Indianisation of Indonesia

Travelling through Java and Bali in 1927, the Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore exclaims: " I see India everywhere, but do not recognize it! ". The island of Bali, the only true international tourist destination of Indonesia, is indeed the only traditional company of Indonesia to being remained primarily hindouist. And the visitor of Java can easily note the presence of religious monuments Bouddhique S and Hindouiste S built between VIIIe and XVIe centuries, and assist with spectacles from which the history is drawn from the great Indian epopees of the Mahabharata and of the Ramayana.

Writing between IIIe century before J. - C. and IIIe century after J. - C., Ramayana mentions the names of Suvarnadvipa, " the island of the or" , which undoubtedly indicates Sumatra, and of Yavadvipa, " the island of the millet" , i.e. Java. The Sumatra coast was indeed been a producing gold area a long time. As for Java, before becoming large producing of rice, it produced millet a long time.

The oldest vestige Bouddhique found in Indonesia is a statue of Bouddha out of bronze of style Amaravati of the west of the island of Célèbes dating from IIIe or IVe century. With Sumatra, one found several sites of Buddhist vestiges in the province of Riau, in particular in Muara Takus, and in the province of the Archipel of Riau, an inscription on the island of Karimun. With Java, one found in the east of Jakarta an inscription in Sanscrit and writing Pallava, statues of Vishnu and Buddhist constructions found, that one dates from the neighborhoods of 450 after Jesus-Christ.

One does not know yet very well the circumstances which brought to the introduction of concepts and cultural and religious models Indian in Malaysia and in Indonesia. One can only note their presence at least as of 450 after J. - C.

But of the recent excavations (2000) carried out with the mouth of the Musi river in the south of Sumatra revealed harbor sites which one dates from Ier century after J. - C. These sites do not present a trace of Indian cultural influence, although one found there objects of in particular Chinese origin which show that these sites traded with China and India. And of the excavations started in 2002 in the east of Jakarta the purpose of better knowledge is of structures former to Buddhist constructions of its sites.

The study of the companies Austronésien born current give elements making it possible to reconstitute the social organization and policy of the inhabitants of Indonesia before the appearance of Indian models. It is thought that their company was relatively levelling and that the function of chief was not hereditary there, but rested on personal qualities of that (or that) which exerted it.

Towards 100 after J. - C., the opening of sea routes between the China and the India makes ports of the Malayan Péninsule and Sumatra an obliged stopover. Indeed, navigation depends on the winds, therefore rate/rhythm of monsoon. The boats are often constrained to stop in the south of Sumatra, which is at the same time in uprightness for a navigation coming from China and at the entry of the Détroit of Malacca that the boats must borrow to go to India.

This participation in the international business results in an surge of richness which benefits in an unequal way to the members from the companies of the harbor cities. Some succeed better than of others. They must then justify this greater richness with the eyes of the company in which they live. It is thought that it is like that the Indian concept of king ( Rajah ) and of royalty is adopted. More generally, these people richer than the others adopt at the same time political concepts and models and cultural Indians to legitimate their new position.

It was thought a long time that this " indianisation" had been brought by " Indians of high caste (who) would have come to seek fortune with the countries of gold and spices. " One thinks now that it was a selective indigenous process, i.e. it was the local elite which chose what was appropriate to him in the foreign cultures. The factors which argue in this direction are the following:

Although the system of caste is adopted (there always exists with Bali, whose company remained hindouist), there corresponds rather to a formalization of the social classes and does not know this division in closed bodies socially and professionally.
In the area consisted the east of the Bay of Bengal and the south of the southernmost China Sea, Austronésiens, populates marine, are the main actors in navigation and the trade.
These Austronésiens as well had exchanges with the Chinese as the Indians, and thus had two cultural systems in which to choose models, but chose the Indian.

This adoption of Indian models was undoubtedly all the more easy as, as Paul Mus announces it, India shared with the companies of the Southeast Asia a pool pre Aryen and that the natives " perhaps was not always aware to change religion into adopting that of India . " Its goal was the legitimation of the sovereign. This one was to affirm by the ritual ones intended to make of the king the incarnation of a divinity Hindou or Bouddha. The Nagarakertagama , a poem epic writes in 1365, known as thus of the king Hayam Wuruk of Majapahit qu'" it is Shiva and Bouddha". It was a question of convincing the company which prosperity depended on the respect towards the sovereign.

Taking into account the traditional design of the chief in the companies austronésiennes, this new political system resulted certainly in a permanent fight between the sovereign and the princes on which he claimed to impose his suzerainty. Moreover, the need for maintaining its richness, bases of its capacity, pushed the sovereign to recognize the suzerainty of China, price to be paid so that this one accepts the arrival of boats indonésiens in its ports. The Chinese texts mention innumerable the " ambassades" coming from Java. The fiction that imposed China was that of princes coming to pour tribute with the emperor, who in return gratifiait them of gifts.

Random links: