Dharmasetu was an 8th-century
maharaja of
Srivijaya
Srivijaya ( id, Sriwijaya) was a Buddhist thalassocratic empire based on the island of Sumatra (in modern-day Indonesia), which influenced much of Southeast Asia. Srivijaya was an important centre for the expansion of Buddhism from the 7th t ...
. Under his reign, he successfully incorporated
Pan Pan, a kingdom located in the north of the
Malay Peninsula
The Malay Peninsula (Malay: ''Semenanjung Tanah Melayu'') is a peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area ...
, into the Srivijayan sphere of influence before 775 AD.
At an old monastery of
Nakhon Si Thammarat in modern-day
Thailand, there is a
stele
A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...
indicating that Dharmasetu ordered the construction of three sanctuaries dedicated to
Bodhisattvas Padmapani,
Vajrapani and
Buddha in Ligor.
The inscription further states that the Dharmasetu was the head of the Sailendra of
Java. This is the first instance of relationship known existed between Srivijaya and the
Sailendra.
Dewi Tara, the daughter of Dharmasetu, later married a member of the Sailendra family by the name of
Samaratunga who later assumed the throne of Srivijaya around 792.
The relationship between Srivijaya and the Sailendra became intimately close afterwards.
He was succeeded by his son-in-law Sangramadhananjaya, around 782.
References
Srivijaya
Shailendra dynasty
Indonesian Buddhist monarchs
8th-century Indonesian people
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