What If: The Empire of Majapahit did not decline?

The Sun of Majapahit (Surya Majapahit), the empire's emblem depicting an arrangement of Hindu deities

The Majapahit Empire (Kerajaan Majapahit in Indonesian) was the second major maritime empire based out of present-day Indonesia after the smaller Srivijaya (650-1377) and the largest empire to have existed in Southeast Asia, first emerging in 1293. It grew out of the Javanese kingdom of Singhasari, whose penultimate king Kertanegara was the father-in-law of Majapahit's founder Raden Wijaya: he is famous for taking advantage of a Mongol invasion of Java to oust his overlord, Singhasari's last king Jayakatwang who had usurped the throne from Kertanegara, and then turning on the Mongols to establish himself as the most powerful man in Java.

Majapahit reached the height of its power under Raden Wijaya's grandson Hayam Wuruk, who reigned 1350-1389, and his Mahapatih (prime minister) Gajah Mada. With these two gifted statesmen at its head, the Majapahit Empire grew to rule most of 'Nusantara' - modern-day Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore with the exception of western Java (where the Kingdom of Sunda continued to resist Majapahit expansion even after Gajah Mada wiped out most of their royal family in the Battle of Bubat in 1357, an act of such brutality and recklessness that he was demoted by Hayam Wuruk) and inner Kalimantan.

After Hayam Wuruk's death, Majapahit fell into a civil war called the 'Paregreg War' between his daughter Kusumawardhani (supported by her husband Wikramawardhana) and his younger son Bhre Wirabhumi: although Wikramawardhana and Kusumawardhani had won by 1406, the succession crisis irreparably damaged Majapahit's hegemony over Nusantara. The 15th and 16th centuries saw the gradual loss of Majapahit's territories to new Muslim sultanates, culminating in the fall of Majapahit itself to the Sultanate of Demak in 1527. Islam swept away Hinduism in most of Java, and the replacement of the united Majapahit Empire by a fragmented morass of smaller Muslim states that regularly fought among themselves made Nusantara comparatively easy pickings for European colonial powers (with the Dutch eventually becoming dominant) down the road.

But what if...Majapahit never entered its terminal decline? Suppose the civil war between the children of Hayam Wuruk never occurred. Perhaps Bhre Wirabhumi falls ill and dies before he can challenge his sister's succession, or simply lets the issue slide. Then Majapahit would not have entered its period of decline (at least not at the beginning of the 15th century), it would have been in better shape to resist the incursions of the growing Muslim sultanates, and assuming it survived into the later 16th and early 17th centuries then it would have been the single power meeting the arrival of the Europeans, not a mess of divided petty kingdoms.

So what are the medium to long-term effects? Well, for one thing, Islam would not have become the dominant religion in Java, at least not nearly as quickly as it did in our timeline. The continued survival of Majapahit, a Hindu empire, in turn ensures the survival of Java's Hindu and Buddhist religious communities. This is not to say Islam would never have gained a considerable foothold in Java - the 15th century is too late a point-of-divergence to prevent the arrival of Islam in Indonesia entirely - but it would have been limited to the northern coasts of the island. In time, these Muslims may have been absorbed entirely into the broader syncretic framework of Kejawen, a Javanese spiritual tradition and 'melting pot' combining animist, Buddhist, Hindu and (even today) Muslim influences.

Secondly, the Nusantara region would have been in a better position to handle the arrival of European colonists. When the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English show up from the early 16th century onward, they will find a united empire greeting them instead of a group of small, squabbling petty kingdoms who they were able to divide-and-conquer. As the origin point of the lucrative spice trade and an archipelago nation with a strong naval tradition, large population and contact with the powerful and advanced Chinese to the north, Majapahit certainly would have had the resources to resist violent attempts at European expansion if it doesn't fall into another civil war. It may even be in a position to follow the path of Japan: absorbing, reverse-engineering and natively producing European technology, particularly gunpowder, and being able to effectively resist European colonialism on its own. (there is virtually no chance of Majapahit embracing a Sakoku-like policy of isolation, however: the spice trade is too important to just be cut off and Nusantara is made up of far more small islands than the Japanese archipelago, meaning policing the waters and shores for outsiders would be too difficult to do effectively with 16th-century technology)

From the 16th century onward, the butterfly effect makes further developments too difficult to even remotely accurately predict. An Indonesia where Islam is not the dominant religion and one regional hegemonic power capable of standing up to the Europeans exists would evolve on a completely different trajectory from real-life early modern Indonesia. Among other things, Indonesian nationalism would have much deeper roots than the 20th century; Javanese cultural influence would be much more pervasive throughout the archipelago, as Majapahit itself was based out of Java; and Christianity would likely gain a larger foothold in Java sooner than it did in our timeline, as the kings of Majapahit would welcome the introduction of an extra religious counterbalance to the Muslim states of western and northern Java.

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