JP/Arief Suhardiman

The ancient kingdom of Sriwijaya, which historians believe was located in what we now know as Palembang, South Sumatra, has earned a reputation as a powerful international maritime trade entity where various commodities like spices, silk and Chinese ceramics were traded.

The kingdom rose to power in the 7th century and thrived for more than 500 years before finally suffering a terminal decline in the 13th century.

Sriwijaya was known as center for Buddhism and played a key role in the dissemination of the Sanskrit language, which originated in India. However, Sriwijaya’s extensive relationships with kingdoms from as far away as China and Saudi Arabia resulted in a melting pot, where people from different religious traditions, including Hinduism, Tantrism, Christianity and Islam could meet.

According to a paper written by researcher Bambang Budi Utomo, from the National Archaeological Research Center, evidence on peaceful coexistence of people from different faiths during Sriwijaya times could be gleaned from inscriptions, archaeological relics and news reports written by foreigners who arrived at the kingdom for trading purposes.

“A lot of Buddhist monks across the globe came to Sriwijaya, not only to stop for a rest but also to intensively study Buddha’s teachings. Chinese Buddhist monks like I-tsing, meanwhile, came to Sriwijaya to learn about Sanskrit grammar, in order to translate holy books written in Sanskrit into Mandarin,” Bambang writes.

I-tsing himself hailed from the Nalanda monastery in India, bringing with him around 500,000 stanzas from a book of Buddhist teachings called Tripitaka.

Initially, the Buddhist teachings that flourished in Sumatra and other parts of the archipelago were that of the Hinayana stream. As time went on, Buddhist monks studying in the kingdom started to welcome different streams of Buddhist teachings, including the Mahayana stream, which originated in the hinterlands of Southeast Asia.

Between the 7th and 12th centuries, Sriwijaya served as an important international trade hub, where traders and middlemen came from across the world to get precious commodities grown only in the Maluku Island, like clove, nutmeg and mace.

Bambang said during the period the traders carefully kept the trade route for themselves, hiding it from other Asian, European and Middle Eastern traders.

“Other than looking for spices, traders from Persia [now Iran], India and China also came to Sriwijaya to deposit their goods. The Persians sold glass bottles and fragrances while the Chinese offered porcelain and ceramics as their primary commodities. The Indians, meanwhile, traded metal ornaments,” Bambang told The Jakarta Post in a recent interview.

Along with the goods, the traders brought different religious traditions with them.

“Despite being well-known as the center of Buddhist teachings, as a kingdom Sriwijaya gave freedom to subscribers of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Taoism to practice their religious faiths,” historian JJ Rizal said.

Also helped by the spice trade centered around Sriwijaya is the spreading of Christianity in Indonesia. The city of Barus, located in North Sumatra, was known for its commodity of camphor (Cinnamomum camphora), still a lucrative endemic species before European traders came to the city around the 15th and 16th century and monopolized trade of the commodity.

A group of French archaeologists working with the Ecole Francaise d’extreme-orient, a French think tank focusing on studies of Asian cultures, in cooperation with the Indonesian National Archaeology research center, found evidence that Christianity came to Indonesia through Middle Eastern traders, who practiced Nestorian Christianity and came to the city to buy camphor.

“This stream of [Nestorian] Christianity was practiced among many communities in Persia [now Iran], and still exists even today among many Iranians. It was possible that Persian traders who practiced Nestorian Christianity and the Shia branch of Islam also came to the Sriwijaya harbors,” Bambang said.

Despite its Buddhist tradition, Sriwijaya also gave room for Islam as well. Rizal said that to maintain a good trade relationship, around the 8th century the Sriwijaya king offered a tribute to caliph Umar bin Abdul-Azis from Saudi Arabia while asking him to send a mubaligh (missionary) to teach Islam in the kingdom.

Sriwijaya rulers were also on good terms with subscribers of Hinduism.

“Activities associated with Hinduism were also found in the kingdom around the 9th and 10th centuries, indicated by the artistic style in which local temples [in South Sumatra] were built,” Bambang explained.

Rizal, who also heads the Komunitas Bambu publishing house, said that protection of religious freedom during the Sriwijaya era could’ve resulted from the open environment offered by the kingdom’s strong intellectual tradition.

“Sriwijaya emerged as a kingdom with academic strengths and an emphasis on education. Near the capital of Sriwijaya, there was the port city of Barus, which also gave birth to intellectuals such as Hamzah Fansuri,” Rizal said, referring to a well-known Islamic literary writer who died in 1560.

Rizal lamented that the spirit of intellectualism and tolerance was cut short when Wahhabism entered Indonesia, also when Dutch colonialists took advantage of internal disputes within local kingdoms to divide and conquer Indonesians.

Many historians have argued that the enmity between Muslims and Christians in Indonesia today established its roots during the period soon after the arrival of European colonial powers. M. Adnan Amal wrote in his 2007 book Kepulauan Rempah-Rempah: Perjalanan Sejarah Maluku Utara, 1250 - 1950 (Spice Islands: The History of North Maluku 1250 - 1950) that European traders used mass religious conversions to Christianity among Muslims, enforced by power-hungry local rulers, to divide and control local people.

According to historian Bernard H.M. Vlekke in his 1943 book Nusantara: Sejarah Indonesia (Archipelago: The History of Indonesia), the Islamic identity also became salient among nationalists who struggled against the European kafir (infidels).

This kind of division remains in today’s Indonesia, which now takes the form of frequent religious conflicts and incidents of intolerance, manifested strongly during the recent Jakarta gubernatorial campaign and the blasphemy case against former Jakarta governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama.

In the conclusion of his paper, Bambang reflected that the country could learn a lot from the experience of Sriwijaya: “If during the Sriwijaya period — which as a civilization many consider as ‘less advanced’ than what we have today — adherents of different religions could coexist peacefully, then why have we as a nation where Sriwijaya once stood now experience a decline? [in terms of religious tolerance]?”

He also said: “Now, each subscriber of faiths [in Indonesia] would like to think that his or her religion is the right one and in turn fail to recognize other people’s religious practices.”

Popular

Great Barrier Reef hit by record bleaching

Govt to undo latest curbs on personal imports

Middle East on edge as Israel and Iran trade threats