Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Nagapattinam
to
Suvarnadwipa:
Re5lections
on
the
Chola
Naval
Expeditions
to
Southeast
Asia,
edited
by
Hermann
Kulke,
K.
Kesavapany,
and
Vijay
Sakuja.
Singapore:
Institute
of
Southeast
Asian
Studies,
2009
61
3
THE MILITARY CAMPAIGNS OF
RAJENDRA CHOLA AND THE
CHOLA-SRIVIJAYA-CHINA
TRIANGLE
Tansen Sen
The Chola king Rajendra (101244) is known to have launched several
military expeditions against kingdoms in the Indian Ocean. This paper
focuses on his raids on the Srivijayan ports in the context of growing
commercial activity between southern Asia and Song China (9601279). It
argues that Rajendra Chola launched two attacks on the Srivijayan ports,
one in 1017, and then a more extensive raid in 1025, in retaliation for
Srivijayan interference in the direct trade between southern India and Song
China. Scholars such as K.A. Nilakanta Sastri and O.W. Wolters have
already proposed this motive for the Chola military campaigns against
Srivijaya. However, the details about the Srivijayan interference that resulted
in these raids by Rajendra Cholas navy have not been fully explained. By
analysing relevant Chinese sources, this paper will provide some specific
examples of ways in which the Srivijayans might have attempted to prevent
direct commercial (and perhaps diplomatic) links between the Cholas and
the Song court.
61
03 Nagapattinam_Ch 3
61
11/4/09, 12:52 PM
62
Tansen Sen
62
03 Nagapattinam_Ch 3
62
11/4/09, 12:52 PM
63
63
03 Nagapattinam_Ch 3
63
11/4/09, 12:52 PM
64
Tansen Sen
taxes on items sold in Chinese markets by the tribute carriers. In fact, the
revenue collected from taxing foreign tribute and by selling products acquired
through the tribute system amounted to about 9.29 per cent of the total Privy
Purse income (Hartwell 1988). This revamped tribute system was also
profitable to foreign merchants in many ways. They are known to have
received preferential tax rates for appearing as tribute carriers, in addition to
return gifts and honorific titles from the Song court.
Often these return gifts and honorific titles made commercial dealings
with the Chinese government more lucrative than the usual market trade. In
1028, for example, the Song court decreed to give 4,000 strings of cash in
return for tribute valued at 3,600 strings of cash from an embassy from
Vietnam. And in 1077, a delegation representing the Cholas was given
81,800 strings of cash and 52,000 taels of silver. Similarly, imperial titles,
such as the title of Jiangjun (General), received by a Arab merchant named Pu
Ma-wu-tuo-po-li (Abu Muhammad Dawal?) in 1073, seems to have elevated
the status of tribute carriers among the foreign community trading with
China. Such titles, at times, could have also made it easier for merchants to
pass through Chinese custom houses. The growth of foreign trade during the
Song dynasty thus served the needs of the Song government, foreign traders,
and tribute carriers.
The encouragement of maritime trade under the Song government and
the increasing demand for foreign commodities in China were major factors
in the development of a vast Indian Ocean trading system in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries that stretched from eastern Asia to the Mediterranean Sea
(Abu-Lughod 1989). Indeed, these developments are also credited with
ushering in a global economy in the mid-thirteenth century. George Modelski
and William R. Thompson (1996, p. 149), for example, write that the Sung
(Song) realm was the part of the world where demand and supply conditions
strongly conducive to the emergence of a world market existed, and were
capable of exercising a pull of attraction on the whole of the world economy.
Traders from Srivijaya, Chola, and the Arab kingdoms were all attracted
to this pull of Song markets and the revamped tributary system. The
number of foreign merchants and settlements at Song ports reached
unprecedented levels and the competition among the seafaring traders for a
share of the profits intensified. The Song courts decision to link market trade
to the tributary system was one of the key reasons for the increased competition
among foreign traders. They vied to bring large amounts of tribute and
represent as many kingdoms as possible when they arrived at the Song court.
The aim was to gain recognition from the Song court in addition to making
handsome profit from tax rebates. Many of these tribute carriers were Muslim
64
03 Nagapattinam_Ch 3
64
11/4/09, 12:52 PM
65
traders, who either resided at the Song ports, or came from their diasporas in
Southeast and Southern Asia. The fact that some of these tribute carriers are
identified as ship masters (bozhu) in Chinese sources indicates that the Song
court was aware that they were traders rather than officials from foreign
kingdoms. Similarly, memorials from coastal officials suggest that the court
also knew that foreign residents from ports such as Guangzhou and Quanzhou
often appeared at the Song court as foreign envoys (see Chaffee 2006).
However, the Song court, more concerned about the threat from the north
and its fiscal needs, rarely attempted to curtail foreign merchants from
profiting from the tributary trade.
The practice of tribute carriers representing multiple foreign kingdoms
and the uncertainty of their places of residence make the Song notices of
foreign diplomatic missions extremely complicated. In some cases, such as
the embassy representing the Chola kingdom that arrived at the Song court in
1077, it is very difficult to establish the actual role of foreign rulers in
instigating the tributary missions. In other words, the records of tribute
missions to the Song court must be used with caution, especially when
reconstructing the diplomatic relations between Song China and foreign
kingdoms.
03 Nagapattinam_Ch 3
65
11/4/09, 12:52 PM
66
Tansen Sen
the maritime routes between coastal China and southern Asia. The commercial
role of the kingdom is highlighted, for example, in the works of Arab traders
such as Ibn Khurdadhbih and Abu Zaid (Reinaud 1845). The rulers and
traders from Srivijaya used this vital position to advance their economic and
diplomatic relations with the courts in China as well as the kingdoms in
southern Asia. Already in 683, the Tang court, perhaps in recognition of the
importance of the Southeast Asian kingdom, had sent a diplomatic mission
to Srivijaya (Wolters 1961, p. 418). The first embassy from Srivijaya to the
Tang court arrived in 702. Four other embassies from Srivijaya are reported
to have reached the Tang court in the eighth century. These embassies usually
presented local goods or exotic items such as five-coloured parrots and
pygmies. In return, the Srivijayan rulers received titular titles from the Tang
court (Bielenstein 2005, pp. 5859).
During the Song dynasty, embassies from Srivijaya became more frequent.
Between 960 and 1017, about sixteen missions from Srivijaya reached the
Song court (Hartwell 1983, pp. 17275; Bielenstein 2005, pp. 5960).
Many of these missions were led by Muslims, such as Pu-Tuo-han (Abu
Dahan?) in 976, Pu-Ya-tuo-luo (Abu Abdullah?) in 983, Pu-Ya-tuo-li (Abu
Abdullah?) in 988, and Pu Mou-xi (Abu Musa?) in 1017. In 985, the
Srivijayan mission to the Song court was led by a ship master named Jin-hua.
In addition to local goods and religious items, many of these missions
presented commodities that Hartwell calls the staples of maritime trade. He
notes, for example, that the Srivijayan missions to the Song court seldom
carried less than fifty tons of frankincense (Hartwell 1989, p. 456). In fact,
Hartwell argues that Srivijaya attempted, with high degree of success, to use
its apparently formidable navy to control the straits of Sunda and Malacca
and thereby the Indonesian and Near Eastern trade with China. The Palembang
regime developed sophisticated techniques markedly similar to Chinese
models to administer their monopolies. The total output of the sandalwood
produced in eastern Java and the Lesser Sundas was sold to the Sumatran
king. The commodity was then resold to Canton-bound traders at severalfold profit. Arabian frankincense seems to have been handled in the same way.
It was divided into thirteen grades by the Palembang customs administration
and then re-exported to China in large quantities (Hartwell 1989, p. 456).
Tribute from Srivijaya also included large quantities of black pepper,
rosewater, gharuwood, and aromatics and medicines, all in high demand in
Chinese markets. Clearly, many of these missions from Srivijaya, similar to
the tributary missions from other kingdoms, were sent with commercial
motives. As noted above, caution must be taken to explain these tributary
missions in the context of political and diplomatic relations between the
66
03 Nagapattinam_Ch 3
66
11/4/09, 12:52 PM
67
rulers of Srivijaya and Song China. It is also not clear the extent to which the
Srivijayan rulers, even though they are frequently mentioned as the instigators
of the tributary missions, were involved in organizing and dispatching these
missions. This issue is especially significant when examining the Srivijayan
mission of 1077, as discussed below, the personnel of which seem to have also
represented the Chola ruler Kulottunga I (r. 107018).
Exchanges between the Srivijayan rulers and kingdoms in southern Asia
are frequently reported in Indian sources. Inscriptions from Nalanda reveal
intimate relations between the Srivijayan kings and Buddhist monks and Pala
kings in Bengal. The Srivijayan ruler Dharanindravarman, for example, is
mentioned as a pupil of a monk from Bengal called Kumaraghosa. Another
inscription from Nalanda records that the Srivijayan king Balaputradeva,
who reigned in the middle of the ninth century, sent an envoy to the court of
the Pala ruler Devapala requesting permission to endow a Buddhist monastery
at Nalanda. Balaputradeva also petitioned for a grant of five villages for its
upkeep and maintenance. The Pala king is reported to have granted these
requests of the Srivijayan king (Niyogi 1980, p. 23).
The Srivijayan rulers also donated gifts to religious institutions located in
the territories belonging to the Chola kingdom. In 1005, for example, the
Srivijayan ruler Chudamanivarman financed the construction of a Buddhist
vihara at Nagapattinam, a leading Chola port. Almost ten years later, a
representative of the Srivijayan king presented precious stones to an idol in a
temple in Nagapattinam. This was followed by a gift of lamps by a trader
from Srivijaya. Sometime around 1018, a Srivijayan ruler mentioned as the
king of Kadram offered gifts, including Chinese gold (cinakkanakam), to
a temple in Nagapattinam (Hall 1978, pp. 8788; Abraham 1988, p. 138).
Several scholars have pointed out that through the presentation of these gifts,
the Srivijayan rulers wanted to foster commercial relations with the powerful
Chola kingdom. Scholars have also used these records as evidence of friendly
and cordial relations between Srivijaya and the Chola kingdom. As the
section below will argue, the latter interpretation may not be very accurate.
03 Nagapattinam_Ch 3
67
11/4/09, 12:52 PM
68
Tansen Sen
03 Nagapattinam_Ch 3
68
11/4/09, 12:52 PM
69
claims. Indeed, the Chinese sources suggest that representatives from Srivijaya
may have been passing inaccurate information about the Chola kingdom to
the Song court before 1015, when the first diplomatic mission from the
southern Indian kingdom arrived in China. This is revealed from the status
assigned to the Cholas by the Song court and in a memorial presented to the
Song Emperor Huizong (r. 110125) in 1106. In response to Huizongs order
to receive the envoys from Pagan (in present-day Myanmar) in accordance
with the status given to the Chola embassies, the president of the Council of
Rites objected by saying:
The Chola [kingdom] is subject to Srivijaya, this is why during the
Xining reign period (10681077), we wrote to its ruler on coarse paper
with an envelope of plain stuff. Pagan, on the other hand, is a great
kingdom and should not be perceived as a small tributary state. [It]
deserves a comparable status [given to] the Arabs, Jiaozhi (present-day
Vietnam), and other similar states. (Song shi, p. 489: 14087; Sen 2003,
p. 224)
03 Nagapattinam_Ch 3
69
11/4/09, 12:52 PM
70
Tansen Sen
This intrusive role of the Srivijayans may have been known to Tamil
traders and could have become evident to Chola officials after the visit of
their representatives to the Song court. Tamil traders and the Chola court,
which had launched several military raids in southern Asia to advance its
commercial reach (Hall 1980; Spencer 1983), most likely wanted to have
direct access to the lucrative Chinese markets. However, a direct commercial
relationship between the Cholas and the Chinese would have affected the
commercial interests of the Srivijayans. Because of their geographical location,
the Tamil merchant guilds were in a position to monopolize the supply of
black pepper and commodities from the Middle East destined for Song
markets. Similarly, the supply of Chinese commodities to the Jewish and
Arab merchants residing in Chola territories by Tamil traders would also
have endangered Srivijayan profits. In other words, the Srivijayans may
have perceived the entry of Cholas into the South China Sea as a major
threat to their participation in trans-shipment trade. Consequently, the
Southeast Asian kingdom seems to have taken prudent steps to prevent the
establishment of direct Chola-Chinese trading relations, or, at least, disrupted
the conditions that would have provided favourable trading terms to merchant
guilds from the south Indian coast.
Thus, a Chola raid on Srivijaya in 1017, shortly after the return of the
first Chola mission to China, is not inconceivable. Although the event is not
mentioned in Chinese sources, it should be noted that there is also no record
of Srivijayan missions to the Song court for about a decade from 1018 to
1028. Instead, in 1020, a Chola mission is reported to have arrived at the
Song court. The lead envoy, Pa-lan-de-ma-lie-di, suddenly became sick and
died shortly after he reached Guangzhou. Five years later, in 1025, Rajendra
Chola launched a massive raid on Srivijayan ports. There is no evidence to
indicate that the Srivijayans had any role in the death of the Chola envoy, but
it is clear that the first raid, perhaps a brief offensive, had failed to accomplish
its goal. Even the 1025 raid seems to have been unsuccessful in preventing
Srivijayan from interfering in Chola-Song exchanges. This can be discerned
from an embassy that arrived in China in 1077.
Song sources confusingly attribute the mission of 1077 to both the
Cholas and Srivijayans. The section on the Chola kingdom in the Song shi
(Dynastic History of the Song) reports that the Chola ruler Di-hua-jia-luo
(Divakara?) sent this embassy. The chief envoy Qi-luo-luo, vice-envoy Nanbei-pa-da, and staff member Ma-tu-hua-luo led the embassy and had an
imperial audience on 26 June 1077. The same source, in fact, in the same
chapter but under the sub-section on Srivijaya, had previously noted that
Di-hua-jia-luo was a Great Chieftain of the Southeast Asian kingdom.
70
03 Nagapattinam_Ch 3
70
11/4/09, 12:52 PM
71
Tan suggests that Di-hua-jia-luo in this inscription and in the Song shi refers
to the Chola king Kulottunga, who, according to him, ruled both the Chola
and Srivijayan kingdoms. Di-hua-jia-luo, Tan (1964 p. 20) writes, was
holding a very high position in the conquered country. Sri Vijaya, which was
overrun by King Virarajendra (that is, Rajendra Deva Kullottunga) before
AD 1067. He went home and ascended the Cola throne in 1077 A.D. He
had a long and prosperous reign until AD 1119.
George Spencer (1983) rejects Tans conclusion and instead offers the
possibility of a marriage alliance between the Cholas and Srivijayans in order
to explain the confusing Chinese records. He writes (1983, pp. 14647), It
was after all, very common for the Cholas to establish such alliances with
both defeated adversaries and potential rivals, so a marriage alliance with the
kings of Srivijaya, as a result of Rajendras conquest [in 1025] or even under
other circumstances, would not have been out of character. To prove his
point, Spencer refers to records on the genealogy of fifteenth-century Malayan
rulers preserved in the Malay annals, Sejarah Melayu. The record states that
the Indian conqueror Raja Shulan (Rajendra I, according to Spencer), after
the successful naval raid of 1025, married Onang Kiu, the daughter of the
defeated King Chulin. The daughter of Onang Kiu and Shulan later married
Raja Iskandar, the ancestor of the Malacca sultans. Their son, Raja Chulan,
according to the Malay annals, succeeded to the Chola throne in India.
After narrating this story from Sejarah Melayu, however, even Spencer
appears reluctant to accept the marriage-alliance theory. He concludes by
saying (1983, p. 148), But since [in] the Sejarah Melayus version of events
71
03 Nagapattinam_Ch 3
71
11/4/09, 12:52 PM
72
Tansen Sen
too few generations are allowed between the time of Raja Shulan (Rajendra)
in the eleventh century, and the founding of Singapore by Sri Tri Buana in the
fourteenth, that account must be highly condensed at best. Perhaps the Chola
connection was merely an inspired fiction.
Both these analyses about the puzzling Song records concerning the 1077
mission and the Guangzhou inscription prove inadequate. An alternative,
and much simpler, explanation seems to lie in the interests of Srivijayan
traders in preserving their commercial status with the Chinese after a series of
raids by the Cholas had weakened their sphere of influence in the Indian
Ocean. Di-hua-jia-luo was probably no more than a local landlord (as the
Chinese inscription suggests [Ch. dizhu = landlord]) trying to maintain
commercial relations with the Chinese after the Chola raids on Southeast
Asian ports. Hermann Kulke (1999, p. 29) suggests that after the sacking of
the Southeast Asian ports, the Cholas under Kulottunga may have supported
one faction of the Srivijayan court or one port-city of its confederation,
while, another faction could have spread the news that the Chola kingdom
had become a vassal of Srivijaya. It is possible that the 1077 mission to the
Song court attributed to the Chola kingdom came from the faction opposed
to Kulottunga. The goal of this mission was not to present the Chola
kingdom as a leading maritime state in the Indian Ocean, but to reinforce the
Chinese view that Srivijaya was a militarily powerful state that subjugated the
Cholas and, as a result, deserved to maintain its trading privileges at the
Chinese ports. Indeed, the statement by the Chinese official in 1106 regarding
the subjugation of the Chola state by Srivijaya and the continued tributary
missions from the Southeast Asian kingdom seem to indicate that Di-hua-jialuo and his envoys succeeded in preserving this false perception and helped
retain the privileges it had received from the Song court (see another
interpretation of this confusion in Professor Karashimas translation of the
Song shi record).
CONCLUSION
Changes in Chinese fiscal and commercial policies and the revamped tributary
system under the Song government attracted an unprecedented number of
foreign traders to the coastal regions of China. Maritime trading networks
that linked China all the way to the Red Sea became vital to the movement
of people and goods. These developments transformed the structure of
diplomatic exchanges among Indian Ocean states and led to the formation of
several new emporia across the Indian Ocean. For many Indian Ocean
kingdoms, the Cholas and Srivijayans in particular, the profit from international
commerce became a key component of the local economy and regional
72
03 Nagapattinam_Ch 3
72
11/4/09, 12:52 PM
73
03 Nagapattinam_Ch 3
73
11/4/09, 12:52 PM
74
Tansen Sen
References
Abraham, Meera. Two Medieval Merchant Guilds of South India. New Delhi: Manohar,
1988.
Abu-Lughod, Janet L. Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250
1350. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Bielenstein, Hans. Diplomacy and Trade in the Chinese World, 5891276. Leiden:
Brill, 2005.
Chaffee, John. Diasporic Identities in the Historical Development of the Maritime
Muslim Communities of Song-Yuan China. Journal of the Economic and Social
History of the Orient 49, no. 4 (2006): 395420.
Champakalakshmi, R. Trade, Ideology and Urbanization: South India 300 BC to
AD 1300. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Chao, Kang. Man and Land in Chinese History: An Economic Analysis. Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1986.
Clark, Hugh R. Muslims and Hindus in the Culture and Morphology of Quanzhou
from the Tenth to the Thirteenth Century. Journal of World History 6, no. 1
(Spring 1995): 4974.
Hall, Kenneth R. International Trade and Foreign Diplomacy in Early Medieval
South India. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 21, no. 1
(1978): 7598.
. Trade and Statecraft in the Age of Colas. New Delhi: Abinav Publications,
1980.
Hartwell, Robert. Tribute Missions to China, 9601126. Philadelphia: n.p., 1983.
. The Imperial Treasuries: Finance and Power in Sung China. The Bulletin
of Sung-Yuan Studies 20 (1988): 1889.
74
03 Nagapattinam_Ch 3
74
11/4/09, 12:52 PM
75
03 Nagapattinam_Ch 3
75
11/4/09, 12:52 PM