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‘From whatever place ships come, they enter the strait of Banka (P’éng-chia) at the Freshwater River (Tan-chiang, the Chinese name for the river Palembang), patriarch Elias (Assemanni, iii, part i, p. 592), is probably a relic of the form Zabedj of the early narratives, used also by Al-Biruni, Ibn Khurdadbah and Adrisi use Jaba for Zabedj; Yule, Cathy, p. civ. * The History of Ming (1368-1643), book 324: ‘In 1397, San-bo-tsai was for the last time conquered by Java, and the name was changed into Chiu-chiang ’ (‘Old Port’ or ‘Old River,” which is the name for Palembang up to the present day). See Essavs. &c.. ou. lag. NOTES ON GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. xiv and near a place with many pagodas built with bricks, after which the merchants go up the river in smaller craft, and so arrive at the capital.’ As to the name ‘ Malayu,’ it seems to have existed for a long time. The Tan- ma-ling (Tana-malayu) of the Descriptions of the Barbarians (960-1279), and Malaiur of Marco Polo in the thirteenth gentury, are in all probability the remnants of the name Malayu, which was used before our author’s time. ; Unfortunately, however, “he city of Malaiur-of Marco Polo has not been satis- factorily traced. Colonel Yule says': ‘Probabilities seem to me to be divided between Palembang and its colony Singhapura (Palembang itself is a Javanese colony). Palembang, according to the commentary of Alboquerque, was called by the Javanese Malayo. The list of Sumatran kingdoms in De Barros makes Tana-malayu? the next to Palembang. On the whole I incline to this interpre- tation,’ This point, I think, becomes clear from the notice I have given above that the country Bhoga, i.e. Malayu, lay on the southern shore of Malacca; if Malaiur be Singapore, it must lie on the northern shore where, according to the same history, the country was called Lo-yiteh®, Further for the determination of the position of Sribhoga-Malayu, I-tsing furnishes us with important data (pp. 143, 144): “In the Sribhoga country (not the capital), we see the shadow of the dial- plate become neither long nor short (i.e. “ remain unchanged ” or “no shadow ”) in the middle of the eighth month (=autumnal equinox), and at midday no shadow falls from a man who is standing on that day. So it is in the middle of spring (=vernal equinox) ‘.’ From this we can see that the country of Sribhoga covered * Marco Polo, vol. ii, book iii, chap. viii, p. 263. ? The Descriptions of the Barbarians says that this country uses trays of gold and silver for barter. * This is the place where Shinnio Taka-oka, an imperial prince of Japan, died, A. D. 881, on his way to India to search for the Law. He was twenty years in China learning Buddhism, whence he started for the West. The place of his death is supposed to be near Saigon in Champa orin Siam. If, however, our identification be right, it must have been in or near Singapore. 4 We are perfectly justified in taking these two dates as the two equinoxes. A year is divided into four seasons, each of three months (1st, 2nd, and 3rd, Spring; 7th, 8th, and oth, Autumn), Therefore, the * Middle of Spring’ is the middle of the second month. The Chinese names for the two equinoxes are accordingly Ch'un-fén * and Chiu-fén , Division of Spring’ and ‘ Division of Autumn’ I-tsing uses Ch‘un-chung ®, ‘ Middle of Spring,’ which conveys the same idea as the ~ above, and Pa-yiieh-chung 4, ‘ Middle of the eighth month’ (when the calendar is exact, this will be the ‘Middle of Autumn’). In the Japanese calendar, the autumnal equinox is marked a; a : > an ee xlvi GENERAL INTRODUCTION. the places lying on the Equator; and the whole country’ therefore must have covered the N.E. side of Sumatra from the southern shore of Malacca to the city of Palembang, extending at least five degrees, having the equatorial line at about the centre of the kingdom. With the last. conquest of 1379, the name San-bo-tsai, Sribhoga, once a great monarchy, wellnigh disappears from the history, the new conquerors establishing themselves at the ‘Old Port.” By this time Sumatra was perhaps thoroughly converted to Islam, though we find no traces of it in Marco Polo’s travels at the close of the thirteenth century +. . To better understand I-tsing’s route via Bhoga and Malayu, the following extract from his work may be useful. He says ?:— ‘Wu-hing came to Sribhoga after a month’s sail. The king received him very favourably, and respected him as the guest from the Land of-the Son of Heaven of the Great T‘ang. He went on board the king’s ship to the country of Malayu, and arrived there after fifteen days’ sail. ‘Thence he came to Ka-cha again after fifteen days. At the end of winter he changed ship and sailed to the west. After thirty days he reached Nagapatana (now Negapatam, 10° 8’ N., 79° 9’ E.). From here he started again on board for the Simhala Island; he arrived there after twenty days. He worshipped the Buddha’s tooth there, and again sailed for the north-east. He came to Harikela, which is the eastern limit of E. India, and is a part of Gambudvipa. He stayed there one year and went to Mahabodhi, Nalanda, and Tiladsa*. Near Tiladfa lived a teacher of logic, from whom Wu-hing learned the logical systems of Gina and Dharmaktrti, &c. He wanted to come back by the northern route. When I, I-tsing, was in India, I saw him off six yoganas east of N&landa, and we said goodbye, each hoping to see the other once again in this world.’ Chiu-pa-yiieh-chung * (=middle of the eighth month of the old calendar). That I-tsing meant the equinoxes by those terms is certain from the following passage (p. 144), in which he clearly recognises the equinoxes by saying: ‘ the sun passes just above the head twice a year.’ When we take Sribhoga here as the capital, the result is as I have noted, p. 144, but our author expressly says the country of Stibhoga, and we must not limit it to the capital, which he very often, if not always, calls simply Bhoga. 1 The first Mohammedan king in Atchin began to reign A. D. 1205, probably the time of the introduction of Islam (Marco Polo, vol. ii, p. 269); the stimulus of conversion to Islam had not taken effect on the Sumatran States at the time of Polo, but it did so soon afterwards, and, low as they have now fallen, their power at one time was no delusion (loc. cit., p. 270). 3 Cf. Chavannes, Memoirs, p. 144. % See below, p. 184, note 2. * 46 Ap. NOTES ON GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. xlvii 3. Mo-ho-hsin (Mahfsin), The only name which comes near to this is Masin of the Syrians. The bishops, Thomas, Taballaha, Jacob, and Denha, were ordained by the Syrian patriarch Elias, a.p. 1503, ‘to go to the lands of the Indians and the islands of the seas which are between Dabag (Java, cf. ZAbedj) and Sin (China) and Masin?’ Mahdsin and Masin may be the present Bandjermasin on the southern coast of Borneo. 4. Ho-ling (Po-ling, Kalinga). This name is no doubt Indian, probably taken from Kalinga on the coast of Coromandel*. According to the Chinese history %, this is another name for Java, or a part of it‘, which had the earliest intercourse with Ceylon and perhaps also with the southern coasts of India. But the following statement of the Chinese historians, if correct, points to a place in the Malay Peninsula (6° 8’ N.):— ‘In Ho-ling, when at the summer solstice 2 gnomon is erected 8 feet high, the shadow (at noon) falls on the south side and 2 feet 4 inches (=2# feet) long *’ Thus—North latitude of the place of observation= Zenith distance of the sun . ‘ “Ss North declination of the sun. 8 Equator Zenith We have— 24 t = Sat an & 8 3 log tan 2 = 9-477 z= 16° 7% p= 6 — 2 =23° 5’ —16° 7’ = 6° 8 N. [There is clearly 2 confusion in the statement, if a place in Java (6° 8’ S.) be meant. I must leave the point unsettled, until I have examined all the parallel passages in the Chinese hooks.] 1 Assemanni, iii, part i, p. 592; Yule, Cathy, p. ciii. 2 See Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, ii, p. 1076; iv, p. 711. % The New History of T'ang (618-906), book 222, part ii: ‘ Kalinga is also called Java;’ book 197 : ‘ Kalifga lies to the east of Sumatra.’ * Mr. Groeneveldt places it on the north coast (long. 111° E.), while Prof. Chavannes on the western part of Java (Memoirs, p. 42, note). 5 The New History of T’ang (618-906), book 222, part ii; see also Essays on Indo-China, leideahi cD ghee ete eee SE el cee xviii GENERAL INTRODUCTION. As to the names of Java, the oldest Iabadiu of Ptolemy (circa a.v. 180), Javadi of Fa-hien (414), and Yavada of the history of the first Sung (420—448) probably represent Yavadvipa’, the ‘country of millet.’ The same name appears in some later accounts as Z4bedj (the Arabs) or Dabag (the Syrians). Neither of them, however, seems to have been used in I-tsing’s time, though the name ‘ Java’ occurs later in the History of Sung (960-1279)? and in Marco Polo’s travels? at the close of the thirteenth century; and till the present day. Now a word about the Javanese civilisation will not be out of place. Java in Fa-hien’s time (414) was already settled by the Hindus; he says: ‘ Heretic Brahmans flourish there, and the Buddha-dharma hardly deserves mentioning.’ One of the old inscriptions from Pagaroyang in Sumatra, dated a.p. 656, calls the king Adityadharma, the tuler of the ‘first Java’ (or Yava). Moreover some of the Sanskrit inscriptions .