The Bengal Connections in Yunnan 1

Introduction: A Global Perspective to a Chinese Frontier Present-day Yunnan is a frontier and multiethnic province in Southwest China. While both central and local governments have made concerted efforts to promote its ethnic diversity and harmony, so as to demonstrate China’s multi-ethnicity, Yunnan has recently been regarded by an increasing number of scholars as a historical part of Southeast Asia. Sun Laichen has argued that Yunnan (and other areas in upper mainland Southeast China) should be treated as a part of Southeast Asia, and Charles Patterson Giersch has demonstrated the Southeast Asian connections in Xishuangbanna, southern Yunnan, during the Qing period. The work of these scholars has gone a long way to balance the previous Sino-centric view in this field of study. 2 Geographically, Yunnan is located in mainland Southeast Asia and is inhabited by many ethnic groups such as the Tai, who live across modern state boundaries. As such, a Southeast Asian point of view is essential for a fuller understanding of the history and culture of Yunnan. Given that, one should bear in mind that in the past Yunnan had established intimate relationships with other neighboring regions, such as Tibet, as the 1

I am grateful to Professor Rila Mukherjee and Professor Himanshu Prabha Ray who have commented on early drafts of the essay. I would also extend many thanks to the organizer of the international workshop, “Indian and Pacific Crossings: Perspectives on Globalization and History” (Nov. 2006, Fremantle, Australia), in which part of the essay was presented. The research is supported by Staff Start-Up Research Grant, National University of Singapore (R-110-000-027-112/133). 2 Sun Laichen, “Ming-Southeast Asian Overland Interactions, 1368 – 1644,” dissertation, University of Michigan, 2000; Charles Patterson Giersch, “A Motley Throng: Social Changes on Southwest China’s Early Modern Frontier, 1700-1880.” Journal of Asian Studies 60, no. 1 (February 2001), 67-94; Asian Borderlands: The Transformation of Qing China's Yunnan Frontier (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006).

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author has argued elsewhere. 3 Unless a global perspective is introduced, a full understanding of Yunnan, in terms of both its past and present, would have been very difficult. This essay, by scrutinizing Chinese and some non-Chinese sources, attempts to reveal the Bengal connections in historical Yunnan from the medieval age to the early modern period. The eastern Indian Ocean, or the Bay of Bengal as it will be called in this essay, has rarely been treated as a field of study. Almost thirty years ago, James Heimann examined the cowrie trade to illustrate the integration of the Indian Ocean “world-economy.” 4 Recently, Rila Mukherjee has produced an inspiring work that elaborates on this watery region of the eastern Indian Ocean, describing it as “an arena of littoral societies, hybrid polities, religious/commercial practices or connected societies”. 5 Their approaches have been recently elaborated by Barbara Watson Andaya when she warns the risk of a landbased perspective and calls on attentions on “oceans unbounded.” 6 Following their theoretical constructions and empirical analyses, this present essay firstly aims to reflect on the cowrie currency in Yunnan and other areas around the Bay of Bengal, and then construct historical routes linking the Bengali world and Yunnan, both by land and sea. Finally, the essay traces the spread of Buddhism into Yunnan to highlight the Bengali cultural influence. With these reflections, the author calls for a reconsideration of the current so-called Chinese frontier studies. 3

Bin Yang, Between Winds and Clouds: The Making of Yunnan, Second Century BCE- Twentieth Century CE (N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 2008). 4 James Heimann. “Small Changes and Ballast: Cowries Money in India,” South Asia, No. 3 (1), 1980, 4869. 5 Rila Mukherjee, “The Neglected Sea-The Eastern Indian Ocean in History,” Journal of the Asiatic Society, VOL. XLIX, Nos. 3 and 4 (2007). 6 Barbara Watson Andaya, “Oceans Unbounded: Transversing Asia across ‘Area Studies’”, The Journal of Asian Studies 65, no.4 (Nov. 2006): 669-690.

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The Cowrie Currency in the Bay of Bengal World (I): Western Observations 7 While cowries have been founded all over the world in prehistoric archaeological sites including China, this essay only focuses on the medieval Bengal world from the tenth century to the fifteenth century. Cowries in the Maldives and the cowrie trade between the Maldives and Bengal were noted by medieval travelers such as Ibn Battuta, who, while in the Maldives, observed that, “ from these islands there are exported the fish we have mentioned, coconuts, cloths and cotton turbans, as well as brass utensils, of which they have a great many, cowrie shells and qanbar. … the inhabitants of these islands use cowrie shells as money, This is an animal which they gather in the sea and place in pits, where its flesh disappears, leaving its white shell. They are used for buying and selling at the rate of four hundred thousand shells for a gold dinar, but they often fall in value to twelve hundred thousand for a dinar. They sell them in exchange for rice to the people of Bengal, who use them instead of sand [as ballast] in their ships. These shells are used also by the negroes in their land; I saw them being sold at Malli and Gawgaw at the rate of 1,150 for a gold dinar.” 8 Ibn Battuta himself traded with cowries when he decided to leave the Maldives. He “sold some of the jewels for cowries and hired a vessel to take [him] to Bengal.” 9 However, he 7

The following two sections are expanded versions based on parts of my essay “The Rise and Fall of Cowries: The Asian Story” (forthcoming in 2011, Journal of World History). 8 Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354 (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983), 243. 9 Ibn Battuta, 248.

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was persuaded not to leave, and one of his companions was sent to Bengal to sell these cowries. 10 Cowries from the Maldives were in use in Africa as well at that time. Ibn Battuta “went on from there to Gawgaw [Gogo], which is a large city on the Nile, and one of the finest towns in the Negrolands. It is also one of their biggest and best-provisioned towns, with rice in plenty, milk and fish, and there is a species of cucumber there called ‘inani' which had no equal. The buying and selling of its inhabitants is done with cowry-shells, and the same is the case at Malli.” 11 Ibn Battuta’s Gawhaw was Gao or Gaogao, variations of the original name Kugha that had been an important trading station at the convergence not only of the salt route from the west and the trans-Saharan route from the northeast, but also as part of the trans-continental trade-route. 12 Tomè Pires, the first Portuguese Ambassador to China, arrived in India in 1511, and saw cowries in Bengal and some ports in Southeast Asia. “So the Moors of Malabar, who are sailors and merchants, bring their goods from the Diu coast, and also from the Choromandel coast, Ceylon and the Maldives (Diua), and do a good trade in Malabar. Calicut is the chief place where most of the merchandise goes.” 13 “The king of Orissa borders on Bengal on the Choromandel side. He is a great king and he is his tributary. He possesses a great many elephants, and he is the chief king and rich. The good diamonds come from this country. 10

Ibn Battuta, 249. Ibn Battuta, 334. 12 Ibn Battuta, 381-382. 13 Tomè Pires, The Suma oriental of Tomè Pires , an account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515, and The book of Francisco Rodrigues Rutter of a voyage in the Red Sea, nautical rules, almanack and maps, written and drawn in the East before 1515 . Translated from 11

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“Arakan (Racam) borders on Bengal on the Pegu side. This [king] has many horses and is warlike and he is always at war with him. And this king is also tributary to the said king of Bengal.” 14 He also provided details of the currency system in Bengal, “Gold is worth a sixth part more in Bengal than in Malacca and silver is a fifth part cheaper than in Malacca, and sometimes a quarterly cheaper. The silver coinage is called tanqat. It weighs half a tael, which is nearly six drams. This coin is worth twenty calains in Malacca and seven cahon in Bengal. Each cahon is worth sixteenth pon; each pon is worth eighty cowries (buzeos); so that a cahon is worth one thousand two hundred and eighty cowries and a tancat is worth eight thousand nine hundred and sixty cowries, [at the rate of cowries] four hundred and forty eight to the calaim, which is the price for which they give a good chicken, and from this you can tell what you could buy for them. In Bengal the cowries are called cury.” 15 In Arakan, “white cowries like those in Pegu” were used as coinage. 16 In Pegu, “The small currency of Pegu is small white cowries. In Martaban fifteen thousand are usually worth one vica, which is ten calains; when they are cheap sixteen thousand; when they are very dear fourteen thousand, and generally fifteen thousand. A calaim is the Portuguese ms. in the Bibliotheque de la Chambre des députés, Paris, and edited by Armando Cortesao, 84. 14 Tomè Pires, 89. 15 Tomè Pires, 93-94.

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worth one thousand five hundred. For four hundred or five hundred they will give a chicken, and things of that sort for the same price. If [you are] in Pegu, the said cowries are not valid except in Martaban, and they are valid the same way in Arakan. The cowries come from the Maldives (Diva) Islands, where they make large quantities of towels, and they also come from the islands of Bagangã and of Borneo (Burney) and they bring them to Malacca and from there they go to Pegu.” 17 In Siam, “Cowries, like those current in Pegu, are current throughout the country for small money, and gold and silver for the larger coins. This money is worth the same as we have said for Pegu.” 18 While the Maldives were the main source for cowries in Siam, white cowries also came from Malacca. 19 What he recorded was confirmed by manuscripts produced over two centuries ago in northern Thailand. Law codes promulgated by King Mengrai (r. 1259-1317) state that cowries were paid for fine or compensations, just like silver coins. 20 Various things including tools, domestic and forest animals, wild products, ritual objects, people’s property such as water, money, clothes, slaves, were given with their value measured by cowries. 1,100 cowries were equal to one piece of silver. Obviously cowries functioned as currency in the Kingdom of Chiangmai, northern Thailand. 16

Tomè Pires, 97. Tomè Pires, 100. 18 Tomè Pires, 104. 19 Tomè Pires, 108. 20 Aroonrut Wichienkeeo and Gehan Wijeyewardene, trans. & ed., The Laws of King Mangrai (Mangrayathammasart) (Canberra: The Richard Davis Fund and an occasional paper of the Department of anthropology, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, 1986). 17

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The situation east of Siam seemed very different, as the cowrie currency was not found either in Cambodia or in Cochin China. Chinese copper coins rather dominated local markets in these regions. In Cambodia, “cashes from China are used for the small money, and in trade gold and silver [are used]”; 21 In Cochin China, “The money they use for buying food is the cash from China, and for merchandise gold and silver.” 22 And so it was in Java where for small money, local people “used cash from China.”23 Tomè Pires made a general statement to conclude the role of cowries in the currency system in the above areas: “Cowries are current coinage in Orissa and in all the kingdom of Bengal and Arakan (Raqa) and in Martaban (Martamane), a port of the kingdom of Pegu. The Bengal cowries are larger, with a yellow stripe in the middle; they are valid throughout Bengal and they accept them for a larger number of commodities as they would gold; and in Orissa. They are not valid anywhere else and they are highly prized in these two places. We will speak about those in Pegu and Arakan when we talk of these places. These selected [cowries] come from the Maldives (Diua) Island in large quantities.” 24 Tomè Pires’observation provides us with a map of the cowrie currency in the Bay of Bengal world. Cowries originated from the Maldives and were shipped to South Asia and Bengal, where they began functioning as small monetary denominations. In addition, 21

Tomè Pires, 114. Tomè Pires, 115. 23 Tomè Pires, 170; 181. 24 Tomè Pires, 94-95. 22

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some coastal mainland Southeast Asia countries joined this cowrie monetary system including Arakan, Martaban, Pegu and Siam. East of Siam there seemed to be no cowrie currency, and of the lands north of Siam and Pegu, for example, in Burma and Ava, he made no mention. As for maritime Southeast Asia, while he mentioned that the white cowries in Siam were from Malacca, it seems that cowries did not function there as small money. Francois Pyrard, a French sailor who was captured by the Males in July 1602, and who stayed in the islands for five years, provides us with further information on cowries. He stated that “a Portuguese ship of 400 tons was at anchor in the roads, having come from Cochin with a full cargo of rice, to take away bolys, or shells, to Bengal, where they are in great demand.” 25 In the Maldives, the king imposed on local people “an ordinary tax, according to their means, consisting of coco-cordage, of shell, called Boly, of which I have spoken, and of dried fishes,” in addition to honey or fruit. 26 These cowries, as Pyrard noted, were an important source of wealth in the Maldives. They were, “large as the tip of the little finger and quite white, polished and bright: they are fished twice a month, three days before and three days after the new moon, as well as at the full, and none would be got at any other season. The women gather them on the sands and in the shallows of the sea, standing in the water up to their waists. The call them Boly, and export to all parts an infinite quantity, in such wise that in one year I have seen thirty or forty whole ship loaded with them without other cargo. All 25

The Voyage of Francois Pyrard of Laval to the East Indies, the Maldives, the Moluccas and Brazil, translated into English from the Third French Edition of 1619 and edited, with Notes by Albert Gray (London, Printed for the Hakluyt Society), Vol.1, 78. 26 Francois Pyrard, 228.

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go to Bengal, for there only is there a demand for a large quantity at high price. The people of Bengal use them for ordinary money, although they have gold and silver and plenty of other metals; and, what is more strange, kings and great lords have houses built expressly to store these shells, and treat them as part of their treasure. All the merchants from other places in India take a large quantity to carry to Bengal, where they are always in demand; for they are produced nowhere but at the Maldives, on which account they serve as petty cash, as I have said. When I came to Male for the first time, there was a vessel at anchor from Cochin, a town of the Portuguese, of 400 tons burthen; the captain and merchants were Mestifs, the others Christianised Indians, all habited in the Portuguese fashion, and they had come solely to load with these shells for the Bengal market. They give 20 coquetees [? kegs] of rice for a parcel of shells: for all these Bolys are put in parcels of 12,000, in little baskets of coco leaves of open work, lined inside with cloth of the same coco tree, to prevent the shells falling out. The parcels or baskets f 12,000 are negotiated there as bags of silver are here, which between merchants are taken as counted, but not by others: for they are so clever at counting, that in less than no time they will take tally of a whole parcel. Also in Cambaye and elsewhere in India they set the prettiest of these shells in articles of furniture, as if they were marbles or precious stones. 27 27

Francois Pyrard, 236-240.

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In Feb. 1607, Francois Pyrard witnessed that the Bengali armada of sixteen galleys or galleots attacked the Maldives. 28 “For all day and night the men were ransacking the king’s palace and carrying off everything that was of value.” 29 Cowries surely were one of the valuables that the Bengalis loaded and shipped back home, if not the major motive for the Bengal invasion. A few years later, Pyrard noticed that at Agra (India) “they have little shells called cowries, whereof 50 or 60 to a piece according to the Bazare [rate].” 30 While upper mainland Southeast Asia was generally not mentioned by the above observers, Laos as an inland country was found to hold cowries as money during the seventeenth century. 31 Not surprisingly at all, the above western records were in line with what Marco Polo told us. The legendary traveler spoke of the cowrie currency in Bengal (as he heard), Lochac (Siam), and Caugigu (Tongking). 32 Polo might have been mistaken in the case of Tongking where no other sources support the use of cowrie currency, but cowries might “have been used more or less on its northwestern borders.” 33 And his words are the earliest for the cowries in Siam, 34 which would have been confirmed by many Chinese observers during the Yuan-Ming period.

The Cowrie Currency in the Bay of Bengal World (II): Chinese Records 28

Francois Pyarad, 309-320. Francois Pyarad, 315. 30 LT.-Col. Sir Richard Carnac Temple, ed. The Travels of Peter Mundy, in Europe and Asia, 1608-1667. Volume II, Travels in Asia, 1628-1634 (London: Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1914), 311. 31 Hans Ulrich Vogel, “Cowry Trade and Its Role in the Economy of Yunnan: From the Ninth to the MidSeventeenth Century (Part I).” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 36, no.3 (1993), 230. 32 Paul Pelliot, Notes on Marco Polo ( Paris, 1959), Vol. 1, 552. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 29

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The above non-Chinese sources have provided the profile of the cowrie currency system centered in the Bay of Bengal world from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries. What these non-Chinese travelers observed were indeed shared by their Chinese counterparts. Paul Pelliot in Notes on Marco Polo analyzed cowries with many insights based on his incomparable knowledge of diverse (including Chinese) sources. 35 Egami Namio in his study of migration of cowrie-shells in East Asia, and Han Ulrich Vogel in his masterpiece on the cowry monetary system in Yunnan (almost at the same period, from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries) have explored Chinese sources that trace the circulation of cowries in South and Southeast Asian countries and ports. 36 The author while principally citing from his research, supplements with some other Chinese sources to provide a relatively comprehensive picture of the cowrie currency world witnessed by Chinese people. The Chinese pilgrim Faxian, who lived during the late fourth and early fifth centuries, visited India during the reign of Chandragupta II of the Gupta Dynasty, and he noted that cowries (beichi) were used as money. 37 Xuanzang of the mid-seventh century also witnessed cowries being used as a medium of exchange in India. 38 A few decades later, Yijing remarked on the use of cowries in India. 39 Huiguan, another Tang monk (prior to the ninth century), vaguely recorded that cowries were taken as property in Magadha, but 35

Paul Pelliot 1959, 531-563. Egami Namio, “Migration of the Cowrie-Shell Culture in East Asia,” Acta Asiatica 26 (1974), pp. 1-52; Hans Ulrich Vogel, 1993, 211-252; “Cowry Trade and Its Role in the Economy of Yunnan: From the Ninth to the Mid-Seventeenth Century (Part II),” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 36, no.3 (1993), 309-353. 37 James Legge, A record of Buddhistic kingdoms: being an account by the Chinese monk Fa-Hien of his travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399-414) in search of the Buddhist books of discipline, translated and annotated with a Corean recession of the Chinese text, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886. p 43 and P. 43, footnote 2. Also see Hans Ulrich Vogel, Part I, 230. 38 Xuanzang, Datang Xiyuji, annotated by Ji Xianli (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1985), p. 217. 36

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he did not tell us whether or not cowries was used as a medium of exchange. 40 Even so, it is reasonable to speculate that cowries functioned as money, considering the historical context. Indeed, these Buddhist pilgrims clearly pointed out that cowries were used as a medium of exchange in the West Region. 41 The West Region was a vast area, stretching from northwest China into modern central Asia. As a matter of fact, many Chinese Buddhist sutras translated from Sanskrit or central Asian languages contain some passages mentioning cowries being donated to Buddhist monasteries. What Chinese monks recorded has been confirmed by local hoards and texts discovered in northern India. Deyell, in his studies on monetary systems in early medieval north India, where “the lowest niche was occupied by the cowrie shell; next in value was the copper coin; above this a silver mass ranging from a fraction of a gram to a few grams; and for this highest level of transactions, a gold mass of a fraction of a gram to a few grams.” 42 In medieval Kashmir its “currency system consisted of a copper coinage with cowrie shells serving for small transactions.” 43 Such a monetary system was vividly revealed in the second of half of the thirteenth century when the Delhi Sultanate established an empire that stretched from Sind to Bengal. 44 In Pala Bengal, “‘trade is carried on by means of Kauris, which are the current money of the country’. The same was true of the upper Ganga basin, where hoards such as that found at Khajausa (3.75 kg cowries and 638 billion vigrahapāla and ādivarāha drammas), or at Bhondri (9,384 39

Yijing, Nanhai Jigui Neifa zhuan Jiaozhu, annotated by Wang Bangwei (Beijing, Zhonghua Shuju, 1995), p. 46; p. 167, footnote 22; 219. 40 Huilin, Yiqie jing yin yi (Pronunciation and meanings of all the sutras), in Cishu Jicheng (Collections of Dictionaries), Vol. 2, pp. 451-650, edited by Gu Feng (Beijing: Tuanjie Chubanshe, 1993), 660. 41 Ibid. 42 John Deyell, Living Without Silver, the Monetary History of Early Medieval North India (Oxford University Press, 1999), 237. 43 John Deyell, Living without Silver, 62. 44 Ibid., 221.

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cowries and 54 billion vināyakapāla drammas) demonstrate the use of shells as a fractional currency alongside the higher value metallic coinage.” 45 With the Maritime Silk Road having been regularly employed since the Tang period, Chinese travelers began to notice cowries in Southeast Asia and South Asia, in addition to the Western Region. Both Jiu Tangshu (Old History of the Tang Dynasty) and Xin Tangshu (New History of the Tang Dynasty) clearly stated that the Middle Tianzhu (Central India) used cowrie shells as a medium of exchange. 46 Zhao Rukuo of the early thirteenth century in his Zhufan Zhi (Records of Various Barbarians) followed this by stating that Tianzhu (India) traded with Daqin (West Asia) and Funan (mainland Southeast Asia) annually and used cowrie shells for their transactions. 47 Wang Dayuan, a Yuan traveler, in his Daoyi Zhilue (A Sketchy Record of Island Barbarians) that was finished before 1350 recorded various countries, port cities and people in Southeast and South Asian who used cowries. In Luohu, it was stipulated that cowries were used as money. 48 Scholars agree that Luohu (Lvo, Lavo, and Lohot) was located in modern Lophuri of the lower Menam River. 49 Moving westward, Wang recorded that in Siam, people “still used cowries as money (Reng yi bazi quan qian shiyong).” 50 The inclusion of the word “still” leads to the conclusion that Wang Dayuan knew that cowries had been used as money in Siam prior to his arrival, which accords with Marco Polo. In Zhilu (Mergui, northern region of the Malay Peninsula), cowries 45

Ibid., 34. Jiu Tangshu, juan 198, 5307; Xin Tangshu, juan 221, 6237. 47 Zhao Rukuo, Zhufan Zhi (A Record of Various Barbarians), annotated by Yang Bowen (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2000), 86. 48 Wang Dayuan, Daoyi Zhilue (Records of Islands and Barbarians), annotated by Su Jiqing (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2000), 114. 49 Ibid., 115. 50 Ibid., 155. 46

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were traded with Siam as money. 51 In Beiliu (Male), whenever overseas merchants moved one shipload of cowries to Wudie (Pegu) or Bengal, over one shipload of rice was exchanged; Wang commented that since those places (Bengal and Pegu) employed cowries as money, cowries had been a long-lasting way for local people [in Beiliu] to make a living. 52 More details on cowrie money were surely presented in the section of Pengjiala (Bengal). Here a silver–cast coin was called Tangjia (tanka), weighed two mace and eight candreens and was worth around 11,520 cowries; cowries were used as small monetary denominations, and they yielded many benefits for the people. 53 In Fangbai (Bombay), the trade used gold, cowries and red and white beads. 54 In Da Wudie (Orissa) both metal and cowrie money was used. 55 In Wudie (Pegu), each silver coin weighed two mace and eight candreens, equivalent to ten taels of zhongtong paper money (a paper money of the Yuan Dynasty), and each could be exchanged for about 11,520 cowries. Because 250 cowries could buy one pointed basket of rice (equivalent to 1.6 dou [Chinese official peck]), each silver coin could buy 46 baskets of rice, namely, 73.2 pecks, more than enough to feed two men for a year. 56 Wang Dayuan's account of cowrie money in Orissa bears an extraordinary similarity to descriptions of Bengal and Pegu, which reveals the regulation and consistency of such a monetary system in all these regions. The Zheng He expedition passed through Southeast Asia, the Bay of Bengal and beyond, and leaves us with some valuable insights of contemporary travelers on these 51

Ibid., 126. Ibid., 264. 53 Ibid. 330; also see Vogel, Part 1, 232. 54 Wang Dayuan, 337. 55 Wang Dayuan, 339. 56 Ibid., 276. 52

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treasure fleets of the regions they traversed. Ma Huan, in his Yingya Shenglan, said that in Siam, “in trade they employ cowries as money for current use; optionally, gold, silver and copper coins may all be used.” 57 So it was in Bengal. “The cowrie goes by the foreign name of K’ao-li; [and] in trading they calculate in units [of this article].” 58 Both cowries in Siam and in Bengal were from Liushan (the Maldives) as Ma observed. In the Maldives, “As to their cowries: the people there collect them and pile them into heaps like mountains; they catch them in nets and let the flesh rot; [then] they transport them for sale in Hsien Lo, Pang-ko-la and other such countries, where they are used as currency.” 59 Gong Zhen, another observer on the treasure fleet left a similar account. In his Xiyang Fanguo Zhi, Gong recorded that trade transactions involved cowries as money. 60 In Liushan (the Maldives), cowries (haiba) were collected by local people as piles, and when the flesh disappeared, cowries were sold to Siam and Bengal where they functioned as money. 61 In Bengal, silver coins (tangjia) were used as money, but haiba or kaoli (cowries) were used as smaller denominations for petty deals; Kaoli was the foreign name of haiba (sea shells), and it was counted one by one in the trade.62 Huang Xingceng, in his 1520s Xiyang Chaogong Dianlu, recorded that in Siam, trade was made through gold and silver, through (copper) cash and through cowries. 63 In 57

Ma Huan, Yingya Shenglan, ‘The Overall Survey of the Ocean’s Shores, [1433] translated from the Chinese texts edited by Feng Ch’engjun with introduction, notes, and appendices by J.V.G. Mills (Cambridge, Published for the Hakluyt at the University Press, 1970), 107. 58 Ma Huan, 161. 59 Ma Huan, 150. 60 Gong Zhen, Xiyang Fanguo Zhi (A Record of Foreign Countries in the Western Ocean), annotated by Xiang Da (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju), 14. 61 Ibid., 33. 62 Ibid., 38. 63 Huang Xingceng, Xiyang Chaogong Dianlu Jiaozhu (A Record of the Tributes from the Western Ocean), annotated by Xie Fang (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2000), 69.

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Bengal, the trade employed silver known as Tangjia, and cowries called kaoli; and cowries were counted by jin (Chinese measure of weight).64 His notes could as well have been a copy of Ma Huan’s Yingya Shenglan. Huang’s observations about Liushan (the Maldives and the Laccadives) are of great significance. He pointed out that local trade used silver coins, and the country benefited from its abundant fish and cowries. 65 Unlike some, who mistakenly thought that cowries were used as money in the Maldives, Huang clearly confirms that silver served as money there, while cowries were exported to bring wealth to the country. Huang even detailed the procurement of cowries: people caught cowries, piled them into mountains, let them decay, and finally stored them, and he said that it was the Siamese and Bengali merchants who came to purchase cowries. 66 Many scholars have examined and reflected on the cowrie monetary system in Yunnan from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries. But where were the sources for these shells in Yunnan, an inland area, far from the sea? Linguistic analyses may help. The term “cury”, or “kauri”, as they were known in Bengal (observed by Tomè Pires) suggests that Bengal was the source of cowries in Yunnan. The cowrie, or cowrie shell in Chinese was originally called bei, haibei (sea shell), or beichi (shell teeth), 67 but never “kaoli”, a new term that was not invented until the Yuan- Ming period to refer to cowries. Both Ma Huan and Gong Zhen of the early fifteenth century recorded the word kaoli for the first time. Kaoli, from its pronunciation clearly refers to the transliteration of cury or kauri, suggesting the origin of cowries in Yunnan to be Bengal. It seems that 64

Ibid., 87. Ibid., 76. 66 Ibid. 67 Beichi, as it is so named, because of the marks inside the edge of the shell that resemble the teeth. James Legge, A record of Buddhistic kingdoms: being an account by the Chinese monk Fa-Hien of his travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399-414) in search of the Buddhist books of discipline, translated and annotated with a Corean recension of the Chinese text (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 188), p 43 and P. 43, footnote 2 65

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both Chinese term kaoli and English term cowrie should be regarded as Indian dialectal terms akin to kaudi in Hindi, kavari in Martha and kabtaj in Maldive languages.” 68 Another Chinese term “ba” was also invented at the Yuan-Ming period and deserves our attention. Wang Dayuan used the term bazi. 69 Ma Huan and Gong Zhen also used the term haiba (sea shells). The character ba is the combination of two Chinese radicals, “shell” and “ba”. The radical “shell” refers to its origin and feature, while the radical “ba” is used for its pronunciation. The radical pa or ba, highly possibly is the transliteral abbreviation of the Sanskrit term kaparda, or the Hindustani derivation kapari. 70 The pronunciation of pa or ba resembles Cham bior, Khmer bier, Siamese bia, Laotian bia hoi in Thai. 71 Pelliot has also brought Malay biya up to our attention, and he is very cautious to suggest that the Thai probably borrowed the word from the Malays. 72 Whatever the case, the linguistic connections lead to speculation, not only on the trading routes of cowries, but also to the intimacy of the relationship between coastal mainland Southeast Asia and Yunnan (upper mainland Southeast Asia).

Routes linking Bengal, Coastal Mainland Southeast Asia and Yunnan By which way or ways were the cowries from Bengal conveyed to Yunnan? Trading routes linking the inland and coastal Southeast Asia were also recorded by Chinese travelers. The road linking Southwest China (Yunnan and Sichuan) was recorded by Xuanzang (mid-seventh century) and Yijing (late seventh century), as both authors described the 68

Egami Namio, 36. Wang Dayuan, 264. 70 Namio states that it is “apparently.” See Egami Namio, 34. 71 Paul Pelliot 1959, 554; Egami Namio, 32. 69

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route between India and Sichuan. Their records of miles and days were fairly close, which reveals that people of that time might have been familiar with the route. Fan Chuo, a military official who served in Tang China's Annam Protectorate, also recorded these roads in his Man Shu (Records of the barbarians, compiled c. 863). Many coastal mainland Southeast Asian kingdoms were listed, such as the Pyu (a 75-day distance south of Yongchang, southwestern Yunnan) that bordered Bosi and Poluomen and was a 20day distance west of Rãjagrha, Michen and Miruo (a 60-day distance southwest of Yongchang), Kunlun (an 81-day distance south of the Erhai Lake), Daqin Poluomen (west of Miruo and a 40-day distance from Dali city) and Xiaoqin Poluomen (a 74-day distance north of Yongchang) where it produced cowries (beichi). 73 Jia Dan, a prime minister of the Tang court, presented the emperor with a book that documented Sino-foreign communications in 801. Although his books are currently missing, Xin Tangshu (New History of the Tang Dynasty), edited in the tenth century, fortunately kept a record of the seven routes that he had discerned linked China with the "barbarians" of four directions. The sixth linked Annam with India (Tianzhu). This route started from Tonkin, via Yunnan, through Prome to Maghada. According to Jia Dan's records, there were two ways from Tonkin to Dali, one by river, the other overland. After arriving at Dali, the routes joined together, and extended to Burma and India. From Yunnan to India, there were again two routes: the southern one from Dali to Yongchang, through the Pyu Kingdom, Prome, the Arakan Range, Kamarupa, and arriving in India, and the western one crossing the Irrawaddy and the Mogaung rivers, and the Chindwin River to India and beyond. The western route was about 3,200 li, compared to the 5,600 li 72

Paul Pelliot, 554.

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of the southern route. The southern route seemed very roundabout, but it was important, not only because it linked Yunnan and Burma, but also because it connected the Maritime Silk Road with the overland roads, which explains why merchants bothered to take this longer and more winding way. Yang Zuo, a Sichuan scholar went to the Dali Kingdom to purchase warhorses in 1074. In a local postal station, Yang read a road direction which detailed the mileage between the Dali and other foreign countries. 74 From there eastward, people could reach Rongzhou in Sichuan, westward to India (Yandu), southeastward to Vietnam (Jiaozhi), northeastward to Chengdu (capital of Sichuan), northward to the Big Snow Mountain (Daxueshan), and southward to the sea. Yang even stated that quite a number of local people had completed the journey. Zhou Qufei (1135-1189) in his Lingwai Daida provided vague estimates for travels from Dali City (Yunnan) to Pagan and then to Rãjagrha. He said that there were five cheng (a unit of length) from Dali to Pagan, and thus from Pagan to West Tianzhu it was not far, although difficult; 75 He estimated it to be forty cheng from Dali to Rãjagrha. 76 Such an estimate indeed was confirmed by Marco Polo, who said that it took about thirty days from southern Yunnan to Bengal. Because all the above sources were recorded by the Chinese, and a great number of them were cited from official and pro-official histories, it is no wonder that scholars created a north-oriented map. As such, records by Wang Dayuan and Ma Huan are very 73

Fan Chuo, Yunnanzhi Buzhu (Supplemantary annotation to the Record of Yunnan), annotated by Mu Qin (Kunming: Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe), 12-134. 74 Yang Zuo, Yunnan Maima Ji (A record of Horse trade in Yunnan), in Fang Guoyu ed. Yunnan Shiliao Congkan (Collections of Historical Sources of Yunnan (Kunming Yunnan Daxue Chubanshe, 1998), 13 Vols., 2:244-247. 75 Zhou Qufei, Lingwai Daida, 122-123. 76 Ibid., 108.

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important, as they saw the road from the south to the north from a Southeast Asian point of view. Wang clearly pointed out that there was a road from Yunnan leading to Mecaa (Tiantang), and that it took about a year. 77 He also said that there was a road from the Western Ocean (Xiyang) to Mecca. 78 China’s Xiyang roughly refers to the eastern part of the Indian Ocean. Ma Huan left us with more details. He noted the inland connections between Siam and Yunnan: “When you travel something over two hundred li to the northwest from the capital, there is a market-town called Upper Water, whence you can go through into Yunnan by a back-entrance. In this place, there are five or six hundred families of foreigners; all kinds of foreign goods are for sale; red ma-ssu-k’en-ti stones are sold in great numbers here; this stone is inferior to the red ya-ku, [and] its brightness resembles that of a pomegranate seed. When the treasurer-ships of the Central Country come to Hsien Lo [Siam], [our] men also take small boats and go to trade [at Upper Water]. 79 Ma Huan’s impression was reiterated by Huang Xingceng in the sixteenth century. The routes connecting Yunnan and Siam seem crucial for the transportation of cowries, as Paul Pelliot points out that cowries in Yunnan probably came mainly from Siam. 80 The cowrie money revealed in the law codes of King Mengrai in the Kingdom of Chiangmai surely supports Paul Pelliot. Northern Thailand indeed had established intimacy with Nanzhao and Dali kingdoms, economically, 77

Wang Dayuan, 352. Wang Dayuan, 352. 79 Ma Huan, Yingya Shenglan, 105-106. 80 Paul Pelliot 1959, 552; 554. 78

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culturally and religiously. It is said the wife of King Mengrai was a Tai princess from Jinghong, Yunnan. The networks connecting Bengal, Arakan and Pegu were also noticed by Tomè Pires: “The kingdom of Arakan is between Bengal and Pegu. The king is a heathen and very powerful in the hinterland. It has a good port on the sea, where the Peguans, the Bengalees and the Klings trade, but not much business.” 81 Pegu “is the most fertile land of all we have seen and known. It is more plenteous than Siam and almost as much as Java (Jaoa). It has three ports on the sea, with three governors, and in the native language the governor is called Toledam. The nearest port to the land of Arakan is Cosmin (Copymy). This carries the trade on the Bengal and Bonuaquelim side. The other is Dagon (Dogo). This is a large port...” 82 In Siam, “There are three ports in the kingdom of Siam on the Pegu side, and on the Pahang and Champa side there are many. They all belong to the said kingdom and are subject to the king of Siam. The land of Siam is large and very plenteous, with many people and cities, with many lords and many foreign merchants, and most of these foreigners are Chinese, because Siam does a great deal of trade with China.” 83 Trade through Siam was prosperous. “There are, however, Arabs, Persians, Bengalees, many Kling, Chinese and other nationalities. And all the Siamese trade is on the Chinese side, and in Pase, Pedir and Bengal.” 84 He repeated this in another passage, “On the 81

Tomè Tomè 83 Tomè 84 Tomè 82

Pires, 95. Pires, 97. Pires, 103. Pires, 104.

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Tenasserim side, Siam also traded with Pase, Pedir, with Kedah, with Pegu, with Bengal and the Gujaratees come to its ports every year.” 85 Moving to the hinterland, Tomè Pires mentioned Burma: “The boundaries of the kingdom of Burma are in the hinterland, one the side of Pegu and Arakan, and on the China side it is bounded by Jangoma, and Jangoma is bounded by Burma and by Cambodia.” 86 Burma was rich with precious stones, and these stones were moved to the city of Ava, “which is in Arakan, and that [Burma] has a great deal of benzoin and lac, which goes from there to Siam and Pegu, and that the musk comes from the kingdom of Jangoam and the kingdom of [blank] and they say that the musk also goes there from China. They affirm, and it seems reasonable, that they can go overland from Pegu and Siam to take the pepper and sandalwood to China-on the hinterland side of China-because the people of Pegu and Siam trade with Burma in lancharas and paraos up the rivers there are in the said kingdom; and the merchants who go in this way say what they please and within a month they come back.” 87 Tomè Pries thus described a vivid trade network that encompassed Bengal, Arakan, Pegu, Siam, Burma and China. Diverse merchants were participants, including Chinese, Arabs, Gujaratees, Persians, Bengalees, Kling, Siamese and other Southeast Asians from Ava, Burma, Cambodia, Kedah and so on. Although Yunnan was not mentioned, Burma 85

Tomè Pires, 109. Tomè Pires, 110-111. 87 Tomè Pires, 111. 86

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and its precious stones were mentioned, and trade and merchants would surely not end just at Burma. While cowries from the Maldives and Bengal entered Yunnan mainly from mainland Southeast Asia, based on the above sources, one must bear in mind that cowries also reached Yunnan from China’s southeast coast. Both the Yuan and the Ming sources referred to cowries stored in Jiangnan (roughly the Yangzi Delta); and both dynasty texts referred to cowries being shipped from the Yangzi Delta to Yunnan. The statutes of the Yuan dynasty even issued a ban on the private shipping of cowries. 88 Roderich Pak has searched for mentions of the Maldives and the Laccdaives in the Chinese sources, and has concluded that the Maldives paid three tributes to the Ming court in the years 1416, 1421 and 1423. Unfortunately, the tribute gifts recorded in Mingshilu (Veritable Records of the Ming Dyansty) only listed horses, rhinoceros horn, ivory and other “local products”. 89 It is almost certain that cowries had been included in the unspecified local products, considering the significance of cowries in Maldivian society. Sanbao Taijian Xiyangji, a Ming novel mentions “20 shi of cowrie shells” as gifts offered by the Maldivian king to the Chinese. 90 All the above sources, Chinese or not, lead to an economic network one of whose essential features was the use of cowries, as this form of money had existed in and around these countries and lasted many ages. This center of this economic network was most certainly the Bengal world, as all the said countries were along the Bay of Bengal. 88

For more information, see Vogel 1993 and Bin Yang, “Horses, Silver and Cowries: Yunnan in a Global Perspective,” Journal of World History 15.3: 281-322. 89 Roderich Patk, “The Maldive and Laccadive Islands (Liu-Shan) in Ming Records,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 107.4 (1987), 681. 90 Luo Maodeng (Ming), Saobao Taijian Xiyangji (A Record of Sanbao Eunuch’s Visit to the Western Ocean) (Beijing: Kunlun Chubanshe, 2001), 624: Pak, 692.

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Yunnan, although it was not a coastal area, had built a historical relationship with the peoples of the Bay of Bengal.

The Spread of Tantric Buddhism: Indianization of Nanzhao and Dali 91 The spread of Tantric Buddhism simply cannot be put aside when we talk about the cowrie currency in Yunnan, although an essay such as this is unable to elaborate much on this issue. It seems a puzzle that, suddenly at the beginning of the ninth century, Buddhism with a heavy Tantric influence prospered in Nanzhao, and eventually was taken as a state religion in this hinterland kingdom. Until today, scholars all agree that China, Tibet, Sri Lanka and India/Bengal were all the sources for the origins of Buddhism in Yunnan. While this conclusion cannot be challenged, it is very wrong to deduce that Tantric Buddhism arrived from Tibet, Mahayana from China and Theravada from the south (mainland Southeast Asia). This conventional wisdom, held by many scholars in China, is indeed misleading and problematic, as it is a typical case of reckoning reasons from consequences. In this section, I will provide an alternative view of the origin and early landscape of Buddhism in Nanzhao and Dali. In fact, I argue that Tantric Buddhism from the south constituted the main, if not the only, origin of Buddhism in Nanzhao, and that only from the Dali period, that is, the tenth and even eleventh century, did Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism begin to yield a strong influence. The author argues that the introduction of 91

Here I borrow the controversial term “Indianization,” to refer to the transplantation of Tantric Buddhism by the Nanzhao and Dali Kingdoms in Yunnan, from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries. The term Indianization or Indianized surely is somewhat problematic, and the author uses it only for the convenience of expression. Currently, I am doing a research project on Buddhism in the Dali Kingdom. This section represents a very rough version of the work in progress.

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Tantric Buddhism to Nanzhao was part of the Indianization trend, and vividly reveals the Bengali connections in Yunnan, just as the cowrie monetary system has done. When exactly Buddhism came to Nanzhao remains a puzzle, and this question is interlocked with the source of Buddhism in Nanzhao. Local gazetteers, Buddhist texts and orals all traced the arrival of Buddhism back to the era of Asoka or even earlier. As early as the Ming period, such a tradition had been well established. However, this belief was a local invention and could hardly bear serious scrutiny. Scholars in this field have basically agreed on a much later period, for example, the seventh century, or the eighth century. The author has collected and read relatively comprehensive sources, both primary and secondary, and has attempted to provide a relatively accurate answer for the dating of Buddhism in Yunnan. It is commonly recognised that it was during the late Nanzhao period that Buddhism began to prosper and dominate at least within the elite. Nanzhao Tujuan, a scroll painted under the edict of Shunhuazhen in 899, king of Nanzhao at the end of the ninth century, provided a Buddhist chronicle of the origin of this country. Hence, Buddhism arrived at Nanzhao no later than this date. During the mid- ninth century, Nanzhao and Tang China were in constant conflict. Gao Pian, the Tang General in charge of the Southwest frontiers, understanding that the Nanzhao elite believed in Buddhism, dispatched Jingxian, a Buddhist monk as his envoy to visit Nanzhao. Shilong, the king of Nanzhao, received him, and an agreement for peace was reached. 92 The year was about 876. Thus it seems that by this year, Nanzhao had already been practicing Buddhism, and this religion was very influential among the elite. 92

Xin Tangshu, juan 222, 399.

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A few years earlier, Shilong, the King of Nanzhao adopted Hetuo for his country and Maharaja for his title, which also shows the southern religious influence. Some archaeological findings support the above statement. A bronze pillar and bell have been found, and their inscriptions clearly state that they were cast respectively in 871 and 872. 93 Fan Chuo in his Yunnan Zhi recorded that in 863, when the Nanzhao forces attacked Annam, a hu monk, naked, with a stick cane and white silk cloth tied around his body, was stepping backwards and forwards. Chai Qi, the Chinese general, shot at the monk in the chest. Nanzhao soldiers helped the monk back to their barracks. 94 The description of the monk in terms of his dress indicates that he was not local, nor Chinese or Tibetan, but Indian. And it seems that he was important in the Nanzhao forces, a kind of protector who was believed to hold supernatural powers. His movements and steps suggest that he was performing some form of ritual. And he might be chanting incantations when moving his steps. As Fan Chuo was himself at the battle, this source is a first-hand observation. It can be speculated that the Indian monk was an influential Tantric Buddhist master. In fact, the role of the Indian monk would be confirmed by many later sources. Nanzhao Yeshi (Wild History of Nanzhao) that was compiled by a local Ming scholar and highly possible had its earlier origins, indicates the southern Buddhist connection. In 858, Duan Zongbang was dispatched by Fengyou the king of Nanzhao, to reinforce Burma (Pagan?), which was being invaded by Shiziguo (Ceylon?). The following year, Fengyou died, and his son Shilong ascended the throne. However, Wang Chuodian 93

Fang Guoyu, Yunan Shiliao Mulu Gaishuo (Introduction to Historical Sources of Yunnan) (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1984), 902-907. “Hu”, literally meaning “barbarian”, is usually reserved for non-Chinese people in the north,

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acceded to the real power. Duan succeeded in this mission, and Pagan presented him with many gifts, including sarīra or a golden Buddha statue (depending on different versions of the history). When Duan returned to Tengyue, he was informed that Wang had usurped the throne. He then asked Wang himself to receive the golden Buddha, which Wang did. While Wang was paying tribute to the gold Buddha, Duan cut off his head. 95 Another edition of Nanzhao Yeshi records that Duan Zongbang later burned the golden Buddha statue. The Burmese were very angry, and they laid a curse on Nanzhao, that it was to be usurped, which later came about. The controversy over the golden Buddha statue provides some interesting material for speculation. Wang agreed to receive the golden Buddha, demonstrating that Buddhism had been accepted by the local elite. The other version of the golden Buddha incident reveals that Buddhism was not accepted by Duan Zongbang. However, the fact that the curse came true proved the power of the Buddhist faith, which leads to the conclusion that Buddhism had been taken as a faith in Nanzhao. Chongsheng Monastery, the most famous Buddhist monastery in Yunnan, sheds some light on this issue as well. Although the original monastery was destroyed in the Muslim Rebellion during the mid-19th century, some historical writings imply that it was built in the reign of Fengyou (824-839). 96 If so, we can conclude that this period saw the beginning of the prosperity of Buddhism among the elite. In conclusion, the author tends to argue that by the 850s, Tantric Buddhism had been accepted and was popular with the Nanzhao royal court. 94

Mu Qin, Yunannzhi Buzhu (Supplementary Annotations to the Record of Yunnan) (Kunming: Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe, 1995), 129. 95 Ni Ke, Nanzhao Yeshi (Wild History of Nanzhao), in Fang Guoyu ed. Yunnan Shiliao Congkan (Collections of Historical Sources of Yunnan (Kunming Yunnan Daxue Chubanshe, 1998), 4: 780.

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In about 870, Shilong, the king of Nanzhao, adopted a new name “Hetuo” for Nanzhao, and the title “Maharaja” (great king) for himself. This practice was continued by the Duans who founded the Dali kingdom up to the Yuan period. Many Tang sources made mention of Nanzhao Hetuo. The short-lived Zheng regime during the NanzhaoDali transition in the early tenth century also called itself Hetuo. Such a practice was followed by the Dali Kingdom. In addition, Jiaozhi in northern Vietnam called the Dali Kingdom Hetuo. Furthermore, Hetuo gradually became a nickname for the Dali area. As a tradition, many Ming gazetteers and essayists regarded Hetuo as a nickname for Dali. However, what does the term Hetuo mean? The combination of these two Chinese characters “he” and “tuo” for “hetuo” do not actually mean anything literally. So where did the word come from? Pelloit, a prominent Sinologist pointed out that it was a variation of “qiantuoluo”, a Sanskrit name for Nanzhao, and that Nanzhao later used it to address itself and was so addressed by Indianized Southeast Asia. 97 Qiantuoluo or Gandhāra in Sanskrit was a state in pre-modern north India. Because of the Indianization of Southeast Asia, many Southeast Asian places were named after Indian counterparts in order to create a new India. 98 Fang Guoyu, the prominent founding scholar of Yunnan studies, explains how “gan” came to be pronounced as “he” and “hāra” as “tuo”. 99 Hence, “Qiantuoluo” for “Gandhāra” became “Hetuo.” It seems that typographical similarities could account for the invention of Hetuo used to refer to the 96

Fang Guoyu, 884-898. Paul Pelliot, Deux itinéraires de Chine en Inde à la fin du VIIIe siècle, tr. Feng Chengjun (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2003), 181-308; noticed and discussed by Fang 183; John S. StrongThe Legend and Cult of Upagupta, Sanskrit Buddhism in North India and Southeast Asia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 175. 98 Pelliot 2003, 197. 99 Fang Guoyu, 184. 97

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Nanzhao and later the Dali Kingdom, as Nanzhao, like Gandhāra in India, was surrounded by mountains, 100 while the author also agrees with Pelliot’s argument, that such an analogy has a lot to do with their geographical location: Gandhāra in North India and Nanzhao in north Indianized Southeast Asia. 101 The Dali Kingdom also won the nickname “Miaoxiangguo”. In fact, the term “Miaoxiangguo” was a literal translation of Qiantuoluo or “Gandhāra.” Chinese monks who knew Sanskrit understood it. Huilin for example, in his dictionary of Buddhist glossaries, explained that “qiantuo” meant “fragrant,” while “luo” could be translated as “all over”. Hence, the term “qiantuoluo” together meant the fragrant state. That was why the Dali kingdom was called “Miaoxiangguo.” In short, “hetuo” was a case of Indian place names being adopted in ancient Yunnan. And this was not the only case, as a result of the spread of Buddhism. Many other Buddhist place names in India had their counterparts in Yunnan too, such as Grdhrakuta (Jiufeng), the Pippala cave (Biboluo) and Kukkutapudagiri (Jizushan ), the stone cave of Upagupta. There has been some speculation that the word “zhao” was Tai, which, if true, would be another excellent example of southernization. Nonetheless, this speculation is problematic. “Zhao,” literally meaning “king,” “prince,” or “kingdom”, was a Chinese transliteration from a non-Chinese language. And the case of Nanzhao was not the first time that the word “zhao” had appeared in Chinese historical records, being seen to occur a few centuries earlier. And, more interestingly, it was a northern rather than a southern non-Han people who first used this word, at least as can be seen in Chinese texts. Fu 100 101

Fang Guoyu, 184. Pelliot 2003, 197-198.

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Jian, a king of the Xianbei people in the fourth century, was addressed as “Fu Zhao.” Fang Guoyu points out that it occurred in a Qiang language. 102 The Qiang people were spread across the northern frontiers to the northwestern and Western frontiers and are believed to have moved to Yunnan in early times. Therefore, it is unlikely that the term “zhao” was of Tai origin. The Pyu Kingdom probably borrowed and transferred the word “Zhao” into “Xin” (pronounced as Shin). When the Nanzhao Kingdom imposed a tributary system over the Pyu, the King of Nanzhao claimed himself to be “Biaoxin”, literally “King of the Pyu.” Such a tradition was followed by the Dali Kingdom. King Anawrahta of mid-eleventh century Pagan was reputed to have marched into the Nanzhao kingdom. 103 The king of Nanzhao was addressed as “Utibwa;” the term, according to Harvey, “is the name by which the Burmese knew the ruler of Yunnan or China, two areas which they often confused. It was actually one of the official titles of the Nanzhao kings and comes from udi = (pali) udaya = rising sun + bwa (as in sawbwa) = chief, i.e. “King of the East.” This passage is worth some scrutiny. Firstly, the kingdom that Anawrahta visited can't have been Nanzhao, but Dali, because of the time period. This may, however, imply that Pagan still used the same term to refer to the recent kingdom of Dali, which was the successor of the aggressive Nanzhao. Secondly, Pelliot took the title to indicate some Hindu influence on Nanzhao,” 104 while the author proposes the role of Nanzhao in connecting Tibet and mainland Southeast Asia. The “King of the East” or the “King East 102

Fang Guoyu,187. G. E. Harvey, History of Burma: from the earliest times to 10 March, 1824, the beginning of the English conquest (London , Cass, 1967), 29. 104 Pelliot 2003, 200. 103

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of the Sun” was the title bestowed upon the king of Nanzhao (Geluofeng) by the Tubo Empire in the mid-eighth century. As we know, Nanzhao once held suzerainty over the Pyu, and that was why the Burmese recognised the title Utibwa. They went on to assume that the Dali Kings still held the same title. Therefore, this title indeed demonstrates the Nanzhao influence on the Pyu and later on Burma. In general, there were diverse names for the Nanzhao and Dali kingdoms and their kings, such as Nanzhao (Non-Chinese, probably Qiang original), Biaoxin (Burmese), Huangdi (emperor, Chinese), Zanpuzhong (Tibet), Hetuo (Sanskrit), Miaoxiangguo (Sanskrit), Maharaja (Great King, Sanskrit). All these terms hence provide evidence of various foreign influences on the Nanzhao and Dali and their multi-dimensional cultural features.

The World Envisioned by Nanzhao In summary, Yunnan has been variously linked with neighboring cultures since prehistoric times. Nanzhao Yeshi compiled by Ni He, a Ming scholar, records a tenacious local legend that not only suggests intimate ties with its various neighbors, but also provides glimpses of local conceptualization of the world. 105 According to this legend, the founder of Nanzhao was a grandson of Asoka of West Tianzhu (India). He had eight brothers of whom the eldest was the ancestor of the sixteen states (in ancient India); the second, the ancestor of Tubo (Tibet); the third, the ancestor of the Han people (China); the fourth, the ancestor of the Eastern Barbarians (Dongman, probably referring to ethnic peoples in modern Guizhou); the fifth, namely, himself, the ancestor of the Mengshezhao (later Nanzhao); the sixth, the ancestor of the Lion Kingdom (Shiziguo, referring to 105

Ni He (Ming), Nanzhao Yeshi Huizheng (The wild history of Nanzhao) (Kunming: Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe, 1990), 17-18; 21.

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Ceylon); the seventh, the ancestor of Jiaozhi (North Vietnam); the eighth, the ancestor of the Baizi Kingdom (a local kingdom replaced by Nanzhao); and the ninth, the ancestor of the Baiyi (the Tai people). 106 Therefore, Nanzhao saw not only the local peoples such as the Baizi Kingdom, the White Barbarians and the Eastern Barbarians, but also China, Tibet, Vietnam, Ceylon and India as fraternal states, revealing a cross-boundary worldview that comprises all these various peoples. And indeed, in this world view, India was somewhat superior, as it was founded by the eldest brother. Such a conceptualization of the world must have been based on the frequent interactions enabled by the Southwest Silk Road. Nanzhao’s conceptualization of the world had both a cultural and an economic basis. The early medieval ages witnessed the rise of local powers around Southeast Asia (both island and mainland) and South India, as a result of dynamic interactions and transactions. James Heimann has illustrated that “an ordered system of ratios” between cowries and specific metal currencies lasted from the post-Gupta period until the nineteenth century, 107 and demonstrated how “trade in the Indian Ocean integrated local production/consumption patterns and currency development, resulting in a specific Indian Ocean ‘world-economy.’” 108 Hence, local geo-political units in the Indian Ocean zone, just like those in the Mediterranean, could only be understood "in terms of their interdependency within that wider network." 109 While Heimann’s argument centered on the Maldives-Bengal cowry trade, Yunnan definitely figured in this Indian Ocean (or the 106

The Bo people were also nicknamed “Baiyi”; however, considering the geographical locations of the nine peoples, the author tends to believe that this term Baiyi refers to the Tai people. 107 James Heimann, “Small Changes and Ballast: Cowrie Trade and Usage as an Example of Indian Ocean Economic History,” South Asia 3, no. 1 (1980): 56-58. 108 Ibid., 48. 109 Ibid.

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Bay of Bengal) world-economy, since the similar denominations and systems of calculation extended from Bengal to Siam and Yunnan. 110 The Bengal legacy in Yunnan indeed gives rise to many intriguing and sensitive questions for contemporary history research that has usually been confined to a national or regional framework. It also illustrates how an inland area had been connected with seas and shaped by seas. The author cannot help asking himself what it means by Chinese “frontiers”. Were these essential otherness’ frontiers simultaneously? Or, were these once not frontiers at all?

110

Abu-Lughod indeed puts Yunnan into her East Asian subsystem. I believe that from 1250 to 1350 Yunnan at least should be regarded as part of the overlapping area between Circuit VII (the Bay of Bengal region) and VIII (East Asia), let alone the pre-1250 Nanzhao-Dali period. See Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 34.

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