Southeast Asia in the Shunfeng Xiangsong
The Shunfeng xiangsong 順風相送 [Voyage with a Tailwind] is an early Chinese nautical navigation manual. It’s not clear when this text was created, however, one manuscript version of this text…
A Translation of the 1304 Dade Nanhai zhi
The Gazetteer of the Southern Seas during the Dade Era (Dade Nanhai zhi 大德南海志), also known simply as the Gazetteer of the Southern Seas (Nanhai zhi 南海志) is a Yuan-dynasty…
Elephants and Dragon Teeth Gate (Longyamen)
In developing the idea that Chinese sources provide evidence of a kingdom called “Srivijaya” at Palembang on the island of Sumatra, a placename called “Longyamen” 龍牙門, meaning “Dragon Teeth Gate,”…
Southeast Asia in the Zhufan zhi
The Treatise on the Various Barbarians (Zhufan zhi 諸蕃志), completed in 1225 by Zhao Rukuo 趙汝适 (1170—1231), is a very important work for the study of early Southeast Asian history.An…
Angkor’s Lost Canal – What Archaeologists Are Missing
There is a major gap in the scholarship on the Cambodian empire of Angkor. That gap concerns Angkor’s access to the sea and international trade.More specifically, scholars don’t really know…
How Digital-Age Scholarship is Different
All fields are different, but the field I am most active in now (looking at early Southeast Asia through Chinese sources) is very different today than it was just 10…
The Thai-icization of Zhenlifu (Chen-li-fu) and Southeast Asian History
Zhenlifu 真里富 (Chen-li-fu) is the name of a small kingdom in central Cambodia that briefly interacted with the Song dynasty at the beginning of the thirteenth century.If you search for…
Zhenlifu (Chen-li-fu) was NOT in Thailand!!
There is a kingdom by the name of Zhenlifu 真里富 (also, Chen-li-fu) that is mentioned in a Song dynasty source known as the Song huiyao jigao 宋會要輯稿 (Draft Institutional History…
The Rise of the Pu’s – FINALLY EXPLAINED
Last year I wrote a couple of blog posts on a term, “Pu” 蒲, that appears in Song dynasty sources: “When the Cham Ruled the Seas” and “More Evidence for…
Zhenla in the Tang and Song
I recently learned/realized that during the Tang dynasty period, there was an overland trade route that went from what is now central Vietnam over to Cambodia and then south to…