Social Hierarchy of Majapahit

The army had two kinds of men: prajurit, professional soldiers, and levies taken from the peasants. Majapahit kept some 30,000 full-time troops, soldiers and commanders paid in gold, a standing army only a handful of Southeast Asian empires could hope to maintain. The regular infantry wore scale armour, the richer soldiers of higher rank an armour called kawaca, and war elephants carried nobles and soldiers of higher rank. The Bhayangkara, an elite guard, protected the king and the nobility. The navy, the wwang jaladhi, was a corps of its own with better facilities, sailing the great jong; under Gajah Mada the fleet used gunpowder weapons learned from the Yuan. Troops from subordinate lands fought beside the Javanese.

Moving in or out. A soldier could rise far: Gajah Mada led the Bhayangkara guard that saved Jayanegara in 1319 and became prime minister. Many died far from home in the kingdom’s wars: in southern Borneo the dead were burned at Tambak Wasi in 1358, and surviving soldiers, sailors and metalsmiths settled in Amuntai, Alabio and Nagara.

How many? Estimate: some 30,000 full-time troops, with their families perhaps three or four times as many, among 3–6 million people.

The fame of the king, the Nagarakretagama says, drew foreign merchants from far and wide: Indians, Khmers, Siamese and Chinese among them. Muslim traders lived in the capital itself by the mid-14th century, for two Muslim tombstones near the palace date from 1368 and 1376, and there were Muslim courtiers. Later Ma Huan found large numbers of Chinese and Muslim merchants, from Arabia, India and above all Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, settled in Tuban, Gresik and Hujung Galuh. A special tax was levied on some foreigners, possibly those who stayed on in Java and ran some business other than foreign trade. The spices of Maluku passed through the north coast ports, a chief source of the kingdom’s income.

Moving in or out. Foreigners rose by trade and by the king’s favour: Ma Huan counted seven or eight leaders among the foreign families of the capital who served the king. In the 15th century King Kertabhumi gave Muslim merchants trading rights on the north coast in return for their loyalty, and the coastal power of Demak that grew from them overthrew the kingdom in 1527.

How many? Estimate: Ma Huan found some 200 or 300 foreign families at the capital in 1413, and large numbers of Chinese and Muslim merchants settled in the north coast ports; no count survives.

Inscriptions of the period mention a large number of occupations, from gold and silversmiths to drink vendors and butchers, and the share of people earning an income from work other than farming seems to have grown. The Canggu inscription of 1358 lists 78 ferry crossings in Java. Around 1300 the old gold and silver coins gave way to imported Chinese copper coins, small enough for everyday buying and selling; taxes and fines were paid in cash, and savers kept coins in clay money boxes, often shaped like a wild boar. Potters made terracotta figurines, jars, roof tiles and ornaments, builders worked in red brick, and smiths forged steel daggers with handles of gold, rhinoceros horn or ivory.

Moving in or out. Court artisans worked for the royal house, preparing the great ceremonies of the court. Others were carried far by the kingdom’s wars, as the metalsmiths who settled in Borneo after the campaign of 1358; and when Majapahit fell, many artisans, with courtiers and priests, fled east to Bali.

How many? Estimate: no count survives; inscriptions name many occupations, from gold and silversmiths to drink vendors and butchers, and the share of people earning an income outside farming seems to have grown in this period.