Chapter 13: The Graduation

 

The moon floated on the treetops. The palls of dark grey clouds drifted lazily across the star studded skies. The mountainside valley bathed in the glow of brilliant silver light.

Torches flamed and swayed on their stands, giving even more illumination. Prince Adhi Vira, also known as Chieftain Jati Perkasa among the warrior clans of the Langkasukan Federation, Lord of the Mountain to the most passionate of his own band of followers, looked at each of his students in turn. The man's easy laid back style and his perpetually calm visage often deceived many a beholder, for underneath that placid exterior lay a heart stouter than steel, with a strength and ferocity of spirit that forbade submission to any threat or intimidation.

Kembang Seri Wangi and her bosom sister Kenanga Sari sat huddled next to each other among the audience. Their sons were with them.

"Father did not fight this afternoon," young Shakranta observed wryly. "Uncle Utih and Uncle Uda neither."

"They're instructors, Tata," Kembang Seri Wangi patted her now eight year old son's shoulder. "The contest was only for graduating trainees. For assessing their proficiency."

"When can I start learning to fight, Mother?" the boy continued.

"You already have, haven't you?" his mother responded. "You brawl and wrestle with Dika every day." She poked a finger gently in the rib of Andhika, Kenanga Sari's son and Shakranta's closest friend. Andhika flinched in ticklishness.

"I mean fighting in the proper way, Mother."

"Umm, another couple of years or so, perhaps?" Kembang Seri Wangi looked at the boy. "When your bones and muscles are a bit stronger. Then Uncle Pinang and Uncle Nibung could start training you."

"I shall train with Tata," Andhika, spoke. "We shall be fight partners."

"As long as you two don't end up bashing each other's heads in," the boy's mother interjected.

"Haven't you two ever taken part in a contest before?" Shakranta looked at his mother, then Kenanga Sari."

"Oh yes, we have, Tata," Kenanga Sari replied. "Four years ago. In the ladies' division, of course. You boys were both too young to remember."

"How did you two perform then?" asked Andhika.

"Your Aunt Wangi was champion, naturally," Kenanga Sari smiled. "She nearly killed me in the final round."

"So you were first runner up then, Aunt Kenanga," Shakranta noted.

"And she almost killed me too," Kembang Sari Wangi chuckled.

 

The graduation ceremony proceeded smoothly. Every trainee looked cheerful and happy, eagerly anticipating the next agenda, the official graduation address.

"A speech, Master!" a student screamed. "We want a rousing speech!"

"A story, Master!" another one yelled. "A motivational story!"

"All right, all right,” responded Adhi Vira. "You're all looking so excited and energised. I just can't disappoint you now then, can I?"

"Attaboy!” A youth shouted. His friends clapped and applauded even louder.

"Langkasuka Adhi Negara," Adhi Vira began his long awaited address, "also called Langkasuka Maha Mandala. An ancient federation of kingdoms encompassing the neck and shoulders of the Golden Peninsula. A land as splendid as its name, where has stood several proud kingdoms since the ancient past. With Kedah Negara, Patani Seri Negara and Kelantan Amdan Negara as core member kingdoms, Gangga Negara, Terengganu Primula Negara and Pahang Indera Pura as associate kingdoms, and Gelanggi Ayu further to the south as an allied kingdom."

For thousands of years this Golden Peninsula had been the bridge between Suvarna Bhumi, the Golden Continent and Suvarna Dvipa, the Golden Islands. Making it the land route for migrants and travellers, from the continent seaward to the islands, or from the islands landward to the continent. Subsequently, as folks learnt to civilise and live in peace with one another, trading and interacting between themselves, so rose kingdoms in the north and east of the Golden Peninsula, which then allied among themselves into the federation called Langkasuka, and their lands became a preferred shortcut for many traders, merchants, travellers and adventurers journeying between the east and the west.

The sailors depended on the seasonal winds. The ones departed from Sri Lanka or southern Hindustan came with the south-west monsoon in the third and fourth months. Those who left from China rode the north-east monsoon toward the end of the year.

They made the lands of Langkasuka their place of transit or refuge while waiting for the winds to change direction, or for their passengers, the traders and the merchants, to finish selling or buying their goods. Those from the west sheltered in Kedah Negara, while those from the east harboured themselves in Patani Seri Negara or Kelantan Amdan Negara.

The lands of Langkasuka had as its tribes the Mala, the Mon and the Khmer, each with their own numerous clans. Whereas, thousands of years beforehand, they had been just one tribe, one race, one nation. Their ancestors called themselves by just one name, Mal or Mala, a word of Pali origin which meant 'mountain'. That was because their earliest ancestors were folks of the mountains, who had come from the southern parts of a land named Yunnan, around the lowest easternmost slopes of the Himalayas, the source of three great rivers flowing into the lands of Suvarna Bhumi, the Golden Continent, namely the Salween, the Ayeyar Waddy and the Mekong.

When their forebears were still living in Yunnan, they often met and mixed with another mountain tribe who came as adventurers or traders from the other side, the western side, of the Himalayas, the Kambhoja. They were variously also called Kumara, Kamira, Kamuya or some other similar name. Conversely, the Mala themselves also travelled to other people's lands for trade or adventure.

The upper reaches of the Ayeyar Waddy, Salween and Mekong rivers at their Himalayan source then became regular meeting points between two mountain tribes, the Mala and the Kambhoja, on the journey of the Kambhoja to Yunnan or that of the Mala to the lands of the Kambhoja. The close friendly relations between the two led to numerous mixed marriages between their people, which gave rise to even more numerous offspring of mixed Mala-Kambhoja ancestry.

Thousands of years passed. The Mala tribe expanded into multitudes, and they branched out into many clans. The tribes in the northern parts, in the uppermost river valleys, began to call themselves Mon, because that was the way they spoke the word Mal or Mala. While the southerners among them, who kept moving further and further down the valleys, southward and seaward, kept their old name Mala.

To cut a long story short, the Mon remained in the upper and central regions of the river valleys, while the Mala gradually shifted lower and lower down those valleys. A part of them then swept east and southeast, over time calling themselves Khmer, in remembrance of the ancient names Kumara or Kamira, the portion of their ancestors famed since antiquity for their courage and valour in battle.

Adhi Vira paused and surveyed, gauging the focus of his students.

"Hey, friends!” one of them yelled. "Only now I know that our ancient ancestors were named Mala!"

"Me too!" another screamed. "So the Mon and the Khmer are our cousins! Isn't that amazing?"

"The Mala who moved earlier to the south and south east eventually reached the coastal areas of Suvarna Bumi, the Golden Continent, including a peninsula extending far southward toward Suvarna Dvipa, the Golden Islands, the peninsula later named the Golden Peninsula," Adhi Vira continued. "They carved kingdoms out of swaths of jungle that they cleared, they crowned their chiefs as kings. Some of those kingdoms they named Mala Yu, which meant Mala Country. Over time they themselves became known to others by the name of the country that they had founded, and eventually they just became the tribe named Malayu."

The Malayu tribes expanded further and split up into even more tribes. A portion of them remained in the coastal areas of Suvarna Bhumi and the entire Golden Peninsula. While another portion, desiring even more challenge and adventure, sailed out across the seas and settled in the many islands of Suvarna Dvipa, the Golden Islands, where they lived alongside and interbred with the pre-existing native tribes of the islands.

The portion that remained in Suvarna Bhumi and the Golden Peninsula called themselves Malayu of the Mountains, in remembrance of their ultimate ancient origins, although many of them had now learned to live by the coasts and sail the seas. While the part that migrated across the seas called themselves Malayu of the Islands. For a long while they and their earliest descendants both remembered their past common ancestry, and the two groups remained on friendly terms with each other. 

"Yay!" a student shouted. "This is great stuff, Master. Continue, please."

"Thus it went,” Adhi Vira paced through his audience. “the lands of Langkasuka Adhi Negara continued to be inhabited by tribes of Malayu, Mon and Khmer, in addition to the tribes who had already lived there long before they came. Of the Malayu, the majority comprised the Malayu of the Mountains, but among them also lived Malayu of the Islands who had recently migrated, or rather returned to the homeland of their own ancient ancestors."

Because of its blessed land, regularly showered by blessed rain and occasionally flushed by swollen rivers, its soil always remained fertile. Other than that, its earth was also endowed with precious metals. While its fitting location, straddling the neck and shoulders of the Golden Peninsula, made it a worthy route of choice for sailors, traders and merchants. Thus Langkasuka was always a land hotly contested by powerful neighbours. Like a beautiful maiden whose hand was sought by many admirers.

A youth whistled aloud. Some colleagues repeated after him.

Because of that also, the lands of Langkasuka became a mixing pot for the seed of great conquerors. Which began when they came invading and conquering, then marrying local princesses as part of a post-conquest peace deal.

Thereby arose in the lands of Langkasuka princes descended from Khouroush the Great and Yazdegerd I of Persia, Fan Shih Man of Funan, Buddha Gupta of the Gupta Federation, some say even Ashoka Maurya of Magadha. From their seed, in turn, sprang the ancient kings of Tambra Linga, Kedah Negara, Gangga Negara, Patani Seri Negara and Amdan Negara.

"But the memories of men can be quite shortlived," Adhi Vira's voice began to rise with emotion. "They forget so quickly the origins of their own ancestors. Sometimes even the generals and the kings among them!"

When they get comfortable with their positions in the new kingdoms they have built, they return to the homelands of their own ancestors, to sack, pillage and plunder the kingdoms of their own cousins!

As time passed, the fates that befell the lands of Langkasuka, the glorious heritage of our ancestors, seemed to indicate that it had fallen under some curse. The curse of conquest, occupation and oppression. Because the peoples of the different kingdoms of the lands of Langkasuka often fought amongst themselves, because they seemed to have a strange inherent resistance against unity and cooperation between themselves, they fell prey to attack and conquest by foreign invaders. First by the Khmer of Chenla, then the Mon of Dvara Vati, and finally by their own closest cousins from across the Saberkas Straits, the Malayu of the Islands.

One by one the invaders came. Pillaging and plundering silver and gold from our earth, and treasures of nature from our forests. Now, for two centuries, the Malayu of the Islands have ransacked the wealth of the Malayu of the Mountains. Robbing everything of value and destroying everything else. Charging high taxes on the profits made by our ports and our merchants, and on the harvests obtained by our farmers.

They have contaminated our land with their greed and their violence. Our native kingdoms have all collapsed from their rapacious gluttony. While the highborns among our peoples kept fighting one another, the peasants who served them ended up as the worst victims of the conflict and the carnage.

Even since the times of the Kushan and the Gupta in Hindustan, many centuries before the rise of Palembang in Sumatra and Sailendra in Java, the peoples of the lands of Langkasuka have learned to live in civilised ways, in kingdoms with laws and kings. Sadly, however, for the last two centuries, the past glories of our native Langkasukan kingdoms have been buried in the dust, forgotten almost completely, while only the pride and splendour of Palembang Srivijaya has been displayed, admired and celebrated.

Now the peoples of Langkasuka have had enough. They are tired of being suppressed, of having their lands plundered. So often have they and their ancestors risen against their conquerors. So often also have they been defeated. Because their enemies have always been so much stronger. Such that every time they rose, the conquerors would surely come to smash them, to vanquish them, to pillage again, to destroy.

Oh how the peoples of Langkasuka have longed to taste true freedom. To be sovereign in the fullest meaning of the word. As sovereign as their overlords. Unfortunately, however, that dream, sweetest of all dreams, have still remained only a dream.

For three centuries, beginning from the invasion of Fan Shih Man, Langkasuka remained under the sway of Funan. For the next two and a half centuries, it came under constant invasions by the Khmer of Chenla who had conquered Funan. Now for two centuries it had been conquered and occupied by Palembang Srivijaya.

Now we are the Malayu of the Mountains, the sons of the original, homestaying Mala. While our conquerors are the Malayu of the Islands, the offspring of the migrant Mala. Now the Islanders think we Mountainmen will forever be their conquered vassals. Aah, but how wrong they are. When our survival is badly threatened, we Mountainmen retreat to the mountains. For the mountains will always be our final fortress. The place where we can farm, forage or fish in peace, and sow and grow our resistance without disturbance.

"Hear, hear!" another youth shouted. "The Sons of the Mountains shall always be invincible in the mountains!"

As I have always said, it is not that we hate, or even dislike, all Palembangians, or all Sumatrans, let alone all Islanders. Anyone can come to our lands to trade or to sojourn for a while, or even to settle permanently and become inhabitants of Amdan Negara, or any other part of Langkasuka. We can accept that. But if what they come here for is to conquer, to occupy, to plunder, and to lord it over us, is that something we should happily aquiesce with?

"Not a chance, Master!" someone replied aloud.

"No fawning to foreigners in one's own turf," another roared.

"Only we shall be the lords in our own lands," yet another one bellowed.

There might be some among us, tired, weary and exhausted after so much persecution, who would say 'Oh, what is wrong with the weak yielding to the strong, as long as they're willing to protect us, as long as we're allowed to live in peace?' But what meaning is there in that peace if it comes at the cost of our honour and our pride? To me, that only means we reward our conquerors for not killing, not injuring and not abusing yet more of us. That would only make them look down on us even more. They'll only continue to see us as inferior weaklings incapable of rising and fighting back. They'll only continue to kill us, injure us and abuse us anytime they feel like it!

“Very true, Master!”

There is only one option. There is only one solution. Our conquerors must continue to be fought and resisted, until eventually they fall, whatever it takes!

"We're all ready, Sir!" a young girl screamed. "We shall lay down our lives for Amdan Negara!" her friend shouted.

Remember always you all, that you're the sons and daughters of Langkasuka Adhi Negara, the children of the soil, the flowers of the tribe, the cream of the motherland, the true heirs of the Golden Peninsula. By that, therefore, on you rest the hopes and dreams of our people, to fight to restore the freedom and sovereignity of our lands and our nation!

For centuries have our lands been conquered, subjugated, pillaged and plundered, and our ancestors' dignity tainted and molested. Now it's about time that we, their progeny, rise to fulfil our noble duty to fight, to beat and to oust the foreign plunderers and pillagers from these lands of our ancestors! We do not know how long this struggle will take, when it will end or how it will end. But still, struggle we must, while pain and hurt shall not daunt us, fatigue and exhaustion shall not stop us, weariness and difficulty shall not bother us!

Our kingdom that have long fallen, our beloved Amdan Negara, we do not yet know when it will rise again. But I shall never give up the hope that, one day, with your bravery and your strength, we the Sons of the Mountains shall defeat and destroy our allies turned conquerors, our friends turned foes, the Malayu of the Islands, our cousins who have robbed us of our milennia old ancestral lands!!!

"Long live Amdan Negara!!!" a hundred young voices roared in unison, their hearts aroused, their spirits inflamed. A tear rose in the eye of many an elder among the watching audience.

Such was the passionate address of Adhi Vira, beginning with a storyteller's  patient retelling of the remarkable history of an ancient tribe, ending with a warrior's spine tingling oratory exhorting his young followers to ready themselves for a long hard fight against foreign conquerors.

"But remember," Adhi Vira's voice dropped low. "Don't any of you ever think that a real world battle will play out anything like in the contest that you just saw this afternoon. Far from that, it will be much rougher, much tougher, and much uglier."

"How, Master?"

"In a real battle, you will feel all kinds of emotions surging in you, either one after another or all at once. Fear, confusion, disgust, anxiety, vagueness. Pride, worry, passion, amazement, apprehension or whatever. Each may flow and ebb, and rise and fall, and crest and trough, in you without respite. The sights, sounds and smells of death will ache your eyes, pain your ears and reek in your noses. You have to rise above them all and keep your mind on your foes, which you will do better with practice and experience. Just one moment of distraction, however, and you are done." The youths fell silent.

"Are you scared?"

"No, Master!!!"

"Are you willing?"

"Yes, Master!!!"

"Are you ready?"

"Yes, Master!!!"

"Bravo! Bravo! That's the warrior spirit that must always reside in all of you!"

"Won't we get any chance to experience a small battle first, Sir?" someone asked.

"You will, fortunately," Adhi Vira smiled. "I have information that Biduk Bota is planning to make another raid into our mountains soon. We shall give his men a hot reception. You will all be welcome to your first taste of a skirmish."

"Now we come to the time we've all been waiting for," Adhi Vira guided the ceremony to its last stage. "The year's best trainee awards!"

"Yay! Yay!" the youngsters shrieked.

"The joint third placing goes to ... Dani Cendana and Buluh Padu!”

"Attaboy, Dani Cendana!" someone yelled. "Hooray, Buluh Padu!” another shouted.

"The first runner up is ... Pinang Jingga!”

"Hooray!!” more youngsters screamed, building the ambience into another crescendo.

"Bravo, Pinang Jingga,” Utih patted his head. 

"And finally ... the keenest, bravest, fiercest fighter, our champion of the year is ... Nibung Ulung!"

One hundred trainee's voices plus that of the watching crowd bellowed in applause. Then they clapped their hands in thunderous approval.

"Bravo!! Bravo!!" his friends surged toward him, lifted him and held him aloft in celebration.

"Bravo, Cousin!” Pinang Jingga, who had fought and lost to Nibung Ulung in the final deciding round, shook his hand.

"Congratulations, Nibung!” another friend ran and jumped onto his back.

"You were brilliant, Nibung," yet another one gushed. "You can marry my sister if you want."

"Be careful what you say, my friend," Nibung Ulung teased. "I might take you up on it."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that then. I'd be proud to have you as a brother in law. I'd feel secure too." The youngster replied in sportive good humour. Nibung Ulung guffawed.

§

Adhi Vira's work in training up his seniormost students had for several years been assisted by his Bhangali son in law Prabhava, now his right hand man. Combining the fighting arts that both men had learnt fom their youthhood to their adulthood, either picked up during their sojourns in distant places or taught to them by foreign adventurers or merchants who had travelled to their lands. Making the set of skills imparted to the youths by the two even more complete.

From Adhi Vira was passed down the arts of silat and staff fighting. He also taught the indigenous four limb boxing art of Amdan Negara. The folks called it spelek in their native tongue, but Adhi Vira thought that the name came from the ancient Mala phrase spei leth. Augmented with some bokator and pradal serey which he had learnt from a Khmer wanderer from Sambhu Pura, and a bit of wushu which had been taught to him as youngster by a Chinese traveller from Shandong.

While Prabhava instructed the youngsters in the best of what he had learnt in kalari payattu, malyutham and silambattam during his travels in Kerala, plus some mukti yuddha which he had picked up in Magadha. 

Most of the youngsters under Adhi Vira's charge had only heard vague tales from their elders about their fallen ancient kingdom of Amdan Negara. Nonetheless, their zeal and passion to one day stake their lives to regain that kingdom from foreign usurpers had remained warm in them, only waiting to one day be lit up into open flames.

"The foundation of all fighting arts is fighting without weapons," Adhi Vira wiped his forehead.

"Why is it so, Master?" asked a youngster.

"Because the only weapons we're all born with are our hands, arms, elbows, legs and feet. And our heads."

"Could you explain that further, Sir?" enquired another youngster.

"Does a bull need anyone to teach it how to fight?"

"No, Master," someone replied. "A bull can fight without being taught. It just comes naturally."

"And what about you?" Adhi Vira continued. "Could you fight by silat, or spei leth, without being taught?"

"No, Sir. To fight properly, I have to learn."

 

"Obviously now, men are unlike the beasts. For reasons which may not be so clear to us. Perhaps it's because men have learned to live for so long, for many thousands of years, in peace and good relations among themselves, in big tribes, without needing to constantly fight and beat one another up. Such that we now have to learn again to do something which would have come naturally to our ancient ancestors, in order to do it well enough to defend ourselves, our families and our friends when necessary. But then, once we've learned and trained to fight to a certain level of skill, we begin to be able to progress and develop further on our own, mainly by fighting acording to our own natural instincts. Then we become, again, like the beasts, who do not need anyone to teach them."

"Now I'm confused, Sir," Dani looked apprehensive.

"Don't you worry too much, Dani," Adhi Vira comforted him, "Just keep training and fighting, and one day you will understand."

"Other than that," Prabhava added, "a true fighter must still be able to fight and kill even without a blade. Because it can happen that during a fight his kelewang breaks, his keris gets lodged in something, or he is otherwise disarmed."