Now that my mind has re-oriented and I can see that Sanfoqi was Angkor, there is so much that needs to be re-researched. There are the Chola attacks on “Srivijaya” for instance, and so much more.

However, I am going to stop posting on this topic here, as I think I have presented enough information to make my point. But obviously, everything that I have written points to one major question, and that is: How could this have happened? How could so many scholars over such a long time period produce knowledge about a place that didn’t exist?

It is pretty clear to me to see how that happened.

Colonial-era scholars did incredible work, but there are also serious limitations to their scholarship. However, I don’t think many people today understand what those limitations were.

As scholarship on Southeast Asia transitioned from the work of colonial-era scholars to the work of “Southeast Asianists” based at Western universities, it became fashionable to critique colonial-era scholars for being “Eurocentric.” However, that is not the real problem with colonial-era scholarship.

When you really dig in and look closely at what colonial-era scholars did with sources, you can see problems with their logic. They connected information that we can’t realistically connect and looked for information that the sources do notcontain. So in the case of “Srivijaya,” for instance, George Cœdès made a grammatical argument about a 775 AD Sanskrit inscription in southern Thailand to declare that a word in a 686 AD Old Malay inscription found on the island of Bangka off the southern coast of Sumatra should be understood to signify a kingdom.

Wow!!

To see the real problems in the work of Cœdès requires that one have enough linguistic knowledge to be able to follow what he said, and to follow up on what he said and investigate the matter further.

That is precisely what O. W. Wolters did not possess. Wolters did not possess a linguistic ability in any language that enabled him to move beyond the work of colonial-era scholars. Instead, through his prolific writings on “Srivijaya,” he solidified flawed colonial-era scholarship.

As for the many other scholars who have researched “Srivijaya,” I would argue that they have all relied in one way or another on Cœdès and Wolters.

Experts on Old Malay inscriptions assume that Wolters knew what he was talking about when he made reference to the Chinese sources. Chinese history scholars who investigated Southeast Asian history assumed that Cœdès and Wolters must have at least gotten the basics right – that there was a maritime kingdom on Sumatra called “Srivijaya.”

At the same time, I think all of those scholars have encountered many questions in conducting their research.

The epigraphers of Old Malay wonder why this “maritime empire” left behind such meager evidence and the historians who possess knowledge of Chinese wonder why there are so many small confusing passages and details that don’t match with the idea that Sanfoqi is “Srivijaya.”

Meanwhile, yet others have wondered why the Arabic term “Zabag” doesn’t seem to refer to “Srivijaya” either.

So people have had questions, but they’ve assumed that Cœdès and Wolters must have known what they were talking about. Unfortunately for us, however, they didn’t.

What is fortunate though, is that the digital age has made it possible to “accelerate” research. Over the past two weeks, I have been able to quickly do things that would have taken much longer in the pre-digital age.

At the same time, having some degree of knowledge of multiple languages (Chinese, Thai, Khmer, Sanskrit, French) was also essential. Indeed, one of the things I have realized is that I never would have been able to figure out what I did if I could only work with one foreign language.

So “Srivijaya” is going to have to leave us. However, it is fascinating to see what will replace it. Certiainly a new chapter in the history of Angkor and the Chamic kingdoms of the Mekong Delta is waiting to be explored.

I’m sure that there are many other topics that will emerge as scholars re-orient their perspective and see Sanfoqi as Angkor.