Fig 17 'T-O' world map, 1472. The Biblical Ham, Shem, and Japhet are marked on the continent where each propagated humanity after the Deluge. (6.5 cm. diameter) [Sidney R. Knafel]
Sacred Geographic Maps
Some early Southeast Asian maps symbolically depict the geography of spiritual events, thus forming a genre intermediate between the cosmographic and geographic. This kind of representation of sacred geographic space, found in several stone temples, constitutes the earliest surviving non-cosmographic Southeast Asian maps. Burmese temples in Pagan (thirteenth century) and Pegu (fifteenth century), as well as Lan Na temples in Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai (both fifteenth century and now part of Thailand), replicate sites around Bodh Gaya in northeast India, where Buddha reached Nirvana, or enlightenment.52 Burmese chronicles record that artisans were sent to the temple at Bodh Gaya (thought to have been made in the third century B.C.), to draw up plans for the Pegu rendering of the temple. The Thai temple of Wat Jet Yot, in Chiang Mai, has seven spires representing the various sites where Buddha tested his tenets after attaining enlightenment. The Lan Na manuscript illustrated in figure 9 is part a religious itinerary map, and part cosmography. It is probably typical of spiritually-oriented geographic maps made for hundreds of years, although this surviving example is most probably a twentieth century copy.
Western Parallels of Sacred Geographic Maps
As with cosmological maps, there are abundant Western analogies for such maps. Representations of the path of the Buddha, which we have already seen in the arrangement of temple spires and will find again in the Traiphum manuscript, parallel European maps which illuminate the peregrinations of saints and prophets, or the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. A more subtle example is found in the medieval 'T-O' map (fig. 17), which depicts the earth as a circle with a superimposed 'T' shape, dividing the circle into Asia (the area above the 'T'), Africa (lower right), and Europe (lower left). The 'T' itself, while providing the rudimentary divisions of the continents, may have been derived from the Greek tau, an ancient form of the cross that was adopted by early Christians as a clandestine symbol of their faith. Thus, the 'T' symbolically superimposed Christ upon the entire earth, and, in fact, some medieval mappaemundi literally superimposed the figure of Christ over the world. The letters 'T' and 'O' may, for some authors, have also denoted Orbis Terrarum, that is, the 'sphere of the earth'.
Fig. 18 Parts of a long itinerary map from southern Thailand dating from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. According to a label accompanying the manuscript, it pertains to the history of Nakhon si Thammarat, and was given to the National Library by Prince Damrong. [National Library of Thailand]
Empirical Geography: Indigenous Southeast Asian Mapping
The mapping of Southeast Asian soil, in a most rudimentary sense, may be found in semi-cosmographic, semi-'terrestrial' stone carvings which were placed at the center of some Cham villages or territorial groups.53 Such monoliths were a microcosm of a well-defined territory and were ritually linked to stones located on the territory's boundary. The all-important central stone was in part an elementary cadastral symbol, a 'map' of the land; at the same time, it was a guarantor of fertility and an object of religious veneration. Since territorial statues and religion were entwined, and since religion partly served to legitimize rights to land, the monolith's cadastral and religious aspects worked together in harmony.
Apart from the purely speculative evidence cited earlier to suggest a long history of indigenous mapmaking, the known record of Southeast Asian cartography begins with textual references to maps from Vietnam, Java, and Thailand. Although none of these maps survive, they antedate the semi-geographic Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai temple maps. The Vietnamese maps originated with the needs of government, which are of course a major impetus for the making of maps, both for the protection of boundaries and the assessment of population and taxes. In 1075, according to a Vietnamese history book of 1479, a map was made of Vietnam's southern border with Champa; the same book records a map made in the 11 70s that was the result of "a royal inspection tour of the coasts and the frontiers."54 Given the long Chinese tradition for fastidious record-keeping and the strong influence of China on Vietnam's governmental affairs, it is not surprising that it is in Vietnam where we find the earliest surviving record of 'practical' Southeast Asian maps.
Vietnam initiated a more thorough cadastral mapping of its land and people in the second half of the fifteenth century, when its court imported Chinese notions of social infrastructure and a stronger, more centralized government. Equipping the government with better control over its land and people, mechanisms were established for a methodical, thorough survey of the entire country. In 1467 the king ordered the (then) twelve provinces of Vietnam to map their respective regions. The maps were to record topography, man-made and natural features, travel routes, and other relevant data. The court collected the individual surveys to which they added extra statistics about the populace and the newly-annexed Champa, which Vietnam had conquered in the 1470s. The combined information was declared the official atlas of the kingdom in 1490, just before the European onslaught, though the earliest surviving Vietnamese maps, date from the seventeenth (or possibly sixteenth) century.55 The nineteenth-century Vietnamese atlas illustrated in figure 163 probably bears stylistic similarities to such earlier works.
Chinese records demonstrate that mapmaking had a part in the Thai court by the later 1300s. The Ming Annals record that in 1373 the Ming court received an embassy from the country of Hsian-Lo (believed to be the region of Sukhothai, Ayurhaya, and Lop Buri, central Thailand). According to the Ming Annals,
... envoys were sent [from Hsian-Lo] to congratulate on the New Year Festival of the next year and to present native products. Moreover, they [the Thais] submitted a map of their own country.56
An interesting example of a map apparently intended to record or facilitate a person's travels is illustrated in figure 18. Seven sections, our of a total of about 41 are shown. The map comes from the southern part of Thailand, and was probably made in the late Ayuthaya or early Bangkok period (latter part of the eighteenth century). Temples, houses, landmarks, fauna and plants passed en route are depicted and labeled. The several lines of continuous text appear to relate to the circumstances and events pertaining to a person's travels, speaking of someone who lives beyond the rice paddy, describing meetings with a man of high rank, a story involving a dowry, and the like.57
Another geographical map from southern Thailand has been preserved among the papers of Henry Burney, a British captain active in the mapping of Siam in the 1820s. The map (fig. 19) depicts roughly 250 kilometers of the west Malay coast, from the Thai-Burmese border, south to Phuket (the large rectangular island at the bottom of the map). Captain Burney wrote on the map (lower left) that this is a "Chart sketched by a Siamese Priest at Pungah" (Phang-nga, the mainland region directly above Phuket).58 Another British envoy, James Low, also recorded his pleasure at the quantity and quality of indigenous maps that he had acquired in Penang in the 1820s.
The earliest known reference to a map from insular Southeast Asia is found in a Chinese account of the Yuan invasion of Java in 1292-93. Compiled in 1369-70, the Yuan shi (History of the Yuan) records that in 1293, Raden Vijaya, a leader of the Javanese state of Kediri, presented a map and census record to a Yuan military commander, thus symbolizing submission to Chinese rule. This event suggests that mapmaking had already been a formal part of governmental affairs in Java.
In 1505, the Bolognese traveler, Ludovico di Varthema, mentions a chart used by the pilot of the vessel on which he sailed to Java from either Buru or Bornei.59 Boarding the local vessel,
we rook our way towards the beautiful island called Giava, at which we arrived in five days, sailing towards the south. The captain of the said ship carried the compass with the magnet after our manner, and had a chart which was all marked with lines, perpendicular and across.
A more impassioned record of indonesian sea charts came from Alfonso de Albuquerque, founder of Portugal's empire