Dubious Scholarship, Some History Etc

Yesterday someone sent me an old news story.  Well, old meaning from 2015. It is a Berita Harian news report which talks about a local academic saying that the age of mankind is between 7000 to 8000 years old.

I checked for further clarifications but I could not find any. 

Here is the Berita Harian (click here) headline from 2015 :

The fellow who said this is not an anthropologist, an archaeologist or even a history professor. But that does not explain the non-science behind how he could come to such conclusions.

From time to time we do find local academics making claims that beguile most people.   

Do you recall another local professor who said something like this 'Malay genes are second oldest in the world'? I don't even know what that means. 

It was rebutted by some proper scientists. You can read about it here :  

https://www.malaymail.com/news/what-you-think/2018/08/04/rebutting-zaharah-sulaiman-on-malay-genes-second-oldest-in-the-world-maude/1659038

Again the professor who made the dubious claim was not a geneticist or even a scientist.  

Intelligent people were beguiled not just by the strange claims - which carries no real meaning -  but the training and the thinking behind these local academics that makes them say such things. It was not just what they had for breakfast.

Some years ago there was yet another local academic who made another dubious claim that the Bujang Valley civilisation in Kedah (Bhujangga means serpent) was not of Indian origin.   Instead it was of  "some" pagan civilisation ? 

Maybe a bunch of Martians stopped by to use the rest area in Merbok and built all those 'candi' in Sungai Batu? You know, just to lepak.

The longest empire (longer than the Roman Empire) to rule a huge swathe of territory was the Tamil Chola empire. The Tamil Cholas ruled from about 400 BC until almost 1300 AD - a time span of almost 1700 years (plus minus sikit lah). The most famous Tamil King was of course Raja Raja Cholan. 

Names like Chulia Street and Raja Chulan are obviously linked to the Cholas.

This map below shows the extent of their domains.

Tamil Chola Empire That Lasted 1,700 Years

In contrast the Roman empires (plural) - original, eastern and western - put together lasted less than 1400 years. 

Historians will argue if Thailand, Cambodia, all of Indonesia (especially Java, Sumatera and Borneo) and the Malay Peninsula were directly ruled or indirectly ruled by the Tamil Cholas.  

But what cannot be denied is that the long passage of time (over 1700 years) of Tamil influence in South East Asia has seen a great influence of the Tamil language and culture in South East Asia. Hence the huge preponderance of Tamil (writing and word usage) in Malay, Thai, Khmer, Javanese and other languages in SEA. 

For example in Tamil,  bhoomi means earth and putra means prince. 

Another example is Thailand where the Thai Kings have Tamil sounding names. King Bhumipol was actually King Rama IX. His siblings were Ananda and Kalyani. He had a daughter named Ratna. Indonesian President Sukarno also named his Japanese wife Ratna Sari Devi (the Queen of the Essence of Jewels).

Kutai Martadipura in East Kalimantan

Then in East Kalimantan the Indian-Hindu Kutai kingdom  ruled for almost 1000 years from 400 AD to about 1400 AD - coinciding with the Tamil Chola empire. (Hence the debates over direct rule or indirect rule by the Cholas). 

"Kutai Martadipura is a 4th-century or perhaps much earlier Hindu kingdom located in the Kutai area, East Kalimantan"

"Kutai Martadipura adalah kerajaan bercorak Hindu di Nusantara yang memiliki bukti sejarah tertua. Berdiri sekitar abad ke-4.Pusat Kerajaan ini terletak di Muara Kaman, Kalimantan Timur, tepatnya di hulu sungai Mahakam. Nama Kutai diberikan oleh para ahli mengambil dari nama tempat ditemukannya prasasti yang menunjukkan eksistensi kerajaan tersebut."

In Tamil pura (puram) means city or town. For example Ramnada-puram means Ramnad city or town. Martadi sounds too close to marat-tadi which means the 'base of a tree'.  

Here are some old yupa (inscribed stone pillars) that have been found in Kutai in East Kalimantan.

                                                        

As you can see that is certainly close to Tamil type writing. 

What is interesting to note is that despite the Kutai Martadipura Hindu kingdom's   presence in East Kalimantan for about 1,000 years (with its written record - for example that Tamil type script carved onto stones) the usage of this writing (and any other form of written language) disappeared with the disappearance of the Kutai Kingdom around 1400 AD. 

Which suggests that the people who inscribed those stones were actual Indian scribes and not native scribes.  (Because that particular written language also died out circa 1400 AD).  

The same for the Bujang Valley sites in Kedah where you can see similar South Indian writing inscribed onto the stones. 

In contrast you also have South Indian type writing on the stones in Angkor Watt in Cambodia. Here is an example :

The major difference is that today's modern Khmer and Thai writing is still derived from the Indian script.  For example this is the modern Thai alphabet :

Here is the modern Khmer alphabet :

And here is the Tamil alphabet  :

Akhir kalam, most certainly the Tamil Cholas did not imprint so much of their language and culture onto South East Asia in one week or in a few generations. 

Their presence throughout South East Asia from the Sulawesi to Vietnam, Thailand, Suwarna-bhoomi, Cambodia, Myanmar and back to India lasted from 400 BC to past 1300 AD - a span of more than 1700 years. 

My view is over the next 500 years the people who will leave their huge imprint on South East Asia will be the Chinese.