George Cœdès (1886-1969) was a French scholar of the Southeast Asian past who published prolifically, and through his writings, has exerted an enormous influence on the writing of premodern Southeast Asian history.
Those writings include extensive translations of Cambodian inscriptions and a survey of early Southeast Asian history that was first published in 1948 as Les états hindouisés d’Indochine et d’Indonésie, and then published in English translation in the 1960s as The Indianized States of Southeast Asia.
Additionally, to quote from his Wikipedia page, “George Cœdès is credited with rediscovering the former kingdom of Srivijaya, centered on the modern-day Indonesian city of Palembang, but with influence extending from Sumatra through to the Malay Peninsula and Java.”
I have been pointing out in numerous blog posts here that rather than “rediscovering” Srivijaya, it would be much more accurate to state that Cœdès “invented” Srivijaya.
One of the ways that he did this was by declaring, without evidence, that two names in Chinese sources, Shilifoshi and Sanfoqi, referred to “Srivijaya” in different time periods.
Amazingly, in The Indianized States of Southeast Asia, Cœdès makes it clear that he does not have evidence for this argument, but he proceeds to make it anyway.
On page 131 of that work, Cœdès is talking about the tenth century, and states about “Srivijaya” that “For the Chinese, Shilifoshi has become Sanfoqi,” meaning that the name “Sanfoqi” starts to appear in Chinese sources at this time and that it refers to “Srivijaya.”
However, Cœdès has a footnote here and it says that “This transcription,” meaning the term Sanfoqi, “has not yet been explained in a completely satisfactory manner.”
He then goes on to note that one scholar tried to argue that the “san” in Sanfoqi was a Chinese corruption of the Indian term “sri,” but that this argument had not convinced Sinologists.
Cœdès then concluded by stating, again without offering any evidence, that “In any case, foqi certainly corresponds to Vijaya.”
Wow!! Did you get that??!
Let me help you in case you didn’t.
In his book, Cœdès basically says “In the tenth century Srivijaya started to be called Sanfoqi by the Chinese, however, we have no evidence that this term ‘Sanfoqi’ can actually be interpreted to mean ‘Srivijaya,’ but I don’t care, I’m just going to keep talking about it as if it were real.”
Do you get it now?
Did you just say “Holy *%&#!!!”?
You should have. Those are the words that naturally come from our mouths when our brains are confronted with an unfathomable absence of logic.
If you didn’t, please go back and read my explanation again because it’s pretty important to understand the degree to which Cœdès did not have evidence to support his “rediscovery” of Srivjaya
If one then reads on and sees how Cœdès builds a historical argument about Srivijaya based on the absence of evidence, it’s shocking.
From what I can tell, however, this is not an exception. Instead, it looks like we can find many other instances in his influential The Indianized States of Southeast Asia where Cœdès simply did not have evidence to make the statements that he did or was completely wrong about the evidence he had (here, for instance, is another example).
This really makes me wonder about all of his work on Cambodia and the reconstructions of Angkorian history that rely on Cœdès’s writings.
Could it be that Cœdès was terribly wrong about Srivijaya but got Cambodian history right?
The more I look at his scholarship, the more doubtful that seems to me.
Instead, I’m getting the sense that our friend George created a complete mess of early Southeast Asian history that will probably never be rectified.
Who is the “scholar” that Coedes is quoting here, who argued that “San” could be a transcription for “Sri?”
Because if there is a scholar who claimed this (although other scholars disagree), Coedes is using some logic here.
IF “San” in Sanfoqi can be understood as “Sri”, then it’s not improbable to correspond Sri-foqi (or fo-zhai) with Sri-vijaya. So he is using some logic (while imperfect, yes.)
Coedes may have been relying on another scholar whom he considered to be a more reputable source of Chinese linguistics. Again, not the best way to do scholarship, but nice try.
Oh! It was Aurousseau! Okay, then Coedes was placing his bets on Aurousseau’s interpretation, which even he admits is not completely satisfactory. But it was perhaps the best guess he saw so far.
Coedes started from a wrong assumption (‘a kingdom called Srivijaya must have existed!’) and made more logical mistakes along the way – naturally leading to a faulty conclusion. But still, I don’t think this qualifies as a total absence of logic…
I was more or less joking, but I take your point, and actually, it leads to something that I think is really important. There are people who are quick to denounce “colonial scholarship,” but I think they denounce it for the wrong reason. They denounce it because they think it was “Euro-centric” or “condescending” or “Orientalist,” etc. Ok, you can find some of those things in some scholarship. However, none of that applies to Coedes’s writings on Srivijaya. To the contrary, he is doing the opposite of what people critique colonial scholarship for.
The really big problem with colonial-era scholarship, in my opinion, is its “crazy logic.” Colonial-era scholars made assumptions/connections/conclusions that simply don’t make sense when you look at the evidence carefully and seriously. I wrote about that a long time ago here: https://leminhkhai.blog/the-yueviet-migration-theory-and-the-hidden-network-approach/
From what I can tell, Coedes’s book is filled with this “crazy logic,” and yet it has served as the foundation for tons of subsequent scholarship. . .
Mr Kelley. can you do a post on the austro asiatic origins of kinh or vietic peoples and how modern vietnamese came to be?
Very interesting article Mr.Kelley. I might have something for you which is a book written by a Japanese author. His studies is similar to yours. I have a link you can check it out.
http://www.mekong-publishing.com/books/ISBN4-8396-0316-8.htm
It’s Takashi Suzuki. You can read some of his work on his website.
http://www.suzukitk.com/
Thank you, Kody K, for sharing this!!
Mr. Suzuki is definitely right that there are lots of errors and misunderstandings in what has been written about “Srivijaya.” And I couldn’t agree more with statements like this one: “Very few historians have taught us about the real ancient history of Southeast Asia. The reason is very simple because they do not know the real history. Ignorant teachers cannot teach their students. They teach as fictions and are talking about the ‘castle in the air’. So, students understand nothing. They use the empty word of ‘ mandala’ which explains nothing real. We have to stop the usage of ambiguous words and face the reality.”
However, I find that what he has written doesn’t really move beyond those misunderstandings because he still uses the same framework that those “ignorant teachers” established (such as that the Chinese terms Shilifoshi and Sanfoqi both refer to a place called “Srivijaya”), when there is clear evidence that demonstrates this framework doesn’t make sense.
This is the trap that people have been in. They take it for granted that there was a maritime polity called “Srivijaya” that existed for centuries and then they argue about how the information in Chinese sources can be understood to talk about that maritime polity. That’s the framework that Coedes invented and Mr. Sukzuki is trying to get the sources to fit that framework.
Coedes, however, didn’t have the evidence to create this framework in the first place.
Having said this, it is very interesting to see what Mr. Suzuki has written, so thank you again for informing me about his work. 🙂