and his name appeared in an inscription on copper found on the old site of the addition he made to the monastery in Nalanda. (De Casparis, 1956).42)
After Rakai Pikatan there were several kings in Central Java who were either his descendants or their successors. Their inscriptions appeared until the beginning of the 10th century. Then suddenly after the last inscription of 929 there were no more Royal charters in Central Java, instead, there were the first inscriptions of King Sindok in Eastern Java. Several scholars have speculated about this sudden transfer of Royal power. Van Bemmelen 43) attributed this situation to a volcanic eruption at the time when Dharmawangsa's palace was attacked by the king of Wurawari who came from Luaram. Schrieke44) considered that the exhaustion of the population who had to carry the burdens of excessive temple building was the cause of the transfer o f power eastwards. De Casparis45 suggested that the reason was a fear of the Sailendras, who had been expelled from Java, and the consideration that trade would be more profitable in the Brantas Delta, which was nearer the spice and sandalwood islands. According to De Casparis:
”East Javanese merchants went to Eastern Indonesia exchanging Javanese rice and other products with spices and sandalwood. They took it to Sriwijaya, where they met foreign merchants, and they exchanged their wares with foreign goods, such as gold, silk and porcelain from China, robes from India, incense from Arab countries, etc. This kind of trade made East Java prosperous”.
De Casparis overlooked one point. If the Sailendras were feared, how could the merchants from Eastern Java trade with Sriwijaya, which was ruled by the Sailendras after the Sailendra prince Balaputra had been expelled by his own sister Pramodhawarddhani and his brother-in-law, Rakai Pikatan in 856?
Moreover, Java and Sumatra were always struggling for hegemony and for the trade with China.
Their missions never overlap, as Wolters remarked.46) Sriwijaya (She-li-foche) sent missions from 670 to 742, Java (Ho-ling) in 640, 648 and 666, and again as Ho-ling from 768-818. Afterwards, under the name of She’-p’o (Java sent missions from 820 till 873. Sriwijaya (San-Fo-ts’i) sent missions from 904 to 983 and often there-after. There were even six missions between 960 and 988. A mission then came from Java in 992, after which the missions ceased for another 100 years. From Sriwijaya arrived missions between 1003 and 1008. Thus the absence of missions from Java (873 - 992) is in the period when the transfer of capital took place and the kings from Sindok to Dharmawangsa ruled East Java. The reasons for this transfer of power could have been: 1) a natural disaster, 2) political reasons.38
