Ed. by H. Kulke, K. Kesavapany, V. Sakhuja. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009. XXV, 337 p., ill. ISBN 978 - 981 - 230 - 936 - 5 (soft cover)*.
Lively discussions about the ways and causes of the Indianization of Southeast Asia have led to numerous studies of individual forms of relationships between different communities in the two regions and various explanations for their origin and development. The Chola Empire occupies a special place in the history of India. This powerful country undertook not only land, but also overseas military expeditions and was an active participant in international trade. In 1025, King Rajendra Chola I, according to the Tanjur (Thanjavur) inscription of 1030-1031, sent a huge fleet against the king of Kadaram (Kedah region in Malaysia) Sangramawijayatunggawarman and captured the Sumatran power of Srivijaya. Traditionally, it is believed that Srivijaya at that time included Kedah (Coedes, 1968, p. 142-143). The reviewed monograph is devoted to identifying the features of Chola sea voyages in the context of the Asian system of economic relations and navigation.
To this day, only one monograph by the American historian J. R. R. Tolkien has been devoted to the Chola military campaigns in Srivijaya and Sri Lanka. Spenser, who believed that the Cholas pursued a policy of expansion and plunder (Spenser, 1983). But the author of the classic works on Cholas and Srivijaya, Nilakanta Sastri, considered the naval campaigns of the South Indian kings as a symbolic conquest of the world (digvijaya) [Nilakanta Sastri, 1955, p. 220; Nilakanta Sastri, 1949]. The authors of the peer-reviewed collective monograph generally assume that the Chola raids on India are based on the struggle for hegemony on trade routes.
The monograph opens with forewords by Shashi Tharoor, Minister of Foreign Affairs of India, and K. Kesavapani, Director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, and consists of an introduction written by H. Kulke (Germany), fifteen articles, two appendices, and an index.
The article "Chola sea expeditions in the context of Asian history" by H. Kulke is introductory in nature, giving a brief overview of the main events in the history of the East in the X-XV centuries, from the founding of the Song Dynasty in China in 960, the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt in 969 and the Chola dynasty in 985 to the emergence of Malacca and the Zheng expeditions He at the beginning of the 15th century. A German researcher notes that the decline of Chola power at the end of the twelfth century did not in any way lead to the decline of Indian trade with China (p.12).
Noboru Karashima (Japan), in his article "Medieval trade activity in the Indian Ocean based on Chinese ceramics and South Indian and Sri Lankan inscriptions", describes the finds of Chinese pottery in South India, which indicate a lively trade relations already from the IX century and their intensification in the XIII century. A Japanese historian notes that the prosperity of overseas trade was associated with the activities of merchant guilds. There are 314 known inscriptions left by different guilds, but only 18 of them are found in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia (p. 53, table 2.2). The largest number of inscriptions come from the states of Karnataka and Tamilnadu.
Tansen Sen (USA-Singapore) in his article "Rajendra Chola's Military campaigns and the Chola-Srivijaya Triangle in China" revives R. C. Majumdar's suggestion that the campaign of 1025 was preceded by the expedition of 1017 [Majumdar, 1961, p. 338-342], and repeats his references to inscriptions on tablets from Tiruvalangadu dated in the sixth year of Rajendra's reign (1017 - 1018), which speak of the conquest of the country of Kataha (Kedah), and on copper tablets from the village of Puttur, dated to the eighth year of Rajendra's reign (1019 - 1020). If the hypothesis of R. C. Majumdar about the campaign on Kedah in 1017 is correct and Srivijaya (Sanfoqi in Chinese sources of the X-XIII centuries) included this territory at the beginning of the XI century, how to explain this fact,
* Nagapattinam to Suvarnadvipa: Reflections on the Chola Sea expeditions to Southeast Asia / Ed. by H. Kulke, K. Kesavapani, V. Sakhuja. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009. XXV, 337 p, ill. ISBN 978 - 981 - 230 - 936 - 5 (softcover).
That embassies came from Sanfotsi in 1016, 1017, and 1018 that did not mention the Chola raid [Coedes, 1968, p. 141]? The monograph under review contains an inscription from Nagapattinam, dated 1019 and the seventh year of Rajendra's reign, in which a messenger from the King of Kadaram makes a donation to the Nagapattinam temple. Kadaram and Kataha are considered to be the same country - Srivijaya. If this is true,then it is necessary to explain the appearance of the messenger of the attacked country after the raid of 1017. This, of course, is not so difficult: you can always assume that peace / truce is secured by religious offerings.
The articles "Rajendra Chola I's Sea Expedition to Southeast Asia: A Seaworthy Perspective" by Vijay and Sangita Sakhuja (India) and "A Note on the Chola State Fleet" by Y. Subbarayalu (India) are devoted to discussions about the types of ships in the Chola fleet, harbors and supplies of military expeditions, and maritime knowledge of Tamil sailors. Unfortunately, they contain more hypotheses than data. In fact, we do not know how the raid on Srivijaya was organized, and the only thing that the authors of the articles have no doubts about is that it was. I. Subbarayalu emphasizes that the Chola inscriptions contain only the generic name of the ship - kalam (p. 93). It should be noted that the authors take the main material for their discussion from B. Arunachalam's recent monograph on the Chola maritime art (Arunachalam, 2004), which is equally hypothetical.
S. Vasanthi (India) in the article "Excavations at Gangaikondacholapuram, the imperial capital of Rajendra Chola I, and their significance" reports a few archaeological information about the palace complex: external and internal walls, finds of ceramics and iron objects, roof tiles and other objects.
Gokul Seshadri (USA) in his article "A New View of Nagapattinam: A Medieval Port City in the Context of Political, Religious and Trade Exchange between South India, Southeast Asia and China" reconstructs the history of Nagapattinam. The first name of this city is Nagai. As a port, it appears in the seventh century. At that time, it was owned by the Pallava dynasty. Judging by Chinese sources, at the end of this century its name could already sound like Nagapattinam (Najabodanna / Na-kia-po-tan-na, p. 109). At the beginning of the eighth century, a "Chinese pagoda", i.e. a Buddhist temple, was built there. However, there is no record of the original popularity of Buddhism in the city. On the contrary, Seshadri suggests that the Buddhist "Chinese Pagoda" was created specifically for Chinese pilgrims and traveling merchants who profess this religion. In the tenth century. Nagapattinam comes under the rule of the Cholas, whose rule is associated with its economic, political and religious flourishing.
Noboru Karashima, in his article "South Indian Merchant Guilds in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia", analyzes the origin and composition of the ainnurruvar Trading Corporation, or "Five Hundred" in Tamilnadu, better known as Ayyavole from Karnataka (Alaev, 2011). The researcher doubts the traditional idea of the creation of this corporation by five hundred brahmins from Ayyavole (present-day Ayhole in Karnataka): "Although the brahmins in Ayyavola may have initiated the formation of a merchant guild and taken the lead in trade operations, their actual relationship to the later Ainutruvar organization, which consisted of various communities, remains a mystery" (p.143). Unfortunately, this chapter repeats the information already given in Karashima's article on the number of inscriptions of merchant guilds discussed above and provides the same table (p. 137, table 8.1; cf. p. 53, table 2.2).
I. Subbarayalu's article "Anjuvannam Guild of Sea Merchants in the Middle Ages" explores the activities of the Foreign Merchants ' Trading Corporation (anjuvannam) in Kerala and Tamilnadu. It brought together all the merchants from Western Asia: Arabs and Persians, Jews, Syrian Christians, Muslims and Parsis. A special feature of Anjuvannam was its focus on maritime trade on the coasts, unlike other merchant guilds in medieval South India. It appears in inscriptions of the ninth and disappears at the end of the thirteenth century. Since the tenth century, Anjuvannam has closely interacted with the" all-India", in the words of L. B. Alaev, ayyavole Guild.
The articles "The sea expedition of Rajendra Chola I and the Chola Trade with Southeast and East Asia" by A. Meenakshisundararajan (India) and "Cultural consequences of the Chola cloth trade with Southeast Asia" by H. Devare (India) repeat the well-known information about the trade and cultural interaction of South and Southeast Asia on the example of the Chola Empire and Kedah on the Malacca Peninsula.
Anura Manatunga (Sri Lanka) in her article "Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia in the era of the Polonnaruwa Kingdom" describes the foreign policy, religious and cultural interaction of Ceylon with the Pagan Empire and reveals architectural and sculptural parallels between Buddhist temples and statues of Polonnaruwa and the regions of present-day Thailand. The most significant-
Vijayabahu I (1055-1110), the liberator of Sri Lanka from Chola rule (they seized the island at the end of the tenth century), and the lords of Pagan Anoratha (1044-1077) and Chanzitta (1084-1112), and Parakramabahu I (1153-1186) with Alaungsitu (1112-1167)were significant contacts .1
The article "India and Southeast Asia: South Indian cultural relations with Indonesia" by P. Shanmugam (India) summarizes the well-known data on the relationship of sculpture of the medieval Pallava and Chola kingdoms in South India with ancient Javanese sculpture, mostly on the example of the Prambanan temple complex.
In the article" The Invasion of Rajendra Chola I and the Rise of Airlangga", Nini Susanti (Indonesia) describes the biography of the East Javanese king Airlangga (1019-1049), linking his success in uniting the Javanese lands under one scepter with the weakening of the former hegemon of the Malay (Indonesian) archipelago of Srivijai caused by the Chola raids of 1017 and 1025.
Risha Lee (USA) in her article "Rethinking the Community: Indian Carving in Quanzhou" explores the links between Tamil and Chinese cultures using the reliefs of the former Shiva Temple in Quanzhou, built in the late 13th century by the Tamil community. Now these reliefs are kept in a local museum or used to decorate the walls of the main Buddhist temple in the city.
In Appendix I, "Ancient and Medieval Tamil and Sanskrit Inscriptions Related to Southeast Asia and China", Noboru Karashima and Y. Subbarayalu provide full texts or excerpts from 16 inscriptions, 9 of which originate from India, 7 from Southeast Asia. The reader will find here the Large Leyden Inscription of Rajaraja I, 3 inscriptions from Nagapattinam 1014/1015, 1015 and 1019, the inscription of Rajendra I from Karandai 1020, the Tanjur / Tanjavur inscription of Rajendra I (called "Tirukkadayur"), the inscription of Virarajendra from Psrumber ≈1070, the Small Leyden inscription of Kulottungi Chola I ≈1090, text from Chidambara Kulottunga I ≈1114, inscription of a goldsmith from Wat Khlong Thom in Thailand III-IV centuries, inscription of a Devaniki from Wat Luong Khao near Wat Phu in Champassak, Laos; Tamil inscription from Takuap in Thailand ≈IX century, Tamil inscription of a merchant guild from Barus in Sumatra 1088, inscription a Kerala merchant in Pagan around the 13th century, a Tamil text from Quanzhou around 1281, and a Tamil inscription from Neusu Ache around the 13th century. The most important innovation of Karashima and Subbarayalu seems to be the dating of Rajendra Chola I's march on Kadaram in 1026, not 1025. (p. 272, 290, p. 1).
In Appendix II, "Chinese Texts Describing or Relating to the Chola kingdom as Zhongyan", Noboru Karashima and Tansen Sen offer new or first English translations of Chinese sources. This is the description of the kingdom of Zhongyan in the Song Shi ("History of the Song Dynasty"), "Song Hui Yao" ("Collection of information about the most important events in the Song State"), "Zhu fan zhi" by Zhao Zhugua ("Description of everything foreign") and "Lin wai dai da" by Zhou Qu-fei ("Beyond the ridges. Instead of answers"). To this are added a remark about Dihuajiang, the ruler of either Zhongyang or Sanfoqi (usually identified with Srivijaya in southeastern Sumatra [see: Zhao Zhugua, 1996; Zhao Zhugua, 1999]), and a description of the Pugan Kingdom, i.e., the Pagan Empire in what is now Myanmar, in " Sun Shi".
The inclusion in the appendix of a brief note on Dihuatse is due to the fact that in 1077, either two embassies arrived at the Sung court (from Sanfoqi and from Zhongyang), or one, since it was this ruler who poisoned them. He was generally identified with the Kulottunga Chola, but in the light of a stone inscription from a Taoist temple in Guangzhou (Tan Yeok Seong, 1964, p. 17-24), Dihuajian should be considered the ruler of Sanfoqi. This creates a number of difficulties. First, we need to explain why Chinese historians then included him in the sections on Zhongyang not only in Song Shi, but also in Song Hui Yao and Wenxian Tongkao (the historical and political body of the Universal Review of Literature). Secondly, whether Sanfoqi can be identified with Srivijaya, because such designations as (1) Sanfoqi-Zhongyan, (2) Sanfoqi-Zhanbei, and (3) Sanfoqi-Baolinbang are known (p.307). According to R. Jordan and B. Kolles, Sanfoqi-Zhongyan sent embassies to the Chinese court in 1077, 1079, 1082, 1088, and 1090, and Sanfoqi-Zhanbei - in 1079 and 1082 (Jordaan and Colless, 2009, p. 109). In 1084, 1088, 1094, and 1095, embassies came simply from Sanfoqi. In Sanfoqi-Baolinbang, you can guess the historical center of Srivijai-Palembang. Zhangbei is identified with Jambi, a province and city in southeastern Sumatra, north of Palembang in the Batanghari River Valley. As for Sanfoqi-Zhongyan, R. Jordan and B. Kolles see it as a subordinate area during the Chola raid
1 In Russian historiography, Anoratha is called Aniruda, Chanzitta is called Tiluin Man, and Alaungsitu is called Kansu 1 (Mozheyko, 1967: 72, 77, 80, 84).
Kedah on the Malacca Peninsula (Jordaan and Colless, 2009, p. 113, 124). At the same time, they believe that Dihuatzi was the "viceroy/viceroy of the Cholas in Kedah" (Jordaan and Colless, 2009, p. 113).
Noboru Karashima points out that Sanfoqi may be a general name for the kingdoms that controlled the Strait of Malacca region (p. 307): "The name Sanfoqi, which appears in Chinese sources from the tenth century, has been applied to at least three kingdoms that ruled in the Strait of Malacca region, namely: the kingdom centered in Palembang in Sumatra, the kingdom of in Jambi just north of Palembang and the kingdom of Kadaram (Kedah region) on the Malacca Peninsula" (p. 311, p. 54). However, the Japanese researcher does not claim that Dihuatsuji was a Chola governor, preferring to talk about the dependence of the Kadaram country on the Cholas, but while maintaining the local ruler (p. 305).
It should be noted that the translation of "Lin wai dai da" made by Tansen Sen is somewhat different from the Russian translation by M. Yu. Ulyanov (p. 304-305). In particular, in the English version there are no sentences " The ruler, the people and officials-all pull their hair into a knot, tie them with a white cloth. Gold and silver are used to make money" [Zhou Qu-fei, 2001, p. 144].
In general, the collective monograph turned out to be ambivalent. On the one hand, it reflects serious studies of medieval South Indian and South-East Asian epigraphy, suggests new translations of well-known epigraphic and ancient Chinese sources, and translates some monuments for the first time. On the other hand, it is replete with repetitions of well-known facts; the proposed reconstructions are controversial and, more significantly, they are reduced to general places due to limited sources. A big disadvantage is the low quality of photos: they are black and white and very fuzzy (see, for example, figs. 13.2-3, 13.5 on p. 210-211, 214).
Despite these rough edges, the peer-reviewed monograph is essential for studying the foreign policy of the Chola dynasties in South India and the Song dynasties in China, the history of the Malay (Indonesian) archipelago, and the merchant guilds of South Asia.
list of literature
Alaev L. B. Southern India: Communal and Political system of the VI-XIII centuries. Moscow: Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2011.
Mozheyko I. V. 5000 temples on the bank of the Irrawaddy. Moscow: Nauka, GRVL, 1967.
Zhao Zhugua. "Zhu Fan Zhi" (1225) (message about the state of Srivijaya) / Introduction, translated from the Chinese and commentary by M. Yu. Ulyanov / / Vostok (Oriens). 1996. N 6.
Zhao Zhugua. "Zhu Fan Zhi" ("Messages about the states subject to Srivijaya") / Introduction, translated from Chinese and commentary by M. Yu. Ulyanov / / Vostok (Oriens). 1999. N 1.
Zhou Qu-fei. Beyond the ridges. Instead of answers (Lin wai dai da) / Translated from the kit., introduction., comment. Ulyanova, Moscow: Vostochnaya literatura Publ., 2001.
Arunachalam B. Chola Navigation Package. Mumbai: Maritime History Society, 2004.
Cocdcs G. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia / Ed. by W.F. Vella, translated by S. Brown Cowing. Honolulu: East-West Center Book, University Press of Hawaii, 1968.
Jordaan R.E., Colless B.E. The Maharajas of the Isles: The Sailendras and the Problem of Srivijaya. Leiden: Department of Languages and Cultures of Southeast Asia and Oceania, University of Leiden, 2009 (Semaian 25).
Majumdar R.C. The Overseas Expeditions of King Rajcndra Cola // Artibus Asiae. 1961. Vol. 24. No. 3/4.
Nilakanta Sastri K.A. History of Sri Vijaya (Sir William Meyer Lectures, 1946 - 1947). Madras: University of Madras, 1949.
Nilakanta Sastri K.A. The Colas: 2nd Revised Ed. Madras: University of Madras, 1955 (lsl ed. 1935).
Spenser G.W. The Politics of Expansion: The Chola Conquest of Sri Lanka and Srivijaya. Madras: Jayalakshmi Indological Book House, 1983.
Tan Ycok Seong. The Sri Vijayan Inscription of Canton (A.D. 1079) // Journal of Southeast Asian History. 1964. Vol. 5. No. 2.
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