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 ^ $1 JL (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'Q-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 US 3^ w ("Records of Southern Barbarians "), as quoted in the 

 T'ai p'in yu Ian* "In Nan-ao 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 $u, save that the trading centre of this group of 

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

 of Yiin-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 $u* 



In A.D. 742, a Buddhist priest from Yan-^ou on the Yangtse, Kien- 

 en it 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/ 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 $u, 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-6'an and Nan-ao, and that the natives use it as a means of exchange. 



2 Bull, de I'Ecole fran$aise, Vol. IV, p. 287, note 2. 

 s 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 jfj , as we have it in the text of the 

 Man $u. i 



5 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 $u 

 (Ch. 197, p. 7 b). 



7 Premier Congres International des Etudes d'Extr6me-Orient, p. 58 (Hanoi, 

 1903); cf. G. FERRAND, Textes relatifs a I'Extr&ne-Orient, Vol. II, p. 638. 



