The ancient history of the countries of South-East Asia prior to the arrival of Europeans and the capture of Malacca in 1511, began to attract the interest of historians at a much later date than did that of India and China. It was still possible in 1861 for a French historian, a Professor at the Collège de France, to write in the Journal des Savants that, with perhaps the exception of Burma, “the Indian countries situated beyond the Ganges hardly deserve the attention of History”.

In both versions of the Malay Annals the founder of Singapore is a prince of Indian descent who had been given the throne of Palembang by a chief with the corrupt name of Demang Lebar Daun, and both versions make this chief a descendant of a Raja Shulan. Shulan is generally taken to be a corruption of Chola, but if Demang Lebar Daun were a Chola, it would mean that the Indian dynasty which ruled Palembang (or Śri Vijaya)was installed after 1025, the date of the first Chola raid on that country. In fact Palembang bore the Indian name of Sri Vijaya and had rulers with Sanskrit titles as early as the time of the Buddhist monk I-tsing, who stayed there for six months in 671 A.D. to study Sanskrit. Demang Lebar Daun, whatever his correct name, must have been an aboriginal chief who welcomed Indian rule and Indian trade.

In the spring of 1957 a large stone tablet was found in a dilapidated temple in Canton. It was half buried in earth. The stone is still in good condition and the inscription on it is well preserved. On the head of the tablet there are 6 big characters reading “Chung Siu Tien. Ching Kuan Chi (Record of reconstruction of the Tien Ching Temple).

In 1368 a native Chinese dynasty, the Ming, received the Mandate of Heaven, and after a century and a half of alien rule a true son of Han ascended the Dragon Throne. A burst of diplomatic activity followed. It took the form of a grandiose series of naval expeditions designed to announce to the more-or-less petty rulers of South Asia the advent of a new native house, and to receive their tribute. Over the next hundred years the Chinese established themselves as the dominant naval power in the Indian Ocean.

If there is one figure in world history who has certainly not been neglected it is surely Marco Polo. His narrative has appealed to readers since it was first dictated to Rustichello, Polo's fellow prisoner in the dungeons of Genoa, and its many versions have attracted the enthusiastic attentions of some of the finest textual scholars in Europe. It is, however, in respect of the identification of the places which Polo visited in the Far East and Central Asia that a formidable body of published material has now accumulated, embracing the fields of history, linguistics and geography, and of varying quality, perception and relevance. In South-East Asia itself Polo refers to only twelve geographical locations, yet despite this, or perhaps in part because of it, even the most summary investigation of the question of their identity will quickly reveal that the material which has been published on this very limited aspect of Polo's narrative has now reached almost unmanageable proportions, save for the dévoué who is prepared to direct his attentions to little else. In this may be seen the real importance of Polo's narrative within the early history of South-East Asia, for the identification of his geographical nomenclature demands a detailed study of so many aspects of the history of the area prior to and immediately following the period of his narrative. Indeed, with his first cursory examination of Polo's narrative the reader finds himself face to face with some of the more fundamental problems of the study of the early history of South-East Asia.

The sources for the early history of Malacca are so meagre, and often so contradictory, that not only is the detail in some doubt but the whole framework of events rests on an uncertain foundation. Dates ranging from the middle of the fifteenth century back to the eighth have at various times been proposed for the foundation of Malacca, and considerable uncertainty has surrounded both the identity and sequence of the early kings and the time and manner of their conversion to Islam. As a result of evidence which has come to light within the last thirty years, notably the Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires and a partially deciphered inscription, from Sumatra, the current view of the early history of Malacca differs materially from that which was generally held before the second world war. Whereas it was then believed that there were four kings before Sultan Muzaftar Shah and that two or three of them were severally converted to Islam, it is now held that there were only three kings and only one conversion, and that this took place in the reign of the first king, about the year 1414. In view of the nature of the evidence upon which this latest interpretation rests it will be useful to review the king-list and the question of the conversion in some detail.

A brief but interesting glimpse of Samuel White, the Shāhbandar of Mergui, and of his secretary Francis Davenport, is afforded in the account of a Spanish friar who saw them twice in 1687, travelled with them to Madras after their flight from Mergui, and claimed to have converted Davenport to Catholicism.

“The Portuguese, who, as a nation, have been long really exanimated and dead in this part of the world, although their ghost still appears at Macao, hold that place upon such terms as render it equally useles and disgraceful to them. It is now chiefly supported by the English, and on the present footing of things there the Chinese can starve both it, and those who support it, whenever they please. If the Portuguese made a difficulty of parting with it to us on fair terms, it might easily be taken from them by a small force from Madras, and the compensation and irregularity be settled afterwards”.

In the years between 1949 and 1963 the clarification of the international status of West New Guinea, now officially included within the borders of the Republic of Indonesia as Irian Barat, constituted a perennially active and confusingly complex item on the agenda of world territorial disputes. While the protagonists involved were new, the general situation was a familiar one for the territory in question. For it has been the island's curious destiny to be a passive but disputed pawn of history from the time of its first mention in Javanese court chronicles until the presumably “permanent” settlement of its international status in the seventh decade of the twentieth century.

“The illustrious king, the excellent Kundungga…” so runs one of the yupas, the sacrificial posts of stones found at Kutei in Muara Kanam on the Mahakam in East Borneo.

In vol. IV (1962), No. 2, pp. 134–165 of the Journal of Southeast Asian History Dr. D. K. Bassett has made a detailed study of my book Asian Trade and Enropean Influence in the Indonesian Archipelago between about 1500 and about 1630 (The Hague, 1962). Since some time always elapses before the latest editions of the Journal of Southeast Asian History become available in Dutch libraries, my attention was only drawn to this article some months after its publication.