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I>7 PALEMBAXG. 63
Notes.
1) All Chinese writers have identified San-fo-ts'i with Palembang, the north-eastern coast
of Sumatra. The form San-fo-ts'i appears to have been first used in the Sung period. The earliest
Chinese form of the name was Shii-li-fo-shi (^ 5^lj -f^ tt or ^), which occurs in
5 I-tsin g's writings, in the latter part of the seventh century. In the eighth century Kia Tan uses
the abbreviated form Fo-shi (^ ^). Shi-li-fo-shi and San-fo-ts'i point to an original Indian
form grI-Bhoja, and Fo-shi and Fo-ts'i (for that form also occurs) to an original Bhoja. The form
Qrl-Bhoja is the original of Serboza, the name used by the Arabs in the ninth century to
designate the island of Sumatra. See Schlegel, T'oiing-pao, 2* series, II, 122—138, 167—182,
10 329—377 and Gerini, Researches, 429, 481—483.
San-fo-ts'i was the kingdom of Menang-kabau, the parent country of the Malays in
Sumatra, (dts original limits to the eastern side of the island were the great rivers of Palembang
and Siak, and to the west those of Manjuta and Singkeb). Crawfurd, Hist. Indian Archipel. II,
371. Marsden (Hist. Sumatra, 268 n.) says that before the name Menang-kabau came into use
15 the country (or the capital?) was called Syndo-Cauda. The empire of Menang-kabau extended
at one time over the whole island, and, even in the latter part of the eighteenth century, all the
Sultans of Sumatra derived their authority from its chief. Marsden, op. cit., 267.
In or about 1377 San-fo-ts'i was conquered by the Javanese, and the name disappears
from Chinese works. We find instead Pa-lin-fOng (gj ^ >1^), P'o-lin-pang (^ ^ ^)
20 and Kiu-kiang (^ J^). Explanations of the last mentioned name, have been offered by
Groeneveldt, Notes on the Malay Archipel., 76, and by Schlegel, T'oung-pao, 2d Ser. II,
172; but neither of them is more than a guess, the latter a particularly poor one. See also on the
subject of San-fo-ts'i, Chavannes, Relig. emin., 36, n. 3 and 64, n. 1, and Pelliot, B. E. F. E. 0.
IV, 331—348. Gerini, Researches, 628, is of opinion, however, that Pa-lin-fong was probably
25 Berembang in Deli, 3°42' N. lat., and not Palembang. I doubt it.
Chon K'u-fei, from whose work our author has largely drawn, uses the name San-fo-ts'i
in a more restricted sense than Chau Ju-kua, applying it only to a port of that name. Here is
what he has to say of it: «San-fo-ts'i is in the Southern Sea. It is the most important port-of-call
on the sea-routes of the foreigners, from the countries of Sho-p'o (Java) on the east and from the
30 countries of the Ta-shii (Arabs) and Ku-lin (Quilon) on the west; they all pass through it on their
way to China.
«The country has no natural products, but the people are skilled in fighting. When they
are about to fight, they cover their bodies with a medicine which prevents swords wounding
them. In fighting on land or on water none surpass'' them in impetuosity of attack; even the
35 Ku-lin people come after them. If some foreign ship, passing this place, should not enter here, an
armed party would certainly come out and kill them to the last.
«This country has great store of rhinoceros, elephants, seed-pearls (?^^ i^) and
medicinal aromatics. It is a custom of this people to make rafts to float on the water and to live
on them».
40 For other passages in the Ling-wai-tai-ta bearing on San-fo-ts'i, see supra p. 23.
^ . -h^ 71 2MI . ^ Some Chinese scholars, consulted on the meaning of this ambiguous
phrase, think the passage may be mutilated and that it implies that a levy of one third ad
2) The text reads :^ JI If M JI ^ ^ ^ >^ ^ PI ll it H #
valorem was made on merchandize at Ling-ya-mon (Linga Strait and Island) before merchants
45 were allowed to proceed to San-fo-ts'i. This interpretation seems forced; it appears much more
likely that Ling-ya-mon was a convenient harbour for ships coming from the west and from
Chan-ch'ong when sailing for San-fo-ts'i, and that many of them stopped there. However, there is
nothing inconsistent with the facts in the explanation, for Chau Ju-kua tells us that the people
of San-fo-ts'i and of other parts of the Malay Archipelago were great pirates, and it may well be
50 that merchant-junks found it to their advantage to put into Ling-ya-mon and pay a toll to escape
worse. In the fifteenth century the people of the island of Linga still lived by piracy, according to
Chinese accounts. Groeneveldt, Notes, SO.