Classical Era of Southeast-Asia

Classical Era in Southeast-Asia

Hey there! Peter here! I read quite a lot of this book now. Throughout the book, I would like to tell you a concise history of southeast-asia from what I've read chronologically. My first post will be about the Classical Era in southeast-asia. Here's a map of modern Southeast-Asia:

The classical era is when Southeast-asia came into existence with the birth of 'civilisations'. There are two different part of Southeast Asia: Mainland (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar) and Maritime (Malaysia, Indonesia, Timor-leste and the Philippines). Please note that Singapore was not a country until the British came in the early 19th century. Each of these have completely different culture and way of life.

The classical era of Southeast Asia was based on two major empires; 

Khmer (Based on Cambodia but consisted most of southeast-asia) dominating the Mainland

Srivijaya (Part of Indonesia+Malaysia) dominating the Maritime world

Both of these are very powerful in their own way.

Khmer was rich in culture. The main religion back then was hinduism. The temples had a very unique style of architecture which still stood until the modern times. While Greece and Rome are dominating the European scene, the Khmer remained rather peaceful and focused on religion and tradition. Khmer Empire ran with a system of absolute monarchy (King is always in charge) unlike Rome and Greece. The Khmer culture is heavily influenced by the indian culture. This is called 'indianization'. The cities are also very clean because they had canals running through them. However, their trade routes are very small and limited since the empire is based on land. This caused the empire to be low in terms of money. This factor also led to its downfall after the Thais took advantage of this weakness and annihilated the entire empire (sorry Arthur). However, the Khmer culture lived on inside the Thai Kingdom.

Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Srivijaya was the opposite of the Khmer empire. It wasn't rich in culture but extremely rich in terms of money, since it dominated the maritime world. The trade routes from China+Japan to India had to pass through the strait of Malacca (inside the Srivijaya empire). The empire was diverse in religion since many traders came to trade there. There are muslims, hindus and buddhists living in the empire. The empire lasted longer than the Khmers but fell when the European powers came to dominate the region.

Strait of Malacca and trade routes into Srivijaya