Indian Antiquary Vol 52

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 151

JUNE, 1923)
SOME DISCURSIVE COMMENTS ON BARBOSA
135
before his day. The former are naturalised, like the Labbâis, Navâyats and Moplahs of India, and the latter came from Yunnan, where they were found by Marco Polo. When we took Mandalay in 1885, we found about 60 Musalman places of Worship in the city.
Passing to geographical notices in the same region, Barbosa, in his account (Spanish version, p. 149) of the Gulf of Martaban, is apparently referring, by the “large island” he describes there, to Belügyun, which so effectually shelters Maulmain from the sea, rather than to the islands of the Mergui Archipelago, south of Tavoy, as Dames seems to suggest. I may also say that Siriam is not on the other side of Rangoon River in relation to Rangoon, but some way nearer its mouth on the same side beyond the junction with the Pegu River. Remains of the Church there and of other buildings were distinctly visible 30 years ago. Barbosa's Dela should be identified, not with Dála (p. 156), but with Dala. In accentuating Burmese place-names the safest general rule to follow is that the accent and the consequent long vowel) is on the ultimate syllable. As regards Macao near Pegu, I made a note some years ago on it which I have unfortunately mislaid. My recollection is that it was on the Pegu River, between its junction with the Rangoon River and Pegu town, and that it has since disappeared owing to river changes. To Dames' note on "Martaban jars” (p. 159), I may add that full information on the subject, with a chronological list of various forms of the names for this once very widely-spread article of commerce, will be found ante, vol. XXIII, pp. 340-341. They are very large, and in days gone by I long used one as a bathing tub. While one is discussing place-names it is interesting to note that Nicolo Conti in the 15th century thought that M@chin (Macinus) meant Burma with its capital at Ava.
The name Capelan for the Ruby Mines of Burma has baffled Dames as it has long baffled me, and I would like to draw attention to it here in the hope that some Shân, Palaung or Môn scholar will take it up and settle it. As to Barbosa's Anseam for Siam, rightly or wrongly, I have always held Siam to be the Malay form of some common name, of which the Burmese Hram, pronounced Shân, is another, and that thus Siam and Shân are different forms of the same word. The Siamese, of course, are but & division of the great Shân RaceIn this view the "Moorish," .e., Arab sailors' Anseam, Asion, and so on, would be Arabic As. Siam, borrowed from the Malays, just as Dames justly remarks Arakan represents Ar. Rakhaing, and the same may be said of many another name to which the Arabic al, in its various forms, has been prefixed.
In reference to Barbosa's Quedaa for Kedah and the relation of that name to the Arabic word qalai for tin, there is a long note ante, vol. XLVIII, pp. 156-158, collecting examples of the use of the term 'calin' (tin) from c. 920 to 1893 A.D., including examples from old maps of estuaries, towns and villages with the prefix kuala. The information and examples collected confirm the opinion that the earliest navigators knew of more than one place named Kedah. In the Times Atlas, sheet 82, there is both Old Kedah and Kwala, and on the coast of the Malay Peninsula no less than nine entrances to rivers with the prefix Kwala, and three on the coast of Sumatra. Besides these, there are, inland on the Peninsula, as many as six towns and villages shown with the same prefix. Then there is Dr. R. Rost's (Indo-China, 2nd series, vol. I, 1887, pp. 241, 243, map, p. 262) identification of the Chinese Kora (650-656 A.D.) with Kala. It seems to me, therefore, that M. Gabriel Ferrand's investigations require further research before we must accept his identification.
Barbosa's detailed account of Malacca draws a long and valuable historical note from Dames, and with regard to the derivation of that namo I may say I am not at all sure that we can safely refer it to the abundance of myrabolan trees in the neighbourhood, for the reason