9 - The Role of “Prakrit” in Maritime Southeast Asia through 101 Etymologies

Summary

Introduction

This chapter presents a novel contribution to the study of language contact between India and Southeast Asia, in particular the oft-neglected “Prakrit” or—more accurately—Middle Indo-Aryan (henceforth MIA) loanwords in Malay, Old Javanese and other languages of Maritime Southeast Asia. To this end, I will call attention to 101 tentative instances of lexical borrowing and present new perspectives on the pre-modern dispersal of Indic culture and thought to Southeast Asia during the first millennium CE. As scholarship on the exchange of vocabulary between South and Southeast Asia has traditionally prioritized the role of Sanskrit and the associated “high culture”— including religion, state organization, art, architecture, literature and philosophy (cf. Gonda 1973; De Casparis 1997)—a focus on (North) India's historical spoken languages may reveal more vernacular dimensions of interethnic contact, challenging scholars to reconsider the structure and nature of the maritime networks that have shaped Asia's pre-colonial past.

Without wanting to delve too deep here into the history of scholarship on cultural contact across the Bay of Bengal, it is worth pointing out that historians and archaeologists frequently present linguistic arguments in support of one or the other macrohistorical scenario. In an attempt to understand the mechanism through which cultural influence from India gained foothold in early Southeast Asia, Van Leur (1934, p. 126) contended that if the region had been frequented predominantly by warriors (kṣatriya) or merchants (vaiśya), more vernacular elements would have been adopted—including the fully developed caste system (i.e. the jātis, not just the varṇas), craft industry, political organization, and Indian languages other than Sanskrit. He thus rejected the then prevailing notion of a “Hindu colonization”, as advocated by Mookerji (1912) and other scholars of the Calcutta-based Greater India movement, and suggested that the literary and magico-ritual “high civilization” of classical Southeast Asia had been introduced by a relatively small number of Brahmins who had ingratiated themselves at the local courts. The notion—first advanced by Krom (1931, p. 90) and thenceforth commonplace in the field of early Southeast Asian history—that indigenous elites were actively and deliberately importing Indian traditions and adapting them to local preferences is essential to this idea.