The Merchant and the King: Political Myths of Southeast Asian Coastal Polities

Abstract

1 From the unpublished Roolvink manuscript of the Siak Chronicle (Hikayat Akil), as quoted by A. C. Milner, Kerajaan: Malay Political Culture on the Eve of Colonial Rule (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1982), p. 26. It translates as ship was captured and 500,000 dollars and other goods were taken from it; then the prince [who had been responsible for obtaining the booty] became raja in Siantan. 2 Among other such studies dealing with Insular Southeast see J. Wisseman Christie, Markets and in Pre-Majapahit Java, in Economic Exchange and Social Interaction in Southeast Asia: Perspectives from Prehistory, History and Ethnography, ed. K. L. Hutterer (Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, 1977), pp. 197-212; J. Wisseman Christie, Raja and Rama: The Classical State in Early Java, in Centers, Symbols, and Hierarchies: Essays on the Classical States of Southeast ed. L. Gesick (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies Monograph 26, 1983), pp. 9-44; J. Wisseman Christie, Trade and State Formation in the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, 300 BC-AD 700, in The Southeast Asian Port and Polity: Rise and Demise, ed. J. Kathyrithamby-Wells and J. Villiers (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1990), pp. 39-60; P. Wheatley, Satyanrta in Suvarnadvipa: from Reciprocity to Redistribution in Ancient Southeast Asia, in Ancient Civilization and Trade, ed. J. A. Sabloff and G. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1975), pp. 227-83; P. Wheatley, Nagara and Commandery: Origins of Southeast Asian Urban Traditions (Chicago: University of Chicago Department of Geography Research Paper 207-208, 1983); 0. W. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce: A Study of the Origins of Sri Vijaya (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967); 0. W. Wolters, History, Culture, and Region in Southeast Asian Perspectives (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1982); A. Reid and L. Castles eds., Pre-Colonial State Systems in Southeast Asia (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1975).