1 - Across the Southern Seas: Premodern Nusantara and the Maritime Asian Network of Buddhist Tantra

My presentation will survey recent research highlighting the pivotal role of Nusantara as a crossroads of Tantric Buddhist networks across the vast geographical area of Maritime Asia throughout the medieval period, from ca. the 7th to the 14th century CE. It will propose a historical periodization of the circulation of Buddhist Tantra in two ‘waves’, and suggest that the adoption of forms of Mahāyāna Buddhist Tantra in the region was mainly due to the royal elites’ sponsorship of itinerant Buddhist masters who plied the maritime routes connecting South and East Asia, and who offered royals Tantric rituals of initiation, protection, etc. Covering the period of ca. 700 years going from the kingdom of Śrīvijaya in Sumatra and the Śailendra dynasty in Central Java to the East Javanese Rājasa dynasty of Siṅhasāri and Majapahit and the late Sumatran kingdom of Ādityavarman, the presentation will highlight the cosmopolitan nature of Buddhist Tantra in Nusantara, and the creative role played by agents from/in the region in fostering innovations that may have influenced Buddhist paradigms in the wider Buddhist World. Having described the maritime circulation of agents and artefacts across the vast yet interconnected geographical area of Maritime Asia, my presentation will attempt to capture the spatial, temporal, and social dynamics linking seemingly disconnected actors, geographies, objects, and discourses, and propose to reframe these transactions as multi-centric, multi-directional transcultural flows, not only across geographical boundaries, but also social and linguistic milieus.