Questions for shaffer's article on southernization answers

Discussion Questions

Southernization

LYNDA SHAFFER

Tufts University

TxE term southernization is a new one. It is used here to referto a multifaceted process that began in Southern Asia and spread from there to various other places around the globe. The process included so many interrelated strands of development that it is impossible to do more here than sketch out the general outlines of a few of them. Among ehe most important that will be omitted from this discussion are the metallurgical, the medical, and the literary. Those included are the development of mathe- matics; the production and marketing of subtropical or tropical spices; the pioneering of new trade routes; the cultivation, pro- cessing, and marketing of southern crops such as sugar and cot- ton; and the development of various related technologies.

The term southernization is meant to be analogous to westerni- zation. Weseernization refers to certain developments that first occurred in western Europe. Those developments changed Eu- rope and eventually spread to other places and changed them as well. In the same way, southernization changed Southern Asia and later spread eo other areas, which then underwent a process of change.

Southernization was well under way in Southern Asia by the fifth century e.E., during the reign of India's Gupta kings (320-535 c.E.). It was by that time already spreading to China. In the eighth century various elements characteristic of southernization began spreading through the lands of the Muslim caliphates. Both in China and in the lands of the caliphate, the process led to dra- matic changes, and by the year iaoo it was beginning to have an impact on the Christian Mediterranean. One could argue that

Jrnernal of World History, Vol. 9, No. r O iggq by University of Hawaii Press

JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING 1994.

within the Norehern Hemisphere, by this time the process of southernization had created an eastern hemisphere characterized by a rich south and a north that was poor in comparison. And one might even go so far as to suggest that in Europe and its colonies, the process of southernization laid the foundation for westerniza- tion.

THE INDIAN BEGINNING

Southernization was the result of developments that took place in many parts of southern Asia, both on the Indian subcontinent and in Southeast Asia. By the time of the Gupta kings, several of its constituent parts already had a long history in India. Perhaps the oldest strand in the process was the cultivation of cotton and the production of cotton textiles for export. Cotton was first domesti- cated in the Indus River valley some time between a3oo and z76o s.c.E.,l and by the second millennium B.c.E., the Indians had begun to develop sophisticated dyeing techniques.z During these early millennia Indus River valley merchants are known eo have lived in Mesopotamia, where they sold cotton textiles.3

In the first century e.E. Egypt became an important overseas market for Indian cottons. By the next century there was a strong demand for these textiles both in the Mediterranean and in East Africa,4 and by the fifth century they were being traded in South- east Asia.S The Indian textile trade continued to grow throughout the next millennium. Even after the arrival of European ships in Asian ports at the turn of the sixteenth century, it contin- ued unscathed. According to one textile expert, "India virtually clothed the world" by the mid-eigheeenth century.6 The subconti-

~ Andrew Watson, Agricultural bmovatioxi in the Early Islamic World: The Dif- fusion of Crops and Farming Techniques, yoo—i roo (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press,i983)~ P• 32•

2 Mattiebelle Gittinger, Master Dyers to the World: Technique and Trade in Early Indian Dyed Cotton Textiles (Washington, D.C.: Textile Museum, i98z), p. sq. For a discussion of the significance of cotton textiles in Indonesia, see Gittinger, Splendid Symbols: Textiles aiud Tradition iti htdonesia (Washington, D.C.: Textile Museum, ig~q). ' Moti Chandra, Trade and Ti•ade Routes of Ancient India (Ne~v Delhi: Abhinav

Publications, i977)~ P• 35• ~ Ibid., p, za6. 5 Gittinger, Splendid Symbols, pp. i3> 19. 6 Ibid., p. z5.

Shaffer: Southernization

vent's position was not undermined until Britain's Industrial Rev- olution, when steam engines began to power ehe production of cotton textiles.

Another strand in the process of southernization, the search for new sources of bullion, can be traced back in India to the end of the Mauryan Empire (32i—z85 B.c.E.). During Mauryan rule Sibe- ria had been India's main source of gold, but nomadic distur- bances in Central Asia disrupted the traffic between Siberia and India at about the time that the Mauryans fell. Indian sailors then began to travel to the Malay peninsula and the islands of Indone- sia in search of an alternative source,? which they most likely "discovered" with the help of local peoples who knew the sites. (This is generally the case with bullion discoveries, including those made by Arabs and Europeans.) What the Indians (and oth- ers later on) did do was introduce this gold to international trade routes.

The Indians' search for gold may also have led them to the shores of Africa. Although its interpretation is controversial, some archaeological evidence suggests the existence of Indian influence on parts of East Africa as early as 30o c.E. There is also one report that gold was being sought in East Africa by Ethiopian merchants, who were among India's most important trading part- ners. The sixeh-century Byzantine geographer Cosmas Indico- pleustes described Ethiopian merchants who went to some loca- tion inland from the East African coast to obtain gold. "Every other year they would sail far to the south, then march inland, and in return for various made-up articles they would come back laden with ingots of gold."$The fact that the expeditions left every other year suggests that it took two years to get to their destina-

7 Paul Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese: Studies in the Historical Geography of the Malay Peninsula Before A.D. r$oo (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973)> p. z88.

8 D. W. Phillipson, "The Beginnittgs of the Iron Age in Southern Africa," in UNESCO General History of Africa, vol, z: Ancient Civilizations of Africa, ed. G. Mokhtar (Berkeley: University of California Press, i98i), pp. 6~g-8o, 688—go. In the same volume, see also M. Posnansky, "The Societies of Africa South of the Sahara in the Early Iron Age," p. ~z6. Phillipson indicates that there is evidence of exchange between Zimbabwe and the coast in this early period, and Posnansky refers to the work of R. F. H. Summers who believes that early prospecting and mining techniques in East Africa reveal Indian influence. The description of Ethio- pian merchants seeking gold in East Africa is from Steven Runciman, Byzantine Style and Civilization (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, i975)> P• 132• Informa- tion about the monsoon is from A. M. H. Sheriff, "The East Africa Coast and Its Role in Maritime Trade," in Ancient Civilizations of Africa, ed. Mokhtar, pp. 556-57•

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Lion and return. If so, their destination, even at this early date, may have been Zimbabwe. The wind patterns are such that sailors who ride the monsoon south as far as Kilwa can catch the return monsoon to the Red Sea area within the same year. But if they go beyond Kilwa to the Zambezi River, from which they might go inland to Zimbabwe, they cannot return until the following year.

Indian voyages on the Indian Ocean were part of a more gen- eral development, more or less contemporary with the Mauryan empire, in which sailors of various nationalities began to knit together the shores of the "Southern Ocean," a Chinese term referring to all the waters from the South China Sea to the eastern coast of Africa. During this period there is no doubt that the most intrepid sailors were the Malays, peoples who lived in what is now Malaysia, Indonesia, the southeastern coast of Vietnam, and the Philippines.9

Sometime before 30o s.c.E. Malay sailors began to ride the monsoons, the seasonal winds that blow off the continent of Asia in the colder months and onto its shores in the warmer months. Chinese records indicate that by the third century s.c.E. "Kunlun" sailors, the Chinese term for the Malay seamen, were sailing north to the southern coasts of China. They may also have been sailing east to India, through the straits now called Malacca and Sunda. If so they may have been the first to establish contact between India and Southeast Asia.

Malay sailors had reached the eastern coast of Africa at least by the first century s.c.E., if not earlier. Their presence in East African waters is teseified to by the peoples of Madagascar, who still speak a Malayo-Polynesian language. Some evidence also sug- gests that Malay sailors had settled in the Red Sea area. Indeed, it appears that they were the first to develop along-distance trade in a southern spice. In the last centuries s.c.E., if not earlier, Malay sailors were delivering cinnamon from South China Sea ports to East Africa and the Red Sea,lo

By about 40o c.E. Malay sailors could be found two-thirds of

9 Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, r45o—r68o, a vols. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, x988-93)~ I~4~

'o Keith Taylor, "Madagascar in the Ancient Malayo-Polynesian Myths," in Explorations in Early Soti~theast Asian. History: The Origins of Southeast Asian Statecraft, ed. Kenneth Hall and John Whitmore (Ann Arbor: University of Michi- gan, Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, 1976), p. 39. An excellent source on the early spice trade is James Innes Miller, The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire, zg s.C. to A.D. 649 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, x969).

Shaffer: Southernization

the way around the world, from Easter Island to East Africa. They rode the monsoons without a compass, out of sight of land, and often at laeitudes below the equator where the northern pole star cannot be seen. They navigated by the wind and the stars, by cloud formations, the color of the water, and swell and wave pat- terns on the ocean's surface. They could discern the presence of an island some thirty miles from its shores by noting the behavior of birds, the animal and plant life in the water, and the swell and wave patterns. Given their manner of sailing, their most likely route to Africa and the Red Sea would have been by way of the island clusters, the Maldives, the Chagos, the Seychelles, and the Comoros.11

Malay ships used balance lug sails, which were square in shape and mounted so that they could pivot. This made ie possible for sailors to tack against the wind, that is, to sail into the wind by going diagonally against it, first one way and then the ocher. Due to the way the sails were mounted, they appeared somewhat trian- gular in shape, and thus the Malays' balance lug sail may well be the prototype of the triangular lateen, which can also be used to tack against the wind. The latter was invented by both the Polyne- sians to the Malays' east and by the Arabs to their west,1z both of whom had ample opportunity to see the Malays' ships in action.

It appears that the pepper trade developed after the cinnamon trade. In the first century e.E. southern India began supplying the Mediterranean with large quantities of pepper. Thereafter, Indian merchants could be found living on the island of Socotra, near the mouth of the Red Sea, and Greek-speaking sailors, including the anonymous author of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, could be found sailing in the Red Sea and riding the monsoons from there to India.

Indian traders and shippers and Malay sailors were also responsible for opening up an all-sea route to China. The traders' desire for silk drew them out into dangerous waters in search of a more direct way to its source. By ehe second century e.E. Indian merchants could make the trip by sea, but the route was slow, and it took at least two years to make a round trip. Merchants leaving from India's eastern coast rounded the shores of the Bay of Bengal. When they came to the Isthmus of Kra, the narrowest

11 Taylor, "Madagascar," pp. 3o-31> 52• 1z George Hourani, Arab Seafaring in the hidian Ocean in Ancient and Medie-

val Titnes (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, i95r), p. ioz.

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part of the Malay peninsula, the ships were unloaded, and the goods were portaged across to the Gulf of Thailand. The cargo was then reloaded on ships that rounded the gulf until they reached Funan, a kingdom on what is now the Kampuchea-Viet- nam border. There they had to wait for the winds to shift, before embarking upon a ship that rode the monsoon to China.13

Some time before 40o c.E. travelers began to use a new all-sea route to China, a route that went around the Malay peninsula and thus avoided the Isthmus of Kra portage. The ships lefe from Sri Lanka and sailed before the monsoon, far from any coasts, through either the Strait of Malacca or the Strait of Sunda into the Java Sea. After waiting in the Java Sea port for the winds to shift, they rode the monsoon eo southern China.l~ The most likely developers of this route were Malay sailors, since the new stop- over ports were located wiehin their territories.

Not until the latter part of the fourth century, at about the same time as the new all-sea route began to direct commercial traffic through the Java Sea, did the fine spices—cloves, nutmeg, and mace—begin to assume importance on international markets. These rare and expensive spices came from the Moluccas, several island groups about a thousand miles east of Java. Cloves were produced on about five minuscule islands off the western coast of Halmahera; nutmeg and mace came from only a few of the Banda Islands, some ten islands with a total area of seventeen square miles, located in the middle of the Banda Sea. Until i62r these Moluccan islands were the only places in the world able to produce cloves, nutmeg, and mace in commercial quantities.ls

The Moluccan producers themselves brought their spices to the international markets of the Java Sea ports and created the mar- ket for them.16

It was also during the time of ehe Gupta kings, around 35o c.E., that the Indians discovered how to crystallize sugar.i~ There is considerable disagreement about where sugar was first domesti-

13 Kenneth Hall, Maritime Trade and State Formation in Southeast Asia (Hono- lulu: University of Hawaii Press, ig85), p, zo.

I~ Ibid., p. ~z. 15 Henry N. Ridley, Spices (London: Macmillan, i9ra), p. io5. 16 Hall, Maritime Trade and State Formation, p. zi. 17 Joseph E. Schwartzberg, A Histortcal Atlas of South Asia (Chicaga Univer-

sity of Chicago Press, iq~8). The date 35o c.a. appears in "A Chronology of South Asia," a pocket insert in the atlas.

Shaffer: Southernization

Gated. Some believe that the plant was native to New Guinea and domesticated there, and others argue that it was domesticated by Southeast Asian peoples living in what is now southern China.18 In any case, sugar cultivation spread to the Indian subcontinent. Sugar, however, did not become an important item of trade until the Indians discovered how to turn sugarcane juice into granu- lated crystals that could be easily stored and transported. This was a momentous development, and it may have been encouraged by Indian sailing, for sugar and clarified butter (ghee) were among the dietary mainstays of Indian sailors.19

The Indians also laid the foundation for modern mathematics during the time of the Guptas. Western numerals, which the Euro- peans called Arabic since they acquired ehem from the Arabs, actually come from India. (The Arabs call them Hindi numbers.) The most significant feature of the Indian system was the inven- tion of the zero as a number concept. The oldest extant treatise that uses the zero in the modern way is a mathematical appen- dix attached to Aryabhata's text on astronomy, which is dated 499

c.E.zo

The Indian zero made the place-value system of writing num- bers superior to all others. Without it, the use of this system, base ten or otherwise, was fraught with difficulties and did not seem any better than alternative systems. With the zero the Indians were able to perform calculations rapidly and accurately, to per- form much more complicated calculations, and to discern mathe- matical relationships more aptly. These numerals and the mathe- matics that the Indians developed with them are now universal —just one indication of the global significance of southernization.

As a result of these developments India acquired a reputation as a place of marvels, a reputation that was maintained for many

18 For a discussion on its domestication in southern China by the ancestors of the Southeast Asians, see Peter Bellwood, "Southeast Asia before History," in Nicholas Tarling, ed., Cambridge History of Southeast Asia (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, i99z), i:qo—qz. Also see Sidney W. Mintz, Saveetness and Poaver: The Place of Stcgar in Modern. History (New York: Viking, i985)> P• 19. Mintz agrees with those who argue that sugar was domesticated in New Guinea. He also suggests that crystallized sugar may have been produced in India as early as 400- 35o s.c.E.

19 Chandra, Trade and Trade Routes of Ancient India, p. 6z. 20 Georges Ifrah, From One to Zero: A Universal History of Numbers, trans.

Lowell Blair (New York: Viking, i985)> PP• 38z, 434• This is an excellent book that explains many mysteries and contradictions in the literature. Even those who are not mathematically inclined will enjoy it.

H JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY SPRING IO94

centuries after the Gupta dynasty fell. As late as the ninth century `Amr ibn Bahr al Jahiz (ca. ~~6-868), one of the most influential writers of Arabic, had the following to say about India:

As regards the Indians, they are among the leaders in astronomy, mathematics—in particular, they have Indian numerals—and medicine; they alone possess the secrets of the latter, and use them to practice some remarkable forms of treatment. They have the art of carving statues and painted figures. They possess the game of chess, tivhich is the noblest of games and requires more judgment and intelligence than any other. They make Kedah swords, and excel in their use. They have splendid music.... They possess a script capable of expressing the sounds of all languages, as well as many numerals. They have a great deal of poetry, many long treatises, and a deep understanding of philosophy and let- ters; the book Kalila wa-Dimna originated with them. They are intelligent and courageous.... Their sound judgment and sensi- ble habits led them to invent pins, cork, toothpicks, the drape of clothes and the dyeing of hair. They are handsome, attractive and forbearing, their women are proverbial, and their country pro- duces the matchless Indian aloes which are supplied to kings. They were the originators of the science of filer, by which a poison can be counteracted after it has been used, and of astronomical reckoning, subsequently adopted by the rest of the world. When Adam descended from Paradise, it was to their land that he made his way. 21

THE SOUTHERNIZATION OF CHINA

These Southern Asian developments began to have a significant impact on China after 35o c.E. The Han dynasty had fallen in a2i c.E., and for more than 35o Years thereafter China was ruled by an ever changing collection of regional kingdoms. During these cen- turies Buddhism became increasingly important in China, Bud- dhist monasteries spread throughout the disunited realm, and cultural exchange between India and China grew accordingly.zz

By 58r, when the Sui dynasty reunited the empire, processes asso- ciated with southernization had already had a major impact on

zt `Amr ibn Bahr al Jahiz, The Life and Worlu of Jahiz, trans. from Arabic by Charles Pellat, trans. from French by D. W. Hauler (Berkeley: University of Cali- fornia Press, i969)> PP• 197-9$•

~~ See Liu Xinru, Ancient India and Ancient China: Trade and Religious Exchanges, n.D. r—boo (Delhi: Oxford University Press, ig88).

Shaffer: Southernization

China. The influence of southernization continued during the Tang (6z8—gob) and Song (96o—ra79) dynasties. One might even go so far as to suggest that the process of southernization underlay the revolutionary social, political, economic, and technological devel- opments of the Tang and Song.

The Chinese reformed their mathematics, incorporating the advantages of the Indian system, even though they did not adopt the Indian numerals at that eime.23 They then went on to develop an advanced mathematics, which was flourishing by the time of the Song dynasty.2̀ ~ Cotton and indigo became well established, giving rise to the blue-black peasant garb that is still omnipresent in China. Also in the Song period the Chinese first developed cot- ton canvas, which they used to make a more efficient sail for ocean-going ships,zs

Although sugar had long been grown in some parts of southern China it did not become an important crop in this region until the process of southernization was well under way. The process also introduced new varieties of rice. The most important of these was what the Chinese called Champa rice, since it came to China from Champa, a Malay kingdom located on what is now the southeast- ern coast of Vietnam. Champa rice was adrought-resistant, early ripening variety that made it possible to extend cultivation up well-watered hillsides, thereby doubling the area of rice cultiva- tion in China.26 The eleventh-century Buddhist monk Shu Wen- ying left an account explaining how the Champa rice had arrived in China:

Emperor Cheng-tsung [Zhengzong (998—zozz)], being deeply con- cerned with agriculture, came to know that the Champa rice was drought-resistant and that the green lentils of India were famous for their heavy yield and large seeds. Special envoys, bringing pre- cious things, were dispatched [to these states], with a view to securing these varieties... ,When the first harvests were reaped in the autumn, [the emperor] called his intimate ministers to taste

23 ffrah, From One to Zero, p. 46r. z~ Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, 6 vols. to date, vol. 3:

Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and Earth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, r959)> PP• 4~-5~•

25 Lo Jung-pang, "The Emergence of China as a Sea Power during the Late Sung and Early Yuan Dynasties," Far Eastern Economic Revieav r4 ~1955)~ 500.zb Ho Ping-ti, "Early-Ripening Rice in Chinese History," Economic History Revieav 9 (1956): zoi.

IO JOURNAL OF ~~✓ORLD HISTORY, SPRING 1994.

them and composed poems for Champa rice and Indian green lentils.z7

In southern China the further development of rice production brought significant changes in the landscape. Before the introduc- tion of Champa rice, rice cultivation had been confined to low- lands, deltas, basins, and river valleys. Once Champa rice was introduced and rice cultivation spread up the hillsides, the Chi- nese began systematic terracing and made use of sophisticated techniques of water control on mountain slopes. Between the mid- eighth and the early twelfth century the population of southern China tripled, and the total Chinese population doubled. Accord- ing to Song dynasty household registration figures for z zo2 and nio—figures that Song dynasty specialists have shown to be reli- able—there were zoo million people in China by the first decade of the twelfth century.28

Before the process of southernization, northern China had always been predominant, intellectually, socially, and politically. The imperial center of gravity was clearly in the north, and the southern part of China was perceived as a frontier area. But southernization changed this situation dramatically. By 600, southern China was well on its way to becoming the most prosper- ous and most commercial part of the empire.29 The most telling evidence for this is the construction of the Grand Canal, which was completed around 6ro, during the Sui dynasty. Even though the rulers of the Sui had managed to put the pieces of the empire back together in 58r and rule the whole of China again from a sin- gle norehern capital, they were dependent on the new southern crops. Thus it is no coincidence that this dynasty felt the need to build a canal that could deliver southern rice to northern cities.30