Maritime Asia in the Third Century CE

The Wushi waiguo zhuan 吳時外國傳 (Account of Foreign Countries in the Wu Period) and Nanzhou yiwu zhi 南州異物志 (Record of Unusual Things from Southern Lands) are two Sinitic texts produced in the third century, during the time of the Wu Kingdom (ca. 190-280 CE). The Wu Kingdom actively extended diplomatic and exploratory initiatives into the southern seas; the materials translated here are the earliest substantive records of the information they gathered. They are an important source for our understanding of the early patterns of settlement and exchange in "Maritime Asia," the vast expanse of the South China Sea and Indian Ocean (Acri 2018). They are especially important for what they tell us of Southeast Asia, which left no textual records from this period.

If you have visited this site before, you can navigate directly to the region of Maritime Asia that most interests you by referring to the map below. It shows the extent of the Wu Kingdom, the route of the Kang Tai embassy to Funan, and the approximate extent of ten regions of maritime Asia for which there are passages in these two texts. The regions are numbered in the order they are presented in this StoryMap; to link directly to a region, use the header bar at the top of the page. However, if this is your first time here, I strongly recommend that you start with the background information that follows.

The Wu Kingdom developed out of the southern provinces of the Han Empire (202 BCE - 220 CE). Local leaders from the Sun clan established autonomy in the late second century CE, and formally declared independence after the ruling Liu lineage was displaced in 220 CE. Two other kingdoms, Wei (which held the populous core of the Han Empire, in the central Yellow River plains) and Shu (in modern Sichuan & Chongqing) ruled over the other parts of the empire; thus the era is called the  Three Kingdoms Period . For most of the time, the Wu court was located at the city of Jianye (modern Nanjing), which was both the downriver terminus of the Yangzi River network and a major maritime port city. The court’s authority extended south of the Red River delta (now northern Vietnam), which at that time functioned as the northern terminus of the Southeast Asian maritime shipping network (see Section I.1).

The Wu Kingdom was eventually conquered by the Western Jin, successor to the Wei, in 280 CE, but that empire collapsed within a generation or so. The city of Jianye, renamed Jiankang, was re-founded as the seat of an empire in what is now south China, and lasted for another two and a half centuries. The Wu Kingdom can thus be thought of as the founding era of this Jiankang Empire, which would extend and deepen the Wu Kingdom's engagement with maritime Asian diplomacy and trade (Chittick 2020). The empire and the city of Jiankang were finally conquered and destroyed by the northern-based Sui Empire in 589 CE.

Compared to the Han Empire, the Wu Kingdom developed a significant maritime presence in the Yellow and East China Seas. It engaged in maritime exchange with Gongsun Yuan’s regime in northern Korea and southern Manchuria, even importing horses by ship. It explored down the coast of Fujian, which had been outside the realm of Han imperial control. And it sent maritime expeditions to both Taiwan and Hainan island, though they apparently came to little. However, there is no reason to believe that the Wu Kingdom sent ships any further south than this. All maritime exchange south of the Tongking Gulf was done on great sailing ships that were based in Southeast Asia. The best description of these ships is found in a passage from the Nanzhou yiwu zhi:

"People of foreign countries call a boat a xiang. The large ones are over 20 zhang (about 48 meters) in length, and sit two or three zhang (4.8-7.2 meters) above the waterline. They resemble a pavilion to look at one. They carry 600-700 men and a great many hu of goods …. Depending on the size of the ship, [they] use four sails which are linked to one another from stem to stern. There is a lu-tou tree, whose leaves resemble lattice and are over a zhang (about 2.4m) long, which is woven into sails. The four sails are not facing directly forwards. Their front faces are all made to move obliquely in accord with one another, to catch gusts of wind. When the wind is to the rear, they swell and throw [the wind] to one another, so together they all get the wind’s force. In violent conditions they are diminished or augmented as appropriate. The oblique sheets together catch the wind’s energy, so there is no worry about great dangers. Therefore they travel without needing to avoid strong winds or violent waves, and so can be very fast." (Taiping yulan 769 & 771; translation adapted from Manguin 1993: 262).

The description shows that these ships were considered exceptional in both size and sailing technology compared to what was known in East Asia at the time. Such ships carried cargoes within Southeast Asia, and north as far as the Tongking Gulf. The most important shipping center was Funan (Section II), based in what is now southern Vietnam and Cambodia, but which also controlled a critical stretch of the Isthmus of Kra (Section V) where goods were portaged to the west coast for trips onward to South Asia (Sections VII, VIII, and IX) and the lands of the far west (Section X). Ships based in Java (Section IV) also sailed to South Asia directly, passing through the Sunda Straits and up the west coast of Sumatra (Sections IV.2 and V.4), famous for its gold mines.

Authorship of the Wushi waiguo zhuan is credited to Kang Tai 康泰, who together with Zhu Ying 朱應 headed an embassy which was sent from the Wu Kingdom to Funan. They sailed from Lurong Harbor, near what is now the city of Hue, in north-central Vietnam (see Section I.1a). The dating of the embassy is not entirely clear. A passage in Sanguo zhi 60.1385 states that Lu Dai, the governor of Jiaozhou (modern northern Vietnam), sent an embassy to the courts of Funan, Linyi (the Cham Coast, in central Vietnam - see Section I.1), and Tangming (which has not been identified), sometime in the years 226-231 CE. However, based on information in Liangshu 54.789 and 54.798, as well as references in some excerpts (e.g. II.2c and 4c), the Kang Tai embassy is more likely to have occurred during the reign of Funan King Fan Xun, in the 240s. It is also possible that Kang Tai was sent more than once (see discussion in Chen Jiarong 2003:75-79; also Xu 2004). Regardless, the fact that Kang Tai personally traveled to Funan makes at least some parts of his account (especially Section II) based on direct experience. However, there is no reason to believe that the embassy traveled any further than Funan; while it provided information on "well over a hundred countries" (according to Liangshu 54.783), the only anecdotes that explicitly mention the emissaries’ activities (in Liangshu 54.789 and 798) take place in Funan itself. Information for places beyond Funan (i.e. all of Sections III to X) was probably gathered second-hand from sources in Funan, either from Funanese officials or traveling merchants, who were most likely to have been multi-lingual (though see Xu 2004 for a far more ambitious view of their possible travels). This makes the remnants of the text a valuable, albeit second-hand, record of what people in Funan knew about the rest of maritime Asia at this time.

Kang Tai’s Wushi waiguo zhuan was cited under several different titles; it was also commonly called Funan zhuan 扶南傳 (Account of Funan) or Funan tusu zhuan 扶南土俗傳 (Account of the Land and Customs of Funan). These alternate titles also imply that most of the information had been gathered in Funan. Kang Tai’s fellow emissary, Zhu Ying, was also credited with what appears to have been a similar work, called Funan yiwu zhi 扶南異物志 (Record of Unusual Things from Funan), and also Funan yinan ji 扶南以南記 (Record of Funan and Further South). It survived into the Tang period, but (based on its very limited quote history) probably not to the tenth century. Only a handful of quotes survive from it, mostly dealing (rather oddly) with central Asia; they are not translated here.

Authorship of the Nanzhou yiwu zhi is credited to Wan Zhen 萬震, about whom almost nothing is known. Suishu 33.983 says that he was the Governor of Danyang, which was the capital region (Jianye) during the Wu Kingdom. There is no reason to believe that he traveled abroad, though it is possible. It is more likely that he gathered information from merchants and/or foreign emissaries who came to the capital. There is occasionally some overlap with Kang Tai's material; however, while Kang Tai's material appears to be entirely in the format of information about foreign countries, Wan Zhen's is more mixed, with considerable information on commodities, flora, and fauna. For this StoryMap I have translated and included every single known item from the Wushi waiguo zhuan, all of which concern places in Maritime Asia. For the Nanzhou yiwu zhi, however, I have translated all of the items about places, but only a few selected items about commodities and exotic products. In the future I may develop a separate website organized around trade commodities.

Neither of these texts exists today in the format in which they were once written. Instead, what we have are quotes attributed to them, which are included in other, later texts. Many are "encyclopedias," works that assembled quotes from other sources and arranged them by topic. Books of this sort began to be compiled in the seventh century, but the most important for our purposes is the Taiping yulan, a massive tenth-century encyclopedia which contains the majority of surviving quotes from both texts. A second source of quotes is commentaries to other works, such as historical or literary texts, which sometimes cite passages from other texts, e.g. to explain an unusual term. Just because a quote is attributed does not mean it is a word-for-word quote, though: it may be a paraphrase or edit of the original. Authors also do not signal when a quote is finished (there are no "quotation marks"), so one cannot be sure how much of a passage is actually quoted. Sometimes attributed quotes are second-hand, meaning that they are copied from other attributed quotes, rather than being taken directly from the original, which compounds the possibility for errors. This is especially true for the Taiping yulan, which was compiled quickly and relied on earlier encyclopedias and commentaries for much of its material. Modern Chinese scholars have identified and compiled these quoted passages, citing their original provenance and offering annotations, and I have relied on them as an invaluable starting point for this research (Xu 1971; Chen 1987). Having eliminated passages which are essentially duplicates, I have translated 71 distinct passages from the Wushi waiguo zhuan, and another 22 from the Nanzhou yiwu zhi.

One other relevant text is the Funan ji 扶南記 (Record of Funan), a fifth-century text credited to Zhu Zhi 竺芝 (or 枝), who is otherwise unknown. It has a relatively small corpus of ten attributed passages, but several of them add important updates to what was known in the third century; I have included them under the headings "Fifth-century materials." In addition to the corpus of attributed quotes, well-known works such as the official dynastic histories clearly made extensive use of these earlier texts, but without attribution. The most important is the Liangshu (History of the Liang Dynasty), compiled under the Tang Empire in the seventh century, which has a chapter on maritime Asia as it was known under the southern Liang dynasty (502-557 CE). Many subsequent Tang-era works, such as the Nanshi (History of the Southern Dynasties) and the Tongdian (Comprehensive Canons), drew much of their material from the Liangshu account. Once we have assembled and assessed the body of attributed quotes, we can determine where a synthetic account like the Liangshu appears to have drawn on third-century texts, in some cases offering what may be a more fulsome version of what the original text contained than the attributed quotes do. I have also included translation and discussion of these passages whenever I believe they shed light on how we might interpret the third-century materials.

One of the primary challenges of these excerpts is determining where to locate the places they identify. In many cases, the names used never (or very rarely) appear again in other texts besides those clearly derived from these third-century accounts. Scholars have often tried to match names in written Sinitic as transliterations of known place names in other languages (Sanskrit, Malay, Khmer, Tamil, etc), but this is a highly error-prone methodology, for multiple reasons. One is that the terms used for locations in South and Southeast Asia underwent significant changes over time, and multiple different terms were often used for the same place, depending on political (and other) contexts. Another is that the pronunciation of Sinitic characters is itself heavily debated. The most reliable pronunciations are for "Middle Chinese," a reconstruction based primarily on an early seventh-century dictionary (the Qieyun), which was itself a quite artificial standardization of many different regional pronunciation systems. Regional pronunciation in the Wu Kingdom in the third century may have been quite different from this, especially given that the Wu language, spoken locally, had non-Sinitic origins and may have significantly affected the transliteration process (Chittick 2020: 82-101). The instability of transliteration is evidenced by the differing transliteration of several place names by the authors of Wushi waiguo zhuan and Nanzhou yiwu zhi. (see Sections V.1, V.3, VIII.1, and VIII.5). The standardization of transliteration practice from Sanskrit into Sinitic came about only beginning in the fifth century, as a result of the widespread translation of Buddhist texts into written Sinitic. In this StoryMap I have occasionally included Middle Chinese pronunciation (from Kroll 2015, labelled MC), since it's a better estimate than modern pinyin, but it cannot be regarded as a reliable guide to how third-century authors thought the characters should be pronounced, much less what place name they thought they were transcribing.

The primary means by which most scholars have determined locations is by following the directions and distances in the text fragments themselves. However, this has always been done piecemeal, using only one or a few fragments at a time. To do it properly, it is vital to understand the overall conceptions of space with which these third-century authors and their sources appear to have been operating (Pelliot 1925: 248 says as much, and it remains true today). The next three subsections explore conceptions of space, in order to ensure that we read these text fragments more perceptively. Together with recent archaeological evidence (which is addressed site-by-site) we can develop a much more holistic and plausible set of locations for the places mentioned. However, many locations remain quite uncertain, as I clearly state along the way, even as I have placed pins in maps for what I think are the most reasonable guesses.

The Liangshu and other official texts offer the reader a compiled, synthetic narrative of places such as Funan that appears seamless and authoritative, even though it was pieced together from texts spanning many centuries. But if we want to understand how maritime Asia was conceptualized in the time of the Wushi waiguo zhuan and the Nanzhou yiwu zhi, we must ignore later accretions and rely only on third-century materials. From my research, I have identified three important conceptions of space reflected in these two third-century texts. The first is what I call "outbound hierarchy." The texts commonly make directional statements, in which a "new" location is identified as being X distance in Y direction from a "known" location (though not all statements have both a distance and a direction). There is an implicit hierarchy to the way these statements are made, with two principles. First, the "known" location is an important center of maritime trade, not a minor location. Second, the hierarchy is “outbound,” meaning each major location is oriented so as to place it further away from the Wu Kingdom. Lesser locations are then oriented to a proximate major location. The result of these two principles is a series of fan-shaped patterns, in which lesser locations are linked to a smaller number of major locations that form an outbound sequence. The arrangement is apparent if we construct a simple network diagram of these directional statements:

I have taken the liberty of arranging the nodes of this network according to where I believe they would lie on a modern map of Asia, starting from Lurong Harbor (upper right), where the Kang Tai embassy put to sea. However, the links between them do not represent actual "trade routes," but connections based on textual relationships. The size of each circle represents the node's importance (or "degree," how many links it has). Funan, which was regarded as the center of the maritime shipping network, is the starting point for a fan of ten directional statements (on the diagram some are not shown, either because they are duplicates or have no defined location). The fan-shaped pattern is also clear for a cluster of locations oriented from Zhubo (Java, Section IV); from the joint locations of Dunxun/Dianxun and Juli/Juzhi (the Isthmus of Kra, Section V); and to a lesser extent from Tianzhu (central India, Section VII) and from Jiaying/Geying (Tamilakam, Section VIII, and Sinhala, Section IX). Note that not all of the locations in this StoryMap are shown on the diagram, since some of them have no directional statements. The diagram helps us to develop an overall feel for the way these texts conceptualize geographical relationships. It also should make us suspicious of hypothetical placements of locations that do not make sense within the larger spatial framework.

The second distinctive conception of space entails statements of distance. These are not reliable; they are typically considerably overstated. For example, Dunxun/Dianxun, on the Isthmus of Kra, is listed as being 3000 li (about 1500 km) from Funan, when the actual distance is more like 650 km. We should be inherently suspicious of such figures anyway, because we know that pre-modern navigators did not have any way to measure distance at sea. Typically they would record sailing "distances" by indicating how long it took to sail, in hours or days (e.g. Casson 1989: 278-82). So any figure for distance is likely to have been calculated by starting with the time required, and then making some sort of assumption about speed. In the aforementioned example, if the crossing from Funan to Dunxun/Dianxun required three days, then the author (or his informant) calculated "distance" by assuming that ships traveled 500 km per day, when in fact they traveled less than half as fast.

Unfortunately, we cannot assume that all distances are exaggerated by a consistent amount. The range of exaggeration appears to vary from about 2x to as much as 5x or more; however, there are almost no cases where the given distance is clearly less than the actual distance (for a possible exception, see Section VIII.5a). This is not surprising; if distances were calculated using ideal conditions, actual sailing speeds would have been much lower, due to light or erratic winds, or more navigational hazards (narrow channels, underwater shoals and reefs) that forced ships to sail more cautiously. In addition, some distances in the text are given for overland travel, which would have been quite different from maritime rates. In this translation I have used distances only in a rough comparative fashion, with a range of possible values: for example, a location that is described as 7000 li (about 3500 km) away is understood to be several times further than one which is described as 2000 li away, and perhaps signals somewhere from 700 to 1800 km distant. Beyond that, it would be unwise to rely on distances for any greater precision.

The third, and most unique and important, conception of space is what I call the "twisted axis." Directions given for locations from Funan to the east coast of India are "twisted" a quarter-turn counter-clockwise from the actual direction. For example, the region of Dunxun/Dianxun is widely agreed to be on the Isthmus of Kra, due west of Funan. Yet the texts consistently indicate that it is due south of Funan. The clearest statement of this orientation is found in a sixth-century travelogue ascribed to the (otherwise unidentified) monk Buddhabhadra. Based on place names and other references, we can tell that it was in fact stitched together, without attribution, from material in the Nanzhou yiwu zhi. It says in part:

北行一月日。至勾稚國。北行十一日至孫典國。從孫典國北行三十日至扶南國。... 從扶南國北行一月至林邑國。出林邑入蕭衍國。"Going northward {from Geying} for one month, I arrived at the polity of Gouzhi (=Juzhi). Traveling northward again for eleven days, I reached the polity of Sundian (=Dianxun). Traveling northward for another thirty days, I came to the polity of Funan ... Going north from the state of Funan for one month, I arrived at the polity of Linyi, and after leaving the state of Linyi, I entered Xiao Yan's polity." (Luoyang qielan ji 4)

The passage begins by specifying that Buddhabhadra was from South Asia, so Geying must be a port on its east coast (see Section VIII for more on this placement). Juli/Juzhi and Dunxun/Dianxun are known to be on the Isthmus of Kra (Section V), and Funan is in the Mekong Delta (Section II). Moving from one to the next is, on a modern map, almost a straight line headed due east (see map on the left below). Yet, in this telling, it is a straight line due north (see the "map" on the right). Once the travelogue gets past Funan, the directions come into alignment: Linyi (the central coast of Vietnam) and Xiao Yan's kingdom (the Liang Dynasty, 502-557 CE, whose territory would first be entered in northern Vietnam) are indeed north of Funan. In order to visualize how the "twisted axis" perspective conceptualized maritime space, I have taken a map of the coastline of Asia, cut it at the Mekong delta, and pivoted everything west of that point 90 ^o  counter-clockwise, so that instead of west it all sits to the south. The map below shows Buddhabhadra's supposed route in both perspectives. Viewed from the "twisted axis" perspective, on the right, it makes perfect sense to describe Buddhabhadra's progression from India to China as following a continuously northbound route.

Understanding the twisted axis is essential for making sense of locations in these two texts, especially for the Isthmus of Kra (Section V), the Mainland (Section VI), and to some extent for South Asia (Section VIII). However, the axis appears to be only partially twisted for the Java Sea (Section IV). The island of Java is due south of Funan, but it is placed due east, so the twist is present for that part of the relationship. But the Maluku Islands are recorded as being further east from Java, which is roughly correct. This suggests that the primary chain of islands of Indonesia, stretching from Sumatra to Java and on out Nusa Tenggara, was understood to extend directly out the line of the Malay Peninsula, roughly perpendicular to the main coastline of continental Asia. The Twisted Axis map on the right reflects this. As the proper map on the left shows, the Malay Peninsula and island chain actually first extend south of the mainland, before curving decisively to the east. The "twisted" map on the right also leaves off Borneo and other islands north of the main island chain, since it is unclear how the third-century authors would have placed them, or if they were even much aware of their existence (though Section I.5 offers one possibility). Finally, there appears to no longer be a "twist" once we get to India and further west. The few examples we have for locations we can be confident of (VII.3, XIII.4 and 5) correctly identify the source of the Ganges as to the northwest of Indus-Ganges plain, and identify the Roman Empire as west across the Arabian Sea. Note that the "twisted" map on the right does not reflect this.

Sinitic texts eventually demonstrate a more accurate understanding of the spatial relations of maritime locations, perhaps already by the fifth-century account of Faxian, and certainly by the seventh century account by Yijing. However, compilers of later texts often had no substantive understanding of the maritime world; they simply relied on earlier writings, repeating and consolidating their information. As a result, the "twisted" directions in early texts continued to be repeated, and treated as authoritative, for centuries. This has been a major problem for modern scholars, who have valiantly tried to interpret all of these materials as if the information were always accurate and consistent. The result has been a good deal of fruitless scholarly debate, with multiple and conflicting placements which have long remained unresolved. For scholars who either do not read classical Sinitic, or else do not know the complex text history (and that means most of us), it is all but impossible to choose which version to follow. This StoryMap, by going back to the original third-century texts, offers a resolution of these difficulties which will hopefully be of use to scholars of early Southeast Asia and Asian maritime trade.

This StoryMap was originally published in June 2023. I am indebted to the NYU-Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), which gave me a one-year Visiting Research Scholar appointment in 2022-23 to work on this project. I am also grateful to my home institution, Eckerd College, for granting me hexennial leave in 2022-23.

Kang Tai Wushi waiguo zhuan jizhu 康泰吳時外國傳輯註, by Xu Yunqiao 許雲憔. Singapore: Dongnanya yanjiusuo, 1971. In this volume Professor Xu has gathered together and annotated all of the known and suspected items from the Wushi waiguo zhuan. I have relied on it as my primary index for these items, though in all cases I have tracked down the original citations and, on occasion, found ones that are not in Professor Xu's work. Every fragment has been translated and discussed in this StoryMap.

Wan Zhen Nanzhou yiwu zhi jiqiao 萬震南州異物志輯橋, by Chen Zhifu 陳直夫. Hong Kong: Chen Zhifu jiaoshou jiuzhi Rong Qing menren zhuhe weiyuanhui, 1987. Like Professor Xu's work, Professor Chen has pulled together all of the known and suspected fragments from the Nanzhou yiwu zhi. I have translated only some of these items, including all of the ones which address locations, and some of the others on commodities and products, where relevant.

arranged by title

Akananuru. A collection of four hundred Tamil poems on love, compiled in the first to third centuries CE. For the translation, I have used Hart 2015.

Beitang shuchao 北堂書鈔, by Yu Shinan 虞世南. One of the first Chinese encyclopedias, a compilation of quotes arranged by topic, compiled in the early seventh century. It is the source for nine passages in this StoryMap, as well as some supporting materials. I have used the  ctext online version .

Bencao jing jizhu 本草經集注, by Tao Hongjing 陶弘景. Tao Hongjing was a Daoist and expert on pharmacology who wrote this extended study of materia medica in 499 CE. Some of the materials he discusses were sourced through maritime trade. I have used the  ctext online version .

Chuxue ji 初學記, by Xu Jian 徐堅. Another seventh-century encyclopedia, a compilation of quotes arranged by topic. It is a source for three passages cited in this StoryMap. I have used the  ctext online version .

Cilappatikaram (or Tale of an Anklet), by Ilanko Atikal. A Tamil epic poem of the fifth or sixth century CE, which gives detailed descriptions of the cities of Kaveripattinam and Madurai. For the translation, I have used Parthasarathy 1993.

Da Tang xiyu qiufa gaosengzhuan 大唐西域求法高僧傳, by Yijing 義淨. Yijing was a monk who travelled by sea from the Tang Empire to South Asia and back. This is a collection of biographies of monks who went to South Asia (the Buddhist "holy land"), including an extensive autobiography of Yijing himself. I have accessed it via the  CBETA online database .

Fayuan zhulin 法苑珠林, by Shi Daoshi 釋道世. A Buddhist encyclopedia, compiled in the seventh century CE. It is the source for three items in this StoryMap. I have accessed it via the  CBETA online database .

Hanshu 漢書, by Ban Gu 班固. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962. A history of the Former/Western Han dynasty, 202 BCE-9 CE, written in the late first century CE.

Hou Hanshu 後漢書, by Fan Ye 范曄, with treatises by Sima Biao 司馬彪. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1973. A history of the Later/Eastern Han dynasty, 25-220 CE. The main body of the text was compiled in the early fifth century; the treatises were compiled in the late third century.

Jin shu 晉書, by Fang Xuanling 房玄齡. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974. A history of the Western (265-316) and Eastern (317-420) Jin dynasties. Compiled under the Tang Empire in the mid-seventh century CE, it is widely regarded as one of the weakest and most unreliable of the dynastic histories.

Jiu Tang shu 舊唐書, by Liu Xu 劉昫. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1977. A history of the Tang dynasty, 618-907 CE, written in the late tenth century.

Liangshu 梁書, by Yao Silian 姚思廉. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1973. A history of the Liang dynasty, which ruled the Jiankang Empire (a.k.a. Southern Dynasties) from 502-557 CE. It was compiled in the mid-seventh century under the Tang Empire. The Liangshu is especially important because it has a chapter on "The countries of the southern seas," which includes material on Funan and other South and Southeast Asian polities. Though it does not offer any attribution of sources, many passages appear to have been taken from material known to have been in the Wushi waiguo zhuan and Nanzhou yiwu zhi. The section is copied almost verbatim in Nanshi, and it also influenced the relevant sections of the Jinshu and the Tongdian (see separate entries).

Luoyang qielanji jiaozhu 洛陽伽藍記校注, by Yang Xuanzhi 楊衒之, Fan Xiangyong 范祥雍 (ed). Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1958. A description of the city of Luoyang, capital of the Northern Wei Empire in the years 493-535 CE. It was written within a generation of the city's fall in 535. It contains an interesting passage on the supposed travels of the monk Buddhabhadra from India to East Asia via the sea route, discussed in the Introduction.

Nan Qi shu 南齊書, by Xiao Zixian 蕭子顯. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1972. A history of the Southern Qi dynasty, which ruled the Jiankang Empire (a.k.a. Southern Dynasties) from 478-501 CE. It was compiled in the early sixth century, under the Southern Qi's successor, the Liang dynasty.

Nanshi 南史, by Li Yanshou 李延壽. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975. A history of four southern dynasties of the Jiankang Empire, covering the years 420-589 CE. Like the Liangshu, it was compiled in the mid-seventh century under the Tang Empire, and the section on the southern seas is mostly copied from the one in the Liangshu.

Pattupattu. The Pattupattu is an anthology of ten long Tamil idylls composed around the first century CE, several of which offer detailed descriptions of urban life. For the translation, I have used Chelliah 1962.

Periplus of the Eastern Sea. The Periplus is a Greek-language account of sea routes from Egypt to South Asia, dated to the first century CE. For the translation, I have used Casson 1989.

Purananuru. A collection of four hundred Tamil poems on war, compiled in the first to third centuries CE. For the translation, I have used Hart & Heifetz 1999.

Qimin yaoshu 齊民要術, by Jia Sixie 賈思勰. The Qimin yaoshu (Essential Techniques for the Welfare of the People) is an agricultural handbook written in the sixth century. It is primarily concerned with agriculture in the Yellow River plains region, but also addresses agricultural products which were imported from the Yangzi River basin and beyond, including the maritime realm.

Sanguo zhi 三國志, by Chen Shou 陳壽, with annotations by Pei Songzhi裴松之. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982. A history of the Three Kingdoms of Wei, Wu, and Shu, covering the period from about 190 CE to 280 CE. The original was written in the late third century, under the Western Jin dynasty, which ruled over the territory of all three kingdoms; the annotations are from the fifth century.

Shiji 史記, by Sima Qian 司馬遷. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985. A comprehensive history from the earliest myth-history down to about the time it was written, at the end of the second century BCE. It is considered the first of the official dynastic histories, and set many of the patterns that all subsequent works in this genre would follow. It has no substantive accounts of maritime Asia, but it was annotated in the Tang period, and some of those contain quotes from Kang Tai and Wan Zhen on the far west (Section X).

Shuijing zhu 水經注 by Li Daoyuan 酈道元; jiaozheng 校證 edition by Chen Qiaoyi 陳橋驛 (ed). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007. The Shuijing zhu (Annotated Classic of Waterways) is a sixth-century text which attempted to offer a geography of the known world, including all of what is today China, northern Vietnam, core regions of South Asia and Tibet, and parts of Central Asia. It is the source for seven items cited from Kang Tai, as well as numerous supporting items. In addition to Chen Qiaoyi's edition, I have also consulted the  ctext online version , which is the source for the passage numbers in parentheses.

Song shu 宋書, by Shen Yue 沈約. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974. A history of the Liu-Song dynasty, which ruled the Jiankang Empire (a.k.a. Southern Dynasties) from 420-477 CE. It was compiled in the late fifth century, under the Liu-Song's successor, the Southern Qi dynasty.

Sui shu 隨書, by Wei Zheng 魏徵. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1973. A history of the Sui dynasty, 581-617 CE, which conquered the Jiankang Empire and founded the imperial system inherited by the Tang Empire.

Taiping guangji 太平廣記, by Li Fang 李昉 et al. A compendium of stories compiled in the tenth century, by roughly the same team that assembled the Taiping yulan. I have used the  ctext online verion .

Taiping yulan 太平御覽, by Li Fang 李昉 et al. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1963. A massive compilation of quotes from earlier texts, organized by category. It is by far the most important source for material from these two third-century texts. References are to chapter and page number in the Zhonghua shuju edition, or to the  ctext online version .

Tongdian 通典, by Du You 杜佑. The Tongdian (Comprehensive Institutions) is a comprehensive discussion of imperial institutions, written in the mid-eighth century, under the Tang Empire. It has many chapters on lands beyond the empire, including in the maritime world. They are highly derivative from earlier sources such as the Liangshu. It is the source for five items cited from the Wushi waiguo zhuan or Nanzhou yiwu zhi. I have used the  ctext online version .

Wei shu 魏書, by Wei Shou 魏收. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974. A history of the Northern Wei dynasty, 386-535 CE, a Sino-steppe empire and northern rival to the Jiankang Empire.

Yiwen leiju 藝文類聚, by Ouyang Xun 歐陽詢. Another seventh-century encyclopedia, a compilation of quotes arranged by topic. It is the source for six passages in this StoryMap, as well as some supporting materials. I have used the  ctext online version .

arranged by author

Acri, Andrea. "Imagining “Maritime Asia"," in Acri, Jha, Mukherjee, and Ghani (eds.), Imagining Asia(s): Networks, Actors, Sites. Singapore: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute (2019): 36-59.

Ammarell, Gene. Bugis Navigation. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies, 1999.

Bellina, Berenice. "The Inception of the Trans-National Processes between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea from an Early City-state on the Thai-Malay Peninsula (Fourth-Second Century BCE)," in Boussac, Salles, and Yon (eds.), Ports of the Ancient Indian Ocean. Delhi: Primus Books, 2016.

Bellina, Berenice. "Development of maritime trade polities and diffusion of the "South China Sea Sphere of Interaction pan-regional culture": the Khao Sek excavations and industries' studies contribution," Archaeological Research in Asia (2017).  http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ara/2017.06.004 

Bellina, Berenice, et al. "The Development of Coastal Polities in the Upper Thai-Malay Peninsula," in Revire & Murphy (eds.), Before Siam: Essays in Art and Archaeology. Bangkok: River Books, 2014: 69-89.

Bennet, Anna T.N. "Gold in Early Southeast Asia." ArcheoSciences, revue d’archéométrie 33 (2009): 99-107.

Bopearachch, Osmund et al. "The Oldest Shipwreck in the Indian Ocean," in Boussac, Salles, and Yon (eds.), Ports of the Ancient Indian Ocean. Delhi: Primus Books, 2016: 411-434.

Calo, Ambra. Trails of Bronze Drums Across Early Southeast Asia: Exchange Routes and Connected Cultural Spheres. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2014.

Cameron, Judith. "Indian Textile Fragments from the site of Pontanoa Bangka, Sulawesi, Indonesia," Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology 7-8 (2011-12): 1-7.

Cameron, Judith, Agustijanto Indrajaya, and Pierre-Yves Manguin. "Asbestos textiles from Batujaya (West Java, Indonesia): Further evidence for early long-distance interaction between the Roman Orient, Southern Asia and island Southeast Asia," Bulletin de l Ecole française d Extrême-Orient 101 (2015): 159-176.

Carter, Alison Kyra. "Building from the Ground Up: The Archaeology of Residential Spaces and Communities in Southeast Asia," Journal of Archaeological Research 31 (2023): 1-54.

Casson, Lionel. The Periplus Maris Erythraei: text with introduction, translation, and commentary. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.

Chakravarti, Ranabir. "Early Medieval Bengal and the Trade in Horses: A Note," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 42.2 (1999): 194-211.

Chakravarti, Ranabir. Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society, Third Edition. New York: Routledge, 2021.

Champakalakshmi, R. Trade Ideology and Urbanization: South India 300 BC to AD 1300. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Chelliah, J.V. (trans). Pattupattu: Ten Tamil Idylls. Madras: The South India Saiva Siddhanta Works Publishing Society, 1962.

Chen Jiarong (Chan Kai Wing) 陳佳榮. Suiqian Nanhai jiaotong shiliao yanjiu 隨前南海交通史料研究 (Southeast Asia before the Seventh Century: Studies on the Chinese Sources). Hong Kong: UHK Centre of Asian Studies, 2003.

Chittick, Andrew. “Dragon Boats and Serpent Prows: Naval Warfare and the Political Culture of China’s Southern Borderlands." Victor Mair and Liam Kelly (eds), Imperial China and Its Southern Neighbours (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2015): 140-160.

Chittick, Andrew. The Jiankang Empire in Chinese and World History. Oxford University Press, 2020.

Chittick, Andrew. "The Shipping Industry in Southeast Asia in the Early First Millennium CE: Operations and Networks." Submitted to Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, possibly forthcoming in 2024.

Christie, Jan Wisseman. "Text and Textiles in 'Medieval' Java," Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 80.1 (1993): 181-211.

Cobbing, E.J. et al. "The granites of the Southeast Asian Tin Belt," Journal of the Geological Society, London 143 (1986): 537-550.

Coedes, G. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia. Translated by Susan Brown Cowing; edited by Walter F. Vella. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1968.

Coningham, R.A.E, and Allchin, F.R. "The rise of cities in Sri Lanka," in Allchin (ed), The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995: 152-83.

Cutter, Robert Joe. The Brush and the Spur: Chinese Culture and the Cockfight. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1989.

Deloche, Jean. "Geographical Considerations in the Localization of Ancient Sea-Ports of India," in R. Chakravarti (ed), Trade in Early India. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001: 312-325.

Demandt, Michele H.S. “Early Gold Ornaments of Southeast Asia: Production, Trade, and Consumption,” Asian Perspectives: The Journal of Archaeology for Asia and the Pacific 54.2 (Fall 2015): 305-330.

Dilhani, Anuruddhika. "Textile Industry of Ancient Sri Lanka," Journal of Social Sciences - Sri Lanka 7.4 (2015): 219-227.

Đỗ, Trường Giang, Tomomi Suzuki, Văn Quảng Nguyễn, and Mariko Yamagata. "Champa Citadels: An Archaeological and Historical Study," Asian Review of World Histories 5.2 (2017): 70-105.

Elvin, Mark. The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

Fauconnier, Bram. "Graeco-Roman merchants in the Indian Ocean : Revealing a multicultural trade," Topoi. Orient- Occident. Supplément 11 (2012): 75-109.

Felt, Jonathan. Structures of the Earth: Metageographies of Early Medieval China. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2021.

Flecker, Michael. "Early Voyaging in the South China Sea: Implications on Territorial Claims," NSC Working Paper #19. Singapore: Nalanada-Sriwijaya Centre, 2015.

Fujita Toyohachi 藤田豐八, He Jianmin 何健民 (trans). 中國南海古代交通叢考 Zhongguo nanhai gudai jiaotong congkao {Studies of Ancient Sino-South Seas Communication}. Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 2015 (orig. 1936).

Geertz, Clifford. "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight." Daedalus 101.1 (1972): 1-37.

Ghazi, Shahid, and Mountney, Nigel P. "Facies and architectural element analysis of a meandering fluvial succession: The Permian Warchha Sandstone, Salt Range, Pakistan," Sedimentary Geology 221 (2009): 99–126.

Greene, Eric. "A Reassessment of the Early History of Chinese Buddhist Vegetarianism." Asia Major, 3rd series 29.1 (2016): 1-43.

Hart, George L., and Heifetz, Hank (trans). The Four Hundred Songs of War and Wisdom: An Anthology of Poems from Classical Tamil: The Purananuru. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.

Hart, George L. (trans). The Four Hundred Songs of Love: An Anthology of Poems from Classical Tamil: The Akananuru. Institut Francais de Pondichery, 2015.

Jacq-Hergoualc'h, Michel. The Malay Peninsula: Crossroads of the Maritime Silk Road (100-1300 AD). Brill, 2002.

Jacques, Claude. " 'Funan', 'Zhenla': The Reality Concealed by these Chinese Views of Indochina." R.B. Smith and W. Watson (eds), Early South-East Asia: Essays in Archaeology, History, and Historical Geography. New York & Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 371-79.

Jacques, Claude. "Khmer Epigraphy," Museum International 54.1-2 (2002): 37-43.

Katupotha, Jinadasa. "Pearl Fishery in Sri Lanka," Wildlanka 7.1 (2019): 33-49.

Kelley, Liam. Beyond the Bronze Pillars: Envoy Poetry and the Sino-Vietnamese Relationship. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005.

Kitiarsa, Pattana. "An ambiguous intimacy: Farang as Siamese occidentalism." The ambiguous allure of the West: Traces of the colonial in Thailand (2010): 57-74.

Kroll, Paul. A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese. Brill, 2015.

Kurz, Johannes L. "What is the ‘historical’ in China’s claims to the South China Sea? A survey of relevant pre-modern Chinese texts," presented at workshop "Reframing the South China Sea," Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, 11-13th Nov 2013.

Laufer, Berthold. "Asbestos and Salamander: An Essay in Chinese and Hellenistic Folk-Lore," T'oung Pao 16 (1915): 299-373.

Lavy, Paul A. "Conch-on-hip Images in Peninsular Thailand and Early Vaiṣṇava Sculpture in Southeast Asia," Nicolas Revire and Stephen A. Murphy (eds), Before Siam: Essays in Art and Archaeology. Bangkok: River Books, 2014.

Li Tana and James Anderson (eds). The Tongking Gulf Through History. Philadelphia: U. Penn, 2011.

Lockhart, Bruce McFarlan, and Kỳ Phương Trà̂n (eds). The Cham of Vietnam: history, society, and art. Singapore: NUS Press, 2011.

Majumdar, R.C. Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East, vol I: Champa. Lahore: Punjab Sanskrit Book Depot, 1927.

Malleret, Louis, L’Archéologie du delta du Mékong, v. 1-3. Paris : École française d'Extrême-Orient, 1959-1963.

Manguin, Pierre-Yves. "Southeast Sumatra in protohistoric and Srivijaya times: Upstream-downstream relations and the settlement of the peneplain," Dominik Bonatz et al. (eds), From Distant Tales: Arcaheology and Ethnohistory in the Highlands of Sumatra. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009: 434-484.

Manguin, Pierre-Yves and Indradjaja, Agustijanto. "The Batujaya Site: New Evidence of Early Indian Influence in West Java," Manguin et al. (eds), Early Interactions between South and Southeast Asia: Reflections on Cross-Cultural Exchange. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2011: 113-136.

Mukherjee, Rila. "Routes, Ports, and Networks in Bengal: China Connection," in Boussac, Salles, and Yon (eds), Ports of the Ancient Indian Ocean. Delhi: Primus Books, 2016: 323-350.

Murphy, Stephen A. "The case for proto-Dvaravatı: A review of the art historical and archaeological evidence," Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 47.3 (2016): 366-392.

Murphy, Stephen A., and Lefferts, H. Leedom. "Globalizing Indian religions and Southeast Asian localisms: incentives for the adoption of Buddhism and Brahmanism in first millennium CE Southeast Asia," in Tamar Hodos (ed), The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization. London & New York: Routledge, 2017: 768-788.

Oxenham, Locher, Nguyen, and Nguyen. "Identification of Areca catechu (Betel Nut) Residues on the Dentitions of Bronze Age Inhabitants of Nui Nap, Northern Vietnam," Journal of Archaeological Science 29 (2002): 909-15.

Parthasarathy, R. (trans). The Cilappatikaram of Ilanko Atikal: An Epic of South India. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. 

Pelliot, Paul. "Le Fou-nan." Bulletin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient 3(1903): 248-303.

Pelliot, Paul 1912a. "Autour d'une traduction sanscrite du Tao tö king," T'oung Pao 13.3 (1912): 351-430.

Pelliot, Paul 1912b. "Review of Hirth and Rockhill," T'oung Pao 13.3 (1912): 446-481.

Pelliot, Paul. "La théorie des quatre Fils du Ciel," T'oung Pao 22.2 (1923): 97-125.

Pelliot, Paul. Quelques textes chinois concernant l'Indochine hindouisée. Etudies Asiatiques 1925. Online access via  Gallica Bibliothèque numérique .

Petech, L. Northern India According to the Shui-ching-chu. Rome: Is. M. E. O., 1950.

Ptak, Roderich. "Notes on the Word Shanhu and Chinese Coral Imports from Maritime Asia c. 1250-1600," Archipel 39 (1990): 65-80.

Ptak, Roderich. "China and the trade in cloves, circa 960-1435," Journal of the American Oriental Society 113.1 (1993): 1-13.

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Ray, Himanshu Prabha, and Mishra, Susan, Bibliography on Sailing to Suvarnabhumi. ASEAN-India Centre at RIS, 2019.

Reid, Anthony. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450-1680 Volume One: The Lands below the Winds. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988.

Schafer, Edward H. "War Elephants in Ancient and Medieval China," Oriens 10.2 (1957): 289-291.

Schafer, Edward H. The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T‘ang Exotics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963.

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Wheatley, Paul. The Golden Khersonese: Studies in the Historical Geography of the Malay Peninsula before AD 1500. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1961.

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