The Malayan Po-Se — Historical Notes 469 



In another passage of the Man $u (p. 29), the question is of a place 

 Ta-yin-k'un ^C ££ ?L (evidently a silver-mine), not well determined, 

 probably situated on the Gulf of Siam, to the south of which the people 

 of the country P'o-lo-men (Brahmana), Po-se, Se-p'o (Java), P'o-ni 

 (Borneo), and K'un-lun, flock together for barter. There are many 

 precious stones there, and gold and musk form their valuable goods. 1 

 There is no doubt that the Malayan Po-se is understood here, and not 

 Persia, as has been proposed by Pelliot. 2 A similar text is found in the 

 Nan i U W M i& ("Records of Southern Barbarians"), as quoted in the 

 T'ai pHh yii lan, z "In Nan-cao there are people from P'o-lo-men, Po-se, 

 Se-p'o (Java), P'o-ni (Borneo), K'un-lun, and of many other heretic 

 tribes, meeting at one trading-mart, where pearls and precious stones in 

 great number are exchanged for gold 4 and musk." This text is identical 

 with that of the Man £w, save that the trading centre of this group of 

 five tribes is located in the kingdom of Nan-cao (in the present province 

 of Yun-nan). E. H. Parker 5 has called attention to a mention of Po-se 

 in the T'ang Annals, without expressing, however, an opinion as to 

 what Po-se means in this connection. In the chapter on P'iao (Bur- 

 ma) it is there stated that near the capital of that country there are 

 hills of sand and a barren waste which borders on Po-se and P'o-lo-men, 

 — identical with the above passage of the Man Iw. 8 



In a.d. 742, a Buddhist priest from Yan-cou on the Yangtse, Kien- 

 cen $£ M by name, undertook a voyage to Japan, in the course of which 

 he also touched Canton in 748. In the brief abstract of his diary given 

 by the Japanese scholar J. Takakusu, 7 we read, "Dans la riviere de 

 Canton, il y avait d'innombrables vaissaux appartenant aux brahmanes, 

 aux Persans, aux gens de Koun-loun (tribu malaise)." The text of the 

 work in question is not at my disposal, but there can be no doubt that 

 it contains the triad P'o-lo-men, Po-se, K'un-lun, as mentioned in the 

 Man Su, and that the question is not of Brahmans, but of the country 



1 In another passage (p. 34 b) Fan Co states that musk is obtained in all moun- 

 tains of Yun-c'an and Nan-cao, and that the natives use it as a means of exchange. 



2 Bull, de I'Ecole frangaise, Vol. IV, p. 287, note 2. 

 * Ch. 981, p. 5 b. 



4 The text has ^ ^. I do not know what lu ("to boil") could mean in this 

 connection. It is probably a wrong reading for Jt, as we have it in the text of the 

 Man iu. 



4 Burma with Special Reference to Her Relations with China, p. 14 (Rangoon, 

 1893)- 



6 This passage is not contained in the notice of P'iao in the Kiu T'an Su 

 (Ch. 197, p. 7 b). 



7 Premier Congres International des Etudes d'Extrfime-Orient, p. 58 (Hanoi, 

 1903) ; cf. G. Ferrand, Textes relatifs a l'Extrfime-Orient, Vol. II, p. 638. 



