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Raffles and the Barometer of Civilisation: Images and Descriptions of Ruined Candis in The History of Java*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2008

SARAH TIFFIN
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Extract

The publication of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles's The History of Java in 1817 marked a new sophistication in the recording of British experiences of the island. Providing a depth of analysis and breadth of subject matter, Raffles's publication was not the fairly simplistic diaristic account of adventure and opinion that had characterised many earlier British publications on Southeast Asia, but a highly detailed, minutely observed and handsomely illustrated study.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , July 2008 , pp. 341 - 360
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2008

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Footnotes

*

This article was short listed for the First Sir George Staunton Prize.

References

1 Raffles, Thomas Stamford, The History of Java, 2 vols (London, Black, Parbury and Allen, and John Murray, 1817)Google Scholar.

2 Two other notable exceptions of the period include William Marsden's The History of Sumatra, Containing an Account of the Government, Laws, Customs, and Manners of the Native Inhabitants, with a Description of the Natural Productions, and a Relation of the Ancient Political State of That Island (London, William Marsden, 1783, 2nd ed. 1784, 3rd ed. 1811) and Crawfurd, John's History of the Indian Archipelago Containing an Account of the Manners, Arts, Languages, Religions, Institutions, and Commerce of its Inhabitants (Edinburgh, Archibald Constable and Co., 1820)Google Scholar.

3 Schnapp, Alain, The Discovery of the Past: The Origins of Archaeology (London, 1996), pp. 258 and 262Google Scholar. See also Potts, Alex, ‘Winckelmann's Construction of History’, Art History 5, no. 4 (December 1982), 377 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Herder, for example, in his Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man chose to discuss Roman history and artistic production in terms of tyrannical power which he suggested had inspired the Roman populace to proclaim “the splendour of their victories by monuments of fame, and the majesty of their city by magnificent and durable structures; so that they very early thought of nothing else than the eternity of their proud existence . . . This genius was not the spirit of general liberty and comprehensive benevolence” (cited in Francis Haskell, History and Its Images: Art and the Interpretation of the Past [New Haven and London, 1993], pp. 226–227). Similarly, he discussed the development of the Gothic style in terms of the rise of cities and commerce (ibid., pp. 228–229) while others saw it as the product of Europe's feudal system (ibid., p. 230).

5 Ibid., p. 217.

6 See Spadafora, David, The Idea of Progress in Eighteenth-Century Britain (New Haven, 1990)Google Scholar, chps 6–8, and Stocking, George W. Jr., Victorian Anthropology (New York, 1991)Google Scholar, 30ff. It should be noted that belief in the illimitability of progress was generally an English rather than Scottish phenomenon. As Spadafora has observed, it was English commentators who projected the concept of progress into the future, something the Scottish thinkers rarely did.

7 Smith, Inquiry, vol. 1, p. 405. See also Marshall, P. J. and Williams, Glyndwr, The Great Map of Mankind: British Perceptions of the World in the Age of Enlightenment (London, 1982), p. 147Google Scholar regarding Smith's 1762–63 Glasgow lectures on the same subject.

8 Rosenthal, Michael, ‘The Rough and the Smooth: Rural Subjects in Later-Eighteenth-Century Art’, in Prospects for the Nation: Recent Essays in British Landscape, 1750–1880, eds Rosenthal, Michael, Payne, Christiana, and Wilcox, Scott (New Haven and London, 1997), p. 49Google Scholar.

9 Joseph Priestly, Lectures on History and General Policy (1788) cited in Spadafora, The Idea of Progress, p. 241.

10 Robertson, William, The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V With a View of the Progress of Society in Europe, From the Subversion of the Roman Empire, to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century, vol. I (New York: G. F. Hopkins, 1804 [1792])Google Scholar. See also Spadafora, The Idea of Progress, p. 275.

11 Marshall, P. J., ‘Taming the Exotic: The British and India in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, in Exoticism in the Enlightenment, eds Rousseau, G. S. and Porter, Roy, (Manchester, 1990), p. 55Google Scholar.

12 Review of The History of Java, . . . The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register . . ., no. 24 (December 1817), p. 572.

13 Raffles, The History of Java, vol. 1, p. 190. There was some conjecture that Java's trading links had extended to Tyre, Egypt, and from an early date, to Madagascar, and few disputed that Arab and Chinese traders had been involved in commercial exchanges with the island from at least the ninth century, ‘if not much earlier’ (ibid., pp. 190–191).

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid. See Smith, Inquiry, vol. 1, p. 442. It is interesting to note Raffles' slight variation to Smith's original wording in suggesting Java's manufactures could be offered to “neighbouring countries” for Smith had envisaged England's wares being available for “distant sale”. This reflects the nature of maritime trade in the region which was carried out in the main by a succession of traders extending from China to India and beyond, rather than by long-haul shipping.

17 Raffles, The History of Java, vol. 1, p. 57. In a footnote further into his text, however, Raffles notes that

[a]lthough but a few of the natives of Java venture their property in foreign speculations, the natives of Java form the crews of all coasting vessels belonging to Chinese, Arabs, or Europeans (ibid., n.†, pp. 201–202).

18 For an early translation into English see Bernier, Francois, The History of the late Revolution of the Empire of the Great Mogol: together with the most considerable passages for 5 years following in that Empire. To which is added, a letter to the Lord Colbert, touching the extent of Indostan . . ., trans. Oldenburg, Henry (London, Moses Pitt, 1671–72)Google Scholar.

19 Although the first edition is dated 1770, it actually appeared in 1772. Edition used for this study: Raynal, Abbé Guillaume-Thomas, A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies, trans. Justamond, J. O., vol. 1 (London: W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, 1783)Google Scholar.

20 Ibid., vol. 8, p. 116.

21 Marshall and Williams, The Great Map of Mankind, pp. 141–142.

22 Raffles, The History of Java, vol. 1, pp. 251 and 267.

23 Cited in Marshall and Williams, The Great Map of Mankind, p. 142.

24 Raffles, The History of Java, vol. 1, pp. 192 and 151.

25 Ibid., p. ix. See for example Hume's That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science (1748), cited in Marshall, P. J., ‘A Free Though Conquering People’: Britain and Asia in the Eighteenth Century. An Inaugural Lecture in the Rhodes Chair of Imperial History Delivered at King's College London on Thursday 5 March 1981 (London, 1981?), p. 7Google Scholar.

26 Nisbet, Robert, History of the Idea of Progress (New York, 1980), p. 280Google Scholar.

27 Mitter, Partha, Much Maligned Monsters: History of European Reactions to Indian Art (Oxford, 1977), p. 125Google Scholar. See also Archer, Mildred and Lightbown, Ronald, India Observed: India as Viewed by British Artists 1760–1860 (London, 1982), 74 ffGoogle Scholar.

28 Archer and Lightbown, p. 22.

29 Ibid., p. 25.

30 Ibid., See also Mitter, Much Maligned Monsters, p. 136.

31 Letter to Marsden dated 18 September 1815, cited in Raffles, Sophia, Memoir of the Life and Public Services of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (London: John Murray, 1830), p. 264Google Scholar. See also Gallop, Annabel Teh, Early Views of Indonesia: Drawings from the British Library (London, 1995), p. 29Google Scholar.

32 Raffles, The History of Java, vol. 2, p. 63.

33 Raffles, Thomas Stamford, ‘A Discourse Delivered to the Literary and Scientific Society at Java, on the 10th of September, 1815, by the Hon. Thomas Stamford Raffles, President’, The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and its Dependencies 1, no. IV (April 1816), p. 351Google Scholar. See also Sophia Raffles, Memoir, p. 189.

34 Review of The History of Java, . . . The Literary Panorama . . ., no. 36 (September 1817), p. 932. This was not the only comparison made with Egyptian culture which, like the Greek, had captured European imaginations, although it was not considered to have reached the same level of perfection. Comparisons included noting similarities in the ‘gloom’ of the interiors of Prambanan and Egyptian pyramids (Mackenzie Private 36/10(a) Narrative of a Journey to Examine the Remains of an Antient City and Temples at Prambana in Java. Extracted from the Journal of Lieutenant Colonel Mackenzie (British Library), p. 110. See also Mss. Eur.F.148/47, 9–10, f. 23) and coincidences in the iconographies of Egyptian temples and the remains at Sukuh (Raffles, The History of Java, vol. 2, p. 47).

35 Mackenzie, Colin, ‘Narrative of a Journey to Examine the Remains of an Ancient City and Temples at Brambana, in the Island of Java’, The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and its Dependencies 2, no. VII (July 1816), p. 16Google Scholar. See also Mss.Eur.F.148/47, 3, f. 20. Elsewhere in his report, Mackenzie recognises the “more regular” features of a group of sculpted figures as being European and clearly views them as superior to the “Negroe staring v[i]sages” of the “guardian” figures with which they are compared (Mss.Eur.F.148/47, 16, f. 26).

36 MSS.Eur.F.148/47, f. 48r, cited in Gallop, Early Views of Indonesia, p. 25. Gallop also notes that Mackenzie assesses the female figures of Candi Sari in comparison with the attitudes adopted by Greek figures (ibid., pp. 25–27, citing MSS.Eur.F.148/47, f. 29r).

37 Crawfurd, John, ‘The Ruins of Prambanan in Java’, Asiatick Researches; or, Transactions of the Society Instituted in Bengal, for Enquiring into the History and Antiquities, the Arts, Sciences, and Literature of Asia 13 (1820), p. 201Google Scholar.

38 Ibid, pp. 357–358.

39 Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago . . ., vol. 2, p. 200. See also Bosch, F. D. K., Selected Studies in Indonesian Archaeology (The Hague, 1961), 30 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Raffles, ‘A Discourse Delivered to the Literary . . .’, no. V (May 1816), p. 439.

41 Letter to Colonel Addenbrooke dated 10 June 1819, cited in Sophia Raffles, Memoir, p. 379. See also letter to Thomas Murdoch dated 22 July 1820, ibid., p. 463. Raffles did, however, acknowledge that Sumatra had been the home of an empire that extended across the archipelago which had “made considerable advances in those arts, to which their industry and ingenuity were particularly directed, and they still bear marks of that higher state of civilization which they once enjoyed” (Raffles, The History of Java, vol. 1, p. 57). Marsden made reference to an inscribed rock found at Priañgan which had not been deciphered but which, he suggested, “[s]hould it prove to be a Hindu monument . . . will be thought curious” (Marsden, The History of Sumatra, p. 352). He also notes the existence of a brick building in the Batta territory, the origins of which were obscure but he suggests could be Chinese or Hindu (ibid., p. 366).

42 Ibid., p. 204.

43 Ibid., p. 207.

44 Raffles, ‘A Discourse Delivered to the Literary . . .’, no. IV (April 1816), p. 349. See also Sophia Raffles, Memoir, p. 156.

45 Raffles, ‘A Discourse Delivered to the Literary . . .’, no. IV (April 1816), p. 353. See also Sophia Raffles, Memoir, p. 162.

46 Raffles, The History of Java, vol. 1, p. 165.

47 Assey, C., Review of the Administration, Value, and State of the Colony of Java with its Dependencies, As It Was, – As It Is, – and As It May Be (London: Black, Parbury, and Allen, 1816), p. 19Google Scholar.

48 Ibid., p. 84.

49 Ellis, Henry, Journal of the Proceedings of the Late Embassy to China; Comprising a Correct Narrative of the Public Transactions of the Embassy, of the Voyage To and From China, and of the Journey From the Mouth of the Pei-Ho to the Return to Canton. Interspersed with Observations Upon the Face of the Country, the Polity, Moral Character, and Manners of the Chinese Nation (London: J. Murray, 1817), p. 57Google Scholar.

50 Review of The History of Java, . . . The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register . . ., no. 23 (November 1817), p. 478.

51 Review of The History of Java, . . . The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register . . ., no. 24 (December 1817), p. 572.

52 Review of The History of Java, . . . The Literary Panorama . . ., no. 35 (August 1817), pp. 727–747; and vol. 6, no. 36 (September 1817), p. 927.

53 There was some speculation, however, that ruins might be found on Borneo. In a footnote to his first discourse to the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, Raffles noted that “[p]illars and remains of buildings” supposedly located on the island were “evidently traces of a more enlightened population at a remote period” (Sophia Raffles, Memoir, n. †, p. 143 and pp. 151–152). The current population, though, exhibited little of this civilised state. “Those subjected to the Mahomedans”, he suggested

“appear . . . so wretchedly sunk in barbarous stupidity as to submit to every indignity without resistance, while those who still retain their independence, and who are to be considered as the bulk of the original population, form innumerable ferocious tribes, constantly at variance with each other, and individually rejecting internal government and control” (ibid., p. 144).

54 Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago . . ., vol. 2, p. 297.

55 Ibid., p. 302.

56 Ibid., p. 286.

57 Letter to Mr Ramsay, Secretary to the East India Company dated March 1812, cited in Sophia Raffles, Memoir, p. 106.

58 Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago . . ., vol. 2, p. 201.

59 Gallop, Early Views of Indonesia, p. 27.

60 The sources of the Indian colonies became the subject of some speculation. Crawfurd, on the basis that it was “the only country of India, known to the Javanese, by its proper name, the only one familiar to them, and the only one of which mention is made in their books” suggested that those responsible for the construction of Prambanan had come from “Telinga . . . or Calin, as it is universally written, and pronounced in Java, and every other country of the archipelago” (Crawfurd, ‘The Ruins of Prambanan in Java’, p. 367). Raffles agreed that a fluorescence of the arts, especially of architecture and sculpture, on the island had coincided with the establishment of a colony from western India (Raffles, ‘A Discourse Delivered to the Literary . . .’, no. V (May 1816), 436 ff. See also , H., ‘Origin of the Malays’, The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and its Dependencies 12, no. 68 (August 1821), p. 119Google Scholar, regarding Dr Leyden also believing “Calinga, or Telinga” to be the source of the colonists, while others conjectured that based on a “similarity of the names, and the Kanara character's having been said to resemble the Javanese”, Sunda or Madura might have been a possible source of migration (H., ‘Origin of the Malays’, The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and its Dependencies 12, The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and its Dependencies 12, no. 67 (July 1821), pp. 29–35, and no. 68 (August 1821), pp. 119–120. See also H., ‘Annotations and Remarks with a View to Illustrate the Probable Origin of the Dayaks, the Malays, etc.’, Malayan Miscellanies 1, no. VI (1820), 33 ff.). Mackenzie, however, did not restrict himself to a single locale when speculating on the origins of the colonists. Rather, in a letter which accompanied an inscribed stone which he sent to Lord Minto, he entertained the possibility that colonies could have been established from all the widely dispersed regions mentioned in the Javanese sources:

[the stone's] preservation may afford an opportunity of recovering the knowledge of the more Ancient Character & language of the Nations that established themselves early in these Islands; for although several Pieces of the History of the Country have come into my hands, I have not yet been able to ascertain to my satisfaction from what country the first Colonists came. The Accounts vary much mentioning Expeditions from Guzarat & Calinga, in W. India; & from Siam & China; & even from the Arabian Gulph; it is likely that Colonists from all these Countries introduced their respective Systems of Religion & of Letters (letter to Lord Minto dated 11 April 1813, in Mss.Eur.F.148/47, f. 3).

61 Raffles, ‘A Discourse Delivered to the Literary . . .’, no. IV (April 1816), p. 351.

62 Ellis, Journal, pp. 21–22.

63 Review of The History of Java, . . . The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register . . ., no. 24 (December 1817), p. 582.

64 Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago . . ., vol. 2, pp. 204–205.

65 Review of The History of Java, . . . The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register . . ., no. 24 (December 1817), [p. 577] [incorrectly numbered p. 593].

66 Ibid.

67 Crawfurd, ‘The Ruins of Prambanan in Java’, p. 351. Dr Thomas Horsfield proposed a more pragmatic reason for settlements being established in the mountains: “they were influenced probably, as well by the fertility of the soil which generally exists in these places, as by the romantic and exhilarating prospects which they afford” (Mss.Eur.F.148/46 [Thomas Horsfield] Narrative of a Journey Through Java, with a View to Mineralogical and Other Researches; Mineralogical Account of Java; On the Vegetable Poison called the Oopas; Account of the Medical Plants of Java (British Library), 33v.).

68 Mss.Eur.F.148/47, 15, f. 26. See also Mackenzie Private 36/10(a), 113.

69 Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago . . ., vol. 2, pp. 224–225.

70 Crawfurd, ‘The Ruins of Prambanan in Java’, p. 366.

71 Mackenzie Private 36/10(a), 121–122. See also MSS F 148/47, 23, f. 30.

72 Raffles, The History of Java, vol. 2, p. 6. Similarly, a reviewer of The History of Java, suggested that the ruins “may serve to shew the early excellence of the artists who have left such specimens of their genius to a people who seem so utterly inimitative. Except among absolute barbarians, we shall rarely find so few respectable edifices, public or private, as among the four or five millions of modern Javans” (Review of The History of Java, . . . The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register . . ., no. 24 (December 1817), p. 584).

73 Crawfurd, ‘The Ruins of Prambanan in Java’, pp. 366–367.

74 Raffles, The History of Java, vol. 1, p. 473.

75 Raffles, The History of Java, vol. 2, p. 6.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid., pp. 6–7.

78 Crawfurd, ‘The Ruins of Prambanan in Java’, p. 363.

79 Raffles, History of Java, vol. 2, p. 32.

80 Ibid., p. 33.

81 Mss.Eur.F.148/47, 6, f. 21; Crawfurd, ‘The Ruins of Prambanan in Java’, p. 363; and Baker cited in Raffles, The History of Java, vol. 2, p. 32.

82 Cited in Schnapp, The Discovery of the Past, p. 262.

83 Bosch, Selected Studies, p. 35.

84 Mackenzie Private 86 I/7 Notes Made by Colonel Adams on an Excursion into the Provinces of Malang and Antang in the Month of June 1814 (British Library), p. 106.

85 Mackenzie Miscellaneous 89/6, pp. 345–346.

86 Ibid.

87 Raffles, The History of Java, vol. 2, p. 45.

88 Crawfurd, ‘The Ruins of Prambanan in Java’, p. 343.

89 Horsfield, however, does concede the presumptuous tone that use of the term ‘discovery’ creates, when he writes that he “discovered (or rather was led to them by natives)” a number of monuments in eastern Java (cited in Raffles, The History of Java, vol. 2, p. 38).

90 Similarly, Dr Clarke Abel noted that the Javanese, while most helpful in assisting him to gather botanical specimens, “were at first much amused at my collecting plants familiar to their daily observation . . .” (DrAbel, Clarke, Narrative of a Journey in the Interior of China, and of a Voyage To and From that Country, in the Years 1816 and 1817; Containing an Account of the Most Interesting Transactions of Lord Amherst's Embassy to the Court of Pekin, and Observations of the Countries Which It Visited (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1818), pp. 35–36Google Scholar).

91 Crawfurd, ‘The Ruins of Prambanan in Java’, p. 339.

92 Ibid., p. 340.

93 Mackenzie Private 2/18 Account of Suku and Chettock Temples Near Solo, Totally Different From Any Others Yet Discovered on the Island of Java by Lieutenant Williams (British Library), p. 145.

94 Ibid., p. 48. See also p. 50 regarding offerings to sculpted images at the candi which the local people ‘highly esteemed’.

95 In Burma, where the ruined pagodas were connected with a religion still enjoying the patronage of the elite and the devotion of the majority, their deteriorated state was similarly considered in terms of neglect (and also poor workmanship) although Grant does touch upon an aspect of Burmese Buddhist belief that had a fundamental bearing on the condition of the pagodas:

. . . there are few exceptions I believe to the rule that the Burmese never repair – and, what is more, seldom make any effort even to prevent the destruction of their works by clearing away (though perhaps an endless task) the vegetable matter which is seen to envelope them . . . [T]he Burmans, like their brother Hindoos of Bengal, consider it more meritorious to erect a new building, than to repair an old one ([Grant], Rough Pencillings . . ., p. 32).

A correction has been issued for this article:

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