Svetadvipa (Glossary)

Svetadvipa's spiritual importance in Hinduism and especially among the Vaisnava sect is found in its description as the home of Narayana.

Narayana is the manifestation of the god Visnu linked with the avataras, or worldly descents of Visnu. Narayana is said to live on Svetadvipa, and to sleep floating on the Milky Ocean that surrounds the island.

Because of Narayana's location here, Svetadvipa was considered a place of pilgrimage by the sages and epic heroes. Rama comes to the island to make offerings to the ancestors, and the sage Narada came to visit Narayana.

Location

Svetadvipa is always located by Hindu texts in the Milky Ocean.

The Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavatapurana, Laghubhagavatamrta and Brhat Samhita all mention the location of the Milky Ocean and place it in the general direction of the East.

When the Vanara allies of Rama in the Ramayana set out to search the four regions of the world -- East, South, West and North -- for Sita, they visited the Milky Ocean while in the eastern region.

The latter Hindu astronomers like Bhaskara and Lalla also place the Milky Ocean in the southern latitudes. According to the Laghubhagavatamrta, it was placed south of the Salt Sea that surrounded Jambudvipa (Indian subcontinent):

"East of Sumeru (Mt. Meru) is the ocean of milk, in which there is a white city on a white island where the Lord can be seen sitting with his consort, Laksmiji on a throne of Sesa. That feature of Visnu also enjoys sleeping during the four months of the rainy season. The Svetadvipa in the milk ocean is situated south of the ocean of salt."

The southern orientation in relation to the Salt Sea might refer either to the Sunda Strait or the Strait of Malacca, both of which are rather southward in latitude when compared to India.

So the Milky Ocean would then be the South China Sea.

According to the Mahabharata, this sea became colored like milk after a great eruption-like event connected with the churning episode and Mount Mandara.

The name could also refer to the phenomenon of bioluminescence as often occurs in the tropical oceans caused usually by marine mollusks and crustaceans like the salpa and pyrosoma, and also sometimes by the accumulation of dead animal tissue in the sea. This occurrence is called a "milk sea" to this day.

George Bennett while traveling through Southeast Asia in the 19th century describes the phenomenon:

Perhaps the beauty of this luminous effect is seen to the greatest advantage, when, the ship lying in a bay or harbour, in tropical climates, the water around has the appearance of a sea of milk. An opportunity was afforded me when at Carite, near Manilla, in 1830, of witnessing for the first time this beautiful scene. As far as the eye could reach on the extensive bay of Manilla, the surface of the tranquil water was one sheet of this dull, pale phosphorescence, and brilliant flashes were emitted instantly on any heavy body being cast into the water, or when fish sprang from it, or swam about. The ship seemed, on looking over its side, to be anchored in a sea of liquid phosphorus; whilst in the distance the resemblance was that of an ocean of milk.

However, bioluminscence is rather common in all tropical seas, and the Mahabharata links the sea's color with the deposits of ash and debris flowing down rivers from the flaming Mandara into the ocean.

The ash turns not only the sea white, but the surrounding region the same color, and hence the name Svetadvipa, the "White Island." Similar descriptions of whiteness, are given for the isle of the immortals, Penglai, in Chinese literature.

Svetadvipa is also specifically set in the East by the Mahabharata, Bhagavatapurana and Laghubhagavatamrta. It is said to be located in the northern portion of the Milky Ocean.

In Iranian literature, the Varkash Sea, where the White Haoma grows, appears to equate to the Milky Ocean.

Muslim geographers placed the regions around the Varkash Sea like Kangdez, the fortress of the immortals, in the furthest East Indies. Al-kashi, in the 15th century even gives coordinates for the locations.

According to tradition, King Indrakyumna found a vata tree log (Ficus bengalensis linn, Ficus indicus) from Svetadvipa from which the first image of Jagannatha was made at the famous temple in Puri.

The idea of the log god Jagannatha floating over the sea from Svetadvipa reminds us the story mentioned above of Narayana (Visnu) sleeping on a bed of snakes in the Milky Ocean during the four months of the rainy season.

It is during the summer monsoons that winds from the southeast bring storms to East India and then across India in a northwesternly direction.


Jagannatha images like this one are now made with trees like the Nimba. The original image is said by tradition to have come from a log that floated across the sea from Svetadvipa to Orissa in Eastern India. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gaurangapada/sets/72057594050803121/

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Bennett, George. Wanderings in New South Wales, Batavia, Pedir Coast, Sumatra, and China., 1834.

Marco Polo (Glossary)

Marco Polo is important for the purpose of this work because his voyages may have resulted in the transfer of mariner's charts and/or related information that helped give rise to the portolan from the East to Europe. At the least, he mentions the use of mariner's charts by navigators in the Indian Ocean during his voyages.

In describing the island of Sri Lanka (Ceylon/Seilan), Polo says:

It has a circumference of some 2400 miles. And I assure you that it used to be bigger than this. For it was once as much as 3500 miles, as appears in the mariners' charts of this sea.

Again in relating the number of islands in the Indian Ocean, he states:

It is a fact that in this Sea of India there are 12,700 Islands inhabited and uninhabited, according to the charts and documents of experienced mariners who navigate the Indian Sea.

When Polo describes the eastern portion of the East Indies apparently including the Philippines, the Moluccas, etc. he says about the name of the China Sea:

You must know the Sea in which lie the Islands of those parts is called the Sea of Chin, which is as much as to say "The Sea over against Manzi." For, in the language of those Isles, when they say Chin, 'tis Manzi they mean. And I tell you with regard to that Eastern Sea of Chin, according to what is said by the experienced pilots and mariners of those parts, there be 7459 Islands in the waters frequented by the said mariners; and that is how they know the fact, for their whole life is spent in navigating that sea.

Probably Polo got his Chin from Tsina or Tchina in the 'language of those Isles," opposite Manzi, or South China, from which we derive the current name "China."

The history of this name has ancient roots. Ancient Sanskrit literature including the Mahabharata mentions Cina and Maha-Cina. The Nestorian synod of 410 tells of a "Metropolitan of the Islands, Seas and the Interior of Dabag, Chin and Machin."

Dabag is the same as the latter "Zabag," while Chin and Machin are certainly copies of the Indian Cina and Mahacina. Among the Nestorians, Chin or Sin means "China" while Machin/Masin refers to Southeast Asia.

Cina is China among the Indians, while Mahachina appears to refer mostly to the areas of Assam, Northeast India, eastern Tibet/Himalayas and Burma where Tantric forms of Mother Goddess worship became very popular.

That Polo refers to a word used in the 'language of those Isles' by the 'experienced pilots and mariners of those parts' is important.

Like the latter Portuguese explorers, Polo uses placenames for Southeast Asia that are mostly of local origin. He rarely uses Chinese or Muslim names, and this may indicate the nature of his informants, the pilots and mariners of those seas.

Insular Southeast Asian placenames

For example, Polo uses the form Ziamba (Ramusio) for Champa. This appears to come from the local Insular Southeast Asian Tsiampa, or related words like Ciampa (Javanese Cempa). The Arabic name for Champa was Sanf, while the Chinese called it Lin-yi.

The world Seilan for Sri Lanka might be derived from Javanese sela "jewel, which would match the Hindu Ratnadvipa "Isle of Gems" and the Muslim Jazirat al Yakut "Isle of Rubies."

In Poggio's account of the testimony of Nicolo de Conti, he also gives local names, rather than Chinese or Arabic ones, including the island of Bandam, the source of cloves, the first reference by native name to one of the Spice Islands (Banda).

Polo does use some Chinese names, for example, Mien for the Burmese kingdom rather than the Indian/Malay Barma. He seems to have learned about this kingdom through stories of Kublai Khan's conquest of Burma. The term Lequios used by the Portuguese comes from Chinese Liu-Kiu (Ryukyu).

When Portuguese and other explorers came into this region, they picked up many more regional names that appear to come from Insular Southeast Asian sources, many of which have survived in modified form until the present day:

Siam -- from forms like Cebuano Ciama or Malay Siyam.

Japan -- Japun, Japang, etc. ultimately from Chinese Jih-pen kuo.

Burma -- Barma, the Malay, Javanese and Indian forms.

Pegu -- Malay Paigu from Burmese Bago

Cochin-China -- Kuchi, Kochi possibly from Chinese Kiau-chih.

China -- Tsina, Tchina, from Qin (Ch'in) empire or Jin (Tsin) dynasty?

Champa -- Tsiampa, Ciampa, Cempa originally borrowed by Europeans as Ziamba, Ciamba, etc.

Moluccas -- Maluka a place on the island of Ceram.

Borneo/Burnei -- Brunei.

Luzon -- Lusung, Lusong recorded first by Tome Pires who calls the inhabitants Luções.

Banda -- first noted by de Conti as Bandam.

Informants

When Francisco Rodrigues arrived in Southeast Asia with the Portuguese in the early 16th century he collected information and charts from Javanese and other local pilots. Ludovico di Varthema did the same.

Later when the British began mapping the area, Alexander Dalrymple on many of his charts left notes specifying the sources of indigenous information often by name.

For example, on a chart of Borneo, Dalrymple notes that parts of the southern coast had not been "confirmed by any exact observation but is laid down from a Sketch of Dato Saraphodin and from a Chart of Noquedah Koplo who came up the Coast in 1761." On other parts of the chart he mentions features that were based on "Sketches I received from the Sooloos [Sulu], but chiefly from the information of Bahatol an old intelligent [Sulu] pilot."

The various informants supplied the placenames borrowed by early European explorers and cartographers resulting in many modern geographic names.

In a similar manner, Polo mentions receiving information from the mariners and pilots of the China Sea and Indian Ocean.

If we look at Polo's names for the Andamans, the Nicobars and Madagascar we may get some clues as to the provenance of his informants.

Instead of the Arab Lankabalus for the Andamans and Nicobars, Polo mentions Angaman and Necuveran, which along with Seilan remind one of the common use of the -an suffix for placenames in Insular Southeast Asia.

A short list of the numerous examples are: Dapitan, Palawan, Lingayan, Dagupan, Nunukan, Tarakan, Bataan and Bulacan. Thus, Seilan may be from sela-an, "place of jewels."

The name Madagascar may be confused with Makdashau (Mogadishu), but others would have it as a corruption of Malagasy.

The Arabic word for the island was al-Qumr, or sometimes Wak or similar terms, the latter probably stemming from the belief that the island was populated by the Wakwak from further east.

The mention of mariner's charts by Polo is also very informative. It was after Polo's return to Europe that the first extant nautical portolans appear. Although the Carta Pisana is sometimes dated to "circa 1296" or a year after Polo's return to Venice, and some believe it is even earlier, the first solid date for an extant portolan is the Genoese map made by Petrus Vesconte dated to 1311.

There is a vague reference to use of a sea chart by Raymond Lull in 1270 but it doesn't appear related to the explosion in the use of the portolan some 30 or more years later.

Lull's mention of sea charts and also the magnetic compass, like earlier references by Guyot de Provins and Jacques de Vitry in the early 13th century were probably based on tales from the Indian Ocean. Muslim writers mention fish-shaped floating compasses used by mariners in the Indian Ocean in 1242. These were almost certainly derived from similar compasses described by Shen Kua writing in the early 12th century but mentioning their use as early as 1086.

A south-pointing "fish" or "tadpole" is mentioned in the 4th and 10th centuries, and by the mid-11th century a specifically "floating" fish compass is mentioned in Chinese works.

De Vitry got much information from Arabic-speaking knights in his attempts to learn of the Mongol campaign, while Lull who grew up in Majorca and is said to have written in Arabic better than Latin. Both of these men may have received information from Muslim informants as they had great interest in the Muslim world.

None of the surviving confidently-dated 13th century European maps show signs of nautical application.

Gilbert the author of De Magnete says Marco Polo brought the compass to Europe from China, although Polo never mentions such a device himself. It could be that Polo brought the mariner's compass along with the mariner's chart, or quite specific but confidential information about both items.

Earlier loadstones may have been known in Europe since the 12th century, with stories of their application for navigation coming in the early 13th century from Muslim sources.

But is seems after Polo's time that we see the first hard evidence of the use of both mariner's compass and chart.

Unfortunately, little additional information exists of the Indian Ocean and China Sea charts until the Portuguese arrive in the early 16th century. It was at this time that Rodrigues reproduced Javanese maps covered with rhumb lines, one of which so deeply inpressed Albuquerque that he said, "it strikes me as the finest piece of work I ever saw."

Some years later, the Turkish admiral Piri Reis produced an extraordinary portolan of the world that was much different in its portrayal of the "New World" than other contemporary maps. Piri Reis claimed to use many charts as sources including those of Columbus, and also some Portuguese maps drawn using the "geometrical methods" of China and the Indies (Hind).

The Chinese "methods" probably refer to the rectangular grids that characterized Chinese maps, but what of those of the Indies? Was Reis referring to Portuguese sources like the now-lost Rodrigues chart with rhumb lines showing the navigation of the Indies?

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Ozdemir, Kemal, Ottoman Nautical Charts and the Atlas of 'Ali Macar Reis, Istanbul, 1992.

Polo, Marco, Henry Yule and Henri Cordier. The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian: Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, Scribner, 1903.

Menzies' maps explained

Below is a copy of a recently sent press article

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
---

Meet Menzies' real mystery map-makers

Gavin Menzies went off-course when he failed to consider Southeast Asia's influence on the age of discovery, contends researcher and sambali.blogspot.com blogger Paul Kekai Manansala.

He is referring to Menzies million-selling book, _1421: The Year China Discovered the World_, that asserts a Chinese fleet led by Admiral Zheng He circumnavigated the globe about a century before Magellan.

"Menzies' book, while filled with much easily-debunked material, makes valid and important points about the appearance of revolutionary maps in the fifteenth century.
The map revolution, in fact, started about a century earlier with the appearance of the portolan maps in the 14th century -- charts used by mariners to navigate the seas," Manansala said.

Zheng He's treasure voyages were impressive and he may well have traveled further than he is normally given credit for, Manansala notes. "Menzies' assertion that the 1420 voyage past the Cape of Good Hope, mentioned by the Venetian cartographer Fra Mauro, refers to Zheng's fleet is not without merit." The vessel involved in the voyage is described as a 'ship or junk' and the Chinese admiral was sailing in the Indian Ocean at the time.

"Menzies though has ignored in his research the influence of Southeast Asia in the appearance of new navigational charts, and in particular Southeast Asia's influence in transmitting these maps to Europe."

Spice trade

The story starts many centuries before the time of Zheng He with the establishment of the spice trade, especially the Cinnamon Route from Southeast Asia to the coast of Southern Africa.

"Trade in spices dates back to ancient times, and Muslim writers mention ships traveling back and forth between Southeast Asia and Africa after the rise of Islam. They were simply confirming what had been written centuries before by Greek authors about the same Indian Ocean trade."

Aloeswood, cinnamon, cassia and other aromatics made their way from Southeast Asia to African ports and then went north to North Africa and the Middle East, and eventually to Europe.

Manansala contends that with the rise of Islam these ancient trade routes were seriously threatened for the first time by Muslim military and economic expansion.

"Sea empires known as thalassocracies in Southeast Asia decided to take a proactive stance against the new development. They attempted to recruit other political allies to help curb Muslim influence in the Indian Ocean, and they often made their appeals on the basis of common religion."

The Southeast Asian kings involved, Manansala says, were patrons of many religions, a situation not uncommon in the region during that period. "They basically became extreme examples of realpolitik and didn't hesitate to alternately represent themselves and their kingdoms as belonging to one religion when talking to one group, but to another religion when approaching someone else."

For example, he says that when the Insular Southeast Asian thalassocracy approached the Tantric Buddhist kingdoms of Tibet and Eastern India they sent Tantric Buddhist emissaries. These emissaries brought a messianic philosophy that placed the Hijra, the date on which Muhammad and his followers fled to Medina, as the beginning of the decline of the ages.

"Basically to the spice trade empire, the loss of their trade routes may have been viewed as apocalyptic in character. To Christian Europe, the Eastern king that controlled the spice trade was known as Prester John, and the latter king portrayed himself and his empire as Nestorian Christians based in a location known to Nestorians as Dabag."

Letters of Prester John

The original Prester John was from the East Indies, but in latter times the emperor of Ethiopia is also considered as "Prester John," Manansala said. However, only the Ethiopian Prester John is usually considered historical while many Western historians dismiss Prester John of the Indies as a hoax.

"Actually, the eastern Prester John sent envoys to the Vatican and to Christian emperors and kings, just like the Negus of Ethiopia, and for many centuries. While many fradulent letters did pop up during this time, most of the hoaxes appeared in published form only. It would have been dangerous to have presented oneself at the court of a medieval Christian potentate with a faked letter."

Emissaries and correspondence from the eastern Prester John were the first part of a strategy to attract Christian kingdoms into the Indian Ocean with the aim of countering Muslim influence. Eventually this evolved into the transmission of geographical and navigational knowledge, including maps.

Prester John's first letter to Europe appeared in the 12th century, but it wasn't until centuries later after Mongol conquests enabled European voyages to the Indian Ocean that we see the start of a map revolution.

The Portolan maps

In the early fourteenth century, a Venetian named Marino Sanuto submitted a book entitled "Secretum Fidelium Crucis" to the Pope outlining a plan for a crusade to capture the Indian Ocean trade routes. In this book was contained a world map by Pietro Vesconte, whose mariner's charts are the oldest surviving examples of portolan map-making.

"The historian Joseph Needham in his massive work on Chinese science has suggested that the portolan chart came as part of a package along with the magnetic compass, sand clock, stern rudder, zig-zag tables known as marteloio and other nautical inventions. The Chinese do appear to have invented many of these technologies but that doesn't mean they were necessarily the ones that transmitted them elsewhere. And the Chinese never used portolan marine charts."

The portolan is distinguished from modern maps, with their orderly grid arrangement of longitude and latitude, by a hodgepodge of crisscrossing directions known as rhumb lines. The rhumb lines radiate from circular wind compasses dispersed at various locations on the chart. They were the first European maps widely used as mariner's charts.

"Wind compasses were used by indigenous navigators in both Insular Southeast Asia and the Pacific in a manner similar to rhumb sailing using portolans. They were used by Pacific islanders -- the Melanesians, Micronesians and Polynesians -- to explore and settle the Pacific. In both Southeast Asia and the Pacific, wind compasses have survived until modern times."

Needham had suggested that Chinese maps showing directional instructions in text form near map destinations later involved into rhumb lines.

But were mariner's charts marked with rhumb lines ever used in the East? According to Manansala, such maps were mentioned and at least one with rhumb lines occurs in a 16th century Portuguese account.

"Marco Polo twice mentions the use of mariner's charts in the Indian Ocean in his famous travel journal. Marco Polo was a contemporary of Sanuto and Vesconte -- the two people linked with the earliest portolan maps."

When Portuguese explorers began plying the waters of the Indian Ocean nearly two centuries after Polo's account, they came upon a few important indigenous mariner's charts.

"Three charts encountered by the early Portuguese were deemed worthy of mention. One each from India and Brunei or Buru in the East Indies had rectangular grid systems similar to modern maps. The other was from a Javanese pilot written in the Javanese language which was covered with rhumb lines," Manansala said.

Some years after the Javanese world map was discovered by the Portuguese pilot Francisco Rodrigues, he notes, an exceptional portolan map of the world was presented by the Turkish cartographer Piri Reis to Sultan Selim I in Cairo. According to Reis, his new chart was constructed using many different maps including "four new Portuguese maps drawn using the geometric methods of the Indies and China."

The borrowed "geometric methods" mentioned by Reis would include, according to Manansala, the rhumb lines as shown on the Javanese chart.

Maps drawn mainly for foreigners?

Pilots in Southeast Asia during that time did not normally use charts as they had more ancient methods that were effective and not so costly, Manansala avers. "It's possible that some of these maps were drawn specifically to present to Europeans and others they wanted to attract to the region."

"When the British cartographer Alexander Dalrymple came to chart these regions centuries later for the British crown, he encountered suddenly many maps, and informants willing to draw maps. This occurs though after voyager after voyager before him reported that local pilots in the region used neither chart or compass. So, basically it was only during the periods when the Portuguese, and later the British, first appeared on the scene looking for assistance that we see these indigenous maps crawl out of the woodwork."

"Unfortunately, the lack of practical map use in the region may be why none of the early Insular Southeast Asian charts have survived into the present. The map discovered by Francisco Rodrigues, though, can be partially reconstructed using the book of rutters, or sailing directions, written by Rodrigues."

When the Portuguese first began their explorations on the sea, they apparently uncovered some hidden and very revealing maps. These charts mentioned by Antonio Galvão in the 16th century form part of the basis of Menzies claims on the circumnavigation of Zheng He.

Some scholars have claimed that Galvão's account of a world map in the possession of Dom Pedro, the brother of Prince Henry the Navigator, is confirmed by an official document of King Alfonso V of Portugal.

"The problem with Menzies claim is that the Galvão maps are dated to 1408 and 1428 and could not have been delivered to Dom Pedro by Nicolo de Conti as claimed by Menzies. De Conti was still traveling in Asia in 1428 according to all accounts," Manansala said.

He believes the maps may have actually been Templar charts that they obtained through Prester John before the Templar order was destroyed in the early 14th century. The Templars are closely associated with Prester John in medieval literature.

"There was a group known in Muslim writings as the Sayabiga, who are believed to have come from Insular Southeast Asia. Many of the Sayabiga became Shi'ites in the Middel Eastern region, and I think it is through them that Prester John of the Indies made contact with the Templars. Some Sayabiga may have penetrated into order of Assassins who were known to have direct relations with the Templars."

"When the Templar order was banned, many Templars along with their possessions took refuge in Cistercian monasteries. The 1408 map mentioned by Galvão was found in the archives of the Alcobaza, a Cistercian abbey where they also discovered a copy of the Templar oath."

In Portugal, the local Templars were found free of guilt after the banning of the order and the group was renamed the Order of Christ, which inherited all the Templar possessions. Later, the monarchy of Portugal was invested with the Grand Mastery of the Order of Christ, and Prince Henry the Navigator himself became a Grand Master. Dom Pedro, Henry's brother who discovered the other Galvão map in Italy was also a member of the Order of Christ.

New view of the world

The maps mentioned by Galvão were said to show a world much different than that of previous European maps.

The Cape of Good Hope was shown as passable, and even the Strait of Magellan in the "New World" was supposedly displayed a century before Magellan. "Up until that time, Europeans did not believe one could pass into the Indian Ocean by sea."

However, in the East, the Mongol Atlas and the still-surviving Kangnido Map from Korea do show a very accurate and passable continent of Africa. They don't display anything though that would correspond to the "Western hemisphere."

The first Asian map to show something from the Western hemisphere was the afore-mentioned Javanese map of Francisco Rodrigues. Alfonso de Albuquerque said the Javanese map 'was the finest thing he had ever seen' and apparently the chart contained much information unfamiliar to the Portuguese in 1512.

"Many scholars have interpreted the Javanese map as an example of how the news of European discoveries was penetrating even to far-off Java, but the chart might instead explain the earlier mysterious Galvão charts," Manansala said. "Those charts were said to contain navigational information for sailing the Indies, that is, they were mariner's charts, just like the Javanese map. They may have been marked with rhumb lines like the Javanese chart."

The 1428 map of Dom Pedro may have helped encourage the early Portuguese navigations, but those voyates proceeded only with extreme caution. The maps were dusty and disconnected from reality according to Manansala. The Portuguese apparently interpreted notes on Prester John as relating to Ethiopia rather than the Indies.

It was not until a European witness returned from traveling in the Indian Ocean had confirmed this earlier information that the most daring voyages occured. This European witness was Nicolo de Conti.

"After de Conti returned to Europe you began to see maps and globes appearing reguarly showing the Western Hemisphere. This information probably did not come out of nowhere. Fra Mauro mentions a journey by a ship or junk from the Indies through the Cape of Good Hope around 1420. Supposedly that voyage covered a total of 32,000 kilometers. There probably were other similar journeys around the same time, if not well before."

One of the key pieces of evidence used by Menzies to prove that Zheng He sailed around the world is a stash of artifacts known as metates and manos found in a ship wreck off the coast of the southern Philippines. Menzies claims the metates and manos were exclusive to the Americas.

"Menzies' critics often respond that metates and manos were also found in very ancient Paleolithic and Neolithic China, but these arguments are really out-of-sync. The appearance of these artifacts in the Pandanan wreck is very unusual and definitely worthy of investigation. As evidence, they are really the only hard artifacts that Menzies offers presumbly from the New World but located in the Old World."

The location of the Pandanan wreck is telling according to Manansala because it was near his suggested base of operations of Prester John during the Ming dynasty.

"Yes, Prester John was still active at that time and Nicolo de Conti claimed not only to have met him but that he was married to a woman of that country by the king! During the Ming dynasty, Prester John kingdom was known as Lusung, from which we get the name of the modern island of Luzon in the Philippines."

Nicolo de Conti (Glossary)

Nicolo de Conti (ca.1395-1469), a Venetian merchant, traveled either 36 or 25 years, depending on which account you believe, throughout much of the Indian Ocean and the adjoining regions of Asia and Africa.

De Conti's great impact on history is seen through his account to papal secretary Poggio Bracciolini declaring that the Indian Ocean was a wide open sea and not enclosed by land as Europeans had thought since Ptolemy's time.

With good reason it is believed that de Conti's views influenced such persons and cartographers as Fra Mauro and Paolo Toscanelli. The latter in turn either directly or indirectly influenced both Columbus and Magellan in believing that one could venture to the East Indies from the East (traveling West from Europe).

African journey?

Gavin Menzies, in his controversial work on the voyages of Zheng He's fleet, has suggested that Conti had sailed with Zheng toward Africa, and beyond.

Menzies rightfully notes that Conti had great influence on cartographer Fra Mauro, a fellow Venetian. Mauro's map of the world uses place-names, and sources for spices, that appear directly copied from Conti's interviews with Bracciolini. Mauro also is the first to chart the difference between Taprobana (Sri Lanka) and Sumatra, something again first revealed in Conti's testimony.

Mauro also displays the Indian Ocean as an open sea with passage possible both in the East and the West.

The African connection comes from notes made by Fra Mauro concerning the voyage of a junk or ship from the Indies around the southern tip of Africa:

About the year 1420 a ship or junk of the Indies passed directly across the Indian Ocean in the direction of the Men-and-Women Islands beyond Cape Diab, and past the Green Islands and the Dark (Sea), sailing (thereafter) west and south-west for 40 days and finding nothing but air and water. According to the estimate of her (company) she travelled 32,000 km. Then, conditions worsening, she returned in 70 days to the aforesaid Cape Diab.

Fra Mauro continues in another passage again suggesting the continuity of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, the former believed to be completely surrounded by land up until that time:

Moreover I have had speech with a person worthy of belief who affirmed that he had passed in a ship of the Indies through a raging storm 40 days out of the Indian Ocean beyond the Cape of Sofala and the Green Islands more or less south-west and west. And according to the calculations of her astronomers, his guides, this person had sailed 32,000 km.

Now, according to Menzies, the 'person worthy of belief' mentioned by Fra Mauro can be none other than Nicolo de Conti himself.

Conti had told Poggio, the papal secretary, that he left Italy in 1419 and using his chronology of events in that account it appears he made his way to India and left from there either in 1421 or 1422 i.e. very near the 'about the year 1420' mentioned for the African journey by Fra Mauro.

Menzies believes that Conti departed India with Zheng He's fleet. The next thing we hear from Poggio's account, though, is that Conti is in Sumatra and there is no mention of an African journey.

Scholars have suggested that Poggio censored Conti's account (see Rubiés, p. 121), and that may have some confirmation when we see the difference between Poggio and Tafur's versions of Conti's journeys.


Three Indias

Conti divided India into three parts as was common in his time. The first India was found from Persia to the Indus River, the second from the Indus to the Ganges, and the third included all the lands beyond the Ganges i.e., India extra-Gangem.

He described India beyond the Ganges as "far surpassing others in wealth, kindness and magnificence, and equaling us in customs and civilization" ("...est opibus, humanitate, lautitia longe praestantior, vita et civili consuetudien nobis aequalis.").

It also should be noted that Fra Mauro describes the African voyage ship that Conti supposedly traveled on as a 'ship or junk of the Indies.'

That's an interesting description because at this time, Southeast Asian ships often were of a hybrid type showing both junk-like characteristics such as transverse bulkheads, and Southeast Asian typology including wooden joints and tropical hardwood materials rather than the fir commonly used to construct Chinese junks.

Even the word "junk" or "zoncho" (Portuguese junco) appears derived from Old Javanese jong and Javanese djong, a name for an ocean-going ship.

Conti himself in his testimony to Pero Tafur had stated that he spent most of his time in the Indian Ocean in the service of "Prester John" of "Greater India."

One interesting discovery has been highlighted by Menzies as proof that ships at that time were circumnavigating the world. The Pandanan wreck off the coast of Palawan in the Philippines is dated to the 15th century and is loaded with andesite metates that Menzies claims must have come from Mesoamerica or South America. The cylindrical stone manos of the metates are rather unusual and do resemble those of the contemporary period "New World."


15th-century Pandanan wreck metate and mano. Source:
http://users.telenet.be/joosdr/amerika/eeuwamerika228.htm

The lusung/lusong mortars and pestles in the Philippines are generally made of wood. In Guam, the Chamorro lusong is stone, but the pestles are wood. Nothing quite similar to the Pandanan metates is known to have been manufactured in this region during the historical period.

Like other ships of that time and in the same region, the Pandanan wreck shared characteristics of both Southeast Asian and Ming-era Chinese ships.

Fra Mauro's map shows junk-like vessels with high stern and square bow plying the Indian Ocean, along with details of what apparently is the island of Madagascar and the Cape of Good Hope.

Mauro describes the ships that crossed the Indian Ocean in these terms:

The ships or junks that navigate these seas carry four or more masts, some of which can be raised or lowered, and have 40 to 60 cabins for the merchants and only one tiller. They navigate without a compass, but have an astrologer who stands on the side and with an astrolabe in hand, and gives orders to the navigator.

This does not appear to describe Zheng He's fleet or other Chinese merchant ships at the time, which did use the compass for navigation. Arab ships also began to use the compass by the 12th century at least. As noted earlier most ships of Southeast Asia did not use the compass when the Europeans arrived on the scene, but the "astrolabe" mentioned above was not commonly used either. The single tiller brings to mind the axial rudder as found on junks or hybrid ships.


Junk-like ship with four masts from Fra Mauro's map positioned west of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. Tracing from: De Santarem, M. Visconde. Atlas Compse de Mappemondes et de Cartes Hydrographiques et Historiques, Maulde and Renou, Paris, 1895.

Prester John

Conti tells Tafur that he had personally witnessed Prester John send two missions to 'Christian princes' but had not heard whether these had met with success. The king was also said to have been making preparations for a visit or conquest of Jerusalem. These reports indicate that Conti's Prester John was involved in long-range maritime missions.

Unfortunately Conti's account gives us little information useful in locating this Prester John of the Indies. In his interviews with Poggio, he is aware of the then-existing claims of both an "Indian" and an Ethiopian Prester John. Tafur makes it clear that the Prester John of Greater India is distinct from that of Ethiopia, when he talks of the varying complexions of people in both regions.

Conti mentions a Nestorian king who lived somewhere near Cathay along with the Ethiopian king, and Poggio is said to have interviewed emissaries from the East after his discussions with Conti.

Poggio describes the eastern ambassador as coming from "Upper India" as an envoy of a Nestorian kingdom located 20 days journey from Cathay.

'Upper India' during Poggio's time meant the same as 'Greater India.' With Lower, Middle and Upper India corresponding to the West to East order and Upper India referring to the region beyond the Ganges.

We have seen during this period that the kingdom of Lusung was practicing a policy of attraction with the Ming dynasty, and at the arrival of the Portuguese they were well-dispersed throughout Southeast Asia and eager to provide navigational assistance to the newcomers.

Toscanelli, a friend of Poggio, also met with the Eastern ambassador but he confuses his kingdom with that of Marco Polo's "Great Khan," which by this time had faded into history.

Columbus in his annotated copy of Historia rerum with his own notes copies Toscanelli's letter to Martins referring to Nicolo de Conti's testimony.

Magellan, when faced with a doubtful crew near the tip of South America, told them of a chart he had seen made by Martin Behaim displaying a passage to the Pacific Ocean. Behaim also appeared to have been strongly influenced by Toscanelli as his famed Behaim Globe is nearly a copy of Toscanelli's reconstructed chart.

As Toscanelli himself was indebted to Conti (and also possibly to the Eastern ambassador), it can be said that few persons so influenced the European age of discovery as Nicolo de Conti.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Larner, John. Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World, Yale University Press, 2001, p. 9.

Rubiés, Joan-Pau. Travel and Ethnology in the Renaissance: South India Through European Eyes, 1250-1625, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 93.

Menzies, Gavin. 1421: The Year China Discovered America, HarperCollins, 2003.

Vignaud, Henry. Toscanelli and Columbus: The Letter and Chart of Toscanelli on the Route to the Indies by Way of..., Sands & Co., 1902.

Sambali (Glossary)

In the Kapampangan language, Sambali is the name both for the land now known as Zambales and of the people native to that land, the Sambals.

Bergano also gives the definition cadahalso (cadalso) probably referring to a platform or similar structure built for a solemn occasion. In this sense it is derived from the root word samba "to worship."


An eerie landscape in the otherwise lush Zambales province caused by the Mount Pinatubo eruption.

In Bergano's dictionary, he gives the definition "poner las manos debajo del pecho con inclinacion, haciendo reverencia, y de aqui, adorar," noting especially the placement of the hands beneath the chest in an inclined position during worship. He also offers as meanings of the word "place of worship" from which it also became the modern word for "church" along with the derived form simbahan in many Philippine languages.

The 18th century Tagalog dictionary of de Noceda and Sanlucar gives the definition "nacion llamada" for sambali as opposed to "nacion Tagala" for Tagalog. Sambali thus was once a word for a specific nation in the region, but unfortunately no further information is related by the authors.

Semantic connections of Sambali, then, suggest the region was considered sacred, something we would link specifically with Mount Pinatubo, and at one time was also possibly connected with national identity in this region.

Shambhala

It has been suggested in this blog that the name Sambali is linked with Sanskrit Shambhala, also written as Zambhala or Sambhala.

Some linguistic corruption may account for the sound differences. In this regard, we can note the related Sanskrit word sambhali or zamphali, the feminine form of sambala.

Sanskrit literature describes Shambhala as a grama, a town or village. The abridged form of the Kalacakratantra locates Shambhala in the Lesser Jambudvipa (Jambuling), which is south of Greater Jambudvipa, or the Indian subcontinent.

One of the kings of Shambhala, Sripala (Shripala) is praised as coming from the "Southern Ocean," which in this cases appears as a reference to Suvarnadvipa the "Islands of Gold."

Sripala, who in one Tibetan tradition is credited with bringing the Kalacakra doctrine to India, may be the same as the person named Pindo, whom the great sage Atisa claimed as a teacher. This Pindo is also connected with both Suvarnadvipa and Yavadvipa.

The pilgrimage to Shambhala appears to come under Suvarnadvipa as one of the 24 pilgrimage sites (pithas) and the seemingly the only extra-Greater Jambudvipa one. Specifically, Suvarnadvipa was one of the upamelapakas said generally to be two or four in number, with the other locations in the Greater Jambudvipa region.

The Kailasa mountain and Sita river of Shambhala are those of the Lesser Jambudvipa and not those north of the Greater Jambudvipa (Indian subcontinent).

According to al-Biruni, the islands known to the Indians as Suvarnadvipa, were called Zabag by the Muslims, a location in the "Sea of Champa" or the South China Sea off the coast of central Vietnam. Other works agree with this location of Zabag, many describing Zabag as adjacent to the coast of southern China.

Description

Modern Sambali is a province in central Luzon, Philippines, bordered by the provinces of Bataan, Pampanga, Pangasinan and Tarlac. It's western coast meets the sea.

The province is dominated by the mineral-rich and forested Zambales Mountains, which include the volcano, Mount Pinatubo.

Original ethno-linguistic groups of Sambali are the various divisions of Ayta, Sambal and Bolinao. However, in recent centuries many other groups have migrated to the province.

A Spanish writer in 1880 described the province in these terms:

There are more populous and more civilized provinces whose commerial and agricultural progress has been more pronounced, but nowhere is the air more pure and transparent, the vegetation more luxuriant, the climate more agreeable, the coasts more sunny, and the inhabitants more simple and pacific.

The large populated agricultural neighbor of Sambali/Zambales is Pampanga where many of the Zambales inhabitants traded at places like Porac. The rivers of Pampanga were also historically the main approach to Sambali before the building of modern ports on the western coast.

When the Spanish came, the mostly semi-nomadic inhabitants caused a lot of trouble and were nearly impossible to "civilize." The province was one of the few areas in the Philippines where the Inquisition was implemented to some degree, but without much success.

The native high priest of the Sambal was known as Bayoc and he conferred priesthood to other Sambals. The Bayoc alone could make sacrifices to Malyari the highest god of the Sambali range, who lived in Mount Pinatubo.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Bergaño, Diego Vocabulario de la lengua Pampangan en romance: Diego Bergaño, Manila : Imp. de Ramirez y Giraudier, 1860, p. 203.

Monier-Williams, Monier. Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Oxford, 1899.

Noceda, Juan [José] de. Vocabulario de la lengua tagala: compuesto por varios religiosos doctos y graves, y coordinado por el P. Juan de Noceda y el P. Pedro de Sanlucar. Ultimamente aumentado y corregido por varios religiosos de la orden de Augustinos calzados, Reimpreso en Manila,: Impr. de Ramirez y Giraudier, 1860, p. 561.

Wallace, Vesna A. The Inner Kalacakratantra: A Buddhist Tantric View of the Individual, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 81.

Black Henry, or Enrique de Malacca (Glossary)

Black Henry, aka Henry the Black, Enrique de Malacca and Henry of Malacca is often said to be the first person to truly circumnavigate the globe in known history.

Taken as a slave by Magellan during his stay in the East Indies, Enrique was described as a "mulatto" and is said variously to have come from Malacca, "Taprobana," or "Zamatra."

There is though, as mentioned previously in this blog, a good argument for giving Enrique at least a partial Bisayan ancestry from the central Philippines.

The Italian and Yale manuscripts of Pigafetta's journal during Magellan's voyage, give lists of not only Malay but also Bisayan words. These lists are attributed to Enrique, who also displayed in-depth knowledge of local customs and traditions upon landing in the Bisayan islands.

Also, it is rather curious that Magellan, who had pre-planned his course to what is now known as the Philippines, would just coincidently happened to have a servant onboard who spoke the local dialect!

Political situation before Magellan's circumnavigation

In the decades leading up to Magellan's voyage, the "New World" had been divided by the papal Line of Demarcation which set up a race for the control of the East Indies between Portugal and Spain, the two great exploring nations of the time.

One of Spain's stragegies starting with Columbus was to approach the East Indies from the East by sailing West from Europe.

In the East Indies, on the other hand, the Lusung kingdom was apparently quickly developing ties with the Portuguese through their merchants, pilots, sailors and other agents in Malacca, Brunei and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. These links are attested up until the mid-16th century.

Further south from Lusung, in the central Philippines the Cebuano kingdoms were on the ascent since when Magellan arrives in the area we hear that the Sugbu (Cebu) king had trade relations as far as Siam in the West.

About a decade earlier, Magellan had obtained Enrique when the latter was 12 to 18 years old and the latter was quickly baptized in the Christian faith. Magellan may have taken his servant on his mysterious voyage further east of Malacca possibly together with his friend Francisco Serrão.

Did Enrique provide Magellan during this trip with information on the Cebuano kingdoms setting up the future voyage to what is now known as the Philippines from the East?

We know that Spain used its relations in the Bisayas to build alliances and to Christianize the inhabitants setting up the future invasion of Luzon.

Giovanni Battista Gesio of Naples, the astrologer and advisor of King Philip II of Spain told the king that Luzon was 'the key to the entire east', and should be regarded as highly as Flanders or Italy.'

He may have been simply echoing Magellan's much-earlier beliefs. But by Gesio's time, Lusung's relations with the Portuguese had apparently soured, and the kingdom itself had serious internal divisions. It was ripe for the taking.

When Magellan renounced allegiance to Portugal after King Manuel's refusal to promote him and reassign him to the East Indies, it is not clear whether Magellan had ever brought to the king a circumnavigation proposal.

However Magellan, bringing with him Enrique and others, did present such a plan to Charles I of Spain. By this time, Enrique could speak Portuguese and Spanish, in addition to Malay and Bisayan. Later he may have also learned Italian.

After four expeditions to the Philippines following Magellan's discovery, Philip II ordered Miguel Lopez de Legazpi to occupy the islands for Spain. This Legazpi did with the aid of Cebuano Rajah Sikatuna of Bohol who helped the Spaniard force King Tupas of Cebu to submit to Spain.

Legazpi then obtained the Cebuano units that formed the backbone of his invasion force for Luzon. Here he also managed to exploit internal divisions with Lusung and enlisted the rajahs Soliman, Matanda and more reluctantly Lakandula, to help reduce the 'Moro' resistance in Pampanga and Bulacan.

Looking at this entire scenario it seems likely that Enrique's ability to act as interpreter and informant on Magellan's landing in the central Philippines was not an accident.

Ironically, Enrique rebelled against his master at Cebu and apparently stayed on with the king of that island after Magellan's death.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Goodman, David C. Power and Penury: Government, Technology and Science in Philip II's Spain, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 63.

Lach, Donald F. Asia in the Making of Europe: The Century of Discovery. Book 2, University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Time concepts (Glossary)

Concepts of time as found in Austronesian societies are closely linked with place/space. In Bergano's 18th century dictionary of the Kapampangan language, he lists sucu as meaning "tiempo y lugar" or "time and place."

If someone traces back their genealogy to an important ancestor, they reckon back to a specific time and place where that ancestor was born. From that point in time/space, like the Biblical Adam and Eve, there is movement in time and possibly also in place as the family tree branches out through multiplication and migration.

Time and place also intersect with nature and thus with the cycles of agriculture, fishing, hunting, traveling, etc.

The earliest forms of calendars probably were those utilizing natural means of intercalation which did not require advanced mathematical calculations, record-keeping, etc.

Nature calendars

Farming, fishing and similar activities require observation of both solar and lunar cycles. However, these cycles do not coincide exactly, so at some point in history intercalation was developed to bring the lunar and solar calendars into harmony.

The earliest forms of intercalation likely involved observation of natural phenomenon based on circadian/circannual rhythms.

One of the best-known forms of natural intercalation in this part of the world is the observation of the swarming of multi-hued, phosphorescent sea worms by peoples such as the Kodi of Sumba, the Trobriand Islanders and the Torres Islanders.

The sea worms swarm at the same time every year and enable the calendar-keepers to correct their observations of the luni-solar year.

The Igorot peoples of northern Luzon also used a solar year based on observation of the Sun's declination together with months or seasons corresponding roughly to the lunar phases. These celestial observation were brought into alignment by watching for certain signs connected with migratory birds, flowering plants or some other natural phenomenon.

About half of all the Igorot months/seasons were named after some migratory bird that appeared during the respective period.

Following circadian rhythms allowed peoples like the Kodi and Igorots to easily maintain highly accurate calendars.

Longer cycles

Circadian rhythms can also allow the tracking of cycles longer than the solar year.

Most important for the Austronesian region in this regard is the cyclic flowering of bamboo plants.

Many bamboo species have protracted flowering cycles. Moreover some species have synchronzied or "gregarious" flowerings in which plants of the same species over a wide geographical area flower simultaneously, and die shortly after flowering.

A Japanese study in 1927 using local reocrds and folklore traced flowerings of the Japanese timber bamboo Phyllostachys bambusoides back to 800 CE, and found that the plant had a flowering cycle of 120 years. Using the last record of a great flowering in 1840, the study predicted the next one would start in 1960, and in fact such a flowering started one year earlier in 1959.

The flowering cycles of the following species have been determined:

	Years
Arundinaria falcata	28-30
Bambusa arundinacea	32
Chusquea abietifolia	32
Dendrocalamus strictus	32
Bambusa tulda	35-40
Melocanna bambusoides	45
Bambusa polymorpha	60
Phyllostachys nigra	60

http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5390e/x5390e05.htm

Japanese studies suggest that many Sasa species also have 60 year flowering cycles. These 60-year cycles remind us of the astronomical sexagenary cycle so conspicuous in the regions of bamboo distribution.

Bamboo flowering and famine

In cultures of Northeast India, Myanmar and South China, there are beliefs that bamboo flowering presages famine, excessive flooding and other hardships.

The connection with famine may have some scientific backing as the bamboo flowers are believed to attract rats which then help themselves to available crops.

There are other scientific reasons that can explain how bamboo flowering can have bad consequences. For example, some animals that depend on bamboo as a food source, like pandas, can suffer greatly when bamboo forests are decimated after a flowering event. Also there is an hypothesis of a "bamboo fire cycle" in which large stands of dead bamboo increases the risk of dangerous forest fires.

In some areas though, bamboo flowering was seen as a positive response to disaster. In Fukien, for example, a compassionate god is thought to cause bamboo to flower during a famine to provide a stable source of food. In the northern Philippines, a belief that bamboo flowers after an earthquake may have similar connotations.

Generally bamboo is considered auspicious. In the Philippines there is a myth of the first man and woman being born from a bamboo split open by a bird. Similar myths are found in the Andaman Islands and in Malaysia.

The root for the word for "bamboo" in Proto-Austronesian may be related also to other words for "descent group" and "nation."

The Wheel of Time

We have discussed the Kalacakra philosophy earlier in this blog -- the idea that great cycles of time, including the celestial cycles, also have their mirror in a scaled form in our own bodies. This, of course, is verified in a way by the existence of circadian rhythms, which synchronize our bodily functions with celestial, mainly diurnal, cycles.

The earth too can also be seen as having such rhythms and cycles.

In relation to this we can examine the names for the dual volcanoes: Pinatubo and Arayat.

Arayat is also known as Sinukuan (Sinucuan) after the sun god Apung Sinukuan who is also known as Apung Sucu (Suku).

Sinukuan is derived from sucu which has the general meaning "termination or end of something." In general, this directly relates to time as we have mentioned above sucu can also mean "time and place." An old person, for example, near or at the end of the term of life can be described with the word "suku."

So, "Sinukuan" can refer to things that are coming to their end with regard to a specific term or cycle of time.

Pinatubo however, which sits a bit south of west of Arayat/Sinukuan, is derived from the word tubo (tubu). The primary meaning of tubu is "to be born, or to grow."

Tubu thus refers to the beginning of the term of life. It can also refer to the time of conception of an animal. The word tibuan which is derived from "tubu" can mean the place and time of birth, and also death. In this sense, tubu is somewhat similar to suku, except it signifies completion as the start of something new, i.e. death as the beginning of a new life in the world beyond.

Tibuan can also mean one's lineage or descent, as this is tied into the place and time of birth.

The god of Pinatubo is Apung Mallari (Apo Namalyari), the moon god, whose name signifies also something that is finished for the start of a cycle. Thus, the baby that becomes fully-formed in the womb from the time of conception is "done" and ready for birth, or the start of a new life.

Thus, while Arayat/Sinukuan refers to the end of a term or cycle, Pinatubo/Malyari signifies the beginning of the cycle.

Now a word related to "sucu" is sucsuc which can describe the rising or setting of the Sun or Moon. Sucsuc generally means "to pierce." I believe that this comes from an original conception of the Sun and Moon piercing through the earth during a volcanic eruption at the "birth" of a new era. It is the Sun and Moon's tunneling through the earth which creates the legendary hollow known as yatu.

However, Pinatubo is located in the West, where the Sun and Moon symbolically enters the Earth, not in the East, where one would normally think of the "beginning" of things.

Folklore in the region tells of Apung Sinukuan/Suku on Mt. Arayat having recurring battles with the god of Pinatubo, or some long-forgotten mountain in the Sambal range. These battles don't resemble allusions to the waxing/waning relations of Sun or Moon, or to the Sun's annual change in declination. They recur only after long dormant periods that span many generations of human lives.

Yet at the same time, the two gods are portrayed as siblings, as having spouses from the other mountain, and having children that court and marry spouses from the opposing mountain often after fiery courtships. More often than not, the two deities have friendly relations. All of these examples are indications of the dual characteristics of attraction and opposition inherent to polar relationships such as that which exists between Pinatubo and Arayat.

Geography, natural/celestial/linear time and genetic lineage all interlace through these myths in classic Austronesian fashion.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Kawamura, S. "On the periodical flowering of the bamboo," Jpn. J. Bot. 3:335-349, 1927.

Mondragón, Carlos. "Of Winds, Worms and Mana: the Traditional Calendar of the Torres Islands, Vanuatu," Oceania, June 2004.

Scott, William Henry. "Some calendars of northern Luzon," American Anthropologist Vol. 60, no. 3, 1958.

Mushrooms and religion

A just-released article focuses on experiments with the 60s psychedelic mushroom drug Psilocybin.

Quite surprisingly many of the participants described their experience with Psilocybin as "as one of the most meaningful or spiritually significant experiences of their lives."

This article reminded me that mushrooms have often been connected with early religion. With reference to the primary region under discussion in this blog, I present the following quote:

The late Professor Roger Heim, the famous French mycologist and a gastronome, ranked them [a Termintomyces species] first among the edible mushrooms of the world. In the Philippines the mycologist Jose Miguel Mendoza reports in his Philippines Mushrooms the common native belief throughout the islands that thunder and lightning cause the generation of mushrooms, and in the spring of the year, when people hear the thunder roll, they rush into the fields to gather the edible kinds. In the Pampango tongue, spoken in central Luzon, Termintomyces albuminosus (Berk.) Heim (formerly Collybia albuminosa) is called payungpayungan Kulog, where the first element means "parasol-like' and kulog is the word for thunder in both Tagalog and Pampango.

(R Gordon Wasson, A Ruck. Persephone's Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion, p. 91)

The same belief in the thunder or lightning origin of mushrooms is found in the Ryukyus, Kyushu and ancient China, especially in South China, ancient India and Europe. Possibly one could see this as a "Eurasian" concept that just happened to filter into some of the eastern islands.

However there are two cases that don't conform well to this explanation. Firstly, in Madagascar, four Austronesian-speaking peoples make a mushroom paste named olatafa or "unbalanced" which they moisten and spit out to protect themselves from lightning.

Even in far-off New Zealand, the Maori envisioned the basket fungus as the feces (tutae) of the heavenly spirits during thunderstorms.

Wasson and Ruck theorize that the Vedic soma and putika of ancient Indian literature were also "entheogenic" mushrooms -- they inspired a spirit of reverence and awe. They also contend that a survival of soma/putika use has been preserved by the indigenous Santal people of eastern India who gather and eat the putka mushroom a Scleroderma species.

The Philippines has a vast number of mushroom species, most of which have not been studied, and at least one that produces Psilocybin, the Panaeolus cyanescens species.

Wusson and Ruck considered Amantia muscaria as Soma, the popular mushroom of Eurasia and the Americas. In Southeast Asia and Africa, it was the Termitomyces species, cultivated by termites, that were most popular.

In some parts of Africa, the Termitomyces are a 'poor man's meat' providing a major source of protein.

Termitomyces can grow to gigantic size and may have provided the model for the images of huge 'toadstools' found in European fairy tale books.


Termitomyces titanicus, the largest mushroom species in the world from Africa.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Wasson, R. Gordon and A. Ruck. Persephone's Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion, Yale University Press, 1992.

Dual Organization and Recursion (Glossary)

Every society has some aspects of dual organization, but Austronesian society has long been recognized has having pervasive dualism that appears rooted in Proto-Austronesian culture.

As such, Austronesian societies have long served as the model for study of dual organization and recursive dualism phenomenon.

Linguistic reconstruction indicates that early forms of dualism may have been cerntered around marital and in-law relationships, but there is also evidence of early links with funerary and ancestor worship practices, social stratification, political organization, etc.

Across the River

The Proto-Austronesian word *hipaR meaning both "sibling-in-law" and "across the river" indicates the important geographic component of Austronesian dualism.

Water boundaries marked either by rivers or sea shores divided moieties.

Among many Oceanic peoples, the word vaka and its reflexes can mean both ship and clan/political group indicating the importance of interisland moieties.

A village or township may be divided into two different districts with each side sharing district membership with other divided communites on the same side of the river. In such cases, the geograpical division of the community can also relate to division in function.

For example, one side of the river may be centered on the chiefly, political or military functions of the community. While the other side may be more linked with spiritual and funerary rites. One side may have a "wife-giving" modality, while the other has a "wife-receiving" mode.

It may be this early geographical division using water boundaries gave rise to the sea-land dichotomy mentioned in many studies of Oceanic societies. In every example of a dual-organized community, one should have one side of the community across the water associated with political authority, the so-called "stranger king" (to the other side).

This might explain why in modern Austronesian-speaking societies, one often witnesses exaggerated or completely fictious claims of foreign descent used as a method of trying to climb the social ladder. In such instances, there must be a perception of coming from a society that ranks on the "noble" side of a dual relationship.

The dividing line

In the classic case of Austronesian dual organization, even with the most complex and myriad social divisions, it is possible to divide everyone into two major groups. All people in the society can trace their descent to one of these two groups.

Furthermore, with each division there is potentially a sucessive redivision inherent in the divided groups. This division can continue perpetually.

One of the best examples of this was brought forth by J.J. Fox in a study of dowry gift exchange on the Indonesian island of Sumba. Fox used the term 'recursive complementarity' to describe the potentially perpetual division of dowry gifts into male and female categories.

The female gifts were given by "wife-giving" moieties while the male gifts were given by "wife-receiving" moieties.



Fox noted that a similar scheme could also be found in ancient China:

This feature of recursive complemnatirty is not unique to eastern Indonesia. It is the basic idea underlying the ancient Chinese concept of yin and yang. As Maureen MacKenzie has pointed out to me, Joseph Needham (1956: pl. 16) has reproduced a "segregation table" of the Book of Changes deriving form the twelfth century that essentially parallels my diagram of exchange goods on Sumba. As Needham notes: "Yin and Yang separate, but each contains half of its opposite in a 'recessive' state, as is seen when the second division occurs. THere is no logical end to the processes but here it is not followed beyond the stage of the 64 hexagrams."

Trunk and Tip

The prevalence of spatial and chronological division based on the imagery of "trunk" or "base," and "tip" or "top," in Austronesian cultures has been widely studied in the relevant literature.

Homes are often aligned according to precedence in the bilateral kinship system. Precedence is generally dictated by seniority in both time and place.

Among the Toraja of Sulawesi, the traditional houses themselves are seen as members of dual pairs. The Toraja house faces north directly opposite its 'spouse' ((tae' balinna), the barn, which faces south.

These pairs of houses and barns as well have dual relationships to other houses in the division according to precedence or other factors.

In Austronesian systems of recursive dualism, precedence and rank are determined by the nearness to an 'origin' point in both time and space.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Almagor, Uri David Maybury-Lewis (editors). The Attraction of Opposites, University of Michigan Press, 1989, p. 46.

Hoskins, Janet. The Play of Time: Kodi Perspectives on Calendars, History, and Exchange, University of California Press, 1997.

Howell, Signe and Stephen Sparkes. The House in Southeast Asia, Routledge (UK), 2003.

"King of the Mountain" (Glossary)

The earliest written records state that kings in Southeast Asia drew their power from a link with a real or symbolic mountain.

In medieval times, kings erected temples or mounds representing the cosmic mountain as a symbol of their own royal power.

Early interpretation of this practice explained it as a borrowing from India, but more recent, detailed research reveals rather that the "King of the Mountain" concept is rooted in indigenous belief.

To be sure, this system blended together with new ideas from the Hindu and Buddhist religions, but the core practice can be traced to ancient times in this region.



Ifugao rice terraces in northern Philippines. Department of Tourism photos.

First we should note that the King of the Mountain idea as found in Southeast Asia was never quite as developed in India. Mountains were very sacred in India, and gods were often associated with mountains, but royal power was not so significantly mountain-linked.

Mountain districts

The division of political districts based on a central mountain is found widely throughout this region among indigenous groups including some who show little evidence of Indianization.

But more importantly elements of this system have survived even out into the Pacific, apparently brought by the Lapita culture.

In ancient East Polynesia, for example, the island of Tahiti was divided into many districts each centered around a mountain and its rivers. Each district had its own meeting ground, marae, arioi house and community learning center and was led by a chiefly ruler.

Ancient Hawai`i had ahupua`a districts that ideally ran from a core mountain to the sea with each district having its own temple altar (ahu). The altar received offerings from title-holders upward through the line of precedence until they reached the king or paramount chief of the ahupua`a who offered them to the gods.

In Island Southeast Asia, we find often temples, sacred terraces, platforms, etc. attached to a central district mountain. In many cases, pyramid-like structures or mounds symbolically represent the cosmic mountain which is thought of as located either in Heaven or in some distant land.

In Taiwan, the northern Philippines, and North Borneo we find stone platforms or courts with standing "guardian" stones often linked with fertility and longevity. In some cases, these structures also have esoteric connotations as well. Ling Shun-Sheng explained the "earth altars" found among some Formosan peoples as having a link with the Heaven-Earth duality of the Mt. Tai Fengshan sacrifice.

Of course, this blog suggests that these concepts originated with the Nusantao transmission of knowledge concerning the polar mountains Pinatubo and Arayat, conceived of also as a single double-peaked mountain.

Temples and mounds

Early evidence of earthen and stone mound building in Southeast Asia is linked closely with megalithic culture.

Heine-Geldern postulated an early pre-metal megalithic period in Island Southeast Asia characterized by terraces/platforms, menhirs, dolmens, stones seats, stone meeting-places and formations, pyramids, earthen/stone mounds, stone-lined wells, baths, canals, steps, etc.

The site of Gio-Linh in Vietnam dates back possibly to 2000 BCE and is characterized by Paul Wheatley as "Sa-Huynh." It resembles the ISEA megalithic culture which was thought by Geldern to have about the same age as that given for Gio Linh.

The stone terraces of Gio-Linh comprise a complex irrigation system with stone-paved canals, flumes, reservoirs, water tanks, bridges, standing stones, menhirs and stone seats. Large circular earthen mounds here are thought to indicate forms of "earth worship."

In Yunnan, stone platforms similar to the Pacific island marae appear from about 600 BCE.

Stepped stone platforms similar to the widespread marae of Polynesia are present in many parts of Micronesia and Melanasia.

Such structures are found in Kiribati, the Marianas, New Caledonia, Mala, Ulawa and San Cristobal in the Solomons, and throughout much of the Carolines.

"Who is your Mountain?"

In ancient Maori society, a person wishing to speak on the marae temple may be challenged in the following way:

"Ko wai to Maunga?" -- "Who is your Mountain?"
"Ko wai to Awa?" -- "Who is your River?"
"Ko wai to Iwi?" -- "Who is your tribe?"

The sacred mountain is at the heart of one's genealogy and is often the place where one's ancestral spirits reside.

It is also the center that establishes political authority.

In Proto-Austronesian times, the word *banua may have referred specifically to the territory coming under the rule of a mountain and its ruling clan. The reflexes of *banua generally refer to any settled land but usually proscribed within certain boundaries.

Banua with reference to the cosmic mountain refers to all that land that lies under heaven i.e., the whole world, as that mountain is the link between Heaven and Earth. In this sense, the medieval Southeast Asian King of the Mountain was portrayed as a Universal Ruler.

As the volcanic entrance of the cosmic mountain leads to the Underworld, the most ancient forms of this theme also portray the King of the Mountain as the King of the Underworld.

Volcanic eruptions are seen as the end and beginning of the ages and eras of the world, visualized as starting with a New Sun exploding through the mountaintop, always cataclysmic in nature, and thus the King of the Mountain often has strong apocalyptic and messianic characteristics.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Bray, Francisca. The Rice Economies: Technology and Development in Asian Societies, University of California Press, 1994, p. 33.

Ling, Shun-Sheng. "Ancestral Temples and Earth Altars among the Formosan Aborigines," Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica 6, (Taiwan), 1958, p. 47.

Needham, J. and Lu Gwei-Djen. Trans-Pacific Echoes and Resonances, World Scientific, 1985, p. 19.

Wilson, Peter J. Man, the Promising Primate, Yale University Press, 1983, p. 154.

Taishan (Glossary)

Taishan (泰山) was considered supreme among the five sacred mountains located within the Chinese empire.

It is the easternmost of these mountains located in what is now a national park in Shandong province south of the provincial capital Jinan. The coordinates of the mountain's peak are 36° 16′N and 117° 6′E standing 1,545 metres above sea level at its highest point.

Fu Hsi, the first legendary king, began the Fengshan Sacrifice (封禪) on Taishan, with the first archaeological evidence appearing from the Shang dynasty. Since then, rituals have been performed at the mountain for some 3,000 years.

Feng altar mound

The imperial feng sacrifice as practiced at least starting in the Han dynasty began at the southern foot with an offering to the mountain itself.

After the ascent to the peak, an altar mound (feng) covered with soil of five colors was erected. According to Master Ding of Qi, the word feng itself was a symbol of immortality.

The emperor facing the North placed inscribed jade tablets with his own messages to Heaven under the mound.

By facing the North, the emperor payed homage to Heaven, which in this case symbolically faces the South. Normally it is the emperor, along with his throne and palace that face the South.

After descending the mountain, the emperor made an offering to the Earth in the shan sacrifice.

Penglai and Taishan

In the Shiji of Sima Qian, the Fengshan sacrifice is mentioned repeatedly together with Penglai in the emperor's quest for immortality.

Indeed, the Fengshan sacrifice is even said to enable communication with the immortals of Penglai:

He [the emperor] had been told by Gongsun Qing and the other magicians, however, that when the Yellow Emperor and the rulers before him had performed the Feng and Shan, they had all succeeded in summoning forth supernatural beings and communing with the spirits. He therefore wished to imitate the example of these rulers by getting into touch with the spirits and the immortals of Penglai and achieving fame in the world so that his viture might be compared to that of the Nine Bright Ones of antiquity.

It was Li Shaojun who encouraged the Han emperor to make the Fengshan sacrifices in person so that he could make contact with the immortals of Penglai and thus gain immortality for himself. Li Shaojun claimed to have met one Master Anqui from Penglai himself, who he said had fed him 'jujubes as big as melons.'

The association of Taishan with Penglai may also be found in the emperor's facing north during the Feng sacrifice and in the location of the offering at the southern foot of Taishan. The mountain in this sense may face south toward Mount Penglai, the land of immortality.

Taishan and Penglai were culturally important first to the Dongyi peoples of Shandong, and it was from that region that the fangshi wizards, especially from the state of Qi, propagated such beliefs.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Ch'ien Ssu-Ma and Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian, Columbia University Press, 1996, p. 41.

Loewe, Michael, Faith, Myth, and Reason in Han China: Faith, Myth, and Reason in the Han Period (202 BC-Ad 220), Hackett Publishing, 2005, pp. 139-140.

McDermott, Joseph P., State and Court Ritual in China, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 50.

Geomancy, Architectural (Glossary)

This article is focused on forms of geomancy in which buildings, particularly royal buildings, are pointed toward a specific geographic landmark.

The most widely-known example today is the orientation of mosques toward the qiblat-al-Mecca, the direction of Mecca.

A contention of this blog is that the Nusantao traders beginning in the Neolithic began spreading the idea of a sacred mountain, namely Mount Pinatubo, to different regions of the world. This concept gave rise to notions such as Dilmun and the Garden of Eden according to this theory.

Direction of Eden

Starting in the third century, Christian altars were placed in the east end of the church so that the people faced east toward the Garden of Eden while praying. For a time, in Byzantine churches, the bishop also faced east and then eventually the priest as well, so that they were not facing the congregation during services.

Although one could argue that Christians of that time had only vague ideas of Eden's location, they nevertheless had some conception of its location. And these concepts may date back at least to apocryphal books like Enoch and Jubilees with their references to the Mount of Eden, if not earlier.

Medieval European maps showed that Eden was not only in the Far East but also in the equatorial regions. Such thoughts may have influenced Protestant church architecture in which the pulpit was often located in the southeast corner of the church.

Direction of the Phoenix

In ancient China, the emperor and kings faced their thrones and palaces toward the South.

The South was the direction of Feng the Phoenix, the clan of the first king, Fu Hsi, and the emblem of the empress.

Emperor Shun, from legendary times, is especially noted for his position facing toward the South. This may refer to his capital in the Qi kingdom, which was at about the same longitude (117 East) as Mount Tai (Taishan), the location of the royal sacrifice of Fu Hsi "the dog-man sacrificer."

Kuahelani and the "Blue Mountain"

The Hawaiian royal palace faced the West and also overlooked the seashore. It is likely this orientation is rooted in ancient Hawaiian belief.

The Hawaiians of old had two orientation systems -- one involved land/sea (uka/kai) opposition and the other was an absolute reference based on east and west (hikina and komohana).

In the absolute orientation system, one faces toward the west as a reference, and thus 'akau "right" corresponds with "north" and hema "left" with "south."

The West is the direction of Kuaihelani the location of Paliuli "the Blue Mountain." The latter mountain is the Hawaiian equivalent of the Garden of Eden.

Located far to the West, it is said that one embarking from Kuaihelani "the floating land" sails for 40 days and then smells the kiele flowers of Hawai`i. Journeys to Kuaihelani from Hawai'i were usually made from Niihau or or Kauai according to ancient chants.

It was a land inhabited by the diminutive Menehune and the Muaimaia or "banana eaters." The voyager Hawaii-loa was said to have sailed from Kuaihelani, also known as Kahiki-honua-kele, to Hawai`i following Hoku'ula or Aldebaran (16° declination) toward the East.

Ancient temples known as luakini used for royal sacrifce were always built on the east-west axis although they could face in either direction.

The Kraton

The Kraton or royal palace of Yogyakarta is often said to face north. Actually it faces in the direction of Mount Merapi, the "Mountain of Fire," and thus orients a bit east of north.

Further north, the older Surakarta Kraton also faces northeast, although it is nearly due East of Mount Merapi.


Map shows the northeastern orientation of the Kasunanan and Mangkunagaran kratons of Surakarta marked by red stars. Click image for larger view.

Is there another ancient "Mountain of Fire" in which direction these palaces are oriented?

The throne of the Susuhunan kings of Surakarta was also said to face north which if this means the same "north" as that of the palaces would mean rather east of north.

Unfortunately little remains of earlier royal structures. The lone exception may be Kraton Ratu Boko, the Palace of the Heron King, although this structure looks very much like a temple.

If the main building of Kraton Ratu Boko, Batur Pendopo is used as a measure, this complex also faces north but a bit toward the West, probably pointing toward Mount Merapi.

The great Hindu temple complex of Prambanan has an outer wall that faces Northeast, although the temple structures themselves follow the Vedic and Hindu orientation towards the East as used in India where temple structures look to the East.


Diagram of the Prambanan temple complex, built maybe in the 9th century, showing the outermost rectangular gate where the main entrance of the complex was located on the northeast side. Source: http://www.borobudur.tv/

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Beckwith, Martha. Hawaiian Mythology, University of Hawaii Press, 1977, p. 79.

Kieckhefer, Richard. Theology in Stone: Church Architecture from Byzantium to Berkeley, Oxford, 2003, p. 154.

Pemberton, John. On the Subject of "Java", Cornell University Press, 1994, p. 98.

Valeri, Valerio, Kingship and Sacrifice: Ritual and Society in Ancient Hawaii, University of Chicago Press, 1985, p. 254.