It
Is By No Means Impossible That The Iabadiu, Or Yavadvipa Of Ptolemy May
Be Sumatra Rather Than Java.
An accomplished Dutch Orientalist suggests that the Arabs originally
applied the terms Great Java and Little Java to Java and Sumatra
respectively, not because of their imagined relation in size, but as
indicating the former to be Java Proper.
Thus also, he says, there is a
Great Acheh (Achin) which does not imply that the place so called is
greater than the well-known state of Achin (of which it is in fact a
part), but because it is Acheh Proper. A like feeling may have suggested
the Great Bulgaria, Great Hungary, Great Turkey of the mediaeval
travellers. These were, or were supposed to be, the original seats of the
Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Turks. The Great Horde of the Kirghiz Kazaks
is, as regards numbers, not the greatest, but the smallest of the three.
But the others look upon it as the most ancient. The Burmese are alleged
to call the Rakhain or people of Arakan Mranma Gyi or Great Burmese,
and to consider their dialect the most ancient form of the language. And,
in like manner, we may perhaps account for the term of Little Thai,
formerly applied to the Siamese in distinction from the Great Thai,
their kinsmen of Laos.
In after-days, when the name of Sumatra for the Great Island had
established itself, the traditional term "Little Java" sought other
applications. Barbosa seems to apply it to Sumbawa; Pigafetta and
Cavendish apply it to Bali, and in this way Raffles says it was still
used in his own day. Geographers were sometimes puzzled about it. Magini
says Java Minor is almost incognita.
(Turnour's Epitome, p. 45; Van der Tuuk, Bladwijzer tot de drie
Stukken van het Bataksche Leesboek, p. 43, etc.; Friedrich in Bat.
Transactions, XXVI.; Levchine, Les Kirghiz Kazaks, 300, 301.)
NOTE 2. - As regards the treasure, Sumatra was long famous for its
produce of gold. The export is estimated in Crawford's History at 35,530
ounces; but no doubt it was much more when the native states were in a
condition of greater wealth and civilisation, as they undoubtedly were
some centuries ago. Valentyn says that in some years Achin had exported 80
bahars, equivalent to 32,000 or 36,000 Lbs. avoirdupois (!). Of the other
products named, lign-aloes or eagle-wood is a product of Sumatra, and is
or was very abundant in Campar on the eastern coast. The Ain-i-Akbari
says this article was usually brought to India from Achin and
Tenasserim. Both this and spikenard are mentioned by Polo's contemporary,
Kazwini, among the products of Java (probably Sumatra), viz., Java
lign-aloes (al-' Ud al-Jawi), camphor spikenard (Sumbul), etc.
Narawastu is the name of a grass with fragrant roots much used as a
perfume in the Archipelago, and I see this is rendered spikenard in a
translation from the Malay Annals in the Journal of the Archipelago.
With regard to the kingdoms of the island which Marco proceeds to
describe, it is well to premise that all the six which he specifies are to
be looked for towards the north end of the island, viz., in regular
succession up the northern part of the east coast, along the north coast,
and down the northern part of the west coast.
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