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0093 Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1
Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1 / Page 93 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000042
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PRELIMINARY ESSAY.   1xxvii

LANTAN, LAILAI, NAVANG, and TINGHOEUL. Of these the first four are almost certainly Indian. Maabar,1 (Dwara)=Samundra,2 Sumnath,3 are not difficult to recognize ; the fourth, Sengkili, is probably the Shinkali of Abulfeda, the Singuyli of Jordanus, the Cynkali of Marignolli, i.e., Cranganor.4 The rest of the names probably belong to the Archipelago.5.

IV. INTERCOURSE WITH THE ARABS.

56. This likewise, in all probability, goes back to an earlier date than is to be learned from any existing history, as the forms in which the name of China reached the Crreeks have already suggested to us.

The earliest date to which any positive statement of such intercourse appears to refer is the first half of the fifth cen-

1 See infra, pp. 80, 218, etc.

2 The kingdom of the Bilal Rajas immediately north of Ma'bar, and constantly coupled with it in the Mahomedan histories.

3 See Marco Polo, pt. III, eh. 32.

4 See infra, pp. 75, 373.

5 Thus Malantan, Navang, Tinghoeul may be compared with the names of the actual Malay states or provinces of Kalantan, Pahang, and Sungora. Pauthier introduces the list (which he gives as Siumenna, Senghili, Nanwuli, Malantan, Tingkorh, Maparh, and Sumuntala) as that of " ten maritime kingdoms of the Indian Archipelago", but that is merely an opinion of his own. It is possible, certainly, that Sumuntala may represent Sumatra, as it appears to do in passages quoted from Chinese geographies by M. Pauthier. Some of these, indeed, appear to be derived from European sources ; others do refer to the Chinese Annals as far back as the tenth century, and if these can be depended on as showing that the island or a kingdom on it was called Sumatra at so early a date the circumstance is remarkable. In the absence of more distinct evidence, I should doubt if the name is so old. The Malay traditions, quoted by Dulaurier, ascribe the foundation of the city called Sumatra to the father of the king reigning in Ibn Batuta's time.

The list of names in the text is from Gaubil (see, G. Hist. de Gentchis Can, p. 205; Pauthier's Polo, p. 572; also Baldello Boni's Il IVlilione, ii, 388).

I may observe, that in an old Chino-Japanese map described by Klaproth and Remusat, the kingdoms of Sumenna, Kylantin, IVlapceul, and Tingha;ul, are placed far to the west beyond the Arabs (Not. et Ext., vol. xi, and Klap. 111em. ii). This, however, only shows that the author of the map did not know where to put them.