# Maritime Links Between China, Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, and Buddhist Monasteries in India (c. 11th–12th Centuries) in the Light of Two Fragmentary Inscribed Strips of Copper from Muara Jambi

Wahyu Rizki Andhifani, Hedwi Prihatmoko, Andrea Acri, Arlo Griffiths, Mathilde Mechling, Gregory Sattler

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Wahyu Rizki Andhifani, Hedwi Prihatmoko, Andrea Acri, Arlo Griffiths, Mathilde Mechling, et al. Maritime Links Between China, Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, and Buddhist Monasteries in India (c. 11th–12th Centuries) in the Light of Two Fragmentary Inscribed Strips of Copper from Muara Jambi. Religions, 2025, 16 (6), pp.664. 10.3390/rel16060664. halshs-05081643v2

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Article

# Maritime Links Between China, Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, and Buddhist Monasteries in India (c. 11th–12th Centuries) in the Light of Two Fragmentary Inscribed Strips of Copper from Muara Jambi

Wahyu Rizky Andhifani <fnref n="1" />, Hedwi Prihatmoko <fnref n="1" />, Andrea Acri <fnref n="2" />,<fnref n="3" />*, Arlo Griffiths <fnref n="4" />,<fnref n="5" />, Mathilde Mechling <fnref n="2" />,<fnref n="3" /> and Gregory Sattler <fnref n="6" />

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

check for
updates

Academic Editor: Jeffery D. Long

Received: 28 February 2025

Revised: 1 May 2025

Accepted: 9 May 2025

Published: 23 May 2025

**Citation:** Andhifani, Wahyu Rizky, Hedwi Prihatmoko, Andrea Acri, Arlo Griffiths, Mathilde Mechling, and Gregory Sattler. 2025. Maritime Links Between China, Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, and Buddhist Monasteries in India (c. 11th–12th Centuries) in the Light of Two Fragmentary Inscribed Strips of Copper from Muara Jambi. *Religions* 16: 664. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060664

**Copyright:** © 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

**Abstract:** This article explores the maritime connections relating to Buddhism and diplomacy between polities in Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, the Indian subcontinent, and China from the beginning of the 11th century up to the 12th century CE. It focuses on new epigraphic evidence from Muara Jambi in the form of two inscribed strips of copper mentioning the Cūḍāmaṇivarmavihāra, a monastery funded by the king of Śrīvijaya in Nagapattinam (South India), and the Bālādityavihāra, probably located in Nālandā (Northeastern India). These new findings are compared to archaeological and textual materials from elsewhere in the Buddhist world that cast light on the web of transregional connections between Nusantara, China, and India in the early centuries of the second millennium.

**Keywords:** temples; diplomacy; South Asia; Southeast Asia; China; Sumatra; Muara Jambi; Nagapattinam; Nālandā; Old Malay

## 1. Introduction

Maritime connections relating to Buddhism—or, more generally, “temple diplomacy”<fnref n="1" />—between polities in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, South India, and China from the beginning of the 11th century up to the 12th century CE have been discussed by scholars since the early 20th century, mainly on the basis of epigraphic and textual sources in Sanskrit, Tamil, Tibetan, Chinese, and Arabic. Given the dearth of primary sources from the Buddhist site of Muara Jambi (Sumatra, Indonesia) and the Malay Peninsula in the period under discussion,<fnref n="2" /> any new local sources are welcome, all the more so if they mention the names of persons or institutions known so far only from non-local sources. This article focuses on one such new source, namely a pair of fragmentary inscriptions from Muara Jambi, which are here translated for the first time and interpreted as two complementary fragments of distinct copies of a single text. Our discussion presents this new source in the light of contemporary ones from other parts of the Buddhist world with which Muara Jambi had close connections.

<footnote n="1">¹ National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), University of Indonesia, Jakarta 10340, Indonesia; wrandhifani.1981@gmail.com (W.R.A.); hedwi.prihatmoko@gmail.com (H.P.)</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² École Pratique des Hautes Études, PSL University (EPHE, PSL), 75014 Paris, France; mathilde.mechling@ephe.psl.eu</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ Groupe de Recherches en Études Indiennes (GREI), 93322 Aubervilliers, France</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ École Française d'Extrême-Orient, 75116 Paris, France; arlo.griffiths@efeo.net</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ Centre Asie du Sud-Est (CASE), 93322 Aubervilliers, France</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ History Department, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA; gsattler@ucla.edu</footnote>

<footnote>* Correspondence: andrea.acri@ephe.psl.eu</footnote>
The two inscription fragments take the form of small strips of copper and were reportedly recovered from the bed of the Batanghari River near the Muara Jambi temple complex. They are now kept, respectively, at the Culture Conservation Bureau³ and at Yayasan Rumah Menapo,⁴ both in the provincial capital of Jambi. Both artifacts have been cursorily described and photographically reproduced for the first time in a catalogue dealing mainly with inscribed tin foils from Sumatra by Tejowasono et al. (2019, pp. 13, 49), while the lines of the Old Malay text engraved on them have been transliterated in a publication on inscriptions from the Śrīvijaya polity (Andhifani and Tedjowasono 2021).⁵ If these lines of text are confirmed to be genuine, then they will constitute a new piece of historical evidence on the late-10th-early 11th-century Śailendra King Cūḍāmaṇivarman, who is known from inscriptions from the Cōla domains in South India mentioning him as father of King Māravijayottuṅgavarman (as well as in Tibetan and Chinese sources), and two Buddhist monasteries, which are situated, respectively, at Nagapattinam (Nākappaṭṭiṇam) in South India and Nālandā in Northeast India, namely the eponymous Cūḍāmaṇivarmavihāra and the Bālādityavihāra, named after Gupta King Bālāditya.

Since past historiography has tended to associate Cūḍāmaṇivarman with either Kedah in the Malay Peninsula (present-day Malaysia) or Palembang (present-day Indonesia), him being mentioned in source material recovered from Jambi not only adds to the scant epigraphical evidence of this king, but it also throws new light on the historical and geographical context of the polity in those areas (which have been labeled as “Śrīvijaya” by previous scholarship as well as non-indigenous sources, though we still lack any local source using that name in this period) and its links with South India in the framework of temple diplomacy. This complements the evidence available so far of (Buddhist) transregional diplomatic networks linking South India, polities in the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, and China. However, since the new source material was not derived from scientific excavations and there is no information other than hearsay about the circumstances of its recovery, concerns about authenticity must be raised. This topic is revisited in the conclusion, where relevant parallels with pointillistic cold-working and the possibility of forgery are explored further. On the basis of the palaeographic and linguistic features of the two inscription fragments, as well as of our visual inspection of the artifacts, we conclude that the documents must be authentic.

## 2. Description of the Artifacts

On 10 and 11 June 2024, a team constituted by Andrea Acri, Hedwi Prihatmoko, Mathilde Mechling, Gregory Sattler, and Wahyu Rizky Andhifani visually inspected the two inscription fragments (Figures 1 and 2), kept respectively at the BPK V (A) and Yayasan Rumah Menopo (B) in Jambi, and took full photographic documentation. In the following subsections we describe the results of our examination of the physical objects bearing the inscriptions.⁶

### 2.1. *Strip Kept at BPK V Jambi*

The first strip (A) is catalogued as “010, 01/BPCBJB/Cu/VIII/2019” in Tejowasono et al. (2019, p. 13). It is reproduced in recto and verso and described as being written in Old Malay language and Old Sumatran script, and has having been recovered from the Batanghari River. No classification of its contents is given the catalogue, and no portions of the text are transcribed. No information on the archaeological context and circumstances of its discovery are given either, probably because it was not recovered during an official archaeological excavation but was purchased from a private individual. The artifact, most likely made of fairly pure copper, as is the second artifact (B) presented below,⁷ is a rectangular, narrow-shape strip (measuring 10.8 cm in length × 2.3 cm in height × an estimated thick-
ness of 0.1 cm)⁸ with its left end narrower and pierced with a round hole. This may have served for attaching the strip to another artifact. The right end of the strip shows traces of tear and has visibly been cut off. Given the thinness of the strip, this could have been achieved by repeatedly folding the artifact in half one way and then the other, possibly after its discovery, as there would have been no reason for the strip to be folded during its time of use.⁹ The inscription it bears is incomplete due to the loss of a part of the support. While the length of the original artifact is unknown, it seems likely that it would have been roughly twice its current dimensions.

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1.** Recto (top, (a)) and verso (bottom, (b)) of strip A (Photos: Wahyu Rizky Andhifani).</figcaption></figure>

The recto of the strip displays two lines of engraved text, the first one of which opens with a spiral symbol (Figure 1, top). Instead of forming a continuous engraved line, as is most common for inscriptions on metal in Southeast Asia, the characters (*aksaras*) have been traced by small dots. Upon closer inspection with a magnifying glass, the “dots” were observed to be V-shaped. The “V” shape of the tool marks corresponds to the shape of a burin, which left slightly raised edges along the engraved marks (Figure 3). The deep and sharp V-shaped tool marks suggest cold working in the metal after the manufacturing of the strip. The engraved lines are straight, with regular intervals between the characters (Figure 4). The tool marks have a consistent shape and depth.
<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.** Recto (top, (a)) and verso (bottom, (b)) of strip B (Photos: Hedwi Prihatmoko).</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3.** Details of the recto of fragment A showing the V-shape of the tool marks and their regularity in space and depth (Photo: Wahyu Rizky Andhifani).</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.** Details of the recto of fragment A showing the regularity of the V-shaped tool marks and characters (Photo: Hedwi Prihatmoko).</figcaption></figure>
The single line engraved on the verso contrasts remarkably with the two lines on the recto. The tool marks are irregular, the characters are not regularly spaced, and the inscribed line is not straight (Figure 5). Some tool marks are very deep, while others are not (Figures 5 and 6). The surface on this face is not smooth, presenting a great number of small marks and scratches. The central part displays ripples—a feature that none of our photos captures clearly—which might suggest that the artifact was cast, perhaps in an open, flat mold (the ripples could be traces of the liquid metal as it cooled down and solidified). However, it is also interesting that the recto surface is very smooth, with rounded edges (Figures 3 and 4), while the verso surface is rougher, and the edges are raised (Figure 5). The verso also displays a line incised along the edge, but it does not seem to have been engraved like the characters. The curled edge and the line running parallel to it are characteristics observed in hammered gold sheets cut to the desired shape with scissors or fine shears (Craddock 2009, p. 375). Our copper strip was probably cut to the desired shape using a similar technique, perhaps after hammering the copper into a thin sheet.

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 5.** Details of the verso of fragment A with raised edges and an incised line particularly visible along the bottom edge (Photo: Wahyu Rizky Andhifani).</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 6.** Details of Figure 5: the V-shaped tool marks on the verso of inscription A are very light for the first character, deeper for the following ones, and vary from being widely spaced to being more closely set. Their length also varies; some are long, others are short.</figcaption></figure>

## 2.2. *Strip Kept at Yayasan Rumah Menapo, Jambi*

The second strip (B) is catalogued as “045; 02/PADMA/Cu/VIII/2019” in Tejowasono et al. (2019, p. 49). It is reproduced in recto and verso and described as being made of copper,¹⁰ written in Old Malay language and Old Sumatran script, and recovered from the Batanghari River. The measurements of this artifact are in the same order of magnitude as the first (11 cm in length × 2.2 cm in height × an estimated thickness of 1 mm). The content is described as “mantra”, and the following transcription is given of the first few and last characters:

... nmu ga sakṣa da mcu oṁ ra ...

... ddhan m kara (ṅa) la ...
As with the first strip, no record about the archaeological context of its finding exists for this one either. However, while in the village of Muara Jambi, we were able to speak to the person—his identity remained undisclosed—who claims (accidentally) to have recovered this inscription from the bed of the Batanghari River, right in front of the main settlement, while extracting sand. According to him, it was found in an earthenware jar with various objects in tin and copper, including ancient coins. This is in harmony with the green corrosion marks described below, which could be the result of corrosion due to contact between the strip and such objects.

The recto of the strip displays two lines of text, whose characters have been traced by means of small, engraved dots (Figure 2). These dots are V-shaped and have visibly been made by means of a burin, as is also the case for strip A. Both inscribed lines on this face are irregular. The characters are not set with regular spaces in between each (Figure 7). The tool marks do not appear to be regular either, but it must be noted that observations on this artifact were more difficult for several reasons. The surface displays deep horizontal marks, which suggest that the strip has undergone treatment of corrosion with an abrasive tool. Furthermore, dust remains encrusted in the tool marks, and chalk powder had previously been rubbed on the surface to facilitate reading of the inscription. We removed the chalk with a soft, non-abrasive cotton cloth, as well as by blowing on the surface, but we could not remove all chalk and dust with this method. Although this prevents a precise ex-amination of the engraving, our general impression is one of less regularity than the recto of inscription A (Figure 1).

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 7.** Detail of the recto of fragment B (Photo: Mathilde Mechling).</figcaption></figure>

On the verso, there is one line of text that ends with a spiral symbol, probably marking the end of the text in the same way that this symbol marks the opening of the text on fragment A (Figure 8). However, near the broken lower left side there are also three dots/tool marks, which could suggest the presence of a second line of text in the missing portion of the strip. The surface on the verso is not smooth and shows slightly regular bumps that could suggest that this artifact was shaped through the hammering technique. This remains uncertain, as the surface is patinated, shows spots of green corrosion (likely where the artifact touched another metal object), and shows scratches resulting from cleaning with an abrasive tool. However, similarly to fragment A, but this time on the recto, fragment B displays curled edges and a line running parallel to the edges, indicating that it was cut to shape with scissors or shears, likely after being hammered (Figure 2, recto). The left edge is also noteworthy, as it shows traces of tear where the artifact has broken off, perhaps by being folded, while the lower left corner is cleanly cut off at an angle, in a straight line, as if cut with a sharp tool.
<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>Figure 8. Details of the verso of fragment B (Photo: Mathilde Mechling).</figcaption></figure>

### 3. Text and Provisional Translation

Below, we offer a diplomatic transliteration of the text engraved on the two strips, with the one facing the other. This transliteration is virtually identical to the one published by Wahyu Rizki Andhifani and Hedwi Prihatmoko in Andhifani and Tedjowasono (2021, pp. 64–66), except for the division of a few words. The + marks correspond to the spiral-shaped opening/closing symbols found at the start of the text on A and at its end on B.

<table><thead><tr><th>A</th><th>B</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><img src="" alt="A: kathora kāṅśa kaṇḍa 1 | barisi valānda ..."></td><td><img src="" alt="B: ...(lā)nda tāsak· damcu khaṇḍa 5 brātña kā 5 su 1"></td></tr><tr><td><b>Ar1.</b> + kathora kāṅśa kaṇḍa 1 | barisi valānda ...</td><td><b>Br1.</b> ... (lā)nda tāsak· damcu khaṇḍa 5 brātña kā 5 su 1</td></tr><tr><td><b>Ar2.</b> ndenan· barkna pamūja ka bharāla śrībā...</td><td><b>Br2.</b> ... (śrī)bālādityabihāra | dñan· ka bharāla</td></tr><tr><td><img src="" alt="A: ...lendracūḍāmaṇivarmmabihāra ..."></td><td><img src="" alt="B: ... (bi)hāra +"></td></tr></tbody></table>

The parallel arrangement above allows us to note that the last words preserved on each of the three lines on strip A can be matched with the initial words on the corresponding lines of strip B, so much so that words preserved incompletely on the one can be confidently reconstructed by means of the other, as follows:

valānda — [valā]nda

śrī-bā[lāditya] — śrī-bālāditya

bihāra — (bi)hāra

The two strips seem to have slightly different dimensions and bear slightly overlapping texts. In combination with the technical differences observed above, these observa-
tions prove that we are not dealing with two halves of one original strip. Initially, we sus-
pected that either of the two strips could be a forgery that was created to match a genuine
one. However, the most plausible interpretation seems to be that we are dealing respec-
tively with authentic artifacts, one being the left and the other the right half of two distinct
copper strips of similar size that bear a similar text. While it would be possible to imagine
a scenario whereby the two strips bore related but not identical texts, nothing stands in
the way of assuming that both strips originally contained exactly the same text. Although
it is admittedly a surprising coincidence that two complementary halves of distinct strips
engraved with an identical text would have been recovered in entirely uncontrolled ar-
chaeological circumstances, this is the hypothesis that underlies the reconstructed textual
layout for both copies of the text that we now present in the Noto Sans Kawi font that
closely resembles the original script:

Ar1 ១ ៣ទោះ ពាភ្ន ៣ស្វែ ៧ ៧ពុអិ ចលិន្ន ពាមញ្ច ៧ ម្ចាន៉ុ ច្ចាន៉ុ ៣សី

Ar2 ឆ្នែករៀ ៣ក្នឹះ បម្បុន ៣ ករាល គ្រឹបាលិជំរួចំហារ រុញករៀ ៣ ករាល គ្រឹច្រ

Av1 លេក់ទូរាយលិខ័យ៉ុចំហារ ១

Br1 ១ ៣ទោះ ពាភ្ន ៣ស្វែ ៧ ៧ពុអិ ចលិន្ន ពាមញ្ច ៧ ម្ចាន៉ុ ច្ចាន៉ុ ៣សី

Br2 ចលិន្នករៀ ៣ក្នឹះ បម្បុន ៣ ករាល គ្រឹបាលិជំរួចំហារ រុញករៀ ៣ ករាល

Bv1 គ្រឹច្រលេក់ទូរាយលិខ័យ៉ុចំហារ ១

The characters printed in red color are entirely lost only in the respective copy, and
those printed in blue are lost in both copies, meaning that we assume the two parts not to be
fully complementary, because we need to restore two *akṣaras* at the line transitions Ar1/Ar2,
Ar2/Av1, Br1/Br2, and Br2/Bv1. These restored characters are represented in square brack-
ets in the conventional epigraphic edition of the combined texts that now follows, along
with a translation, while still leaving some problematic and untranslatable terms in italics.

Reconstruction

kathora kāńśa kaṇḍa 1 | barisi valānda tāsak· damcu khaṇḍa 5 brātña kā 5 su 1
[valā]ndenan· barkna pamūja ka bharāla śrī-bālāditya-bihāra | dñan· ka bharāla [śrī-
śai]lendra-cūḍāmaṇivarmma-bihāra.

Provisional Translation

1 *kathora* of *kańśa*, filled with 5 *valanda* tāsak damcu, weighing 5 *kāṭi*, 1 *suvarṇa*.
These *valanda* are for worship to the Lord of the Śrī-Bālāditya monastery and to
the Lord of the Śrī-Śailendra-Cūḍāmaṇivarman monastery.

4. Linguistic and Philological Commentary

Even a cursory glance at our edition of the text is sufficient to confirm the provisional
identification of the language by Tejowasono et al. (2019) as Old Malay (OM). Affixed
forms like *bar-isi* and *brāt-ña* are distinctive among the epigraphically attested early lan-
guages of the Indonesian archipelago. On the corpus of OM documents known so far
(consisting of about 35 inscriptions and one manuscript), we refer to Griffiths (2018); for
further discussion, as well as a map showing the distribution of the other OM inscriptions
known so far, we refer to Clavé and Griffiths (2022). For studies of the linguistic features
of the forms of Malay found in this small corpus, we refer to the same publications, as well as Mahdi (2005, 2015).

OM documents from diverse parts of the Malay world, covering a period from the 7th through the 14th centuries, reveal an orthographic pattern whereby vowels spelled long are assumed to reflect stress on penultimate vowels in pronunciation (because vowel length as such was not a phonemic feature of the language). This is observed in the present text in the immediately transparent word *brāt-ñā* (Modern Malay *berat-nya*) “its/their weight” and in the more challenging keyword *valānda*. The latter figures once before the demonstrative *inan* to which it is joined in sandhi so that it appears as *valāndenan*.¹¹ An instance of sandhi that also touches on word formation is the form *tāsak*, which is not immediately recognizable from the perspective of Classical or Modern Malay (C/MM), that we interpret as *ta-asak* with a variant of the coincidental *tar-* prefix that normally corresponds to C/MM *ter-*.¹²

After those general remarks on spelling and grammar, we turn to a discussion of the new lexical material roughly in the order of the words’ or word combinations’ appearance in the text.

**kathora kāñśa**—The second word, the precursor of both *gangsa* and *kangsa* in C/MM and of Indian origin,¹³ is also attested in the Tanjung Tanah manuscript where we read (p. 22, lines 4–5): *jaka bahu:taṁ mas· pirak· riti ra:ncum kaṁśa tambaga*. Kozok (2015, p. 77) translates the whole passage as “if one owes a debt of gold, silver, brass, *rancung*, bronze, copper”, interpreting *kaṁśa* to mean bronze. By contrast, Mahdi (2015, p. 203) translates the list as “gold, silver, bronze, brass, copper”, taking *riti-rancung* as a single expression meaning bronze and assuming *kaṁśa* to mean brass. The fact that this list of terms is translated differently on different pages of the same book dedicated to the manuscript illustrates the uncertainty inherent in interpreting premodern terms designating metals and alloys. The problem of which Malay term corresponds to which copper-based alloy has been analyzed in Manguin (1976, pp. 251–53), and he considers that C/MM *kangsa* means “bronze”.¹⁴ This has been observed likewise for the use of *kaṁśa* in Cambodian inscriptions of the same general period as our inscription.¹⁵ Although dictionaries of Malay tend to gloss *gangsa* and *kangsa* as “bell-metal”, we interpret *kāñśa* in our inscription to mean “bronze”.

The word *kathora*, though apparently likewise of Indian origin,¹⁶ is not known to us in this precise form in any Indian source, but it is found in an Old Khmer inscription of 924 Śaka (1002/3 CE) to denote an object of value offered to a deity, though little more can be inferred from the passage.¹⁷ The corresponding entry in Jenner (2009) cites related words in Modern Khmer and in Thai—where the meaning is “spittoon, chamber pot, bedpan”—and glosses the Old Khmer word as “A vessel of unidentified form and function, perhaps a cuspidor”. A word that expresses an apparently similar meaning and has the closely similar form *kaṇṭora* is found in only one Old Javanese (OJ) text, namely the *Tantu Paṅgəlaran*, on which basis the corresponding entry in Zoetmulder (1982) is formulated as “*(Skt *kaṭora*) a kind of cup or vessel”, although the textual evidence here suggests a vessel significantly larger than a cup.¹⁸ A rare epigraphic occurrence of the Sanskrit word cited by Zoetmulder, or more precisely the diminutive form *kaṭorikā*, is found in a 6th-century inscription from East Bengal, in a list of utensils donated to a community of ascetics; the context allows the translation “small cup”.¹⁹ In our context, the meaning of *kathora* seems to be related to the meaning of *kaṇṭora* in the *Tantu Paṅgəlaran*; whatever the exact type of container designated by *kathora*, it must have been large enough to contain five smaller containers and, if our interpretation of *damcu* is correct, nearly 4 kg of cinnabar.

Although other scenarios cannot be excluded, we are inclined to suppose that the context is one of transshipment of goods from China to India. Metalwares were commonly
exported from China to the Indian Ocean region beginning as late as the 9th century and continuing until recent times; thus, the appearance of such a sizable bronze vessel in our text corresponds with much of the textual and material record. Such items were perhaps the most valuable type of commodity on board ships departing from China beginning in the 11th century.²⁰ In terms of large metal vessels, we find examples in the form of cauldrons recovered from several shipwrecks. For instance, a variety of cast iron cauldrons were recovered from the early 9th-century Belitung wreck, as well as two copper alloy handles that were once riveted to a large cauldron (Flecker 2017, pp. 30–31). Thirty-two cauldron handles were also recovered from the early to mid 10th-century Intan wreck, with some of those vessels believed to have been made of copper alloy (Flecker 2002, p. 98). Iron cauldrons were also discovered at the sites of the late 10th-century Cirebon wreck (Liebner 2014, p. 206) and the 12th–13th-century Java Sea wreck (Flecker 2002, pp. 26, 87, 98, 138), while the export of such items to Java and the Philippines is likewise attested to in Song-period texts (Wheatley 1959, p. 117). Most or all of these items found in shipwrecks would appear to have been Chinese manufactures. Perhaps the best example of a large bronze vessel would be a fully preserved bronze cauldron that Claudine Salmon describes as “a straight-handled deep belly cauldron that was recovered in 1994 near Candi Kedaton (in Muara Jambi)” (Salmon 2003, p. 94). Scholars believe that this item was likewise imported from China. These examples suggest to us that the *kathora* in question was a similar commodity of high value that additionally functioned as a storage container as it was shipped overseas.

**khaṇḍa**—Our text uses first *kaṇḍa*, then *khaṇḍa*, as a numeral classifier, a usage attested neither in C/MM nor in any OM document. The latter spelling seems to be the original one, allowing us to link this usage to Sanskrit *khaṇḍa* “portion”. The same *tatsama* word is used as a numeral classifier in the new Indo-Aryan language Oriya (Neukom and Patnaik 2003, sct. 3.4.3), while the corresponding *tadbhava* form *khān* is used in Bengali (Rácová 2007). On the use of *vatu* “stone” as a numeral classifier in an OM inscription from Java, see Griffiths (2018, p. 279). On the use of numeral classifiers in the Tanjung Tanah manuscript, see Mahdi (2015, pp. 207–8).

**valānda**—This term, with a long ā on the penultimate syllable in accordance with the OM spelling habits outlined above, is found in the exact same spelling also in the Laguna copper-plate inscription from Luzon, the Philippines (see below), and corresponds to *valanda* or *valaṇḍa* in some sources written in OJ, both from Java itself and from Bali. All these terms may be antecedents of *belanja* in C/MM and *blanja*. Modern Javanese (see our n. 22 for the meanings of these words), although the correspondence of /d/ in OM and OJ to /j/ in C/MM and Modern Javanese is linguistically irregular and, hence, requires an ad hoc explanation. In a recent publication (Clavé and Griffiths 2022, p. 193), one of the present authors argued against this idea, as it had been proposed by Antoon Postma (1991, p. 170).²¹ The main argument against it was the theory that *belanja* is a loanword from Sinhalese-Pali *valañja*,²² because “there would be no reason for the OM loan to show *nd* if *valānda* too were based on the same Sinhalese-Pali word with its *ñj*, i.e., /nći/”. The connection with C/MM *belanja* thus having been rejected, it was argued that *valānda* “must be analyzed as *vala* + *nda*, with typical OM marking of vowel length on the penultimate vowel”. Arlo Griffiths now wishes to withdraw this argument because it failed to give account of the complexity inherent in the argument relating C/MM *belanja* to a Sinhalese-Pali term and of the occurrence of *valaṇḍa*/*valanda* in OJ sources.

As for the hypothesis connecting Malay *belanja* to a Sinhalese/Pali term, the complexity is manifold. First, the early (epigraphic) Sinhalese form of the word in fact has an /nd/ cluster, and there is reason to believe that the Pali word *valañja* with an /nj/ cluster is historically derived from the vernacular word with /nd/.²³ Second, the semantics are
also complicated in the Sinhalese data, with the Modern Sinhalese *valaṅda* (singular direct case form of *valan*, which is simultaneously stem and plural form) not only meaning “sign, mark” but also “earthenware vessel, pot” and the verb *valañdanavā* “to use, to eat, to enjoy” apparently being derived from the latter sense of the noun.²⁴ Geiger (1941, p. 158, nos. 2356 and 2357) mentions both noun and verb, though without citing the meaning “vessel, pot” for the former, and indicates that the historical spelling, attested in inscriptions as old as the 10th century, was with *l* instead of *l*.²⁵ In the *Dictionary of Sinhala Epigraphical Words* (Ranawella 2007), one finds *valan* to mean “pot, vessel” and numerous related entries all with /nd/ and meanings derived from the notions of “enjoying, using”. In short, whether or not Malay *belanja* is ultimately connected with them, these Sinhalese data are potentially relevant to the interpretation of *valānda* in OM and *valanda/valaṇḍa* in OJ. Let us now first present the OJ data.

In redacting the entry for his *Old Javanese–English Dictionary, Zoetmulder* (1982) was aware only of literary, and not of any epigraphic, data, and he was unable to draw a clear conclusion as to the word’s basic meaning; however, for the two derived forms *amalandani* and *pamalandan* he proposed the meanings “to place or keep st. in a container” and “that in which st. (valuable) is kept or offered?” These forms are exceedingly rare, with each being citable only from a single text, but the texts in question are relatively old (ca. 12th c. CE), and the contexts leave little doubt about the involvement of some kind of container, though not necessarily a “box”, as published translations presume.²⁶

Turning to epigraphic evidence, there is only one occurrence in an inscription from Java proper, viz. in the Telang I charter (825 Śaka, 904 CE), line 1v13: *vineh pirak dhā 1 vṛihan yu 1, valandaniran ulih pirak mā 8 sovaṁ “they were given 1 dhāraṇa of silver, 1 pair of vṛihan (cloth); their valanda when going home was 8 māṣa of silver per person”*. The word *valanda* here could mean “payment, remuneration”, although we cannot exclude that it designates a container for valuables. There are several occurrences in OJ inscriptions from Bali, dating to the 11th and 12th centuries, where the word *valanda* also appears in the in-
significantly variant spelling *valaṇḍa*.²⁷ In the Campetan charter (no. 556b, 1071 Śaka, 1149 CE), line 3r2, we read: *maśraha ya valaṇḍa mā 4 saput thāyu i hyaṇ bapa “they should deliver 4 māṣas of valaṇḍa each to God Bapa”*. In this context, “payment” or “tribute” might be a suit-
able meaning, though again we cannot exclude a kind of container. Otherwise, we have in the epigraphic corpus of Bali three inscriptions containing one or multiple instances of the phrase *taṅgapana riṇ pirak lumaku valanda* or its equivalent *taṅgapana riṇ pirak lumari val-
landa* with *lumari* taking the place of *lumaku*. There are also some cases where the words *manahurānusuna* “will repay [and] pile up” or *tahilakna* “will pay as tribute” take the place of *lumaku/lumari*, and there is a number of cases where *valantōn*—apparently a *krama*-like derivation, cf. Griffiths (2020, pp. 124–25)—takes the place of *valanda/valaṇḍa*.²⁸ Very few specialists of Balinese epigraphy have so far attempted to translate any of these variant phrases.²⁹ For our part, we have the impression that the one with *taṅgapana* means some-
thing like “they should be hired with silver currency (if *lumaku/lumari*, literally ‘moving’, can have this meaning) as *valanda*”.

In all these epigraphic passages, the earliest dating to 904 CE, it is evident that *valanda/valaṇḍa* (or *valantōn*) appears in contexts where payments are being made and val-
ues are expressed with the weight measure *māṣa* (abbreviated *mā*), which represented one-
sixteenth of the unit *suvarṇa* (abbr. *su*) that we see in our text as well as in the OM Laguna
copperplate inscription, dating to 900 CE, line 5: *anu diparlappas· hutaṁda valānda kā 1 su 8.*³⁰
In this context, *valānda* was interpreted by Clavé and Griffiths (2022) as related to the San-
skrit word *bala* “(military) force)”, so that the phrase in question was translated to “what
was resolved was his military debt (amounting to) 1 *kāṭi* and 8 *suvarṇa*”. We would now
rather interpret the phrase as meaning either “what was resolved was his *valānda* debt of 1 *kāṭi* and 8 *suvarṇa*” or “what was resolved was his debt, a *valānda* of 1 *kāṭi* and 8 *suvarṇa*”.

Perhaps we may reconcile the usage related to payments in the epigraphic contexts
with that related to the storage of valuables observed in the two OJ literary texts referred
to above by assuming that the term was able to express not only such senses as “outlay;
disbursement; expenditure; budget” but also the container in which accumulated wealth
was stored, much like the English words “treasury” or “bursary” (and French “bourse”).
It is curious that our text furnishes the only epigraphic occurrence of *valanda* that clearly
designates a container rather than a payment.³¹ Given the fact that five of these containers
need to fit together into one bronze vessel, we are inclined to think that these *valāndas* may
have been pliable containers like bags rather than boxes.

In conclusion, we have the impression that the OM and OJ evidence presented above
is not incompatible with the hypothesis that C/MM *belanja* and Modern Javanese *blanja* de-
rive from *valānda valanda*, although the modern terms can no longer be used to designate
a container. It also seems possible that the premodern words are ultimately connected
with the Sinhalese word *valaṅda*, although there are aspects of this question that we lack
the competence to judge. Regarding the irregular sound correspondence between C/MM
*belanja* and OM *valānda*, we have suggested above that an ad hoc solution is necessary, and
we are inclined to seek it in the phenomenon of *krama*-forms already observed above in the
local Balinese usage of *valantōn* besides *valanda*. While the creation of polite-register (*krama*)
words besides inherited vocabulary is generally considered to be characteristic of Javanese,
the phenomenon is known to have impacted Malay as well.³² It is therefore imaginable that
*belanja* is in origin a *krama*-transformation based on *valānda*. We can cite no precisely anal-
ogous case of a *krama* form, but we can point out the existence of some other unexplained
cases of correspondence of /d/ to /j/ in the languages of Indonesia.³³

**tāsak**—We have considered identifying this as C/MM *tasik/tasek* “sea, lake” or as Old Javanese *tasak* “ripe, cooked” (cf. C/MM *masak*), but neither option seems particularly suitable. Hence, we tentatively interpret the form as *ta-asak* derived from *asak* “to pack, to fill, to stuff” (cf. C/MM *sesak*, originally *sa-asak*). Cf. Mahdi (2015, pp. 194–95) on *ta- = ter-* in the Tanjung Tanah ms., with examples like *taamit* and *taulih* from the Tanjung Tanah ms. We only need to assume that sandhi has taken place to obtain *tāsak*.

**damcu**—To interpret this word, which can be matched neither with any word known
to us from Malay or related languages nor with Sanskrit, we are forced to explore the
possibility of borrowing from other languages. We have considered but rejected the possi-
bility of borrowing from Tamil தமிழ் *tamicu* “East Indian kino” (which would have been
perceived by a Malay speaker as something like /tamisu/). From Chinese, we have consid-
ered 淡酒 (Mandarin *danjiu*, Hokkien *tamchiu*) “light wine”, whose Hokkien pronunciation
would have been perceived in terms of Malay phonology as /tamciu/, and 銅子 “copper
coin” (Mandarin *tongzi*, Hokkien *tangchi* or *tangchu*), probably perceived in Malay phonol-
ogy as /tangci/ or /tangcu/, but we have rejected these too as likely sources of *damcu* for
semantic and phonological reasons and, in the second case, also because of the low likeli-
hood of the term having been in use in the 11th and 12th centuries.³⁴ Although the phono-
logical match with any Chinese pronunciations likely to have been in use in Southeast Asia
in the 11th and 12th centuries is also not perfect, we believe the best combination of plausi-
ble sense and similar sound is with the Chinese term for cinnabar, written 丹朱 (Mandarin
*danzhu*, Hokkien *tanchu*) and pronounced in Hokkien in such a way that a Malay speaker
might have perceived it as /tancu/ or /dancu/.³⁵ Why it was actually spelled *damcu*, reflect-
ing perception of the Malay sound and /m/, is a problem, though one that we deem to be
relatively small, since the range of spellings that might have been adopted for transcribing
丹朱 in OM is broad, given how many relevant variables are unknown to us.
Cinnabar was a commodity commonly imported to and exported from China. Considering that it was shipped from China to markets across much of East and Southeast Asia, it fits well into the historical context of our inscribed strips. It was used in the production of medicine, handicrafts, cosmetics, paint (for structures, paintings, and statues), and in funerary rites across much of the world (Gliozzo 2021). The two essential components that derived from cinnabar were vermilion, which was used as a coloring agent, and mercury, which was used to make medicine and in the gilding of metals. China has always possessed large cinnabar deposits, as has Vietnam (Schafer 1967, p. 157; Zhu fan zhi, juan 1, Jiaozhi section, ed. R. Zhao n.d.). During the Tang dynasty (618–907), cinnabar was shipped out of ports in the Zhedong region (present-day Zhejiang province) (Schafer 1963, p. 153) and from Guangzhou. In the latter port city, it was freely used as a common medium of exchange along with gold and silver (Schafer 1967, p. 153), which is noteworthy because Guangzhou was the main port for overseas trade with states in Southeast Asia and the Persian Gulf in that period.

In addition to its varied uses, the popularity of cinnabar as a trade commodity can be attributed to the fact that sizable deposits of the mineral did not exist or were not known to exist in many areas that actively participated in long-distance sea trade. Such areas included Japan, Java, India, and possibly Sumatra (Gliozzo 2021, p. 7).³⁶ The import of Chinese cinnabar in Japan is well-documented, as it appears on a list of 60 drugs presented to the Tōdaiji Buddhist temple in 756 (Schafer 1963, p. 180), in a record of gifts given from a Chinese merchant to a Japanese courtier in 1028 (von Verschuer 1999, p. 6), and on a list of “Chinese goods” dated to 1052 (Batten 2006, p. 115).³⁷ Cinnabar is also listed as an item of export from China to Java in the early 13th-century work Zhu fan zhi (juan 1, Shepo section). This text further records that, in one of Java’s vassal states, the women used vermilion for makeup, nail polish, and to dye their clothes and that the product was in high demand (Wheatley 1959, p. 91; Zhu fan zhi, juan 1, Sujidan section). In India, around the time of the Song dynasty, minium, a lead-based substance very similar to cinnabar (and often mistaken for it), was known as cīnapiṣṭa, or “China flour” (Schafer 1956, p. 425). This is a strong indication that such substances were commonly imported there from China. The use of mercury compounds is also prevalent in Indian medicinal texts (Gliozzo 2021, p. 8). As for archaeological evidence, cinnabar was discovered on the Quanzhou shipwreck, which sank after returning to China from Southeast Asia in the late 13th century (Museum of Overseas Communications History 1997, p. 49). Although most of the cargo consisted of commodities purchased in Southeast Asia, a certain portion also consisted of unsold Chinese wares, and cinnabar might have belonged in that category. Another example is the Nanhai wreck, which sank around 1183 on its way to Southeast Asia after departing from Guangzhou. Cinnabar was among a wide range of items discovered in the ship’s hold, along with precious metals and ceramics (Zhang et al. 2024, p. 267).

Looking beyond the historical context of cinnabar as a commodity and toward its religious significance, we may point to the lump of cinnabar discovered among precious stones, minerals, gold objects, a ritual deposit box, and other goods in a shaft underneath temple ruins at the Santubong site in Sarawak, North Borneo (Harrisson and O’Connor 1967, p. 213). It is believed that these items were used in a Tantric Buddhist ritual, much like a similar collection of goods—some containing traces of mercury on them—that were found at a temple site in the Bujang Valley area of Kedah (Treloar 1967; Treloar 1968). What is certain is that vermilion was widely used across much of the world to paint religious structures, statues, and paintings. Mercury, extracted from cinnabar, was also commonly used as a component in the gilding of copper-alloy Buddhist statues, one likely example being the gilt bronze sculpture kept in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), representative of the Nagapattinam style.³⁸
Furthermore, the usage in Old Javanese literary contexts of the term *valanda* to indicate the storage of wealth in the form of precious metals and jewelry likewise parallels the known instances of cinnabar being included along with gold and silver as precious commodities transported by sea across long distances, and of it being used as a means of exchange along with gold and silver in port cities. Cinnabar is commonly discovered in the geological deposits of gold and silver, which possibly strengthened such an association between the mineral and precious metals in common perceptions (Gliozzo 2021, p. 7). Finally, as Old Khmer (Vincent 2012, pp. 182, 184, 185) and Old Malay do not have any known native terms for cinnabar or vermilion, the use of a foreign loanword adopted from a region with longstanding connections with those cultures would render 丹朱 a strong candidate for the original term from which *damcu* derived. A notable comparison would be the In-donesian term for vermilion and lipstick, *gincu*, which derives from a Hokkien term for vermilion, *ginchu* 銀朱 (Mandarin *yinzhu*, literally 'silver vermilion' or 'silver cinnabar').³⁹

**brat**—The word, spelled here with a long ā presumably because, before suffix -ñā, it stands in penultimate position, obviously corresponds to *berat* in C/MM. While no occurrence of the word is found among OM documents known so far, there are quite a few OJ inscriptions where *brat* (or *vrat*) occurs in similar contexts. See Darmosoetopo (1993) and Wisseman Christie (2015) for several examples. As in these OJ instances, and as in the OM Laguna copper-plate inscription (Clavé and Griffiths 2022, pp. 199–200), the weight is expressed using units from a system that seems to have been in use throughout maritime Southeast Asia. In this system, a consistent set of abbreviations is used to express units, kā (for kāṭi) and su (for suvarṇa) being among them. According to Wisseman Christie (2004, pp. 92–93), 1 kāṭi = ca. 760 g, while 1 suvarṇa = 1/20th of that (38 g), so that the total weight indicated here is 3838 g. In OJ inscriptions, the unit dhāraṇa (abbreviated dhā) is used as an equivalent for suvarṇa, specifically for weights in silver, and the next lower unit was māṣa (1/16th of a suvarṇa/dhāraṇa). To illustrate these comparisons, we include in the next section (5) a photograph of such an Old Javanese inscription on a silver plate.

**barkna**—This form has not so far been encountered in OM, although maṇōnakan, another form derived from the same base kōna, is attested in the Tanjung Tanah manuscript. The C/MM morphological equivalent to OM *barkna* would have to be *ber-kena*, but this form does not exist (while *ber-kena-an*, with a further -an suffix, does exist and means "connected, applicable"). From the context, it is clear that *barkna* must mean "is for" (a meaning that could be expressed in C/MM with *bagi*, *buat*, *guna*, or *untuk*, not one of which seems to be inherited from Old Malay) or "has the purpose of". Although there is not a precise morphological match, it seems that this OM usage must be connected somehow with the existence in OJ of *pakōna* "function, purpose" and the derived form *mapakōna* "to be of use for, intended for, proper to serve as".

**bharāla**—This is at present the oldest known attestation in OM of the ancestor of C/MM *berhala*, which is ultimately related to the Indic word *bha(t)ṭāra* that was widely used as such both in Sanskrit and in vernacular sources in various parts of Southeast Asia, including the Malay and Javanese spheres.⁴⁰ For discussion of the linguistic background, see Griffiths (2014, pp. 228, 242–43) and Hoogervorst (2017, pp. 388–89). For examples of *bhaṭāra* in OM and OJ contexts, see the inscriptional comparisons given below (Section 5).

**dñan**—This word, the ancestor of both *dan* "and" and *dengan* "with" in C/MM, expressed both meanings in OM. See Mahdi (2005, p. 192).

## 5. Final Translation and Comparisons

Although the reconstruction proposed in Section 3 assumes complete identity between the two texts of which fragments have been found, nothing stands in the way of small differences, notably for the quantities, expressions, and weights. Keeping this inher-
ent uncertainty in mind, and with reference to the commentary on the vocabulary items offered in the previous section, we can at last propose the following interpretation of the text's meaning:

1 bronze cauldron (*kathora*), filled with 5 bags (*valānda*) stuffed with cinnabar (*damcu*), weighing 5 kāṭi, 1 *suvarṇa* (i.e., about 3838 g). These bags are for worship to the Lord of the Śrī-Bālāditya monastery and to the Lord of the Śrī-Śailendra-Cūḍāmaṇivarman monastery.

It now seems useful to situate the inscription in the broader cultural context of In-donesian epigraphy from the point of view of its textual contents and its palaeography. Above, we mentioned that the report by Tejowasono et al. (2019) identifies the script as “Old Sumatran”. We do not necessarily object to this term, but we wish to emphasize that its pertinence is a question of definition. Depending on the definition used, it would be equally correct to assign a label that is not island-specific, the fundamental problem being that we have no information about script names that were in use in ancient Sumatra⁴¹, nor do we have any certainty that the two copper strips were manufactured in Sumatra at all. Not only in language, but also in its palaeographic aspect, we find our text quite similar to the Laguna Copper-plate Inscription (900 CE), manufactured thousands of kilometers away from Sumatra in Northern Luzon, but an equally pertinent comparison can be made with the inscription on the back of the base of a bronze sculpture of the Buddhist deity Lokanātha from Gunung Tua in Northern Sumatra (Figure 9).⁴²

<figure><img src="image_13.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 9.** Inscription on the back of the Lokanātha statue from Gunung Tua, Northern Sumatra National Museum of Indonesia, inv. no. 4839 or B 626 d (Photo: Garin Dwiyanto Pharmasetiawan).</figcaption></figure>

(1) ṝ svasti śaka-varṣātīta 961 caitra-māsa, tithi tritiya sukla, śukra-vāra, tatkāla juru pā[.]

(2) ṇḍai suryya barbvat· bhaṭāra lokanātha · Imāni kuśala-mulāṇi sarbvasatva-sādharāṇaṁ kṛ-

(3) tvā Anuttarāyām samyaksambodhau parināmayami (○)

Prosperity! Elapsed Śaka year 961, third *tithi* of the waxing (fortnight) of the month of Caitra, a Friday. At that time, the master smith Sūrya manufactured Lord (*bhaṭāra*) Lokanātha. [He expressed his intention by citing scripture:] “These roots of what is good do I share with all beings and turn over to the unsurpassed, perfect enlightenment!”.

The date of this inscription, which consists of an Old Malay sentence and a dedicatory sentence in Sanskrit, corresponds to 1039 CE.⁴³ The palaeographic aspect of this Sumatran inscription is perhaps even more similar to our copper strips than the Laguna Copper-plate Inscription, so that this comparison would support dating our copper strips to the 11th century CE. As we see below, their date of manufacture cannot have been before 1005/6 CE.

We see how the Buddhist deity in the Gunung Tua inscription is called *bhaṭāra* Lokanātha, using the term *bhaṭāra* from which we have indicated that the term *bharāla*, in our strips, is derived. An example of use of the same term in an inscription on a metal artifact from Java is given in the next comparison, which also illustrates the use of the word *brat* and abbreviations *dhā*, *su*, and *mā* for expressing units of weight in silver or in gold (Figure 10).⁴⁴
<figure><img src="image_14.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 10.** Top (a): back of a silver plate from Muteran, East Java, National Museum of Indonesia, inv. no. 1738 (Photo: Arlo Griffiths). Bottom (b): close-up of the inscription engraved on the back of a silver plate from Muteran, East Java, National Museum of Indonesia, inv. no. 1738 (Photo: Arlo Griffiths).</figcaption></figure>

Apparently, one has to understand that the silver plate was the property of the bhaṭāra
at Abhaya and that it weighed 11 dhāraṇas in silver, while allusion is also made to a quantity

<footnote>(1) ◦ bhaṭāra kakīṇ abhaya brat· dhā 11 (2) bratniṁ mās ya su 1 mā 15
The deity (bhaṭāra) at Abhaya: weight 11 dhāraṇas [in silver]. The weight of the gold,
it is 1 suvarṇa, 15 māṣas.</footnote>
of gold that would perhaps have been placed on the plate. A similar inscription on another
silver artifact from Java furnishes further parallels to the text on our two strips (Figure 11).⁴⁵

<figure><img src="image_15.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 11.** (a) (left) and (b) (right): Neck of a damaged silver vase from Banjarnegara, Central Java National Museum of Indonesia, inv. no. 5824 (Photos: Garin Dwiyanto Pharmasetiawan).</figcaption></figure>

(1) //o// gavayan· bhaṭāra I di(hya)[m dyun pirak· brat· k]ā 4 rambutnya lpas· //o// Work belonging to the deity (bhaṭāra) of Dieng: silver vase weighing 4 kāṭi. Its hairs are loose.

The use of the expression *dyun pirak* “silver vase” here, combining the name of an
artifact type and the metal from which it is manufactured, to label the very artifact on
which the text is engraved is exactly analogous to *kathora kānśa* “bronze cauldron” in our
strips. We also find the abbreviation *kā* here, instead of its equivalent *dhā*, to express the
weight in silver. The final phrase, “Its hairs are loose”, is rather mysterious but clearly
again aims to add some further detail about the vase in question.

Several of the aspects of the texts engraved on these two pieces of Javanese silver-
ware are analogous to the inscription on our two copper strips, with the notable difference
that the Javanese items themselves bear their labeling text, whereas our strips must have
served to label other artifacts. Comparable labels attached to cargo found in shipwrecks
elsewhere have been found to denote the ownership or intended recipient of certain items
and, in some instances, also contained details about the volume of goods and their names.
Their purpose was to demarcate commodities and sections of cargo on board a trade ship.
See, for instance, the hundreds of wooden strips found in the Sinan and Quanzhou wrecks
(Y. Li 2023, pp. 137–43, and Figure 12 below). An explanation for the similarities appar-
ent in both copper plate inscriptions could be that those inscriptions held the same or a
similar function of distinguishing cargo on board a ship and that both inscriptions each
originally denoted distinct items and quantities of cargo but for the same intended recip-
ient. It should be noted that, in the case of the Sinan wreck, much of the cargo on board
was also intended for Buddhist temples, as such temples often held major roles in finance
and trade. Additionally, the general shape of the copper strips might also be indicative of
a similar function as labels for cargo. Their complete shape, narrower on one end with a
pierced hole and pointed on the other end, can be deduced from the shape of each frag-
mentary strip. Their similarity in shape and textual contents with cargo labels made of
wood found in the Sinan and Quanzhou wrecks cannot be a coincidence, as textually quite
different land grants inscribed on copper plates from Nusantara are usually also quite dif-
ferent in shape, with significantly larger dimensions. One important difference between
the Muara Jambi strips and the Sinan and Quanzhou wrecks strips, however, is their ma-
terial, a difference about which we prefer not to speculate here.
<figure><img src="image_16.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 12.** Wooden tablets from the Sinan wreck. National Museum of Korea (Photo: Lee 2011).</figcaption></figure>

**6. The Inscribed Text in the Context of Transregional Buddhist Networks (c. 11th–12th Centuries)**

On the basis of the text preserved on the extant fragments, the reconstructed text lists offerings for the worship to the Lords (bharāla), i.e., deities, of the monasteries called Śailendra-Cūḍāmaṇivarma-vihāra and Bālāditya-vihāra. The first name occurs in virtually the same form in the Sanskrit and Tamil Larger Leiden Copper-plate Inscription of Rājarāja Cōla I (r. 985–1014), as well as other nearly contemporary Tamil inscriptions.⁴⁶ These inscriptions have been discussed in a large number of secondary sources to reconstruct the historical background of diplomatic, religious, and commercial links existing between Sumatra, South India, the Malay peninsula, and China in the period immediately preceding the Cōla raids of around 1025 CE, when Rājendra sent a fleet of warships to raid and destroy important ports in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, but also in the period following them (see, e.g., Vogel 1919; Krom 1931, pp. 236ff.; Majumdar 1933–1934; Cœdès 1968, pp. 141ff.; Chattopadhyaya 1981, p. 88; Skilling 1997, 2007; Seshadri 2009; Schoterman 2016; Gornall 2014, p. 520, 2020, pp. 59 n. 91, 69–70, etc.).

As related by the charter, whose *praśasti* portion was added posthumously in 1019, early in the reign of Rājendra I (r. 1014–1032), the Śailendra-Cūḍāmaṇivarma-vihāra was built at Nāgīpattane (Sanskrit)/Nākappatīnam (Tamil), i.e., Nagapattinam, at the request of Māravijayottuṅgavarman, born in the Śailendra family, lord of Śrīvijaya, king of Katāha (Kedah in the Malay Peninsula),⁴⁷ who brought to completion—and claimed as his own pious foundation⁴⁸—the work started by his father Cūḍāmaṇivarman, in whose name the monastery was built.⁴⁹ This undertaking, which probably took place in the 21st regnal year of Rājarāja I (1005/6), who had granted the village of Āṇaimaṅgalam for the monastery’s maintenance, was supported by his son and successor Rājendra Cōla I. A subsequent Cōla
king, viz. Kulōttuṅga I (r. 1070–1120), continued to support this monastery with endow-
ments (Jacq-Hergoualc'h 2002, p. 275). What is clear is that the Cōļa dynasty—many of
whose kings, like Rājarāja and Rājendra, were staunchly Śaiva—maintained good relations
with the rulers of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula up to the first quarter of the 11th cen-
tury, and they then challenged them for the control of the commercial maritime routes.
However, since Kulōttuṅga I's charter explicitly records its issue at the request of two am-
bassadors from the king of kiḍāra (i.e., Kaṭāha), it appears that the relationship between the
Cōļas and Śrīvijaya improved again after the Cōļa raids.⁵⁰

The grant by Kulōttuṅga I states that King Rājarāja gave the village “to the Buddha (buddhāya) residing in the surpassingly beautiful Cū maṇivarma-vihārā of [such] high loftiness [as had] belittled the Kanakagiri (that is, Meru)” (Aiyar 1933–1934b, p. 257; Karashima and Subbarayalu 2009, p. 273). It is striking is that the mention of the Bud-dha in the monastery, to which the village was gifted, mirrors the mention of the Lord (bharāla) of the Cūḍāmaṇivarman monastery to whom (ka) the goods listed in the Muara Jambi strips were to be offered in part. Even more striking is the mention of a Bālāditya-vihāra next to the Śailendra-Cūḍāmaṇivarmavihāra in the Muara Jambi strips, as both are found to co-occur also in two roughly contemporary historical documents from southern India and Sri Lanka. The first document is the closing verse in the Pali grammatical treatise Rūpasiddhi by scholar-monk Buddhappiya (fl. between ca. 1008 and 1165 CE) (Gornall 2020, p. 54). This monk, also known as Coṇiya Dīpaṅkara, was originally from South In-dia but was active in Sri Lanka. In the aforementioned colophon, he claims that he was a disciple of Ānanda, like a standard for Tambapaṇṇi (Laṅkā), and that he himself was renowned like a lamp in the Dami la (i.e., the Tamil) Country, glossed as coladeśaya and soraṭa in a Sinhalese commentary to the text (see below) (Malalasekera 1928, pp. 211, 220; Gornall 2014, p. 520). Indeed, Buddhappiya says that he resided in two (monastic) estab-lishments (vāsa),⁵¹ one of which was the Bālāditya.⁵² The second (slightly later) document is a version of the Rūpasiddhi with interlinear commentary in Sinhalese, which provides the name of the other monastery as cūḍāmaṇikarmavihāraya—obviously a scribal mistake for cūḍāmaṇivarmavihāraya (Paranavitana 1944, p. 20, endorsed by Gornall 2014, p. 520). It is generally assumed that the Bālādityavihāra was situated in South India too (Gornall 2014, p. 520), but there is no direct evidence to prove this, as Paranavitana noted.⁵³ Paranavitana (1944, p. 21) also argued the following:

the Bālādityavihāra was evidently the more important of the two establishments,
for Buddhappiya made special mention of it while he left the identity of the other
to be explained by his exegetist. Like the Cūḍāmaṇivarma Vihāra and Dhammā-
soka Vihāra of Negapatam, Bālādicca Vihāra, too, appears to have been named
after an important personage. The most famous Bālāditya of Buddhist history
was the king of Magadha who, according to Hieun Tsiang [i.e., Xuanzang], was
the founder of the celebrated vihāra of Nalanda but we cannot assert that a monas-
tic establishment in the Coa country was named after him.

There being, indeed, no direct evidence that the Bālāditya establishment mentioned in
the documents discussed above was located at Nagapattinam, for instance, as an affiliated
namesake of the famous Bālādityavihāra at Nālandā,⁵⁴ our best candidate for it is still the
original foundation in Bihar; however, it cannot at present be positively identified with any
of the remaining structures.⁵⁵ Bālāditya developed various construction activities outside
of the monastery complex and built a large temple for an image of Śākyamuni Buddha.⁵⁶
The importance of this (c. 6th century?) Gupta king is highlighted by inscriptional evi-
dence as well as later Buddhist accounts, including Xuanzang's 玄奘 (c. 602–664) *Datang
Xiyu ji* 大唐西域記 [Record of the Western Regions from the Great Tang (Dynasty)], the Chi-
nese biography of Vasubandhu (*Posoupandou fashi zhuan* 婆藪槃豆法師傳), and the Sanskrit
Mañjuśriyamūlakalpa.⁵⁷ It is, therefore, not surprising that Buddhappiya only mentioned that monastery, and that the Sinhalese commentary only glossed the lesser known of the two. That he resided in those two monasteries far removed from each other is not surprising either, as they may have been well-connected in the network of Buddhist pilgrimage of the time. More surprising is the curious synchronicity between the *Rūpasiddhi* commentary and our inscribed strips, which mention both monasteries. To this, the implication of our interpretation must be added, namely that the cargo mentioned in the strips from Muara Jambi was destined for two monasteries at ca. 1800 km distance from each other as the crow flies. This must have posed logistical challenges, but it was not impossible to achieve, especially because the greatest part of the journey would have been by sea, just like the one needed to cover the ca. 2800 km separating Muara Jambi from Nagapattinam.

Contemporary evidence suggests that Buddhappiya's monastic and scholarly career was cosmopolitan, and that it transcended the borders of the Tamil country and Sri Lanka, indeed. Buddhappiya is acknowledged by other sources from Sri Lanka as a famous Buddhist personality of his time; the *Gandhavañsa* includes him in the list of Sri Lankan masters (*lañkādīpakācariya*).⁵⁸ Buddhappiya had close ties with the Cōla court, which, according to Gornall (2020, p. 70), “may have contributed to the split that took place between the monastic orders in South India and Sri Lanka”. An inscription issued by the queen of the Sri Lankan King Vikramabāhu I (1111–1132) found at Polonnaruwa describes Buddhappiya's teacher Ānanda in similar terms as those found in the colophon of the *Rūpasiddhi*, and it states that the master had contacts (and possibly spent some time) with the Buddhist community of Tambaraṭṭha,⁵⁹ which Paranavitana has identified with Tāmbraliṅga, the country around Ligor (Nakhon Si Thammarat, or Nagara Śrī Dharmarāja) in the Malay Peninsula (see Wolters 1958, p. 588). This area was also under the authority of Śailendra kings Cūḍāmaṇivarman and Māravijayottuṅgavarman. Paranavitana goes against another view identifying Tambaraṭṭha with a district in South India, and the matter does not seem to have been settled yet.⁶⁰ Whatever the case may be, it is likely that Buddhappiya followed in the foot-steps of the propagation of Buddhism in the Cōla country (Paranavitana 1944, p. 25). The possible presence of Buddhappiya's teacher Ānanda in the Śailendra domains of the Malay Peninsula just prior to the foundation of the Cūḍāmaṇivararmavihāra in Nagapattinam further supports the existence of close Buddhist linkages between that region (with Sumatra) and South India, which go beyond the political and diplomatic aspect of the donation of the monastery itself.

Other sources that are often used to reconstruct the aforementioned historical background are Chinese accounts of diplomatic missions and Buddhist texts in the Tibetan canon. The former sources describe the arrangement made between Emperor Zhenzong (968–1022, r. 997–1022) of the Song dynasty (960–1279) and envoys of Śrīvijaya. During their stay in the Song capital of Kaifeng in 1003—just a couple of years before the building of the Cūḍāmaṇivararmavihāra in Nagapattinam—the envoys informed the emperor that their King Cūḍāmaṇivarman had built a Buddhist temple in Śrīvijaya dedicated to praying for Zhenzong’s longevity, and they requested that the emperor provide both a signboard with a temple name, as well as a bell.⁶¹ The request was met by Zhenzong, who named the temple Chengtian wanshou 承天萬壽 (“Heaven-Bestowed Longevity”). According to Claudine Salmon and Hans Bielenstein, the Chengtian wanshou temple may have actually been constructed for a Chinese merchant community in Śrīvijaya.⁶² These merchants may have also advised the Śrīvijaya king on matters of diplomacy, as had happened in Java too, with the merchant Mao Xu advising the Javanese embassy to China one decade prior to Śrīvijaya’s embassy in 1003–1004 (Sattler 2024a, p. 5). Some sources suggest that the Śrīvijayan envoys downplayed the importance of the Cōlas and even claimed they were under their dominion, which caused a diplomatic reaction by the South Indian dynasty through
an embassy to the Chinese Emperor carrying lavish gifts (Sen 2003, pp. 229–34; 2009, p. 62). Later, a Śaiva temple in Cōļa style was erected in Quanzhou (Guy 1994, 2011, pp. 253–59), and in 1018, the Cōļa king is recorded as having received large gifts of “Chinese gold” from Śrīvijaya for a temple staffed by Brahmans (Sattler 2024b; Sen 2003, p. 67; Kulke 2009, p. 6). These examples highlight the phenomenon of “temple diplomacy” via maritime links in the region, which might have “originated in and around the Indian Ocean region and circulated with the spread of Buddhism”.⁶³

As for the Tibetan sources, they provide data for reconstructing the history, and transfer, of Buddhism in the region. In particular, they provide some historical details on celebrated masters like Atiśa (a native of northeastern India) and Dharmakīrti of Suvarṇadvīpa (Dharmakīrti II) and their whereabouts in the early- to mid-11th century (see in particular Sinclair 2021; Schoterman 2016; Skilling 1997, 2007). The latter is believed to have lived during Cūḍāmaṇivarman's reign, as the colophon of one of the Tibetan Kanjur block prints preserving his works, the *Durbodhāloka*, says that the original text was composed at the request, and during the 10th year of the reign (ca. 1005–8 CE?), of King *Śrī-Cūḍāmaṇivarma-deva* (*Lha dpal gtsug gi nor bu'i go cha*)⁶⁴ of *Suvarṇadvīpa* (*Gser gling*), and its place of composition was *Śrīvijayapura* (*Dpal rnam par rgyal ba'i grong*) (see Sinclair 2021, p. 7; Skilling 1997, pp. 188, 194 n. 12). Atiśa traveled to Suvarṇadvīpa to learn from this Buddhist master, who ranked among the most respected and learned personalities of the time. While these Tibetan sources highlight the cosmopolitan nature of the South and Southeast Asian Buddhist world of the time, they are often imprecise; the geographical locations of these political and religious personalities are still problematic. Sinclair (2021, pp. 7–9) and Skilling (1997) identify Suvarṇadvīpa (=Suvarṇabhūmi) with Kedah in the Malay Peninsula. The latter scholar in particular uses information contained in the Tibetan account of Atiśa's maritime journey to argue that the landing point of the ship on which he was traveling was none other than Kedah. Skilling's argument that Cūḍāmaṇivarman and his son and successor Māravijayottuṅgavarman reigned in Kedah is derived from his analysis of the Sanskrit and Tamil inscriptions known as the “Leiden Plates”, which state that Māravijayottuṅgavarman was both “lord of Śrīviṣaya” (only in the Sanskrit section) and “lord of Kaṭāha” (in both Sanskrit and Tamil sections). On the other hand, Miksic (2016, p. 262) argues that “for the people coming from the Indian Ocean, the ruler of Kedah was seen as more important than that of Palembang”, which is due almost certainly to Kedah being the first major port that many ships traveled to before entering the Strait of Malacca. This might also explain why the Leiden Plates were mainly concerned with the ruler of Kedah. Miksic does not believe that “references to the ‘Lord of Śrīvijaya’ denote the ruler of Kedah” since “Rulership of Kaḍāra, Kiḍāra, Kataha, Kaḍāram, etc., was probably a glorious title in itself”. To him, the epigraphic and archaeological evidence rather suggests that Śrīvijaya meant Palembang. Still, he thinks that “Malayu was the most important Buddhist center in the Strait of Melaka between 1025 and 1200”, and that “Atiśa may have spent his time in Malayu/Jambi rather than in Kedah” (Miksic 2016, p. 263) for, according to him, the only viable candidate for the location of Buddhist institutions of higher learning as well as royal power that could support the scholarship of Dharmakīrti II and his circle from an archaeological point of view is Muara Jambi. However, the fact that much is still unknown about other sites that could be potential candidates for this royal and religious center, including Kedah itself, makes it difficult to pin so much on Muara Jambi.

While we can only estimate the date of manufacture of the two inscribed strips of this study, we likewise have no certainty as to the location from which the strips were created for use as labels of religious donations. However, an examination of the Chinese textual sources reveals important information that scholars, to date, have overlooked. This information might provide clues to understand the political dynamics in play when the in-
scribed strips were made. Many scholars have accepted the theory that Palembang served as the capital of Śrīvijaya until sometime after the Cōla raids of 1025, and by 1079, the capital was moved to Jambi. This argument is primarily based on O.W. Wolters’ position that the arrival of a tributary embassy from Jambi to the Song capital in 1079 signified that the rulership of Śrīvijaya had shifted from Palembang to Jambi (Wolters 1966; Xu zizhi tongjian changbian, juan 299, ed. T. Li 1881). Following this event, two letters were sent by Jambi leaders to a local Chinese administrator in 1082, though this is the last mention that is made of Jambi in history until later dynasties (Xu zizhi tongjian changbian, juan 330). Wolters believed that, following this period, the frequent references of Śrīvijaya in Chinese sources were, in fact, all references to a Śrīvijaya state with its capital in Jambi, and such a view remains influential to this day. However, there is no additional textual evidence to suggest that this might have been the case at any time prior to the collapse of Śrīvijaya, which Chinese sources situate in the 13th or 14th century. A close examination of the 1082 entry in fact reveals that the Song court considered the leader of Jambi to be a “sovereign” (guozhu 國主), whereas each generation of Śrīvijaya leader was distinguished with a position higher than this as “king” (guowang 國王).65 This was not an arbitrary distinction but rather one that denoted clear positions among the Song court’s diplomatic partners, and a higher title generally entailed greater status and rewards in diplomatic trade. A more nuanced reading of the sources also demonstrates that the Jambi embassy was referred to by Chinese record keepers as “the Śrīvijayan country of Jambi” (Sanfoqi-Zhanbei guo 三佛齊詹卑國), which implies that there were other states within the broader confines of what appears to have been a Śrīvijaya confederacy. This comes as no surprise to scholars who have noted that the Chinese translation of Śrīvijaya (Sanfoqi 三佛齊) directly translates to “Three Vijayas”. Indeed, a range of Chinese sources makes distinctions between Śrīvijaya and Kedah, which is perhaps better interpreted as a distinction between Palembang and Kedah rather than Kedah falling outside the confines of a greater Śrīvijaya confederation.66 In either case, Skilling’s view that Māravijayottungavarman ruled from Kedah is not supported in any way by Chinese sources. Additional distinctions were also made between “Śrīvijaya” and “Jambi”,67 which suggests that “Śrīvijaya” only ever referred to either Palembang or to a large and loosely aligned political entity, in which Palembang was originally the symbolic center.

If there continued to be a primary political center of Śrīvijaya following the Cōla raids of 1025, such a location might plausibly have remained in Palembang. Archaeological evidence suggests a very gradual transition in economic prominence from Palembang to Jambi rather than a sudden one, with much overlap in the 11th century (Manguin 1987). It is also understood that trade ships would stop at both Jambi and Palembang in the midst of voyages between China and West or South Asia (Wolters 1967, pp. 207–10). Considering that the copper strips were discovered in or near a riverway used by sea ships that traveled across great distances, the discovery of the strips in the region of Jambi does not guarantee that Jambi was the port where they originated from. Thus, both Palembang and Jambi remain the primary candidates for where the strips were produced until more information is forthcoming.

## 7. Conclusions

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, the two artifacts discussed here were not recovered from a scientific excavation, but were rather purchased from private individuals, and no written documentation exists about their exact findspots. In the light of these facts, we feel compelled to exert due diligence and weigh the arguments both against and in favor of their authenticity.
As for the arguments in favor of inauthenticity, one may point at some surprising
physical features of the strips, the slightly yet noticeably different engraving technique in
the verso side of A with respect to the recto side, with more irregularities and a different
depth, as well as the rarity of inscriptions engraved by means of a "pointilistic" technique
in Nusantara and the wider Indic world.⁶⁸ It is also important to note the cut in the mid-
dle section of the strips, which could be an attempt to disguise inauthentic artifacts into
fragmentary antiquities; however, it cannot be excluded that it was deliberately done to
have more portions of authentic artifacts for sale. Further, the mention of the [śrī-śail]endra-
cūḍāmaṇivarma-vihāra in strip A and śrī-bālāditya-vihāra in strip B, both of which are referred
to in a Singhalese interlinear commentary to the Pali treatise Rūpasiddhi by Buddhappiya
(as already discussed in Paranavitana 1944), as well as the reference to the donations being
for the Lord or idol (bharāla) of the former monastery, which mirrors the same reference in
the Greater Leiden Copper-plate inscription by Rājarāja I, looks like a "too good to be true"
scenario. Indeed, this scenario might have been brought to the fore by a putative forger
in order to concoct the narrative of Muara Jambi as the seat of the political power that
supported the funding of the Cūḍāmaṇivarman monastery in Nagapattinam, as well as
the donation to the Bālāditya monastery in Nālandā associated with Buddhappiya—a sce-
nario that is reminiscent of the donations made by the Sumatran sovereign Bālaputradeva
to build a monastery in Nālandā during Devapāladeva’s reign around 860 CE.⁶⁹

In spite of this, we believe that their cumulative palaeographic, linguistic, and ma-
terial features speak against their inauthenticity. Two arguments in particular could be
advanced. First, the forger would need to have had a deep and nuanced knowledge of not
only the script, but also a level of active command of the OM language that is present not
even among the very few scholars involved in this tiny field of study, to have generated
unattested but plausible OM forms like tāsak, brātña, and barkna, imagining the use of the
loanword khaṇḍa as a numeral classifier, while creating new instances of the challenging
word valānda that no previous scholar has adequately understood, deftly inserting it into
a context analogous to but not identical with its usage in other early Nusantaran sources,
and finally deciding to invent a word that cannot be Indic or Nusantaran, namely damcu.
Second, known forgeries tend to be made of gold, be furnished with decoration, reproduce
known texts, or if they do not, they tend to be long documents intended to buttress elabo-
rate historical claims.⁷⁰ This is not the case of our strips. The fact that fragment B, which has
been analyzed by XRF (see n. 10), is mainly made of copper, and does not contain any zinc,
is also an indicator of its antiquity. More recent metalworks indeed tend to include zinc in
the alloy or be of brass (a copper–zinc alloy), but brass was not used on a deliberate basis
in South and Southeast Asia before the 16th–17th century (Craddock 2009, pp. 145, 151).

Further, at least one of the aforementioned surprising physical features could be inter-
preted as not being particularly problematic. For instance, it seems relevant to point out
that an inscription (in Chinese) using the pointilistic technique is also found on another
metal item also recovered in the Jambi area, namely the bronze gong discussed by Salmon
(2003). This technique was known in China as early as the Han dynasty (202 BC–220 AD)
(Salmon 2003, p. 108). By the 11th–12th century, at around the time the copper inscriptions
were produced, there are records of Chinese merchants learning Southeast Asian writing
systems. Thus, one could propose that such writing came from nearby workshops staffed
with individuals of different backgrounds, or that the writing could be produced by some-
one of mixed ethnic heritage or by an Indian or Malay who spent much time in southern
China. This could also explain the unusual shape of the strips—narrow on one end with
a hole and pointed on the other end—resembling that of artifacts also used as labels for
cargo in China, but extant in wood (Figure 12).
Thus, we conclude that the two strips discussed in this article constitute authentic—and exceptional—evidence agreeing with, and supporting, the historical scenario of the existence of two monasteries in South and Northeast India that were linked economically (and otherwise) to Sumatra and China. The strips seem to have been labels recording donations meant for both monasteries to be dispatched to India by ship. One could only speculate about the reasons why the inscriptions never made it to their final destination—for instance, that the boat in which they were transported in was shipwrecked in the Batanghari River, or that part of the cargo fell into the river during its loading onto the ship. Since a great quantity of ancient artifacts, including inscribed tin foils, small bronze statues, coins, and pottery, have been reportedly recovered from the riverbed, either by workers extracting sand or by antique-hunters, this is a scenario that seems to be within the realm of possibility (although, of course, alternative explanations exist, like for instance the fact that the river may have shifted its course and what now lays underwater was once on land). A fragment of a copper plate inscribed in substantially the same script type was also discovered in the tenth-century Intan shipwreck (Flecker 2002, pp. 89–90). Although, in that instance, too little is preserved of the original plate to determine the size/shape, and too few characters are preserved on it to determine the type of text inscribed, at least this discovery shows that the existence of such items on board ships was not without precedent. Thus, an explanation for the existence of the two entirely or nearly identical inscriptions of which the respective remaining fragments have been studied here could be that both inscriptions each originally denoted distinct items of cargo, i.e., bronze containers filled with the same (or a similar) quantity of valuable objects, intended for the same recipients.

**Author Contributions:** All authors contribute equally to the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This publication and the research leading to it have been supported, from April to August 2024 by the French National Research Agency project MANTRA—Maritime Asian Networks of Buddhist Tantra (ANR-22-CE27-015, coordinated by Andrea Acri) and from September 2024 to March 2025 by the European Research Council project MANTRATANTRAM—Monsoon Asia as the Nexus for the TRAnser of TANTRA along the Maritime routes (ERC Consolidator Grant no. 101124214, led by Andrea Acri as Principal Investigator). The contribution by Arlo Griffiths was made as part of the project DHARMA—The Domestication of “Hindu” Asceticism and the Religious Making of South and Southeast Asia (ERC Synergy Grant no. 809094). Views and opinions expressed are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** The original contributions presented in this study are included in the article. Further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author(s).

**Acknowledgments:** This manuscript was published in the special issue "Beyond the 'Spice Routes': Indic and Sinitic Religions across the Asian Maritime Realm," with Andrea Acri and Francesco Bianchini serving as guest editors. The authors of this article would like to acknowledge the partnership and logistic support of the National Research and Innovation Agency of the Indonesian Republic (BRIN, Jakarta), and especially the Head of the Research Center for Archaeometry, Dr Sofwan Noveridi, as well as the invaluable support offered by the staff of the Balai Pelestarian Kebudayaan Wilayah V Jambi dan Bangka-Belitung, Yayasan Rumah Menapo (Roy and Borju), and the Museum Nasional Republik Indonesia to access their collections. They also extend their thanks to Raghunath Akarsh, Catherine Churchman, Max Deeg, Véronique Degroot, Aruna-Keerthi Gamage, Alas-
tair Gornall, Tom Hoogervorst, Petra Kieffer-Pülz, Henning Klöter, Phua Chiew Pheng, Sim Tze Wei and Brice Vincent for their comments and feedback.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

**Abbreviations**

The following abbreviations are used:

<table><tr><td>BPK</td><td>Balai Pelestarian Kebudayaan</td></tr><tr><td>CM</td><td>Classical Malay</td></tr><tr><td>MM</td><td>Modern Malay</td></tr><tr><td>OJ</td><td>Old Javanese</td></tr><tr><td>OM</td><td>Old Malay</td></tr><tr><td>V&amp;AM</td><td>Victoria and Albert Museum</td></tr></table>

**Notes**

<footnote n="1">¹ On “temple diplomacy”, see Sattler (2024a).</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² See, for instance, the remark by Griffiths (2011, p. 139): “Compared to the wealth of epigraphical material using Indic systems of writing that has been preserved from Java, Bali or from other parts of Southeast Asia, the epigraphical record of the great island of Sumatra is very limited indeed”. For editions, translations, and discussions of short inscriptions from the Muara Jambi temple complex, see Griffiths (2011, pp. 159–65; 2012, pp. 201–7). There is also a wealth of inscribed amulets (Tejowasono et al. 2019: Meyanti and Andhifani 2021). However, none of the published items from Muara Jambi (which can be easily found via idenk.net, accessed on 13 May 2025) contain any historical information of the type that we will discuss in this article.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ This was formerly the Balai Pelestarian Cagar Budaya (Cultural Heritage Conservation Bureau) in charge of the four provinces of Jambi, Sumatera Selatan, Bengkulu, and Kepulauan Bangka Belitung (https://kebudayaan.kemdikbud.go.id/bpcbjambi/tentang-kami-balai-pelestarian-cagar-budaya-jambi, accessed on 13 May 2025). At the time of our field research, it had become the Balai Pelestarian Kebudayaan with a smaller coverage area numbered “V”. At the time of this writing, the webpage for BPK V is not working and the creation of a separate Ministry of Culture presages further changes in the organization of heritage conservation agencies.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ Formerly Yayasan Padmasana, an NGO devoted to the preservation, study, and dissemination of the (pre-Islamic) heritage of Muara Jambi.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ The aforementioned publication paraphrases the information contained in the 2019 catalogue, adding a new transliteration attributed to Wahyu Rizki Andhifani and Hedwi Prihatmoko, but including no translation, palaeographic and linguistic commentary, or discussion of the historical context and implications of the inscription, which we offer here for the first time.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ Examination with an optical microscope was not possible. We used a handheld jeweler’s magnifying glass (10× magnification, 21 mm viewing field, triplet lens). It was also not possible to bring the two artefacts together for direct comparison.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ Although it has not been possible to carry out an analysis of the metal, the aforementioned catalogue classifies the strip as a copper inscription (Cu). The orange-red color we observed in areas that are not covered with oxidation—characteristic of fairly pure copper (in contrast with the yellow-brown color of brass for example)—tends to confirm this assessment. Comparison with artefact B, of a similar color and the main metal of which is copper according to XRF analysis (see note 10 below), makes this possibility even more likely. Besides our two inscription fragments, only one example of an artefact not manufactured in tin is given in the catalogue by Tejowasono et al. (2019, p. 16), namely “013, 04/BPCBJB/Cu/VIII/2019”, a fragmentary and as yet undeciphered inscription consisting of a few characters on the two sides of a broken plate of irregular shape measuring 3.8 × 3.4 cm.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ We did not have a tool, such as a caliper, to measure the thickness of both strips.</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹ While inscribed silver and gold foils were commonly rolled up to be inserted inside bronze statues as part of consecration deposits (see Mechling et al. 2018, p. 99–101, figs. 46–47), the copper strips under discussion had a different function, as we will explain below. In Sumatra, it seems common practice to cut inscribed strips in half to multiply the number of artefacts that can be sold after their discovery.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ The catalogue reports that the artifact’s copper content is 88.79%. However, screenshots of the two XRF scans carried out on two sampling spots of the artifact by the research team in charge of the compilation of the catalogue on 18/06/2019, which were kindly made available by Wahyu Rizki Andhifani, indicate readings of, respectively, 96.59% and 96.20% Cu, with a margin of error of +/- 0.05%. The other values of the two readings are as follows: for reading one, 1.53% Si, 1.07% Al, 0.670% S, 0.072% Fe, 0.048% P, and 0.021% Pb; and for reading two, 1.68% Si, 1.03% Al, 0.774% S, 0.21% Fe, 0.081 P, and 0.025% Pb.</footnote>

<footnote n="11">¹¹ On sandhi in Old Malay, see Clavé and Griffiths (2022, p. 181).</footnote>
<footnote n="12">12 Cf. Mahdi (2015, pp. 194–95) on *ta- = ter-* in the Tanjung Tanah ms., with examples like *taamit* and *taulih* from the Tanjung Tanah ms. While these examples explicitly show hiatus after the prefix, we need to assume that *tāsak* represents a pronunciation without hiatus or conceals the hiatus in favor of Sanskrit spelling norms. By way of comparison, we may point out that, in the closely related Old Javanese writing tradition, it is very common for spelled vowels *ā* to represent what was probably pronounced as a /aʔa/ with hiatus (e.g., *kamatān* = *ka-mata-an* ‘seen’), although this spelling tendency tends to become less pronounced over the course of the centuries and is not clearly represented in Zoetmulder (1982).</footnote>

<footnote n="13">13 Turner (1962–1966), entries 2576 *kaṃsā¹* and 2987 *kāṃsya*.</footnote>

<footnote n="14">14 It may be helpful to recall that bronze is a copper alloy with a low tin content; bell metal is a copper alloy with a higher tin content; and brass is an alloy of copper with zinc.</footnote>

<footnote n="15">15 Vincent (2012, p. 167): “Dans le cas des inscriptions sanskrites du Cambodge, *kaina* qualifie donc plus spécifiquement le bronze, ce que confirme le plus souvent le contexte dans lequel est employé ce terme.”</footnote>

<footnote n="16">16 See Turner (1962–1966), entries 2648 *kaṭṭōra* “cup” and 2651 *kāṭhōra* “hard, solid, stiff”. There is some indication in Sanskrit lexicographic texts that the latter word could also cover other meanings, e.g., Hemacandra’s *Anekārthasaṅgraha* (ed. Hoshing 1929) 3.570cd *kaṭhorau pūrṇakaṭhinau* indicated that it could mean both “full” and “hard”.</footnote>

<footnote n="17">17 Stela from Prasat Preah Nan (K. 89), https://dharmalekha.info/texts/DHARMA_INSCIK00089 (accessed on 13 May 2025), lines 4–7: *bhūmi man jauv nu padigah jyaṇ 5 bhājana jyaṇ 5 mvāy śata vrohḥ prāk 6 nu duk liṅgaśodhana bhājana nu dut mvāy, prāk nu duk kruc mārgga I svok I kathor I, nehḥ kalpanā āy kamrateñ añ liṅgapura* “Land which he bought with [one] spittoon of 5 jyaṇ; one platter of 5 jyaṇ; 100 vroh, 6 (unspecified units of) silver to be devoted to the liṅga purification; one platter to be devoted to [it]; 1 (unspecified unit of) silver to be devoted to kruc mārgga; 1 plateau; 1 kathora. These are the offerings to My High Lord of Liṅgapura”. No more can be learned from a single other occurrence in Khmer epigraphy (K 470).</footnote>

<footnote n="18">18 Ed. Pigeaud (1924, p. 105, lines 12–13): *kapālaniṁ vvaṇ pinakatahapanira, lavan kaṇṭora lima kvehnya, ya ta makavadahnirāñayom šavaniṁ vvaṇ*. This was translated by Stuart Robson (in Robson and Sidomulyo 2021, p. 47) “The skull of people they used as drinking cup, and bowls five in number, these served as their containers for keeping the corpses cool and damp.” A passage resuming essentially the same words figures a few lines further down in Pigeaud’s edition.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">19 Furui (2016, p. 669): “The donated movables listed in the grant include vessels and utensils (brass cooking vessels, brass/copper water jars, three vessels for bali, kalantakas, brass *taṣṭhakas*, small cups), furniture (ivory stools), palanquins, musical instruments (brass trumpets), parasols and instruments of labour (whetstones, adzes, spades, axes, gleaning baskets, digging instruments, saws, daggers) (ll. 43–46). The utensils, furniture and palanquins seem to be meant for Ājīvika ascetics, while brass trumpets may be used for the religious practice of song and dance. Instruments of labour, on the other hand, suggest their use in productive labour and household duties by some service groups, although their assignment to the use by ascetics cannot be ruled out.”</footnote>

<footnote n="20">20 Such is the argument in Zhang et al. (2024), though the wholesale price of export ceramics abroad does not factor into their estimations.</footnote>

<footnote n="21">21 We have since learned that the same idea had already been formulated a few years prior to Postma, with reference to the Old Javanese equivalent of *valānda*, by Balinese scholars I Gusti Putu Ekawana and I Made Jaya, as cited below in our note on Balinese scholarship (note 29).</footnote>

<footnote n="22">22 Gonda (1973, pp. 31–32): “There are also some traces of Singhalese influence. The Malay word *bēlanja* ‘outlay, expenditure’ and in polite speech ‘salary’ (regarded as a reimbursement and not as a wage), also euphemistically for ‘a gift’, in modern Indonesia, besides ‘housekeeping money’ also ‘(public) expenditure’ has long been regarded as the only unaltered Pāli word: *valañja* which not only means ‘trace,’ or ‘use, design’, but also ‘that which is spent or secreted’ i.e., ‘outflow, excrement (in *sarīravalañja* ‘faeces’). The verb *valañjeti*, at the root of which [the compilers of the Pali Dictionary used by Gonda] have supposed a Singhalese word, can also express the idea of ‘spending’. This word, which in Indonesia no doubt always belonged to the ‘economical’ sphere, seems to have been a commercial loan rather than a direct borrowing from Pāli texts, the more so as it seems to be wanting in Old-Javanese (in Balinese where it is also used as a root for ‘going shopping’ it may be considered as a Javanese or Malay loan).” Before Gonda, we find the idea of a connection with Pali *valañja* already in the second edition of Gericke and Roorda’s dictionary of Javanese, revised and enlarged by Vreede and Gunning (Gericke and Roorda 1901), under the entry “*blānja*: of *bêlānja*, (Pāli *walañja*, uitgaven PK.)” where “PK” stands for a personal communication received by the authors from Professor (Hendrik) Kern.</footnote>

<footnote n="23">23 Because Pali is a Middle Indo-Aryan language while Sinhalese is a New Indo-Aryan one, and the former has status as a language of scripture while the latter does not, both historical linguistic and cultural attitudes with regard to these languages tend to predispose scholars to the assumption of Pali priority. Nevertheless, under the entry for the verb form *valañjeti* that exists beside the noun *valañja*, Rhys Davids and Stede (1925, p. 603) argued for the opposite relationship in this case: “But the root & its derivations are only found in lexicographical and grammatical works, therefore it is doubtful whether it is genuine. [...] There seems to be a Singhalese word at the root of it, as it is certainly dialectical.”</footnote>
24 Clough (1892, p. 575): “මලද Walanda, s. sign, mark, spot, token; pot, pan, earthen cooking vessel: pl. මලන් valan. Walaṇdanavá, මලදනවා, v. to eat, used only of priests or men of rank; also, to enjoy”. For the phonological history of the “half nasal” transliterated as ṇ and on the declension of inanimate nouns in Sinhalese, see Geiger (1938, sect. 23.1d, 64.2, 107.1, 108.1).

25 It seems likely that the Tamil word வளைத்து valantu, meaning “Big pot or vessel” and recorded only for the Jaffna dialect, is a loanword from Sinhalese.

26 –Sumanasāntaka 142.14, edition and translation by Worsley et al. (2013):
embuh tangis ri patangis-tangisan suputrī
deniṁ svavandhunira sāh atuluṁ bvat iṁ luh
prāptāmalandani pirak maṇi vastu mūlya
len tañ sōrōh kinajañan saha modakādi

The more the princess wept the more they wept. Her own relatives rushed to her aid because of the force of her tears. They came and put silver and jewels of great value in a box, while betel, sweetmeats and other offerings were placed on a cushion.

–Bhomāntaka 3.19, edition and translation Teeuw and Robson (2005):
akveh taṇ paricārikāmōkulakōn lulut ika ri nareśvarātmaja
tuṇtuṇniṇ turidanya rakva riṇ avaknya sinahaja viniṅkis iṇ laṅō-
len kiṅkiṇ lara kūṇ maṅōn-haṅōn ikaṇ rōṇa pamavan unōn raras hati
rōs rūm-rūm i liriṅnya harṣa pamalandanika vinavanāmatan-matan

Many were the servant girls who stretched out their arms to offer the prince their love: The tip of their passion was of course to be found in their bodies, naturally wrapped in their beauty. Others languished in painful heartache, picturing the pleasure of being the vessel of his yearning. The awe and sweetness of their joyful glances were the box for storing it, set with jewels like “eyes”.

27 For these items we cite the numbering in the *Epigraphica Balica* system designed by Goris (1954).

28 The inscriptions with *valanda/valaṇḍa* are Kayubihi (no. 446, 999 Śaka/1077 CE, 2v4 and 3r5); Depeha/Bet Ngandang A (no. 555, mid-12th century CE, 3v2, 3r5, 3v2 and 4r2); and Kintamani F (no. 704, 1122 Śaka/1200 CE, 4r4–5, 4v2, 4r4–5, 5r2). Those with *valantōn* are Dawan (no. 404a, 975 Śaka/1053 CE, 4r2–3, 5v3); Serai AIII (410, 989 Śaka/1067 CE, 6r4, 6v1, 6v2); Pandak Badung (no. 436, 993 Śaka/1071 CE, 3r2); Bila II (no. 441, 995 Śaka/1072 Śaka, 5r4); Museum Mpu Tantular A (no. 509, 12th c. CE, 3v6); and Lukluk + Ubung B + Pamecutan B (no. 560, 12th c. CE, 4v2).

29 Unfortunately, none of the occurrences fall in the timeframe covered by Goris (1954) so that no form of the word *valanda* figures in his glossary. In a note to their translation of the Kayubihi inscription, *Ekawana and Jaya* (1987, p. 42) suggested that *valanda* can express the meaning of *belanja* in Indonesian (i.e., in C/MM), but it has nothing to do with *belanda*, contrary to the assumption previously expressed by Poeger (1964, p. 12). The relevant passage is 2v3–4 (ed. and translation by Ekawana and Jaya, with some corrections on the reading): *pacakṣu ku 1 kabehananya, riṁ pirak· lumari valanda, tahilakna I jro paryyaṇan· riṁ cetra śukla tithī saptamī “pacakṣu besarnya 1 kupaṇ, terhadap perak murni (asli) walanda supaya dibayarkan (disetor) di dalam parhyaṇan (bangunan suci) pada bulan Cetra, paro terang, tanggal 7 [the amount of] pacakṣu is 1 kupaṇ, against pure silver let a valanda be paid to the parhyaṇan (religious establishment) in the month of Cetra, on the seventh day of the waxing fortnight”*.

Translations of the Dawan and Pandak Bandung inscriptions are available by Santosa (1965) and Ardika and Beratha (1998). In his translation of Dawan and Pandak Bandung, Ida Bagus Santosa did not translate the word *valantōn* (pp. 62, 92). I Ardika and Beratha offered different translations of *valantōn* from one inscription to the other. In the Dawan inscription, they translated it as “tradition” (pp. 144–45), but in the Pandak Bandung inscription, they translated it as “offering” (pp. 315–16). It is possible that they believed the word *valantōn* to have the same meaning as *bantōn*. Anyhow, they provided no justification for either one of their translations. These are the relevant passages with Ardika and Beratha’s translations:

–Dawan 4r2–3 *amnera riṇ pirak lumaku valantōn*
“selanjutnya bayaran berupa perak berjalan sesuai dengan tradisi semula”
[Furthermore the fee in the form of silver moves in accordance to the original tradition]

–Pandak Bandung 3r2–3 *tan panusuna riṇ pirak lumaku valantōn*
“tidak dikenakan *panusuna* terhadap biaya pembuatan sesaji”
[not levied by *panusuna* regarding the payment for making the offering]

30 On the weight units, see the references furnished below in our entry *brat*.

31 For the record, we mention here that some OJ inscriptions also use the derived noun *pavalanda* that seems to denote a tax or levy related to *valanda*. The relevant passages do not seem to help in determining the meaning of the base word.
32 Wilkinson (1959) indicates certain words as "courtly" synonyms of others and mentions such pairs as antan (alu), bangsal (balai), angan (hati), intan (hira), jantan (jalu), jintan (jahe), kacang (kara), negeri (negara), and santan (sari). Several of these pairs may involve borrowing from Javanese. As potential additions to Wilkinson's examples, we would like to mention *kencing* (kemih) as well as *kantung* (and Javanese *kanthong*, both presumably related to *kandi* 'pouch' in OJ). Alas, we have not found any example, in Malay or Javanese, of the derivation of a *krama* form by changing /d/ to /j/.

33 We are aware of a 14th-century OJ inscription using *rujira* instead of expected *rudira* (from Sanskrit *rudhira*), and Sanskrit *doli* has become *joli* in OJ.

34 The term 銅子 is not prevalent in early Chinese sources. In contrast, we find dozens of occurrences of the term 銅錢 (Mandarin tōngqian, Hokkien tāngchī) where it definitely means "copper coin" in Song sources alone. The oldest use of 銅子 in the dictionaries we examined was in three literary works dating to the first half of the 20th century. We use Hokkien to determine the pronunciation of these terms based on the historical prevalence of southern Fujianese people in Southeast Asia beginning around the time of the Song dynasty. Middle Chinese would serve as a useful comparison for reconstructing most other Chinese languages at this time, though Fujian languages would be an exception as they evolved from Old Chinese. See Pulleyblank (1984, p. 3).

35 See https://sutian.moe.edu.tw/zh-hant/tshiau/?lui=tai_su&tsha=%E4%B8%B9 (accessed on 13 May 2025) for modern Hokkien pronunciations of the first character. The onset of 丹 in these recordings sounds like /t/ in Malay, but it is quite possible that a dialect with a sound more like Malay /d/ was the source (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%B9, accessed on 13 May 2025). Regarding the second character, recordings of its modern Hokkien pronunciation are available at https://sutian.moe.edu.tw/zh-hant/tshiau/?lui=tai_su&tsha=%E6%9C%B1 (accessed on 13 May 2025).

36 Although deposits are now known to exist in Japan, and it is also recorded as an exporter of mercury, Japan was importing cinnabar at the time that our inscribed artifacts were produced. It is not clear when deposits in central Sumatra were first discovered, though it is believed that the mineral was being mined in western Jambi at some point prior to European occupation (Miksic 1985, p. 69, citation no. 1). The Xin Tang shu does state that Śrīvijaya was a source of gold, cinnabar, and ambergris (Xin Tang shu, juan 222, Shilifoshi section, ed. Ouyang 1936). Although Śrīvijaya's reputation as a source of gold was widely known, ambergris was a commodity brought to China from East Africa and West Asia, so it is not clear in this passage if cinnabar was transshipped to China from Śrīvijaya or if it was mined there.

37 It should be noted that this refers to goods brought to Japan by Chinese merchants, as some of the items on the list originated from Southeast Asia and Korea.

38 Inventory no. IPN.2639. See https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O24788/standing-buddha-sculpture-unknown/ (accessed on 13 May 2025) and Guy (2000, p. 107, fig. 6). While no scientific analysis has been carried out on this statue, to our knowledge, gilding through mercury amalgam has been scientifically demonstrated for Buddhist copper-alloy statues from several regions through surface analyses. One of them is from South India, possibly from the same tradition or even the same workshop as the V&AM statue (Gänsicke 2016, p. 17, fig. 2, ca. 9th century). Other examples come from Java (Fontein 1990, p. 183, no. 38, ca. 8th-9th century), Cambodia (Bourgarit et al. 2003, pp. 115-16, Table 5, ca. 7th-9th century and 12th-early 13th century; Gerschheimer and Vincent 2010, pp. 117-18), Central Myanmar (Guy 2014, p. 89, cat. 37 and 38, ca. 8th century), and China (Jett 1993). The current assumption is that mercury gilding was introduced to South and Southeast Asia perhaps through contact with China, where the technique was used as early as the second century for the earliest Buddhist images (Becker et al. 2014, p. 270). However, the development of mercury gilding and the extent to which this technique was used in South and Southeast Asia deserves more investigation, as systematic research has not yet been done on gilded copper-alloy statues in these regions. We thank Tom Hoogervorst for drawing our attention to *gincu*.

39 See Turner (1962-1966), entry 9402 *bhartég-,* acc. *bhártāram* m. "husband", *bhartég-* m. 'bearer' RV.: > MIA. *bhaṭṭāra-* m. "noble lord" lex., [...]; NiDoc. *bhaṭara*, °aṅa "master", [...].

40 On this issue, see Griffiths (2014, p. 213).

41 See Griffiths (2014, pp. 217-19) for edition, translation, and commentary, as well as further bibliographic references on this inscription. A digital edition is accessible at https://dharmalekha.info/texts/INSIDENK00059 (accessed on 13 May 2025).

42 See Damais (1955, pp. 207-8). This author also points out that the eye-copy which we reproduce here is unreliable. We use it nevertheless, for want of a better reproduction and because we deem that it gives an adequate overall impression of the palaeographic aspect of this inscription.

43 For this inscription, see the reading by J. L. A. Brandes in Groeneveldt (1887, p. 325, note 1). A digital edition is accessible at https://dharmalekha.info/texts/INSIDENK00368 (accessed on 13 May 2025). A possibly related inscription, engraved on an artifact whose whereabouts are alas unknown, is the one edited at https://dharmalekha.info/texts/INSIDENK00396 (accessed on 13 May 2025).

44 A reading by F. D. K. Bosch was published without attribution in the *Notulen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap* (1924, pp. 334, 657 no. 5824). A digital edition is accessible at https://dharmalekha.info/texts/INSIDENK00388 (accessed on 13 May 2025).

45 For the editions and translations, see Aiyar (1933-1934a, 1933-1934b); Karashima and Subbarayalu (2009, pp. 272-73).
47 The inscription actually uses the designation Śrīviṣaya (Karashima and Subbarayalu 2009, pp. 272–73). The governance of both Śrīviṣaya and Kaṭāha is expressed as overlordship (adhipati, ādhipatya). While the identification of the territory called Kaṭāha in Sanskrit and Kaḍāram/Kiḍāram in Tamil seems fairly secure, the territorial scope of Śrīvi(s/j)aya is a matter of debate. According to Jacq-Hergoualc'h (2002, p. 357), the term Kaḍāram/Kaṭāha "designates Śrīvijaya as well as its supposed possessions in the Malay Peninsula, or more precisely, in certain cases, in South Kedah itself". See also the elaborate commentary in Cœdès (1918). "This lord of Kaṭāha of great valour, the abode of virtues, thus prays to all future kings: 'Protect (ye) for ever this my charity'" (Karashima and Subbarayalu 2009, p. 274).

48 According to Schoterman (2016, referring to Vogel 1919), the ruins of the sanctuary were located ca. two miles north of Nagapatinam and were still extant in 1867, before they were destroyed by the Jesuits (for the same view, see Ramachandran 1954, p. 14). However, this actually refers to the so-called "Chinese pagoda" built in 1267 CE; see Guy (2011, p. 254) and Kulke (2009, p. 13). Kulke (2016, p. 70). Gregory Sattler has argued that a decline in diplomacy between Song China and maritime states can be attributed to a shift in attention by the Song court toward militarily powerful states along its northern border after the death of Emperor Zhenzong in 1022. Any impact of the raids on non-diplomatic trade with China would be difficult to assess, as such trade was not systematically recorded in Chinese histories. See Sattler (2024a). For a detailed list of Śrīvijaya embassies to the Song empire, see Hartwell (1983, pp. 172–81).

51 According to Gornall, whom we have consulted on this matter (email dated 15 January 2025), the word vāsa ("residence") was used here for metrical purposes instead of vihāra, but it must have meant a monastic establishment, and this is indeed the interpretation of the Sinhalese commentary.

52 "[T]his correct Rūpasiddhi was composed by a monk named Buddhappiya, also known as Dīpaṅkara—a student of the excellent teacher Ānanda thera, who was like a standard for Tambapaṇṇi (Laṅkā)—he (Dīpaṅkara) was renowned like a lamp in the Damiļa country, and being the chief incumbent of two monasteries including Bālādicca, caused the religion to shine forth", vikhyātānandatheravhayavaragurunāṁ tambapaṇṇīddhajānaṁ, sisso dīpaṅkarākhyaddamiļavasumatīdīpaladdhappakāso; bālādiccādivāsa-dvitayam adhivasaṁ sāsanaṁ jotayī yo, so 'yaṁ buddhappiyavho yati imam ujukam rūpasiddhiṁ akāsi. Trans. adapted by Gornall (2014, p. 520) from Liyanagamage (1978, p. 115). In an email dated 15 January 2025, Gornall suggests to amend the translation of the participle adhivasaṁ from "chief incumbent" (or "resident superior", as in Liyanagamage) to "was a resident".

53 See Paranavitana (1944, p. 221): "Neither the Rūpasiddhi nor its Sinhalese gloss has any reference to Negapatam, and we are therefore not in a position to say whether the other convent, named Baladitya, was situated at that place". Lokesh Chandra (1993, p. 504) states that "Dīpaṅkara Thera (1100 A. D.) became the head of the Bālādicca Vihāra at Kancipura" (this Dīpaṅkara is the same as Buddhappiya as their chronologies overlap: Lokesh Chandra calls him "Dīpaṅkara alias Buddhapriya"), without providing any evidence in support of this statement, and that the Gandhavaṅsa "also refers to twenty other Theravāda teachers who wrote in Pāli at Kancipura"; however, Buddhappiya-Dīpaṅkara is only mentioned in the list of Sri Lankan masters.

54 An emblematic case of affiliated monasteries located at a great distance from each other is that of the Abhayagirivihāra in Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka and its namesake on the Ratu Boko prominence in Central Java, documented by a Sanskrit inscription in Siddhamāṭrōkā script recovered in the latter Buddhist complex. For a summary and references to previous secondary literature, see Acri (2016, p. 17).

55 According to Max Deeg (email dated 10 January 2025), Xuanzang's description significantly deviates from the line-up of the monastic courtyards at Nālandā; hence, the map in Cunningham (1871, plate XVI) is the fruit of imagination rather than factual data.

56 Deeg (2020, pp. 239–40), on the basis of the inscription from the reign of King Yaśovarmadeva found at Nālandā (Sastri 1942, p. 79, lines 8–9), a seal from Nālandā referring to a Bālāditya-gandhakuḍī (ibid., pp. 38–39), as well as Taishō shinshū daizōkyō no. 2087: 924a.29ff. and no. 2053: 238b.23ff (ed. Takakusu and Watanabe 1924–1932).

57 See Deeg (2020, pp. 238, 248–50), who notes that these sources seem to present the king as an amalgamation of different Gupta rulers.

58 Gandhavaṅsa, ed. Minayeff (1886, p. 67). See also Malalasekera (1928, p. 220); Gornall (2020, p. 69).

59 O'Connor (1972, p. 22), referring to Paranavitana, speculates that Buddhappiya may have been either a native of Tambaraṭṭha (=Ligor) or spent some time there, apparently confusing Buddhappiya with his teacher Ānanda.

60 See Paranavitana (1943, pp. 69–71). Jacq-Hergoualc'h (2002, p. 401) seems to support this theory, as he writes that "the term could also—with less pertinence, however—be applied to a region of the Coļa kingdom near Tanjavur (since the saṅgha of Coļa country is also described in the inscription as having ties with the same Ānanda)".

61 Song shi, juan 489 (ed. Tuo Tuo 1977); see Sattler (2024a, p. 5) and Salmon (2002, pp. 62–63).

62 Salmon (2002, pp. 62–63); Bielenstein (2005, p. 75). The archaeological record provides ample evidence of high volumes of trade between Sumatra and China, for instance, large quantities of Chinese ceramics, many dating to the early 11th century, recovered in the areas of Palembang and Jambi, with lesser amounts found in other locations throughout Sumatra, as well as in wrecks of trading ships dating from the 9th to 13th centuries from the waters surrounding Java and Sumatra. For references to the relevant secondary literature, see Sattler (2024a, p. 6).
63 Sattler (2024a, p. 7). An early example is that of the donation of funds to build a monastery in Nālandā in the Pāla domains (eastern India) by Sumatran King Bālaputra around 860. In turn, the Pāla King Devapāla granted tax revenue and manpower from nearby villages for the upkeep of the same monastery (Sen 2003, p. 107; Acri 2016, p. 18).

64 Note the interesting overlap with the Chinese rendition of this name, Sili Zhuluowunifomadiaohua 思離呪嚙無尼佛麻調華, attested in Chinese historical sources, like the *Song shi*, juan 489.

65 Later histories used the term *guowang* for this event, though this is due to those compilers' mistaken assumption that the leader who dispatched the embassy was the king of Śrīvijaya. Such histories make no mention of Jambi. *Xu zizhi tongjian changbian* 續資治通鑑長編 (juan 299) is aware of the distinction between both Śrīvijaya and Jambi entities and makes note of this to resolve confusion among contemporary record keepers.

66 See for instance an entry for the year 971 in *Song shi* (juan 198); an entry for the year 983 in *Song shi*, which also interestingly draws a distinction between the Śrīvijaya “king” and Kedah “sovereign”, each with different names (juan 490); an entry for the Xianping 咸平 reign period (998–1003) in *Song hui yao jigao* (Zhiguan 職官 44, ed. Xu 1936); an entry for the year 1015 in the Zhulian section of the *Song shi* (juan 489); and an entry for the year 1016 in *Xu zizhi tongjian changbian* (juan 87), which also denotes a lower diplomatic status of Kedah compared to Śrīvijaya. This is not to say that, over the span of several centuries, Kedah’s status did not fluctuate between moments of greater and lesser independence.

67 See the collection of writings *Yunlu manchao*, juan 5 (Y. Zhao 2009), compiled in around 1206. The *Zhu fan zhi*, compiled in 1225, lists Jambi among the dependencies of Śrīvijaya (juan 1, Sanfoqi section), although it also lists “Palembang” as well. Elsewhere it states “Previously (Jambi) belonged to Srivijaya, though after a war (its leader) made himself king” 舊屬三佛齊，後因爭戰，遂自立為王 (juan 1, Jianbi section). The text does not describe any conquest of Śrīvijaya or neighboring polities. One can also note Wolters’ statement that the Tanjore inscription detailing the Cōla raids of 1025 “implies a distinction between Śrīvijaya and Malaiyūr which would correspond to Palembang and Jambi” (Wolters 1966, p. 227).

68 See Salomon (1998, p. 66): “Some early inscriptions, mostly Kharoṣṭhī relic dedications on metal plates, are written with a series of dots (e.g., the Taxila silver scroll, CII 2.1, 70–77)”. Sircar (1965, pp. 76, 86) further mentions the Kalwan plate—also from the Taxila region—of the 1st c. CE (see Konow 1931, p. 259).

69 In recent years, there have been attempts to re-link Muara Jambi to the monastic centers in northeastern India such as Nālandā and Vikramaśīla, especially by means of the travel of Atiśa to Sumatra (Inandiak 2013; Inandiak et al. 2018). This has favored the awareness of local communities about the pre-Islamic/Buddhist heritage of the region and stimulated interreligious dialogue.

70 For a general discussion of non-tangible interests involved in the production of fake epigraphic documents, see Gippert (2020, p. 273). Moving to the realm of the transmitted literature from Java, a paradigmatic example of the faking of an elaborate chronicle claiming to be from the early 17th century, but established to be a forgery using historical data mainly found in Western and Indonesian scholarship, are the so-called *Pangeran Wangsakerta* manuscripts; see Ekadjati (2017).

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