| It may one day be shown by
students of prehistory that Indonesians were sailing to other parts of Asia long ago.
Records of foreign trade, however, begin only in the early centuries AD. A study of the
Roman historian Pliny the Elder's Natural History suggests that, in the 1st century AD,
Indonesian outriggers were engaged in trade with the east coast of Africa. Indonesian
settlements may have existed at that time in Madagascar, an island with distinct
Indonesian cultural traits. The geographer Ptolemy, in the following century, incorporated
information from Indian merchants in his Guide to Geography concerning
"Iabadiou," presumably referring to Java, and "Malaiou," which, with
its variants, may refer to Malayu in southeastern Sumatra. Regular voyages between
Indonesia and China did not begin before the 5th century AD. Chinese literature in the 5th
and 6th centuries refers to western Indonesian tree produce, including camphor from
northern Sumatra, and also to two resins that seem to have been added to the seaborne
trade in western Asian resins and were known in China as "Persian resins from the
south ocean." Indonesian shippers were probably exploiting the economic difficulties
southern China was suffering at the time because it had been cut off from the ancient
Central Asian trade route. Certain small estuary kingdoms were beginning to prosper as
international entrepôts. Their location is unknown, though Palembang's commercial
prominence in the 7th century suggests that the Malays of southeastern Sumatra had been
active in the "Persian" trade with southern China.
River rock with name and 'footprints' of Purnawarman,
ruler of the 5th century Tarumanegara. West-Java.
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