Pre-Islamic Empires in the Malay world: a comparative analysis of Srivijaya and Majapahit (original) (raw)

The venture into the pre-Islamic empires in the Malay world often seen as gaining impulse in Sumatran kingdom Srivijaya between the 7th and 14th centuries which was a major maritime empire, later on succeeded by the Javanese kingdom of Majapahit until the middle of 15th century. Both empires enjoyed their pinnacles via dominating sea route trade of Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, Java and Borneo. True enough, like most of Southeast Asian nations in the first millennium, the empires borrowed and adapted Indian culture and religion but with the native assimilation of the whole application. Hindusim was probably imbued with a variant of Mahayana Buddhism. The power struggle between them led the surviving Srivijayan prince founding the city of Melaka (Malacca) embraced Islam and embark on establishing a powerful centre of Islam and commerce in replace of those early but among most remembered empires before the dawn of Islam.