The civilisation of ancient Java was among the wealthiest of premodern Southeast Asia, attested by the major temple complexes of Borobudur and Prambanan, the vast hoard of golden artefacts at Wonoboyo, among other evidence.
Event details
Time: 9:30-11:00am WIB // 12:30-2:00pm AEST
Join in-person: McDonald Room, Menzies library, ANU
Join online: bit.ly/ISG_indonesiaproject
About the seminar
The civilisation of ancient Java was among the wealthiest of premodern Southeast Asia, attested by the major temple complexes of Borobudur and Prambanan, the vast hoard of golden artefacts at Wonoboyo, among other evidence. The monumental architecture of ancient Java was underpinned by a complex economic system, which we can reconstruct only through a limited corpus of primary sources from the period. Such sources consist mainly of official documents inscribed on stone and metal. These inscriptions reveal the central importance of the institution of the benefice (sīma), a bounded piece of land whose revenue and labour was diverted to a specific beneficiary, often a religious foundation. Many questions remain about the fiscal system of ancient Java, and how it interacted with the royal government, agricultural land use, and commercial trade. This talk investigates these questions about the Javanese economy through a study of the benefice as it evolved over eight centuries. It therefore offers a long-term context for an understanding of Indonesian economic history, as well as inviting engagement from a variety of disciplines to help develop, for the first time, an integrated account of the ancient Javanese economy.
Event Speakers
Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan
Dr Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan is a historian of Southeast Asia, specialising in premodern Indonesia. He researched the inscriptions and manuscripts of the archipelago to find new ways of understanding the region’s peoples. He teaches the Indonesian language and Southeast Asian history. He is currently a Lecturer at the Australian National University.