01Kataha on the straits
Ships from the Coromandel coast crossing the Bay of Bengal made landfall under the peak of Gunung Jerai and sheltered in the Merbok river. Here grew the port the Tamil poems call Kalagam and Kadaram. H. G. Quaritch Wales dug the first shrines in 1936–40; Alastair Lamb excavated and rebuilt Candi Bukit Batu Pahat, a Shiva shrine of granite and laterite on a stream bank, in 1959–60. Sanskrit inscriptions in a south Indian script, Buddhist and Hindu images, and Tamil and Chinese wares have come out of the valley. Since 2009 the Sungai Batu site has added iron-smelting works and a jetty that its excavators date far earlier than the candis.
02The Chola raid of 1025
Kadaram was a vassal port of Srivijaya, the sea power of the straits. In 1025 Rajendra Chola I sent his fleet across the Bay; his Tanjore inscription lists the ports taken, Kadaram first among them, and the capture of the Srivijaya king Sangrama Vijayottungavarman with his elephants and treasure. About 1068 Virarajendra Chola’s inscriptions say he conquered Kadaram again and gave it back to a king who had sought his help. In 2013 a housing developer bulldozed one of the excavated candis at Sungai Batu, and the outcry led to fresh protection for the valley. The Bujang Valley Archaeological Museum at Merbok keeps the finds.
The life of this place
- 1025Rajendra Chola I’s fleet takes Kadaram (Tanjore inscription).
- c. 1068Virarajendra Chola conquers Kadaram and restores it to its king.
- 1936–40Quaritch Wales excavates the first shrines of the Bujang Valley.
- 1959–60Candi Bukit Batu Pahat is excavated and reconstructed.
- 2013A candi at Sungai Batu is bulldozed by a developer.
