Srivijaya

01The siddhayatra of 682

The Kedukan Bukit stone, found on the bank of the Musi river at Palembang in 1920, is dated Shaka 604, which is 682 CE. It says that Dapunta Hyang set out by boat with twenty thousand men on a siddhayatra, an expedition blessed for success, and founded a settlement. It is written in Old Malay in a Pallava-derived script. Within a few years other stones of his were set up on Bangka and in southern Sumatra, threatening any who disobeyed.

02Where I-Tsing learned Sanskrit

The Chinese monk I-Tsing stopped at Srivijaya in 671 on his way to Nalanda and came back to live there for years, copying and translating texts. He advised Chinese monks bound for India to spend a year or two in Srivijaya first, where more than a thousand monks studied as they did in Madhyadesha. Four centuries later Atisha, the Bengali scholar who would go to Tibet, spent about twelve years in Suvarnadvipa under the teacher Dharmakirti.

Person · Reigned 1014–1044 CE (co-regent from 1012)Rajendra Chola IRajendra, son of Rajaraja, took the Chola empire to its height. His army marched to the Ganga and brought its water home; his fleet crossed the Bay of Bengal and struck Srivijaya; and he built a new capital, Gangaikonda Cholapuram, the city of the Chola who took the Ganga.Read →

03Nalanda and Nagapattinam

Around 860 the Pala king Devapala granted five villages to a monastery at Nalanda built by Balaputradeva, king of Suvarnadvipa; the Nalanda copper plate records it. In the early 11th century the Srivijaya king Mara Vijayottungavarman built the Chudamani Vihara at Nagapattinam, and Rajaraja Chola granted the village of Anaimangalam to it. The Larger Leiden plates preserve that grant, issued in the name of his son Rajendra. A Buddhist house of the Straits, endowed by a Shaiva emperor, on the Tamil coast.

04Rajendra Chola’s raid

Friendship turned. In 1025 Rajendra Chola sent a fleet across the Bay of Bengal. His Tanjore inscription lists the ports taken, Kadaram, Malaiyur, Ilangasoka, Tamralinga and others, and says that the Srivijaya king Sangrama Vijayottungavarman was captured with his war elephants. Srivijaya survived the blow but never fully recovered. By the 13th century its role had passed to Jambi and Melayu, and then to Majapahit.

Person · Reigned 985–1014 CERajaraja Chola IArulmozhi Varman took the name Rajaraja when he was crowned in 985, and in twenty-nine years turned the Chola kingdom of the Kaveri delta into the greatest power of the south, with a navy that reached Lanka and the Maldives. In 1010 he completed the Rajarajeshvaram at Thanjavur, the Brihadeeswara temple.Read →

The rulers

1. 1Dapunta Hyang Sri JayanasaKedukan Bukit and Talang Tuwo inscriptionsc. 682
2. 2BalaputradevaBuilt a monastery at Nalandamid-9th century
3. 3ChudamanivarmadevaBegan the Nagapattinam viharac. 1000
4. 4Mara VijayottungavarmanCompleted the Chudamani Viharaearly 11th century
5. 5Sangrama VijayottungavarmanCaptured in Rajendra Chola’s raidc. 1025

What they left

• The Kedukan Bukit inscription (682), oldest dated Malay text
• A Buddhist learning centre praised by I-Tsing
• Monasteries at Nalanda and Nagapattinam funded from Sumatra
• Muara Jambi temple complex in Sumatra