HISTORY OF KEDAH. 



By E. 0. Winstedt. 



An Arab voyager Ibn Khordadzbeh (846 A.D.) wrote in his 

 Kitab al-masalik wa-l mamalik of an island called- " Kilali " which 

 contained tin mines and bamboo forests. Another Arab voyager 

 Sulaiman (851 A.D), edited about 920 A.D. by one Ami Zaid of 

 Siraf, wrote of " Kalah-bar/' as " a dependency of Zabej," which 

 is probably Srivijaya i.e. Palembang : — Chao Ju Kua in 1250 A.D. 

 recorded that Langkasuka (i.e. Kedah), Trengganu, Pahang and 

 Kelantan were all subject to Palembang. ("Encyclopaedic van 

 Xederlandsch-Indie " sub " Tochten," " Livres du Merveilles cle 

 ITnde, Leyden 1883-6, pp. 255-264 and Eeinaud's "Eolations 

 des voyages f aits par les Arabes et les Persans/' pp. LXII, LXXXV, 

 17, 93, 94.) Ibn Muhalhal, who nourished about 941 A.D. (but 

 whose account is of doubtful authenticity), describes "Kalah" as 

 the last place visited by ships going eastward, a great city with 

 high walls and gardens and canals, " where are the mines of lead " 

 or tin " called kalai, which is found in no part of the world except 

 Kalah ; " a place famous for the best " swords " in India ; its in- 

 habitants were Buddhists. " Kilah " or " Kalah '" is- generally 

 identified as Kedah : the mention of tin-mines places it certainly 

 in the Malay Peninsula, as Bangka was discovered much later. 

 And probably this " Kalah " is identical with " Kora " or " Kala " 

 of the Chinese chronicles of the T'ang Dynasty (618-916) : — ])p. 

 241-3, Vol. 1, .Series II, " Essays relating to Indochina " : " Kora " 

 had a king whose family-name was iSri Pura and his personal name 

 Misi Pura; "the dead were buried and their ashes put into a jar 

 and sunk in the sea ; the customs of the people were about the same 

 as in Siam." 



The history of the Liang dynasty (502-665 A.D.) (ib. pp. 

 135-7) gives an account of a country called Langgasu or Langga, 

 whose people said that their country had been established 400 years 

 earlier : its inhabitants were ardent Buddhists. This, it is some- 

 times said, is a reference to Langkasuka, the old name of Kedah. 

 recorded in the Hikayat Marong Mahawangsa and in popular folk- 

 tales — ("Fasciculi Mala} T enses," pt. II (a), pp. 25-6; Skeat's 

 " Fables from an Eastern Forest," pp. 49-51 and 81) "Kedah may 

 very well be the old native name of the country and Langkasuka its 

 literary name. Many places in Further India and the Islands bear 

 two names : thus, Pegu was styled Hamsawati, Tumasik was called 

 Singapura: similarly Siak (in Sumatra) is known as Seri Indra- 

 pura, and many other such instances could be given. All this 

 merely illustrates the varnish of Indian culture, which spread over 

 these regions during the first dozen centuries or so of our era." 



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



