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l,U JATA. 79
Malay Peninsula. Asiat. Quart., 3*ser.X, 384, and XIII, 137. More recently, Gerini, Researches,
458 et seq., has arrived at the conclusion that Sho-p'o was a part of the Malay Peninsula, below
the Krali Isthmus, and that the name is probably the last glimmering of Tuba, Jaba, or Saba, «the
country of the Java (c|r Jawa) race», i. e., the Malays. He does not think that the name Sho-p'o
5 can have ever been applied by the Chinese to any part of Sumatra. «It is, he says, a most
egregious mistake to localize the term Java or Jaba, with its variant Sava or Saba, to the present
island of Java alone, since it was the common designation for the whole archipelago, or, at any
rate, for those portions of it that had been settled by the Javana or Yavana race, besides being
the name of several regions on the Indo-Chinese mainlands (p. 461—463). The above conclusion
10 being accepted, Gerini (541) says Fa-hien's Y6-p'o-t'i «must be identiiied either with the east
and north coasts of Sumatra, or with a portion of the seabord of the Malay Peninsula on or about
Malacca Straita. As to Ho-lo-tan, Gerini (542) says it was «possibly Gurot in the Ghirbi
district, west coast of the Malay Peninsula»; Ho-ling, according to him (544) was probably the
east coast of the Malay Peninsula at Tanjpng Gelang or Puling, 4° N. lat.; and perhaps the
15 eastern portion of the country of Ho-ling referred to previously as on the west coast of the Malay
Peninsula about Gunong Geriang and abreast of the Langkawi islands.
Headers may judge fot themselves whether all these identifications can fit in with the
details of our text. Schlegel, T'oung pao, X, 258 et seqq. and 2* ser. IV, was of opinion there
were two Sho-p'o, one in Sumatra (Java minor), the other in Java (Java major). He looked upon
20 Chau Ju-kua's account of Sho-p'o, as a jumble, referring here to Sumatra, there to Java and still
in other places to the Malay Peninsula. Pelliot, B. E. F. E. 0. IV, 269 et seqq., has conclusively
shown, it would seem, that Schle gel's suggestions on this point are quite untenable.
As to the name P'u-kia-lung, the identification first made by Groeneveldt (Notes, 40)
with Pekalongan on the N. coast of Java, is generally accepted. This was presumably the chief
25 center of Chinese and foreign trade in the Sung period.
The apparent error into which our author has fallen in this paragraph of placing Sh5-p'o
S. E. of Ts'uan-ch6u maybe through his having used the general indications supplied by Ch6u
K*u-fei (2,12'') as to the position of this island, while overlooking the fact that Chou gives its
bearing from Canton. But even from Canton it is rather south or south-west. The more likely
30 explanation of the position assigned by both writers to Java may be that junks sailing from
Ts'iian-chou and Canton had to steer S. E. in order to obviate the strong N. E. monsoon pre-
vailing in the winter. Quite a number of errors in the directions of the compass as placed on
record in mediaeval Chinese texts can be thus accounted for, as for example, the placing of
Tsong-po (off the E. coast of Africa) to the south of Guzerat; ships were forced by the winds
35 prevailing at the season of the year when the voyage from Guzerat to the E. Africa coast was
made, to steer in a southerly direction to be driven where they would go. See infra, Ch. XXIV.
The Ling-wai-tai-ta, 2,ia^, from which our author takes this paragraph, reads as follows:
oThe kingdom of Sho-p'o, also called P'u-kia-lung, is in the south-east of the sea. Its position
being downward (i. e., in the S. as compared to the countries of Annam in the N., which are held
40 to be «upwards», or aabovea) causes it to be called the «Lower Coast». In the eleventh and
twelfth moons of the year ships can reach there from Kuang-ch'ou with the monsoon and sailing
day and night in one months.
2) The phrase in quotation marks is taken from the Ling-wai-tai-ta, 2,9. See also supra,
p. 26 and infra, Ch. XXXVIH. 4. The Chinese believed that the waters which poured continually into
45 the great Wor'ld-Ocean-Sea flowed put again through a great hole called the Wei-lu. The surface
of the Ocean began to incline downwards somewhere E. of Java at the mythical Kingdom of
Women, so the waters flowed continually eastward into the great gulf, which, however, overflowed
every few years. Masudi, Prairies d'or, I, 342, says that in the boundless and unknown sea east
of the Sea of Sanf (i. e., Champa, Annam) are volcanic islands and beyond them is an island on
50 which the sound of music can be heard. «Sailors, he adds, who have been in those parts pretend
that it is there that Dedjdjal (the Antichrist) has set his abode». There seems some connexion
between this Arab story and the Chinese one.
3) This paragraph and the two preceding ones were reproduced with some change in the