The Sambas finds in relation to the problems of Indo-Malaysian art development
H.G. Quaritch Wales published this article in 1949, using the recently recovered Sambas bronze hoard from West Borneo to argue that early Hindu-Buddhist art in Borneo developed under direct Indian influence rather than through Javanese mediation, and that a distinctive Indo-Bornean architectural tradition emerged in the seventh century before declining around the eleventh.
Summary
Wales organises the Sambas hoard chronologically, beginning with two standing Buddhas of Gupta style (not earlier than the seventh century) that confirm the presence of direct Indian settlers in West Borneo, corroborated by the Batu Pahat rock inscriptions. The centrepiece of the article is the bronze incense burner, which Wales dates to the seventh or early eighth century and identifies as evidence of an independent Indo-Bornean architectural school. The object takes the form of a South Indian sanctuary-tower casket (comparable to examples in the Madras Museum and a roof fragment from Kedah), but its most striking feature is the substitution of fighting cocks for the peacocks that normally mark Subrahmanya temples—or, alternatively, for the Garudas of Visnu, a reading supported by the turtle feet of the base. Wales links this substitution to the pre-Indian Dong-Son and Han cultural substratum of Borneo, noting the parallel accentuation of roof angles seen in Cham architecture. Crucially, he demonstrates the complete absence of Indo-Javanese architectural features: the waggon roof, free-standing pillars, and chaitya-arch-on-pillars motif are all unknown in Java.
The later group of seated Buddhas and Bodhisattvas (late eighth to ninth century) prompts Wales’s most sustained theoretical argument. He challenges the prevailing “Javacentric” assumption that bronzes from Sumatra, Malaya, and Borneo resembling Central Javanese products must derive from Javanese influence, citing Heine-Geldern’s warning against mistaking the first-discovered region for the centre of diffusion. He further revises Bernet Kempers’s 1933 conclusions on Pala influence, conceding that specialized Pala markers (ear-loops, shawl forms, throne arrangements) are absent from typical Indo-Malaysian images, but arguing that a generalized Pala influence is nonetheless present, superimposed on a complex of Pallava and Gupta elements. The rejection of certain Pala features, he contends, reflects the conserving action of earlier South Indian (Pallava) preferences and deep-rooted Indonesian aesthetic norms. Wales coins the term “Indo-Malaysian” for this class of statuary, which cuts across his earlier distinction between eastern and western zones of Greater India.
Finally, Wales addresses the fate of Indo-Bornean art after the ninth century. He suggests that the absence of stone or brick temple remains indicates that Borneo never sustained a wealthy state capable of monumental construction, and that Indo-Bornean architecture may have remained in wood or semi-perishable materials. The twelfth-to-thirteenth-century Chinese account of Po-ni (north-west Borneo) by Chau Ju-kua, describing a reed-covered pagoda-like shrine containing two pearls as the “Sacred Buddha,” supports the picture of a modest and declining religious culture. Wales closes by noting that the survival of Dong-Son designs in modern Dayak art and the “late megalithic” wood sculpture identified by Heine-Geldern point to a post-decline revival of pre-Indian cultural forms, a process he expects Harrisson’s megalithic discoveries in Central Borneo will soon illuminate.
Key Findings
- The two standing Buddhas are of Gupta style and not earlier than the seventh century; they confirm direct Indian (not Javanese) religious influence in West Borneo, consistent with the Batu Pahat rock inscriptions (pp. 23–24).
- The bronze incense burner is dated to the seventh or early eighth century A.D.; its waggon roof, free-standing pillars, and chaitya-arch-on-pillars motif are architectural features never found in Java, establishing the absence of Indo-Javanese influence (pp. 24–25).
- The substitution of fighting cocks for peacocks (or Garudas) at the roof corners is linked to the Dong-Son and Han cultural substratum of Borneo, with a parallel in the upward-angled bulls of the Cham temple Po Klaung Garai (pp. 23–25).
- The seated Buddhas and Bodhisattvas belong to the late eighth or ninth century and exhibit a generalized Pala influence superimposed on Pallava and Gupta elements, rather than the specialized Pala features identified by Bernet Kempers (pp. 27–29).
- Chau Ju-kua’s twelfth-to-thirteenth-century account of Po-ni describes the “Sacred Buddha” as two pearls housed in a reed-covered, multi-storey pagoda-like building, indicating the decline of figurative religious art in north-west Borneo by that period (p. 31).
- The Mt. Kombeng cave hoard in East Borneo contains images of varying quality, some approaching Central Javanese standards and others showing iconographic errors and maladroit modelling, suggesting second-hand knowledge of Indian canons and supporting the case for direct (rather than Javanese-mediated) Indian influence on the Sambas figures (p. 27).
Conclusion
Wales’s definitive takeaway is that the Sambas finds demonstrate Borneo possessed an independent trajectory of Hindu-Buddhist artistic development, initiated by direct Indian contact in the seventh century and expressed through a local genius of Dong-Son and Han character, rather than being a peripheral recipient of Javanese cultural output. The absence of monumental remains is attributed to the lack of a sufficiently wealthy Bornean state, and the subsequent decline of Indo-Bornean art around the eleventh century gave way to a revival of pre-Indian megalithic traditions.
Context
- The article draws on the Sambas hoard (then in the possession of the author or a private collection), the Kedah roof fragment (previously published in JMBRAS Vol. XVIII, Pt. 1, Plate 18), Madras Museum caskets, and the Mt. Kombeng cave images; it engages directly with Bernet Kempers’s 1933 monograph and Heine-Geldern’s 1948 article on cultural diffusion.
- Wales’s broader theoretical framework—his distinction between “eastern zone” and “western zone” of Greater India and his concept of “local genius”—is developed in his 1948 JRAS article “Culture Change in Greater India,” to which this piece is a companion application.