Southeast Asia The first states

1
Southeast AsiaThe first states

• October 3, 2012

2
Review

• Who ruled northern China after the fall of the
  Han? Were they Chinese?
• What is sinification? Did many peoples become
  sinified?
• What were the religions of China in the centuries
  following the fall of the Han dynasty?
• Who was Faxian?
• If you walk into a Buddhist temple, can you tell
  if it is a Theravada temple or a Mahayana temple?

3
Where did the first states arise in South
Asia?in South Asia

• http//www.manualphotography.info/ganges-river-map
  /
• To the east, near the Ganges river. The Indus
  River culture had cities but no state (no
  centralized political authority)

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Daoism and Buddhism

• Daoism does not argue for the extinction of
  desires. Buddhism does.
• Daoism seeks physical immortality. (Ebrey, 72)
  Buddhism seeks nirvana.
• Daoist philosophy rejected what it called the
  arbitrary distinctions in human society in favour
  of nature. Buddhism denied that either nature or
  human society were ultimately real.
• Daoist religion is very different from Daoist
  philosophy. Daoist philosophy has no gods or
  rituals. Daoist religion has many gods and
  rituals. (Ebrey, 72)

5
Common errors in discussing religion

• Confusing what the sacred texts of a religion
  say, and what the practitioners of that religion
  do
• confusing what the religious professionals do
  with what the average lay practitioner does.
• imposing a Western understanding of religion
  (theistic, doctrine-centered, generating a moral
  code, etc) on an Asian religion which emphasizes
  ritual over belief, has no formal theology or
  creed, or maybe doesnt even generate its own
  moral code.

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Defining religion

• Religion Any attempt to explain the otherwise
  unexplainable, predict the otherwise
  unpredictable, or prevent the otherwise
  unpreventable by relying on forces that transcend
  the human realm. Neither belief in a
  supernatural personality nor the generation of a
  moral code are necessary for a way of thinking
  and behaving to be called religious. (Some
  Buddhists do not believe in a god. Shinto has no
  moral code of its own.)
• Religion normally involves ritual and/or prayer.
• Religions provide behavioral guidelines as well
  as guidelines for making value judgments.
  Examining religion in Asia therefore helps us
  understand what people in the past considered
  important and why they did what they did.

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Indianization of Southeast Asia Lockard, 21-25

• Trade between coastal and island Southeast Asia
  and India brought more than just goods. It also
  brought religion and ideas about government.
• Some people from India settled in Southeast Asia
  and advised those who built or led early
  kingdoms.
• Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism were both strong
  at this time in Southeast Asia. Sometimes they
  intermingled so much that it was hard to tell
  them apart.
• Two Chinese pilgrims visited Southeast Asia
  Faxian (Lockard, 21, Sen 47-49) and Yijing.
  (Xuanzang visited India, but not Southeast Asia)

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Faxians journey

• http//www.chinaexpat.com/2010/03/15/chinas-buddhi
  st-explorers-part-one.html/
• Also, check out a google map of Faxians trip
• https//maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?hlenieUTF8ms
  a0msid105829849220243868489.00045718e4fbdc0096f
  3cthsourceembedll17.644022,107.226563spn78
  .444288,84.023438z3

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Funan (Lockard, 25-26)

• The first indigenous large-scale political entity
• an Indianized trading state. Khmer, not Malay
• 1st century to the 6th century
• Was it a country or a trading federation?
• See Lockard, p. 27, for a map of Funan (Remember,
  those borders are not exact)

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After Funan(Lockard, 26-28)

• The Khmer kingdom of Zhenla, based farther inland
  that Funan, appears to have replaced Funan around
  the 6th century. (Lockard, 26)
• In the middle of what is now Vietnam, a Malay
  people called the Cham emerged about the same
  time. (Lockard, 26-28)
• Off to the West, the Tibeto-Burmese speaking Pyu
  people established a kingdom in what is now
  Myanmar.

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The first Malay statesLockard, 31

• Champa--in what is now central Vietnam. Also a
  trading federation
• Srivijaya in Sumatra, exercising hegemony over
  trade in its corner of the world.
• Sailendra--an inland kingdom on Java.
• Note there was no Indonesia yet.

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Mainland political culture

• Except for Champa, the first states appeared
  along major rivers.
• In many cases, the peoples who created the first
  states were replaced by new peoples from the
  north who had more advanced agricultural methods
  (using irrigation systems).
• Governments were like a solar-system, with power
  weakening away from the centre.
• Except for Vietnam, religion in the first
  millennium was a mixture of Hinduism and Mahayana
  Buddhism, just like in the islands.

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Vietnam

• We dont list Vietnam as having the 1st Southeast
  Asian state, since the kingdom that we can see in
  the 3rd century BCE was more a part of China than
  of Southeast Asia, both politically and
  culturally.
• Vietnam was more influenced by Confucianism than
  the rest of southeast Asia was, and was also more
  influenced by Chinese writing. In addition, one
  thousand years of Chinese rule made Chinese
  culture a very strong component of Vietnamese
  culture.
• However, at this time, this was only true of
  northern Vietnam. Central and southern Vietnam
  were part of the Indianized cultures of Southeast
  Asia 1,500 years ago.

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The Vietnamese

• Gained their independence from the Chinese in the
  10th century.
• are more influenced by Chinese culture than any
  other people in pre-modern Southeast Asia.
• Slowly began moving against the Hindu Champa
  kingdom.Took several centuries to eliminate it.
• Successfully resisted Mongol attacks in the 13th
  century.
• Did not cover the same amount of territory
  Vietnam covers today until the 19th century.

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Southeast Asian SocietyLockard, 32

• Many trading societies, so merchants were more
  important, or at least as important as, warriors,
  priests, and scholars.
• Perhaps because the men were often away on
  business, women appear to have had more autonomy
  and economic clout in Southeast Asia than in
  South Asia or East Asia.
• Bilateral or matrilineal (see Key Terms page)
  kinship were more frequent in Southeast Asian
  than in South or East Asia.
• Women played a more visible role in markets than
  they tended to do in South or East Asia.