Water and rice in early Java and

Abstract

The management of water has deep historical roots in island Southeast Asia. The oldest manifestation of agricultural water management in the maritime region appears to have taken the form of modification of natural swamps. The earliest solid and detailed information concerning Javanese and Balinese rice-growing regimes is that found in historical sources. The most important of these sources are the several hundred surviving Old-Javanese and Old-Balinese language tax charters inscribed on stone or copper plates during the later first and early second millennia AD. Inscriptions indicate that, on both islands, states had a particular interest in encouraging communities to shift away from swidden-based dry-field agriculture towards greater investment of time and effort in creating bunded and irrigated wet-rice fields. The epigraphic record suggests that, by the ninth century, communities in the heartlands of central Java and southern Bali had come under pressure to intensify farming within their boundaries. Keywords: agricultural water management; Javanese rice-growing regimes; maritime region; Old-Balinese language tax charter