When the Cham Ruled the Seas
In Song dynasty era sources, there is a “surname” that appears in numerous records about tribute missions coming from Southeast Asia (and beyond), and that is “Pu” 蒲. This character…
The Angkorian Independence from Java “Myth”
Several years ago, when I first started researching about “Srivijaya” and quickly realized that a place name in Chinese sources (Sanfoqi) that scholars thought indicated that supposed polity on Sumatra…
The Myth of Jambi as a Capital of “Srivijaya”
I was reading a book that was published in 2022 called The Oxford Handbook of Early Southeast Asia. It contains a chapter on “Srivijaya” by Pierre-Yves Manguin.In that chapter, there…
Rescuing History from Srivijaya – Part 2
A couple of years ago, I published an article entitled “Rescuing History from Srivijaya: The Fall of Angkor in the Ming Shilu (Part 1).” A continuation of that article, “Rescuing…
Here is an Example of the Problem with the Scholarship on “Srivijaya”
As I have said a million times by now, there is a place name in Chinese historical sources, Sanfoqi 三佛齊, that in the early twentieth century, French scholar George Cœdès…
I FINALLY Found Sanfoqi!!
Off and on over the past few years, I have been researching about a place called “Sanfoqi” 三佛齊. This is a name that appears in Chinese sources from the tenth…
A Working Paper on the Chinese Sources on Early Southeast Asia
I’ve recently published a working paper entitled “Revisiting the Chinese Sources on Early Southeast Asia.”I started looking at the Chinese sources for early Southeast Asian history a few years ago,…
The Zhu Fan Zhi and the Complete Mess Scholars Have Made
The scholarship on early Southeast Asian history that relies on Chinese sources is a complete mess.From the very beginning, scholars got a lot of things wrong, and then they just…
Seeing Trans-Peninsular Networks in Chinese Historical Sources (Part 1)
Chinese historical sources have long been used to try to gain an understanding of early Southeast Asian history.However, when scholars have made use of these sources, they have usually done…
Srivijaya 3.0 (21): The Language of Jāba – I Can’t Figure It Out
I have recently been writing a lot about a place that I refer to as “Jāba,” a kingdom that I argue was based in the area of what is now…