Among the products of Tan-rna-ling are bee's wax, various woods including ebony, camphor, ivory, and rhinoceros horn.
Langkasuka
Six days and six nights' sail from Tan-rna-ling is Langkasuka, one of the most enduring names of early Southeast Asia. Langkasuka was centered in the vicinity of Patani, on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula, and is amply recorded in Chinese, Arabic, and Javanese history (fig 121). Probably founded in about the second century, Langkasuka experienced the eclipses and renaissances of any long-lived state; it still appeared on a Chinese map compiled from early fifteenth century data known as the Wubei zhi chart (fig. 23), but seems to have disappeared just before Portuguese familiarity with Malaya began in the early sixteenth century. So prevalent is the kingdom in early annals that its name was considered for that of independent Malaysia after the Second World War.
Chinese records of Langkasuka date back as early as the seventh century. It is described as a kingdom in the Southern Sea, covering an area thirty days' journey east-to-west, and twenty north-to-south, lying 24,000 li from Canton. Its climate and products are similar to those of Funan. The capital
is surrounded by walls to form a city with double gates, rowers and pavilions. When the king goes forth he rides upon an elephant. He is accompanied by banners, fly-whisks, flags and drums and he is shaded with a white parasol. It is customary for men and women to go with the upper part of the body naked, with their hair hanging dishevelled down their backs, and wearing a cotton sarong.
Langkasukawas also mentioned by Chinese monks making the pilgrimage to India. I-Ching records one such visit in the late seventh century, and was clearly impressed by the warm hospitality of the inhabitants of Langkasuka. On one voyage, three pilgrims "let hang the mooring ropes" from their port on the Gulf of Tongkin
and weathered innumerable billows. In their ship they passed Chen-la ('Funan' in the text] and anchored at Langkasuka, [where] the king [bestowed] the courtesy appropriate to distinguished guests.
Another Buddhist pilgrim en route to Langkasuka
buffered through the southern wastes in an ocean-going junk, [passing] Ho-ling [Java] and traversed the Naked Country [Nicobars]. The kings of those countries where he stayed showed him exceeding courtesy and treated him with great generosity76
The Islands
Chou Ch'ü-fei wrote that "to the south of [Srivijaya, i.e., Sumatra] is the great Southern Ocean, in which are islands inhabited by a myriad and more of peoples." Then the concept of a flat earth comes into play, so that "beyond these one can go no further south." The Chinese belief that the flat world is angled becomes especially important to the east of Java, for here "is the great Eastern Ocean where the water begins to go downward."
Chou Ch'ü-fei described the relative importance of these trading itineraries to the south: "of all the wealthy foreign lands which have great store of precious and varied goods, none surpasses the realm of Ta-shih (Arabia)." He believed that trade with Java (She-p'o)was second in importance, and Sumatra (San-fo-ch'I) ranked third. Sumatra, however, because of its position, "is an important thoroughfare on the sea-routes of the foreigners on their way to and from [China]."
Chao Ju-kua also recorded an active role for the Sumatran intermediaries in trade via Southeast Asia, noting that "because the country [Sumatra] is an important thoroughfare for the traffic of foreign nations, the produce of all other countries is intercepted and kept in store there for the trade of foreign ships." He compiled information about twenty-eight countries from discussions with both Chinese and foreign sailors and his book, entitled Chu-fonchih (Description of the Barbarians), records information about various countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and as far west as Africa and even the Mediterranean. Although the reports from his first-hand interviews form the principal value of the work, it is supplemented with information from older records.
From Chao Ju-kua we also learn a curious lesson about how Southeast Asian nomenclature could be deliberately manipulated. The Chinese appetite for Javanese pepper was such that the Chinese court, alarmed about the considerable exodus of copper coinage to Java to pay for it, banned trade with the island. The Javanese traders, in order to circumvent the trade ban, simply renamed their island; the Chinese traders were now buying their pepper from a land called Sukadana (Su-ki-tan).77
Fig. 23 The section of the Wubei zhi Chart covering Southeast Asia, 1621. [Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., E701.M32.1]
Religion was another reason for Chinese incursions into the Indian Ocean, and another reason why Southeast Asia benefited from being on the crossroads between two great civilizations. By the first century A.D. Buddhism had reached China, and by the third century it was established along the delta of the Red River in Vietnam. Soon, some of its more devoted adherents began to undertake pilgrimages to their Holy Land, India. Monks traveled to India by both a land route through Burma and the sea route via the Malacca Strait. The earliest surviving record left by such a pilgrim is that of Shih Fa-Hsien, who, inspired to make an accurate Chinese transcription of Buddhist texts from the original Sanskrit, traveled overland from China to India in 399 A.D., returning by sea in 4 13-14. On the way back home to China from Ceylon, Fa-Hsien's ship went aground off the coast of Java, and he was lost at sea for seventy days before finally reaching China. This is the earliest record of a return to China from southern Asia via the maritime route.
As a result of this sea route, Buddhism was well established in Sumatra by the seventh century. I-Ching, who was in India and the southern seas between 671 -695 and compiled records of sixty pilgrims' journeys to India, mentioned a multi-national community of a thousand monks (Mahayana Buddhist) in the Sumatran state of Srivijaya in 671.
China and the Philippines
Chinese commercial interest in the Philippines dates back at least to A.D. 982, when an Arab ship carrying goods from Mindoro is recorded as having reached Canton.78 Direct Chinese trade with islands to the east began by the twelfth century. In 1127 A.D., the Song rulers were forced south of the Yangtze River, and a southern capital was established at Hangzhou, from whence ceramics and other commodities were exported to the Philippines. Chinese sailors became increasingly familiar with northern Borneo and the Philippines, and trade links were established as far afield as the Spice Islands which were reached via the Sulu Sea. These trading networks probably elevated Filipino knowledge of their islands as well, since they precipitated an elaborate system of trading centers to gather the forest goods sought by the Chinese and to distribute the wares acquired from them. In 1226, Chao Ju-kua referred to the Philippines by the general term Ma-yi, and to the Visayan islands as San-hsu (three islands). He also used the term Lin-hsing, which probably referred to Luzon. Interest in Philippine commodities is evidenced by a Chinese writer in 1349, who noted that "Sulu pearls are whiter and rounder than those of india," and that they commanded a high price.79 Embassies from Luzon were sent to China in 1372 and 1408, bringing such gifts as "small but strong" horses, and returning with Chinese silk, porcelain, and other goods. Chinese trade with the Philippines was evident to the earliest Europeans to reach the islands; the lords of Cebu had Ming porcelain when Magellan reached there in 1521.
Although Chinese interest in Southeast Asia was traditionally commercial, the Philippines were briefly the target of an emperor's conquest. In about 1405-1410 Yung Lo, second Ming emperor, sent an imposing fleet under Zheng He (Cheng Ho) in a bid to establish a foothold in the Philippines. He was unsuccessful.
Zheng He
Zheng He, however, had considerable success in opening China up to much of southern Asia and parts of eastern Africa. In the years between 1405 and 1433- ironically, the very period that Portugal was beginning to flex its muscles and push ever further around Africa− this Chinese navigator, who became known as the 'three-jewel eunuch', led seven expeditions to the southern seas, following the Southeast