Until recently, I had never spent much time reading Chinese sources for Southeast Asian history (other than Vietnam).
Over the past few weeks, I have been trying to make sense of the at times confusing information that is contained in Chinese sources over the centuries. What I’ve come to realize is that in order to understand what is written about Southeast Asia in Chinese historical sources, one has to be very aware of the different contexts in which such knowledge was produced.
The earliest accounts of places in Southeast Asia were drafted in the first millennium AD by Buddhist monks who produced “Sanskritized” renderings of Southeast Asian place names.
During the years of the Tang and Song Dynasties, information about places in Southeast Asia entered Chinese sources through various means, such as from tributary missions and from discussions with Chinese merchants on the southern coast, who themselves obtained some of their information from Arab and Persian merchants active in the region.
During the Yuan period, tributary missions continued to arrive, but new information about places like Java entered Chinese sources through direct contact with that island.
As long as you know these contexts, it’s pretty easy to understand most of the information produced in these different time periods.
Then, however, we get to the Ming, and during the Ming period, everything gets totally messed up.
As I see it now, two important developments took place during the Ming: 1) Zheng He led voyages through the region in the early fifteenth century that visited certain places in Southeast Asia in part in an effort to monopolize trade under Ming control, and 2) there were “sea bans” that sought to prevent private Chinese trade with the region.
These two developments created major problems for the Chinese production of knowledge about Southeast Asia. First, Ma Huan, a member of the voyages, wrote a book about the region called the Yingya shenglan 瀛涯勝覽 (The Overall Survey of the Ocean’s Shores).
In this book, Ma Huan made connections between the places he visited with places that are mentioned in earlier Chinese texts. Further, he made some connections that no one had ever made before, and they hadn’t been made, because they were not correct.
For instance, Ma Huan visited the island of Java, which the Yuan had earlier attacked and which was referred to in Chinese by characters that represent the sound of the name “Java” 瓜哇. He then looked at earlier texts and saw that there was a name that was similar to this, one that can also be read to sound like “Java” 闍婆.
These two “Javas” were not the same, and if you look at the information that is recorded about these two Javas it is clear that they refer to different places. One is the island of Java, and one is a name that Chinese and other foreign peoples used to refer to a kingdom that was known as Singora and that was situated on the Malay Peninsula around the area of what is today Songkhla in southern Thailand.
When Ma Huan passed through the region, this other “Java” no longer existed as it had been subjugated in the fourteenth century by the new Siamese empire of Ayutthaya. What is more, Ma Huan did not visit that region of Southeast Asia either.
As such, in writing about the island of Java 瓜哇, Ma Huan wrote that “its ancient name is [the other] Java 闍婆” (瓜哇國者，古名闍婆國也。), however, this was not correct.
Ma Huan introduced other mistakes like this, but then things got really crazy in the final years of the Ming when a scholar by the name of Zhang Xie produced a text called the Dong Xi yang kao 東西洋考 (Studies of the Eastern and Western Oceans).
Zhang Xie tried to reconcile what writers like Ma Huan had written with what was earlier written in Chinese sources. His task was made difficult by the fact that the sea bans had reduced the amount of information that normally had made its way to Chinese shores, and to Chinese officials.
While we can sympathize with the conditions under which Zhang Xie worked, his Dong Xi yang kao nonetheless introduced complete chaos into the Chinese body of knowledge about Southeast Asia. In particular, Zhang Xie went much further than Ma Huan had in attempting to link together different names, and in the process, he introduced even more erroneous information.
Making things even worse, when Qing Dynasty scholars compiled the Mingshi (History of the Ming) and the Ming shilu (Veritable Records of the Ming), they made an effort to “standardize” some of this chaos, thereby creating “officially standardized erroneous information.”
I’m pasting below some passages from the introductory remarks in the Dong Xi yang kao where Zhang Xie himself states that the information about Southeast Asia was totally confusing.
I would argue, however, that this was not the case. The problem was not that the information was inherently confusing. The problem was that people like Ma Huan and Zhang Xie tried to connect information that had been created in different contexts and that was not related.
In doing this, Ming-era writers like Ma Huan and Zhang Xie introduced confusion into the Chinese body of knowledge about Southeast Asia, and everyone since who has tried to make sense of what they wrote has suffered from the consequences of their unfortunate decisions.
一、島外諸國，惟交址、占城、暹羅、彭亨、呂宋、蘇祿，舶人所稱，尚沿故號。若下港之為爪哇、柬埔寨之為真臘、大泥之為渤泥、舊港之為三佛齊、馬六甲之為蒲剌加、啞齊之為蘇門答剌、思吉港之為蘇吉丹、遲悶之為吉里地問、文萊之為婆羅、貓里務之為合貓里，往往訛璞為樸朴，認魯成魚，是必質之方言、參之鄰壤、驗之謠俗、方物，始能得其主名，用心良苦。今於屬掇，輒書古號；若標題某國，則仍依舶人給引之舊，使俗眼易於披閱，而里耳可以不驚也。
Of the various island and foreign countries, it is only with Jiaozhi (Đại Việt), Zhancheng (Champa), Xianluo (Siam), Pengheng (Pahang), Lusong (Luzon), and Sulu that the names that mariners use are continuations of ancient designations. As for Xiagang (the lower port) being Jawa (Java), Jianpuzhai being Zhenla, Dani being Boni, Jiugang (the old port) being Sanfoqi, Maliujia (Melaka) being Malajia, Yaqi being Sumendala (Sumatra), Sijigang (Siji port) being Sujidan, Chimen being Jilidimen, Wenlai (Brunei) being Poluo, Maoliwu being Hemao, it is always a case of mistaking “pu” 璞 for “pu” 朴 and seeing “lu” 魯 as “yu” 魚 [i.e., he is saying that people had made mistakes in transcribing names]. We need to check local dialects, examine neighboring lands, investigate customs and products, and only then will we be able to obtain the real names by expending a great deal of sincere thought.
In the collected documents for this work are written ancient designations, however, if a kingdom is listed, I follow the mariners’ old way of reference to make it easier for commoners to peruse and so that they will not be surprised.
一、占城之先為林邑，在唐為環王；暹羅之先為赤土婆羅剎，
後又為暹與羅斛二國；爪哇之先為闍婆，亦曰：社婆；三佛齊之先為乾陀利、滿剌加之先為哥羅富沙，蘇門答剌之先為大食；即宿學不能綜其變，而名其源。歐陽永叔作《五代史》，尚誤稱占城前代不入中國，況豎儒哉？自非窮搜千卷，鮮不迷亂。餘所稱引，俱本於先正所論，次而折衷之，非敢臆見妄為牽合也。
Zhancheng (Champa) was previously Linyi. During the Tang period, it was Huanwang; Xianluo (Siam) was previously Chitu and Poluosha. Later it became the two kingdoms of Xian and Luohu. Sanfoqi was previously Gantuoli. Manlajia was previously Geluofusha. Sumendala (Sumatra) was previously Dashi (the Arab/Persian world). Even the most erudite are unable to weave together these changes and to explain the origins [of these places]. Ouyang Yongshu [i.e., Ouyang Xiu] compiled the History of the Five Dynasties and mistakenly claimed that Champa’s early rulers did not pay tribute to the Middle Kingdom. Can we call him a shoddy scholar? In searching through a thousand books, rare are those who do not get confused.
一、諸國前代之事，史籍倍詳，而明興以來為略。即國初之事，掌故粗備，而嘉、隆以後為尤略。每見近代作者，敘次外夷，於近事無可縷指，輒用「此後朝貢不絕一語」搪塞。譬之為人作家傳，敘先代門閥甚都，至後來結束殊蕭索，豈非缺陷？余每恨之。間採於邸報所抄，傳與故老所誦述，下及估客、舟人，亦多借資，庶見大全，要歸傳信。
Whenever people consult the works of writers of recent eras, the chronology about foreign barbarians cannot be connected to current affairs, and therefore they use the phrase “from this point onward tribute continued uninterrupted” as a way to muddle through and complete their task. It is like when people write a family history and explain beautifully about the first generations of a powerful clan but then conclude with extremely sparse information about later generations. Is this not a defect? I always dislike this, and so here I have collected information from the records in the court bulletin, transmitted what the elders recite and have made much use of that which common merchants and mariners know.
