30 HISTORY OF KEDAH. 



(Blagden, J. E. A. S v July 1905). One may add to these in- 

 stances Indrapura the old court name for Pahang. The term 

 Langkasuka now survives only as the name of a small tributary to 

 the upper reaches of the Perak river. The Hi. Marong Maha- 

 ivangsa relates how Sri Mahawangsa, the third ruler of Kedah, 

 removed (to Serokam) from Langkasuka, because it was too far 

 from the sea, (J. R. A. S., S. B. 72, p. 64) : " it lay near Gunong 

 Jerai" (ib. No. 53, p. 148). The Javanese poem, the Nagara- 

 kretagama composed in 1365 A.D., mentions both Kedah and 

 Langkasuka among a list of Peninsular settlements tributary to 

 Majapahit (ib. pp. 145-9). But though Langkasuka was an old 

 name for Kedah, the Chinese Langa-ya-hsiu is more likely to have 

 been Tenasserim. 



Of the prevalence of the Buddhist religion evidence exists in 

 -certain inscriptions found in Kedah and Province Wellesley, going 

 hack according to Kern to 400 A.D. (ib. No. 49, pp. 95-101) and 

 having a Southern Indian Sanskrit alphabet; and again in inscribed 

 clay tablets found in Kedah in a cave, nine feet above the floor, 

 written according to Kern in Nagari of the 10th century and 

 therefore from Northern India, (ib. No. 39, p. 205 and cf. J. and 

 P., A. S. Bengal, Vol. Ill, No. 7, July 1907, where Eakshaldas 

 Banerji has identified five votive tablets from Trang as relics of 

 Mahayana Buddhism belonging to the western group of the 

 Northern Indian Nagari characters of the 11 tli century A.D., 

 resembling the characters of the Benares grant of Karnadeva and 

 the grants of the Rathors of Kanauj.) Chula (Coromandel) re- 

 cords claim that Kedah was conquered by a Chula king in the 11th 

 century. 



Accordingly we know of Kedah till the end of 14th century 

 that it was famous as a mart for tin ; its people were Buddhists, and 

 the predominant influence was Indian. Besides this we know that 

 first Paleimbang and the Chula kings and then the great Javanese 

 kingdom of Majapahit claimed suzerainty over it. 



The Hikayat Marong Mahawangsa or " Kedah Annals," as the 

 work is termed, records seven pre-Muhammadan rulers of Kedah 

 bearing the Sanskrit-lSiamese titles of Marong Mahawangsa, Marong 

 Mahapodisat, Sri Mahawangsa, Sri Indrawangsa, Maha Parita Baria 

 (Raja Bersiong), Phra Ong Maha Podisat, and of Phra Ong Maha- 

 wangsa who became its first Muhammadan ruler under the style of 

 Mudzaffal Shah. Some of these titles are not Indian but Indo- 

 Chinese ; ' Podisat ' for example is i Bodisat ' and the change of 

 sound from sonants to surds is neither Indian nor Malay but 

 'characteristically Indo-Chinese occurring in Mon, Khmer, Siamese 

 and Burmese. This is evidence that Kedah fell, after the fall of 

 Palembang and the decay of Majapahit, under the influence of its 

 Northern neighbours, the Siamese. 



An Achinese account gives 1474 A.D. as the date of the con- 

 version of the first king of Kedah to Islam (Journal of the Indian 

 Archipelago Vol. Ill, p. 480 and J. R. A. S., April 1909, p. 527). 



Jour. Straits Branch 



