Indonesia, Thailand: 50 years and beyond

Indonesia, Thailand: 50 years and beyond

Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In a modern world, one of the most concrete pieces of evidence
of friendly relations between nations is the establishment of
embassies and the appointment of ambassadors representing
respective countries.

For Thailand and Indonesia, these sort of friendly relations
have been nurtured over the past 50 years in the establishment of
the Royal Thai Embassy on Jl. Imam Bonjol, Central Jakarta, and
the Indonesian Embassy on Petchabury Road in Bangkok.

However, a recent seminar on Historical and Cultural
Relationship between Indonesia and Thailand at the National
Museum here disclosed that the relationship between the two
countries went far beyond the half-a-century diplomatic
relations.

In fact, according to Thai prehistorian Pisit Charoenwongsa,
trade relations between countries in Southeast Asia, including
that of Thailand and Indonesia, could well have begun as early as
4,000 years ago during the Bronze Age.

Trade in copper and tin flourished during the Bronze Age -- an
age where the tools made from bronze, an alloy of copper and tin,
were common -- because of the sparse supply of the two metals in
Southeast Asia.

"Tin could be found on Bangka Island (Indonesia), Malaysia
also has a lot of tin except for Sabah which only has copper, the
Philippines has a lot of copper, and Thailand is blessed with
supplies of both," Charoenwongsa said at the seminar.

The two nations also shared many similar cultures,
demonstrated, also during the Bronze Age, by the existence of
bronze kettledrums -- which according to experts had spread from
the Dongson culture of Vietnam -- of similar type and decorative
motives in both Indonesia and Thailand.

Entering more recent times, relations between the two
countries continued particularly in trade and religious
activities.

The early kingdoms in Thailand and Indonesia shared the same
state religion, Theravada Buddhism, as evident from the findings
of Buddhist votive tablets at the Blandongan mound in Batujaya,
some 50 kilometers north of Karawang, West Java, and those found
in Nakhon Pathom, some 56 kilometers west of Bangkok.

"(Archaeologist Peter) Ferdinandus, who made a study of the
tablets, came to the conclusion that they depict the story of the
great miracle of Srawasti," Sri Soejatmi Satari, researcher at
the National Center for Archaeological Research, said.

She explained that the tablets found in Nakon Pathom were
dated from the sixth and seventh centuries, during the early
years of the Dvaravati Kingdom (sixth to 11th century) in
Thailand and the end of the Tarumanagara Kingdom (fifth to
seventh century) in West Java.

Another piece of evidence came from the finding of bronze
statuettes at Talaga, a village at the foot of Mount Ciremai,
Cirebon, and the site of a small ancient Hindu-Buddhist kingdom
linked to the great kingdom of Pajajaran through marriage and
historical background.

According to Soejatmi, three statuettes found at Talaga were
of Thai origin dating from the Ayutthayan period in the late 16th
century.

"It is still difficult to trace the way they (the statuettes)
came to Talaga and who conveyed them from Ayutthaya to West Java.
Were they European traders, dignitaries, or religious people,"
she said.

Mention of Thailand has existed in ancient Javanese texts
since the 14th century in the Nagarakrtagama, a literary work
written during the reign of Majapahit King Hayam Wuruk, an
archaeologist from the University of Indonesia, Hariani Santiko,
said.

The Nagarakrtagama named Sankhya, its city Ayodhyapura,
Dharmanagari which experts say is Nakhon Sitammarat in southern
Thailand, and Rajapura, believed now to be Ratburi, some 100
kilometers southwest of Bangkok.

Another city mentioned in the text is Singhanagari, of which
there is still controversy about its modern name, with some
experts believing it to be either Singburi, 142 kilometers north
of Bangkok, or Singora, the older name for Songkla, in southern
Thailand.

Meanwhile, according to Ayutthayan-expert Charnvit Kasetsiri,
mention of places in Indonesia such as Majapahit, Makkasan
(Makassar), and Minangkabau are common in ancient Thai documents.

During the reign of King Narai (1656-1688), a few hundred
Makassarese fled Makassar when the Dutch took the sultanate in
the late 1660s and went to Ayudhya and was given a plot of land
next to the Malay quarter.

The early 15th century Majapahit poems of love and heroism,
called Panji, which were popular as far away as Malaysia and
Cambodia, also made their way to Thailand in the middle of the
18th century, according to Withaya Sucharithanarugse.

He said that the most popular version of the story in Thai was
the composition of King Rama II (1809-1824) called Inao done in a
poem called klon.

"Thanks to Panji stories, some adapted Javanese terms are
found in Thai writings and parlance, especially the direct terms
of tunangan (engagement), raden (sir), bunga (flower), and bulan
(moon)," Sucharithanarugse said.

Royal Thai dignitaries visiting Indonesia, especially Java,
was also nothing unusual. The first official mention of such a
visit was of King Rama V (1868-1910) who visited Java in 1870,
1896 and 1901.

Sucharithanarugse said that the first royal visit covered a
journey from Batavia to Semarang, Central Java, after which the
king sent a bronze elephant statue to Batavia as a souvenir,
which now stands in front of the National Museum in Jakarta.

"After his return, the Dutch authority sent him a number of
statues and stone carvings from Borobudur, which are now kept in
Bangkok Museum," he added.

Strong relations between the two countries continue to the
present time, and "it must also be recorded that president
Abdurrahman Wahid visited Thailand three times during his short
term of office," Sucharithanarugse said.