Chau Ju-Kua - University of Oregon Libraries

70 SUKDA. 1,11
((There is here (in Fo-lo-an) a Holy Buddha which the princes of San-fo-ts'i come every
year to burn incense before».
2) Kuan^yin (Avalokitegvara) is usually represented with six or four arms. The images
referred to may have been of this deity. We learn from another passage in C h a u's work (infra, Ch.
XXXIX) that the celebration of this festival on the IS*!" day of the 6"i moon, was an important 5
one for sailors for securing good weather on their voyage back to China, and that they kept it as
well in Borneo as in Fo-lo-an. According to de Groot, Les fStes annuellement c616br6es a Emoui
(Amoy), I, 199, the principal annual feasts of Kuan-yin kept in Fu-ki6n, are on the 19*'' of the
2^, the 6tii and the 9"» moon. That on the 19tii of the 6ti» moon is believed by some to be the
goddess's birthday. The IS'i of the 6tii moon, the same author states (op. cit. I, 394) is also cele- 10
brated in Fu-kifo as the mid-year festival. It may well be that these two festivals, especially as
the second one, in some of its features at least, is also connected with the worship of Kuan-yin in
one of her manifestations (P'o-tsu, ^^ ^(B)' '^ere celebrated by sailors on the same day.
Schlegel, T'oung-pao IX, 404 says that the 15*^ of the'6tl» moon was the feastday of Ma-tsu-p'o
(^jS jjjB ^^), the patron saint of sailors. De Groot (op. cit. I, 262) says that Ma-tsu-p'o's 15
birthday was the 23* of the Simoon. I do not know when the cult of Ma-tsu-p'o's became general,
at all events the particular ((Buddhas referred to by our author was evidently a patroness of
sailors, hence the presence at her feast of «the foreign traders» both in Fo-lo-an and in P'o-ni.
3) Fo-lo-an is mentioned in another passage of this work (infra, Ch. XXII) as one of the
two principal ports of South-eastern Asia to which the Arab traders came, the other was, of 20
course, San-fo-ts'i.
11.
SUNDA.
(Western Java).
SIn-ro (ff ijg). 25
In the kingdom of Sin-t'o ^ there is a harbour (or anchorage }§) with a
depth of sixty feet. Whei-ever one travels, by water or by land, one meets
with the people's dwellings all along the two shores (p^ j^ ^ Jg).
The people are also given to agriculture; their houses are made of poles
stuck in the ground, roofed over with the bark of the coir-palm", the par- 3o
titions being made with wooden boards (tied) with bits of rattan.
Both men and women wrap round their loins a piece of cotton, and in
cutting their hair they only leave it half an inch long.
The pepper grown on the hills (of this country) is small-grained, but
heavy and superior to that of Ta-pan (Eastern Java)'. The country produces 35
pumpkins (^ }J^), sugar-cane, bottle-gourds (f|), beans and egg-plants.
As, however, there is no regular government in this country, the people
are given to brigandage, on which account foreign traders rarely go there*.
'