The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 / Page 336 (Color Image)

0336	The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2

East and West; to this great city of Singapura all flocked as to a general market."
(Dec. II. 6, 1.) This suits the description in our text well; but as Singhapura was
in sight of any ship passing through the straits, mistake could hardly occur as to its
position, even if it had not been visited.

I omit Malacca entirely from consideration, because the evidence appears to me
conclusive against the existence of Malacca at this time.

The Malay Chronology, as published by Valentyn, ascribes the foundation of
that city to a king called Iskandar Shah, placing it in A.D. 1252, fixes the reign of
Mahomed Shah, the third King of Malacca and first Mussulman King, as extending
from 1276 to 1333 (not stating when his conversion took place), and gives 8 kings in
all between the foundation of the city and its capture by the Portuguese in 1511,
a space, according to those data, of 259 years. As Sri Iskandar Shah, the founder,
had reigned 3 years in Singhapura before founding Malacca, and Mahomed Shah, the
loser, reigned 2 years in Johore after the loss of his capital, we have 264 years to
divide among 8 kings, giving 33 years to each reign. This certainly indicates that
the period requires considerable curtailment.

Again, both De Barros and the Commentaries of Alboquerque ascribe the
foundation of Malacca to a Javanese fugitive from Palembang called Paramisura, and
Alboquerque makes Iskandar Shah (Xaquem darxa) the son of Paramisura, and the
first convert to Mahomedanism. Four other kings reign in succession after him, the
last of the four being Mahomed Shah, expelled in 1511.

[Godinho de Eredia says expressly (Cap. i. De Cilio Malaca, p. 4) that Malacca
was founded by Permicuri, primeiro monarcha de Malayos, in the year 1411, in the
Pontificate of John XXIV., and in the reign of Don Juan II. of Castille and Dom
Juan I. of Portugal.]

The historian De Couto, whilst giving the same number of reigns from the con-
version to the capture, places the former event about 1384. And the Commentaries
of Alboquerque allow no more than some ninety years from the foundation of
Malacca to his capture of the city.

There is another approximate check to the chronology afforded by a Chinese
record in the XIVth volume of Amyot's collection. This informs us that Malacca
first acknowledged itself as tributary to the Empire in 1405, the king being Sili-ju-
eul-sula (?). In 1411 the King of Malacca himself, now called Pâilimisula
(Paramisura), came in person to the court of China to render homage. And in 1414
the Queen-Mother of Malacca came to court, bringing her son's tribute.

Now this notable fact of the visit of a King of Malacca to the court of China,
and his acknowledgment of the Emperor's supremacy, is also recorded in the
Commentaries of Alboquerque. This work, it is true, attributes the visit, not to
Paramisura, the founder of Malacca, but to his son and successor Iskandar Shah.
This may be a question of a title only, perhaps borne by both; but we seem entitled
to conclude with confidence that Malacca was founded by a prince whose son was
reigning, and visited the court of China in 1411. And the real chronology will be
about midway between the estimates of De Couto and of Alboquerque. Hence
Malacca did not exist for a century, more or less, after Polo's voyage.

[Mr. C. O. Blagden, in a paper on the Mediæval Chronology of Malacca (Actes du
XIe Cong. Int. Orient. Paris, 1897), writes (p. 249) that "if Malacca had been in the
middle of the 14th century anything like the great emporium of trade which it
certainly was in the 15th, Ibn Batuta would scarcely have failed to speak of it." The
foundation of Malacca by Sri Iskandar Shah in 1252, according to the Sejarah Malayu
"must be put at least 125 years later, and the establishment of the Muhammadan
religion there would then precede by only a few years the end of the 14th century,
instead of taking place about the end of the 13th, as is generally supposed" (p. 251).
(Cf. G. Schlegel, Geog. Notes, XV.)—H. C.]

Mr. Logan supposes that the form Malayu-r may indicate that the Malay
language of the 13th century "had not yet replaced the strong naso-guttural
terminals by pure vowels." We find the same form in a contemporary Chinese

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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books