The ancient Malay Srivijaya polity, which existed in Sumatra in the seventh and thirteenth centuries and at various times dominated many neighboring countries, was and remains one of the most mysterious societies in world history. It was almost completely forgotten even by its descendants and reconstructed only in 1918 by the French historian Georges Sedes, after which it took a full place in historical discussions and in the minds of residents of Indonesia and Malaysia (Zakharov, 2006; Manguin, 2008). Only a few inscriptions of the 7th-8th centuries and archaeological materials remained from it, which only recently became the object of serious research. This paper examines the internal structure of inscriptions and ways to interpret this structure for reconstructing the political structure of Srivijaya in the 7th century.
The corpus of Srivijaya inscriptions is small. Only nine relatively complete texts in Ancient Malay and unknown languages dating back to the seventh century are known. To this are added small inscriptions in Ancient Malay or Sanskrit, many of which are fragmentary or consist of one or two words. The Sanskrit inscription on the Ligor stele dates back to 775 AD. According to the content of the inscriptions of the seventh century, they can be divided into the following groups (Dorofeeva, 2001, p. 39): 1) The Sea victorious expedition (siddhayatra): Kedukan Bukit and Telaga Batu-1 [Coedes, 1930, p. 33-37; Coedes & Damais, 1992, p. 45-48; De Casparis, 1956, p. 11-15]; 2) Laying of the sacred Sriksetra Park: Talang Tuvo [Coedes, 1930, p. 38-44; Coedes & Damais, 1992, p. 48-52]; 3) Texts of the oath or swearing-in to the ruler of Srivijaya in the form of" drinking the oath " (minum sumpah): Sabokingking / Telaga Batu-2 (hereinafter-CCM) [De Casparis, 1956, p. 15-16]; Kota Kapoor (QC), Karang Brahi (CB) [Coedes, 1930, p. 45-50; Coedes & Damais, 1992, p. 52-56], Palace Pasemah (PP) [Boechari, 1979, p. 19-40], Karanganyar / Bungkook (KA) [Boecha ...
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