Ok, I think I have finally found “Malayu”!!!
The term, “Malayu,” and the related terms of Malaya and Malāyur appear in several historical sources before the 1400s, and they clearly refer to a place. Where was that place?
In a previous post, where I debunked the idea that Tang Dynasty monk Yijing passed through the Straits of Melaka during his journey to India and back in the seventh century, I put forth the idea that the place he referred to as “Moluoyu” (i.e., “Malayu”) was located perhaps in the area of what is now Krabi, in southern Thailand.
I did this by re-interpreting what his records actually document (and finding faults with the standard interpretation), and by noting that other references in Chinese and Arabic sources likewise suggest that Malayu/Malaya/Malāyur should be in that area.
One detail that I neglected to mention is that on his return journey, Yijing makes reference to a city wall in Moluoyu, suggesting that some kind of fortification had been built around it.
For readers interested in seeing the details about what Chinese and Arabic sources say about Malayu/Malaya/Malāyur, please read that blog post on Yijing’s journey.
Since writing that post, I’ve come to realize that there are other historical sources that mention Malayu/Malaya/Malāyur, and while they do not clearly state where it was located, it is logical to assume that they are referring to the same general area of where I suggested it was.
However, as I have looked more closely at the historical information and have spent more time in Google Earth, I have come to conclude that “Malayu” was in a slightly different location.
To explain this, I want to first reproduce the comments that, Ibn Sa’īd (d.1274) recorded in the thirteenth century about what he called “Malāyur,” as they are the most detailed description that we have of this place.
And, again, these comments are presented from the perspective of someone who is at Lāmurī in northern Sumatra and is describing Malāyur as a place on the western side of the Malay Peninsula.
“In the south east corner is found the town of Kalāh [Kedah], well known to travelers and renowned for its Kelāhi tin. The latitude of this town is 154°12’.
“On the north east shore is the town of Malāyur, which is well known. It is a place of anchorage. Its longitude is a little more than that of Kalāh and its latitude is the same as Lāmurī. Each one of the towns of which we have spoken is on an estuary. The length of the island is about 800 miles. From the right to the left extent two capes, between which the sea is only two miles wide. The sea there is not deep. They call this place Bintan. There are found small islands out of which come black pirates armed with poison arrows and in ships of war. They rob men but do not take them away. But there are some who have been made prisoners by them. . .”
Ok, now let’s look at some other sources.
First, there is an inscription from the Chola kingdom in southern India from the early eleventh century. At that time, the Chola kingdom attacked the area of the Malay Peninsula (I will write about this later), and one of the places that they captured was “the ancient Malaiyur with the strong mountain for its rampart.”
This statement about a mountain, and Ibn Sa’īd’s comment that the distance between the two capes on either side of Malāyur was only two miles, makes me doubt that Krabi is the right location. Also, Yijing states that it took him 10 days to get from Kedah to Moluoyu which I thought was a bit long for reaching Krabi.
So, I looked further up the coast in what is now Phang Nga province, and voilà! I found a place across from Surat Thani that has what can be considered two capes. The distance between them is close to 2 miles. There is a big island there, and the area is surrounded by mountains.
Further, when you zoom in, you find that there is a place called “Ban Thung Tuek Ancient City,” and you can see images of the remains at this website.
I definitely think that we have found Malayu/Malaya/Malāyur. But just in case you are not convinced yet, let’s look at yet more historical evidence that suggests that this place should be in this region.
There is a “Malayadīpa” (Malaya Island) mentioned in an inscription from the Mon kingdom of Ramaññadesa (or Hanthawaddy) that was based in the area of what is now Bago (Pegu) in southern Myanmar. In 1476 there were some inscriptions that were created and erected as part of an effort to create a consecrated space for carrying out certain Buddhist rituals. These inscriptions are known as the Kalyani inscriptions.
These inscriptions contain religious information, but they also contain some historical information as well, and one inscription mentions “Malayadīpa.”
The story that it appears in his quite interesting. It says that in the year 543 Sakkaraj (1181) there was a king in Bagan by the name of Narapatijayasūra who had a festival held to honor five prominent monks. However, one of those men, a certain Rāhulathera, saw a beautiful girl at the festival and lost his desire to continue living the life of an ascetic. . .
So, to make a long story short, he was allowed to go to Ramaññadesa, and from there to proceed to Malayadīpa, where the king was eager to learn about the Buddhist teachings, and Rāhulathera was able to become a layman and marry the beautiful girl he met at the festival. (Kalyani Inscription, pg. 53)
Truly a “win-win” situation!!
However, for our topic here, it would be completely logical to assume that this “Malayadīpa” was not all that far away from Ramaññadesa, such as in the area of Phang Nga province. . .
“Malaya” is also mentioned in a Pali text from Sri Lanka known as the Cūḷavaṃsa (Lesser Chronicle). This text is a continuation of an earlier work, the sixth-century Mahāvaṃsa (Great Chronicle). It covers a period from the fourth century to 1815 and was undoubtedly compiled by multiple people.
The part which mentions “Malaya” is believed to have been compiled in the thirteenth century and it takes place during the reign of the Sri Lankan king, Parakramabahu the Great (r. 1153–1186).
The gist of the story is that relations between Sri Lanka and the Mon kingdom of Ramaññadesa broke down, and the Mon king had some Sri Lankan envoys “thrown into a fortress in the Malaya country.”
I’m citing this from an English translation of a respected German translation of the Cūḷavaṃsa by Wilhelm Geiger. There is a footnote here about “Malaya” that says “Malaya denotes as in Ceylon and in Southern India (see 76, 195) the mountainous regions of the country.” (66)
There was an Italian scholar by the name of Gerolamo Emilio Gerini (1860-1913) who served as an officer in the Siamese military in the late nineteenth century, and who, in 1909, published a book of almost 1,000 pages called Researches on Ptolemy’s Geography of Eastern Asia (Further India and Indo-Malay Archipelago).
In that book, he mentions that scholars had struggled to understand what “Malaya” indicated in the Cūḷavaṃsa, with one believing that it was a place name, and another translating its meaning as “hill country” (535-6). Geiger seems to have combined both, as he has “Malaya” as a place name in his text, but then explains it in a footnote as meaning “the mountainous regions of the country.”
However, if the scholars who had examined this text had known the information we have presented above, then they would have had no trouble understanding that “Malaya” was a place near Ramaññadesa with a fortress that had been constructed centuries before the time this story takes place.
What is interesting here though is that the Ramaññadesa king somehow had the power or authority to place someone in this fortress. How could that be?
As we saw a few posts ago, there is a chronicle about the area of what is now Nakhon Si Thammarat, on the other side of the Malay Peninsula from where I think Malayu/Malāyur/Malaya was located, and it indicates that somewhere around this time, Nakhon Si Thammarat came under the control of a king from Ramaññadesa.
Presumably, such a king would have taken control of at least one place on his side of the peninsula as well. As such, the information in this story from the Cūḷavaṃsa fits with the information in the chronicles from Nakhon Si Thammarat to suggest that at some point in the second half of the 1100s (or perhaps earlier), Ramaññadesa sought to expand its control over some of the trans-peninsular trade network.
In fact, I think we have evidence that indicates that there was a lot of “action” in this part of the world in the 1100-1200s, and that is a topic which we will examine soon.
Oh, and it looks like Marco Polo passed through here as well.
This Post Has 2 Comments
The idea of location of Malayu, Malaya, and Malayur in Kra isthmus is very interesting. Personally, I think the idea of land trade through Kra isthmus was important and realistic. Although, there are some questions about this.
1. As you mentioned idea of two “Java” and subsequent confusion, is there any possibility of confusion of places with similar name such as Malayu, Malaya, and Malayur at the time of compilation or history happened? For example, there are two polities of Malayu and Malaya –and Malayur as confusion between two polities?
2. With this “Malaya” thing, what was the likely identity of the inhabitant? Austronesian Malay (Melayu)? Austroasiatic (similar to Khmer and Aslian)?
Thank you for your comment!! Yes, I now am confident that there were two places with similar-sounding names. I just wrote a working paper that contains a section on that issue. I’ll post a link here to it once it is approved.