THE MALAYAN PO-SE AND ITS PRODUCTS 



On the preceding pages reference has repeatedly been made to the 

 fact that besides the Iranian Po-se $£ M , transcribing the ancient name 

 Parsa, the Chinese were also acquainted with another country and 

 people of the same name, and always written in like manner, the loca- 

 tion of which is referred to the Southern Ocean, and which, as will be 

 seen, must have belonged to the Malayan group. We have noted several 

 cases in which the two Po-se are confounded by Chinese writers; and 

 so it is no wonder that the confusion has been on a still larger scale 

 among European sinologues, most of whom, if the Malayan Po-se is 

 involved in Chinese records, have invariably mistaken it for Persia. 

 It is therefore a timely task to scrutinize more closely what is really 

 known about this mysterious Po-se of the Southern Sea. Unfortunately 

 the Chinese have never co-ordinated the scattered notices of the south- 

 ern Po-se; and none of their cyclopaedias, as far as I know, contains 

 a coherent account of the subject. Even the mere fact of the duplicity 

 of the name Po-se never seems to have dawned upon the minds of 

 Chinese writers; at least, I have as yet failed to trace any text insisting 

 on the existence of or contrasting the two Po-se. Groping my way 

 along through this matter, I can hardly hope that my study of source- 

 material is complete, and I feel sure that there are many other texts 

 relative to the subject which have either escaped me or are not acces- 

 sible. 



The Malayan Po-se is mentioned in the Man iw §£ Ht (p. 43 b), 1 

 written about a.d. 860 by Fan Co $&ffi, who says, "As regards the 

 country P'iao H! (Burma), it is situated seventy-five days' journey 

 (or two thousand It) south of the city of Yuh-6'an. 2 ... It borders on 

 Po-se 9t $r and P'o-lo-men SI *■ P^ (Brahmana) ; 3 in the west, however, 

 on the city Se-li fe M." It is clearly expressed in this document that 

 Po-se, as known under the T'ang, was a locality somewhere contermi- 

 nous with Burma, and on the mainland of Asia. 



1 Regarding this work, see Wylie, Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 40; and 

 Pelliot, Bull, de VEcole frangaise, Vol. II, p. 156; Vol. IV, p. 132. 



2 In Yun-nan. The T'ai p'in hwan yti ki gives the distance of P'iao from that 

 locality as 3000 It (cf. Pelliot, Bull, de I' Ecole frangaise, Vol. IV, p. 172). The text 

 of the Man Su is reproduced in the same manner in the $u kien of Kwo Yiin-t'ao 

 (Ch. 10, p. 10 b), written in 1236. 



3 1 do not believe that this term relates to India in general, but take it as denot- 

 ing a specific country near the boundary of Burma. 



468 



