HISTORY OF KEDAH.
By R. O. Winstedt.
An Arab voyager Ibn Khordadzbeh (846 A.D.) wrote in his Kitab al-masalik wa-l mamalik of an island called "Kilah" which contained tin mines and bamboo forests. Another Arab voyager Sulaiman (851 A.D), edited about 920 A.D. by one Abu Zaid of Siral, wrote of "Kalah-bar," as "a dependency of Zabej," which is probably Srivijaya i.e. Palembang—Chao Ju Kua in 1250 A.D. recorded that Langkasuka (i.e. Kedah), Trengganu, Pahang and Kelantan were all subject to l'alembang. ("Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indie" sub "Tochten," "Livres du Merveilles de-l'Inde, Leyden 1883-6, pp. 255-26 and Reinaud's "Relations des voyages faits par les Arabes et les Persans," pp. LXII, LXXXV, 17, 93, 94.) Ibi Muhalhal, who flourished abont 941 A.D. (but whose account is of doubtful authenticity), describos "Kalah" as the last place visited by ships going eastward, a great city with high walls and gardens and canals, where are the mines of lead or tin "called kala'i, which is found in no part of the world except Kalah;" a place famous for the best "swords" in India; its inhabitants were Buddhists. "Kilah" or "Kalah" is generally identified as Kedah: the mention of tin-mines places it certainly in the Malay Peninsula, as Bangka was discovered much later. And probably this "Kalah" is identical with "Kora" or "Kala" of the Chinese chronicles of the T'ang Dynasty (618-916):—pp. 241-3, Vol. 1, Series II, "Essays relating to Indo-China": "Kora" had a king whose family-name was Sri Pura and his personal name Misi Pura; "the dead were buried and their ashes put into a jar and sunk in the sea; the customs of the people were about the same as in Siam."
The history of the Liang dynasty (502-665 A.D.) (ib. pp. 135-7) gives an account of a country called Langgasu or Langga, whose people said that their country had been established 400 years earlier its inhabitants were ardent Buddhists. This, it is sometimes said, is a reference to Langkasuka, the old name of Kedah recorded in the Hikayat Marong Mahawangsa and in popular folk-tales ("Fasciculi Malayenses," pt. II (a), pp. 25-6; Skeat's "Fables from an Eastern Forest," pp. 49-51 and 81) "Kedah may very well be the old native name of the country and Langkasuka its literary name. Many places in Further India and the Islands bear two names: thus, Pegu was styled Hamsawati, Tumasik was called Singapura: similarly Siak (in Sumatra) is known as Seri Indrapura, and many other such instances could be given. All this merely illustrates the varnish of Indian culture, which spread over these regions during the first dozen centuries or so of our era."
