For years, I have been arguing that the area between Lake Songkhla and Kedah was home to a trans-peninsular trade route of immense importance in the final centuries of the first millennium AD.
This was the area that Arabs referred to as Zabag, and which Chinese referred to as Shepo (which would have been pronounced something like “Jaba”), and it was the area which the Chola targeted in their attack in the early eleventh century.
That region never fully recovered from that attack, but that trade route also never completely disappeared either. I have previously found evidence of Vietnamese crossing that route in the early nineteenth century, and now I have found evidence of this route from a few decades earlier, in the 1770s.
I recently “upgraded” some Chinese maps relating to Siam in this period, and on one of them, the “Xianluo [Siam] Maritime Navigation Map” (暹羅航海圖), there is a geographic feature that completely stands out, and it is a waterway extending across the Malay Peninsula from a place called Takan 他坎 to Jieda 結韃 [Kedah].
Next to what appears to be a straight water route, like a canal, is a note that I have translated as “Takan to Jieda [Kedah] canal route, 10 days” 他坎至結韃港路十日, and then there is another note that says “newly opened small canal” 新開之小港.
What I have translated as “canal” is actually the character for “harbor” (gang 港). However, for multiple reasons, seeing this as “harbor” makes no sense here.
If we try to read this sentence with the understanding that gang 港 is harbor, we get possible translations like this: “Takan to Jieda [Kedah] harbor road, 10 days.” Does this mean a “road” to Kedah harbor? Then why is a waterway drawn there?
If “harbor” is modifying “road/route” to get ganglu 港路 or “harbor route,” that’s not a known term in Chinese, as far as I can tell.
Finally, what is a “newly opened small harbor”? And where was it, in Kedah or Takan?
The solution, I think, is simple. Gang was used here to indicate the similar-sounding and very common Thai word for a canal, khlong (คลอง). You can “open” a “small khlong.” And you can use a “khlong route” to cross through territory. And finally, it makes sense why the waterway that this information is about was drawn perfectly straight, just like a khlong.
This map was reportedly made at some point around or before 1771. What was going on in Siam at that time?
Well, the Burmese trashed Ayutthaya in 1767, and then a guy known as Phraya Thaksin tried to reconstitute a new polity based in the area of Thonburi, in what is now greater Bangkok. We know from various accounts that Phraya Taksin struggled to get trade flowing and to get life back to normal, all the while facing a continued threat from the Burmese.
So, it makes sense that he would want to open a canal across the Malay Peninsula at this time, as he needed access to trade, and needed to keep a distance from the Burmese.
That said, to be able to do that, under the strained conditions of the time, could only have been possible because THERE WAS ALREADY AN OLD CANAL there.
Some fifty years later, I believe that the Vietnamese did the exact same thing when they built the Vĩnh Tế Canal, a canal that I argue was built where an old canal had once served as the main artery to the Cambodian interior, to a place that the Chinese called “Sanfoqi” meaning “Kampuchea.”
Ok, but where was this place, Takan, that the canal apparently departed from? On the map it would appear that it was someplace between Chaiya and Nakhon Sri Thammarat, however, there is no way that anyone ever built a canal from that area, over mountains, and all the way to Kedah, nor could one cross such a route in ten days.
I think we have to understand that at least until the early eighteenth century, one could access what is now the inland area of lake Thale Noi and Songkhla from an opening in the north, close to Nakhon Si Thammarat.
It is possible that certain boats could still pass into the lakes from that direction in the 1770s. Hence, Takan could have been somewhere up in that area, or even further north past Nakhon Si Thammarat, and was a launching point for the journey across the lakes to a route that went over the Peninsula, a journey that perhaps required a certain type of boat that people sailed/rowed from Takan.
Alternately, it could have been somewhere in the Tale Noi-Lake Songkhla area, and the placement of the name on the map is slightly distorted because the location was on the water (which is what the map suggests) but was actually on the inland side of Sating Pra (which the map does not indicate).
Finally, it is very important to point out that “Takan” is undoubtedly “thâa khâam” (ท่าข้าม), a term in Thai which has meanings such as 1) a place where one embarks or disembarks from a boat and 2) a ferry crossing.
From another map, one that is also from this same time period, the “Map of the Situation of the Jiaozhi Central-Southern Peninsula” (交趾中南半島情形圖), we can definitely see a “water world” in this area.
This map shows the southern extent of Siam, and depicts Nakhon and Songkhla as islands, and has a large body of water, perhaps Lake Songkhla and Tale Noi, in between those two places and Kedah on the other side of the Malay Peninsula.
While this map is obviously not accurate, I think it can nonetheless help remind us that the main means of transportation in this time period was by water, and there was a lot of water in the middle of the Malay Peninsula in the area between Nakhon Si Thammarat or Songkhla and places on the other side of the peninsula.
In addition to lakes, there were also rivers, and with a little effort, one could also open up a small canal from, I argue, the remains of an ancient canal.
Very interesting. I agree the new small harbour could mean some kind of waterway but I don’t know if it was a long straight “canal”. It was probably more like a “connection” of two klong at their headwaters, i guess, ike Jalan Penarikan between Pekan (pahang) and Muar (Melaka).
Yes, I agree, and the connection doesn’t have to be straight, as a winding waterway can still be a khlong. It could be that they simply cleared out some passageway that was overgrown. However, I can’t figure out where that was. Nonetheless, there is something odd about the straightness of that line on the map.