ofthe SAME TREE

missions to Tang China in 853 and 871 and to Sung China in 1079 and 1088. 41
Whether Jambi and Malayu were the same polity is unclear. The restoration of
the power of Jambi/Malayu would have continued the tradition of southeastern
Sumatran ports responding to shifts in international trade. Palembang
again became a trading port of note frequented by Chinese traders in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but both Zhou Zufei (1178) and Zhao Rugua
(1225) call the polity “Sanfoqi” instead of “Shihlifoshih,” the previous rendering
of Sriwijaya. 42
By the thirteenth century the Jambi-Palembang area was clearly subservient
to Java, and the “Pamalayu” 43 expedition sent from east Java in 1275 is
evidence of the reversal of their long-standing relationship. Some believe that
the intent of the Pamalayu expedition was punitive, while others view it as an
act of an overlord seeking to protect a vassal state from threats of a Mongol
invasion. 44 While the motivation for the launching of the Pamalayu expedition
may never be known, subsequent events indicate that the ruler of Malayu
may have sought to escape further Javanese attacks by moving the royal residence,
and hence the center of the polity, from the coast to the interior. But
the move did not prove a deterrent to the ambitious Javanese. In 1286 Kertanagara,
the Javanese ruler of Singasari, ordered the placing of religious statues
at Dharmasraya, Malayu’s capital in the vicinity of Padang Roco in the upper
reaches of the Batang Hari River. 45 In addition to commemorating this royal
largesse, the inscription states that all the inhabitants of Malayu (referring to
the inhabitants of Dharmasraya)—brahmans, ksatriyas, vaisas, and sudras—
and especially the king, Srimat Tribhuwanaraja Mauliwarmadewa, rejoiced
at the presentation of the gifts. The placement of religious images at Dharmasraya
continued an earlier Sriwijayan tradition of distributing sacred inscribed
documents on stone at crucial locations. Dharmasraya was in the transition
zone between the downriver center and a new interior one that was beginning
to develop in the highlands of Minangkabau. 46 For nonliterate communities,
these religious statues and the royal inscription were visible signs of the power
of the ruler and his supernatural sanction.
The archaeological evidence supports the view that Malayu consisted of a
center on the coast and another in the interior. The main center of the kingdom,
defined by the presence of the ruler, moved upstream from Muara Jambi
to Dharmasraya sometime prior to 1286. It was followed by another move to
a place whose name ended with “–vita” or “–cita,” and finally to Suruaso in the
Minangkabau highlands. The second center was located somewhere downstream
and served as the entrepot for international trade. It is from this center that
two Muslim traders appeared in the Chinese court in 1281 as Malayu envoys. 47
The ethnic identity of the inhabitants of Sriwijaya cannot be determined
with available sources. Only after the emergence of Malayu as Sriwijaya’s
Emergence of Malayu 59