24 THE EMPIEE OF THE MAHARAJA. 



In T Tsing's time Palembang annexed the Malay u country, 

 probably in Central Sumatra somewhere about Kampar or Siak. 

 with a port at which the pilgrim also stayed a while. A century 

 later, there is evidence that Vieng Sa, an inland place south of the 

 Bay of Bandon in what is now Lower Siam and situated about 

 9° N. lat., was in some way under the control of the "Maharaja," 

 for that was the dynastic style of the King of Palembang. A San- 

 skrit inscription set up at Vieng Sa 1 records the erection in the year 

 775 of certain Buddhist buildings by order of the King of Srl- 

 vijaya. This reflects back a ray of light on the Tcadatuan Srlvijaya, 

 the kingdom of Srlvijaya mentioned in the Kota Kapur (Western 

 Bangka) inscription 2 which is nearly a century older and com- 

 memorates an attack on Java. It now seems highly probable that 

 Srlvijaya was not the name of the king who set up that inscription 

 but rather of his kingdom. In the middle of the 9th century begins 

 the series of Arabic writers who make much of the empire of the 

 Maharaja, which according to them included all the region of the 

 Straits. For the early Arab traders the great emporium was Kalah 

 or Kilah, where there were tin-mines which localize it definitely in 

 the tin-bearing tract of country extending from Southern Tenas- 

 serim through the greater part of the Malay Peninsula. Its 

 identification with Kedah is at least highly probable, for Kedah is 

 the port which a traveller from the West would first reach and call 

 at. Ibn Khordadzbeh, the earliest Arab authority who goes into 

 these matters, says that Kilah was six days' journey from the island 

 of Langkabulus (one of the Mcobars, probably Great Xicobar). It 

 is mentioned about the beginning of the 10th century as a depen- 

 dency of the Maharaja, and probably stood in that relation a century 

 or two earlier. It is probably identical with Kie-ch'a (old pronun- 

 ciation Kada), where I Tsing called on his way to India and whence 

 he sailed in a ship (belonging to the king (of Palembang). 



But what throws the strongest light on the extent and import- 

 ance of the empire of Palemlbang is the record of its relations with 

 the Tamil dynasty of the Oholas in the 11th century. First, in 

 1005, there is a grant of a village to a Buddhist temple at Xega- 

 patam built by two Palembang kings, father and son. This grant 

 is in Sanskrit and Tamil; in the Sanskrit portion the names of the 

 two kings are given and the second one is styled " king of Kataha 

 and king of Srivishaya." Their identity as kings of Palembang is 

 clinched by two entries in the Chinese annals of the Sung dynasty 

 which also give their names and mention embassies from them in 

 1003 and 1008 respectively. In the Tamil text Kataha is called 

 Kidaram. It is almost certainly Kedah. Some twenty years later 

 the Chola king of that day boasts in his inscriptions of his conquests 

 overseas, resulting in the capture of the king of Kadaram and the 

 taking of a number of places in his empire, including inter alia the 

 Mcobars, Lambri ! (near Achin), Kadaram, Langkasuka (the old 



1 'Inscriptions du Siam et de la Peninsule Malaise,*- by M. L. Einot 

 in the "Bulletin de la Commission archeologique de 1 'Indochine, 1910.' ' 



2 J. B. A. S., S. B., No. 64. 



R. A. Soc, No. 81, 1920. 



