I mentioned this one in the best and worst books round up at the end of the year so now I feel obliged to post a review before we actually hit the end of the year.
While it’s often said that history is written by the victors, I think reality is a little more complex than that. A great empire celebrated in one era may fade into obscurity in the next. Geopolitical shifts can suppress the stories of past triumphs, and without visible monuments or surviving works, there may be no long lasting reminders of your victories—even if they were against the Great Khan.
This seems to be the case for Majapahit, Indonesia’s greatest empire—which does not have the same level of recognition as other empires and kingdoms from he same part of the world. Herald van der Linde—confessed Indonesiaphile—seems intent on chasing that. With Majapahit: Intrigue, Betrayal and War in Indonesia’s Greatest Empire he’s written a wonderful pop-history of the region which have been put together to mae the story of the Majapahit Empire as accessible and enjoyable as possible. This is not a book intent on going over the primary sources with a fine tooth comb (although plenty of details can be found in the chapter footnotes), this is a book written to emphasize the the drama and intrigue, with a lot of little wry asides and pop culture allusions along the way.
The Preface opens with one hell of a meeting: an envoy from Kublai Khan has traveled to Java in order to convince the king of Singasari, Kertanegara, that becoming a vassal state of the Mongol empire was in his best interest—and he better start sending tribute. But King Kertanegara had a pretty damned high opinion of himself, as well as being a (supposed) practitioner of the dark arts. What did he have to fear? So he took the unfortunate envoy sent by the Khan and cut his nose off.
The Khan was not at all pleased, and decided he needed to send a huge fleet over to Indonesia to show these people who’s boss. Unfortunately, fleets large enough to carry armies take a little while to get built. By the time they manage their return trip, Kertanegara has been assassinated and the city of Singasari burnt to the ground. Cakewalk, right?
Not at all. Prince Widjaya, the heir to the old throne, now based in Majapahit, turned out to be unafraid of deploying some very Game of Thrones style shenanigans. I won’t tell you what happened exactly because that would spoil the book, but trust me, there is a reason that you have never heard of the Mongol Empire managing to get as far as Indonesia.
This all occurred in the late 13th century. And the next two hundred years are no less dramatic, full of trickery, backstabbing and regicides. Like all empires, however, Majapahit eventually tottered and fell. Its decline was likely not due to any single cause but rather a combination of factors: attacks by Islamic armies, internal strife, and perhaps even the complications of royal incest*.
Within that two-century window of chaos and schemes, the leaders of Majapahit seemed to have spent little time thinking about monumental architecture. That’s not to say that the rulers did not leave their mark; there’s many moderately size temples (Candi) scattered throughout this part of Java, many of them dating to King Kertanegara’s time. But there is nothing left behind that approaches the grandeur of the famous Candi Borobudur from the 8th century, for example.
And this is perhaps why Majapahit, despite its early victories, is not well remembered outside the region directly around it. Once power shifted to the city that would one day become Jakarta, the region fell into decline. Many of the smaller temples related to Majapahit, such as Candi Jago and Candi Kidal, were only ‘rediscovered’ in the 19th century by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles. There was also not a lot of written documentation; the Nagarakertagama, the eulogy of King Hayam Wuruk and one of the most detailed accounts of the empire, fell into he hands of the Dutch after they plundered a Balinese treasury on Lombok. I do suspect that if the kings had been great monument builders, Majapahit would have remained better known.
But plenty of myths surrounding Majapahit survived. And many historical figures from that time remain well known in Indonesia at least; Gajah Mada, the prime minister of Hayam Wuruk, being perhaps the most prominent. Yet, while the empire itself faded, the culture of Majapahit survived—it simply shifted its center. There’s a reason the sole surviving copy of the Nagarakretagama was found preserved by Balinese royals. It’s the same reason Bali remains predominantly Hindu today, in contrast to the rest of Indonesia.**
The argument is also made at the end of the book that less visible elements of her heritage are also discernible in the modern operations of the Indonesian government. If there’s one point of criticism,I’d like to make about the book, it’s that this last chapter is perhaps shorter than I would have liked; I would have loved more space to discuss how the dysfunctional empires of the past mirror governments of today.
Overall though, this was shockingly good fun, and very, very accessible. A great read to end the year on!