Malay kingdom of Srivijaya Palembang

The kingdom of Shrivijaya is first mentioned in the writings of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim I-ching, who visited it in 671 after a voyage of less than 20 days from Canton. He was on the first stage of his journey to the great teaching centre of Nalanda in northeastern India. The ruler of Shrivijaya assisted I-ching on his journey. Archaeological surveys undertaken since the late 1970s immediately to the west of Palembang city--an area now being overtaken by suburban development--have revealed such a quantity of materials as to make it practically certain that this was Shrivijaya's heartland in the 7th and subsequent three centuries. Surface remains of more than a thousand shards of Chinese ceramics, two-thirds of which are datable from the 8th to the 10th century, have been recovered from several sites. Shards from the 11th to the 14th century found elsewhere in the neighbourhood may represent shifts of political and commercial activity in the Palembang area. Shards found on nearby Seguntang Hill (Bukit Seguntang), on the other hand, span all these centuries. A piece of Romano-Indian rouletted ware, attributable to the early centuries AD, has been dug up in Palembang near the river; the same ware has been found in Java near Jakarta. Moreover, new stone statues have been found, and the sheer bulk of Buddhist and Hindu statuary now recovered from the Musi River basin has suggested to at least one art historian that the basin must have contained the site of a polity near the sea that enjoyed considerable international contacts. Only Palembang suggests itself as the site in question. Finally, stupa remains have been unearthed at the foot of Seguntang Hill. These discoveries reinforce the textual evidence that Palembang was the heartland of this empire.

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