History, Culture and Region in Southeast Asian Perspectives

In this augmented edition of a book published with the same title in 1982, the author fine-tuned and expanded methodology and concepts previously put forward for the students of the Southeast Asia program at Cornell University. Further readings of research publications added to his reflection. The principal element here, perhaps, is a multi-faceted revisitation of ​“Indianization” in mainland and maritime Southeast Asia, from that point always used in quotation marks and refined with the novel concept of ​“Self-Hinduization”.

To what extent the many prehistoric, protohistoric and early historic socio-cultural groups and later polities interacted one with each other, if they did otherwise than through conflict? In spite of their similar cultural and even linguistic traits (the ​“cultural matrix”), did they share some sense of space and territory, some common conception of authority and hierarchy — or heterarchy, see below? Much earlier (1973), the author had explored the ​“territorial foundation” of the Angkorian power (or ​“Empire”, a still controversed term among historians). He had argued that the ​“king’s cult inaugurated on Mount Mahendra may not have been as innovative as was originally believed” and had quoted Pierre Dupont’s conclusion that Jayavarman II’s ​“territorial authority had been exaggerated and that his bid for overlordship had failed” [1]. And now, in reference to the case of the elusive kingdom of Sriwijaya and a related 1992 study [2], he suggested that early Southeast Asian societal and governmental realities might need to be conceptualized ​“in terms of a person (the ruler) and his influence and not in terms of physical space.” [p 119]

Following here are few of the themes developed in the book.

___________

[1] O.W. Wolters, ​“Jayavarman II’s Military Power: The Territorial Foundation of the Angkor Empire”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society vol 105 – 1, January 1973, p. 21- 30.

[2] Nicole Biros, ​“Srivijaya-Empire ou Emporium? Une étude de cas de l’orientalisme” (doctoral dissertation), Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III), 1992.

Personal authority, loose dynasties and the case of Funan

“The historian, studying the dawn of recorded Southeast Asian history, can now suppose with reasonable confidence that the region was demographically fragmented. The ethnic identity and remotest origins of these peoples are questions that I shall eschew. Before the Second World War, prehistorians framed hypotheses based on tool typology to argue that culturally significant migrations into the region took place from the second half of the second millennium BC. These hypotheses have now been overtaken by the disclosing chronology of much earlier technological innovation established by means of prehistoric archaeology. Rather than assuming migrations from outside the region, we can be guided by Donn Bayard’s view that prehistoric Southeast Asia was a ​“continually shifting mosaic of small cultural groups, resembling in its complexity the distribution of the modern hill tribes.”” [p 16]

“The ancient pattern of scattered and isolated settlements at the beginning of the Christian era would seem to suggest little prospect that the settlements would generate more extensive contact between themselves. The tempo of communication was probably slow even though linguists have been able to delineate major and overarching language families. The languages of the archipelago can be conveniently defined as belonging to the ​“Austronesian” language family. The language map of mainland Southeast Asia is much more complicated. In early times, the Mon-Khmer, or ​“Austroasiatic,” family of languages stretched from Burma to northern Vietnam and southern China. The Tai and Burman languages were wedges thrust into the Mon-Khmer language zone. But the reality everywhere in Southeast Asia is likely to have been that the major language families were represented by numerous local and isolated speech variations. Only in later times did some variations take on the
characteristics of neighbouring speeches, a development that gradually led to a more widely used standardized speech. Linguistic similarities were not in themselves cultural bridges.” [p 17]

With this regional background outlined, the author could go into more detailed sociological considerations, most and foremost the fact that interpersonal relations and group dynamics presented specific traits in the region: 

“The relative unimportance of lineage means that we have to look elsewhere for cultural factors which promote leadership and initiative beyond a particular locality, and I suggest that leadership in interpersonal relations was associated with what anthropologists sometimes refer to in other parts of the world as the phenomenon of ​“big men.” Here is a cultural trait in early Southeast Asia that seems to offer a helpful
perspective for understanding much of what lay behind intra-regional relations in later times. The leadership of ​“big men,” or, to use the term I prefer, ​“men of prowess,” would depend on their being attributed with an abnormal amount of personal and innate ​“soul stuff,” which explained and distinguished their performance from that of others in their generation and especially among their own kinsmen. […] 

“A person’s spiritual identity and capacity for leadership were established when his fellows could recognize his superior endowment and knew that being close to him was to their advantage not only because his entourage could expect to enjoy material rewards but also, I believe, because their own spiritual substance, for everyone possessed it in some measure, would participate in his, thereby leading to rapport and personal satisfaction. We are dealing with the led as well as the leaders. […] Thomas Kirsch has referred to in the context of the
mainland hill tribes of Southeast Asia as ​“unequal souls” was that men of prowess, after their death, could be reckoned among their settlements’ Ancestors and be worshipped. Ancestors were always those who, when they were alive, protected and brought benefits to their people. [p18‑9]

On that matter, the author referred to Michael Vickery​’s unconventional approach that brought novel perspectives on Southeast Asia history, mentioning for instance ​“Vickery’s hypothesis that the poň, often associated with man-made ponds, are the earliest known Cambodian chiefs of small communities” [p 131]. And so, as additional additions to his 1982 work, he shed a novel light on what the Chinese sources — and much later the French pioneers of Khmer studies, we would add — failed to grasp about Funan:

“We are encouraged to suppose that by the beginning of the Christian era a patchwork of small settlement networks of great antiquity stretched across the map of Southeast Asia. For example, no less than about three hundred settlements, datable by their artifacts as belonging to the seventh and eighth centuries AD, have been identified in Thailand alone by means of aerial photography. Seen from the air, they remind one of craters scattered across the moon’s surface. The seventh-century inscriptions of Cambodia mention as many as thirteen toponyms sufficiently prominent to be known by Sanskritic names. The multiplicity of Khmer centers, for there were surely more than thirteen, contradicts the impression provided by Chinese records of protohistoric Cambodia that there was only a single and enduring ​“kingdom of Funan.” [Yet] ​“Funan” should not be invoked as the earliest model of an ​“Indianized state” in Southeast Asia. [p 18]

“The problem of ​“making sense” of Southeast Asian protohistory has been obfuscated by the attempts of Chinese observers early in the Christian era to do so. Because of what they took for granted about their own country, they were constrained to assume that other polities, even ​“primitive” ones, were bound to exhibit a similar and irreducible minimum of features such as a ​“kingdom,” a ​“dynasty” (and ​“usurpations”), ​“concubines,” fixed space and borders, and an identifiable geographical location in the system of Asian maritime communications to and from China. These ​“kingdoms” would also have to be definable in terms of language, customs, and products. Their best documented foreign ​“kingdom” in the early centuries of the Christian era happened to be somewhere in southern Cambodia, and it had to possess a name under which it could be assigned a place in Chinese histories and encyclopedias. The name was ​“Funan,” and this ​“kingdom”
was inevitably attributed with features which the Chinese assumed it would possess. ​“Funan” was a ​“kingdom” in order to conform to the Chinese view of the world. The name has yet to be banished from the historiography.

“But when the Chinese were making sense of the Khmers’ territory, the Khmers and surely others in the region were making their own sense of their location in a wider world - the ​“Hindu world” — now being disclosed by expanding overseas commercial contacts and especially by Indian texts in the Sanskrit language, the written language of the ​“Hindu world.” At more or less the same time, Chinese themselves were making sense of Indian Buddhism by adapting it so that it would be accessible and intelligible to them. I believe the Khmers and other Southeast Asians in positions of local leadership had no difficulty in finding their place in the disclosing ​“world,” and the reason was simply that sooner or later it would dawn on them that they could recognize features they shared in common with the world described in Indian texts, perhaps often orally transmitted by Indians endowed with the extraordinary memory Chinese pilgrims attributed to them.

“And so they gradually construed their own milieu and way of life as verifying what Sanskrit literature, and especially the great epic, the
Mahabharata, assumed to be universal phenomena in the same way that the Chinese assumed certain political features to be universal ones and therefore represented in ​“Funan.” The Khmers and others in Southeast Asia could then proceed by a process of ​“self-Hinduization” to ascribe Sanskrit names to themselves and to what they saw around them and then record these names on their inscriptions: for example, their
mountains, rivers, sacred bathing pools, caves, stones, chiefs, overlords, and also those who did not belong to the ​“civilized” chieftain groups in society but were only mlecchas, ​“wild savages who lived in the forests.” There was no limit to what could be rendered in the Sanskrit language. Even the rapid rise and fall of overlordships that bewildered Chinese commentators on ​“Funan” came to be seen in terms of the
fourth and final era in world history (the kali yuga), when from time to time heroes would emerge to ward off temporarily the forces of destruction and restore the golden age (k’rta yuga) for a particular generation. The process of self-Hinduization would be facilitated because the texts could often present matters of local common sense as examples of universal wisdom. The Mahabharata was recited in temples of seventh-century Cambodia, and this would have been an opportunity for the worshippers to identify themselves with what was being recited and learn something of ideal roles in the ​“Hindu world.” On top of everything else, they would earn religious merit for doing so as the epic itself promised those who recited it. Here would be a ready means of ​“self-Hinduizing.” [p 109 – 10]

“Self-Hinduization”

About that new concept, the author remarked that he would ​“prefer to use the term ​“Hindu” to ​“Indian” because Hinduism, a religious concept, was the crucial Indian phenomenon on to which Southeast Asians latched.” And he addedd:

“All kinds of texts could be associated with Hinduism, but nothing else of importance coming from India would have made sense and been acceptable if the Southeast Asian élite had not encountered and assimilated the dominant ​“Hindu” feature at that time: the ​“devotional” movement known as bhakti. While [Charles] Higham lists ​“variables” that account for the trend towards centralizing polities, I suggest that a single factor, the religious influence of ​“Hinduism,” initiated much that happened in Southeast Asian protohistory, though not an unmistakable centralizing trend. I believe that flamboyant bhakti-inspired Indian religious teachers arrived in Southeast Asia and proclaimed the message that supreme spiritual power could be taught and attained here and now by means of simple and unbookish ascetic and meditative techniques for giving access to the creator god Siva’s cosmic power (Sakti). The successful practitioner would have been immediately acclaimed as being Sivalike and at the center of the universe. Attaining something desirable here and now, was expected of any efficacious religious rite. [p 111]

Difficulties are bound to arise in studying continuities in early Southeast Asian experiences when one thinks of ​“states,” as I have done for too long. Even prehistorians, when they are correcting earlier misapprehensions about what happened during the several millennia before the beginning of the Christian era, may tend to reinforce earlier dogma about appearance of ​“states” during protohistory. Prehistorians are interested in ​“incipient state formation and political centralization” prior to Indian influence, but, while they can now show that Indian influence did not move into a vacuum when it brought a ​“state” like Funan into being, they still cannot rid themselves of an awareness of discontinuity between prehistory and protohistory. The reason is that they take ​“Funan” as their model of the first fully-fledged state and attribute to it such features as ​“the ruler’s strategy of monumental self-validation” and ​“time-tested Indian strategies of temple-founding, inscription raising, and support for brahmanical royal cults.” [here, the author was quoting Bennet Bronson, ​“The Late Prehistory and Early History of Central Thailand with Special Reference to Chansen,” in Early South East Asia. Essays in Archaeology, History, and Historical Geography, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 316.] [p 23] 

“Benedict Anderson, in his essay on ​“The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture,” does not refer to ​“soul stuff”; his focus is on Power, or the divine energy which animates the universe. The quantum of Power is constant, but its distribution may vary. All rule is based on the belief in energetic Power at the center, and a ruler, often of relatively humble origins, would emerge when he showed signs of his capacity for concentrating and preserving cosmic Power by, for example, ascetic practices. His feat would then be accompanied by other visible signs such as a ​“divine radiance.”° The Javanese notion of the absorption of cosmic Power by one person presupposes that only a person of unusual innate quality could set in motion processes for concentrating cosmic Power by personal effort. On the other hand, the Power this person could deploy in his lifetime inevitably tended to become diffused over the generations unless it was renewed and reintegrated by the personal efforts of a particular descendant. 

“Anderson’s analysis may recall the situation I seemed to detect in seventh-century Cambodia. In both instances ascetic performance distinguished outstanding men from their fellows, and in Luwu as well as in Java visible signs revealed men of prowess and marked them out as leaders in their generation.Again, according to Vietnamese folklore, the effect of a personal spiritual quality is suggested by the automatic response of local tutelary spirits to a ruler’s presence, provided that the ruler had already shown signs of achievement and leadership. A
local spirit is expected to recognize and be attracted by a ruler’s superior quality and compelled to put himself at such a ruler’s disposal.

“[…] I have introduced the topics of ​“soul stuff” and ​“prowess” in a discussion of the cultural matrix, and we can suppose that these and other indigenous beliefs remained dominant in the protohistoric period in spite of the appearance of ​“Hindu” features in documentary evidence. I take the view that leadership in the so-called ​“Hinduized” countries continued to depend on the attribution of personal spiritual prowess. Signs of spiritual quality would have been a more effective source of leadership than institutional support. The ​“Hinduized” polities were elaborations or amplifications of the pre-“Hindu” ones. 

“Did the appearance of Theravada Buddhism on mainland Southeast Asia make a difference? Historians and anthropologists with special knowledge must address this question. I shall content myself with noting a piece of evidence brought to my attention by U Tun Aung Chain which refers to the Buddhist concept of ​“merit.” The Burman ruler Alaungmintaya of the second half of the eighteenth century is recorded as having said to the Ayudhya ruler: ​“My hpon (derived from puňňa, or ​“merit”) is clearly not on the same level as yours. It would be like comparing a garuda with a dragon-fly, a naga with an earthworm, or the sun with a fire-fly.” Addressing local chiefs, he said: ​“When a man of hpon comes, the man without hpon disappears.” Here is Buddhist rendering of superior performance in terms of merit-earning in previous lives and the present one, and we are again dealing with the tradition of inequality of spiritual prowess and political status. Are we far removed from other instances of spiritual inequality noted above? The king’s accumulated merit had been earned by ascetic performance; the self had to be mastered by steadfastness, mindfulness, and right effort, and only persons of unusual capacity were believed to be able to follow the Path consistently and successfully during their past and present lives. Such a person in Thailand would be hailed for his parami, or possession of the ten transcendent virtues of Buddhism. A Thai friend tells me that pairami evokes bhakti (“devotion”), and the linguistic association suggests a rapport comparable with what is indicated in seventh-century Cambodia and in Vietnamese folklore about the tutelary spirits. [p 94 – 5]

[1] Benedict Anderson, ​“The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture,” in Culture and Politics in Indonesia, ed. Claire Holt et al. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972), pp. 1 – 69. 

“Mandala” and ​“Heterarchy”

No state-like organization, not even well-defined kingdoms with marked territories, and a worldview anchored in profound yet easily syncretic religious beliefs: the field was open to develop that idea of neighboring mandalas across the region, even more appealing that this ancient predecessor might explain many socio-political traits of modern Southeast Asia:

“What Higham refers to as a ​“centralizing” chiefdom was unlikely to be more than the chief’s or raja’s person and entourage at the center of a mandala. The pace of public life would be quickened when the ruler was able to enlarge and mobilize his entourage in sufficient numbers to enable him to mount adventures perhaps far afield and no doubt in territories endowed with rich natural resources. But the mandala always remained personal and impermanent; it was not a mapped territorial unit. In Sunait Chutintaranond’s words, mandalas were ​“continuous networks of loyalties between the rulers and the ruled. Another consequence of the habit of reviewing society for potential leaders and
thereafter critically reassessing their performance would be the inculcation of a present-minded outlook, a concern with what was happening ​“now,” such as a leader’s faltering but also with news gathered from far off, omens, and a perception of the past that was concerned with its relevance to the present. The ruler would share in this outlook and be very aware that his kingship was precarious. His response to problems would therefore be to seek short-term measures in order to attain goals here and now. He would prefer to improvise expendients rather than plan long-term solutions.” [p114]

“The major happening, of course, was an overlord’s efforts to maintain his influence in his mandala. This could be achieved by the threat of an ubiquitous use of military might, by alliances, and especially by ruling through and manipulating vassals. Alliances negotiated by marriage were probably habitual. A Chinese envoy to the Malay Peninsula in the early seventh century reported that the ruler he met had three wives from among ​“the daughters of neighbouring kings.” Jayavarman II of Cambodia, of devaraja fame, is known to have had ten wives and seems to have promoted and demoted his chief queens according to his current political exigencies. 

“Over and above these expedients, the mandala overlord had at his disposal something that would be his trump card to which I should have given more attention in 1982: various means of disseminating knowledge that he was a man of prowess with unusual and intimidating spiritual energy. Jane Drakard has supplied the adroit expression ​“culture of communication” to refer to this aspect of mandala experience. A leader’s reputation, and his means of making that reputation known moreover, two related features of early Java were notably immune to change: successions to the throne were accomplished by means that did not accord with a ​“dynastic” system in any recognizable sense of the term, and the political center was characterized by what Jan Wisserman Christie calls ​“relative mobility,” with its tendency to shift its location. I associate
both features with mandala experience.” [p 115 – 6]

“The concept of ​“heterarchy” is examined in Joyce White’s contribution to Heterarchy and the Analysis of Complex Societies (1995) [1] in which she reevaluates evidence from some amply stocked prehistoric burial sites in northeastern and central Thailand. […] She and the other authors in this volume define ​“heterarchy” as an organizational structure in which ​“each element possesses the potential of being unranked (relative to other elements) or ranked in a number of different ways.” In its Southeast Asian context from at least the second millennium BC, White understands the term to signify societies that exemplify 

cultural pluralism; indigenous economies that tend to be characterized by household-based units of production, community-based economic specialization, and competitive, multi-centered, and overlapping mechanisms for the distribution of goods rather than monopolies controlled by a single center; social status systems that tend to be flexible in practice and include personal achievement even where ascribed systems exist in theory; conflict resolution and political centralization strategies that tend to have alliance formation […] at their core, and that may be periodically renegotiated.

And the author to comment: According to [Joyce White], the flexible social systems, described in Southeast Asian ethnography, do not conform to typical hierarchical models but, instead, are associated with alliance-focused political systems and the downplaying of lineage. This line of thought, reflecting a heterarchic situation in prehistoric and protohistoric times, is congenial to those who believe that the historian should pay more attention to cultural continuities if only to become more sensitive to the possibility of change. Evidence for change would need to be substantial and convincing. [p 122 – 3]

[1] Joyce White, ​“Incorporating Heterarchy into Theory on Socio-Political Development: The Case from Southeast Asia,” in Heterarchy and the Analysis of Complex Societies, ed. Robert M. Ehrenreich, Carole L. Crumley, and Janet E. Levy, Archaeological Papers of the American
Anthropological Association, no. 6, Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association, 1995, pp. 101 – 123.