The Empire of the Maharaja, King of the 

 Mountains and Lord of the Isles. 



By C. 0. Blagden. 



In the autumn of the year 671 the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim 

 I Tsing 1 sailed from Canton in a Persian ship with the North-East 

 monsoon iand in less than twenty days arrived at the country of 

 Fo-she, where he stayed for six months before proceeding to 

 India. Fourteen years later, on his return from India, he stayed 

 there again, this time for four years. All the available evidence 

 points to the conclusion that this Fo-she or Shi-li-fo-she country 

 was Palembang, in Southern Sumatra, and from the 7th century 

 to its conquest by the Javanese of Majapahit about 1377 we get 

 many glimpses of it as a flourishing kingdom of Hindu (and 

 particularly Buddhist) civilization. That much has been common 

 knowledge for a good many years past. Gerini in his Researches 

 on Ptolemy's Geography of Eastern Asia, pp. 619-30, has compiled 

 a useful list of dates forming an outline sketch of Palembang 

 history during the period above mentioned, and Wilkinson in 

 Papers on Malay Subjects: History, Ft. I, pp. 11-1, has also given 

 a brief account of it (omitting, however, any reference to I Tsing 

 and relying on the very doubtfully identified kingdom of Kandali). 

 Quite recently, however, the importance of Palembang in 

 relation to the whole course of the local history of the Straits before 

 the 11th century has had fresh light thrown upon it. It is no 

 longer as a single kingdom localized in Southern Sumatra that we 

 must regard it, but as an empire which for several centuries had 

 outstations on both sides of the Straits, by means of which it con- 

 trolled and took toll of the international trade that passed through 

 them. Viewed in that light, the matter becomes vastly more in- 

 teresting, for it is linked up with the history of Eastern trade-routes 

 in general and in particular with the sea-route between China and 

 the West. In Ptolemy's time (2nd Century A.T>.) trade already 

 went through the Straits, though on occasion it availed itself of 

 various land crossings on the isthmus between Indo- China and the 

 Malay Peninsula, in places where that isthmus narrows and there 

 are convenient gaps in the mountain ridge. No doubt, as naviga- 

 tion progressed, the continuous sea-route through the Straits, in 

 spite of the delays involved by its weak and variable winds, became 

 more and more firmly established as the normal one. And so it 

 remained until Vasco da Gama discovered the new route round 

 the Cape of Good Hope, whereupon for a few centuries the trade 

 was diverted to some extent, only to return again into its old 



channels by reason of the cutting of the Suez Canal 



1 "I-Tsing translated by J. Takakusu," (1896, Clarendon Press, 



Oxford). 



Jour. Straits Branch R. A. Soc, No. 81, 1920. 



