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.