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12 October 2007

Kailukari (Tawalisi) = Klaung Garai = Phan Rang-Thap Cham

H-Net list for Asian History and Culture
October 10, 2007
From: Geoff Wade arigpw--at--nus.edu.sg

"The Princess Urduja cited in the query by Erwin S. Fernandez is mentioned in only one historical source -an account written by or ascribed to Ibn Battuta. In his "Travels," he makes mention of a polity he reportedly visited during the 1340-1350s on his way from Mul-Java (Java) to Zaitun (Quanzhou) and which he names as Tawalisi. Urduja was a princess of this polity. An English translation of this portion of the text can be found at pp. 876-77 in H.A.R. Gibb, The Travels of Ibn Battuta A.D. 1325-1354, Translated with revisions and notes from the Arabic text edited by C. Defrémery and B.R. Sanguinetti, completed with annotations by C.F. Beckingham, (London, The Hakluyt Society, 1994, Vol. IV). Yule, in his Cathay and the Way Thither, also provides a translation and notes (Vol. 2, pp. 473-77, 520-22)

This place named Tawalisi was the only major stop on Ibn Battuta's voyage from Java to China. It has never been formally identified, but given the known routes travelled by Arab/Persian ships to Guangzhou and later to Quanzhou, an identification of somewhere on what is today the Vietnamese coast or the island of Hainan has attracted most support. Champa, which was a major polity and port in that area, and of long-standing importance as a stop on the Islamic trade route to China, is most likely. This is supported by the geography, the mention of elephants in this place, and Yamamoto Tatsuro's equation of Kailukari, the name of the largest city in Tawalisi (according to Ibn Battuta), with the Cham name Klaung Garai. (See Yamamoto Tatsuro, "On Tawalisi as described by Ibn Battuta" in Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko, VIII, Tokyo, 1936, p. 117.) Po Klaung Garai is the name of a Cham temple complex located at Phanrang in what is today Ninh Thuan Province [Phan Rang-Thap Cham, VN, Lat 11.5667 Long 108.9833 - tmc]. It comprises three towers dating to about 1300. It thus fits the chronology of Ibn Battuta quite well. [...]"


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