["It Is True," Sir Henry Yule Wrote Since (1882), "That Champa, As Known In
Later Days, Lay To The East Of The Mekong Delta, Whilst Zabai Of The Greeks
Lay To The West Of That And Of The [Greek:
Mega akrotaerion] - the Great
Cape, or C. Cambodia of our maps.
Crawford (Desc. Ind. Arch. p. 80) seems
to say that the Malays include under the name Champa the whole of what we
call Kamboja. This may possibly be a slip. But it is certain, as we shall
see presently, that the Arab Sanf - which is unquestionably Champa - also
lay west of the Cape, i.e. within the Gulf of Siam. The fact is that the
Indo-Chinese kingdoms have gone through unceasing and enormous
vicissitudes, and in early days Champa must have been extensive and
powerful, for in the travels of Hiuen Tsang (about A.D. 629) it is called
maha-Champa. And my late friend Lieutenant Garnier, who gave great
attention to these questions, has deduced from such data as exist in
Chinese Annals and elsewhere, that the ancient kingdom which the Chinese
describe under the name of Fu-nan, as extending over the whole peninsula
east of the Gulf of Siam, was a kingdom of the Tsiam or Champa race. The
locality of the ancient port of Zabai or Champa is probably to be sought on
the west coast of Kamboja, near the Campot, or the Kang-kao of our maps. On
this coast also was the Komar and Kamarah of Ibn Batuta and other Arab
writers, the great source of aloes-wood, the country then of the Khmer or
Kambojan People." (Notes on the Oldest Records of the Sea-Route to China
from Western Asia, Proc.R.G.S. 1882, pp. 656-657.)
M. Barth says that this identification would agree well with the testimony
of his inscription XVIII. B., which comes from Angkor and for which Campa
is a part of the Dakshinapatha, of the southern country. But the capital
of this rival State of Kamboja would thus be very near the Treang province
where inscriptions have been found with the names of Bhavavarman and of
Icanavarman. It is true that in 627, the King of Kamboja, according to the
Chinese Annals (Nouv. Mel. As. I. p. 84), had subjugated the kingdom of
Fu-nan identified by Yule and Garnier with Campa. Abel Remusat (Nouv.
Mel. As. I. pp. 75 and 77) identifies it with Tong-king and Stan. Julien
(J. As. 4 deg. Ser. X. p. 97) with Siam. (Inscrip. Sanscrites du
Cambodge, 1885, pp. 69-70, note.)
Sir Henry Yule writes (l.c. p. 657): "We have said that the Arab Sanf, as
well as the Greek Zabai, lay west of Cape Cambodia. This is proved by the
statement that the Arabs on their voyage to China made a ten days' run from
Sanf to Pulo Condor." But Abulfeda (transl. by Guyard, II. ii. p. 127)
distinctly says that the Komar Peninsula (Khmer) is situated west of the
Sanf Peninsula; between Sanf and Komar there is not a day's journey by sea.
We have, however, another difficulty to overcome.
I agree with Sir Henry Yule and Marsden that in ch. vii. infra, p. 276, the
text must be read, "When you leave Chamba," instead of "When you leave
Java." Coming from Zayton and sailing 1500 miles, Polo arrives at Chamba;
from Chamba, sailing 700 miles he arrives at the islands of Sondur and
Condur, identified by Yule with Sundar Fulat (Pulo Condore); from Sundar
Fulat, after 500 miles more, he finds the country called Locac; then he
goes to Pentam (Bintang, 500 miles), Malaiur, and Java the Less (Sumatra).
Ibn Khordadhbeh's itinerary agrees pretty well with Marco Polo's, as
Professor De Goeje remarks to me: "Starting from Mait (Bintang), and
leaving on the left Tiyuma (Timoan), in five days' journey, one goes to
Kimer (Kmer, Cambodia), and after three days more, following the coast,
arrives to Sanf; then to Lukyn, the first point of call in China, 100
parasangs by land or by sea; from Lukyn it takes four days by sea and
twenty by land to go to Kanfu." [Canton, see note, supra p. 199.] (See De
Goeje's Ibn Khordadhbeh, p. 48 et seq.) But we come now to the difficulty.
Professor De Goeje writes to me: "It is strange that in the Relation des
Voyages of Reinaud, p. 20 of the text, reproduced by Ibn al Fakih, p. 12
seq., Sundar Fulat (Pulo Condore) is placed between Sanf and the China Sea
(Sandjy); it takes ten days to go from Sanf to Sundar Fulat, and then a
month (seven days of which between mountains called the Gates of China.) In
the Livre des Merveilles de l'Inde (pp. 85, 86) we read: 'When arrived
between Sanf and the China coast, in the neighbourhood of Sundar Fulat, an
island situated at the entrance of the Sea of Sandjy, which is the Sea of
China....' It would appear from these two passages that Sanf is to be
looked for in the Malay Peninsula. This Sanf is different from the Sanf of
Ibn Khordadhbeh and of Abulfeda." (Guyard's transl. II. ii. 127.)
It does not strike me from these passages that Sanf must be looked for in
the Malay Peninsula. Indeed Professor G. Schlegel, in a paper published in
the T'oung Pao, vol. x., seems to prove that Shay-po (Djava), represented
by Chinese characters, which are the transcription of the Sanskrit name of
the China Rose (Hibiscus rosa sinensis), Djava or Djapa, is not the
great island of Java, but, according to Chinese texts, a state of the
Malay Peninsula; but he does not seem to me to prove that Shay-po is
Champa, as he believes he has done.
However, Professor De Goeje adds in his letter, and I quite agree with the
celebrated Arabic scholar of Leyden, that he does not very much like the
theory of two Sanf, and that he is inclined to believe that the sea
captain of the Marvels of India placed Sundar Fulat a little too much to
the north, and that the narrative of the Relation des Voyages is
inexact.
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