590 



MEDIAEVAL HISTORY. 



LPART V. 



themselves of the Paumbam passage ; but we have still 

 to ascertain the particular harbour which was the 

 centre of the more important commerce between China 

 and the West. That harbour I believe to have been 

 Point de Galle. 



Abou-zeyd describes the rendezvous of the ships arriv- 

 ing from Oman, where they met those bound for the 

 Persian Gulf, as lying half-way between Arabia and 

 China. " It was the centre," he says, " of the trade in 

 aloes and camphor, in sandal-wood, ivory and lead." l 

 This emporium he denominates " Kalah," and when we 

 remember that he is speaking of a voyage which he him- 

 self had not made, and of countries then very imperfectly 

 known to the people of the West, we need not be sur- 

 prised that he calls it an island, or rather a peninsula. 



According to him, " Kalah" was at that period subject 

 to the Maharaja of Zabedj, the sovereign of a singular 

 kingdom of which little is known. It appears, however, 

 to have been formed about the commencement of the 

 Christian era ; and to have extended, in the eighth and 

 ninth centuries, over the groups of islands south and west 

 of Malacca, including Borneo, Java, and Sumatra, which 

 had become the resort of a vast population of Indians, 

 Chinese, and Malays. 2 The sovereign of this opulent em- 

 pire had brought under his dominion the territory of the 

 King of Comar, the southern extremity of the Dekkan 3 , 

 and at the period when Abou-zeyd wrote, he likewise 

 claimed the sovereignty of " Kalah." 



This incident is not mentioned in the Singhalese chro- 

 nicles, but their silence is not to be regarded as conclu- 



1 ABOTT-ZEYD, Relation, $c., vol. i. 

 p. 93 ; REINATJD, Disc. p. Ixxiv. 



2 Journ. Asiat. vol. xlix. p. 206 j 

 ELPHXNSTONE'S India, b. iii. ch. x. p. 

 168 ; REINATJD, Memoires sur Vlnde, 

 p. 39; Introd. ABOTJLFEDA, p. cccxc. 

 JJaron Walckenaer has ascertained, 

 from the puranas and other Hindu 

 sources, that the Great Dynasty of the 

 Maharaja continued tiU A. D. 628, 

 after which the islands were sub- 

 divided into numerous sovereignties. 



See MAJOR'S Introduction to the In- 

 dian Voyages in the Fifteenth Cen- 

 tury, in the Halduyt Soc. Publ p. 

 xxvii. 



3 MASSOTTDI relates the conquest of 

 the kingdom of Comar by the Maha- 

 raja of Zabedj, nearly in the same 

 words as it is told by Abou-zeyd ; 

 GILDEMEISTER, Script. "Arab., pp. 14/5, 

 146. REINATJD, Memoires mr rinde, 

 p. 225. 



