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II. The Hinduization of Indonesia Reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Justus M. van der Kroef
Justus M. van der Kroef
Affiliation:
Michigan State College
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Extract

When, in 1926, N. J. Krom published his standard study of the Hindu-Javanese period in Indonesian history, a major gap in the historiography of the Archipelago seemed to have been filled. Krom's later publications enlarged expertly upon the major themes of his great work. He seemed content to catalogue and analyze the many Indonesia inscriptions, statues, and temples, dating from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries A.D. which he regarded as the fruit of the Hinduization of Java and Sumatra. In his earlier study of Hindu-Javanese art, he brilliantly revealed the mingling of indigenous traditions with the technique of Hindu and Hinduized artisans in the Sumatran and Javanese kingdoms. The dominant note in all his writings was the great civilizing influence which he claimed had been exerted by Hindu traders and colonists over the supposedly untutored indigenous population of the Greater Sunda islands. Though willing to admit that the inhabitants of Java and Sumatra before the coming of the Hindus were not “savages” and that they possessed a certain knowledge of political organization, and agricultural and metallurgical technique, Krom emphasized that the high civilization reached by the kingdoms of Java and Sumatra between the ninth and thirteenth centuries was largely due to the infiltration of Hindu culture.

Type
Culture Contact and Cultural Change in Southeast Asia: A Symposium
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , November 1951 , pp. 17 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1951

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References

1 Hindoe-Javaansche Geschiedenis (The Hague, 1926); second ed. (The Hague, 1931).

2 Most of these studies appeared in the Bijdragen tot de Taal-Land-en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-lndie uitgegeven door bet Koninklijk Instituut voor de Taal-Land-en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-lndie (hereafter BKl) Cf. especially 74 (1918), 419 ff; 89 (1932), 121–123 and 99 (1940) 119–123.

3 Inleiding tot de Hindoe-Javaansche Kunst (The Hague, 1923) 3 vols.

4 Hindoe-Javaansche Geschiedenis (1931), 54.Google Scholar

5 Stapel, F. W., ed., Geschiedenis van Nederlandsch-lndie (The Hague, 1936), 1:119.Google Scholar

6 In 1889 J. J. Brandes published a study containing the well-known “ten points” which he regarded as a measuring stick with respect to the state of Java's civilization before the coming of the Hindus. Brandes claimed that the Javanese knew 1. the wayang (shadow play or native drama). 2. the gamelan (xylophone). 3. their own metric system. 4. batik craft. 5. metal crafts. 6. coinage. 7. navigational skills. 8. astronomy. 9. the so-called “wet” rice cultivation, involving irrigation, 10. an ordered political life; all of which “they did not learn from the Hindus.” See Tijdschrift van het Bataviasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen (Hereafter TBG), 32 (1889), 122 ff.Google Scholar

7 Hindoe-Javaansche Geschiedenis (1931) 90, also 67, 88–9.Google Scholar

8 Rouffaer, J. in Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-lndie (The Hague, 1918), 4:366.Google Scholar

9 Coed`s, George, Histoire ancienne des états hindouisés d'extrème-orient (Paris, 1947), 19, 23–25Google Scholar. In a review of this book Briggs, Lawrence Palmer, “The Hinduized states of Southeast Asia: a review,” Far Eastern Quarterly 1 (1948)Google Scholar 379 writes: “The process of Hinduization according to the author (i.e. Coedès) began slowly, individually and without definite organization. A few ships came with the monsoon and returned to India at the end of the season. Then a few merchants were left behind to trade with the natives and to collect cargo for the return of the ships with the next monsoon. Some Indian traders probably brought their wives, but mostly they seemed to have intermarried with the natives. Places of worship were established and religious leaders came from India. Thus the first settlements appear to have been formed.” These concepts of Coedès, apparently accepted as correct by Briggs seem to betray a complete lack of insight into the type of trade, the character of the traders, the kraton as trading center and cultural focus, and the function of the Brahmans as outlined below.

10 Majumdar, R. C., Hindu Colonies in the Far East (Calcutta, 1944)Google Scholar. Majumdar does not deal very thoroughly with Hindu colonies in Indonesia, but he appears to subscribe to the views of Krom as regards a colonization of traders as the basis of the Hinduization process.

11 See generally Locher, G. W., “Inleidende beschouwingen over de ontmoetingen van Oost en West in Indonesie,” Indonesie 2 (1949) 420–428.Google Scholar

12 Krom, , Hindoe-Javaansche Geschiedenis (1931), 54.Google Scholar

13 van Leur, C., Eenige Beschouwingen betrefrende den ouden Aziatischen Handel (Middleburg, 1934), 118.Google Scholar

14 Vollenhoven, van, Het Adatrecht van Nederlandsch-lndie (The Hague, 1931) 1:470; 2:784–785.Google Scholar

15 Cf. such institutions as the lewosuku and wungu in East Flores in Ouwehand, C., “Aantekeningen over volksordening en grondenrecht op Oost-Flores,” Indonesie 4 (1950) 54–71.Google Scholar

16 Van Vollenhoven, 1:331 and Krom, . Hindoe-Javaansche Geschiedenis (1931), 201, 202 and nt. 1,247,267,314.Google Scholar

17 Cf. van Naerssen, F. H., Cultuurcontacten en sociale conflicten in Indonesie (Amsterdam, 1946), 4–17Google Scholar; Bosch, F. D. K., Het Vraagstuk van de Hiidoe-kolonisatie van den Arcbipel (Leyden, 1946), 17–20.Google Scholar

18 Van Leur, 119.

19 Van Vollenhoven, 1:364; 2:809.

20 The relatively slight influence of Hinduism on the Indonesian masses is not least shown by the fact that in the early sixteenth century conversions to Islam were facilitated because “Hindu culture did not communicate its spiritual refinement to the masses, which belonged to the lower castes, so that for a great majority under the Hinduized regime there was much cause to seek in Islam a release from its status of subjugation.” C. Snouck Hurgronje, Nederland en de Islam (second ed., Amsterdam, 1915), 19. This does not mean that Islam, in the course of time was any more successful than Hinduism in decisively altering indigenous tradition. Krom's belief that the Hinduization period witnessed “the formation of states” in Indonesia (in Stapel, 1:119) is not tenable in view of the variety and persistence of indigenous political organization.

21 Van Leui, 120.

22 Masson-Oursel, H., L'lnde antique el la civilisation indienne (Paris, 1933), 247.Google Scholar

23 Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie (Berlin, 1920–21), 2:16.

24 Cf.the extent and antiquity of Indonesian trade with the countries surrounding the Indian Ocean in Nooteboom, C., “Sumatra en de zeevaart op de Indische Oceaan,” Indonesie 4 (1950), 119–127.Google Scholar Not the least of the erroneous implications in Krom's colonization theory is that it pictures the Indonesian world between the second and sixth centuries A.D. as essentially “passive,” isolated and disinterested in surrounding countries. This condition was changed supposedly with the coming of the “active,” more civilized Hindu colonists. Indonesian colonization of Madagascar as early as the second century A.D., uninterrupted Sumatran contacts with Ceylon as of the fourth century A.D. and possible conquest of the latter island by the former and the testimony of the Portuguese traveller Barros that the Javanese had even established relations with South and East Africa, all these show that active Indonesian relations existed before, during and after the Hinduization era with the rest of South-Asia. See Ferrand, Gabriel, “Les Javanais à Madagascar,” Journal Asiatique 24 (1910), 308–309;Google Scholar, Ferrand, “Les voyages des Javanais à Madagascar,” Journal Asiatique 24 (1910) 281Google Scholar and Kern, H., “Twee krijgstochten ui’ den Indischen Archipel tegen Ceilon,” BKI, 46 (1896) 240.Google Scholar

25 Van Leur, 122. Krom, like Coedès; recognizes the importance of Brahman immigrants in the Hinduization process, but not to a sufficient degree, and both are all but silent on the “Brahmanization” of the Indonesian kraton.

26 , Krom, Hindoe-Javaansche Geschiedenis (1931), 90Google Scholar; Coedès, Histoire ancienne des états hindouises d'extremè-orient, 19, 23–25; Vogel, K., “The Yupa inscriptions of King Mulavarman from Koetei (East Borneo),” BKI 68 (1918), 45 ffGoogle Scholar; Rouffaer in Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-lndië. 4:366 ff; Berg, C. C., Hoofdleinen der Javaansche Literatuurgeschiedenis (The Hague, 1929), 3–7.Google Scholar

27 Van Leur, 73–74. Majumdar, R. C., Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East: Champa (Lahore, 1927) 214Google Scholar indicates that Indian colonists in Champa belonged mainly to Brahmans and Ksatrias, i.e. to the religious-intellectual or military-mercantile aristocracy. (See note 25 above). But what of a “colonization” by traders?

28 On the enormous number of people involved in this peddlers’ trade through the centuries in Indonesia see J. de Jonge, ed., De Opkomst van het Nederlandsch Gezag over Java (The Hague, 1864–1873), 5:263; Colenbrander, H. T., Jan Pietersz. Coen. Bescheiden omtrent zijn bedrijf in Indie (The Hague, 1932), 1:574–575Google Scholar, , Rouffaer in BKl, 77 (1921) 167, 408–409, 414 note 3Google Scholar. Compare van Leur, 122–123: “This trade of peddlers, of which the greater majority belongs to the lower classes, mixed with foreigners from many countries.… often African negroes and slaves, cannot possibly be regarded as the channel of ritualistic-magical social classification and literary bureaucratic schooling and wisdom.”

29 Compare Rouffaer in BKl, 77 (1921) 408–409Google Scholar and Uitgave der Linschoten Vereeniging (Amsterdam, 1927) 2:153–154, 155, 170.Google Scholar

30 See for example the “kampong Keling” (i.e. “Calinggalese,” the popular collective Indonesian term for all Indians), and the Chinese quarter in many contemporary Indonesian ports. Merchants from Gudjarat had their own quarter in the port of Malacca, some 1000 of them lived there by the beginning of the ninth century; Banten on the west coast of Java in the fifteenth century, had according to a contemporary source, sections for “Indians, Siamese (?), Persians, Arabs, Turks, Chinese and ‘foreign’ Indonesians”; Srivijaya had similar merchant quarters. See Schrieke, B. O., “Prolegomena tot eene sociologische studie over de volken van Sumatra,” TBC 65 (1925) 103Google Scholar; Rouffaer in BKl, 77(1921) 167, 408–409; de Jonge, 7:11; van Leur, 170; Westenenk in Koloniale Studien 2 (1922), 2 and note and Krom, , “De Val van Crivijaya,” Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen Afdeeling Letterkunde 58 (1927) 210–218Google Scholar. Since the peddlers' trade dealt primarily in luxury products, it was only at the kraton or near the aristocracy that the peddlers had a chance of selling their wares. Peddlers' contact with the masses in the interior must therefore be regarded as having been at a minimum.

31 Van Leur, 117.

32 Krom, , Hindoe-Javaansche Gescbiedenis (1931), 67–81. Compare Coedès, Histoire ancienne des états hindouisés d'extrême-orient, 19: “Hinduization ought then to be understood essentially as an organized culture, founded on the Hindu conception of royalty, characterized by the Hinduist or Buddhist cults, the mythology of the Puranas, the observance of the Dharmasastras and having the Sanskrit language as a means of expression.” But nowhere does Coedès indicate if this kind of Hinduization extended itself to the masses, particularly in Indonesia.Google Scholar

33 Krom, , Hindoe-Javaanscbe Geschiedenis (1931), 90, 92. The entire concept of intermarriage between Hindu colonists and the resulting creation of a “mixed” Hindu-Javanese society is open to serious question. That such intermarriage did occur to a limited extent seems possible, but to regard it as the basis of a Hinduization process seems in error. As van Leur has remarked: “The anthropological element, has strangely enough, never been examined more closely: if the culture-spreading Hindus originated in South-India, then there should be evident a relatively strong mixture with Dravidic elements (in the Indonesian people) through the centuries. Has there ever been any question of this?” And again (151–152, nt. 89): “How about a consistent “halfbreed” concept regarding Indian culture bearers in those countries where the population and ruling dynasty have mongoloid characteristics? Has there ever been any anthropological inquiry into the Hindu-Burmese and Hindu-Cambodianese society?”Google Scholar

34 Krom, , Hindoe-Javaansche Geschiedenis, (1931), 169, 196, 206–209.Google Scholar

35 Cf. references to such “clerks” and literati in Javanese society in Berg, C. C., De Middel-Javaansche Historische Traditie (Santpoort, 1927), 18–19Google Scholar. For comparative purposes it should be noted that in the sixteenth century it was again the kraton which was among the first to accept Islam. To be sure this occurred for political reasons (i.e. resistance to European colonial expansion) but this is illustrative of the receptivity of the kraton to foreign religious and cultural traits. See in this connection Wertheim, W. F. in Indonesie 4 (1950) 88.Google Scholar

36 Berg, Hoofdleinen der Javaansche Literatuurgeschiedenis, 10.

37 This condition still lives in the Javanese saying: Nagara mawa tata desa mawa cara (“The Kraton has culture, the people have their customs”).

38 Rouffaer, , “Was Malaka emporium voor 1400 A.D. genaamd Malajoer?” BKl 77 (1921) 455Google Scholar and n. 3, 457–458, 588. Weber, 2:10 and n. 1 remarks: “Mass falsifications of the genealogical tables of rulers in South-India are shown to have been made as early as the ninth century.” Nor was the kraton averse to an artificial Sanskritization of the Javanese language. See van der Kroef, Justus M., “The Javanese Term Boedjangga,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 70 (1950) 73–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Berg, Hoofdleinen, 11.

40 Van Leur, 128.

41 , Ferrand, L'Empire sumatranais de Çrivijaya (Paris, 1922), 4–9, 13, 66, 106, 154, 184.Google Scholar

42 Van Leur, 129.

43 Compare Coedès, Le Royaume de Çrivijaya (Bulletin de l'école française D'extrême-orient 18 (1918), no. 6), 25Google Scholar: “The reason why it (i.e. Çrivijaya) has only left behind a number of insignificant archeological monuments and inscriptions, is probably because its kings were much too busy supervising its commercial ventures to have the time to build temples or to have songs in praise of them engraved on stone.”

44 Van Leur, 130.

45 Hindoe-Javaanscke Geschiedenis (1931), 94.Google Scholar

46 Berg, Hoofdleinen, 6–10.

47 Stutterheim, W. F., Rama legenden und Rama reliefs in Indonesien (Munich. 1925), 34 ff.Google Scholar

48 Rassers, W. H., De Pandji-Roman (Antwerp, 1922).Google Scholar

49 Rassers, , “De Zin van het Javaansche Drama,” BKl 88 (1931), 431.Google Scholar

50 Rassers, , “On the Javanese Kris,” BKl 99 (1940), 503.Google Scholar

51 Rassers, , “Over de Oorsprong van het Javaansche Toneel,” BKl 88 (1931) 431.Google Scholar

52 Inleiding tot de Hindoe-javaansche Kunst, 2:318.

53 “Een hypothese omtrent den oorsprong der Hindoe-javaansche Kunst,” Handelingen van bet eerste Congres van de Taal-Land-en Volkenkunde van Java (Solo, 1919), 73.

54 See generally Stutterheim, W. F., “Oud-Javaansche Kunst,” BKl 79 (1923), 322 ff.Google Scholar

55 van Erp, T., “Oudheidkundige Aantekeningen” TBG 53 (1910), 582.Google Scholar

56 Mus, Paul, Barabudur, esquisse d'une histoire du Bouddhisme fondée sur la critique archeologique des textes (Hanoi, 1935), 1:85Google Scholar. See also Stutterheim, “Oud-Javaansche Kunst,” 334–343; J. Brandes, Fout of Finesse?”, Rapporten van den Oudheidkundige Dienst (Batavia, 1914) 24, and Krom, , “De Bodhisattva's van den Mendut,” BKl 74 (1918), 419 ff.Google Scholar

57 Stutterheim, W. F., “Oost-Javaansche Kunst,” Djawa 7 (1917) 177 ff.Google Scholar

58 Krom, Inleiding tot de Hindoe-javaansche Kunst, 3: plates 87–89.

59 Compare also Norder, J., Inleiding tot de Oxide Geschiedenis van den Indiscben Archipel (The Hague, 1948), 21–22Google Scholar: “One cannot of course declare with certainty that life in Indonesia two thousand years ago was the same as today, yet we have a few indications that nothing has changed very much about the social structure … it is known that social life among so-called primitive peoples is very conservative and for this we find proof in the social life of the Javanese. These people, who for at least twelve centuries have been influenced by various cultures, seem to have retained the memory of the early, unilateral family relationships in connection with the asymmetrical connubium, as has been shown by Dr. Rassers in his studies of the Javanese theatre and the Javanese kris … we may conclude that the social and religious system arising out of this has a very long history.”

60 In TBG 56 (1939) 590.

61 Locher, 425–27.

63 Leur, Van in TBG 57 (1940) 563Google Scholar. See also his “Eenige aantekeningen betreffende de mogelijkheid der 18de eeuw als categorie in de Indische geschiedschrijving” TBG, 57 (1940) 544 ff.Google Scholar