Latest / The Srivijaya Empire: Southeast Asia's Forgotten Maritime Superpower — Fexingo History / Srivijaya's Coinage: The Forgotten Currency of Southeast Asian Trade
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Srivijaya's trade networks, its naval power, its Buddhist connections. But there's something that underpinned all of that, something that archaeologists have found scattered across Sumatra and beyond: their coinage. Luna: I don't think we've ever mentioned coins before. What did Srivijayan money look like? Lucas: The most famous type is called the 'sandalwood flower' coin. They're small gold and silver discs, about the size of a fingernail, stamped with a simple but elegant design: a four-petaled flower that looks like a sandalwood blossom. That's where the name comes from. Lucas: These coins are known in Malay as 'mas' — literally 'gold' — and they were the standard currency across much of the Malay world for centuries. The design is remarkably consistent, which suggests they were minted under central authority, probably in Palembang itself. Luna: Were they used just for local trade, or did they travel? Lucas: Oh, they traveled. Hoards of these sandalwood flower coins have been found as far away as the Philippines, Thailand, and even in Chinese ports. The weight was standardized around 2.4 grams for the gold version, which matched the Indian 'masha' — that's no coincidence. Srivijaya was plugged into the Indian Ocean economy, and their coinage was designed to be compatible. Lucas: There were also silver and base-metal versions. The silver ones were probably used for larger transactions, while tin and copper coins — like the ones found at Muaro Jambi — were everyday small change for buying food or paying for services. Luna: So they had a whole monetary system. How do we know so much about it? Lucas: A lot comes from the Chinese records. The Tang dynasty official history, the 'Xin Tang Shu', mentions that Srivijaya sent tribute to the imperial court, and part of that tribute was gold and silver coins. The Song dynasty texts go into more detail. The 'Zhu Fan Zhi' by Zhao Rugua describes the currency of Srivijaya explicitly: he says they use a gold coin called 'mas' and a silver coin, and that the exchange rate was fixed. Luna: Fixed exchange rate — that's pretty sophisticated for an empire that didn't have a central bank. Lucas: Exactly. It shows strong state control over the economy. But there's a mystery here: we have thousands of these coins from museum collections, but very few have been found in controlled archaeological excavations. That's partly because the Musi River in Palembang is still a major site for treasure hunters, and many coins have been looted. Lucas: The sandalwood flower coin is the best known, but there's another type: the 'tin tree' or 'tin hat' money. These are conical lumps of tin, sometimes with a hole in the top, that were used as currency in the region. They might be a precursor to the coinage system, or they might have been used alongside the gold and silver coins. Luna: Tin hat money sounds like something from a fantasy novel. Lucas: It does. They've been found at Muaro Jambi and other sites, and they might have been produced locally. Tin was abundant in the region — the Malay Peninsula and the islands were some of the world's largest tin producers. So it made sense to use it as a medium of exchange. Lucas: Now, what's really interesting is that the sandalwood flower coinage seems to disappear around the 11th century, which coincides with the Chola raids and the decline of Srivijaya's power. After that, we see a shift to Chinese-style cash coins in the region, brought in by Song traders. Luna: So the coins tell the story of the empire's rise and fall. Lucas: They do. And there's one more thing: the design of the sandalwood flower itself. Some scholars think it's not actually a sandalwood flower but a stylized representation of a lotus, a Buddhist symbol. That would tie the coinage directly to the Mahayana Buddhist identity of the Srivijayan kings. Lucas: If that's true, then every time a merchant paid for goods with one of these coins, they were handling a piece of royal propaganda — a reminder that Srivijaya was a Buddhist state, blessed by the gods and worthy of trust in trade. Luna: That's a beautiful way to think about it. A coin as a symbol of faith and power. Lucas: It really is. And it's a reminder that even the smallest objects can carry huge stories. So next time you see a coin, think of the Srivijayan traders passing those little gold discs across the deck of a perahu, and the world of connections they represented.