Bujang Valley - History

History

Claudius Ptolemaeus (Greek: Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος; c. 90 – c. 168), known in English as Ptolemy, was a Greek geographer, astronomer, and astrologer who had written about Golden Chersonese, which indicates trade with India and possibly China has existed since the 1st century AD.,

Austronesians were remarkable sailors. The forests of Indonesia were rich in products sought after such as resins, wood and spices. Clove for instance was known to ancient Egyptians while the only place where it would grow at that time were the Moluccas in the eastern part of the Indonesia archipelago. Benzoin (laban jawi in Arabic) and camphor (kapur Barus) came from northern Sumatra. Possibly as early as the 4th century BC, merchants from the Western part of the Indonesia archipelago sailed west in search of new markets for their products and connected with South East India.

As early as the 1st century AD, Southeast Asia was the place of a network of coastal city-states, the centre of which was the ancient Khmer Funan kingdom in the south of what is now Vietnam. This network encompassed the southern part of the Indochinese peninsula and the western part of the Indonesian archipelago. These coastal cities traded with each other, and with India. They seem to have shared a common indigenous culture.

Gradually, the rulers of the western part of Indonesia adopted Indian cultural and political models e.g. proof of such Indian influence on Indonesian art in the 5th century, i. e. an Amaravati Buddha statue found in southern Sulawesi and a Sanskrit inscription found east of Jakarta.

Three inscriptions found in Palembang (South Sumatra) and on Bangka Island, written in a form of Malay and in an alphabet derived from the Pallava script, are proof that "Indonesians" had definitely adopted Indian models. These inscriptions reveal the existence of a Dapunta Hyang (lord) of Srivijaya who led an expedition against his enemies and who curses those who will not obey his law.

Being on the maritime route between western Indonesia and South India, the Malay peninsula was involved in this trade. Contact between the peninsula and the Tamil kingdoms had been very close during the regimes of the Pallava Kings (from the 4th to the 9th century) and Chola kings (from the 9th to the 13th century). This trade relations also led the rulers of the Malay peninsula to adopt Indian cultural and political models. Tamil sources mention the name of "Kadaram" i. e. Kedah and "Langkasugam" i. e. Langkasuka.

In the ancient city of Tanjore in Tamil Nadu in southern India are inscriptions dating from 1030 which mention the victory of Chola king Rajendra Chola I over some kingdoms in Southeast Asia. The name of "Kadaram" is amongst the places that Rajendra claims to have conquered. The Cholas had a powerful merchant and naval fleet in the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. Three kinds of craft are distinguished by the author of the Periplus – light coasting boats for local traffic, larger vessels of a more complicated structure and greater carrying capacity, and lastly the big ocean-going vessels that made the voyages to Malaya, Sumatra, and the Ganges.