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( Srivijaya)
Srivijaya, Sriwijaya, Shri Bhoja[citation needed], Sri Boja or Shri Vijaya (200s[citation needed]-1300s[1]) was an ancient Malay[2] kingdom on the island of Sumatra which influenced much of the Malay Archipelago. Records of its beginning are scarce while estimations range from the 3rd to 5th centuries CE[citation needed], but the earliest solid proof of its existence dates from the 7th century; a Chinese monk, I-Tsing, wrote that he visited Srivijaya in 671 for 6 months;[3][4] the Kedukan Bukit Inscription is dated 683.[5] The kingdom ceased to exist between 1200 and 1300 due to various factors, including the expansion of Majapahit.[1] In Sanskrit, sri means "shining" or "radiant" and vijaya means "victory" or "excellence". [6] After Srivijaya fell, it was largely forgotten and so historians had never considered that a large united kingdom could have been present in Southeast Asia. The existence of Srivijaya was only formally suspected in 1918 when French historian George Coedès of the École française d'Extrême-Orient postulated the existence of the empire.[6] Around 1992 and 1993, Pierre-Yves Manguin proved that the centre of Srivijaya was along the Musi River between Bukit Seguntang and Sabokingking (situated in what is now the province of South Sumatra, Indonesia).[6] There is no continuous knowledge of Srivijaya in Indonesian histories; its forgotten past has been recreated by foreign scholars. No modern Indonesians, not even those of the Palembang area around which the kingdom was based, had heard of Srivijaya until the 1920s, when French scholar George Coedès published his discoveries and interpretations in Dutch and Indonesian-language newspapers.[7] Coedès noted that the Chinese references to "Sanfoqi", previously read as "Sribhoja", and the inscriptions in Old Malay refer to the same empire.[8] Srivijaya became a symbol of early Sumatran greatness, and a great empire to balance Java's Majapahit in the east. In the twentieth century, both empires were referred to by nationalist intellectuals to argue for an Indonesian identity within and Indonesian state prior to the Dutch colonial state.[7]
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