366 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»d S. VI. 149., Nov. 6. '68. 



up this great unreclaimed waste, offer fields of adventure 

 to future conqnistadores, and, under the discipline of 

 science and industry, ■n-ill su-stain great populations, will 

 employ commercial navies, and will contribute a flood 

 of varied produce to the markets of the world." 



The writer of this eloquent passage does not 

 seem to have been aware, that what he heralds 

 as a lofty probability of the future, is already 

 amongst the strange realities of the past ; and 

 the " vast empire " which he foreshadows has 

 had a pre-existence and passed into oblivion a 

 thousand years ago. It is one of those extra- 

 ordinary facts that are unexpectedly brought to 

 light in turning over the dim and mystified annals 

 of the East, that earlier than the Christian era a 

 great and powerful empire existed in the very 

 locality indicated by the Times ; that it held 

 absolute dominion over Borneo, Sumatra, Java, 

 Celebes and the countless islands that group the 

 Indian Ocean ; that its sovereigns reigned su- 

 preme from Cape Comorin to the confines of 

 China ; that its ascendency was acknowledged so 

 late as the seventh century, but that it gradually 

 sunk into obscurity ; its disjointed fragments be- 

 came the elements of other states, and its very 

 name was forgotten. 



" Oranes illacrymabiles 

 Urgentur, ignotique louga 

 Noete, carent 'quia rate sacro." 



The empire of Zabedj had no native historians, 

 and the fragmentary notices which survive to us 

 are dug out, like historical fossils of gigantic pro- 

 portions, from the Hindoo puranas, and the nar- 

 ratives of the mediaeval geographers of Arabia. 



One of the earliest and most authentic accounts 

 of the Maharaja of Zabedj is to be found in the 

 remarkable Arabic manuscript known as the 

 Voyages of the Two Mahomedans, who travelled 

 in India and China at the latter end of the ninth 

 and the commencement of the tenth century. It 

 was first printed by Renaudot in 1718 from the 

 unique MS. in the Bibliotheque Imperiale of 

 Paris, and republished by Renaud in 1845 under 

 the title of Relations des Voyages faits par les 

 Arahes et Persans dans ilnde et Chine dans le IX" 

 Sificle. In this singular narrative the description 

 of the empire of Zabedj is given by Abouzeyd 

 of Bassora, from the reports of Soleyman and Ibn* 

 Wahab, two mariners who had traversed the ter- 

 ritory, in making voyages to and from China. 

 The centre of the kingdom and the residence of 

 the sovereign was at (Zabaje, Zaba) Java, which 

 Suleyman describes as then so populous that its 

 innumerable towns were within sight of each 

 other ; and the rural inhabitants were so densely 

 housed, that when the cock crew at sunrise, his 

 call was caught up and repeated through an area 

 of one hundred leagues. East and west of Java, 

 the empire extended from China to Cape Comorin, 

 a thousand leagues in extent, and embracing in- 

 numerable islands, amongst others Kalah (which 



there is little difficulty in identifying with the 

 modern harbour of Point de Galle in Ceylon), 

 which lying midway between Arabia and China 

 was the emporium to which the merchants of each 

 resorted, to exchange the products of the west for 

 aloes, camphor, sandal-wood, ivory, ebony, and 

 spices. (Relations, ^c, torn. ii. p. 90.) 



The description of the Maharaja and his do- 

 minions, as given by Abouzeyd, was copied with- 

 out acknowledgment, and is repeated verbatim, 

 in the Golden Meadows of Massoudi, an Arabian 

 geographer of the tenth century ; and those to 

 whom the original work is not accessible will 

 find the extract which contains this passage 

 amongst the Loci et Opuscula Inedita Scriptorum 

 Arabum de Rebus Indicis collected by Gilde- 

 meister, p. 131. In this passage Massoudi re- 

 lates the conquest by the Maharaja of Zabedj of 

 the kingdom of Comar (or Cape Comorin), the 

 king of which had provoked his resentment by 

 vauntingly wishing " to see the head of the 

 Maharaja in a dish " — and for this he exacted a 

 vengeance so signal that ever afterwards the 

 sovereigns of that extremity of India prostrated 

 themselves at sunrise, in the direction of Java, to 

 attest their homage to the Maharaja. 



In illustration of his unbounded wealth, Abou- 

 zeyd and Massoudi relate that it was customary 

 for the Keeper of the Treasury every morning to 

 cast an ingot of gold into a lake which lay in 

 front of the imperial palace ; whence, on the death 

 of the sovereign, the ingots were recovered and 

 divided amongst the members of the royal house- 

 hold ; and the renown of the deceased was in 

 proportion to the number of years he had reigned, 

 and the accumulation of gold in the " pond of 

 kings." 



Edrisi, Aboulfeda, Kazwini and others of the 

 Arabian geographers make casual allusions to 

 Zabedj and its sovereign, but they are all in- 

 debted for their information to Massoudi. M. 

 Reinaud in his Memoire sur VInde, pp. 39. 225., 

 and in his Introduction, &c. to Aboulfeda, p. cccxc, 

 has collected all that is known of the forgotten 

 empire. M. Major, in his admirable preface to the 

 Indian Voyagers of the Fifteenth Century, which 

 forms the latest volume of the Hakluyt Society's 

 publications, says that Walknaer has come to the 

 conclusion that the empire of Zabedj did not sur- 

 vive beyond the seventh century of our era ; after 

 which the islands of which it consisted became 

 subdivided into numerous petty sovereignties. 

 (P. xxvii.) It is mentioned by M. Delaurier in a 

 learned contribution to the Journal Asiatique for 

 September, 1 846 ; but beyond these and a kvr 

 other casual allusions, I have nowhere succeeded 

 iu finding any historical record of an empire 

 which for ten centuries at least must have been 

 one of the most remarkable and powerful in the 

 East. J. Emersoji Tennent. 



