Chinese Scholars Generally Say That Sien-Lo Means Siam And
Laos; But This I Cannot Accept, If Laos Is To Bear Its Ordinary
Geographical Sense, I.E. Of A Country Bordering Siam On The North-East
And North.
Still there seems a probability that the usual interpretation
may be correct, when properly explained.
[Regarding the identification of Locac with Siam, Mr. G. Phillips writes
(Jour. China B.R.A.S., XXI., 1886, p. 34, note): "I can only fully
endorse what Col. Yule says upon this subject, and add a few extracts of
my own taken from the article on Siam given in the Wu-pe-che. It would
appear that previously to 1341 a country called Lohoh (in Amoy
pronunciation Lohok) existed, as Yule says, in what is now called Lower
Siam, and at that date became incorporated with Sien. In the 4th year of
Hung-wu, 1372, it sent tribute to China, under the name of Sien Lohok. The
country was first called Sien Lo in the first year of Yung Lo, 1403. In
the T'ang Dynasty it appears to have been known as Lo-yueh, pronounced
Lo-gueh at that period. This Lo-yueh would seem to have been situated
on the Eastern side of Malay Peninsula, and to have extended to the
entrance to the Straits of Singapore, in what is now known as Johore."
- H.C.]
In 1864, Dr. Bastian communicated to the Asiatic Society of Bengal the
translation of a long and interesting inscription, brought [in 1834] from
Sukkothai to Bangkok by the late King of Siam [Mongkut, then crown
prince], and dated in a year 1214, which in the era of Salivahana (as it
is almost certainly, see Garnier, cited below) will be A.D. 1292-1293,
almost exactly coincident with Polo's voyage.
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