Jain thought stressed a spatial boundlessness in which the universe contained both known and unknown universes.22 Hindu traditions stressed the infiniteness of time, illustrated by the concept of mahakal, the 'time which lies beyond knowable time', while space was often bounded to reflect the spheres of influence (kshetra) of various manifestations of the Hindu concept of god. For followers of the faith, the concept of boundlessness imparted a sense of profound wonder and humility; it may also, on occasion, have assisted those responsible for preserving and propagating the faith to explain such problematic logistical questions as the whereabouts of gods and deceased souls.
Early Indian instructional texts, compiled over a period of several hundred years and known as the Purana, were principally devoted to the mysteries of the creation of the universe, rather than the genesis of humankind on earth. This less mortal-centric perspective probably contributed to a greater emphasis on metaphysical mapmaking in early Southeast Asia than in the West, where a philosophically-engendered geography, as epitomized by 'T-O' maps or Terra Australis, used the earth rather than the cosmos as its vehicle.
Indian and Southeast Asian thought regarding the actual Genesis was typical of what appears to have been a nearly universal concept. As with the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions which came later to Southeast Asia, Indian cosmogony envisioned the Creation as beginning with a formless seed material; the allegory of an egg, with its yolk surrounded by amorphous embryonic fluid, was a common and natural expression of this thought. This primordial matter gradually assumed the anatomy of the universe (or universes) through the combination of elemental materials formed in the first stage, as well as through the intervention of various agents and natural laws. Eventually, the original fertile substance became articulated with the stars, planets, and all other components of Creation.
In the pre-modern era, such a cosmography, with regional variations and nuances, was accepted both in Asia and in the West. In the West, it gradually lost favor when empirical resting and scientific methods became a new gauge of truth, but in Southeast Asia it remained until the pervasive Western influence of the latter nineteenth century. If the importation of Indian beliefs into Southeast Asia began as a means of legitimizing an Indian-style political system, then Indian influence may have to some extent dampened empirical cartography in Southeast Asia.
Indian-derived Southeast Asian thought envisioned a large cosmos with many universes. Earth and its universe was pivoted on Mount Sumeru, an axis-mountain of fabulous proportions in the Tibetan Himalayas or Central Asia, which we will see more of when we look at Southeast Asian cosmological maps. Water, mountains, and continents grew from this mountain-axis; the continents were arranged symmetrically like the petals of a lotus blossom, or as concentric circles of alternating seas and continents. The inhabited earth, called Jambudvipa, lay at the centre of this scheme of things, or otherwise constituted the southern 'petal', and contained the Bharatvarsha, which was the traditional territorial reach of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain cultures. In the nearest sea, called 'Salt Ocean' (Lavansagara), there was a continent, Angadvipa (dvipa ='land with water on two sides, or continent'), which may have represented Malaya, and Yamadvipa, which may have been Sumatra. Another 'continent' which is frequently cited in popular Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain writings is Suvarnadvipa, identified with Indochina, Sumatra, or Southeast Asia in general. In one Thai world view which evolved from this imagery, the earth was a Rat surface divided into four continents separated by unnavigable seas, the whole of which was encompassed by a high wall on which all the secrets of Nature were engraved; holy men agilely transported themselves to these walls to learn from its inscriptions.23
Fig. 8 Borobudur, from Thomas Stamford Raffles, The History of java (1817); the cosmic mountain axis, architecturally realised in stone.
The sense of humility imparted by concepts of temporal and/or spatial boundlessness nurtured a relatively equitable view of the worth of outside realms. This extended fully from other universes and other worlds, to foreign territories and cultures. In fact, as one moves outward from the jambudvipa [Indianized sphere] of Indian/Southeast Asian cosmology, the various terrae incognitae one encounters are not forbidding, but rather become progressively more sublime and idealized (though never reaching the status of the various heavens, which lie vertically 'above'). As a result, the Southeast Asian perspective of other peoples, and even bloody Southeast Asian conquest, were rarely characterized by the chauvinism of the 'Middle Kingdom' notions of the Han Chinese, or of the West's propensity for dividing the world into 'civilized' and 'savage' nations.
Earth and Geography
Throughout pre-modern Southeast Asia, the earth was presumed to be flat. In most regions this belief did not begin to fade until well into the nineteenth century, and in rural areas it could still be found even into the early twentieth century. Acceptance of the earth's sphericity had to overcome religious objections, since Buddhist scriptures contained readily-perceived contradictions to a spherical world that needed to be interpreted anew before the flat earth model could be respectfully discarded. A somewhat ironic parallel might be drawn with Medieval writers in the West who used the Bible to debunk the established Greco-Roman view of a spherical earth, although the Rat earth was a minority belief in medieval Europe. Both Christianity and Buddhism rationalized discrepancies between canon and science in similar ways: the scriptures were meant to be taken literally only when it came to matters of spiritual truth; details of natural science are revealed figuratively and allegorically. Perhaps Buddha knew that the people to whom he preached were not yet capable of understanding such fantastic notions as a spherical earth, so it was better that he left such spiritually irrelevant matters aside. To address them would only have distracted his followers from more important metaphysical truths.
The mechanical workings of the universe were rationally envisioned within the context of a flat earth. A representative Thai cosmographical text, the Traiphum, described a path between two mountain ranges through which the stars, planets, moon and sun pass "in an orderly fashion", thereby facilitating the calibration of time and the growth of astrological knowledge. In the words of the Traiphum, the celestial objects' flight through the valley "enables us to know the years and the months, the days and the nights, and to know the events, good and bad." This approach to explaining the mechanics of the universe is analogous to a medieval European concept of a mountain which facilitated night and day by forming a partition behind which the sun and moon disappear in the course of their travel.24
Fig. 9 Northern Thai map combining an itinerary relating to religious sites in India with cosmological concepts. (No date, but probably a twentieth century copy of earlier maps). [Courtesy of Cornell University Library]
Indigenous Southeast Asian thought imparted a consciousness of one's physical orientation on earth and in the universe, as regards the cardinal directions, as well as such semi-metaphysical concepts as earth and sky, inside and outside (one's abode), upstream (or upmountain) and downstream (or downmountain), or towards and away from the center of one's kingdom or territory. Later, Indian cosmological precepts were readily assimilated by Southeast Asian peoples, Sumeru becoming the anchor of the cardinal directions and the mandala symbolizing the kingdom and its center. As with other Asian civilizations, such concepts were often paralleled with male and female attributes.
For the typical peasant working the fields and harvesting the rivers, the 'world' probably amounted to such immediate concerns as the itinerary from home to field to market- as indeed it still does. The larger view was a more abstract, cosmological and spiritual matter. In this respect, the ordinary Southeast Asian was again, not so very different from his or her European contemporary. Mariners sailing on the open seas, boatmen shuttling up and down a river route, and hill people collecting produce for a central market, all perceived quite a different 'map' of the world. Those societies which were situated on major commercial arteries− for example the cosmopolitan Srivijaya kingdom which dominated