A Place Called Melayu

In 671, a merchant ship was waiting for the wind.

At that time, there was no other way. If a ship wanted to sail south, it had to wait for the northeast monsoon; if the wind didn't blow, people just sat in the harbor, counting the days. The ship was loaded with goods to be sold down south, and it also carried a few monks.

One of those monks, we later came to know as Yijing (I Ching). He wanted to go to India to obtain Buddhist scriptures.

Many people had traveled this path, but few returned.

Finally, the wind came.

The First Stop: A Buddhist Hub#

The ship sailed straight south, entered the straits, and stopped at a place called Srivijaya.

Yijing stayed there for six months. ^1,2

He wasn't stranded. He intentionally stayed — the place had temples, a monk community, and Sanskrit could be studied there. He was heading to India to read scriptures, so he needed to sharpen his tools here first.

A Chinese monk going to India stopped in Sumatra for six months to study. This fact alone illustrates what this sea was like at the time: it was not just a blank space to cross; it had its own academic centers.

The Second Stop: Switching Ships#

Six months later, Yijing moved on. The next stop was a place called Malayu (Melayu). ^1,2

There is a detail here worth noting.

Another monk set out with him in the same batch, named Wuxing. Wuxing went to Melayu on the king's ship — departing from Srivijaya and sailing for fifteen days. ^1,3

Fifteen days. A special ship had to be arranged.

This means: in 671, Melayu and Srivijaya were two different places, separated by a fifteen-day voyage, each with its own king, and each with its own port.

Remember this point. It will become very important later.

That Name#

Melayu.

Written in Chinese with these three characters, it is pronounced Mo-lo-yu.

Say it again, slower — Melayu.

This is the earliest known written record of this name. ^1,2 It is not found in the Peninsula, not in any dynastic history, nor on any stone inscription. It appeared in the travel notes of a passing foreign monk.

And what he recorded was not "I met a group of Malays."

What he recorded was "the ship went to a place called Melayu" — just like saying a ship went to Penang.

It was the name of a place, not the name of an ethnicity.

Where Was That Place?#

In Sumatra. ^3,2

Not in the Malay Peninsula.

Two unrelated scholars, taking two completely different paths, arrived at the same answer. One approached it directly from the official Chinese histories and Yijing's original texts, while the other started from epigraphy — both placed Melayu around Jambi on the southeastern coast of Sumatra, in the Batanghari River basin. ^3,2

Tracing one step further, which specific ruins? It usually points to the complex of temple ruins at Muara Jambi. ^4,2

This step needs to be made clear: moving from "around Jambi" to "specifically the Muara Jambi temples" is an identification, not a land grant. There is no inscription on the site saying "Melayu was here." This site objectively outlines the certainty level:

• In Sumatra — Solid. Two independent academic paths agree.
• Around Jambi — Solid. Same as above.
• Specifically the Muara Jambi temples — The mainstream consensus, but an assumption.

As a side note: the next stop after Yijing left Melayu was called Kacha — which is today's Kedah. ^1,2 He also passed through the Peninsula. What was later excavated there is a story for another article.

Fourteen Years Later, He Passed By Again#

Yijing traveled around the South Seas and India for over twenty years. In 685, on his return journey, he stopped briefly at Kedah and Melayu again. ^1,2

Then he continued north, returning to China in 695.

After returning, he sat down to compile his observations from the past two decades into a book.

When writing about Melayu, he added a note.

The meaning of that note is: it has now changed its name to Srivijaya. ^1,3

A Death Certificate#

This sentence is very short and plain, a casual addition by a chronicler — to prevent readers from searching with the old name and ending up in the wrong place.

But think back to the fifteen-day detail.

In 671, Melayu and Srivijaya were two countries, separated by fifteen days of sea.

By the time Yijing wrote his book, only one remained.

Yijing didn't write about how it was swallowed up. He might not have known, or he might have felt that it wasn't something he needed to record. He just updated the name.

A country vanished in a footnote.

As for exactly what year it was absorbed — one theory says late seventh century, while another pushes it back to the early 680s. Neither of these numbers comes from a date on any inscription; they are deduced by scholars working backward from Yijing's texts. This is a deduction, not a record. This site does not make judgments on this.

The Country That Swallowed It#

Srivijaya — also written as Sanfoqi in Chinese historical records.

It was a maritime power that controlled the Strait of Malacca from the seventh to the eleventh century. It didn't rely on territorial expansion; it relied on collecting taxes: passing merchant ships had to go through its waters, so it earned its keep.

Its capital was at Palembang.

This point is not deduced from books. From 1988 to 1990, an archaeological team dug for three years along the Musi River in Palembang — from Bukit Seguntang all the way to Sabokingking, digging this capital out of the earth. ^5,2

Before those excavations, "whether Palembang was the capital of Srivijaya" was still debatable. After the excavations, the debate basically ended.

The Stone by the River#

About twelve years after Yijing first passed through this sea — in 683 — on the bank of a river outside the city of Palembang, someone erected a stone.

There were words carved on the stone. The script was the Pallava script from southern India.

But the language recorded by those words was not Sanskrit.

It was Old Malay. ^6,2

This is one of the earliest known Old Malay inscriptions with a clear date. It was not in the Peninsula, not in Kedah, and not in Terengganu. It was on the bank of a river on the outskirts of Palembang.

What was written on the stone?

That is a story for the next article.

Next: That stone by the river still stands there. The words on it have been copied and debated for a hundred years — because there is a sentence in it that ties everything that follows.