The kingdom of Kambuja rose to far greater power than Champa. In addition to the whole of modern Cambodia, Cochin-China, Laos, Siam and parts of Burma and the Malay Peninsula, were included within the Kambuja empire at its greatest extent. Numerous Sanskrit inscriptions give us the detailed history of their kings, and wonderful temples like Angkor Vat, those of Angkor Thom and a hundred others still tell the tale of their grandeur and magnificence.
Angkor Vat is, in every sense, a wonder of the world. It is a shrine originally dedicated to Vishnu, and stands on the top of a terraced structure. Each terrace forms a sort of covered gallery, adorned throughout with sculptures, and leads to the next higher one by means of a staircase. There are numerous spires and towers, the eight towers at the four angles of the third and last gallery being each 180 feet high. After ascending the third terrace, we stand in front of the central shrine with its high tower (213 feet above the ground) dominating the entire region. The whole structure is surrounded by a stone enclosure provided with gates and galleries, measuring two-thirds of a mile east to west and half a mile north to south. Outside the enclosure runs a ditch, 700 feet wide. A stone causeway, 36 feet wide, with balustrade, runs over the ditch. It is continued as a broad paved road from the gate of the enclosure right up to the gate of the first terrace, a distance of about two furlongs.
Angkor Thom (Nagaradhama?) is the modern name of the capital city founded by King Jayavarman VII. The city was square in shape, each side measuring more than two miles. It was surrounded by a moat 330 feet broad and enclosed by a high stone wall. The centre of the city was occupied by the grand temple of Bayon. It is pyramidal in shape and has three stages, adorned with high towers, nearly forty in number. The central tower dominating the whole structure is nearly 150 feet high. Each of these towers has a finely carved human face on four sides, representing the Buddhist deity Avalokite6vara, or rather king Jayavarman VII, conceived as such. Several other massive structures, both religious and secular, surrounded the temple of Bayon.
The city gates, with towers and guard-houses, were imposing structures. Five avenues, about 100 feet wide, run from the gates to the heart of the city, a distance of a mile. The city was adorned with a large number of tanks with embankments, and a royal terrace about 1,200 feet in length and 13 feet in height with sculptured reliefs of exquisite quality. In short, everything was conceived on a truly noble scale, and it was one of the grandest cities in the whole world in that age.
The Malay Peninsula and the Indian Archipelago saw the rise and fall of two big Hindu empires. Tile first empire was founded by the Sailendra dynasty in the eighth century AD. It comprised the Malay Peninsula and nearly the whole of the Archipelago including the islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali and Borneo. The Arab merchants who traded in these parts described in rapturous terms the power, wealth and magnificence of the grand monarch who exercised supreme sway and styled him “Maharaja”. He owned a powerful navy and made successful raids both against Champa, and Kambuja. According to the Arab writers, he “was overlord of a large number of islands over a length of 1,000 parsangs or more “. Many of these chroniclers tell the story how the Maharaja every morning threw into a lake a brick made of solid gold. According to the Arab accounts, the Maharaja was held in high esteem by the rulers of both India and China. Ibn Rosteh, writing about AD 903, remarks: “The great king is called Maharaja, i.e. king of kings. He is not regarded as the greatest among the kings of India because he dwells in the islands. No other king is richer or more powerful than he, and none has more revenue.” Ibn Khordadzbeh (AD 844-848) estimates the daily revenue of the king as two hundred maunds of gold.
The Sailendra kings were followers of Mahayana Buddhism and had diplomatic relations with the rulers of China and India. King Balaputradeva sent an ambassador to the emperor Devapala of Bengal, requesting him to grant five villages to the monastery which he (Balaputradeva) had built at Nalanda. Devapala, of course, granted the request. It appears that the Sailendras derived their religious inspiration from Bengal which was then the chief centre of Mahayana Buddhism in India. Kumaraghosha, a Buddhist monk of Bengal, became the guru or preceptor of the Sailendras, and at his bidding the Sailendra emperor constructed the beautiful temple of Tara. The Sailendras were great builders and the famous stupa of Barabudur stands to this day as the living monument of their grandeur and magnificence. This noble building, situated on the top of a hill, consists of a series of nine successive terraces, each receding from the one beneath it, and the whole crowned by a bell-shaped stupa at the centre of the topmost terrace. The lowest terrace has an extreme length of 131 yards. The five lower terraces are each enclosed on the inner side by a wall supporting balustrades so as to form four open galleries. The three uppermost terraces are encircled by a ring of stupas, each containing an image of Buddha within a perforated framework. The galleries are covered with sculptures, illustrating scenes from Buddhist texts, and the balustrades are decorated with small niche-temples containing images of Buddha. The images and sculptures are the finest examples of Indo-Javanese art. When we remember that the structure is nearly 400 feet square and that its successive galleries are full of sculptures and images of Buddha, exhibiting the highest skill and workmanship, we may well understand why Barabudur is referred to as the eighth wonder of the world. The art of Java and Kambuja was no doubt derived from India and fostered by the Indian rulers of these colonies, but Barabudur and Angkor Vat far exceed in grandeur of conception and skill of execution anything that we know of in India itself.
The Sailendras ruled in glory till the eleventh century AD when the Cholas cast covetous eyes upon the rich maritime empire. Rajendra Chola I, possessed a magnificent fleet and invaded the dominions of the Sailendras. His efforts were successful and he conquered a large part of the Sailendra empire. But it was not an easy task to keep such distant provinces under control. The Sailendras continued the struggle and shook off the Chola supremacy after nearly a century. But soon their power declined and an ill-fated expedition against the island of Ceylon in the thirteenth century brought about the final disruption of the empire.
The decline and downfall of the Sailendras gave an opportunity to an aspiring kingdom in the island of Java to assert its power. A Hindu kingdom had been established in the island as early as the fourth century AD but it was conquered by the Sailendras. Java formed a part of the Sailendra empire till the ninth century AD when it recovered its independence. The seat of political power was, however, removed from the central part of the island, which was at one time the centre of Sailendra power and contained their famous monuments, including Barabudur. Henceforth Eastern Java, with its seat of power at first at Kediri and then at Singhasari, played the dominant part in politics. Towards the close of the thirteenth century AD a new royal dynasty was founded by king Vijaya with the city called Tikta-vilva (bitter vilva fruit) or its Javanese equivalent, Majapahit, as its capital. The kingdom of Majapahit conquered the surrounding islands, and by the year AD 1365 the empire of Majapahit included nearly the whole of the Malay Peninsula and the Malay Archipelago. Roughly speaking, it comprised the Dutch possessions in the Archipelago in the 19th century with the addition of the Malay Peninsula, but excluding perhaps northern Celebes.
Early in the fifteenth century AD a fugitive Hindu chief of Java founded the kingdom of Malacca, which soon rose to be a great political power and an important commercial centre. The conversion of its second king to Islam made Malacca a stronghold of that faith, which soon reacted on neighbouring territories. The new faith penetrated into Java, in the wake of trade and commerce, and even some members of its royal family were converted to it. By a concerted attempt of the votaries of the new faith, the ruler of Majapahit was driven from the throne at the beginning of the sixteenth century. With the fall of the Hindu kingdom of Majapahit, the whole of the island was converted to Islam. But the royal family and a large element of the Hindu population took refuge in the island of Bali, which had been a Hindu colony for nearly a thousand years. With the exception of this island, where Hinduism flourishes even today, the rest of the Malay Archipelago, generally speaking, adopted the faith and culture of Islam.
Indian art and literature flourished in Java to an extent unknown elsewhere. There are still hundreds of temples in ruins, and an extensive literature, in manuscripts, based on Sanskrit. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata were most popular in that island, and even to-day furnish the theme of their popular shadow-play, called Wajang, and theatrical performances. With the fall of Majapahit, artistic activities came to an end in Java.
We may conclude with a broad survey of the Indian colonies in the Far East. For nearly fifteen hundred years, and down to a period when the Hindus had lost their independence in their own home, Hindu kings were ruling over Indo-China and the numerous islands of the Indian Archipelago, from Sumatra to New Guinea. Indian religion, Indian culture, Indian laws and Indian government moulded the lives of the primitive races all over this wide region, and they imbibed a more elevated moral spirit and a higher intellectual taste through the religion, art and literature of India. In short, the people were lifted to a higher plane of civilisation. A greater India was established by a gentle fusion of races, which richly endowed the original inhabitants with the spiritual heritage of India. So long as Hinduism was in full vigour at home, Hinduism in the colonies was also a vital force, but the downfall of the Hindus in India also led to the decay of their colonial supremacy. The fountain head having dried up, the streams fed by it were also gradually choked, leading to their ultimate disappearance. It is no mere accident that from after AD 1100 or 1200 Hinduism had spent its force in the colonies, and the indigenous element began gradually to assert itself till Islam was firmly planted in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries AD.
The history of the colonies demonstrates the unsoundness Of the popular belief that Hinduism cannot be adopted by foreigners but is meant only for those who are born within its fold. It shows the great vigour with which it could absorb and vitalise foreign culture and could elevate even the most primitive races to a higher sphere of culture and civilisation. If we remember that Indian culture and civilisation played a similar role, though perhaps in a lesser degree, in western, central and eastern Asia, we can realise an aspect of the true greatness of India, not always sufficiently emphasised. The colonial and cultural expansion of India is one of the most brilliant, but forgotten, episodes of Indian history, of which any Indian may justly feel proud.
