26 THE EMPIRE OF THE MAHARAJA. 



Palembang. Probably this Ling-ya-mdn, wherever it was, was only 

 a dependency and so Palembang got the tolls anyhow. But when 



the outstations began to drop away, the old monopoly was gone 

 and the Maharaja lost his hold on the trade which he had controlled 

 and taxed for some six centuries. For why should traders go out 

 of their way, when the short cut lay by Singapore ? 



Comparing these somewhat scanty historical facts with the 

 legends handed clown by tradition and embodied in Malay litera- 

 ture, one is tempted to see in the mythical expedition of Raja 

 Suran down the Malay Peninsula (Sejarah Melayu, chapt. I) a 

 vague reflection of the Chola raids of the 11th century, while the 

 tales of friendly correspondence between Malay and Indian kings 

 may well be based on half forgotten memories of a state of things 

 that really existed for several centuries. There is evidence enough 

 in Malay titles, place-names, and many other words, of the strong 

 influence which Indian civilization had on Western Indonesia. 

 Knowing something now of the course of history, even if it is mere- 

 ly in rough outline, one can understand why the Sejarah Melayu 

 makes the kings of Singapore descend from the royal family of 

 Palembang, the great state which played such a leading part for 

 such a long time ; and an epithet in the dynastic style of that family 

 throws light on the myth of the origin of the Singapore house. 

 Both in the Vieng Sa inscription and in the earliest of the Chola 

 records above referred to, the Maharaja is said to be " of the family 

 of the king of the mountains." This, with all the other evidence, 

 establishes the fact that the same dynasty is referred to in both 

 inscriptions and also accounts for what puzzled Mr. Wilkinson (op. 

 cit., p. 11), namely the legend of the appearance of the three 

 princes on Mount Siguntang Mahameru. That is not a national 

 Malay legend but an echo of the dynastic tradition of the Palem- 

 bang family which claimed to spring from " the king of the moun- 

 tains." What mountain or mountains the Hindu or Hinduized 

 dynasty of Palembang conceived itself to have come from, we do 

 not know. Possibly it may have been a mountain in India, though 

 the later Malay legend locates it in Southern Sumatra. Nor does 

 it very much matter. But the epithet definitely proves that the 

 Maharaja of Srivijaya who set up the inscription at Yieng Sa in 

 what is now lower Siam was head of the state which more than 

 two centuries later was ruled by the kings who built the temple at 

 Negapatam. And that state was I Tsing's Shi-li-fo-she, the Sar- 

 baza or Sribuza of the Arabs, no longer to be read as Sri Bhoja but 

 Srivijaya, and certainly Palembang. 



For these important additions to our knowledge of Malay 

 history we are indebted to an excellent paper by M. G-. C cedes in 

 the Bulletin de VEcole Frangaise d' Extreme-Orient (1918), Tome 

 XVIII, No. 6, entitled " Le Eoyaume de Crivijaya," to which the 

 reader should refer for the details of the evidence and many further 

 particulars. The conclusions arrived at seem irresistible. At the 

 very least, they point to the Maharaja of Palembang having held 



Jour. Straits Branch, 



