Now This Notable Fact Of The Visit Of A King Of Malacca To The Court Of
China, And His Acknowledgment Of The Emperor's Supremacy, Is Also Recorded
In The Commentaries Of Alboquerque.
This work, it is true, attributes the
visit, not to Paramisura, the founder of Malacca, but to his son and
successor Iskandar Shah.
This may be a question of a title only, perhaps
borne by both; but we seem entitled to conclude with confidence that
Malacca was founded by a prince whose son was reigning, and visited the
court of China in 1411. And the real chronology will be about midway
between the estimates of De Couto and of Alboquerque. Hence Malacca did
not exist for a century, more or less, after Polo's voyage.
[Mr. C.O. Blagden, in a paper on the Mediaeval Chronology of Malacca
(Actes du XI'e Cong. Int. Orient. Paris, 1897), writes (p. 249) that "if
Malacca had been in the middle of the 14th century anything like the great
emporium of trade which it certainly was in the 15th, Ibn Batuta would
scarcely have failed to speak of it." The foundation of Malacca by Sri
Iskandar Shah in 1252, according to the Sejarah Malayu "must be put at
least 125 years later, and the establishment of the Muhammadan religion
there would then precede by only a few years the end of the 14th century,
instead of taking place about the end of the 13th, as is generally
supposed" (p. 251). (Cf. G. Schlegel, Geog. Notes, XV.) - H.C.]
Mr. Logan supposes that the form Malayu-r may indicate that the Malay
language of the 13th century "had not yet replaced the strong
naso-guttural terminals by pure vowels." We find the same form in a
contemporary Chinese notice. This records that in the 2nd year of the Yuen,
tribute was sent from Siam to the Emperor. "The Siamese had long been at
war with the Maliyi or MALIURH, but both nations laid aside their feud
and submitted to China." (Valentyn, V. p. 352; Crawford's Desc.
Dict. art. Malacca; Lassen, IV. 541 seqq.; Journ. Ind. Archip. V.
572, II. 608-609; De Barros, Dec. II. 1. vi. c. 1; Comentarios do grande
Afonso d'Alboquerque, Pt. III. cap. xvii.; Couto, Dec. IV. liv. ii.;
Wade in Bowring's Kingdom and People of Siam, I. 72.)
[From I-tsing we learn that going from China to India, the traveller
visits the country of Shih-li-fuh-shi (Cribhoja or simply Fuh-shi =
Bhoja), then Mo-louo-yu, which seems to Professor Chavannes to
correspond to the Malaiur of Marco Polo and to the modern Palembang, and
which in the 10th century formed a part of Cribhodja identified by
Professor Chavannes with Zabedj. (I-tsing, p. 36.) The Rev. S. Beal has
some remarks on this question in the Merveilles de l'Inde, p. 251, and
he says that he thinks "there are reasons for placing this country
[Cribhoja], or island, on the East coast of Sumatra, and near Palembang,
or, on the Palembang River." Mr. Groeneveldt (T'oung Pao, VII.
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