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The “Indianization” of Funan: An Economic History of Southeast Asia's First State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

Kenneth R. Hall
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Southeast Asia's strategic position in the major pre-modern international maritime route connecting East and West brought inevitable interaction between Southeast Asian peoples and foreign merchants. Initially, foreign merchants were concerned only with passing through Southeast Asia on their way to China or India. Southeast Asian coastal centres (entrepôts) facilitated this trade by providing suitable stopping places for sailors and traders; available to them were food, water, and shelter as well as storage facilities and market places for exchange. Soon, however, Southeast Asian merchants began to supplement demand for Eastern and Western products by substituting the products of the jungles of the Indonesian archipelago for those from other sources, and then built upon this initial incursion to market other indigenous forest products. Foreign demand for Southeast Asian products reached a peak when spices from Indonesia's eastern archipelago began to flow out of the Java Sea region to the international ports in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D.

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Articles
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Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , March 1982 , pp. 81 - 106
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Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1982

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References

1 Hall, Kenneth R., “The Expansion of Maritime Trade in the Indian Ocean, Part I: Roman Trade in the Indian Ocean, An Indian Perspective; Part II: The Origin of Maritime Trade in Southeast Asia”, The Elmira Review, 1 (1979): 36–42Google Scholar; 2 (1980): 35–43.

2 Wheatley, Paul, The Golden Khersonese (Kuala Lumpur, 1961), pp. 114–15Google Scholar. It discusses in detail the historical merit of the records of these envoys.

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5 It must be remembered that in modern scale Oc-èo would not be considered a major urban centre. Indeed, its smallness had led historians to question its identity as the initial urban centre of Southeast Asia. See Wheatley, Paul, “Urban Genesis in Mainland South East Asia” in Smith, R.B. and Watson, W. (eds.), Early South East Asia (London, 1979), p. 298Google Scholar; also Bennet Bronson, personal comments.

6 Not until the French undertook the elaborate reclamation of land in the Mekong delta in the nineteenth century was the delta region so fully under cultivation. See Robequain, Charles, The Economic Development of French Indochina (New York, 1944)Google Scholar.

7 Pelliot, op. cit., pp. 245–46.

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13 See De Casparis, J.G., “Historical Writing on Indonesia (Early Period)” in Hall, D.G.E. (ed.), Historians of Southeast Asia: Historical Writing on the Peoples of Asia (London, 1961), p. 126Google Scholar.

14 Coedès, George, The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (Honolulu, 1968), pp. 14–35Google Scholar.

15 Wolters, O.W., Early Indonesian Commerce (Ithaca, 1967)Google Scholarpassim.

16 Updating and applying Wolters' thesis to a variety of scholarship published in the 1970s, Mabbett, I.W. concludes in his article “The ‘Indianization’ of Southeast Asia: Reflections on the Prehistoric Sources”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 8, 1 (1977): 1–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; 8, 2(1977): 143–61, that the sea barrier between India and Southeast Asia was significant to the process of “Sanskritization” [see Srinivas, M.N., Caste in Modern India and other Essays (Bombay, 1962Google Scholar) and Staal, J.F., “Sanskrit and Sanskritization”, Journal of Asian Studies, 22 (1963): 261–75]CrossRefGoogle Scholar in Southeast Asia. Firstly, the Indian influences were not constantly maintained by migration or other contacts; thus Southeast Asian kingdoms may have initially outwardly exhibited a high degree of Indian style, but over the centuries became less and less Indian and more indigenous in character. Secondly, there was no dominant caste group (e.g., Brahmans) who migrated to Southeast Asia, but small numbers of individuals from different castes and regional origin; thus Mabbett finds Southeast Asia's Sanskrit lore emerging from the contact to be of a highly syncretic character, more so than that found in “Sanskritized” areas of the Indian subcontinent. Thirdly, the “Sanskritization” process in Southeast Asia was initiated by elite from the communities being Sanskritized rather than by agents (i.e., Indians) of Sanskritization, as is revealed in the fact that Southeast Asia never developed a hierarchical caste system with foreigners assuming high order roles in relation to the indigenous population. Instead, Sanskritization legitimized the elite status of the indigenous rulers. “There is therefore a false dichotomy between Indian cultural imperialism and local autonomy…. We should not demand that Indian dominance be represented by the extirpation of local genius… [the Indian tradition] merely influenced” (p. 161).

17 O.W. Wolters, “Khmer ‘Hinduism’ in the Seventh Century” in Smith and Watson, op. cit., pp. 427–41. Wolters' thesis is an extension of the theoretical work of Sahlins, Marshall, “Poor Man, Rich Man, Big Man, Chief: Political Types in Melanesia and Polynesia” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 5 (1963): 285–303CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Mabbett, loc. cit., broadly applying Wolters' thesis to early Southeast Asia, describes the earliest Southeast Asian “states” (e.g., Funan, Champa, and Srivijaya) as not being “a regular Indian-style centralized state on the model of the Arthasastra”(p. 148), but may be better understood as “a conglomeration of principalities” (p.154).

18 This was consistent with Chinese knowledge of their own historical experience of “kingship” and dynastic succession.

19 Wolters, loc. cit., p. 434.

20 In exchange for facilitating this trade Funan's rulers would have been permitted to collect fees from those using their port. Such usage fees would have been channelled directly into the royal treasury and become an important source of the royal family's revenue base.

21 Malleret, 3, p. 324; 4, p. 131. Despite the fifth and sixth century dating of the remaining evidence of a hydraulic system, I would note that Malleret's methodology is severely criticized by contemporary archaeologists and his dates are subject to revision. The Funan origin myth as well as K'ang T'ai's report both stress a well-developed agrarian sector previous to the fifth century.

22 Mabbett, op. cit., pp. 11, 145. “Let us remember that the port of Oc-eo, however highly organized and cosmopolitan, need not have been the hub of a dense population sustained by intensive irrigated rice cultivation as were some kingdoms [e.g., Angkor] much later….”

23 This was the case with Malacca in the fifteenth century, importing rice from Java. See Meilink-Roelofsz, M.A.P.Asian Trade and European Influence, 1500–1620 (The Hague, 1962), pp. 36–38Google Scholar. I must suggest, in reply to Mabbett, that a matter of scale and timing is significant in evaluating this earliest era of Funan's existence. During the Funan era there was as yet little indigenous competition to undermine Funan's commercial leadership, and the maritime trade itself was not of the volume it was when the maritime passage totally replaced the overland caravan routes as the principal line of commercial intercourse between East and West. Oc-eo need not have been a large port; there was in this age, as compared to later eras, limited travel along the maritime passage. Accomodations — including food stocks — for visiting merchants need not have been beyond the capacity of Funan's initial population base. O.W. Wolters argues a similar case in his recent defence of southeastern Sumatra coastal centres as being the focus of Srivijaya's hegemony. See Wolters, O.W., “Studying Srivijaya” Journal of the Malay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society: 52, 2 (1979): 1–38Google Scholar.

24 See Hall, Kenneth R., “An Introductory Essay on Southeast Asian Statecraft in the Classical Period” in Hall, Kenneth R. and Whitmore, John K. (eds.) Explorations in Early Southeast Asian History: The Origins of Southeast Asian Statecraft (Ann Arbor, 1976), pp. 1–24.Google Scholar

25 Wheatley, Paul, “Satyānrta in Suvarnadvīpa: From Reciprocity to Redistribution in Ancient Southeast Asia” in Sabloff, J.A. and Lamberg-Karlovsky, C.C. (eds.) Ancient Civilization and Trade (Albuquerque, 1975), pp. 227–38.Google Scholar Wheatley's thesis is based upon recent writings by Sahlins, Marshall, Stone Age Economics (Chicago, 1972Google Scholar) and Talcott Parsons [see Parsons, Talcott and Smelser, Neil J., Economy and Society, A Study in the Integration of Economic and Social Theory (London, 1956)Google Scholar].

26 Ibid., p. 228.

27 See Wolf, Eric, Peasants (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1966)Google Scholar.

28 Wheatley, loc. cit., p. 247.

29 Bennet Bronson, “The Late Prehistory and Early History of Central Thailand” in Smith and Watson, op. cit., pp. 315–36.

30 This would as well have enabled these people to defend themselves from Funan. Ibid., p. 324.

31 C. Jacques, “‘Funan’, ‘Zhenla’: The Reality Concealed by These Chinese Views of Indochina” in Smith and Watson, op. cit., pp. 371–79. My use of Jacques' essay distorts Jacques' intent, which was to contest the proposition of “Funan”. Jacques argues that there is a need to understand what “Funan” really was instead of accepting the term as representing a well-ordered state system, as he views too many historians of the past were doing. It would be better, he reasons, to omit reference to “Funan” and focus analysis upon the early developing centres of mainland civilization instead. I interpret Jacques' study supporting my view of Funan civilization, as I have paraphrased Jacques'.

32 H.H.E. Loofs, “Problems of Continuity between the Pre-Buddhist and Buddhist Periods in Central Thailand, with Special Reference to U-Thong” ibid., pp. 342–51.

33 A.H. Christie, “Lin-i, Fu-nan, Java” ibid., pp. 283–84. Christie, too, is questioning the existence of a “Funan” state in the traditional sense, preferring to consider the “Funan” realm as a cultural centre of great significance in early Southeast Asian history.

34 For a discussion of pre-modern marketing systems in Southeast Asia, see Kenneth R. Hall, Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia (forthcoming).

35 Pelliot, “Quelques textes…”

36 See Coedès' discussion of their conversation on this issue in Coedès, Indianized States, p. 275, n. 5.

37 Ibid., p. 36.

38 Pelliot, “Fou-Nan”, p. 263.

39 This reinforcement of the ruler's supernatural powers was related to traditional views that the successful ruler could influence one's post-death status, as discussed earlier.

40 In addition to its position near the sacred mountain, there were additional advantages to Vyādhapura's inland location. In this age a land-based capital was easier to defend than a coastal centre. As noted, the Malay seamen who were key to Oc-eo's economic vitality could equally turn to piracy in times when the sea route was unproductive, and might even pillage the land surrounding their port base. Southeast Asian oral tradition as well as Chinese chronicles are full of tales about piracy in Southeast Asia and the raids of Malay seamen upon coastal centres. By moving Funan's capital to the interior, Hun P'an-huang not only mystically integrated his rule over the realms of the land and the sea by focusing his legitimacy upon Vyādhapura and its mountain-based cult, but this also placed his capital in a more secure position defensively away from the more vulnerable sea coast. Hall, Kenneth R., “Eleventh Century Commercial Developments in Angkor and Champa”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 10, 2 (1979): 420–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar, discusses the difficulties presented by such maritime communities to the Cham domain in a later era.

41 See Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, p. 286, fig. 46. The subjugation of the Cham domain is documented in the first known Sanskrit inscription attributed to Funan, issued in the late third century by Fan Shih-man's descendant Fan Ch'an and placed at Vo-canh within the Cham realm. See Coedès, Indianized States, pp. 40 and 278; nn. 38, 39.

42 Pelliot, “Fou-nan”, pp. 265–66.

43 Wheatley, loc. cit., p. 16.

44 Wheatley, “Satyānrta”, p. 243.

45 This consolidation of Funan's control over the coastline was of economic importance to Funan, and demonstrates the significance of trade-related revenues to Funan's economic well-being. Traders at this time were few in number and were thus easy to control. As a visitor, merchants were vulnerable to the reasonable revenue demands and controls of their host, as discussed earlier. The capital the Funan state derived from trade was utilized for public works as well as for territorial expansion of the type undertaken by Fan Shih-man. By controlling the entire coastline between Funan and the Malay Peninsula, the Funan rulers would have monopolized the contemporary maritime trade passing through Southeast Asia and the revenues associated with the trade. Bennet Bronson has pointed out that such efforts to control inter-regional commerce stimulated state formation in central Thailand (see Bronson, op. cit.). A similar argument could be made in relation to Fan Shih-man's efforts to totally control the maritime channels.

46 Coedès, Indianized States, p. 39; Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, pp. 252–67.

47 Wolters, O.W., “Tāmbraliṅga”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 21, 3 (1958): 587–607CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Wheatley, loc. cit., pp. 268–72.

49 While Funan's followers among the land-based population were also attracted to serve under Funan's rulers owing to the magical qualities of the ruler — the supernatural powers attributed to the Funan ruler which could be shared with his loyal subjects — the seamen's loyalty would seem to have been more directly the consequence of trade prosperity alone. Thus as will be argued later, when Funan's monopoly over the sea channels collapsed the Malay seamen quickly shifted their loyalties to more prosperous ports.

50 Wheatley, loc. cit., pp. 47–51.

51 Coedès, Indianized States, p. 40 and Coedès, George, “Le date de I'inscription Sanskrit de Vo-Canh”, Indian Historical Quarterly, 16 (1940): 484–88Google Scholar.

52 That is, Fan Shih-man's sister had married someone sufficiently powerful that her son was provided a manpower base from which he could seize power from Fan Shih-man's son. As noted above, such marriage alliances between one's family and subordinate groups were intended to solidify one's power. However, such marriages could enhance the prestige of the allied family, providing them with a legitimate claim to the throne as a member of the extended royal family.

53 It was during Fan Ch'an's reign that regular diplomatic contact between Funan and both India and China was said to have been established. As a result of commercial interests rather than political ambition, Fan Ch'an sent a relative to India to gather information and to solicit trade. Embarking at Takuapa, a port on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula also brought under Funan's authority by Fan Shih-man, Fan Ch'an's envoy sailed to the mouth of the Ganges on the Bengal coast. From there he travelled inland some 7,000 li up the Ganges until he reached the court of a Kushana prince. This prince was so impressed with the visit that he sent back a present of four horses to Funan's ruler. Later in his reign Fan Ch'an also dispatched Funan's first official embassy to China. See Pelliot, “Fou-Nan”, pp. 271–78.

54 Wolters, “Khmer ‘Hinduism’”, p. 428.

55 Pelliot, “Fou-Nan”, pp. 252, 268.

56 Ibid., p. 299, a passage translated from the Liang-shu.

57 Possibly he could have come from the Kushana realm with which Fan Ch'an had entered relations (see fn. 53). Artistic evidence from the fifth century does reveal Persian influence in Funan. Statues wear short tunics, sashes, and the boots of horsemen; all seem to reflect a northwestern Indian source. It is unclear, however, whether these came to Funan via diplomatic or commercial channels. See Coedès, Indianized States, pp. 46–47.

58 Most recently I. W. Mabbett notes in his general study of the patterns of Indianization that fourth and fifth century evidence is more convincing testimony of direct Indian political influence. See Mabbett, “The Indianization of Southeast Asia”, p. 147.

59 Wheatley, “Satyānrta”, pp. 244–45, stresses the role of Brahmans in this Indianization process, but notes problems in determining their origin. Wheatley argues, as do other historians, that although evidence of a Brahman presence is all post-eighth century in date, it is reasonable to expect similar practice in earlier times.

60 The Fan prefix was used by the Chinese in their records of Funan history to designate the indigenous element of the Funan royal line, as opposed to other family prefix, e.g., the Chu prefix was used to identify people native to India. See Pelliot, “Fou-Nan”, p. 252, n. 4; Coedès, loc. cit., p. 276, n. 16. This evidence is normally cited as proof that Funan was not being ruled by kings emphasizing an Indian heritage in pre-fifth century Funan history.

61 See above and Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, pp. 47–51. It should be noted that P'an P'an had “Indianized” more extensively than Funan because of its more intense direct interaction with Indian merchants. As noted above, in the reign of Fan Ch'an, an Indian merchant visited the Funan monarch and informed him about India, apparently testifying that there was little opportunity for Funan monarchs to acquire first hand information about India; i.e., there were few Indian-based merchants who were visiting Oc-eo but instead were concentrating their activities in the maritime zone between India and the Malay Peninsula entrepôts. This would testify that Funan's Malay seamen were providing passage for goods between the Malay Peninsula and Oc-eo, and likely between Oc-eo and China ports as well. Thus in P'an P'an as well as other Malay Peninsula entrepôts which facilitated the international trade, “Indianization” was a means of elevating the indigenous rulers' status in the eyes of their own people, but as well with the visiting Indian merchants whose presence in these Malay Peninsula entrepôts was essential to their continuing prosperity. As I will argue later, Funan's reasons for “Indianization” were quite different. In the fifth century Funan began to refocus its statecraft because of the necessity of developing an agrarian base as the principle source of royal revenue collections. “Indianized” statecraft became extremely useful in facilitating this transition from the earlier maritime focus of Funan to a state in which the prosperity of the agrarian sector was the most essential contributing factor to the state's continuing existence.

62 Pelliot, “Fou-Nan”, pp. 251–52.

63 See Wolters, O.W., The Fall of Srivijaya in Malay History (Ithaca, 1970), pp. 39–48Google Scholar.

64 This date is derived from a Ta Prohm inscription dated A.D. 478, discussed later, which was issued by a Funan prince named Gunavarman, who is identified by George Coedès as the second Kaundinya's grandson. See Coedès, George, “Deux inscriptions sanskrites du Founan”, Bulletin de I'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient, 31 (1931): 1–8Google Scholar; Coedès, George, “A New Inscription from Fu-nan”, Journal of the Greater India Society, 4 (1937): 117–121Google Scholar.

65 Coedés, loc. cit.

66 Maspero, Georges, Le royaume de Champa (Paris, 1928), p. 77Google Scholar.

67 It should be remembered that since Fan Shih-man's conquest around A.D. 200, Lin-yi had been a “vassal state” of Funan.

68 Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, p. 157.

69 Ibid., p. 59.

70 Ibid., pp. 50–61; see Wolters' latest reconsideration of Ko-ying, which he originally placed on the south-eastern Sumatra coast, but now favours the northern Java coast, in Wolters, “Studying Srivijaya”.

71 Ultimately both were replaced by Kan-t'o-li and its successor Srivijaya as the dominant entrepôts in the Java Sea realm. See Wolters, “Studying Srivijaya”.

72 See Hall, “The Origin of Maritime Trade in Southeast Asia”.

73 Development of an Indianized culture on the western Borneo coast shows only a temporary existence. Historians have proposed that this was due to the fluctuations of the maritime trade and the refocusing of the trade on rival commercial centres that brought the demise of these early “Indianized” entrepôts on the Borneo coast. No further development of an Indianized base seems to have taken place thereafter. See Van Naerssen, F.H., The Economic and Administrative History of Early Indonesia (Leiden, 1977), pp. 18–23Google Scholar.

74 Giles, H.A., The Travels of Fa-hsien (399–414 A.D.) (London, 1956), p. 79Google Scholar. See Hall, “The Expansion of Maritime Trade”, Part 2.

75 Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce, p. 35.

76 Pelliot, “Fou-Nan”, p. 267.

77 Wolters, The Fall of Srivijaya, pp. 39–48.

78 Maspero, op. cit., pp. 77–78.

79 I. W. Mabbett has recently characterized both Funan and Lin-yi during this era as being “a conglomeration of semi-piratical rival ports and lowland river valley populations….” (Mabbett, p. 154). George Coedès' latest reconstruction of Cham history in the late fifth century argues that Fan Tang of Lin-yi was overthrown by a usurper (a rival faction?) one year after the 491 Chinese recognition by a descendant of Yang Mah, a great Cham ruler of the earlier (430s and 440s) fifth century, whose royal line had been usurped by Fan Tang. Lin-yi's new ruler, Chu Nong, reigned for six years, but was drowned in the sea in 498, apparently leading a naval expedition/raid against Ton-kin. See Coedès, Indianized States, p. 59.

80 See Stein, R., “La Lin-yi”, Han-Hiue (Bulletin du centre d'études sinologiques de Pekin), 2 (1947): 1–54.Google Scholar

81 This also is a comment upon the Chinese relationship with Ton-kin. Recent research by Keith Taylor, “The Rise of Dại Viêt and the Establishment of Thang-lŏng” in Hall and Whitmore, pp. 149–91, has pointed out that Chinese interaction with the Red River delta region during these times was minimal and was more concerned with extracting tribute and holding Ton-kin as an outpost and port region to facilitate maritime contact with the southern China realm. Cham raids against Ton-kin's lands, controlled by an indigenous Vietnamese elite, were probably of little concern to the Chinese, whose main interest was in keeping the sea channels open between Ton-kin and Canton.

82 Coedès, Indianized States, pp. 56–57. Considering this 431 date, the concerns of Ho'lo-tan/t'o for the safety of their shipping may best be seen as a response to the shift of Malay seamen to Cham ports and the initial attempts of Cham rulers to replace Funan as the dominant intermediary in the China trade. In the 430s Lin-yi was under the authority of Yang Mah, the strongest of Lin-yi's fifth century rulers. Among Yang Mah's activities were numerous maritime raids against Ton-kin, raids which necessitated the support of Malay seamen. Such plundering expeditions were no doubt an incentive for former Funan seamen to transfer their base to Cham ports.

83 A useful summary of Indian statecraft is provided by Dumont, Louis, Religion, Politics and History in India, Collected Papers in Indian Sociology (The Hague, 1970), pp. 62–88Google Scholar.

84 As noted, this potential was especially important in times when the international trade was in a state of flux.

85 Coedès “Deus inscriptions”, references to King (Śri) Jayavarman.

86 This intellectual elite's prominence was also due to their ability to read and write Sanskrit, and allowed them to serve as an administrative elite in the ruler's developing court bureaucracy. This clerical aspect of Brahman service is developed in an essay by Bosch, F.D.K., “The Problem of the Hindu Colonisation of Indonesia” in Selected Studies in Indonesian Archaeology (The Hague, 1961), pp. 3–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

87 Nāgasena's tale of being robbed of his possessions on the Cham coast illustrates this problem.

88 On the history of Chen-la and its legacy from Funan, see Wolters, “Khmer ‘Hinduism’ ”, and Wolters, O.W., “North-Western Cambodia in the Seventh Century”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 37, 2 (1974): 355–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

89 See Hall, “Eleventh Century Commercial Developments in Angkor and Champa.”