.Political Development between the Sixteenth and Eighteenth Centuries
• 1.1. The Political Landscape and Southeast Asia during the Sixteenth Century
• 1.2. The Centers of Power in the Seventeenth Century and A Renewal of the Movement towards Centralized Control
• 1.3. The Fragmentation of the Eighteenth Century
The Political Landscape
• The historical dominance of an Angkor or a Pagan can sometimes lead us to forget that they were a coalescence of local power centers in southeast Asia.
• The great cultural diversity of Southeast Asia and the linguistic skills encourage localization, slow the movement of larger political groupings and create polycentred system
The factor, defining The 'polycentred' nature of premodern Southeast Asia.
• 1. Much of the region has been occupied by peoples who are basically tribal. This is“not a political organization but rather a sociacultural-ethnic unity” .
• 2. The character of leadership in most Southeast Asian societies. The leaders have exceptional ability, extraordinary 'fortune' or 'luck' will be able to control the vagaries of fate.
3. The reflection of Southeast Asia's geography. The extensive river basins of the mainland and Java may seem conducive to human settlement, but villages were often separated by wide stretches of forest and by hilly ranges, so that few people travelled regularly outside their own district. This social world was even more limited as one moved away from more populated areas. All served to encourage the growth of communities which were physically distanced from each other.
• Moreover they also linked to ancestor spirits associated with mountains, trees, rivers, caves, rocks and to particular areas under the sway of supernatural deities. As Paul Mus has cogently put it, 'the locality itself is a god'. These defined styles of dress, social customs and particularly language fostered a local identification with a particular area.
Discussion
• While such friction could foster the localization of loyalties, it could equally serve as a stimulus for greater co-operation among groups as they sought to withstand attack by a predatory neighbor
• Certain sites such as the graves of ancestors might be designated as places where disputes could be settled by negotiation and discussion, with the decision sealed by an impressive oath.
• The binding medium in the creation of bonds between communities was always kinship(blood ties), usually formalized by a ceremony whereby two leaders accepted each other as brothers. The ancient custom by which two men could become brothers by together drinking each other's blood was legitimized in Theravada Buddhist society by the dhammathat law books.
• Thus
• The cultural and geographic environment of Southeast Asia had a fundamental influence on the manner in which the polities of the region developed. Confederations of communities which saw themselves as equivalent were found in many parts of Southeast Asia
• Relations between leaders and followers mirrored the obligations of relatives.
• Like a parent, the overlord should give protection, assistance and occasionally a stern rebuke; in return, the vassal/child should return loyalty, respect and service.
• The ideal of personal and continuing reciprocity which grew out of concepts of kinship lay at the heart of the Southeast Asian polity, and it could well be argued that whatever 'structure' can be discerned in most early kingdoms was ultimately based on the bonds of family.
• The typical Southeast Asian 'kingdom‘ was a coalescence of localized power centres, ideally bound together not by force but through a complex interweaving of links engendered by blood connections and obligation.
• Leadership, conceived in personal and ritual terms, required constant reaffirmation. On the death of each ruler, therefore, his successor's authority had to be reconstituted with a renewal of marriage bonds and a vow of loyalty.
• While the women surrounding a leader were an important political statement, they could also provide an abundance of potential heirs, whose claims they could work to support. As states became larger, the liminal period between the death of one king and the installation of the next could often prove to be a time of crisis.
• A prime example is the kingdom of Ayutthaya, which at the end of the fifteenth century dominated the central Menam basin. The territory under Ayutthaya's control, however, was divided into a number of graduated muang or settlements, each under its own governor. The latter might acknowledge the overlordship of Ayutthaya and drink the sanctified water of allegiance to show their loyalty, but as royal relatives and muang lords their status could be almost equivalent to that of the ruler.
• Independence naturally increased with distance from the centre, and although a law of 1468-9 claims that twenty kings paid Ayutthaya homage, its hold sat lightly on distant Malay Muslim tributaries such as Pahang, Kelantan, Terengganu, and Pattani. These areas essentially acted as autonomous states and as long as appropriate gifts were sent regularly to Ayutthaya there was little interference in their affairs.
Southeast Asia during the Sixteenth Century
• During the 16th century, Spain and Portugal explored the world's seas and opened world-wide oceanic trade routes.
• Philip II of Spain, Dom Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, Christopher Columbus
• the continuing expansion of international commerce and the consequent rise of new exchange centres.
• the island world - proliferation of trading centresgrowing world demand for the region's products.
• the expanding market for fine spices encouraged Javanese, Malay and Chinese traders to deal directly with sources of supply in the eastern islands.
• The rise of new ports was further stimulated by the arrival of Europeans in search of spices and by the Portuguese defeat of Melaka in 1511 which saw the flight of Muslim trade to other centres.
• Pattani, on the east coast of the Malay peninsula, was a strategic meeting point for Malay and Chinese vessels
• The loosening of ties between overlord and vassal was equally apparent on Java's north coast, where a number of harbours were well placed to benefit from participation in the spice trade and the diversion of Muslims from Melaka.
• Around 1527 that a coalition of these ports, led by Demak, defeated Majapahit and established their own independence
• Ayutthaya had been able to take advantage of growing maritime commerce as a result of administrative reorganization under King Trailok (r. 1448-88). A new ministry, the Mahatthai, was established to supervise civil matters and to oversee foreign affairs and trade.
• In the early sixteenth century some Portuguese ranked Ayutthaya with the most powerful continental empires in Asia, and its prosperity was such that later Thai chroniclers regarded this period as a golden age.
• the rise of small but thriving exchange centres gave a new impulse towards the development of larger groupings, especially in the Philippines and eastern Indonesia. In these areas there had previously been little need or incentive to move towards the formation of 'kingdoms', but a more commercialized environment made increasingly obvious the value of some form of economic and political cooperation in order to strengthen links with wider trading networks
• The economic climate of the early sixteenth century nurtured the movement towards political consolidation, a movement apparent not only among coastal ports, but among prominent interior centres as well.
• In the Tai-speaking world Ayutthaya may have dominated the Menam basin among Lan Na with its important cities of Chiengmai and Chiengrai, while eastwards lay Lan Sang which included much of modern day Laos and was focused on two muang at Luang Prabang and Vientiane. But throughout Southeast Asia an equally important factor in the centralizing process was the reputation for religious patronage which normally accompanied the rise of a commercial centre.
• The leadership of Demak on Java's north coast, for example, was based not only on its trading prosperity but on its fame as a centre for Islamic studies and protector of the venerated mosque associated with the first Muslim teachers on Java.
• In the archipelago, too, the widespread use of Malay and an acceptance of the Islamic faith fostered continuing interaction between many coastal trading centres. The travels of ancestors, heroes, kings and religious teachers between courts which shared basic cultural elements is a recurring theme in local legends.
• With this kind of exchange it was possible for some Malays to see themselves as part of a culture which extended beyond narrow loyalties.
• the similarities which helped to draw many Southeast Asian communities into a mutually beneficial association and competition are trade and control resources
• A common Buddhist iconography accepted throughout most of the mainland meant 'precious objects' were not now simply of local significance but had a wider value as sources of intense spiritual power.
• Thai and Burmese chronicles are replete with stories of raids which not only depopulate an entire region but carry off holy images, sacred books and teachers.
• ‘Precious objects' is white elephants
• In island Southeast Asia during the sixteenth century the expression of competition in religious terms was accentuated by the spread of Christianity and the importation of hostilities between Muslims and Christians. Throughout the archipelago the Portuguese goal of winning souls as well as gold meant many Muslims perceived them as a danger to their religion as well as a commercial challenge.
• Despite the recurring calls for a religious crusade, however, relations between the Christian Portuguese and local Muslim kings were always governed by pragmatism. On the one side, Europeans needed to buy and sell, while for their part native rule