On NOT Crossing the Sea from Côn Đảo to Singapore
If you read the extent scholarship on Southeast Asia in the first millennium AD, you will find scholars repeatedly indicating that ships sailed across the seas between the area of…
The Chicken Tongue Aromatic (shejixiang) was NOT Cloves
There is an aromatic that is mentioned in early Chinese sources called the “chicken tongue aromatic” (jishexiang 雞舌香). From what I can tell, everyone who has mentioned it thinks it…
Ge Hong’s Five Kingdoms
In the previous post, I translated information about Southeast Asia in an early fourth-century text entitled Grand Clarity Scripture of Divine Elixir Made from Liquid Gold (Taiqing jinye shendan jing…
Third-Fourth Century Maritime Southeast Asia in a Daoist Text
I recently came to realize that there is geographic information about third-fourth century maritime Southeast Asia in a Daoist text, the Grand Clarity Scripture of Divine Elixir Made from Liquid…
I FINALLY Figured Out Yijing!!
If you don’t know what this title means, then you can read these blog posts to find out more:“Yijing did NOT Visit Jambi/Srivijaya”“I Found “Malayu / Malaya / Malāyur!!!”The gist…
There is no Pulau Aur in Song Dynasty Era Sources
A few days ago, I posted a translation of information about maritime Southeast Asia in Zhou Qufei’s 周去非 1178 work, Lingwai daida 嶺外代答 [Representative Responses about the Region Beyond the…
Geographic Space in the Lingwai Daida
I have just shared a translation that ChatGPT and I made of the sections in Zhou Qufei’s twelfth-century Lingwai daida that relate to maritime Southeast Asia. I would like to…
12th-Century Maritime Southeast Asia in the Lingwai Daida
Zhou Qufei’s 周去非 1178 work, Lingwai daida 嶺外代答 [Representative Responses about the Region Beyond the Passes], is a very important Chinese source for information about maritime Southeast Asia at that…
Cham Pu Muslims
In previous posts I have been challenging a long-held belief that a “surname” that appears in Chinese sources, “Pu,” indicates the Arab name, “Abu” or the Javanese-Malay title, “mpu/empu.”In this…
More Evidence for the Cham Pu/Po in Chinese Historical Sources
In a recent blog post, I talked about how in Song dynasty era sources, there is a “surname” that appears in numerous Chinese records about tribute missions coming from Southeast…