Srivijaya - Thalassocratic Empire

Thalassocratic Empire

The Srivijayan empire was a coastal trading centre and was a thalassocracy. As such, it did not extend its influence far beyond the coastal areas of the islands of Southeast Asia.

The Srivijayan was benefited from the lucrative maritime trade between China and India, and also trading Indonesian archipelago product such as Maluku spices. Served as Southeast Asia's main entreport and gain trade patronage appointed by Chinese court, Srivijaya was constantly managing their trade network and always wary of potential rival ports of neighboring kingdoms. The necessity to maintain their trade monopoly has led them to launch naval military expeditions against rival ports in Southeast Asia, and absorb them within Srivijayan mandala. The port of Malayu in Jambi, Kota Kapur in Bangka island, Tarumanagara and port of Sunda in West Java, Kalingga in Central Java, and port of Kedah and Chaiya in Malay peninsula are among regional ports that being absorbed within Srivijayan sphere of influence. Series of Javan-Srivijaya raids on ports of Champa and Cambodia was also their effort to maintain their monopoly in the region by sacking rival ports.

The maritime prowess was recorded in Borobudur bas relief of Borobudur ship, the 8th century wooden double outrigger sailed vessel of Maritime Southeast Asia. The function of outrigger is to stabilize the ship, the single or double outrigger canoe is the typical feature of the seafaring Austronesians vessels and the most likely the type of vessel used for their voyages and exploration across Southeast Asia, Oceania, and Indian Ocean. The ships depicted on Borobudur was most likely the type of vessels used for inter-insular trades and naval campaign by Sailendran and Srivijayan thalassocracy empire that rules the region around 7th to 13th century.

Srivijayan empire are mainly exercise their influence around coastal area in Southeast Asia, with the exception of contributing to the population of Madagascar 3,300 miles (8,000 kilometres) to the west. The migration to Madagascar was estimated took place 1200 years ago around 830 CE. According to an extensive new mitochondrial DNA study, native Malagasy people today can likely trace their heritage back to the 30 founding mothers sailed from Indonesia 1200 years ago. Malagasy contains loan words from Sanskrit, all with local linguistic modifications via Javanese or Malay, hint that Madagascar may have been colonized by settlers from the Srivijaya empire. At that time the Srivijayan maritime empire was expanding their maritime trade network.