Srivijaya (c. 7th–13th century) was a maritime empire centered on Sumatra that commanded key chokepoints and grew rich by servicing, taxing, and protecting the trade that passed between China and India. It was also a major center of Mahayana Buddhist learning. The entry's purpose is to explain what kind of power a thalassocracy was — and how a state this important could be largely forgotten and then pieced back together from scattered evidence.
For centuries, almost no one knew Srivijaya had existed. It left no grand ruins to match Angkor or Borobudur. Its capital's location is still debated. Then, in 1918, a French scholar reading old Chinese records and weathered stone inscriptions realized they all pointed to the same lost empire — one that had commanded one of the medieval world's most important maritime corridors for six hundred years. This is the story of a power that ruled the water, and of how it was found again.