14 Boundaries and Beyond
especially of the Straits of Malacca and the Isthmus in the northern
Malay Peninsula, as well as its role as “a transshipment centre both for
Southeast Asian products and those from the Middle East, India and
China”^43 had propelled it to the foremost commercial and maritime
power. The Malay navigational enterprise that had begun some three
centuries earlier reached new heights during the Srivijaya era, when its
ships frequented Guangzhou as well as the southeastern coast of India.
As a center of Mahayanist scholarship, it attracted visits from Buddhist
monks from China.
Another important piece of information is provided by the eminent
Tang Dynasty monk, Yi Jing. In Ćĉ 671, Yi Jing arrived in Guangzhou to
arrange with a Persian ship-owner for his seaborne journey to Srivijaya,
where he remained for six months studying Sanskrit grammar. From
there he boarded the Great King Maharaja’s ship to Moluoyu (Melayu/
Jambi) and Jiecha (Geluo, present-day Kedah) in transit to India.
Returning in Ćĉ 685, Yi Jing made a stopover in Jiecha to await the
winter, awaiting the arrival of a Srivijayan ship to carry him to Moluoyu.
He remained in Moluoyu for a few months until mid-summer, when the
arrival of the southwest monsoon facilitated his journey northward to
Guangzhou.^44
During the early Tang Dynasty, several groups of West and South
Asian merchants were active in the East Asian Seas. According to Han
Zhenhua, who cites a contemporary source from the late seventh century,
Persian ships from the “West Sea” (Xihai) used to sail to the Nanhai. They
would also extend their voyage and arrive in Guangzhou in great numbers.
Their presence allowed travelers the convenience of being able to
schedule their voyages to the Nanhai with the Persian ship-owners in the
port of Guangzhou.^45 Besides Persian ships, Arab and Indian vessels were
among other foreign ships entering Guangzhou Harbor. Paul Wheatley
mentions, “Arab trading ships βirst began to penetrate the seas of South-
- Nik Hassan Shuhaimi bin Nik Abdul Rahman, “The Kingdom of Srivijaya as
Social-political and Cultural Entity”, in The Southeast Asian Port and Polity: Rise
and Demise, ed. J. Kathirithamby-Wells and John Villiers (Singapore: Singapore
University Press, 1990), p. 71. - Yi Jing 義淨, Da Tang Xiyu qiufa gaoseng zhuan jiaozhu 大唐西域求法高僧
傳 [Annotated memoirs of the eminent monks who made pilgrimages to the
western region], annotated by Wang Bangwei 王邦维 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
1988), pp. 152–4, 167; also Paul Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese, pp. 41–5.
Moluoyu, Jiecha and Geluo are the transliterations of 末羅瑜, 羯茶 and 箇羅 in
Chinese historical texts. - Han Zhenhua 韓振華, “Tangdai nanhai maoyi zhi”, pp. 330, 334, 340.
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