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View all search resultsHerald van der Linde brings Sriwijaya’s maritime world to life
Through the journeys of a Buddhist monk, the rise of port cities and the movement of goods and ideas, the Dutch historian traces the networks that connected ancient Sumatra to the wider world.
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Tracing ancient ties: Historian and author Herald van der Linde (right) delivers a presentation on Sept. 26, 2026, during the launch of his book Srivijaya at the National Museum in Central Jakarta, describing how Chinese monk Yijing documented the Buddhist empire on present-day Sumatra while journeying to India. (JP/Nur Janti)
Nur Janti
The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
More than 1,300 years ago, a Chinese Buddhist monk named Yijing embarked on a journey to India to deepen his knowledge of Buddhism. His travels took him through Sumatra, where he found a thriving center of Buddhist learning that would leave a lasting impression on his account of the region.
In the seventh century, Yijing stopped in Palembang and Muaro Jambi to study Buddhism and Sanskrit before continuing to Nalanda, a renowned Buddhist monastic center in India. He later returned to Sumatra, bringing with him Buddhist texts that he translated into Chinese.
Sanskrit, a classical Indo-Aryan language, had become an important language of religion, scholarship and elite culture across parts of Asia, spreading alongside Hinduism and Buddhism. Its presence in Sumatra reflected the island’s connections to wider intellectual and religious networks.
Yijing’s accounts describe a community of monks studying Buddhist texts and Sanskrit in the region, offering an early glimpse of Sumatra’s role in the circulation of knowledge across Asia.
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