Nuevas Tendencias y Tecnologías Para la Gestión Forestal

May 17, 1932

WE shall now pay a brief visit to Farther India — the colonies and settlements of people from South India in Malaysia and Indo-China. I have already told you how these settlements were

deliberately organized and arranged. They did not just grow up anyhow. There must have been frequent journeys across the seas and a sufficient mastery over the seas, to permit of this

deliberate colonization simultaneously at several places. I have also told you that these colonies began in the first and second centuries of the Christian era. They were Hindu colonies bearing South Indian names. After some centuries Buddhism gradually spread, till nearly the whole of Hindu Malaysia had become Buddhist.

Let us go to Indo-China first. The earliest colony was named Champs, and was in Annam. There we find in the third century the city of Pandurangam growing up. Two hundred years later the great city of Kamboja flourished. It was full of great buildings and temples of stone. All over these Indian colonies you will find mighty buildings growing up. Architects and master builders must have been taken across from India, and they carried on the Indian traditions in building there. Between the different States and islands there was a great deal of competition in building, and this com petition resulted in a high type of artistic development.

The people living in these settlements were naturally seafaring folk. They or their ancestors had already crossed the seas to reach these places, and all round them was the sea. Seafaring folk take to trade easily. So these people were traders and merchants, carrying their wares across the seas to the different islands, to India in the west and to China in the east. The different States in Malaysia were thus controlled largely by the merchant classes. Often there was conflict between these States and great wars and massacres. Sometimes a Hindu State waged war against a Buddhist State. But the real motive for many of these wars in those days seems to have been trade rivalry. Just as in these days wars take place between great Powers for markets for the goods they manufacture.

For 300 years or so, up to the eighth century, there were three different Hindu States in Indo-China. In the ninth century a great ruler arose — Jaya-varman, who united all these and built up a great empire. He was probably a Buddhist. He began building his capital at Angkor, and his successor, Yaso-varman, completed it. This Cambodian Empire lasted for nearly 400 years. As empires go, it was supposed to be splendid and powerful. The royal city of Angkor Thom was known all over the East as " Angkor the Magnificent." It was a city of over a million people, larger than the Rome of the Caesars had been. Near it was the wonderful

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temple of Angkor Vat. In the thirteenth century Cambodia was attacked on several sides. The Annamese attacked in the east, the local tribes in the west. And in the north the Shan people were driven south by Mongols, and finding no other way of escape, they attacked Cambodia. The kingdom was tired out by this constant fighting and defending itself. Still the city of Angkor continued to be one of the most splendid cities in the East. In 1297 a Chinese envoy, who had been sent to the Cambodian king, wrote a glowing description of its wonderful buildings.

But suddenly Angkor suffered a terrible catastrophe. About 1300 A.C. the mouth of the river Mekong became blocked by deposits of mud. The waters of the river could not flow through, and they backed up and flooded the entire region round the great city, turning fertile fields into a great area of useless marshlands. The large population of the city began to starve. It could not

stay on, and was forced to leave the city and migrate. So " Angkor the Magnificent " was abandoned, and the jungle came and took possession of it, and its wonderful buildings housed wild animals for a while, till the jungle reduced the palaces to dust and reigned unchallenged.

The Cambodian State could not survive this catastrophe for long. It collapsed gradually and became a province sometimes ruled by Siam, sometimes by Annam. But even now the ruins of the great temple of Angkor Vat tell us something of the days when a proud and splendid city stood near by, drawing merchants with their wares from distant lands, and sending out to other countries the fine goods that its citizens and artisans made.

Across the sea, not very far from Indo-China, lay the island of Sumatra. Here also the Pallavas from South India had established their earliest colonies in the first or second century after Christ.

These grew gradually. The Malay Peninsula early became part of the Sumatran State, and for long afterwards the histories of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula were closely allied. The capital of the State was the large city of Sri Vijaya, situated inland in the mountains of Sumatra, and having a port at the mouth of the Palembang river. About the fifth or sixth century Buddhism became the predominant religion of Sumatra. Indeed, Sumatra took the lead in carrying on active missionary work for Buddhism and ultimately succeeded in converting most of Hindu Malaysia to Buddhism. This Sumatran empire is therefore known as the Buddhist Empire of Sri Vijaya.

Sri Vajaya went on growing bigger and bigger till it included not only Sumatra and Malay, but Borneo, Philippines, Celebes, half of Java, half of the island of Formosa (which belongs to Japan now), Ceylon, and even a port in the south of China near Canton. Probably it also included a port in the southern tip of India, facing Ceylon. You will thus see that it was a widespread empire, covering the whole of Malaysia. Commerce and trade and shipbuilding were the chief

occupations of these Indian colonies. The Chinese and Arabian writers of the time give us long lists of ports and

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new colonies subject to the Sumatran State. These lists go on

The British Empire to-day is spread out all over the world and everywhere it has got seaports and good coaling-stations : Gibraltar, the Suez Canal (which is largely under British control), Aden, Colombo, Singapore, Hongkong and so on. The British have been a nation of traders during the last 300 years and thejr trade and strength have depended on sea power. They have thus required ports and coaling-stations at convenient distances all over the world. The Sri Vijaya Empire was also a sea Power based on trade. Hence you find that it had ports wherever it could get the smallest footing. Indeed, a remarkable feature of the settlements of the Sumatran State was their strategic value — that is to say, they were carefully located at places where they could command the surrounding seas. Often they were in pairs to help each other in maintaining this command.

Thus Singapore, which is a great city now, was originally a settlement of the Sumatran colonists.

The name, as you will notice, is a typical Indian name : Singhpur. The Sumatran people had another settlement just opposite the Straits, facing Singapore. Sometimes they would stretch an iron chain right across the Strait and so stop all ships from passing till they paid heavy tolls.

So the Empire of Sri Vijaya was not unlike the British Empire, though of course it was much smaller. But it lasted longer than the British Empire is likely to last. Its period of highest

development was in the eleventh century, just about the time when the Chola Empire flourished in South India. But it long outlived this Chola Empire. There were friendly relations between the two for a long time, but both were aggressive seafaring folk with strong navies and widespread trade connections. Early in the eleventh century they came into conflict and there was war. The Chola king, Rajendra I, sent an overseas expedition which humbled Sri Vijaya. But Sri Vijaya soon recovered from this shock.

At the beginning of the eleventh century the Chinese Emperor sent a gift of a number of bronze bells to the Sumatran King. In return the latter sent pearls and ivory and Sanskrit books. There was also a letter inscribed on a golden plate in " Indian characters ", it is said.

Sri Vijaya flourished for quite a long time, from its early beginnings about the second century to the fifth or sixth century, when it turned Buddhist, and then, gradual and continuous growth till the eleventh century. For another 300 years it remained a great empire controlling the trade and commerce of Malaysia. It was overthrown ultimately in 1377 A.C. by another of the old Pallava colonies.

I have told you that the Sri Vijaya Empire spread from Ceylon to Canton in China. It included most of the islands in between. But one little bit it could not subdue. This was the eastern part of Java, which continued to remain an independent State and which also remained Hindu and refused to turn Buddhist. Thus

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while western Java was under Sri Vijaya, eastern Java was independent. This Hindu State of East Java was also a commercial State, and it depended for its prosperity on trade. It must have

looked with envious eyes on Singapore, which, because of its fine position, had become a great trade centre. Thus there was rivalry between Sri Vijaya and East Java, and this developed into bitter enmity. From the twelfth century onwards the Javan State grew slowly at the expense of Sri Vijaya and, as I have said, in the fourteenth century—in 1377 A.C.—it defeated Sri Vijaya completely. It was a cruel war and there was great destruction. Both the cities of Sri Vijaya and Singapore were destroyed. Thus ended the second of the great empires of Malaysia—the Empire of Sri Vijaya— and over its ruins rose the third of these empires, that of Madjapahit.

In spite of the cruelty and barbarity shown by the East Javans in their war with Sri Vijaya, it appears from the many books we still have of that period in Java that this Hindu State had attained a high degree of civilization. What it excelled in was building, and especially the building of temples. There were over 600 temples, and among these are said to be some of the world's finest and most artistic specimens of stone architecture. Most of these great temples were built between the middle of the seventh and the middle of the tenth century—that is, between 650 and 950 A.O. The Javanese must have brought large numbers of builders and master-craftsmen from India and other neighbouring countries to help them to build these mighty temples. We shall follow the fortunes of Java; and Madjapahit in a subsequent letter.

I might mention here that both Borneo and the Philippines learnt the art of writing from India, through these early Pallavan colonies. Unfortunately many of the old manuscripts in the Philippines were destroyed by the Spaniards.

Remember also that the Arabs had their colonies all over these islands from the early days, long before Islam. They were great traders, and wherever trade was to be found, the Arabs went.