Ancient Indian Colonization in South-East Asia c9.72

c9.72

In the meantime the governor of Kaḍiri revolted, killed Kṛtanagara and occupied Singhasāri. The supremacy of Kaḍiri, thus restored after seventy years, was, however, of short duration. The Chinese expedition sent by Kublai Khan overran the country and Vijaya, Son-in-law of Kṛtanagara, cleverly turned this formidable force against the ruler of Kaḍiri, who was defeated and killed in A.D. 1293. After the Chinese forces had left Java, Vijaya founded a new kingdom with his capital at Majapahit or Tikta-vilva ( Bitter Vilva fruit ), and assumed the name Kṛtarājasa Jayavardhana. Although the capital was changed, the new kingdom was practically a continuation of the kingdom of Singhasāri and pursued the aggressive imperial policy of Kṛtanagara with great success. During the reign of Rājasanagara, who ascended the throne in A.D. 1350, Java established it suzerainty over almost all the principal islands and a large portion of the there was a hegemony of Malay Peninsula and Malay Archipelago. Roughly speaking, the Majapahit empire comprised the recent Dutch possessions in the East Indies with the addition of a large part of Malay Peninsula, but excluding Northern Celebes. We learn from *Nāgara-Kṛtāgama* that Majapahit had intimate and friendly intercourse with Siam, Kambuja, Champā, North Annam, Dharmanagarī, Martaban and other neighbouring countries. It had also and the Kambuja kingdom comprised, at the beginning of the seventh century A.D., the whole of Cambodia and Cochin-China and also the valley of the Mun river to the north of the Dangrek mountains. This kingdom was ruled by the dynasty of Bhava-varman till about 674 A.D. From that period till the accession of Jaya-varman in 802 A.D. we do not know much of this kingdom. As noted above, it was probably subjugated by the Śailendras of Java. Jaya-varman II freed his native land from the yoke of Java and invited a Brāhmaṇa named Hiraṇyadāma to perform some Tantric rites in order that Kambuja might not again be a dependency of Java. For reasons not known to us, he frequently changed his capital and finally fixed it in the Angkor region which remained the political and cultural centre of Java for more than five hundred years. Jaya-varman ascended the throne in A.D. 802 and ruled till 850 A.D., during which period he laid the foundation of the future greatness of Kambuja.