Kantoli was an ancient kingdom suspected to be located somewhere between
Jambi and
Palembang in southern
Sumatra around the 5th century of the
common era
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the o ...
.
The Sanskrit name for this polity is Kuntala.
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
records indicate that "
Sanfotsi was formerly called Kantoli" and this as well as the location of the kingdom have led historians to consider Kantoli as the predecessor of
Srivijaya.
Srivijaya was referred to as Sanfotsi by the Chinese.
During the reign of the
Liu Song Dynasty
Song, known as Liu Song (), Former Song (前宋) or Song of (the) Southern Dynasty (南朝宋) in historiography, was an imperial dynasty of China and the first of the four Southern dynasties during the Northern and Southern dynasties period ...
, Kantoli sent several embassies to China.
Trade between the two kingdoms were established and this granted Kantoli with great wealth through heavy dependency on volume from China.
With the conquest of Song by the
Sui Dynasty, volume of trade dwindled due to the new ruler's austerity.
The emperor banned all luxurious items in the courts which coincidentally were supplied by many, including Kantoli.
Sri Varanarendra, king of Kan-t'o-li, sent the Hindu Rudra on an embassy to China between 454 and 464. His son, Vijayavarman, did the same in 519.
Origins
According to S.Sartono (1992), there were difficulties for merchant ships to dock at the port of Muara Tebo as a result of
siltation
Siltation, is water pollution caused by particulate Terrestrial ecoregion, terrestrial Clastic rock, clastic material, with a particle size dominated by silt or clay. It refers both to the increased concentration of suspended sediments and to the ...
in the bay. As a result, the port could no longer function as an ocean port. Koying State, the ruler of the Wen Bay region, was thus forced to move the trading port to the East Coast of what is now the
Kuala Tungkal area.
Ultimately, Koying State released the east coast area and encouraged the formation of a new government called Kantoli (Kuntal). This occurred around the 5th century of the common era. Following the formation of Kantoli, the new kingdom maintained good relations with Koying.
See also
*
History of Indonesia
References
Precolonial states of Indonesia
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