The Higher Royal Decrees of Indonesia from the 7th to the 16th Centuries as a Source for the History of Buddhist Practices in the Archipelago

The "Corpus of Higher Royal Decrees" (VKR) of Indonesia from the 7th to the 16th centuries is considered a primary source for the socio-economic and religious history of the archipelago. The texts analyzed document the granting of land, tax exemptions, judicial decisions, and rituals of power sanctification. The study encompasses multilingual monuments in Sanskrit, Old Malay, Old Javanese, and Old Balinese, inscribed on stone and metal, allowing for the tracing of the transformation of the diplomatic canon, the evolution of Buddhist discourse, and regional features of state-legal practice. Special attention is given to the relationship between legal content and the cosmological concepts of monarchy and the role of VKR in establishing a sustainable resource base for temples, monasteries, and educational centers. This approach reveals the mechanisms of integrating Buddhist ethics into the legal space and demonstrates how epigraphy served as a tool for legitimizing power, managing land resources, and regulating the religious environment. The analysis relies exclusively on peer-reviewed academic editions of VKR; formulaic-diplomatic and historical-philological methods were applied, along with critical discourse analysis of ritual formulas, legal hermeneutics, and inter-publisher cross-verification of dating, toponyms, and terminology. This work presents for the first time a comprehensive typology of VKR, including prasasti, jayapatra, and sima-grants, and shows their functional complementarity in managing land and religious institutions. A three-phase evolution of the formula has been established: from the early sanctioning style of Srivijaya through the rhetorically rich phase of Central Java to the legally condensed syncretism of the Majapahit era. It was found that as curses were reduced, the tantric block of invocations intensified, and fiscal prescriptions were systematically ordered, indicating an increase in the legal competence of the administrative apparatus. The role of copper grants as a mobile carrier of collective memory has been demonstrated, ensuring the continuity of legal norms during dynastic changes. It has been shown that VKR established a stable ideological archetype of the "king-defender of Dhamma," relevant to contemporary Buddhist organizations in Indonesia.