and Hanna.

Trends take time to change. The most popular names in 2024 were Nikodem and Maja. And in 2023 it was back to Nikodem and Zofia again. In 2022, it was Antoni and Zofia, and before that, for 2021, 2020 and 2019, it was Antoni and Zuzanna.

So yes, with one stubborn exception in 2024, a girl born in Poland since 2019 has stood a very good chance of being landed with a name starting with Z.

But let’s go back to the statistics from the start of the century. In the years 2001 to 2012, the top names were Jakub and Julia – yes, for over a decade, it was the same names over and over again. It was only in 2013 that the name Lena dethroned Julia. Jakub was dethroned as late as 2016 by a name you’ve already seen: Antoni.

So those are the most popular names, but what about the rarest? In 2025, among the rarest names given to a boy in Poland were Zbyszko, Teodozjusz, Światosław, Gromisław and Gaweł. There were also a few non-typical Polish names like Riczard and Rajan. When it comes to girls, names that were given to only a handful of children included Wincentyna, Leonora, Laurencja, Henryka, Delfina and Afrodyta.

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Slavic names carried a wish inside their etymology: Bronisław means ‘to defend fame’ – ‘(may he) defend fame’; Kochan, ‘may he be loved’; Świętopełk, ‘holy regiment’ or ‘strong band’ – ‘(may he have) a strong band behind him’. A name that stays with a person for life was meant to work like a shield, a declaration of good fortune for whoever carried it. Bequeathing a name, writes the onomastician Maria Malec, was an anthropological act of a sacral character, by which the child acquired the status of a human being.

Protective names existed across the Slavic world too – decoys used in place of the ‘real’ name to hide it from evil forces when a child’s life seemed at risk. You can spot them by the negation built in: Niedan, Niemir, Niemój (‘Not-given’, ‘Not-peace’, ‘Not-mine’). A child saddled with one of these was supposed to slip past the attention of demons.

When Poland accepted Christianity in 966 CE, it entered the orbit of Christian culture. Much like in the rest of Christian Europe, the cults celebrating individual saints became popular in Poland, and with them the custom of naming children after martyrs and other saints, as well as Biblical names from the Old and New Testaments. The act of giving a name was associated with organising a christening and, much like how the native names contained wishes, the names from Christian culture were linked to patrons who were to protect their namesakes.

For several centuries, Slavic and Christian names appeared in fairly even numbers. In the 15th century however, the latter became significantly more popular, and in the century after that they had all but driven the native ones out entirely. This followed the recommendations of the Council of Trent (1545–1563), which held that names given at baptism should belong to Christian saints. The exceptions were Old Polish names that had acquired patron saints of their own – Kazimierz, Wojciech, Stanisław, Władysław. To this day, Christian names remain the backbone of the Polish go-to stock of names.

Among the names that never really took off in Polish culture were those drawn from ancient and medieval literature – Achilles, Paris, Hector, Roland, Tristan, Isolde – which may well have gone the way of several native Old Polish names after the Council of Trent. A run of Old Testament names failed to catch on too: Abraham, Ezekiel and Isaac were rejected in the 16th century by Protestants.

Meanwhile the Polish name vault gained newly minted saints such as Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier and Teresa of Ávila. Protestants were also the first to start calling their daughters Maria – for centuries considered an affront to the reverence owed to the Mother of God, with Marianna used as the respectful workaround. This may explain the lopsided statistics mentioned earlier. Centuries of treating Maria as too holy for daily use pushed it into the middle slot, where it could sit quietly doing its devotional work without anyone having to shout it across a courtyard. The taboo may have dissolved a long time ago, but the custom didn’t.

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Old Polish names started to return to fashion after Poland lost its independence in the late 1700s. The revival in patriotism and efforts to maintain a national identity led to people reaching for forgotten Slavic names. In 1827, an entire calendar of Slavic names appeared in a supplement to the Przewodnik Warszawski newspaper, prepared by Tadeusz Wojewódzki.

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Although Old Polish names linked to the centuries-old veneration of saints are not that popular today, they still pop up now and then. In 2025, 376 baby boys were named Mieszko, 49 Zbigniew and 8 Dobromir, while 27 girls were called Dobrawa, 18 Mirosława and 17 Bogumiła.

Islam Penetrates Nusantaria

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 250-254:

Whether rulers adopted it out of genuine preference for its monotheistic belief and universalism, out of commercial or other temporal interest, or because of conquest, Islam spread from the top downwards. How long that took, and the depth to which it penetrated, depended on many factors. Even in Sumatra the progress of Islam was slow and fitful. Tomé Pires, writing in the early sixteenth century, recorded that most rulers in Sumatra were Muslims, but those in the west and interior were heathen and ‘some make a practice of eating their enemies when they capture them.’ In other words, not much had changed since Ibn Battuta’s visit 150 years earlier.

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During that era the only place where Islam was on the retreat was in Spain and North Africa. But again that helped Islam in the east. The Spanish conquest of Arab Granada in 1492 and subsequent oppression of non-Christians propelled a Muslim exodus that reverberated as far east as Maluku. There, as in other places they visited two decades later, the Portuguese were surprised to find Spanish speakers.

The spread of Islam gradually eliminated Hindu and Buddhist worship from the whole archipelago except Bali. On the mainland, however, Islam never penetrated far inland, where it was up against a form of Buddhism which in practice gave strength to the kingdoms in what are now Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia. Known as Theravada, this version of Buddhism originated from Sri Lanka and focused on the role of sangha, or monkhood, and the accumulation of merit through works. This fitted well with concepts of kingship, but also enabled the absorption of earlier concepts of spirits and minor deities. But more importantly, these states were more agrarian, mostly more populous and far less reliant on foreign trade, so less subject to the influence of foreign Muslim merchants.

The Sufi Influence

The Islam which spread through the archipelago varied according to its source and the strength of the existing belief systems. A relatively far greater number of Muslims arrived in the less populated, trade-oriented Sumatra and the peninsula than in Java, where conversion of traditional rulers was the key. The difference is reflected in many ways, such as the fact that Arabic-derived script, Jawi, was the norm in Sumatra and the Malay peninsula by the fifteenth century, whereas in Java Kawi continued to be widely used into the twentieth century. Both were then largely supplanted by Roman script.

An important factor in the spread of Islam, especially in Java, was that the dominant strain was Sunni Sufism. Sufism, found in both Sunni and Shia Islam, has at times been viewed as heretical by more legalistic Muslims but was strong among Indian Muslims from Gujarat and Bengal and in the Ottoman realm. Its emphasis on direct communication with God, its mysticism, its admiration for holy men and ascetics and its focus on individual teachers rather than rituals and laws helped acceptance. Under the overlay of Hindu-Buddhist features was an older belief system in which the spiritual and temporal were one. In this domain lived the spirits of nature, who needed to be respected. Sufi mysticism could accommodate this.

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Singing, dancing, drumming and recitation of phrases were a means of embracing the divine spirit, which merged well with existing traditions. Sufism also often recognized the importance of ancestral links to past teachers, so focus on the lineage of rulers was accepted. At the populist level none of this may have mattered greatly, but at least it left room for gradualism. In many cases, Islamization amounted to little more than circumcision and the end of eating pork. The more conversions were obtained by local people rather than by Muslims from overseas, the less likely they were to be overly strict, or indeed to be well acquainted with the Qur’an and Hadith.

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Essentially, Java’s Muslim rulers were pragmatists who could readily tolerate the old practices alongside nominal acceptance of the new. Such syncretism was to reach its apogee in the seventeenth century when Muslim Mataram, under Sultan Agung (1613–45) briefly came to rule most of Java. The exceptions and last bastions of Hinduism on Java were Banten [in the extreme west] and Balambangan in the extreme east. Formally and avowedly Muslim, Mataram combined many of the features of pre-Islamic customs and beliefs, had its own unique calendar and maintained its own very elegant version of the Kawi writing system. Although Muslim, the Mataram sultans were suspicious both of the ambitions of ulamas and of the trading cities with their wealth and foreign-inspired religious orthodoxy.

For much of Java, Sultan Agung’s rule was crucial for embedding old systems within the new and for creating a lasting culture which remains at the heart of the modern state and the essentially theist principles expressed in the Indonesian constitution. Elsewhere too, old and new went side by side, with Hindu epics being modified and appearing in both Javanese in Kawi script and in Malay in Jawi. Thus today in Indonesia it is possible to say that ‘Islam is our religion, kakawin [the Javanese rhythmic narrative verse which mixes Hindu mythology and Javanese settings] our culture.’

The sultanate also aligned itself with the pre-Hindu legend of the goddess of the sea, Nyai Roro Kidul. Belief in the powers of this lady from the Indian Ocean, sometimes portrayed as a mermaid, is still strong in popular culture of the southern Javanese and Sundanese. Other legends mixing Hindu and earlier beliefs also live on.

Well, I've approached the publisher's warning limit for copying from the Kindle version of this book, so this will have to be my last post from this work. The next chapter, titled "Nusantaria: Holed Near the Waterline," is about the arrival of the Portuguese, so this is a good break point.

Widespread Literacy in Nusantaria

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 294-296:

As elsewhere in the maritime zone, Chinese and Europeans alike were surprised at the prominent economic role of women, particularly in trade. But even more remarked was widespread literacy, of women in particular, albeit their literacy was used only for transient or practical purposes, for messages and personal letters rather than the reading and writing of literature. Spanish priest Pedro Chirino, writing in 1604, noted: ‘So accustomed are all these islanders to writing and reading that there is scarcely a man, still less a woman, who cannot read and write.’ Similarly, de Morga wrote, of the Tagals at least: ‘Almost all the inhabitants, both men and women, write in this language, and there are very few of them who do not write it very well.’

The legacy of the Indian cultural influence which had come via Srivijaya and Java had left behind scripts which were in widespread use when the Spaniards arrived in the sixteenth century but gradually died out over the next 300 years. Although they varied according to location, all were derived from Kawi, hence arrived from Java, Sumatra or possibly Champa.

The spread and usage of Kawi-derived scripts across Nusantaria is one of the lesser-known facts of the era before Islam and European dominance brought about the supremacy of Arabic then Roman scripts. The diversity of Kawi-derived scripts was such that Bali and Madura scripts both differed from each other and from Javanese, even if largely stylistically, and Sunda had its own script. So too did the Minangkabau of Sumatra and the Bataks, the latter writing on bark rolls. Makassar and the Bugis also had their own [Lontara], as did Palawan, whose Tagbanwa script resembled Tagalog Baybayin, and Mindoro, whose related script was known as Mangyan [or Buhid, or Hanunoo]. There is debate over whether Baybayin was the result of Bugis influence – with which its script shares some unique features – or from Sumatra or elsewhere. But the essential point is that basic literacy in a local script was common throughout the archipelago.

The arrival of paper to replace palm leaves and other traditional media, and the coming of printing, undermined the position of the traditional scripts. An additional source of weakness was that they were used mainly for transient purposes such as brief letters rather than for recording laws or literature. There were important exceptions to this, notably Javanese poems and epics, and Makassarese annals. Spanish priests made some effort to translate Christian doctrines into Tagalog using Baybayin, and elsewhere some Muslim texts were written in local languages using their scripts. But the weight of religious orthodoxy and then of administrative demands, plus the commercial use of Malay written in Jawi, proved too much. The result was that Nusantaria, which in 1500 had perhaps been the most literate place in the world, at least if central Luzon is a guide, lost what could have been a singular advantage for a future era when mass literacy became a necessity for economic progress.

Nor was pre-Hispanic Luzon unique. Elsewhere, old writing systems survived for centuries. There is evidence of high levels of basic literacy in Bali, and the same may have applied to much of Java and parts of Sumatra. As late as the 1930s a survey found that the most literate province in the Dutch East Indies was Lampung in south Sumatra, where schools were few. Male literacy was 45 per cent, female 33 per cent, but the literacy was mostly in the local Lampung script, not Roman or Jawi. It was particularly used in the exchanges of poetic verses between courting couples – just as described by Alcina in the Visayas. Literacy was higher among older people, indicating that the knowledge was handed down through families, not formally taught, and was by then slowly dying.

Rise of Brunei Sultanate

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 247-248:

The end of the Melaka sultanate was by no means the end of its influence on Islam and the Malay world. Melaka had inherited the language and culture of Srivijaya and hence of trading centres around the archipelago which had been part of the Srivijayan and Javanese systems. Melaka added the ingredient of Islam. For many Malay and Muslim seemed inseparable. Johor inherited the Melaka sultanate, and a family connection to the Melaka dynasty helped the development of the Perak sultanate. Though never a trading hub, Perak modelled itself on Melaka and became increasingly important as a source of tin and forest products. Malay Patani, with its family links to the Melaka sultanate, grew in importance as a trade rival to Siam, looking more to the north-east, to China, than to the south.

Exiles from Melaka were instrumental in spreading Islam. Johor played a leading role in the conversion of the Brunei ruler which took place shortly before the visit in 1521 of Ferdinand Magellan, who was much impressed by the wealth of the Brunei court and the size of Borneo island. (The name is a derivation of ‘Brunei’. The Indonesian name ‘Kalimantan’ derives from Sanskrit and means ‘burning hot island’.)

‘Boni’, as Brunei was known to the Chinese, was a relatively late addition to the Chinese links. It had only first been officially noted in 971 with a mission which advised that it was 30 sailing days away from Champa and 45 from Srivijaya. They brought camphor, turtle shells and documents with unknown characters written on a glossy material which they rolled up. The envoys described some aspects of their country: their use of longbows and brass armour, finger rings for marriage, water buffaloes for ploughing, coconut liquor to drink, and rice, fish, fowls and goats to eat.

Regular trade with China did not develop until much later, spurred by a mission in 1405. Brunei was well placed for trade links with Champa, Luzon and the eastern islands, as well as with Java and Sumatra, and expanded its influence along the Borneo coast. Islam, to which its ruler converted in the mid fifteenth century, strengthened Brunei’s trading role and it expanded its hegemony to include the Sulu archipelago and Luzon’s two trading settlements on Manila bay. The southern one was called ‘Seludong’ by Malays, though to local Tagalogs it was known as ‘Maynila’, after a flowering mangrove. Thus for 60 years, between the Portuguese capture of Melaka and Spain taking Manila in 1571, Malay Islam expanded its reach partly thanks to the loss of Melaka.

Brunei for a long time was the only Islamized part of Borneo. Farther east, Islam advanced with trade. Ternate in the Malukus, centre of the clove trade, was an early convert. By then, however, Christianity was hard on its heels in the Spice Islands, thanks to the Portuguese sending priests. Among the first was one of the founders of the Jesuit order, Francis Xavier, who visited Ambon and other islands before moving on to China and Japan. But on all sides trade and power interests could lead to religious compromises. Thus Muslim Ternate allowed the Portuguese to build a fort even while it was trying to Christianize other islands.

Early Chinese Views of Taiwan

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle p. 243:

Some of those Austronesian ways and skills could be found too among the peoples of Taiwan – except the sailing ability. Taiwan remained almost completely off the trade map despite the fertility of its western lowlands, its proximity to the China coast, to Okinawa and the Japan trade, and, via island stepping stones, to Luzon. Geographically Taiwan is linked to the Asian mainland, of which it was once a part, while separated from Luzon by the deep waters of the Bashi channel. But in other ways it was much closer to Luzon. Many of its peoples shared language and culture with those of the Philippine archipelago. Why was it that the inhabitants of this large island, unlike those of the Philippines and Ryukyus, turned their backs on the sea and made their living from the land and forests? There is no ready explanation. Although evidence of some overseas trade dating to around 2,500 BP is provided from discoveries of Taiwanese jade elsewhere and Indian glass beads on the island, the identity of the traders is not known. As in the archipelago, there was not a specific bronze age, iron- and bronze-working arriving about the same time.

Even Chinese annals had very little to say about Taiwan despite its proximity. There were occasional traders and fishermen visiting from the mainland, but almost nothing written about it. One of the few who did write was Ma Duanlin, a compiler of knowledge about China’s neighbours. Writing around 1300 and using varied sources, he described characteristics of the people including hair and dress styles, crops, foods, animals, intertribal wars and the freedom of the young men and woman to choose partners without parental consent. They were not literate and followed a lunar calendar but were strong and good fighters. Ma noted that in around 606, during the Sui dynasty, the emperor had sent a mission to learn more about the place and demand the king send tribute. This was refused, so the emperor sent forces which killed the king and many others and destroyed his palace. But thereafter ‘all communication with the country ceased.’ (Ma referred to the island as Liu Kiu (Ryukyu), but the size and position clearly meant that he was referring to Taiwan.)

The early seventeenth century saw a Chinese expedition against (mainland) pirates using Taiwan as a base, which gave rise to An Account of the Eastern Barbarians by Chen Di, written in 1603. Chen noted a matrilineal kinship system, and the easy relations between young men and women. He remarked on the ability of the men to run down and catch deer. They ate all parts of the deer including the intestines and their contents, which appalled the Chinese, but they in return were appalled by Chinese eating chickens. ‘Strange indeed are the Eastern Barbarians,’ wrote Chen.

First European Views of the Marianas

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle p. 242:

The first Spaniards reaching the remote Marianas islands noted how tall and fit they were, and recent examination of remains suggests they had a life expectancy of 44 years, much higher than in Europe at the time. The islands had been settled some 3,000 earlier, from either Luzon or Sulawesi, and had typical Austronesian characteristics such as a matrilineal system, weaving skills and megaliths known as latte stones, and a language, Chamorro, roughly comprehensible to Ferdinand Magellan’s Malay interpreter. Magellan (in Portuguese ‘Fernão Magalhães’, in Spanish ‘Fernando Magallanes’) was so impressed with their sailing skills that he called them the ‘Islas de Velas Latinas’ (‘Isles of the Lateen Sails’) after their small but remarkably agile sailing craft. The late sixteenth century Spanish document known as the Boxer Codex noted that their lateen sails were made of waxen palm leaves of many colours and designs. The boats could sail very fast whatever the wind strength and direction. The people were described as ‘thickset with large and stout limbs […] larger than we are’. They had a ‘pleasant appearance’ apart from filed teeth and widespread yaws – a disfiguring but not fatal skin disease common in the tropics. However, less appreciative Spaniards called them the ‘Islas Ladrones’ (‘Robber Islands’) on account of their sense of communal possession, a name which lingered long after they were renamed Marianas in 1668 after Mariana, widow of Spain’s King Philip IV. They are now divided as Guam, the largest, which is an unincorporated US territory, and the Northern Marianas, a US-dependent Commonwealth.

Flowering of Malay Law and Literature

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle p. 224:

Melaka did not just become a renowned commercial centre. It also saw the flowering of Malay law, governance and literature. Long after the sultanate had ceased to exist, it remained the embodiment of all that was noble in the Malay world. This was the product both of its own Palembang-Melayu origins and of the multi-ethnic character of a city where Tamils, Gujaratis, Chinese, Javanese, Arabs, Persians, Ryukyans, Buginese and others could all be found. ‘In the port of Melaka alone very often 84 languages have been found spoken […] In the archipelago which begins at Singapore and Karimun up to the Malukus there are 40 known languages.’ Traders from Egypt, Persia and Arabia, and others such as Turks and Armenians were also there. They could not reach Melaka in a single monsoon but came via Gujarat with trade goods ranging from arms to pearls and including opium from Jeddah and Aden.

At its height prior to the Portuguese conquest, it had four syahbandars, or trade superintendents. The syahbandars were responsible for managing markets and warehouses and checking weights and coinage. There was one for (mostly Muslim) Gujaratis, the biggest group, one for Tamils and Bengalis, one for the archipelago including Java, Luzon and Maluku, and one for China, Champa and the Ryukyus. The syahbandar trader groups show that trade with India and points west was extensive while the Chinese role by the early sixteenth century, following official restrictions on trade by the Ming, was relatively modest. Disputes between trading communities were settled by the ruler. The reputation for good governance further increased Melaka’s role. No one did more for Melaka than Sultan Mansur (reigned 1459–77). In 1468 he wrote to the King of the Ryukyus, which were almost equally trade-dependent: ‘We have learned that to master the blue oceans people must engage in commerce even if their countries are barren […] Life has never been so affluent in previous generations as it is today.’ Likewise, in 1515 the Portuguese ruler of Melaka would write to his king: ‘Melaka has nothing of its own and everything of the world.’

Melaka gave birth to the Sulalat al-Salatin (Genealogies of the Sultans), which became the Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals), a semi-historical work which aimed to entertain and inspire new generations with edifying stories of past monarchs, their trials and achievements. It traced the Melaka kings back to Alexander (Iskandar) the Great, via India and a sacred hill in Palembang. The dynasty, according to the Sejarah, prospered and long resisted Javanese domination, but was eventually driven out by treachery, forcing its move to Temasek, which it renamed ‘Singapura’, and eventually to Melaka.

Large Javanese Junks in Nusantaria

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle p. 214:

The commercial merit of large Javanese junks was immediately apparent to the Portuguese. Assuming stable ratios of length to beam to depth, a 30-metre junk would have had a tonnage of about 150 tonnes, while one with 1,000 tonnes would have a length of about 55 metres. For their first commercial voyages after seizing Melaka, the Portuguese collaborated with an important Hindu businessman who had two junks of around 200 tons burthen, each with a crew of about 80. Another witness was the Portuguese adventurer and writer Duarte Barbosa, who was based in Kerala, spoke the local language, Malayalam, and sailed much of the Indian Ocean. He wrote around 1518:

There also come hither many ships from Java, which have four masts, very different from ours and of very thick wood. When these ships become old they fit them with new planks and in this manner they carry three or four plankings, one above the other; the sails are of woven osiers and the ropes of the same.
They carry much rice, meat of cow, sheep, pig and deer dried and salted, many chicken, garlic and onions. They also bring hither many weapons for sale, that is to say, lances, daggers and swords worked with inlaid metal and of very good steel.
They bring likewise a yellow dye which they call cazumba and gold which is produced in Java. They bring their wives and children on these ships and there are some mariners who never leave the ship to go onshore […] These ships also fetch pepper from Sumatra, silk and benzoin and fine gold and from other islands they fetch camphor and aloes wood and they also navigate to Tenasserim, Pegu, Bengal, Calicut, Coromendel, Malabar, Cambay and Aden with all kinds of goods.

Spread of Islam in Nusantaria

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle p. 193:

The establishment of Melaka and rise of Demak and other Muslim-dominated communities on the north coast of Java coincided with a power struggle within the Majapahit realm. Islam presented a challenge to Java’s Hindu-Buddhist kingship notions. Internal dissension was also apparent, possibly caused by conversion of some of the aristocracy to Islam, and by intermarriage with Muslims, such as the Cham princess who married King Kertawijaya. This eventually forced the Majapahit to focus on the land base of the kingdom, moving the capital back to Kediri on the upper Brantas. Meanwhile the north coast saw the rise of independently minded trading entities dominated by Muslims, many from India, China and Arabia.

Trowulan was reported to be thriving until very shortly before it was utterly destroyed in 1478 in a war, exacerbated by a dynastic dispute, with Demak. The young sultanate effectively conquered Majapahit but claimed dynastic continuity. The end of Trowulan was the beginning of the end for all Hindu Majapahit, which finally saw its remnants retreat to Bali as Islam made a huge step towards eventual dominance of most of the southern part of the Nusantarian archipelago.

After being razed, Trowulan became overgrown with a teak forest. Stamford Raffles, who, as lieutenant-governor of Java under its brief British rule, initiated the first excavations there in 1815, described it as ‘this pride of Java’ Even then, few physical remains were left of a once great city. Yet the years of Majapahit glory remain deeply embedded in the Javanese collective memory. The memory (and myth) of Majapahit and its empire in Nusantaria remains at the heart of modern Indonesia’s sense of identity, generally overriding Muslim identity and also proving an historical basis for a state created in its present geographical form by the Dutch. Wawasan nusantara, or ‘an archipelagic outlook’ brings the islands together, while the national motto, bhinneka tunggal ika (‘unity in diversity’), is from a Javanese poem, ‘Sutasoma’, of the Majapahit era.

Kublai Khan vs. Kertanegara

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle p. 182:

Kertanegara’s expansion goal was intended partly to pre-empt designs that the Mongol Yuan dynasty, which had already attacked Japan and Vietnam, might have for a southern maritime empire. He also sought to thwart further southward expansion by the Siamese. But he paid a high price. He only subdued Jambi and Palembang after a long fight and his hold there remained tenuous. However, he did succeed in bringing the smaller straits and southern peninsula ports under his sway to become the leading regional maritime power.

Upset at this expansion of Javanese influence, Kublai sent envoys to demand Kertanegara pay tribute to his empire. But the king responded by deliberately provoking the emperor Kublai, giving his envoys tattoos before sending them back. A furious Kublai then sent a vast fleet, said to be of 1,000 vessels with 100,000 men, to punish him. Before the fleet arrived, Kertanegara was killed in battle by the forces of the leader of Kediri in league with a disloyal general. The details are murky, but the Javanese managed to turn their divisions into an advantage. Kertanegara’s son-in-law Raden Wijaya survived and appeared to align himself with the rebel general against Kediri. They persuaded Kublai’s commander that there was no longer a need to fight the dead Kertanegara but to punish Kediri instead. After Raden’s Kediri rivals had been eliminated, Raden then turned on the Mongols with an ambush.

Although the Javanese could not defeat the invader in pitched battle, they could harass them readily enough. Time was not on the invaders’ side. With supplies running short, Kertanegara dead anyway and facing the change of winds which would have kept them there another six months, the Chinese decided to cut their losses and sail away. Thus ended China’s first military incursion into Nusantaria. It was driven not so much by lust for territory but by a mix of hubris – the demand for fealty – and control of the profits of trade.

One legacy was to leave behind many Chinese stragglers, who helped establish the local Chinese community. Fei Xin, who visited Java with Zheng He’s expeditions more than a century later, noted: ‘Right down to the present time some Chinese live intermingled with the natives because at that time over a hundred were left here and later they brought up families.’

Trade with Tang and Sung China

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 170, 172:

Trade was very much two-way, with Chinese manufactures in strong demand in return for the exotic products of the south and west. Trade was also highly profitable for the government, which normally took 30 per cent of imported products to sell. Yet Chinese merchants were not involved in this burgeoning overseas trade. As in earlier times, as previously noted, it was foreign ships which carried Chinese monks and pilgrims to Sumatra or Java and then on to Sri Lanka or India. The expansion of trade led the central government to appoint a special official, the Commissioner for Trading with Foreign Ships, to regulate it and try to ensure that revenues were collected by the state and not by local officials. Foreign captains were required to register their names and cargoes and were imprisoned for attempting smuggling, though bribery of officials charged with inspecting cargoes was commonplace. But for a long time Chinese ships were not permitted to sail overseas.

This ban began to be relaxed during the Tang era. Local officials in the south were likely to be more sympathetic to trade than those in the capital. Later, members of the imperial family itself as well as senior officials may have engaged in it via middlemen. Nonetheless, the official ban combined with the volume of trade explains why Guangzhou came to be host to a huge population of foreign merchants and others to support trading activities, a population of Arabs, Persians, Parsees, Tamils, Jews and so on that may have numbered more than a hundred thousand. There was also a sizeable settlement at Yangzhou at the southern terminus of the Grand Canal. But relations were not always easy, and rich foreigners were sometimes a target. Many were massacred in Yangzhou at the time of a major rebellion against the Tang in 760, and thousands were said to have been killed in Guangzhou during the 878 rebellion. This shut down trade for several years.

...

Noting the profits, Song rulers finally saw the benefits of allowing Chinese to go overseas. As they did so, the need for the old state-focused tribute system declined. The Confucian disdain for trade had long been an elite facade, and now it was stripped away and the nobility participated directly in trade. The arrival of Chinese traders indeed helped the lesser ports of Nusantaria to develop, undermining the dominance of Srivijaya. There was a surge in shipbuilding, with Song-era wrecks found off the coasts of Fujian and Zhejiang revealing vessels up to 34 metres in length with a beam of 9 metres. Unlike Nusantarian designs, they had bulkheads and were joined by iron nails, not wooden dowels.

During the Song period China made advances in shipbuilding, advances that included the construction of large, ocean-going vessels which could reach India and beyond. However, it is not clear how much they were used in trade, which continued to be dominated by Arabs, with Persians, Tamils and Nusantarians all playing roles. With so little archaeological evidence to go on, it is difficult to track the evolution of ship designs and how far Song China borrowed ideas from the Nusantarian, Tamil and Arab vessels with which they were familiar – or vice versa. What we can be sure of is that China’s seagoing progress in the Song period, driven by the combination of commercial enterprise and the tax needs of the state, made possible the avowedly expansionist policy of its successor, the Mongol Yuan dynasty.

The main export cargoes were ceramics, which became common throughout Nusantaria and also in Japan. According to early thirteenth century Chinese sources, the ceramics trade was mainly in foreign hands. Ports that have now vanished thrived.

Indian Ocean Trade Triangle

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 159-160:

Nusantarian commerce in the western Indian Ocean did not suddenly vanish, leaving the settlements cut off from their roots. Ships from Java and Sumatra continued to play a role in Indian Ocean trade at least until the thirteenth century, not least in the slave trade. In the mid-tenth century an Arab ship encountered off Mozambique a group of raiders described as ‘Waqwaq’. ‘Waqwaq’ was a vague term used by Arabs to denote peoples from the extreme south or east, hence probably Nusantarian. (Waqwaq was the subject of myths about islands where girls grew on trees.)

East Africa was a source of slaves for hundreds of years, with the Baghdad-based Abbasid empire the main market. The Zanj slaves became so numerous that they became a major factor in the long-lasting anti-Abbasid rebellion which led to the sack of Basra in 871. This horrific event was widely written about in near contemporary Arab literature, including Muhammad el-Tabari’s History of Prophets and Kings and Muhammad al-Biruni’s Chronology of Ancient Nations. Some slaves were even sold in China. A Chinese, Zhu Yu, writing around 1100, recorded that wealthy people in Guangzhou employed what they called ‘devil slaves’ from Africa: ...

Arab sources from the twelfth century refer to raids on the African coast by boats coming from Madagascar, though it is not clear if these were from settlements in Madagascar or by Nusantarians basing themselves there for the slave trade or piracy. Madagascar was too underpopulated to be a major source of slaves but it may well have been a transit centre and even destination, and was mentioned by a thirteenth century Arab chronicler as the origin for slave shipments to Jeddah and Yemen. (The Dutch had a post at Moroantsetra on the north-east coast from 1641 to 1646 but abandoned it because the local ruler had too few slaves to sell. However, Madagascar was a source of several thousand slaves for the American market till the early nineteenth century.)

The Arabs recorded that the people of Madagascar did not have ocean-going boats but ‘people from Java come in large ships and export products from Madagascar because they speak the same language.’ Those products probably included rice, which was exported to Africa. Nusantarian ships are also known to have visited Sofala, on the coast of Mozambique, the port which gave access to the gold mines of Zimbabwe.

Indian Ocean trade became increasingly dominated by Muslims of various origins – not excluding those from Sumatra. Yet despite the presence for centuries of large numbers of Muslim traders and the settlement of many Islam-influenced groups, the religion never took general hold in Madagascar, even though there was a settlement of Muslims from Sumatra as late as the fifteenth century. Islam generally left some Arabic words and a few traditions including circumcision, but not much more. Different settler groups retained much of their earlier identity, though all acquired an approximate common language.

In spite of the many gaps in the history of the island between the years before 1500 CE, the Nusantarians were directly, if fitfully, the main agents in the creation of the Malagasy language and nation.

Rise and Fall of Champa

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 134, 147:

Nusantarians, protected by their seas and ships, were relatively safe on their islands from more populous mainland powers. But it is remarkable that their mainland foothold – the Cham territory – on the southern coastal border with China lasted as long as it did: from settlement, probably from Borneo, around 1000 BCE to Champa’s final extinction by Vietnam in 1832.

Champa was the political successor to the Sa Huynh culture but came under Indian cultural influence while retaining its Austronesian language and living by its seafaring traditions. At its greatest extent Cham territory ran from Vishnupura, near modern Dong Hoi, to Phan Thiet, just north of the Mekong delta. The importance of this narrow strip between the sea and the mountains lay not in its resources but in its position. Journeys from Guangzhou to Siam, Sumatra, Java, Borneo and beyond could be direct, but a stop-off point was often needed for safety. Its ports could also serve as entrepôts for goods from Borneo and Mindanao. From early trading communities there developed more organized, Hindu states, tied together, sometimes loosely, as Champa.

...

Another Vietnamese advance in the early seventeenth century included the capture of Nha Trang. The Cham state was formally wiped off the map in 1832 when the Vietnamese took its last stronghold Panduranga (Phan Rang) and advanced through the hitherto Khmer-ruled Mekong delta to the Ca Mau peninsula, modern Vietnam’s southernmost point. Cham resistance to the Vietnamese continued long after the capture of its territory. Vietnamization was a slow process brought about by a mix of immigration and adaptation.

...

By the time the shrunken Cham territory was finally absorbed by the Vietnamese, the majority were Muslims. Today the small Cham minority in Vietnam is divided by religion, though most are non-Muslims. Following the fall of Panduranga in 1832, many Cham Muslims fled to Cambodia, where they remain as a small minority speaking and writing Cham and maintaining such Austronesian characteristics as matrilineal descent. Some also left for Kelantan in Malaysia. Few Cham speakers are left in Hoi An, which inherited a trading tradition from the Cham and was settled by merchants from China and Japan who built the riverside town which is today a World Heritage site like My Son itself. So different in style, My Son and Hoi An are a microcosm of some 1,500 years of Nusantarian history. 

Tamil Chola vs. Srivijaya, 1000s

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 126-127:

For centuries Nusantaria’s seafaring skills and island geography protected it from outsiders. But in 1025, those walls were breached by another trading state, this one from across the Bay of Bengal. The Tamil Chola dynasty attacked and sacked Palembang, seized Kedah and for several decades had a permanent presence on the peninsula. The attacks on Srivijaya by the Cholas were the only known direct military engagement of an Indian state in Nusantaria. They changed trading dynamics and seriously weakened Srivijaya.

By contrast, their cultural impact may have been slight because Indian-derived culture was so embedded in the region that the Chola military intervention barely added to it. Chola interaction with the region pre-dated the attack as Nusantarian trade and cultural relations with south India had long been close. For example, its architectural influence can be seen in Java’s Prambanan temple, built 70 years before the attack. As late as 1016 the Chola King Rajendra donated funds for the upkeep of a shrine in Nagapattinam erected by the Srivijayans. This referred to the Sailendra family as the kings of Srivijaya and Kedah.

These relations between Chola and Srivijaya were further enhanced by the trade boom of the Tang era which saw the rise of the Chola kingdom to control the whole of southern India. A professional army and bureaucracy brought strong government which undertook public works such as damming the Kaveri River and created an environment in which the arts and literature flourished. From its base at Nagapattinam on the Kaveri delta, it expanded its land borders to the west coast and eventually sent its forces north as far as Bengal. The Cholas did not have a permanent navy, but had at their disposal merchant ships able to transport armies complete with elephants. This naval power enabled it to conquer Sri Lanka and the Maldives and become the dominant force in eastern Indian Ocean trade. Before taking on Srivijaya they had had much practice in a war against the Sinhalese: Sri Lanka saw half a century of Tamil rule of most of the island and the establishment of Shivaite temples.

The Cholas were Hindu with a predominantly Shivaist alignment, though Buddhist shrines continued to be patronized. The main driver of rivalry with Srivijaya was commerce, not belief. The Chola kingdom was strongly influenced by its merchant guilds who, emboldened by conquests elsewhere and seeing Srivijaya being challenged by east Java, wanted to reduce the Srivijayan grip on trade and be noticed by China as an important country. Arab sources record how the Srivijayan king controlled the whole of the [Malay] peninsula but the Cholas wanted to capture some of this trade for themselves and not be dependent on Srivijayan cooperation. Indicating their ambitions, they sent an embassy to China for the first time in 1015.

This was a time when trade was expanding again after a pause caused by the declines of the Tang dynasty in China and the Abbasid one in the Muslim world. Now the Song were in control of China and the North African-based Fatimids were the biggest power in the Muslim world. Already by 985 an Arab was writing: ‘Baghdad was once a magnificent city but is now fast falling into ruin […] Al-Fustat of Misr [Cairo] in the present day is like the Baghdad of old.’

War may have started well before the 1025 Chola sacking of Palembang and capture of the king.

When Java Was Buddhist and Hindu

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 117-119:

Srivijayan dominance of Nusantaria was for a long time bolstered by cooperation with fellow Buddhists in central Java, the Sailendra dynasty. Indeed, Srivijaya’s dominance attained its greatest geographic reach following the linking of Sailendra power to Srivijaya’s through a dynastic alliance. The Sailendra’s economic contribution to the alliance was greatly aided by Java’s ready access to the Spice Islands, which added to its agricultural wealth, and by its relatively large population. The Sanskrit name ‘Sailendra’ means ‘Lord of the Mountain’, a reference to the towering volcanoes such as Mount Merapi [Gunung Merapi 'Fire Mountain'], which overlooks the great Buddhist shrine of Borobudur which they built. Although their power base was in Java, the Sailendras were Malays from Sumatra. This explains the use of old Malay, not Sanskrit or Javanese, for some of their inscriptions.

...

Java, known as Yavadipa, had originally been a centre of Hinduism which reached its peak in the seventh and early eighth centuries. Its spiritual base was the Dieng plateau, literally ‘Mountain of the Gods’ in Sanskrit. The plateau is reached from the plain through a series of rich valleys and then by a narrow mountain passageway to the 2,000-metre high caldera of an extinct volcano, which still has sulphurous springs. Here there were sacred bathing sites and the centre of a cult of Shiva, the god of fertility. It was once the site of some 400 temples of which only eight survive, the oldest stone structures on Java.

The Dieng plateau’s best recorded patron was the early eighth century ruler Sanjaya, who erected a sacred lingam in praise of Shiva, invoking the spirit of his ancestors and noting how in learning and harmonious government he ‘had his feet high above the other kings of good family’. He was titled both a Ratu – the Austronesian noble title found from Fiji to the [Malay] peninsula – and a Maharaja, the Indian king of kings.

The history of the relationship between the Sailendras and Javanese Sanjayas is unclear, but at some point they were joined by marriage alliances in which the Sailendras were dominant; however, despite their Buddhism the Shiva worship of the Sanjayas lived on. Indeed, loyalty to the Sailendras was more important than choosing between Shiva and Buddha.

...

The Sailendras also extended their power outwards. Using Srivijayan seapower they conquered Indrapura, the leading Khmer city, and in 802 installed the Khmer prince Jayavarman II as ruler. (He later rejected fealty to the Sailendras and moved his capital inland to Hariharalaya, south of Siem Reap. He reigned for nearly 50 years and initiated what became the Angkor dynasty.)

The Sailendras were also sometimes in conflict with the Cham, who competed for some of Srivijaya’s China trade. The Cham were not only closest to the great China market, they also had sea links to Borneo and the Philippine islands, from which they could source some of the forest products in demand in China. An eighth century Vietnamese account describes people from Java and Sumatra raiding as far north as Tonkin. A Cham account in Sanskrit of the same era, found at Nha Trang, described how in 774 ‘men living on food more horrible than cadavers, completely black and gaunt, dreadful and evil as death, came in ships’ and burned a temple and stole the lingam before being beaten off by Satyavarman. These might have been orang laut engaged in freelance raiding or have been encouraged by Srivijaya because, only a few years later, in 787, ‘the armies of Java’ came and destroyed another temple. More generally, however, the era saw the strengthening of its trading and settlement posts including Manila bay and Sulawesi.

Srivijaya Thalassocracy

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 106-110:

No empire in historical times has disappeared as completely as Srivijaya. Yet this vast Nusantarian enterprise thrived for almost a thousand years, feeding on and sometimes dominating seaborne trade between China and the archipelago on the one hand and India and beyond on the other. Its importance was noted many times in Chinese annals, yet, unlike other vanished empires, it left barely a physical trace. Its existence was almost unknown to modern historians until the 1930s, when Georges Coedès defined it by reference to Chinese records of a place named Sanfoqi and some inscriptions written in Old Malay. Later, aerial photography identified a system of irrigation canals and other works which once supported a large population. Archaeologists unearthed Buddhist statues, Chinese ceramics and other items so that it is now possible to identify Palembang on the banks of the Musi River in south-east Sumatra as its principal city.

This may seem an unlikely spot for a capital, some distance from the sea and surrounded by flat but not very fertile land, better for root crops than for rice. The same conditions apply to a similar old settlement, Jambi, known also as Melayu, farther north on the Batang Hari River. This was at one time a rival of Srivijaya and later its capital. Jambi at least still boasts the remains of a Buddhist temple from the seventh or eighth centuries; Palembang has no such evidence of its former glory.

The lack of physical imprint has several causes. First, it was what is called a thalassocracy – an empire built on control of trade not of land. The lack of stone or brick evidence of Palembang’s greatness is because buildings on land, including fortifications, were all of wood. There was no nearby supply of stone. Records were written on palm leaves which perished long ago. Most people lived on rafts. There was a practical reason for this: floods were not uncommon in the rainy season and spring tides on the Musi River were up to 4.5 metres. Nothing much changed over the centuries. Even in 1820 a European visitor noted that only the rich lived on dry land in houses with tiled roofs. While the sultan and some senior persons lived on separate islands, all trade and transport took place on the river.

So why Palembang? Its location seems scarcely ideal: it was 120 kilometres upriver, mangrove swamps occupied most of the area down to the sea and its land was incapable of supporting a large population. However, its position on a river which was navigable far inland gave access to the jungle products and timber for ships as well as more precious items from the interior including gold and foodstuffs from the fertile Sumatran highlands. The coastal lands were of marsh and mangrove. Terra firma began at Palembang. There was plenty of space where vessels could anchor and stores be unloaded. The river is wide, deep, tidal for a long distance and its mouth lies close both to the southern entrance to the Melaka strait and to the Sunda strait between Sumatra and Java, thus giving access to the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. It is well south of the typhoon belt and, being almost on the equator, has calm seas and is an ideal location to wait for the change of monsoon winds from south-west to north-east. Also, the mangrove swamps at the mouth of the Musi and its many inlets meant the city could easily be defended.

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While there appears to have been an increasing dependence on the growing China trade, reports from I-Tsing and other records show the high level of development of Palembang, the size of its forces and the respect of the Chinese for its Buddhist monks and practices. This was no petty state kowtowing to China but one seeking trade preferences from an equal. Correspondingly, Chinese sought enlightenment from the west (India and Sri Lanka) via Sumatra. The Palembang inscriptions also show that, although the kingship systems, the rituals and the religion were of Indian origin and it was a place where Chinese could study Sanskrit, the official written language was not Sanskrit but Malay. Also, for its inhabitants, commerce, not religion, was its mainspring. Srivijaya’s rise to dominance was also reflected in a change of the Chinese name for it. Prior to 903 it was known as ‘Shih-li-fo-shi’, a phonetic translation, or just ‘Fo Shi’, but it then became ‘Sanfoqi’, the san suggesting that Foqi (Vijaya) had three centres: probably Palembang, Jambi and Kedah, or one of the Java ports.

With its small population and shortage of agricultural land, Srivijaya’s first achievement was its superior organization of the people of the region, the orang laut (‘sea people’). They had centuries of seafaring behind them and could act as pilots or pirates as opportunity offered. By bringing them under its umbrella, Srivijaya could reduce piracy by allowing the orang laut a share of the spoils of war and thereby encourage trade. Trade brought merchants, money, advanced ideas from India and the wherewithal to buy from elsewhere the food needed to sustain the urban settlements. Through better marshalling of the talents of the local sailors and boatbuilders, Srivijaya was able to conquer Melayu. The interior could supply the forest products and gold which Srivijaya needed for trade. In turn, the population of the interior provided a ready market for Srivijaya’s goods. The interior also supplemented Srivijaya’s manpower so that King Jayanasa could field an army several thousand strong as well as a large naval force.

Hindu and Buddhist Texts in Nusantaria

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 98-101:

Both Hindu and Buddhist beliefs benefited over time from gifts of land made by the pious. Gradually and with royal support temples and communities of monks and priests expanded and became centres of crafts and religious art. However, adoption of Indian ideas remained selective. For instance, though societies became more hierarchical as wealth and sophistication increased, the Indian caste system was not followed. Throughout the region women played a more active role in economic life – as they still do – than in India. Balinese Hinduism always displayed different characteristics from that of India as the imported religion adjusted itself to fit existing beliefs and practices. Nusantaria borrowed writing and many words, but imported languages never supplanted the various Austronesian tongues.

Despite the rise of direct links to Java and Sumatra from India and China, the isthmus trade remained important, providing links between eastern India and the Mon, Siamese and Khmer mainland. Trade also brought Buddhism, which made inroads in competition with both Hinduism and older beliefs, though both were probably still confined to the courts and surrounding townships. Buddhism was also spurring pilgrims and missionaries to travel on merchant ships.

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Elsewhere, too, the adoption of Indian ideas was selective rather than wholesale. While writing systems were borrowed and Indian languages used for the earliest local writing, the languages both of the court and the common people remained the local Austronesian or Khmer ones. Sanskrit for a while may have served the same priestly and official role as Latin in medieval Europe. But in time Indian Pallawa script was used to write local languages, the oldest found so far being in old Malay dating to the seventh century in Sumatra. The following century saw the development of Kawi script, derived from Pallawa but used to write old Javanese.

This script became the basis for other scripts including later Javanese and Balinese, which are still in use today. The first writing in Khmer also dates to the seventh century and uses an adaptation of Pallawa script. Six hundred years later this became the basis of Thai writing. The origin of Indian language influence also varied. Only Sanskrit words, those of religious and classical texts, not Prakrit or other common Indian speech, entered early writing in Java, but Tamil ones appeared in Sumatra. Despite the import of Indian religions, social structures appear to have remained indigenous. The maritime cultures borrowed Indian ideas in art and architecture but then adapted them so that they have distinctive aspects which are readily recognizable.

Apart from religion and script, the biggest influence was on legal and governance issues. The Indian text on statecraft, Arthashastra, and the ancient Brahman legal code, Manusmriti, were widely studied by ruling elites and had a major influence on the development of state systems. The Arthashastra, written in the fourth century BCE during the north India-based Maurya empire, which supposedly followed the peace-loving Jain religion, required rulers to be ruthless in protecting the interests of the state but disciplined, hardworking and learned. It was a secular recipe for enlightened despotism applicable to rulers of any faith. The Hindu notion of divine kingship was especially attractive to rulers, seeming to make the exercise of power something higher than mere personal leadership: a mandate from above. Buddhism on the other hand (and also Jainism) was more sympathetic to merchant interests and the accumulation of wealth. Its practitioners were also less constrained by caste issues and religious rituals, which for the devout were an obstacle to long sea journeys.

Indianization of Nusantaria

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia's Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 92-93:

Local rulers imported Indian practices as a means of strengthening their own power. They used kingship systems allied to priests and religious practices to formalize power structures, and founded dynasties from what had been often transient political entities reliant on the strength of individuals. There was no sudden transition, and it was probably not until around 400 CE that Indian cultural influence was well advanced beyond the ports, and states were using an Indian calendar and adding Indian words to local vocabulary. Indian cultural and political ideas also spread gradually up the Mekong through the Tonle Sap lake to much of modern Cambodia and Thailand’s Chao Phraya valley. Indian influence was stronger on the peninsula because of the greater presence of Indian merchants who conducted the westward trade, while those from Nusantaria took charge from there eastward. By about 300 CE Indian cultural influence reached the Vietnam coast, where the Cham states emerged as an Indianized evolution of the Sa Huynh culture.

For the whole of the first millennium CE Indian cultural and economic influence on the maritime zone, as on most of mainland South East Asia, was predominant. China itself had little direct impact. Given the later regional role of China and particularly of the Chinese diaspora, this may seem puzzling. The reasons included China’s late development of ocean-going vessels; the complexity of its writing system; the possible lack of portability of the Confucian system compared with Hindu and Buddhist teachings; the northern, landward orientation of Chinese strategic thinking; and the lack of experience with foreign trade compared in particular with the merchants of coastal India and the sailors of Nusantaria. Transport of Chinese goods was a catalyst for trade, but not by the Chinese.

Quite how far Indians themselves were the leading force in Indianization is a matter for conjecture. Writing in the mid-20th century, Indian historian R.C. Majumdar argued that the region was effectively colonized by a large number of Indians – Brahmans, merchants and others who established ruling groups throughout the region, supplanting indigenous leaders and bringing a complete culture and kingship system to the backward Austronesian and Khmer entities. French historian of the region Georges Coedès proposed a milder version of the Majumdar thesis, suggesting Brahmans were prime movers whether by imposing their rule, allying with local rulers for mutual benefit or marrying into the local elite.

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The shortage of evidence leads history books to telescope time when, in reality, the process of Indianization was a gradual one over several hundred years and from both north and south India. Early Indian influence appears mainly to have come from northern India via Bengal. But links with the Tamil south, and with Buddhist Sri Lanka grew in importance. There is evidence from Tamil sources of extensive trade with Java as early as the second century CE. A Tamil inscription from the third century CE has also been found in Thailand, which indicates that a Tamil merchant had settled there. This was a time when many Tamils, like the Sinhalese, followed Buddhism. The Pallawa script of southern India became the basis of many others, including Lao, Khmer, Javanese and Balinese. Its rounded form is said to be especially suited to palm leaves, the main writing material used in India and most of South East Asia until around the seventeenth century CE.

Indian culture may have come later to Java than to the peninsula and mainland, with Hindu beliefs preceding Buddhist teaching. Brahmanism was introduced first but then Buddhism. The slow spread of Buddhism was indicated by a report from the fifth century CE by Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Fa Xian, who found that on Yeh Po Ti (Java): ‘various forms of error and Brahmanism are flourishing while the faith of Buddha is not worth speaking of.’