oAntara Kita Online Issue 5.0

Srivijaya Resources on the Internet

The mystery of the location, extent and sometimes even existence of the Malay trading kingdom of Srivijaya makes it one of the most fascinating topics in all of Southeast Asian historical study.  Unfortunately, however, it is also one of the most difficult about which to locate up to date and accurate information.  Scholars are continually finding more evidence, allowing them to rethink past assumptions.  Sometimes this new information is so current that it makes even books with recent publication dates inaccurate.  For this reason Srivijaya seems like it would be an ideal topic to research on the Internet.  With the Internetâs ability to make available the absolute latest in historical research, it has the advantage of putting information in the hands of academics much faster than was previously possible.  As soon as a new theory is presented or new evidence discovered it can be placed within the electronic reach of millions of students long before it could be put into traditional print resources.  In addition, the almost total freedom of the Internet allows anyone to have a wealth of information at their fingertips.

Unfortunately, the Internet is still composed of material entered by individuals (be they academics or laymen).  As such it suffers from the same problems inherent in traditional print resources; problems such as inaccurate or outdated information as well as occasionally  prejudiced interpretations of facts.  At times the information available on the World Wide Web is superior to that to be found in traditional resources (libraries, universities, etc) and at other times it is inferior.  This paper will seek to analyze the availability and quality of Internet resources dealing with Srivijaya.  This is a daunting task, given that a Yahoo search alone returned over 430 different sites.  Clearly no one can fully record and clearly categorize every site that deals with Srivijaya.  Thus this paper will serve as an admittedly cursory look at what is available.  It will, however, attempt to provide a stable representation of the quality of sites to be had.

First a note on the search method employed.  Due to the nature of the Internet as a research tool one must first create a search method.  There are nearly as many search engines as there are various approaches to searching.  Since most graduate students are familiar with many more avenues of specific research, it seemed most prudent to utilize search procedures similar to those which a layman or undergraduate student might consider.  In other words, how would someone who knows nothing about Srivijaya go about finding Internet resources on the topic? 

To this end, four major search engines - Yahoo, Google, Excite and Lycos - were searched on the same day (November 11, 2000) and the amount of results were noted along with the respective quality and content of the sites returned.  The initial search string was simply ãSrivijayaä.  From this point, the two engines (Yahoo and Google) which returned the most substantive results were isolated for more specific searches. 

Lycos returned an impressive 988 hits, but many were the same returns to be found on either Yahoo or Google.  Also, many of Lycosâs listings were non-academic (personal pages, tourist sites or Malaysian and Indonesian travel bureaus) or were not in English and as such were almost totally inaccessible to the average student.  Excite returned a paltry fifty-five different sites, most of which were useless diaries written by tourists recently returned from the area.  In addition the engine returned no fewer than 8 results linking to Srivijayaâs entry in the online Encyclopedia Britannica.

While Yahoo returned fewer hits than did Lycos (430 to 988), its results were considerably more substantial.  In terms of sheer bulk of returns, however, Google led the way with over twelve hundred (just six days later, GoogleÎs returns numbered over 1400).  The results returned on each of these engines, though not exceptionally valuable, were somewhat more useful to a student seriously researching Srivijayan history.  Curiously, though, in both cases the more academic sites seemed to be listed on the second, third and fourth pages of the available returns.  The first page of both searches yielded primarily the sites of less scholarly importance.  One interesting example can be seen at address http://www.throneworld.com/lords/lote11/ LOTE11_50.htm  which is apparently some sort of internet role-playing game site dealing with ancient Southeast Asian history.

Even among the various academic returns there was a wide inconsistency in quality and content.  For instance http://www.antenna.nl/~daktari/indie/indhis01.htm is one of two results leading to a simple timeline of Southeast Asian history.  Unfortunately there is no documentation detailing where the timeline originated, who authored it or where the information was gathered.  Te timeline is relatively well done, however, and includes various artwork relating to the information in the text.  There are also separate icons leading to timelines of other eras in Southeast Asian history.  At this site the treatment of Srivijaya is somewhat sketchy due to the nature of the site as a whole, but it is a good starting point for students interested in gaining an understanding of Srivijayaâs place in the general history of medieval Southeast Asia.

The vast majority of the sites discovered contain essentially the same information regarding Srivijayaâs existence.  They all describe the state as having existed from approximately 600 until around 1300.  Each site describes it as a trading empire, probably centered at Palembang in Sumatra.  Unfortunately there is little information provided dealing with the empireâs demise, or its dealings with other contemporary nation-states or with the traders that it relied upon.  No mention is made of what items the state traded, why it collapsed or how it came to be in the first place. 

Depending on the nature of the research being done there is a certain amount of information that can be useful in specific circumstances.  For instance, both www.usinfo.state.gov/regional/ea/timor/backnote.htm and www.seasite.niu.edu/crossroads/ russell/seageog.htm provide a good source of contemporary information dealing with Indonesia.  They provide much the same information regarding Srivijayaâs history as other sites, but in addition they include population figures, geographical details and economic statistics that would be useful in a project dealing with a comparison of Srivijaya and present day Indonesia. 

Perhaps the best resource for distinctly Srivijayan information can be found at www.hawaii.edu/cseas/pubs/Malaysia/malaysia.html.  Run by the University of Hawaii, this site includes maps of Southeast Asia as it was in pre-colonial times as well as after European influence.  Unfortunately, however, it too falls well short of providing the comprehensive information which would be so valuable to students.

After the general search string of ãSrivijayaä, various more specific search topics were tried.  These included places, cities, and names of eminent anthropologists, historians and researchers connected with Srivijaya.  These yielded somewhat varied results.  For instance, searching for ãPalembangä returned strictly modern information from local government publications or general information such as economic, weather or tourist information.  Other searches generated predictably native results.  For instance ãKota Kapurä and ãTelaga Batuä both ended up displaying sites almost exclusively in Malay. 

Somewhat more success was achieved in search topics of significant individuals involved in the study of Srivijayan history.  Searching for Jan Wisseman returned five sites, most of which consisted of information concerning books which Wisseman has either edited, authored or co-authored.  A search for Janice Stargardt reveals similar results, as does entering Bennett Bronson.  Unfortunately, these search strings suffer from one paradoxical consideration.  The student who is able to consider these individuals as potential fodder for an Internet search is more than likely relatively well-versed in Srivijayan history to begin with.  Along with the Library of Congressâs site providing a bibliography of every book dealing with Southeast Asian history, the author searches are essential sources for discovering large numbers of potential traditional resources.

It seems that most sites are simply not seriously academic and avoid any theoretical assertions in an attempt to hedge their bets.  By not including anything that is not universally known they are under no threat of being incorrect.  This leads to ultimately ineffectual searches on-line and the possibility that students will waste their potential research time searching the Internet only to find the same few sentences of information rehashed dozens of times. 

In addition this seems to be a terrible waste of the potential of the Internet.  Because it is so easy to revise information presented electronically, academics who stock the Internet should be more willing to include the most current scholarship on various topics.  Thus, faulty information posted on-line can be easily revised without the danger of potential condemnation from peers.

It is entirely possible that the drive to earn a reputation through scholarly, traditional research has led many professors to focus on printed texts as the only medium really worth utilizing.  This would in some ways account for the surprising and disconcerting lack of information about Srivijaya in specific and Southeast Asian history as a whole.  Also, there could be a certain amount of fear of the new technology.  Or perhaps more accurately, educators are still largely unaware of the enormous potential of the Internet as an educational resource. 

Curiously, though, this flies in the face of an increasing drive to use the internet as a research tool.  If students are told to take full advantage of the information available on the Internet they should at least be confident that they are accessing the most accurate and current research available.  Only a handful of sources discovered in the course of this project are valuable beyond cursory glances at the history of Srivijaya.  In addition, it must be assumed that if students are searching for Srivijaya in the first place they probably already have a general idea about the history of the state.  Given the relative obscurity of Southeast Asian history in American universities, it seems logical to expect that a student looking online for information about such a topic has already learned something about it in class.  Thus, chances are good that he or she already knows much of what these sites so generously provide.

In comparison with resources available in traditional print media the Internet is most useful only as a very basic starting point.  Srivijaya presents an interesting historical conundrum in that it is relatively well-known but there is little substantive work available on much of its history.  For instance, there are essentially only three significant historical texts dealing with Srivijaya that are available in English.  These are O.W. Woltersâ The Fall of Srivijaya in Malay History and Early Indonesian Commerce: A Study of the Origins of Srivijaya and The Politics of Expansion: the Chola Conquest of Sri Lanka and Sri Vijaya by George W. Spencer.  The first was written in 1970, the second in 1967 and the last in 1983.  Of these works Woltersâ books are by far the best sources available.  It can be safely assumed, however, that subsequent to 1983 a great deal of research has been done on Srivijaya which has not found its way either into texts or onto the Internet.

In terms of academic journal information available, again it is somewhat spotty.  The Journal of Southeast Asian Studies and the Journal of Asian Studies routinely publish updated articles regarding Srivijaya.  Unfortunately, these are largely unavailable to the average student.  Attempting to search for the journals through Yahoo or Google return only individual articles or very general information regarding its publication.  One gets the distinct impression that the journal makes itself available only to people willing to subscribe.  There is no telling how useful it would be if the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies would create a widely accessible archive database online.  Even the research databases on the websites of most university libraries (Ohio University included) focus on searches which are primarily citation-oriented.  Although students can learn where to locate articles dealing with their topic, actually obtaining the full text is much more difficult.  In addition, most libraries (university or otherwise) are disproportionately Western-centric.  Thus Asian studies are in large measure under-represented. 

In the end it is clear that the Internet is not the source of limitless knowledge that it is often touted as.  Instead it appears to be primarily a starting point through which to gain a very cursory understanding of a particular topic.  Until large numbers of scholarly works are made available online the best resource for students will continue to be journals, books and other printed media.  In addition, although there is tremendous potential in the Internet as a research tool, a method must be devised by which sites with genuine academic usefulness can be sorted from those consisting of primarily personal content. 

As it exists today, web searches yield far too many sites of little or no academic relevance.  These sights serve only to sap valuable research time away from students who must follow through every potential lead in the hope that one site will contain information useful to his or her purposes.  Perhaps a study of other topics would yield different results than did this one.  It may be that the lack of Information available on the web is representative of the lack of information to be had in general about Srivijaya. 

It seems more likely, however, that most serious academic research in the area of history is thoroughly under-represented on the Internet.  Because of the vast amount of information dealing with more popular topics, such as the Civil War and other aspects of American history, it is also entirely possible that the ethnocentrism evident on the Internet is another potential problem.  Since a great deal of the information regarding Southeast Asian history is still in Southeast Asian languages, it remains for a dutiful translator to attempt to decipher it for the benefit of English-speaking students.  Given the difficulty to be had in gathering any sources about Srvijayan history, the lack of information online could well be simply a representation of the general lack of English scholarly work on the subject. 

The search stings used in the course of this project were:  Kota Kapur,  Telaga Batu,  Bennett Bronson,  Jan Wisseman,  Janice Stargardt,  Malayu,  Sriksetra,  Georges Coedes,  Srivijaya,  Southeast Asian Studies,  Journal of Southeast Asian Studies,  Journal of Asian Studies

The search engines utilized were:  Yahoo,  Google,  Excite,  Lycos.

Unfortunately none of the sites visited have a single homepage with jumps to sections of the site.  Rather, they are single pages with all information contained on the first screen.  Thus I was only able to print the ãheadingä of each page.

http://www.hawaii.edu/edu/cseas/pubs/malaysia/malaysia.html

Run by the University of Hawaii, this site is probably the best single resource on the history of Srivijaya.  It includes maps of several areas in Southeast Asia (Borneo, Malay Peninsula, etc) as well as a history of the region from the days of the early trading states through the present.  The overall format is hampered somewhat by the inclusion of relatively trite homework exercises, but the bibliography at the end of the page is useful in finding a good general representation of sources available. 

http://www.seasite.niu.edu/crossroads/russell/seageog.htm

This site is useful more for its general description of the geographical, cultural and economic structure of the Malay peninsula today than for any details about Srivjijayan history.  It contains links to various other sites such as National Geographic where one can find maps and further information about Southeast Asian history.  Like most other sites, its coverage of Srivijaya is somewhat limited.  As mentioned in the text, this site would serve best as part of a comparison project including modern Malay information.  It is run by the faculty at Northern Illinois University.

http://www.usinfo.state.gov/regional/ea/timor/backnote.htm

Run by the US State Department, this site provides an exhaustive amount of information regarding modern Malaysia.  Again, its information regarding Srivijaya provides only the barest essentials.  Like the site above, the information provided would serve well to contrast information about Srivijaya against the state as it exists today.  Due to its overseer being the federal government, one can be relatively sure of the accuracy of the information.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/Indonesia/id_bibl.html

This link leads to a thoroughly exhaustive list of apparently every book written on the subject of Southeast Asian history.  Broken down into five chapters, this site is an excellent source for locating publications covering every aspect of Southeast Asian history.  The site is run by the Library of Congress.  It clearly shows the disappointing lack of published material regarding Srivijayan history.  However, rest assured that the instant something new comes along, it will appear on this site first.

http://www.interknowledge.com/malaysia/history03.htm

One of the numerous professional, commercial history sites available, this site takes a somewhat more extensive look at Srivijaya in relation to Malaccaâs development.  It makes the connection that Srivijaya collapsed due in large part to the rise of Malaccaâs strength in the trading world during the 1400âs.  This is something of a questionable assertion given that most scholars believe that Srivijaya was losing its power as a significant trading state by the middle of the fourteenth century.  The site in general, however, is one of the better sites available and is designed in such a way as to be easily navigable.

http://faculty.acu.edu/~armstrongl/geography/indon.htm

Written by an Indonesian student at Abilene Christian University, this site is more of a homepage than it is a genuine study of Southeast Asian history.  This is a shame, given that here is a student in an excellent position to be a link between Malay texts of Srivijayan history and English speaking American students.  Again, the information included is cursory and general.  The site seems to be an attempt to describe all of Indonesian and Malay history in 5,000 words or less.

http://www.okusi.net/garydean/works/seatrade.html

Although it is clear that the author of this site is a Mr. Gary Dean, he never describes his qualifications for writing the article that appears here.  Called ãThe Importance and Consequences of Trade in Southeast Asia till 1870ä, the article attempts to boil the entire history of trade in the region into a single article.  Obviously this is an impossible task.  The author makes a valiant effort, however, and manages to at least mention nearly every significant trading state in Southeast Asian history.  It is difficult to determine whether this was done as a student research paper or simply a laymanâs attempt at historical publication.  Either way it is a site of only minor usefulness.

http://www.sagesource.com/murpheyech/15.html

Although this is a summary of a lecture presented at the University of Alberta, no professor is listed and it was apparently a black-market bootleg of the lecture presented in 1992.  On the whole, however, the information provided lives up to the expectations one might have of a lecture presented at a major university.  It is clear and concise with a good deal of information packed into a small space.  Unfortunately, it too suffers from the problem of merely restating the tried and true information available at nearly every other site found throughout this project.  This site is useful as a starting point for someone with only a passing familiarity with the history of Srivijaya.

http://www.gimonca.com/sejarah/sejarah01.html

Composed of a simple timeline covering Southeast Asian history from about 500 through 1500, this site is useful for placing Srivijaya in a larger context.  Again, no author or source is cited, but the information is accurate and largely well presented.  The timeline includes maps, photographs of friezes, paintings and other works of art which give the viewer a sense of the personal side of the history it presents.  Once again there is largely no original interpretation or theoretical assertion present.

The preceding sites were located on Yahoo, with the search string Srivijaya.

http://www.dynahost.net/education/berosus2/seasia/sea02.html

Possibly the best general resource on Srivijaya on the web, this site was located on the fifth page of returns under a search for Srivijaya on Google.  The site includes an extensive description of the culture and economic structure of Srivijaya.  It even describes the role of Buddhism in the state.  This site is definitely worth the effort it takes to locate.  Unfortunately its location on the fifth page of returns makes it less likely to be found by students frustrated with the general failure of sites among the first four pages.

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/3795/early.htm