ABSTRACT
When the Dutch and the English signed an international agreement in 1824 drawing the boundaries between their respective spheres of influence in the Indo-Malaysian archipelago, the repercussions extended beyond the political and economic arenas. Political borders came to delimit the extent of historical investigations, resulting in artificial divisions of subjects. For many Malaysians the story of the Malays begins with Melaka at the beginning of the fifteenth century, ignoring the ancient and glorious heritage of Srivijaya in southeast Sumatra between the seventh and the eleventh centuries. Srivijaya is located in present-day Indonesia and is therefore regarded as belonging properly to the sphere of ‘Indonesian’ history. Indonesians themselves view Srivijaya as part of an older Sumatran-Java rivalry with barely a mention of its links to the Malay Peninsula.
