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    Hikayat Sangtawal (2) - Langkasuka

    HIKAYAT LANGKASUKA (2) - LANGKASUKA

    Seeking Langkasuka

    Evanescent Kingdoms, Everlasting Spirit.

    Written by:Dr Zulkifli Mohamad,Monday,July 25,2005

    Edited by: Alex Kerr

    As we crossed the Kelantan, Malaysia border to Pattani, Thailand, and boarded ataxi, telling the driver that we wanted to go to history department of Prince of

    Songkhla University, the young Malay taxi driver asked us, "Are you looking forLangkasuka?" The answer was, Yes, we were.

    Langkasuka was the ancient fabled kingdom of the Isthmus. Existing long beforethe Melakan Sultanate, and extending its influence even into modern times, it hasbeen a lodestone for Malay historians and artists. "Looking for Langkasuka" is a

    journey of discovery, an attempt to dig through the many layers of influence fromChina, India, Cham, Siam, Sumatera, Jawa, and the Middle East, to discover the

    http://sangtawal.blogspot.com/2009/02/hikayat-sangtawal-2-langkasuka.htmlhttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/_EkAPRyIuoDk/SYWl256i5xI/AAAAAAAAAN4/TsEWc3ye2vs/s1600-h/masjid+kg+laut+1.jpghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/_EkAPRyIuoDk/SYWmA7K7tmI/AAAAAAAAAOA/sux-_ZqPQYw/s1600-h/masjid+gerisik-1.jpghttp://sangtawal.blogspot.com/2009/02/hikayat-sangtawal-2-langkasuka.html
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    enduring essence of Peninsular Malay culture.

    The history of the Malay-Indo world is very complex, one of its distinctiveattributes being a kaleidoscopic turnover of political alignments, disagreements

    and separation movements. South East Asia in general has changedtremendously in the past hundred years and more so before that. Various powersmapped and remapped the states of the Golden Peninsula many times even

    before the arrival of the western colonials.

    Modern Malaysia is the result of such a process, with rearrangement of pieces ofthe puzzle board even in very recent times. Malaya referring to the MalayPeninsula was divided by the British into Federated Malay States (Johor,

    Selangor, Pulau Pinang, Melaka, Perak, Pahang) and Non-Federated MalayStates (Kelantan, Trengganu, Kedah and Perlis) in 1909. By 1957, when Malaya

    got her independence, Singapore was part of it. Sabah and Sarawak states on thewest coast of Borneo joined Malaysia as East Malaysia in 1963 when the

    Federation of Malaysia was proclaimed. Two years later Singapore separatedfrom Malaysia.

    The result is that the country of Malaysia today consists broadly of three culturalspheres: Borneo (Sabah and Sarawak), the Southern Peninsula (formerly theFederated States), and the Isthmus (formerly the Non-Federated States). The

    cultural differences between these regions are still quite strong, as may be seen bythe fact that in 1999 Malaysian General Election, Barisan Nasional, the ruling

    party led by Dr. Mahathir Mohamad lost power in two northern states, Kelantanand Trengganu. The people of these two states are known as staunchly traditionalMalays and Muslims. They have a different socio-cultural history and behaviouras the history of these states could be traced back to the ancient kingdom of the

    Isthmus, known as Langkasuka, 2000 years ago.

    North versus South

    Malay scholars have tended to date the beginning of Peninsular Malay civilisationfrom the birth of the Melaka Sultanate on the west coast in 1402. They justify this

    on the premise that as far as existing materials permit, Peninsular MalayKingdoms only take off from the period of Melaka Sultanate. There were threeimportant historical documents on Melaka: Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals),

    Undang-undang Melaka (Melaka Digest) and Undang-undang Laut (MaritimeLaws), and these three provide much needed information on the nature of the

    Melaka polity and society. However this information applies largely to the Malaysof the south and west coast of the Peninsula it leaves open the question of what

    was going on in the north and east. The "History Began with Melaka" formulation

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    is flawed, for it leaves out the story of civilisation up north along the Isthmus.

    We get some indication of the situation in the north from the fact that the Melaka

    sultanate in its less than one hundred years in power tried but failed to conquerKelantan in the mid-1400's. Melaka could not do so as Kelantan received militaryhelp from the Pattani Kingdom, known for its sophistication in war strategy.

    Hang Tuah, the famous Melakan warrior, who served in the court of threesultans, visited Pattani, probably after the first war between Melaka and

    Kelantan. It is not sure when he visited Pattani either on his way to China or onthe way back. In one account, Hang Tuah was supposed to have attacked Pattani

    but found out that the state of war art of Pattani was far greater than Melaka.Hang Tuah saw hundreds of canons surrounding the fort of the palace.

    From Hang Tuah's description, it is clear that on the Isthmus, powerful and well-established kingdoms such as Kelantan and Pattani preceded the founding of theMelakan Sultanate. Melaka did manage to defeat Kelantan on its second attemptand ended with a marriage of the Kelantan Princess, Onang Kuning, to Mahmud

    Shah, the last Sultan of Melaka. Their prince, Muzaffar Shah became the firstsultan of Perak in 1531. Mahmud Shah, escaped to Johor when the Portuguese

    conquered Melaka in 1511 and established a new sultanate in Johor. He then fledto Riau-Lingga island, and finally went into hiding and died in Kampar,

    Sumatera. The war, ending in marital alliance, is typical of the political give-and-take between north and south. Such relations go back a long way and are

    underscored by recent archaeological evidence of trans-peninsular routeways of

    Melaka-Kelantan and Melaka-Perak-Pattani. These routes have been tracedthough the discoveries of various proto-historic settlements.

    One noteworthy aspect of the wars between Kelantan and Melaka is the fact thatin the Malay world of those days there was a blurred line between conquest and

    alliance. We can see this in the fact that the "defeated" Kelantan dynasty, throughPrincess Onang Kuning, ended up establishing marital ties with the sultanates ofMelaka, Johor, and Perak. Another example would be the Sumateran kingdom of

    Sri Wijaya, centered at Palembang. In 685, the Chinese pilgrim Yiqing reportedthat Kedah had "become Sri Wijaya", which suggests that Sri Wijaya conquered

    Kedah. At the same time, other Chinese accounts referred to Sri Wijaya as a"double kingdom" with a capital in the north (identified as Kedah, or more likely,Kelantan) and a capital in the south (Palembang). It is not clear who was rulingwho. This blurred line between conquest and alliance is important to keep in

    mind when reviewing the rise and fall of kingdoms and dynasties on the Isthmus,as described below, because it suggests that external political changes, such as

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    onwards important Malay states begin to appear in Chinese annals. Of the statesmentioned, Tambralinga, another name for Ligor (present day Nakhorn SriThammarat), was situated near the northern limit of the Malay world. It is

    around this time that the Kingdom of Langkasuka first appears. Langkasuka(which the Chinese called Lang Ya Shu) was the largest and most prosperous of

    these early kingdoms, and may have covered the full width of Isthmus, lying tothe south of Ligor and to the north of the present Malay Peninsula.

    Courts of Malay Isthmian rulers in the early 7th century showed a high standardof elegance and luxury. Accounts describe Buddhism as the religion of the

    country, while Brahmans held positions at court. Throughout the firstmillennium of the Christian era, the Malay Kingdoms of Langkasuka and Ligor

    continued to appear in Chinese records, which described the Malay city states asprosperous reaching a high level of economic and cultural development.

    Sri Wijaya and the Isthmus

    Through conquest and also subtly through alliance and defeat the Isthmianstates managed to survive in various guises and flourish from the 6th until the

    14th centuries. From the beginning their history was intricately interwoven withmore powerful empires to the north and south. To the north they alternately

    warred against and allied with the Khmer, and later the Sukhotai and Ayudthayaempires of Siam; to the south with the Sri Wijaya, and later the Sailendra and

    Majapahit empires in Sumatera and Jawa; to the west with the Chola empire in

    India.

    The interplay with Indonesia is the most important of all influences, especially inthe early period before the rise of Siam. Sri Wijaya, based in its early years at

    Palembang in Sumatera, was the mother empire of the Indonesian archipelago,the one from which all the others in Sumatera, Java, and Bali later sprang. Itcontinued in different guises and locations from the late 7th century until the

    14th century, and at various times exerted hegemony over the Malay peninsula.

    By the 8th century a rival kingdom was thriving in central Jawa known as theSailendras; they too controlled the Isthmus for a brief period. The Sailendras

    were related to the old kings of north-central Jawa as well as to the Sri Wijayaruling house in Sumatera. Prince Patapan fled from Jawa to Sri Wijaya in 832 to

    ascend the throne, with the result that the Sailendra line was extinguished inJawa but continued in Sri Wijaya on Sumatera. The history of Sri Wijaya is

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    inextricably linked with the ruling houses of the Malay peninsula. For example, inthe 15th century, Parameshwara, a Sri Wijayan prince fled from Sumatera to

    Singapura Temasek before he became the sultan of Melaka.

    After Prince Patapan moved to Sumatera in 832, power in Jawa shifted from thecentre to the east of the island. The Sailendras yielded to a series of dynasties in

    east Jawa who thrived from the 9th until the 15th century, most important ofwhich was the Majapahit, dated usually from 1292 until about 1500. During theheyday of the Majapahit in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Malay Isthmian statesappear at times to have been a part of the Majapahit empire. The subtle shifts of

    power along the Isthmus are very complicated and not many scholars havelooked into this thoroughly. Meanwhile there were powerful influences from

    Chinese, and in later centuries, Islamic traders.

    In about 1025, Rajendra Chola of South India attacked and subjugated Kedah,with the result that the Kedah region flourished with a Hinduized civilisation

    which has left the largest pre-Islamic monuments on the peninsula. Meanwhile, itwas recorded in Pali chronicles of the 15th century that Sujitaraja, the BuddhistMalay Raja of Ligor had married a Khmer princess in the second half of the 10th

    century. The close association between 10th and 11th century Khmers andIsthmian Malays at the highest level provides many reasons that the ancientculture of the two peoples has much in common. The Malay rulers of Ligor

    acquired strength and ambition from their Khmer association.

    So important is Sri Wijaya to the history of the Isthmus that there have beenseveral attempts by scholars to place its capital there. Thai academia has a longtradition of adopting neighbouring dynasties as their own, viz. the identificationof the original Thai nation with the Dali Empire of Yunnan. In similar fashion,Thais have claimed Chaiya or Cahaya (which in Malay means light), as the site

    where Si Wichai (Sri Wijaya) was. On the other hand, J.L. Meons (1937) believedthat early Sri Wijaya was located in Kelantan and K.A. Nilakanta Sastri (1949)supported the idea. The Kelantan theory may not be far-fetched, since ChineseSui Dynasty annals of the 7th century describe an advanced kingdom called Chi

    Tu ("Red Earth") as being in Kelantan. The ancient name for Kelantan was"Raktamrittika", meaning "Red Earth" this was later changed to "Sri Wijaya

    Mala". The capital of Sri Wijaya Mala was called "Valai", and it was situated alongthe upper Kelantan river of Pergau, known for its rich gold mines.

    The controversy over the true location of Sri Wijaya arises because of the fact that

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    after the death of Maharaja Sri Jayanaga around 692, during the mission tocapture Jawa Island, Sri Wijaya seems to have been divided into two states. The

    eldest son Maharaja Dipang ruled over Amdan Negara, that is, the MalayIsthmus, probably Kelantan/Kedah. The second son, Maharaja Dhiraja, ruled the

    islands (Sumatera and other islands of the Indonesian archipelago), based at

    Palembang. After the division into east and west, the name of Sri Wijayaremained in Sumatera, but on the Malay peninsula, a poetic title emerged for theKelantan/Kedah area, namely, Tanah Serendah Sekebun Bunga (Valley of FlowerGarden Land). This title is still found in traditional performing arts such as Mak

    Yong dance, Wayang Kulit puppet theatre, etc. By 730 the capital of Sri Wijaya inSumatera moved from Palembang, known as Langkapura, to Kota Mutajap near

    the river mouth of Jambi in Sumatera.

    It is reasonable to speculate that some elements of the Sri Wijayan cultureoriginated in Sumatera, but later spread to other parts of South East Asia fromKelantan/Kedah. Yawakoti meaning Jawa Point, is situated at Bukit Panau hillalong the upper Kelantan river near Pergau; some believe this place to be from

    which Jawanese politics and culture spread out. Jawa Duipa, an ancient name forKelantan means Tanah Jawa ("land owned by the Jawanese"), or Kawasan Jawa

    ("Jawanese area").

    Al Tabari states that the word Jawa or Jva was used more widely in ancient times.Jawa in those days meant "Jawanese culture" (i.e. Malay culture), including its

    centres on the Isthmus, as compared to now when Jawa only refers to JawaIsland in Indonesia. According to one tradition, the Jawanese moved down from

    Kemboja and spread out to the archipelago.

    Looking for Langkasuka

    Langkasuka is the name used, from very early times, for the kingdoms of theIsthmus. However, there are many conflicting theories concerning exactly where

    the kingdom of Langkasuka was situated. Hikayat Merong Maha Wangsa and TheHistory of Kedah or Kedah Annals described Langkasuka as covering the Isthmus

    from sea to sea, from the port of Pattani to Kedah, with Gunung Jerai as the

    centre of the kingdom.

    Notable among Chinese records is the Chi Tu Guo Ji, "Record of the Kingdom ofRed Earth", written by the Sui Dynasty envoys after a visit to the peninsula in

    607-610. This is the most important documentary evidence of an inland kingdomknown as Chi Tu "Red Earth". There are a number of good arguments giving

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    credence to the theory that the kingdom was situated in Kelantan. Upriver of theKelantan area, Gua Cha is known for its early settlement some 8000 years ago.The Dabong-Pergau rivers are known for their clay deposits and witnessed themaking of old black pottery; Tanah Merah (Red Earth) is the name of a placeupriver of Kelantan. The capital of the kingdom was described in the Chinese

    annals as having triple gates more than a hundred paces apart painted withimages of bodhisattvas and hung with flowers and bells ... to the rear of the king'scouch there is a wooden shrine inlaid with gold, silver and five perfumed woods,and behind the shrine is suspended a golden light ... several hundred brahmans

    sit in rows facing each other on the eastern and western sides.

    Chinese records written by Chang Chun during the reign of the 7th century SuiEmperor Yang Di, spoke of a kingdom called Lang Ya Shu in Chinese, identifiableas Langkasuka in Malay. Chang Chun described Langkasuka as one of the earliest

    individual states in South East Asia, a Malay Kingdom. Slightly earlier, theHistory of the Liang Dynasty 502-566 seems to support a Malay tradition that

    Langkasuka was founded at the end of the first century in the neighbourhood ofwhat was later called Pattani. Lang Ya Shu proved to be of great economic

    importance, partly due to the existence of an overland trade route or portageacross the Isthmus.

    But which of these states is Langkasuka: Kedah, Kelantan, Pattani, or Ligor?Many scholars have come up with various theories, based on archaeological

    evidence, linguistic clues, or traditions from dance and folklore. Archaeologistspoint out that the Sungai Pattani River flowed from Kedah to Pattani with

    another route to Sungai Merbok, Kedah. They are trying to prove that the Bujangvalley in Kedah, was the centre of Langkasuka, and the important ruins of

    Hinduized temples found there make it a strong candidate. Others have soughtthe origins of Langkasuka in its similarity with the names of Langkapuri,

    Langkapura, Langkawi and Alangkah Suka, the land of the legendary 17th centuryPrincess Saadong. Paul Wheatley in Golden Kersonese insisted that Langkasuka

    was in Pattani. While we cannot be sure that Pattani was the capital ofLangkasuka, Wheatley was not far wrong in pointing out that Pattani was a

    famous port of Langkasuka and later became a city-state in its own right before

    being subsumed as a province of the Thai Kingdom.

    Stewart Wavell went seeking for Langkasuka in his romantic voyage depicted inThe Naga King's Daughter, a cultural travel journal from Pahang in Malaysia toChaiya in Thailand in 1963. Wavell described his excitement on meeting a girl

    named "Golden Naga" in Pattani. Golden Naga was a Manora dancer who

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    described Manora as :

    ..the oldest of all magic from the land of Lakawn Suka. We merely pay our respectto the Princess Saadong.

    Wavell drew together Lakawn Suka, the Pattani Malays' fairyland equivalent ofLangkasuka, and Princess Saadong from the folk stories of Kedah. Golden Nagadescribed Lakawn Suka as being near the hill of Bukit Sangkalalili in Pattani andplaced the palace of Princess Saadong on the hill. Wavell discovered an old ruin

    at Yarang (Binjal Lima in Malay). His findings at this old Pattani monasteryincluded:

    Buddhas with cylindrical head-dresses of the Sri Wijaya style, carved with thenaturalistic impulse of those Sailendras artists who worked such wonders at

    Borobudur in Central Jawa ... more interesting were the Dvaravati Buddhas ofpre-Thai period, possibly prior to the 7th century when Langkasuka would have

    passed out of the orbit of Funan into the temporary vassalage of the Mons atThaton before Sailendras spread their power over the former territories of

    Funan...

    Wavell's comment on Funan is significant, because it lends credence to

    speculation that some of the earliest forms of Malay culture are to be found inFunan. Funan was Southeast Asia's earliest Indianized state, and it is known thatFunan controlled the Isthmus from the 3rd to the 6th centuries. From there such

    influences could easily have spread south to Sumatera and Jawa.

    Wavell wondered whether Yarang might even have been the capital ofLangkasuka. However, H.G. Quaritch Wales and the Fine Arts Department of

    Thailand later asserted that the site was the northern capital of Sri Wijaya.Though Wavell knew that he could not make a clear archaeological connection

    between the Yarang ruins and Langkasuka, he insisted on linking Pattani with thetales of Langkasuka as they appear in folklore: the Story of King Merong Maha

    Wangsa, the Bukit Sankalalili hill, and the fabled Princess Saadong as revealed inPattani Manora dance. H.S.H. Princess Piya Rangsit of Thailand believed in a

    variation of Wavell's theory, placing Langkasuka further north atLigor/Tambralinga (Nakhorn Sri Thammarat) but she did not manage to fully

    research her discovery, as she was killed in a helicopter accident during a coup inthe 1970's. Today, the Pattani people still believe that the old site of Yarang in

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    Pattani is the site of the Langkasuka Kingdom, the same story they told Wavellnearly forty years ago.

    The Chermin Empire and Majapahit II

    While the history of the earlier periods is obscure, the later 14th and 15thcenturies were a high point of the Langkasuka civilisation.Raja Sang Tawalthe son of Raja Sakranta of the Melayur Empire, based at Ligor, moved to

    Kelantan after he was defeated by Siam in 1295 and lost Singgora (the old namefor Songkhla). Kelantan then became the base for unified Langkasuka. In 1339,Raja Bharubhasa (Sultan Mahmud Syah) replaced his father Raja Sang Tawal as

    king of Langkasuka, and succeeded in grouping the Isthmus, Champa in Vietnam,and Samudra-Pasai in Sumatera into a new empire known as the Chermin

    Empire.

    The period of the so-called Chermin Empire, reaching from Sumatera toVietnam, was the zenith of Langkasuka power. Raja Bharubhasa captured Kedah

    from the mad king Raja Bersiong (Maha Prita Daria) and incorporated GanggaNagara (the old kingdom of Perak) as part of the Chermin Empire. The Raja'ssister, Dewi Durga ruled Lamuri, later known as Aceh. In 1345, the Siamese

    mounted a major attack on the Isthmus, with the result that Raja Bharubhasawas forced to offer gold and silver trees as tribute to the Kingdom of Sukhotai.

    The offering of tribute to Siam was a symbolic turning point, the "little weft

    within the lute" that centuries later was to end with Siam permanently capturingthe northern portion of the Isthmus. Raja Bharubhasa moved upriver to another

    area in Kelantan called Bukit Panau, and named his new capital Jeddah, meaning"Jewel". The jewel capital of Raja Bharubhasa was situated very near the very site

    of the "Red Earth" kingdom of the 7th century the original Langkasuka.

    From this time onwards a tug-of-war with Siam ensued. In 1357 Gajah Mada ofthe Majapahit empire in Jawa defeated Siam and joined in a coalition with the

    peninsular states to successfully attack Ayudthaya. Gajah Mada declared Jeddahthe capital of West Majapahit, with Jawa island being known as East Majapahit.History repeated itself, following the same pattern of Sri Wijaya when it split inthe 7th century, and also located one capital at Kelantan/Kedah and another in

    Sumatera.

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    In 1395 Siam re-attacked the southern peninsula and captured Temasek in 1401.The power of Siam was on the rise. Sultan Iskandar Shah (Kemas Jiwa) was

    called from Jawa to come back and rule Kelantan, though he was married to theMajapahit Queen in 1427. Basing himself in Kelantan, Iskandar Shah proclaimed

    his kingdom as Majapahit II (1432-1502) with the capital called Kota Mahligai

    (Fort of Heaven). In 1467, Siam of Ayudthaya conquered Majapahit II, and SultanIskandar Shah fled to Champa and died there. His nephew Pateh Aria Gajah, whohad served as Iskandar's prime minister, moved to Pattani. Later, Iskandar's son

    known as Mansur Shah briefly revived the Majapahit II kingdom in Kelantan.Majapahit II under Mansur survived a short time until defeated by Melaka in

    1499.

    As we can see from the fact that Iskandar Shah named his Kelantan kingdom"Majapahit II", the Majapahit empire of Jawa was inextricably connected to thehistory of the states of the Isthmus. Majapahit was known as the greatest empire

    of all states in insular Southeast Asia from 1300 onwards, claiming politicalcontrol over most of the archipelago, but declining in the 15th century.

    Essentially, the relationship that earlier had existed between Sri Wijaya and theIsthmus evolved into one between Majapahit and the Isthmus.

    Pattani

    The final fall of Majapahit II in 1502 is sometimes taken by historians as the endof Langkasuka. However this defeat no more marked the end of Langkasuka than

    all the other victories and defeats, rises and falls of dynasty recorded earlier. Theroyal courts and culture of the region continued to thrive after 1500 in fact theculture of the Isthmus reached its highest flower in the years that were to come.

    However, two important changes occurred at this time in the history ofLangkasuka: First, with conversion to Islam by the Sultan of Pattani in 1500, the

    culture became Islamic. Second, the locus of Langkasuka shifted away fromKelantan, pulled higher up the Isthmus in a response to the growing power ofSiam. From 1500 until 1900 power on the Isthmus was located in Pattani and

    Ligor (Nakhorn Sri Thammarat). This was the era of maritime power, and Pattanihad an advantage over other states because of its important natural harbour.

    Pasir Putih (meaning "white sand") is another name for Gresik, an earlierkingdom in Pattani history. It is the name of an old place in East Jawa, possiblyduring the Majapahit Kingdom. Gresik later became Pattani, and its importance

    grew after the beginning of the 14th century when Siam began to expanddownwards and Ligor became a Siamese dependency. Pattani appeared in the

    records of the Ming Admiral Cheng Ho, who led a Chinese fleet to Melaka in the

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    early 1400's. With the decline of the Majapahit and the Chermin empires afterthe 15th century, Pattani eventually gained hegemony over the Isthmus, and it

    maintained its independence long after Siam absorbed other northern IsthmianMalay states.

    The glory of the Pattani Kingdom dates from the rule of Sultan Ismail Shah(1500-1530), who founded the Malay Muslim kingdom known as Pattani Darul

    Salam after he converted to Islam. It was believed that Islam in Pattani came waybefore Melaka (1412) and Trengganu (1303/1368), as Pattani was a seaport

    through which traders came and went, the source of Islamic teaching and culturalforms.

    Pattani as the name of a city state may have been changed after the rulerconverted to Islam. There is some dispute about the origins of the name, one

    theory being that the name derives from Pantai Ini in standard Malay language.At the same time, the people of Pattani, Kelantan and Besut (the northern partTrengganu) speak a very distinctive dialect in which the sounds Patta Ni mean

    "This Shore". Today, the Thais denote the language of the people in the south ofThailand is "Jawi", where Malaysians use Jawi to refer to the written script of the

    Malay language adapted from Arabic script. This script is thought to haveoriginated in Pattani.

    Pattani's Golden Era came after the fall of Melaka to the Portuguese in 1511. FourQueens ruled Pattani during this time: Queen Green (1584-1616), Queen Blue

    (1616-1624), Queen Purple (1624-35) and Queen Yellow (1635-86). Around 1688-90, the rule of Pattani shifted to the Kelantan royal line, and this scenario was

    reversed around 1730 when the Pattani royal line came to rule Kelantan. The lastsultan of Pattani, Sultan Abdul Kadir Kamaruddin's (1899-1902) son Tengku SeriAkar was married to the daughter of Sultan Muhamad IV of Kelantan. Through

    the 16th century to the 19th century we can trace many Pattani royal sons anddaughters married into the ruling families of Kelantan, Perlis, Trengganu,

    Pahang, Johor, Melaka and Kedah.

    After the four Queens, the power of Pattani gradually declined. Where the rulersof Pattani had once commanded the whole Isthmus, their domains shrank to

    cover only the four provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat, Yala, and Sathun.Eventually they controlled only the area covered by the modern Thai province of

    Pattani, only to be swallowed up by Siam in the early 20th century. As Pattanideclined, the Sultan of Ligor (Nakhorn Sri Thammarat), although still under

    Siamese suzerainty, regained a measure of independence, and it is from this thatconfusion has arisen as to the true location of Langkasuka.

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    The Thais tend to favour theories that place the centre of Langkasuka farther upnorth along the Isthmus, at Ligor, rather than at Pattani. Local historians in

    Nakhorn Sri Thammarat (Ligor/Tambralinga) believe that there were 12 statesunder the rule (or loosely federated with) the King of Nakhorn Sri Thammarat,before he was captured by the last King of Ayudthaya. This group of 12 states

    included Kelantan, Trengganu, Pahang and Kedah. At the end of the 18thcentury, King Taksin of Siam moved his capital to Thonburi after the Burmese

    sacked the city of Ayudthaya. As part of Taksin's military feats, he captured Ligor.King Taksin removed the King of Ligor and installed him as the Governor of

    Nakhorn Sri Thammarat.

    Islam

    Islamic scholars would like to think that Islam came to Pattani through Islamicmubaligh (messengers) during the Saljuk Caliphate (1055-1194) when the Saljuk'sWazir Nizam Al-Malik of Baghdad created a new Islamic teaching system, known

    as Fondok in Arabic, Pondok in Malay. Pattani is even now famous in the SouthEast Asian region for its tradition of Pondok. The Pondok system centres around

    an apprentice community led by religious gurus who mainly train in Mekah.There were many famous Islamic scholars from Pattani. Although the first ruler

    of Pattani converted to Islam only in 1500, it is believed that Islam enteredPattani long before that through Persian and Indian merchants and messengers.

    Not only Pattani, but also Kelantan became an influential Islamic centre.

    Kelantan at one point came to be known as Serambi Mekah, "Verandah of Mecca"because of its function in spreading Islam to the rest of the Malay world.

    Islamic culture later spread out among Malay scholars and nobles. ProphetMohamad's famous sayings like "Do travel even to China to learn", "Trading isgood in Islam" and Hijrah Lah "Do Move" [from one place to another for better

    life] adapted well to the traditional life-style of the Malays travellers andadventurers who colonised all the thousands of islands of the Indonesian and

    Philippine archipelago and far into the vastness of the Pacific ocean. TheseIslamic ideas became important principles of Malay-Muslim life. With those

    concepts we can understand why there was freer movement in trading in theparts of Southeast Asia known in Malay as Nusantara or the Malay Archipelago.

    What happened is that Islam took the kingdoms' borders away. The kingdomsties became stronger through Islamic marriages, and the Muslim peoples of landsunder completely different forms of government, such as Mindanao, Jawa, or the

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    country like Malaysia, and Malay Studies departments in Malaysian Universitiessteer clear of it. South East Asian studies need only concern themselves withpolitical and economic matters. A controversial topic is preferably avoided,

    especially with the establishment of ASEAN.

    Though cultural history is very much needed in the development of fine artsstudies in Malaysia, universities side-stepped the controversy and devoted all

    their energy and resources for developing something new, denying and ignoringthe cultural past. Thus Kelantan, Kedah, Perlis and Trengganu states to a certain

    extent became alien states in their own nation. Their cultural and socialbehaviours are often accused of backwardness. Because of that the people and the

    governments of these states are constantly trying to separate themselves fromtheir cultural past and drive people away from indigenous Malay culture towards

    the popular Arabian style of Islamic movement.

    The discussion about Langkasuka with Pattani scholars and people would not becomplete without mention of the last sultan of Pattani. After 1902, Sultan AbdulKadir was first exiled to Phitsanulok in the north of Siam but later took refuge inKelantan where his in-laws lived. There were a few attempts by the Pattani royalfamily and Islamic intellectuals to start a separatist movement in Pattani but all

    failed, as both parties had different agendas. With the rise of communistmovements in the Isthmus in 1960s and the activities of PULO guerrillas insouthern Thailand, Malaysia strove to avoid being drawn into a conflict withThailand, and this had the effect of driving the Malay states in Malaysia even

    farther from Pattani. Among the old people of Pattani, we can see the sadness ofpeople abandoned by their sultan, as they continue to live there and pray in the

    mosque that the sultan and sultan before built. Meanwhile, young people aredivided as to whether they should be Malay, Thai Muslim or Thai. It is sad that

    this should occur at the very heart of old Langkasuka which once ruled theIsthmus as the most ancient Malay kingdom before Islam, Thailand or Malaysia.

    We often look at "Malay" as in Malaysia, a country that obtained independencefrom Great Britain in 1957. If we look at art forms we tend to concentrate on

    Malay Islamic art forms, when the arts flourished most, probably during Melakancivilisation, after the sultan converted to Islam. Modern Malaysian education

    tends to reinforce the view that Malay art forms started from Melaka after Islam,ignoring the northern states that have so much more historical background. Thedevelopment of Malay culture after independence recognised Jawanese, Bugis

    and Sumateran immigrant origins, overlooking Langkasuka origins becauseLangkasuka was a Hindu-Buddhist state and its old centre of Pattani is now in

    Thailand.

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    In short, the official version of modern Malaysian culture is that Malaysia is aland of convergence of many immigrants from the Indonesian archipelago

    looking for new hope. In this formulation, lost is the soul of being peninsularMalay, of possessing indigenous cultural roots going back to Langkasuka, Funan,and before. It is worse for Pattani, since the once famous kingdom has becomepart of Thailand, a Buddhist country that downplays Malay racial and cultural

    identity, in order to develop its own distinct national culture.

    Langkasuka culture is controversial in modern Malaysia because it tends to bedefined as Buddhist or Hindu. Yet the arts of Langkasuka continued to flourishfor four hundred years during the Islamic era of the Pattani Kingdom. In short,Langkasuka should not be looked at as period, a city, a particular religion but

    rather as a cultural sphere.

    Langkasuka Found

    One of the unspoken but influential reasons why modern Malay scholars have notpaid much attention to Langkasuka and its legacy is that from their perspective,the Isthmus lies on the fringe. Pattani, Kelantan, Kedah, Perlis, and Trengganuare barbarous places lying far away from the cultural centres they are familiar

    with. These are: Sri Wijaya and Majapahit from the 6th to the 14th centuries,Melaka in the 15th century, Singapore and Penang under colonial rule, and KualaLumpur today. The northern states remain still very much "Non-federated" fromthe point of view of mainstream Malaysian culture. Making them seem even more

    remote is the fact that they speak dialects that are difficult for outsiders to fullyunderstand.

    The strong Thai influence in the culture of the northern states also makes themseem outlandish from the point of view of central Malaysia. On the other hand,

    the Thais easily dismiss their own heritage acquired from the Malay states theyabsorbed because, looked at from the vantage of Sukhotai, Ayudthaya, and

    Bangkok, the Isthmus lies far to the south. Its culture, being Islamic today, isalien to them. Since King Rama V (Chulalongkorn), the process of absorbing the

    southern states into Thailand has been successful, with the result that theremnants of Islamic culture remaining there seem crude and simple. For the

    Thais too, Langkasuka lies at the fringe.

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    The same could be said of Indonesian scholarship, standing in awe of themonumental remains in Jawa, and dazzled by the Hindu arts of Bali. The Isthmus

    way up north seems very distant from the royal capitals of the Sri Wijayan and

    Majapahit empires and the later Islamic kraton of Solo and Yogyakarta. Seenfrom Jawa island, the arts of the Malay Isthmus appear old-fashioned, rustic, andfolk watered-down versions of classic Jawanese arts. In any case, since 1947with the creation of the modern nation of Indonesia, the Isthmus today stands

    politically remote as well, a no-man's-land divided between two differentcountries, Thailand and Malaysia.

    Yet, like the spokes of a fan radiating from a single hinge, what appears remote atthe edges of the fan, may be the focal point holding all the spokes together. Inother words, the fringe may be the hinge. Especially in the case of the Malay

    peninsula, the argument could be made that Langkasuka culture, far from lying atthe fringe, was the primal and determinant culture of the peninsula for most of

    the historic period. Even today, it is the arts of Langkasuka as they have survivedin the northern states and southern Thailand that wield the strongest influence

    on traditional Malay arts.

    It's important to look closely at traditional arts such as dance, shadow puppets,martial arts, and wood carving because of a problem peculiar to Malay peninsular

    culture: a lack of tangible monuments. The Indonesian archipelago has

    Borobudur ; Cambodia has Angkor Wat, Burma has Pagan, Thailand hasSukhotai and Ayudthaya, Vietnam has Cham. Compared to these great

    monuments of the past, the Malay peninsula can boast only a modest group ofHindu remains in Kedah, slim pickings for those seeking the heart of a great

    culture.

    The old cities of Melaka and Penang are the exceptions that prove the rule, forthey have everything to do with Chinese and Western colonial influence, and

    almost nothing to do with indigenous Malay culture they are not the places to

    seek the ancient Malay spirit. This lack of impressive monuments is a secretfrustration and embarrassment for Malay historians.

    But from another point of view, perhaps it is something to be proud of. Thoreauwrote: "Many are concerned about the monuments of the West and the East, toknow who built them. For my part, I should like to know who in those days did

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    not build them, who were above such trifling." In asking ourselves what wasthe essence of Malay traditional culture, both before and after the advent of

    Islam, it would seem that the energies of common people, artists, and the rulingelite did not pour into building enduring monuments. Rather they went into

    ephemeral arts such as ritual, dance, music, pantun poetry, or wood carving in a

    sensitive response to the numinous forest and ocean environment in which theMalays lived. The belief that nothing is permanent is expressed in the 2-versepantun:

    Sekali air bah, Sekali pantai berubah

    Once flooded, The shored is changed.

    It could be said that not building enduring monuments was a trait of the Malay-Indo world in general. Java's great temples are in that sense something of an

    anomaly, by no means typical or representative of Malay culture in the rest of thearchipelago, the peninsula, or the Philippines. Malays, as a rule, did not seek

    immortality in stones, brick, plaster, or gold and silver pavilions towering to thesky. They were above such trifling.